I LEFT THE MUSEUM WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING TO EITHER OF them, and when Faye and I next met—at the hotel, where I had gone to hide—I allowed as how I needed to get back to Salt Lake City as soon as possible.
“That’s just fine,” she said, “because Tert offered Sloane and me a ride back with him. It just happens he’s going that way.”
This was not what I had in mind at all. I said, “Tert? His name is really Tert?”
“Yes, Tert Krehbeil. Tert for ‘Tercius,’ as in Latin for ‘the third.’”
I could not stop myself from making a very unpleasant face. I had pegged Gray Eyes as a preppie and had had my usual phobic reaction to that, but a preppie with a preppie nickname and a preppie pedigree was a thousand times worse.
Returning a disapproving glance to my reaction, Faye said, “So, yes, it would be a convenience if you would drive my car home.”
Convenience. Now I’m a convenience
. I said, “But I thought the client was
old
.”
Now she laughed. “Well, yes, the artworks do belong to an old man. Or, more accurately, a dead man. They belong to the estate of Tert’s father, Krehbeil Secundus. In fact, they were purchased by the great scion of the family, ol’ Primus.”
“You’re making this up.”
She declared rather stiffly, “East Coast nicknames were often quite fanciful. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No …”
But I have a problem with my best friend consorting with people who make me break out in hives
.
Faye closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead as if she had a headache. “Listen, I didn’t realize at first when Hector contacted me that he was talking about his brother and not his father. I didn’t even know his father had passed away. It’s been that long since I’ve heard from Hector.”
The thought of three Krehbeils all lined up—Primus, Secundus, and Tercius—had jammed unpleasantly in my brain. I wondered if they all had eyes as cold and gray as ice. “I suppose he’s good-looking,” I said, “but isn’t he kind of … remote?”
Faye straightened her spine and gave me a look. It was a look that said everything: It said,
You’re jealous
. It said,
You don’t want me to be happy
. It said,
Go to hell
.
So I drove home wondering what kind of lightning had just struck my not-so-safe little world. Wondered, in fact, if it was indeed still my home. Since Tom’s death, I had been staying at Faye’s, first to nurse her through the final weeks of her pregnancy, then to help her as she adjusted to the new life she had brought forth. Somehow, weeks had become months. I had been chief cook and bottle washer, marketer, and devoted nanny. Now I was just chauffeur.
It’s about a nine-hour drive between Cody and Salt Lake City by the route I took, so by the time I got back there, I was sufficiently tired that all I wanted to do was eat about five peanut butter–and–jelly quesadillas and go to bed, which is exactly what I did.
I did not sleep well, and awoke early. In the first pale fingers of daylight, I got up and began doing a few chores before starting to study for my classes. By daylight, the night’s self-pity dissolved into acute embarrassment at having reacted so strongly. Faye was right; I should want her to be happy. I was just jealous because Jack had been gone so long.
And yet I had real misgivings about this man Tert Krehbeil. There was something about him that genuinely gave me the creeps, and it wasn’t just the clash between our backgrounds.
As I went to plug in my cell phone to charge it up, I realized it was Faye’s. I had forgotten to give it back to her after her hurry to meet her … friend. I reached deeper into my duffel bag and found my own phone, which meant Faye had neither one. I couldn’t call her. I felt very much alone.
I stared at the phone in frustration, recalling the call from Hector the
actor, the man who had brokered the connections between Faye and his brother Tert. I dug through Faye’s desk for her address book, found a phone number for Hector and dialed. I knew better than to rely on the opinions of a drunk, but I wanted to know what Faye was getting mixed up in, and I told myself he might be able tell me something about his brother that would put my anxieties to rest.
In fact, you’re so put out that you want to hear something awful
, I told myself as the call began to ring through.
A groggy voice answered on the other end. “Hello?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought this might be an East Coast number. I’ll call back at a more reasonable hour.”
“No. Wait. It is a reasonable hour here. I’m the one who isn’t reasonable. Who did you say you were?”
“Em Hansen. Hello, Hector.”
There was a pause. “Well, Em Hansen, I have absolutely no idea who you are, so if you’ll forgive me—”
“Wait, don’t hang up. I’m Faye Carter’s roommate.”
There was another pause, then, “Ohhhhhh …”
“You phoned Faye a couple of days ago, and I answered.”
“Did I? I don’t recall. I must have been bombed.”
“Yes, you were quite magnificently blotto.”
“I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?”
“Certainly.”
“Well then, if I was my usual excruciating self, to what do I owe the kindness of this call?”
“I’m trying to help Faye with a few things. Er, you
are
Tert Krehbeil’s brother?”
“The one and only.”
“Then, um, can you tell me something about him?”
“Miss Hansen, you are asking me to air the family laundry.”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
“Listen, dear lady, I may be the black sheep, but I know which side of the bread gets buttered. And other metaphors as appropriate. I have a devil of a headache, and I should get off the phone before I make a worse ass of myself.”
“Is he … Would he be a good friend to Faye? Does he treat women nicely?”
“Oh no … so that’s happening, is it? Well, Miss Hansen, my brother
is
an unusual person. I cannot say that I approve of him in every way. We are siblings, and siblings are known to have their differences. Tert is an accomplished businessman, respected by his peers. He has never married, perhaps because he has trouble showing a woman half as much attention as he shows to his own image in the mirror. But they said that about Narcissus, too, and his name is still on the lips of the well-to-do and erudite. He doesn’t beat women or stand them up on dates, to my knowledge, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Thanks. That helps, I suppose.” I fished around for something short of his favorite shot of whiskey that would get him to open up a bit more. “The other night you said something about concern for your mother’s health. Is everything okay?”
This prompted a lengthy silence, then, broodingly, “I was probably just raving.”
“Can I ask about the painting?”
“What painting.” It was not a question, it was an answer.
Now I paused. I had already skated too close to breaking Tert’s confidence, and while I had no interest in working with him myself, I did not want it on my conscience that I had ruined a deal for Faye. “I’m interested in … your family’s artworks.”
“Are you an art historian?”
“No.”
“Conservator?”
“No.”
Irritably he said, “Well, what, then? Private investigator?” He meant it to be an insulting joke.
“No,” I said stiffly. “But you’re not far off. I am a forensic geologist.”
“What’s
that
?” he said, mocking me.
I was so annoyed at his tone that I said, “I work with trace evidence. In the case of a painting, I can perhaps discover whether the minerals used in the paint pigments are what the artist would have used. I can—”
Hector’s response was swift. “I do not recommend you do that, Miss Hansen!”
“I—I didn’t mean … Hey, listen, I’m just Faye’s friend. I’m trying to understand what she’s gotten herself mixed up in, you get me?”
“Look, if you ever get to Pennsylvania, look me up. We’ll have some
drinks and some laughs. I’ll tell you the story of a family that used to be more than it is today, and we can all look out over Lancaster County and sigh. But I really can’t say anything else that would help you.”
I let him go and broke the connection. But I copied down the phone number, just in case, putting it with my own papers.
Then I sat staring at the phone. I did not like what was happening. Faye had been through a lot in the last year and a half. She’d dealt with an accidental pregnancy, a sudden marriage, the loss of her trust fund, widowhood, and the adjustment to motherhood. She had gone from being a highly attractive, single, wealthy, independent woman who had the world by the tail to a highly attractive, highly obligated, highly vulnerable single mother who missed her former life just as much as she loved her child.
I got up and paced for a while, then booted up Faye’s laptop computer and checked for e-mails from Jack, hoping to find a little comfort in his virtual embrace. As the computer went through its starting-up ceremony, my attention came to rest on one of Baby Sloane’s teething rings, and I thought of her sitting in Tert Krehbeil’s lap. An unseen hand formed a fist around my heart. Seeing the three of them sitting there in the museum had been a terrible shock. Woman, man, and baby. The full complement of personnel. Tert had been holding Sloane as if she were his, all comfortable and easy, Mr. Composure, just dropping in to stay a couple hundred years.
It’s not Faye I’m really worried about
, I realized,
it’s the baby. Could this man replace the father she would never know? Or would he in fact be worse than no father at all
?
And it was clear to me now, in the harshness of an empty house, that the idea of being made extraneous in Sloane’s life was part of what had panicked me.
The computer made a jungle roar at me, a sound Jack had programmed in as its wake-up noise back when he was around enough to capture my heart.
Back before he ran off to Florida to help someone other than me.
And I followed him.
And Tom followed me, and got himself killed
… .
The room tilted slightly at the memory of Tom’s stiffening corpse. I fought the sensation, forcing myself to tap in commands and downloaded my e-mail.
I stared at the results. Tucked in among the spam that pushed on-line Viagra, mortgage re-fis, make money at home schemes, penile enlargements,
and red-hot farmgirl “cams,” there was in fact a message from Jack. I told myself this was a good omen. Until I read it.
Hey there Em
Looks like no luck on my request for early release. It’s a tough job out here but they say somebody’s got to do it, so why not this old pinniped. Sorry to disappoint you. Can’t say much else as I’m on someone else’s machine and that’s a no no, so give that baby a squeeze for me and I’ll write again soon.
Love always, Jack
I read it again and then closed the message. Then I opened it up again, hit REPLY, and wrote:
Hey there Jack
Just back from Cody, where I was with Faye as I explained before. I came back early because she’s gotten tight with some
I erased the second sentence and tried again.
Hey there Jack
Just back from Cody, where I was with Faye as I explained before. Had some nice moments with baby S out on the badlands looking for rocks. Surprise surprise I found some, pretty strange considering I’m a geologist and that’s what the world is made of, huh? Well, I sure miss you and
And what? It was getting harder and harder to write to Jack, and I could not sort out why. The fact that we had not seen each other since a month before Sloane Renee was born was certainly an issue, but that couldn’t have been avoided. It was best that he did not come around just after the baby was born, because after all, it was Tom’s death that put Faye into early labor. Jack was a walking reminder of that tragedy. And Jack had lived. Jack’s absence had seemed reasonable at the time, because I did not want to be reminded, either. We had expected to see each other after, at most, perhaps a month. But then he had been called up from the Reserves, like so many others. Off he went, a forty-one-year-old Navy
SEAL sent out to do what the spooky boys do in a time of war, and my discomfort over what was unsettled in our relationship had been conveniently swapped for discomfort over the adversity he was facing.
And now I faced another communication that felt like no communication at all. I wanted him home. I wanted him safe and sound. And I wanted to see him through his assignment. I couldn’t stand the idea of being the girlfriend who could not take the strain, who couldn’t get her brain around the simple task of writing a few messages, who quit writing, who failed to support him as he supported all of us.
I settled for typing some more newsy bits, then sent off my e-mail and closed down the computer. I had no sooner gone off-line, thereby clearing the phone line, when the telephone rang. I glanced at the clock. It was seven A.M. Wondering who would call this early, I picked it up and said hello.