The Jinx (6 page)

I'd reached the river and was passing the boathouse once more. There were only a couple of police cars left now, but the yellow crime-scene tape was still up. I crossed the bridge, leaning into the wind coming off the water and burrowing my hands in my pockets. I tried to take my mind off Peter and Abigail, and instead imagined what Professor Beasley would be like.

Old, I decided. Very old. With a walking stick, bow tie and lockjaw, like the professor in
The Paper Chase.
But imagining the decrepit Professor Beasley did little to quell the anxiety that my truncated conversation with Peter had stirred. I crossed Storrow Drive to Harvard Street and then took a left onto the business school campus, still wrapped in insecurity and fretting about Peter's strangely distant tone.

The grounds of the business school looked more Harvard than the college campus on the other side of the river. Here there was even more red brick, and more ivy, with patches of green grass broken by stone paths. A large endowment from corporate donors and successful alumni ensured that everything was maintained beautifully, and every time I came here a new building had risen, doubtless graced with the name of one of those donors. A couple of students walked by me, dressed in suits and overcoats. Judging by their clothes and serious expressions, they were on their way to interviews at the Charles.

I mounted the stone stairs to Morgan Hall, which housed most of the faculty offices, checking the directory in the foyer for Professor Beasley's office and quickly finding the listing—Beasley, J.—on the third floor. I heard the swoosh of the elevator doors opening behind me and dashed to catch it.

And collided, head-on, with the love of my life.

“O
of,” I said.

The impact sent me sprawling, and I lost my grip on my shoulder bag. Its contents spilled out to surround me on the cold stone floor. My Blackberry ricocheted off a wall, and a lipstick rolled into a distant corner, but my first thought was of my nose, which felt like it had suffered some serious damage from its run-in with the man's chest. He must have been made of steel—either that or he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

“Are you all right?” The voice was rich and deep and it sent a shock of recognition down my spine. Along with a delicious tingle that made me promptly forget about any need for an emergency rhinoplasty. The man knelt down beside me, and with a strange sense of destiny I looked up and into Jonathan Beasley's blue, blue eyes.

Suddenly I was eighteen all over again, sitting across from Jonathan in English 10 (A Survey of English Literature from Chaucer to Beckett) and wondering how such perfection was possible in one human being.

I had worshipped him for the better part of a year. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He was brilliant. He was beautiful. He played varsity ice hockey. He was the Ryan O'Neal to my Ali MacGraw. Except that he never actually spoke to me, and if he had, I would have been tongue-tied, completely unable to conjure up a comment that managed to be both clever and alluring at once. Then he graduated, and I never saw him again. I went on to form other unhealthy and unacted-upon crushes from afar, but Jonathan had been my first, and on some level I'd never forgotten him.

“Are you sure you're all right?” he asked again as I stared at him, openmouthed.

“Y-yes,” I stuttered. “I'm fine, thank you. And I apologize. I was in such a rush that I wasn't watching where I was going.” Think of something witty to say, I implored myself. Please, please think of something witty to say.

“Don't worry about it.” He smiled—how I remembered that smile! “Here, let me help you.” He began gathering my spilled belongings and putting them back in my bag. He handed me my Blackberry and gave me a quizzical look. “I think I know you from somewhere. From college, maybe? Across the river. An English course, right?”

I nodded, speechless, as he extended a hand to help me to my feet. What would Ali MacGraw do in a situation like this?

“I thought I'd seen you before. It's been a long time. I'm Jonathan. Jonathan Beasley.”

“I'm Rachel Benjamin.” I covertly looked him over, taking in the blue shirt that set off his eyes and dark blond hair and the slightly battered tweed jacket that stretched over his shoulders. He'd been beautiful a decade ago, and the years since had treated him well. My knees were shaky, and while I could blame their condition on my fall, the warmth I felt in my cheeks could only be blamed on simple, old-fashioned lust. He seemed to be having even more of an impact on me now than he had when I was eighteen.

He leaned against the wall. The elevator had long since come and gone. “So, what are you doing here? Are you a student at the business school?”

“No, at least not now. I graduated years ago. I work in New York. At Winslow, Brown. And you're a professor?” Now I knew why Professor Beasley's name had sounded familiar, but somehow the title of professor had managed to blot out the less-than-professorial associations I had with the name Beasley. This Professor Beasley was a far cry from the bow-tied, lockjawed curmudgeon I'd imagined.

“Believe it or not. Organizational behavior. Incentive systems, things like that. I put in some time on Wall Street and then went to Columbia for a Ph.D. I've been teaching here for three years now.”

I remembered, with great difficulty, why I was there. “You know, it's funny, running into you like this. I was actually on my way to see you. Only I didn't realize it would be you, specifically. I didn't realize that you were Professor Beasley.”

“Really? Why?”

“It's about Sara Grenthaler.”

His expression changed from friendly to somber, but it was equally enthralling. “How do you know Sara?”

“Well, she's sort of my client. I mean, Grenthaler Media is. And she worked with me last summer at Winslow, Brown.”

“So you've heard what happened to her.” His voice was laced with concern.

I nodded. “In fact, I just came from UHS. I was talking to her roommate, Edie Michaels, and she explained about the letters Sara was getting. I told her I'd come talk to you. She's anxious that the police know about them, just in case there's a connection of any sort with the attack.”

“Let's go up to my office,” Jonathan suggested. “I can fill you in there.” I willingly let him escort me up to the third floor and lead me down a corridor, nodding to various colleagues and staff along the way. He ushered me into his office and took my coat, hanging it next to his own on a peg on the back of the office door. I looked around while he cleared a stack of papers from one of his guest chairs. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and I scanned his collection. It was extensive and varied, ranging from the usual business texts to history and biography. I even saw the familiar double volume of
Norton's Anthology of English Literature,
its bindings worn and tattered.

“English 10,” he said, following my gaze.

“I know. I've got the same set.” I sat down in the now-empty chair, relieved to no longer have to trust my shaky knees, and he settled himself across from me at his desk.

“I was an Economics major, but I took that course senior year. I loved it. It made me wish I'd taken more English courses, but it was too late.”

“It would be great to go back and take all of the courses that I missed. Well, except for the exams and papers.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” he replied with a rueful smile. “So, now that I think about it, it's all coming back to me. You know, my roommate had such a crush on you.”

“He did?” I didn't remember his roommate. I'd had eyes only for Jonathan.

“It was almost pathetic. Clark Gibson. Do you remember him? He would spend every class staring at you and then make me rehash everything you said for the rest of the day. He was obsessed.”

“Oh.” I thought back and dredged up a hazy image of Clark Gibson. He had seemed to stare a lot, but I'd assumed he was staring at Luisa. Most men did. “Why did he never ask me out?”

“Well, you were always with your boyfriend. What was his name? The guy with the dark hair and little round glasses?”

“Who? Oh—you mean Jamie. He wasn't my boyfriend. He just lived in our dorm room. Because he hated his roommates. You know how that is.” Jamie would invariably sit on one side of me while Luisa sat on the other, each silently rolling their eyes at me when I passed them notes commenting on something Jonathan had said, or what he was wearing that day, or any of the other trivialities that are so important when you have a massive, hopeless crush on somebody who doesn't know you exist.

“You're kidding. I'll have to tell Clark. He'll kick himself, especially now that he's married and has three kids.”

“And just think, they could have been mine.” Jonathan chuckled. Little did he know how much time I'd spent dreaming of him and
our
three kids.

“So, the letters,” I said, once again having to remind myself why I was there.

“Yes, the letters,” he repeated. He used a key to open a desk drawer and pulled out a stack of folded papers held together by a rubber band. “Take a look,” he invited, handing the stack across the desk.

“What about fingerprints?” I asked.

“So many people have handled these—Sara, Edie, me—I doubt that there will be any useful prints. And I suspect that whoever wrote these was pretty careful. They could have been typed on any computer and printed on any standard laser printer.”

I freed the folded pages from the rubber band and opened the one on top, scanning it quickly. Jonathan was right—it was entirely typewritten on regulation letter-size paper.

I didn't blame whoever had written it for leaving it unsigned—it was awful.

“Yeesh,” I said. “Are they all like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nauseating?”

“You think it's nauseating?”

“Well…” I cast about, trying to find a more appropriate word, but came up empty. “Yes. Nauseating. So gushy and gross.”

“Which one are you looking at?” he asked me.

I handed it to him, and he skimmed it. “Oh. I thought this one was sweet. Romantic, with the Keats and everything.”

“Are you sure it's not Byron?”

He looked at me for a moment, blankly, and then shrugged and grinned. “I was just an econ major—what do I know? I barely squeaked by in English 10.”

“You could be right,” I said. “It could be Keats.” But I was secretly tempted to get down his
Norton Anthology
and prove it wasn't. That's what Ali MacGraw probably would have done.

“Anyhow,” he continued, “the Dean of Students asked me to coordinate the investigation with the police, and I'm planning on showing these to them. I'm going to make sure they leave no stone unturned. But I doubt that the notes are related to the attack.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“They're love letters. Whoever wrote them clearly idolizes Sara.”

“Yes, but he's also been totally invading her privacy. Edie said Sara found one on her bed.”

“But they're not violent.”

“They aren't on the face of it. But the fact that they exist, and that they keep showing up in personal places, is pretty scary. It's sort of like stalking, and stalking tends to end in violence.” At least, it always did on Lifetime Television for Women, which was where I'd gathered what little information I had on the topic.

“I don't know much about stalking,” he conceded. “And I don't want to downplay your concerns. That's why I'm going to make sure that the police take a look at them. It's just that after having read them all, I don't get the sense that whoever's writing them would want to hurt Sara. She's very attractive but also very aloof. It's not hard to imagine that somebody would fall in love with her but be too intimidated to actually ask her out. And there's this entire ‘forbidden love' theme running through the letters. I don't know what it's about, but my guess is that whoever's writing these is smitten with her and doesn't know of any other way to express himself.”

“What about Grant Crocker?”

“Grant Crocker?” Jonathan laughed. “I can't imagine that. Do you know Grant?”

“Sure. He used to work at my firm.”

“I'd have a hard time picturing Grant writing these. He's not the most poetic guy. And I'm familiar with how he writes, from papers and exams. He sticks to pretty basic nouns and verbs. This stuff is a little more sophisticated.”

Sophisticated
was one word for it.

“Besides,” Jonathan added, “the police seem to think that they may have an angle already.”

“What angle's that?”

“Well, you probably haven't heard since you live in New York, but there's been a rash of murders in the area. The detective I spoke to thought there might be some connection. That Sara might have been the next victim, if the attacker hadn't been interrupted.”

“You mean the guy who's been killing prostitutes?” I asked.

“How did you know about that?”

“A friend of mine's a doctor at a free clinic in South Boston, and one of the women who was killed was his patient.”

“It might be the same guy. I guess there was something about the attack on Sara that jibed with what they know about him.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. They didn't tell me much, and I don't see how there could be a connection between a serial killer who's preying on prostitutes and what happened this morning in the boathouse. The important thing is that she wasn't seriously hurt. My guess is that it was probably just a random attack, and Sara happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, whoever did attack her is going to be in a lot of trouble when they catch him. I'll see to that,” he said firmly.

“Good,” I answered, somewhat reassured. And then my stomach gave an audible growl. I flushed. Again.

“Hungry?” Jonathan asked with a bemused smile.

“A bit. It's been a while since breakfast,” I admitted.

“Well, I just picked up a sandwich at the student center. Want half?” I checked my watch. I still had an hour before I had to be back at the Charles.

“Are you sure?”

“It would be a pleasure.” He stood and crossed to the door, retrieving a paper bag from his jacket pocket. “And I want to hear more about the last ten years of your life.”

 

We had a little picnic there in Jonathan's office. He even had a small refrigerator in a corner from which he pulled two cold Diet Cokes. His calm assessment of the attack on Sara and his confidence that the attacker would be found and punished helped me to relax. We chatted easily as we ate. It was with reluctance that I realized it was time to go.

We exchanged phone numbers, and he promised to let me know if he heard any news about Sara and the investigation.

“Well,” he said, helping me into my coat, “I'm sorry that we had to run into each other under these circumstances, but I'm glad that we ran into each other.”