Page 17 of A Talent for Murder

“I would’ve, I guess. I mean, I didn’t make a decision to not tell you. The thing is, we both drove all this way to get together, then we basically ran out of things to talk about halfway through our first drink. It was depressing. You know how I’ve talked to you before about not having any real close friends and about how that makes me feel bad?”

Alan nodded.

“Well, I suppose part of me hoped that maybe Lily and I would rekindle our friendship, but it just didn’t happen. And it made me feel like it was me, that I was the one who’s incapable of being close to someone. I think that’s why I didn’t bring it up.”

Martha wiped at her eyes, surprised to find real tears there. She was lying, but she wasn’t lying about how she felt about herself with regards to friends. Alan came across and sat on the edge of the bed, put a hand on her leg.

“I am not cheating on you, Alan, I promise. I would never do that in a million years.” The tears kept coming.

“I know,” he said. “I know that.” The words sounded comforting, but his jaw was still rigid, and the earlobe that he’d been pulling on a moment ago was bright red.

“What about you?” Martha said. “You’re always traveling. Are you ever tempted?”

“Tempted to what? To cheat on you?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t think you do. I’m not accusing you, but...”

Alan’s eyes were resting on the bare wall behind the bed. He finally said, “What possible reason would I have for cheating?”

Chapter9

After my father took his seat at the breakfast table, and while my mother was still at the sink, I asked both of them who they still knew at Shepaug University.

David, who preferred not to talk before his morning egg, said, “No one.”

“That’s not true, David,” Sharon said. “You know Gerry Severn.”

“I know Gerry Severn,” he said to me.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Gerry’s the head of the English Department,” my mother said, “or was, a little while ago. He must be seventy years old now, at least. He was the man who invited your father to come and be a writer-in-residence. If it wasn’t for him, Lily, you would never have been born.”

“What about you, Mom, who do you still know?”

“At Shepaug? Carrie Michaelson, of course, and Mark Loomis. Why are you asking this?”

“Who do you know who’s gossipy?” I said, realizing that most university people were naturally disposed to talk behind their colleagues’ backs, but what I really wanted was someone who would have thoughts, and maybe even opinions, about Josie Nixon’s death.

“Gossipy?” my mother said.

“I have a friend who’s interested in applying for a job there, but she wants to get the full scoop about the place. You know the stuff: How much infighting is there? What departments to avoid?”

“Oh, let me think,” Sharon said, as my father carefully removed the shell from his soft-boiled egg. “Well, the biggest gossip at Shepaug was Patty Riley—you remember her, don’t you, Lil?—but that was an age ago.”

“Try Libby Whatshername,” my father said suddenly. “She taught in the English Department.”

“She’s long gone,” Sharon said.

“What, dead?” David said. “I don’t think so. I saw her two weeks ago at the bookstore. I mean, she might be, but she’d be freshly dead.”

“No, I mean she’s long gone from Shepaug. She’s your age.”

“All I know is that I ran into her at the bookstore and without even asking she started to tell me everything that had happened to everyone we ever knew at Shepaug. And now I’m going to stop talking for a while and concentrate on my breakfast.”

Later, after my father went to his study for the morning, I followed him in and asked him about Libby. “She’s not going to help your friend out any,” David said. “The gossip she mostly had was about who had died and who was still alive. Old person’s gossip.”

“I actually want to find something else out,” I said.

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