Todd never had long hair-not in any of them. He was never anything but clean-shaven.
So what did that mean?
Not a clue.
I clicked on Eric’s wall or whatever you call that opening page. There were dozens of condolence messages.
“Your dad was the best, I’m so sorry.”
“If there is anything I can do.”
“RIP, Dr. S. You rocked.”
“I’ll never forget the time your dad helped out with my sister.”
Then I saw one that made me pause:
“Such a senseless tragedy. I will never understand the cruelty of human beings.”
I clicked for “older posts” to come up. There, six more down, I found another that caught my eye:
“I hope they catch the a & &hole who did this and fry him.”
I brought up a news search engine and tried to find out more. It didn’t take long to stumble across an article:
HOMICIDE IN SAVANNAH
Local Surgeon Murdered
Popular local surgeon and humanitarian Dr. Todd Sanderson was killed in his home last night in what police believe may have been a robbery gone wrong.
Someone tried my front door, but it was locked. I heard the rustling of the doormat-in a fit of originality, I hide my spare key beneath it-and then the key was in the lock and the door opened. Benedict came in.
“Hey,” he said. “Surfing porn?”
I frowned. “No one uses the term ‘surfing’ anymore.”
“I’m old-school.” Benedict headed to the fridge and grabbed a beer. “How was your trip?”
“Surprising,” I said.
“Do tell.”
I did. Benedict was a great listener. He was one of those guys who actually listened to every single word and remained focused on you and only you and didn’t talk over you. This isn’t faked either, and he doesn’t just save this for his closest friends. People fascinate him. I would list that as Benedict’s greatest strength as a teacher but it would probably be more apropos to list it as his greatest strength as a Don Juan. Single women can fight off a lot of pickup routines, but a guy who genuinely cares about what they say? Gigolo wannabes, take note.
When I finished, Benedict took a swig of his beer. “Wow. I mean… wow. That’s all I can say.”
“Wow?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you’re not an English professor?”
“You do know,” he said slowly, “that there is probably a logical explanation for all this, right?”
“Such as?”
He rubbed his chin. “Maybe Todd is one of those guys with several families, but they don’t know about each other.”
“Huh?”
“Lotharios who have lots of wives and kids and one lives in, say, Denver, and the other lives in Seattle, and he divides his time between them and they don’t know. You see it on Dateline all the time. They’re bigamists. Or polygamists. And they can get away with it for years.”
I made a face. “If that’s your logical explanation, I’d love to hear your far-fetched one.”
“Fair point. So how about I give you the most obvious one?”
“The most obvious explanation?”
“Yes.”
“Go for it.”
Benedict spread his hands. “It’s not the same Todd.”
I said nothing.
“You don’t remember the guy’s last name, right?”
“Right.”
“So are you sure that it’s the same guy? Todd isn’t the most uncommon name in the world. Think about it, Jake. You see a picture six years later, your mind plays a few tricks with you, and voilà, you think it’s your archenemy.”
“He isn’t my archenemy.”
“Wasn’t your archenemy. Dead, remember? That puts him in the past tense. But seriously, you want the most obvious explanation?” He leaned forward. “It’s all a simple case of mistaken identity.”
I had, of course, already considered this. I had even considered Benedict’s conning bigamist explanation. Both made more sense than… than what? What else was there, really? What other possible-obvious, logical, far-fetched-explanation was there?
“Well?” Benedict said.
“It makes sense.”
“See?”
“This Todd-Todd Sanderson, MD-looked different from Natalie’s Todd. His hair is shorter. His face is freshly shaven.”
“So there you go.”
I glanced away.
“What?”
“I’m not sure I buy it.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, the man was murdered.”
“So? If anything, that backs my polygamist theory. He crossed the wrong gal and kapow.”
“Come on, you don’t really think that’s the answer.”
Benedict sat back. He started plucking at his lower lip with two fingers. “She left you for another man.”
I waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, I said, “Uh, yeah, Captain Obvious, I know.”
“That was hard for you.” He sounded sad now, wistful. “I get it. I get it more than you know.” I thought now about the photograph, about the love he lost, about how many of us go around with some kind of heartache and never show it. “You two were in love. So you can’t accept it-how could she dump you for another man?”
I frowned again, but I could feel the twang in my chest. “Are you sure you’re not a psychology professor?”
“You want this so badly-this second chance, this chance at real redemption-that you can’t see the truth.”
“What truth is that, Benedict?”
“She’s gone,” he said, simple as that. “She dumped you. None of this changes that.”
I swallowed, tried to swim through that crystal-clear reality. “I think there is more to it.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Benedict considered that for a moment. “But you won’t stop trying to find out, will you?”
“I will,” I said. “But not today. And probably not tomorrow.”
Benedict shrugged, rose, grabbed another beer. “So let’s have it. What’s our next step?”
Chapter 5
I had no answer to that one, and it was getting late. Benedict suggested a bar and some late-night carousing. I thought that it might be an excellent distraction but I had essays to grade, so I begged off. I managed to get through about three of them before realizing that my mind wasn’t there and grading papers now wouldn’t be fair to my students.
I made a sandwich and tried looking up Natalie’s name again, this time doing an “image” search. I saw an old bio picture of her. The image struck me hard in the chest so I clicked it off. I found some of her old paintings. Several of them were of my hands and torso. Painful memories didn’t just ease back in-they shoved the door open hard, all of them and all at once. The way she tilted her head, the way the sunlight burst through the skylight of her studio, that look of concentration on her face, the playful smile when she took a break. The memories almost made me double over in pain. I missed her that much. I missed her with an ache that was physical and something beyond. I had blocked it on and off for six years, but suddenly the longing had flooded back, as strong as the day we last made love in that cabin at the retreat.
Screw it.
I wanted to see her and be damned the consequences. If Natalie could look me in the eye a second time and dismiss me, well, I would deal with it then. But not now. Not tonight. Right now, I simply needed to find her.
Okay, slow down. Let me think this through. What do I need to do here? First, I have to figure out if Todd Sanderson is Natalie’s Todd. There was plenty of evidence to suggest, as Benedict had clearly explained, that this was simply a case of mistaken identity.
How should I go about proving it one way or the other?
I needed to know more about him. For example, what would Dr. Todd Sanderson, happily married father of two living in Savannah, be doing at an artist retreat in Vermont six years earlier? I needed to see more pictures of him. I needed to do more background, starting…