Broken Saint, The (4 page)

“Just out of curiosity, Karen, did you graduate in
four years?”

I shot him a look. “And you, Mr. Perfect? Four
years?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head and looking down
at his lap. “Not in four years.”

“Aha,” I said, beaming. “Feeling a little shitty
about yourself, are you, smarty pants?”

“Three and a half,” he said softly.

“What was that?”

“I graduated in three and a half years.”

I pulled the cruiser over and looked at him. His
face was expressionless. “What the fuck?”

“Excuse me, Karen? I’m not sure I understand what
you just said.”

“I said, ‘What the fuck?’”

“Advanced Placement courses in high school. The
football coach at BYU bet me I couldn’t do eighteen credits a semester.” Now he
gave me a small smile. “I won.”

“Get out of my damn car.”

“It’s a long walk back to headquarters,” he said,
his expression asking me to reconsider. What a flirt this guy must have been.
“In the snow,” Ryan said. Then he turned on the big grin.

Chapter 5

“I reached two of Maricel’s three professors,” Ryan said as
I got back from the ladies’.

“And?”

“One looked her up and said she was headed for a
C, maybe a D. The other said, ‘Name doesn’t ring a bell.’”

“It’s nice to be remembered when you’re gone.”

“That second one was a lecture class. More than a
hundred students.”

“Still.” I was silent a moment. “Let’s not tell
Gerson we know Maricel was going down the drain, okay?”

“Sure,” Ryan said.

We had finished lunch in the break room and were
headed out to the provost’s house. He lived in the North End, the original
residential neighborhood in Rawlings. Most of the houses dated from early in
the last century. Prices were still reasonable, there was a short strip with a
coffee shop, a Thai restaurant, a little grocery store, and a park, and there
were no associations telling you you couldn’t grow tomatoes or you had to mow
your lawn every month. As a result, one house would be a tidy two-story
Craftsman bungalow with shutters, curtains, and a picket fence. Next door would
be the same house, except for the weeds growing out of the gutters, neon Coors
signs in the windows, and two-thirds of a motorcycle with a black and red
for-sale sign in the front yard.

We parked outside Gerson’s place. It was a
two-story, with weathered unpainted shingles. A porch spanned the width of the
house. Off to the side, connected by a walkway, was the two-car garage. As I
knocked with the brass knocker in the shape of a bunch of wheat stalks tied
together, I noticed a couple of original leaded windows off to the right in
what was probably the living room.

I heard Al Gerson’s big footsteps as he clumped
his way toward the door, which was painted eggplant and had a winter wreath
hanging from it. The floor squeaked as he opened the door.

I almost didn’t recognize him. He looked ten years
older than he had this morning. His posture was slumped, and his face was all
pale and doughy. His eyes were red-rimmed.

“Detectives.” His voice was soft as he stood aside
for me and Ryan to come in. It was a simple entry parlor, a braided rug over slate
flooring, with the staircase centered in front of the door. Everything was
heavy, dark wood that I took to be cherry. “Thank you for stopping by,” he said
as he led us into the living room. He gestured for us to sit in any of the
various unmatched chairs and sofas in the cramped room. There was a Victorian mahogany
couch with wooden arms, a pair of mid-century oak Scandinavian modern chairs,
an overstuffed cloth loveseat, half a dozen end tables and coffee tables, and a
black baby-grand piano. There were some paintings on the wall. None of them looked
like anything I could recognize. The focus of the room was a brick-bordered
fireplace, with all sorts of family photos on the mantle.

He called into the kitchen, “Honey, the detectives
are here.”

Ryan and I remained standing, expecting his wife
to come into the living room. We stood there for a good half-minute. I glanced
at Gerson, who was looking down at the tattered fringe on a Persian rug, his
hands in his pockets, trying to look patient.

Finally, she appeared. Her face was deeply lined,
her posture bowed. Her medium-length hair was gray, halfway to white. She wore
glasses, no makeup or earrings or anything. She had on blue jeans, baggy, and a
hideous hand-knit sweater as thick as a horse blanket, the kind you put on only
when the crazy aunt who knit it stops by.

She walked with quick, jerky movements, like a
bird, her head pointed toward the floor. She looked up only to navigate her way
through the cluttered room. I could tell she had been crying. She didn’t make
eye contact with any of the three of us in the room.

“Andrea, this is Detective … I’m sorry, I’ve
forgotten your names,” Gerson said, his hands out in apology.

“I understand.” I turned to Andrea Gerson, who was
standing near the doorway from the kitchen. “My name is Karen Seagate. My partner,
Ryan Miner.”

“Very glad to meet you.” She looked at me for just
an instant, then shifted her gaze back to the floor. She did not look at Ryan.

“As I told your husband earlier today, we’re very
sorry for your loss.”

I paused, to see if one of them was going to say
something. Finally, Gerson invited us all to sit, which we did. Andrea didn’t
walk across the room to be closer to her husband. She just lowered herself quickly
onto the piano bench.

Gerson sighed. “We can’t … we can’t really process
what you told me this morning.” His hand came up to his right eye to control
the twitching.

“It must have been a terrible shock.” I paused. “Maricel
was living with you since August, is that right?”

“Yes,” Al Gerson said. “We’d had some contact with
her—written some emails, a few Skype conversations—over the summer, but we had
never met her until we picked her up at the airport.”

I heard muffled sobs coming from Andrea Gerson’s
direction. She had started to weep. Everyone paused, as if she was going to say
something, but she didn’t. Al Gerson turned back to me, which I read as him
telling me to keep going.

“This must have been quite an adjustment for
Maricel, from an orphanage in the Philippines to Montana.”

“Absolutely, but you know, it was less of a culture
shock than I expected.”

“How’s that?”

“I think I mentioned to you this morning that we
have hosted a number of exchange students over the years, and each successive
one seems to know a lot more about the U.S. It’s as if our culture is the rest
of the world’s second culture. Our movies, music, fashion, everything about our
culture is so well known—and emulated. A girl like Maricel, who’s grown up with
the Web, she knew more about American pop stars than I do—and that’s before she
got here.”

I turned to face Andrea, who was still weeping. “Ms.
Gerson, did you get close to Maricel?”

She just looked at me, buried her head in her
hands, and started to moan. She stood and walked quickly across the room. By
the time Ryan had stood up, she was already out to the entryway and starting up
the stairs.

“I’m very sorry, Detective Seagate.” Al Gerson gazed
off in the distance. Then, after a moment, he turned to look at me. “It’s not
relevant to your visit, but I feel I owe you an explanation.” He took a deep
breath. “Andrea and I have two children. Judy is a freshman at the University
of Connecticut. Very good student. And our son, Mark. Eight years ago, Mark’s
twin, Mitch, died in a snowboarding accident.” He paused, took a deep breath to
collect himself. “Andrea suffered a nervous breakdown. After all these years,
she has not succeeded in moving beyond that tragedy.”

“I’m very sorry to hear about that, Provost
Gerson.”

He nodded to thank me. “Before, she was quite a
happy woman. A joyous woman. She was very successful, a business analyst for a
software startup here in town.” He paused. His eye was twitching out of control,
but this time he didn’t bring his hand up to try to control it.

I looked at Ryan, who was scanning the books in a
bookcase behind Al Gerson.

“Now, she stays at home.”

“With Mark?”

Gerson looked down at his hands, then raised his
eyes. “Mark struggles with his own challenges. He dropped out of high school
several years ago.”

“Does he live here?”

“Officially, yes, I guess he does. But we’re never
sure where he is minute-to-minute, day-to-day.”

“Is he home now?”

“No,” he said. “I left him a voice mail about
Maricel. He didn’t pick up.”

“Where does he spend his time?”

“He’s friends with a few other D&D fans. Dungeons
and Dragons?” He looked at me to see if I understood. I nodded. “Any given
night, he’s as likely to be couch surfing at one of their houses as he is to be
here. If there’s any one place he’s likely to be, it’s at that gaming store
downtown.”

Ryan said, “Game World, on Second?”

Gerson nodded.

“So,” I said, “let me get back to Maricel, Provost
Gerson. How was she doing here?”

“She was having some challenges academically. Her
grades were weak last semester.”

“Why do you think that was?”

“I’ve seen it a thousand times. Some kids, you
take them out of a structured environment, they go through a period …” His arms
were out, palms up, a parent’s universal hand signal that said, “You can’t
explain it. You might as well accept it.”

“But living here with your family,” I said, “you’d
think that would give her some structure. And my gosh, you couldn’t ask for a
better role model of how to succeed in an academic environment …” I gestured
toward him, laying it on thick.

“Well, yes, I guess so. But one thing I’ve
learned: everyone is different in how they adjust to new situations.”

“Was she distracted by things outside school?”

He looked weary, resigned. “I think there might
have been something to that. She was involved with a boy.”

“You know who it was?”

“Yes. It was a young man named Hector Cruz.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ryan taking
notes in his skinny notebook.

“He a student?”

“No, he isn’t. I don’t really know much about him.
I ran into the two of them once or twice and we shook hands. But he didn’t come
to the house to pick her up. Once, from upstairs, I saw him park a block down,
then Maricel shouted that she was going out. We invited him to dinner a number
of times, made it clear to Maricel that he’s welcome.”

“You have contact information on him?”

He walked over to a battered old walnut roll-top
desk, retrieved an address book, and jotted down some information on a slip of
paper. Ryan walked over to him and took the paper.

“We haven’t found Maricel’s phone,” I said. “Do
you know if she had one?”

“Yes, of course. Let me just take a quick look in
her room. Excuse me. I’ll just be a minute.” He walked toward the entryway. I
heard his heavy steps going up the stairs.

Ryan and I were silent. The heater cycled on, and
I heard the air whooshing through the floor registers. I gazed out the living
room window at the gray sky, the bare branches of an oak in the front yard. The
window was ringed with condensation. My house had it, too. The Gersons and I had
that in common: we didn’t have the cash to put in modern windows. As for the
other shit he’s got going, I think my ex-husband with his juvenile live-in
girlfriend, plus my slacker sixteen-year-old, whose attitude toward me
alternates between passive and active aggressive—well, by comparison with the
Gersons I’m living in Ozzie and Harrietville.

Al Gerson came back into room. He shrugged his
shoulders. “Can’t find it.”

“Do you know which company she used?”

“We’re all on Verizon. I put her on our family
plan. It was very inexpensive.”

“Would you mind if we take a quick look in her
room?” I said.

“Not at all.” He pointed up to the second floor.
“Third door on the left.”

“We’ll just be a couple minutes.” Ryan and I stood
and walked up to Maricel’s room.

I was surprised at how neat it was. Then, as I
looked around, I realized that it wasn’t neat so much as unoccupied. There was
a bed, which was made, an end table with a cheap metal lamp, a pine student
desk and chair set, a small bookcase, and a closet. On the desk were a closed
laptop and a few textbooks. No photos on the desk or on the walls. No pictures
or bulletin board or anything like that.

I walked into the closet and pulled the light cord.
There were maybe a dozen tops, two skirts, a dress, a few pairs of jeans on hangers.
I turned off the light and scanned the bare walls of the room. While Ryan went
through the desk, I looked through her night table.

Ryan looked up and shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Looks more like she’s staying at a motel than
living here.”

When we got back down to the living room, Al
Gerson was gazing out the window, his hands in his pockets. When he heard us,
he turned slowly.

“We couldn’t find a phone, either.” I paused a
moment. “Do you know anyone who was fighting with her, wanted to hurt her?”

“No.” His voice was soft. “She was a nice girl.”

I nodded. “We’ll want to come back to talk with
your son later. And we’ll keep you informed. Please thank Ms. Gerson for
talking with us.”

He looked at me, his eyes hollow, then turned and thumped
his way toward the door to see us out.

It was good to get out of that house.

“Pretty chilly in there,” Ryan said. “Losing a kid
like that …”

“Sounds to me like they might have lost two kids.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Want to try to track down Hector?”
He held up the slip of paper with the boyfriend’s address.

I nodded.