“Hey, how’s it going?” the blond man said.
The man looked familiar. Someone who worked in the library?
“Not ruining your café au lait with two-percent milk, I hope.” The blond man smiled.
The cop. Worse than a student who wanted to talk, it was the cop. He stuck out his hand to shake hands with Marshall, calling over his shoulder, “Hey Sharon, float some cream on my friend’s coffee. He just went off his diet.”
Sharon looked skeptical. She turned a nozzle, and hot milk squirted noisily into a tin cup.
“You know, I’m not really a very curious fellow,” the blond cop said. “I have to force myself to keep on my toes in the curiosity department. What I mean is, I lack certain instincts I ought to have, so sometimes I just zero in on details. To overcome my lack of natural curiosity, so to speak.”
Marshall nodded. The cop seemed sincere. Slightly apologetic, almost.
“Wife doing okay?” the cop asked.
“Yeah,” Marshall said. “Quite a shock. All of it.”
“Caffeine to soothe the pain,” the cop said.
“Absolutely,” Marshall said.
“Great place here,” the cop said. “Makes me happen to find myself in the neighborhood.”
Marshall nodded.
“Orchids,” the cop said, pointing to two orchids blooming on tall thin stems.
“Very nice,” Marshall said.
“Wife likes orchids,” the cop said.
“No,” Marshall said. “Roses. She likes roses.”
“Mine,” the cop said. He tapped his wedding ring. “My wife,” the cop said. “Brought her in here last weekend, she decided she wanted an orchid like that one. Owner sells them. Not inexpensive.”
Marshall nodded.
“Sort of the giraffes of flowers,” the cop said. “Does that sound like an accurate description, Professor?” He smiled at Marshall, who was pulling out his wallet to pay the waitress. He waited while Marshall pocketed his change, then walked ahead of him and held open the door. “I don’t really care what anybody does with a lost hour or so,” the cop said. “Just in case you were worrying.”
Marshall’s heart missed a beat. Was the inquisition about to start all over again?
The cop shrugged. “You don’t look like you believe me,” the cop said. “I want to tell you, though. I lose track of time myself. Half an hour, an hour — you’re not looking at your watch, how do you know?”
A redhead in a black Toyota rolled down the window and said, “Come on.”
“I take longer than she likes,” the cop said. He stuck out his hand. “And so, farewell,” he said. Instead of continuing toward the Toyota, though, he stood on the sidewalk grinning, watching Marshall all the way to his car.
Approaching his office, Marshall quickly registered that the door was open. Fear seized his stomach: more police awaiting him? He didn’t trust that the door could be ajar without anyone’s being inside, felt sure every space he inhabited was now going to be turned into a free-for-all, whether it was Cheryl Lanier’s hallway, or his home, or his office, not believing the wedge of sunlight slanting across the corridor could wash through an empty room that contained no unpleasant surprises. That would be too much to ask: that he be allowed to walk into a sunlit room and sink down in his chair, with no further problems awaiting him. Or was it Cheryl Lanier — the initial messenger of the bad news that had started him on this exhausting routine he might never extricate himself from? Cheryl, of course. And the moment he saw her he would do what he should have done all along: draw back from the situation; apologize for some of his admittedly strange reactions; ask her — no: instruct her — to say nothing of his going to her apartment, to say nothing of the ride he’d given her to Dover, to please not keep him posted on Livan Baker’s state of mind, because he did not want to be compromised, and he had had enough of Livan’s and McCallum’s, and even Cheryl’s, largely self-inflicted problems. His house was a mess: furniture overturned, blood on the walls, specks of blood everywhere, so he had no idea how Tony Hembley could have reported the house was essentially fine. People were crawling all over it, measuring bloodstains; for God’s sake, they’d sent the carpet-cleaning service away — his house was filled with unfriendly cops who stood staring at him like bulls staring at a matador, the blood-spattered walls having made them more frustrated and angrier, more reluctant to budge.
It was not Cheryl Lanier in his office, but Sophia Androcelli, sitting with her pleated skirt tucked between two large mounds of knees, reading from a spiral notebook. She registered no embarrassment at occupying his chair; she looked up as if she was slightly surprised and dismayed to see him — this girl who, he immediately understood, had come as Cheryl’s messenger, just as Cheryl had once approached him as Livan Baker’s. If she was slightly dismayed to see him, he was more dismayed to see her: if Cheryl had been there, he could have revealed how perturbed and imposed upon he felt and begun the process of his own salvation by laying down the new ground rules, but Sophia Androcelli’s presence did him no good at all. That was why he simply looked at her, disappointed and vaguely bothered by her existence, saying nothing. For the first few seconds she met his eyes but said nothing, either. Then she ripped two pages out of a notebook and held them out to him, planting her Doc Martens on the floor astride the backpack as she rocked forward to look him directly in the eyes. Mickey Mouse stared up her pleated skirt from the red leather backpack dropped in front of his chair, and Marshall thought: Yes, this has all been pretty Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse except for McCallum’s wife’s version of let’s-turn-Marshall-and-Sonja’s-house into Frontierland.
“Just one thing before I go,” she said, picking up one strap of the backpack with a sweep of her hand (the nerve! not even saying “Hello,” let alone “Excuse me,” as she rose from his chair!). “Cheryl thought I’d be a good person to talk to you and explain more than she explained in the note, but while I was waiting for you, I realized that even though you’re a good lecturer and you’ve always been perfectly fine toward me, the bottom line is that I don’t trust you. I think Cheryl made a big mistake getting involved with you, and personally, I’m glad it’s over.”
“You waited here to express your dislike of me and to hand me two pieces of paper?” he said.
“Buildings and grounds was waxing your floor; I said I had an appointment with you, you must be late. Somebody making minimum wage apparently didn’t care to argue the point. At first I was going to sit at your desk and write you a note of my own, telling you what you’d done wrong, but before I’d even begun, it seemed like wasted effort. Because you condescend to people, you know? The look you get on your face when you start using ‘Ms.’ very histrionically. The ‘Ms. Lanier, Ms. Androcelli’ stuff, while at least the guys in the class you like get the respect of being addressed by just their last name. The minimalist approach to male bonding. The secret society wink.”
“Sophia,” he said. “In the past twenty-four hours I have noticed a remarkable lack of civility in my life. Perhaps you could enlighten me: You’re saying you sense mockery on my part? Mockery, when I should take seriously, say, a teenage girl’s accusations of sexual trauma that are quelled by the delivery of a Domino’s pizza? Colleagues whom I should address seriously about matters of the human heart when they are so narcissistic that the simplest polite question from me results in a blow-by-blow account of their encounter with a bag lady near Boston Common, hoping to impress me with their deep sensitivity toward schizophrenics? Colleagues who have made the sort of marriages in which one member expresses herself by stalking her husband to my home and attempting to stab him to death because he is insensitive? ‘My weariness amazes me,’ to quote a prophet of my generation. My weariness fucking amazes me.”