Separate from the World (6 page)

Robertson shrugged, saying, “Whatever. Look, Mike. What can you tell me about Ben Capper? Dan’s probably going to bring him down to the jail.”

Branden said, “He’s simple enough—straightforward, I mean. He does a good job as chief of security.”

“Does he have a ‘thing’ for Newhouse?” Robertson asked.

“Like a grudge?”

“Right.”

“Not that I know about,” Branden said, unhappy to be talking about it.

“He must know how to handle students,” Robertson said.

“I guess.”

“But professors, Mike—how does he handle them?”

“Newhouse would be a problem for any chief of security, no matter how well he did his job.”

“So, why did he put cuffs on the guy?”

“That’s a surprise to me,” Branden said. “You can’t handle an activist like Newhouse with cuffs. He’ll just turn it back on you.”

“Did they ever have any kind of a run-in, before?” Robertson asked.

Branden checked his watch, tapped his foot. “Not that I know of. If I think of something, I’ll let you know.”

“In a rush to get somewhere, Mike?”

“Just trying to catch up with Caroline. And I need to ask Cal about that Amish matter.”

“Go ahead,” Robertson said and ran a flat palm over his gray bristle haircut, blowing out a lungful of consternation. He shook his head and looked back to the ground-level doors into Missy’s labs.

“What’s the problem?” Branden asked, impatient to leave.

Robertson mumbled, “Don’t know, Mike. It’s that blond kid’s story. I don’t buy it.”

“Eddie’s story? Why not?”

“OK,” Robertson said, and lifted his palms in the air to mark a question. “If you’re going to graduate on Monday, and you want to be with your girlfriend a couple of nights before that, why tell her the next morning that you want to break up? Why not wait until next week, when you’ll be a thousand miles away? That’d be less troublesome.”

“Maybe he wanted to be forthright with her,” Branden said. “Maybe he was showing her respect.”

“No,” said Robertson confidently. “If it was that, he’d have told her the night before. Before the bell tower. He’d have broken up with her last night, if he wanted to show her respect.”

Branden considered that, and said, “He’s just a college kid.”

“Doesn’t fit, Mike,” Robertson said. “If he’s mean, he’d have waited until Monday, and let commencement separate them. You said it yourself. After commencement, he’ll go to Florida, and she’d have gone to Montana. He could have just walked away from her. He wouldn’t have had to write to her or return her calls for a while, and he wouldn’t have had to break up with her at all. Not face to face, at least.”

Surprised by his own indifference, and annoyed at both Robertson and Laughton, Branden checked his watch again. “I’m going to see Caroline. She’s over at the church.”

“I’m right about your little rich boy, Mike,” Robertson said. “The top of that bell tower is not where you’d break up with a girl. Not unless you had a heart the size of a chickpea.”

Branden took his keys out and said, “Missy will tell you this was a suicide.” He got in behind the wheel of his truck, rolled down his window, backed out beside Robertson, and added, “Maybe Eddie Hunt-Myers is just not very smart with women. Maybe he’s stupid about romance.”

Robertson laughed. “Right, Mike,” he said sarcastically. “Hunt-Myers is stupid about women, and he’s the one with the girl he plans to dump. That’s not stupid, if you ask me. Heartless, but not stupid.”

Branden held his foot on the brake. Thought. Put his truck into park, and shut off the engine. “You don’t like Eddie’s story because, on the one hand, he’s too nice, and on the other, he’s too mean?”

Robertson said, “A nice guy would have broken up with her the night before. Before the bell tower.”

“And the mean guy wouldn’t have broken up with her until later? That doesn’t wash.”

There was silence between the two men for several long seconds, and then Robertson said, “I’m going to interview Eddie myself. See what he knows about women.”

Branden smiled and said, “You’ll end up talking to his family lawyers.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he is Edwin Thomas Hunt-Myers III. He’s that ‘rich boy’ you’ve been complaining about for most of your life. He’s from one of the finest coastal families in south Florida.”

“I knew it!” Robertson said, with satisfaction.

“And I knew you’d react this way,” the professor said. “You’d have brought him in just for being rich.”

“Yeah, well,” Robertson said, “now I’m going to bring him in just for being stupid.”

CAL TROYER’S white board church building was on a hillside in a residential part of Millersburg, south of Jackson Street and east of Clay. Branden passed the tan sandstone courthouse on his way there, and saw Dan Wilsher and Deputy Lance walking into the back of the jail with Ben Capper, who was flushed in the face and animated in speech, though Branden couldn’t hear his words.

Branden was weary, spent. Cathy Billett’s death weighed on him like the years, and by comparison, the troubles of Enos Erb seemed at first insignificant. But no, Branden thought. That’s not right. For an Amishman to have come to him like that . . . He shook his head to free his thoughts and drove on to the church. There he parked beside Caroline’s Miata.

The church building was long and narrow, with the sanctuary fronting the parking lot, and the Sunday school classrooms and church offices located at the back. Branden took the walkway down the sunny side of the building and came in through the pastor’s office door.

Cal was standing in front of his office window, looking out at the old homes of the neighborhood. His white hair was long, tied in a short tail at the back. The short white bristles of his beard were trimmed to a sharp angle along his chin. He was cleanshaven above his lips, and in this he resembled the Amish. He was dressed in jeans, work boots, and an old blue T-shirt that fit snugly against his stocky torso. His arms were short and powerful, hands big and calloused from his labor as a carpenter. He was not a tall man—a legacy of the genetic heritage of his grandfather’s Amish ancestry.

Subdued, Branden said, “Hi, Cal,” and looked the pastor over. Without turning from the window, Cal replied only, “Mike.”

Branden read tension in the muscles rippling along Cal’s forearm. The pastor rolled his shoulders to try to shrug it off.

Seated in a chair in front of Cal’s desk, Caroline held up several loose pages of a handwritten letter and an envelope. She handed the envelope to Branden, and the professor read the address:

And the return address:

Caroline took the envelope back and handed her husband the letter. It was written in a confident hand with large script letters, in blue ink on bone-white stationery. Branden studied the pastor a moment longer. When the silence continued, he said merely, “Cal?”

The pastor turned at the waist to look at the letter in the professor’s hand and then nervously back to the window.

Branden read the letter while standing next to Caroline’s chair.

When Branden had finished reading the letter, he handed it back to Caroline and stood silently beside her, waiting for Cal to speak. Cal stood motionless in front of the window and let silence fill the room. When Caroline started to go to him, the professor motioned her gently back into her chair. Cal cleared his throat with difficulty but still held his silence.

Eventually Cal spoke. “I never knew why Sarah wanted the divorce.”

The Brandens waited.

“It would have been easier to have known she found someone else,” Cal whispered.

Branden asked, “Cal, you never saw Sarah after you came home?”

“No. I let her go. I can’t tell you why. She didn’t love me—we were just kids.”

“What are you going to do, Cal?” Caroline asked.

Prolonged silence followed, with Cal staring out the window. When he finally turned to face them, his eyes were swollen and red, and his cheeks were lined with tears. Caroline got out of her chair and went to embrace him. The professor stood beside them, his hand laid gently on Cal’s shoulder.

“I never knew why,” Cal whispered.

“She was a fool, Cal,” Caroline said. “It’s nothing more complicated than that.”

Cal said, “A lot of guys got those ‘Dear John’ letters in Vietnam. The girls couldn’t stand the waiting. They found someone else. She never told me we had a daughter.”

Cal dried his cheeks with the backs of his hands. He sat down behind his desk and looked as lost as an abandoned child. He found it hard to look at either of his friends. Mixed with the sadness in his features, the professor read the signs of nervous discomfort, and said, “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Cal.”

Cal gave a strangled laugh and said, “I know, but I’m in shock. This feels like panic.”

The professor glanced at his wife and asked Cal, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Cal.

“Come out to the house,” Caroline said. “We can talk.”

“I’m not sure I can. I need time. I need to come at this fresh. Maybe tomorrow.”

He needed to let this settle a while. He needed to work on something else, be active, before tackling this challenge. Right now, he needed to sit somewhere and rest his eyes, remembering Sarah as he had known her. “I think I need to be alone,” he said, “but I also could use some company. I’m not used to feeling this way.”

“Come out to the house later,” the professor said. “We’ll talk if you like, or we can just sit. I’ve got an Amish problem for you anyway.”

Cal raised his eyebrows and took in a deep breath. “I really don’t know what to do.”

“Come sit on the back porch,” Caroline said. “If you want to talk, we can. In the meantime, I’ll make sure Michael doesn’t bother you.”

That got a weak laugh from Cal. He rose slowly from behind his desk and faced the professor. “You don’t look so good yourself,” he said.

Branden looked to Caroline and back to Cal. “One of my students killed herself this morning,” he said softly. “Jumped off the tower.”

“Oh, no!” Caroline cried and leaped to her feet. “Michael!”

Cal’s features took a weary sag. “Mike, I’m sorry.”

“Cathy Billett,” Branden said. “She was in my class this semester. Eddie Hunt-Myers was with her. He’s my student, too.”

Caroline drew the professor into her arms and held him close, saying, “Michael, are you all right?”

“No,” Branden said.

Cal said again, “Mike, I’m really sorry.”

Caroline released her husband, and he stood slumped a little, arms slack at his sides.

Cal said, “I won’t bother you now, Mike. Compared to this I don’t have a real problem at all.”

“Actually, I could use the company,” Branden said. “I need to sit by myself a while, but later I could use the company.”

Cal studied the professor’s eyes and knew not to protest. Rousing himself with difficulty, he asked, “You have an Amish question?”