Page 29 of A Talent for Murder

“That’s the extent of my knowledge on the subject, I’m afraid.”

“Well, it’s helpful. Are there Albany teachers here at this conference?”

“Oh yeah. Huge contingent.”

“Thanks,” I said, moving down to look through a box of pins.

I thought Peralta might try to sell me something, but he was keeping quiet. “Truth is,” I said, “I just don’t even know if I want to keep teaching math or keep teaching at all. I like math. I’m good at it, but I don’t think it’s a passion for me anymore.”

“So, what’s your passion?” he said.

I looked up at him, his eyes showing nothing but some mild interest. “I know this is crazy, but I’m a math geek who’s fallen in love with literature. Sometimes I think I got my life totally wrong.”

He smiled. “I do conferences for English teachers, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Same booth. Different wares.”

“I’d imagine.”

I was jostled from behind as a woman carrying two enormous and overfilled tote bags crowded in to look at the scarves on display. She began to laugh. I looked Peralta directly in the eyes, long enough to register their color, then raised my eyebrows slightly and said, “I’m Addie.”

“Alan,” he said, and I watched his eyes move, suddenly scanning my body, not obvious about it, exactly, but not unnoticeable, either. He blinked rapidly, maybe knowing that he’d been caught. I told him I hoped to see him later and moved on.

I walked along the outskirts of the exhibition hall to the exit, thinking about Alan’s reaction to me at his booth, how he’d seemed both harmless and on the make at the same time. I think a part of him wanted me to see him check out my body. What I couldn’t figure out was if he’d also wanted me to see him suddenly get flustered by it. The animal he’d reminded me of was a rabbit, partly because of his long thin nose and oversized ears, but mostly because he’d gone from calm to skittery before my eyes. Rabbits are prey, I told myself, as I merged in with a large slow-moving pack of teachers working their way from the hall back to the lobby of the center. But lots of prey animals are also predators. Cats, for instance. And it seemed clear to me that Peralta might be one of those humans that were both. We can’t all be apex predators in this world.

Chapter14

I stood at the edge of the bar area, wondering where to sit. I wanted to somehow be both visible and isolated at the same time. A small group got up from one of the high-top tables just beyond the empty hostess stand, and I went and sat by myself. I was there for about twenty minutes before it was cleared and cleaned, and I ordered a ginger ale in a lowball glass on the rocks with a lime. I’d brought a book with me, a paperback copy of Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney.

When my drink arrived, I opened the book randomly, landing on the title poem. I thought maybe I’d read it before, since back at Mather College I’d taken a contemporary Irish poetry class. It didn’t ring a bell, though, and I read it twice. It was a poem about that point when a child’s interest in the natural world suddenly turns to disgust. I thought that maybe that had happened to me a little bit, way back when, but it was more that I’d discovered what humans were really like and found that disgusting. Animals and plants have no say in what they do. I tried to remember what my father thought of Seamus Heaney, and could somehow hear his voice saying something like, “That man knows all the nature words.” I didn’t know if it was something he had actually said, or just something I could imagine him saying.

I looked up from my book, the bar filling up, the voices combining into that unmelodious din. It was only about six p.m. but it was clear that all the sessions for the day were over and that the vast majority of conference attendees had converged on the bar. I scanned the room for someone who looked like Peralta but didn’t see him.

“This seat taken?” It was a man about my age, still wearing his name badge, and carrying a light-colored beer.

“No,” I said. “Please sit.”

He settled onto the chair, his white shirt straining at the buttons as he sat. “Reading poetry at a math and science conference, I see?”

“How do you know I’m not here for the poultry breeders’ convention?”

“Right, I forgot about that. You don’t look like a poultry breeder, but I’m not sure you look like a teacher, either.”

I gave him my spiel, all the while keeping an eye on the masses of people coming and going. He listened intently, peering over his wire-rim glasses. He had a well-trimmed beard, the skin of his neck pocked with razor burns. He told me he was a high school math teacher from Vermont, and I could instantly picture him in front of his classroom, disheveled and sweaty. He wore no wedding ring, but I thought I could see a faint line where he usually wore it. I wondered if he was recently divorced, or if he was married and looking to cheat. I asked him if he thought his students had changed over the years just so he’d talk for a while and I could scan the crowds.

“Oh my God, they have, don’t you think?” he said, finishing his beer and glancing around for a server.

As he spoke, I watched the room. Peralta was tall, so I kept my sight lines high, scanning the tops of heads. A waitress idled by and the math teacher ordered another beer, offering to buy something for me. There were still two sips left in my glass of ginger ale, so I told him I was fine.

He was in the middle of a story about taking a student’s phone away, when I saw Peralta at the bar. He’d just arrived there, trying to get the attention of a bartender. When he finally did, he pointed at one of the beer pulls. He paid in cash, then turned and leaned his back against the bar and sipped at his beer, surveying the crowd. I thought it was a possibility he might be looking for me and wondered if I should say something unforgivable to the math teacher so that he might go away. But as I watched, Peralta quickly finished his beer and put the empty glass back on the bar. He was wearing a collared white shirt like he’d been wearing earlier at his booth, but it was tucked into dark jeans instead of suit bottoms. It looked as though he was carrying a leather jacket, held under his left arm. He began to move with purpose across the expanse of the lobby, heading to either the elevators or the front entrance.

The math teacher had just asked me a question, and I said to him, “Sorry, I’m about to be very rude. I just saw someone I know leave and I’m going to track him down. Will you be here later?”

“First to the bar and last to leave,” he said, puffing his chest, and laughing at his own joke.

By the time I was up and moving I spotted Peralta exiting the hotel, walking at a brisk pace. I sped up, pulling on my coat, and as I descended the wide carpeted stairs that led to the exit I was passed by a man walking even faster than I was, his shoulder brushing mine as he went past. He arrived at the revolving doors just before me and pushed his way through. I let a group of women through ahead of me, then passed through the revolving doors myself and out into the cool night. I turned right and about a block down the street I could see Peralta in his black leather jacket, now strolling, his hands in his pockets. I began to follow him, buttoning my own coat.

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