The Black Hour (23 page)

I was glad to hear someone else shut down the common tale, and then I realized: Win worked the phone bank for the suicide watch. He might have taken some calls from Leo, before the guy had gone ahead and done whatever he wanted to do. A setback, that reporter had called it.

“It’s no one’s fault,” I said.

Win pushed past me to the cooler and fished for something deep in the ice. “What are you talking about?” He came up with a tall bottle, clear, and unscrewed the top.

“He was messed up, right? Nobody could’ve stopped him.”

Win threw the bottle back and drank. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood silent and still, as though we waited for something, together. In the dark, I couldn’t see his face.

“Lighthouse to starboard,” Dutch said.

A thin beam of light spun over us into the lake and away. I turned. A white shaft of a lighthouse rose over the shore, its body lit from the ground. How ridiculous and fantastic that the light still spun, even now that so few boats must run the lake. No more freight down from Detroit; roads were faster. The Outfit, Capone and all of them, would have run rum into Willetson back in the day this way. I was probably seeing the same sight they had, sailing now over a dropped cask or an enemy’s old bones. That was the thing I’d come to understand about this place. I’d only scratched at the surface of what there was to know, but even a superficial nick revealed both the dark past below and how thin the patina covering it was.

I knelt on the bench and leaned onto the railing, imagining the silent, black nights those men had endured.

“Ready to jibe, Dutch,” Win said, taking his bottle to the back.

“Yeah?” Dutch said. He let his empty bottle fall to the deck and kicked it aside. “Jibe-ho, bitch.”

I glanced back. Win faced away, taking in the skyline.

“Hard-a-lee,” Dutch called.

“What’s that mean?”

The boat swung under my feet, throwing me forward into the rail. Something slammed into my shoulder, and I was caught off-balance, too high on the bench, and then over.

Time slowed. I heard Dutch shout before I realized I was the one. I was the one.
Man overboard
—and then I crashed into the water: head shoulders body feet, all the way down and into the cold water.

Under. I clawed for the surface, but it didn’t come.

Everything was dark. My lungs grew tight. How long? I fought against sinking. Where was the boat?

I thought of my dad in the line at A&P, the only story he’d ever have to tell. The guy who drowned. Water dripping into the coffin, rot. I couldn’t find the surface.

My head hurt, my shoulder. I fought for the surface, the water cold, cold. I couldn’t find the—

I put my hand through the lake to the other side. The sky.

Under the water, I could see. I could see everything. Everything was right. Everything made sense. Everything would work itself out. The stars were bright.

A hand grabbed mine.

Then I was flying, banging against the boat with my body, hurt, and nothing made sense.

I lay on the deck among their legs, coughing and gagging. I’d forgotten the boat, Win and Dutch, forgotten everything but water and the feeling, just before taking flight out of the lake and back into my body, of hands. Many hands, and the water. Hands and water, as though I’d been the most adored at a riverside baptism.

I crawled to my hands and knees, the last thing I’d eaten finding daylight again. Their top-siders jumped back. “Jesus, dude,” Dutch said.

Hands, I remembered. Hands, under my arm, hauling me out. One hand holding mine. I retched long after my stomach was empty. I gagged and gasped, still feeling the press of the other hand on my shoulder, holding me under.

By the time Nath had walked me to my office and then out to my car, the campus parking lot was almost empty. “The Mill’s the other way, young scholar,” I called as he walked away. He shrugged, claimed to be OK. Something nagged at him. Me, I figured. The kid hadn’t planned on becoming my valet, had he? Hadn’t plunked down the next few years of his life at Rothbert only to play my Boy Friday every day of the week. He acted like someone who wanted to be anywhere else but here.

I felt the same way.

Although, really, I didn’t mind being here, standing in a gentle breeze coming off the lake. At another time of my life I might have walked down to the shore before heading home or convinced Doyle to take the boat for an evening sail. Or, at
another
other time of my life, I might have gone to the Mill myself and waited for Joe to close up and walk me home.

I let myself imagine that all these lives still carried on. All these Amelia Emmets, walking to the lake without assistance, resting her hand on Doyle’s leg on the drive to the marina, playing with the paper coasters on the Mill’s bar and watching TV to pass the time. And don’t forget the Amelia who focused on her research, who spent hours poring over her notes and tapping at her laptop. Don’t forget the Amelia Emmets I had killed myself.

Or the Amelia Emmets that I’d never let see the light of day. The one who might have practiced clarinet harder and might still know how to play. The one who could have gotten pregnant that first relationship and be divorced with a twenty-plus-year-old kid by now. The one who stayed near home and took watch over her parents until they died. The one who had no regrets about how she was raised: how little money, how little opportunity. That Amelia might be in her bed now, doing a crossword, listening to
Letterman
on TV and the dog snore. That Amelia might be wondering what could have happened if only she’d gone to college.

I caught the tiniest movement in my peripheral vision. A car, one of the few vehicles left, was parked across two spots, askew. Someone sat inside, watching.

I hurried toward my car, fumbled with the keys, located the blue light of the emergency phone at the edge of the parking lot, calculated my odds, took another look—

A Jeep. A yellow one.

Inside sat Peter Pan himself.

“Are you kidding?”

McDaniel leaned out his window as I approached. “Nice night, isn’t it, Professor?”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing at all. Enjoying the splendors of a fall evening.”

“Stalking, you mean, or do you hang out on campus hoping for gunfire?” I stood back from the Jeep and took a look. I’d seen a similar vehicle the day before, parked across the street from my apartment. “Have you been following me?”

“I drive around quite a lot for the job, you know. It’s a small town.”

“Three million people live in Chicago.”

“I meant Willetson, Professor, our beloved suburban village. But, yes, even out there in the greater municipal area, you can run into people you know. More than you think.” He grazed me with a loaded look. “Bumped into young master Nath the other day. He didn’t tell you?”

He hadn’t. Should it bother me that he hadn’t? “You must have slipped his mind.”

“I must have slipped yours. You never call, you never write.”

“We don’t have anything to say to one another,” I said. “In fact, I’ll let you get back to your splendors.” I turned and started away.

“I thought we had some shared intentions here.”

I walked on, hearing his door open and the sound of his footsteps galloping to catch up. “I won’t be chased,” I said. “By the way, you’re parked illegally. Not to mention badly.”

“What about Leonard Lehane?” he said.

“If you’re going to be following me a great deal, I’d recommend purchasing a pass for the lot.”

“What about the suiciders?”

“The spaces across from my apartment are metered, as you know. Bring lots of quarters.”

“What about Nath?”

I stopped. “What about him?”

“He seems more hangdog than usual. Do you think the pamphlets are getting to him?”

“A lot of graduate students experience a letdown once the semester gets underway,” I said, watching McDaniel’s smirk slide into place. “Why am I bothering to explain it to you?”

“I’ve long considered getting my PhD.” He raised himself ramrod straight and looked into the middle distance, a commemorative statue of himself. If he’d raised his hand just so, he might have mirrored the statue of the founding Rothbert on the other side of campus. His voluminous tweed jacket nearly fit him. “Dr. Rory McDaniel. PhD,” he said. “Esquire. Limited Liability Corporation. But really, what I want is to be knighted.” He relaxed into his slump. “I’m working on it. It seems they want you to be a good person for that sort of thing.”

“Work harder.” I started toward my car again.

“You brought this on yourself.” He didn’t follow me. For a moment, I thought he might let me go, and then his voice came again, sharper, purposeful. “Who was the lanky fellow at the reception today? The one with the curly-haired lady friend?”

I’d reached my car, and good thing. I stumbled the last step, catching myself on the hood with the flat of my palm. I pictured myself, flushed and wild-eyed, pushing past the line of colleagues waiting in the Wolitzers’ doorway. “I believe those receptions are by invitation only.”

“I had one—”

“From the
president
—”

“—from Rothbert’s first lady,” he said.

“Why would Mrs. Wolitzer invite you?”

“She’s a colleague.” He pantomimed a what-could-I-do shrug. “Misses the days of deadlines, I guess. She’s been chatting me up on a few ideas she has to raise the profile of the university. Stories on faculty research, big donations to the university, that sort of thing. She wanted me to mingle, sniff out some possibilities.”

“Sniff out the free booze.”

“The best way to raise the profile of the university, I say, is to solve its most outrageous crime.”

“As far as she’s concerned, it’s solved.”

“You and I don’t believe that.”

I remembered President Wolitzer’s arched eyebrows when I said I’d returned to teaching.
I hadn’t realized.
“She’ll be against it, as a matter of fact,” I said. “They’ve put it to rest, and anything you’d write now would be exhuming the dead.”

“You know who I don’t care about? The dead. I care about the living.”

“Should I start calling you Sir McDaniel?”

“I’m serious. You, Nath, Lehane’s mother. If one of you wanted me to drop it, that would be one thing—”

“I’ve asked you to drop it three times.”

“But you don’t mean it.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

He squinted at me. “The lanky guy, nice pressed pants, messy hair—”

“My boss.”

“You don’t mean that, either. When you lie, you get a certain look. Like you might have to take a piss.”

“Charming.”

“It is, actually. You lie a lot. Look, if you’re satisfied with the way things stand, that’s fine. The university seems to be. Lehane’s mother isn’t.”

What outcome would be satisfying to the Lehanes? “How do you know that?”

“I’ve interviewed her,” he said, looking toward the lake. “And she’s been to town a few times since—well, since. He’s buried in their town, but she still comes here.”

I looked out at the lake, too, and saw a lone white sail coasting past in the dark. “Why?”

McDaniel shook his head. “You’ve never had the rug ripped out from under you? A grave is a grave. Rothbert is the last place her son was
alive
. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s been to your office.”

I turned away, chilled.

“In short,” he said. “I don’t think Mrs. Lehane would mind if I exhumed some facts. And if she doesn’t mind, why should you?”

I minded that I’d ever called the number left on my car, that I’d started something I couldn’t seem to stop. What I minded more was that the mere mention of Doyle still dug at my gut in a way even a bullet hadn’t. When I turned back to McDaniel, Dale Hall loomed over his shoulder. From here, I could see the dark windows of Doyle’s corner office.

“You can do whatever you want,” I said.

“Fine,” he said, but I could see it wasn’t the answer he wanted. I could read some of his twitches, too.

I opened the car door, threw in my bag, relocked the door, and started back toward Dale Hall.

“Where are you going?”

“If you follow me, I’ll get a restraining order.”

“That’s ridiculous—”

“And I’ll have a chat with the Wolitzers about your plans for raising the university’s profile. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the story Mrs. Wolitzer’s asking for. And—on my way past, I’ll smack that blue panic button over there. Have you ever seen the university police hustle? They’re a bit touchy lately.”

“I’ve witnessed them hustle when the fireworks go off.” He yielded to let me pass. “I was the one awake that day, remember?”

At the edge of the parking lot, I paused at the emergency box for a glance back. He stayed put.

How had everything gotten so messy? A kid I didn’t know had chosen me and then ducked out so that all the fallout was mine. For a moment, I hoped that if there was a hell, Leo Lehane burned there. Then I thought of his mother, standing outside the door to my office. Searching the floor for bloodstains.

On the walk back up to Dale Hall, something picked at me. I went back over the conversation until I found it.