“Gordon Rabart,” I said.
“Yep. Milt worked for a bit at Kreb’s Hardware back when it was Mill’s Hardware. And Peter Mill used ta call him Flash Obermeyer ’cause Milt moved about as fast as your average snail. But he didn’t last but five or six years. I guess it was easier ta live off of Rabart. As far as I know, Elinor never worked a day in her life.”
“So they always lived in Rabart’s house.”
“Yep. Milt sure didn’t make enough working at Mill’s to keep a house and all that.”
“Rabart paid their way?”
“Yep.”
“Then he got killed.”
“Yep.”
“And then it was Milt and Elinor’s house.”
“Yep, along with a bunch of dollars. Gordon Rabart was an economics professor and practiced what he preached. Rumor had it he made a fair dollar playing the market.”
I pedaled through a cold light rain to The Farm. The wide, knobby tires made a muted hissing sound that lulled me into a trance and the trip seemed short, but when I reached the boat, it was dark and I was cold and irritated.
I got a fire going, fixed myself a plate of stir-fries, and washed them down with a half bottle of Lancers. By the time I finished eating, Cat was giving me meaningful looks and batting her bowl around the floor. So I opened up a box of CeeCee Dorfman’s special food, poured some in Cat’s bowl, and held my breath.
Cat sniffed at the stuff, which looked like large mouse turds, looked at me, sniffed again, and hunkered down and ate with gusto. Relieved, I poured another mug of Lancers, settled back in the settee, and thought about keys and chests and Gordon Rabart.
Wrapped in a maroon Gore-Tex rain suit, and with the trailer’s canvas hood zipped up, I pedaled through a driving rain to town. By the time I reached the common my system was begging for hot caffeine, but discipline prevailed and I locked the bike to a steel railing, put the rain suit in the trailer, and slipped Cat inside my sweat jacket. Head bent into the rain, I trotted across a wide brick walk to the college library.
Fortunately, the front desk was manned by an inattentive coed chatting on the phone. Acting calm and casual I strolled by the desk and ducked into the reference stacks. Slinking from aisle to aisle like a hunted rabbit, I circled around the reference desk, which was manned with manic intensity by one Gloria Somerville, an excellent researcher but hell on illiterate felines.
Safely past Reference, I skulked across two open aisles and, without knocking, burst through a door marked DR. JEREMY HANSON, STUDENT GUIDANCE COUNSELOR.
Before I dropped out of the world, I was a card-carrying member of the college faculty, and Jeremy and I often refought wars, censured world leaders, and reformed the planet while drinking large quantities of cheap wine.
When I burst through his door, his head jerked up from a computer screen. Me looked at my dripping face and grinned. “Ah, ’tis Professor Neal seeking refuge from his quixotic ventures, obviously ready to humble himself and slather his mentor with profuse apologies for being such an existential ass.”
Jeremy is a year older than me, looks it, and would have achieved greatness if not blocked by numerous dysfunctions, one of which is a fondness for Johnny Walker Red. I sat in the one chair across from his tiny desk, nodded at his computer, and asked, “Can you get the University of Connecticut on that thing?”
Still smiling, he turned back to the screen, tapped on his keyboard for maybe twenty seconds, sat back, and said, “Now what?”
“Seventeen years ago Gordon Rabart, professor of economics, quit his post here for a job at UConn. A week after he arrived, he was killed in an auto accident. I’m curious about what, if anything, they might have on record.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows rose as his smile faded. He rubbed his face and said softly, “I remember, I went to his going-away party. When I tried to leave with a bottle of champagne, Elinor, his sister, waylaid me and made me return the bottle. The bitch.”
He turned to the computer and for the next fifteen minutes either tapped away or watched lines of type scroll up the screen. Finally he went “Aha,” leaned back with his hands behind his head, and watched the screen.
Then, his face an empty mask, he turned to me and in a near whisper said, “According to Dr. Franklin Shaw, who has been in the UConn economics department for twenty-two years, Dr. Gordon Rabart never showed up for faculty indoctrination — his sister called and said he was killed in an auto accident just outside his hometown in central New Hampshire.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, very. I must say, Harry, that is one damp and seedy looking cat you have there.”
I looked down. Cat had stuck her scarred head out of the jacket and was checking out the office. I stood. “Thank you, Jeremy, I appreciate your time.”
“Harry, think back to those golden days of yesteryear and remember the good times we had. And now if we tip the glass once a year I consider it lucky. We’re friends, Harry. Just because you turned left at life’s fork doesn’t mean you have to forfeit your friends.”
CeeCee Dorfman, dressed in threadbare jeans and a tight white sweatshirt with large red hands printed over her breasts, opened the door. “Come in out of the rain, Neal, before you get a terminal case of Wet Brain.”
I dropped my coat on the floor under the picnic table and sat down, put fifty dollars on the table, and said, “This is for the food and therapy. When you want more, let me know.”
She shrugged, put a cup of coffee and an empty glass in front of me, filled the glass with Magic Stuff from the ever-present blender, grabbed Cat, and hauled her out of the sling. With a piece of towel she rubbed her down, then pried open her mouth and smelled her breath. “I’ll be damned. You’re actually feeding her the food I gave you.”
“Of course. Miss Dorfman, would you mind if I left Cat with you for a while? I have a few things I’d like to do, and it would be easier if Cat weren’t along.”
CeeCee nodded. “No problem. I’ll give her her workout and feed her a dish of the Good Stuff, and then we’ll lie back and watch a couple of hours of Xena, butt-kicking warrior princess. And if you ever call me Miss Dorfman again, I’ll kick you in the cahunas.”
“This Xena is on all day?”
“I have a bunch of Xena tapes.”
“Why don’t you turn off the television and live your own adventures?”
“Why don’t you piss up a rope?”
With Miss Dorfman’s Magic Stuff gurgling in my stomach I pushed open the door to Gretchen’s, walked the creaking floor to the hack, and leaned the hike against the wall. As I walked back to the front door, I smiled at Gretchen and said, “I’ll pick it up later.” She waved a greasy spatula at me and nodded.
Milt and Elinor Obermeyer had inherited a large Victorian house complete with turrets and wraparound porch. The muted shades of brown looked like they had been brushed on yesterday, and the flagstone walk was a study in spatial relations. A blacktop driveway ended at the back of the house, and parked just beyond the porch was a new looking Plymouth Caravan.
I walked across the porch and pushed a gold button to the left of the oak door. After a few moments I pushed the button again, wailed a decent interval, then beat the door with the butt of my hand. Finally the door swung inward a few inches, and a white head peeked around the edge just above the knob.
Elinor Obermeyer’s face was round and pink and marred by thick horn-rimmed glasses. Her cap of curly white hair looked like it had been carved by a very good artisan, and the rings on the fingers gripping the edge of the door could keep Cat in sushi for all of her mythical nine lives.