Facade (5 page)

F
amous Harvard Architect Questioned in Case of Missing Cambridge Girl
, the
Globe
trumpeted on its front page the next morning, below the fold, but still hard to miss. A new picture of the photogenic Lara accompanied the article. This one showed her astride a bicycle, looking nervously at the camera with wide, innocent eyes. Next to her photo was a grainy image of a harried Xander leaving a building, the collar of his raincoat turned up, partially obscuring his face. Under the byline of Budge Buchanan, the
Globe
reported that “a world-famous architect from the Netherlands who is teaching this semester at the Harvard Graduate School of Design was brought in to Cambridge Police Headquarters Friday night to help the police with their investigation.” Any connection the professor might have had with the girl wasn't mentioned. Yet.

Of all the scurrilous yellow journalism!
Iris rolled up the paper and threw it across the kitchen into her small mud room. Sheba trotted off to fetch it and dropped it back at Iris' feet.

“No treat for you!”

It was now Saturday morning. Forty-eight hours had passed and Lara was still missing. Things were not looking good.

Iris flipped through her copy of the GSD staff directory and dialed Xander's number. It went straight to voice mail.

Ignoring Sheba's newly alert expression, Iris grabbed her jacket and headed out alone across Mass Ave toward Howland Street. Fifteen minutes later, as she approached Xander's house, she saw TV and newspaper trucks clogging the area.
Damn, the vultures have descended.
She hung back, considered her options, then veered off into a neighbor's driveway. With an assurance that implied she lived there, she headed toward a dilapidated, barely-standing detached garage that bordered Xander's fenced-in back yard. After skirting around the back of the garage, she considered her options. She tried calling him again and again was sent to voice mail. The small building hid her from the reporters as she approached the fence around Xander's backyard. She peered over and thought she saw him moving around in his kitchen. She waved her arms, but had little hope that he could see her.

She had to let him know that she had an alibi for him. He shouldn't have to be treated like a suspect. If she could get through this fence, it would shield her from the reporters while she made her way to the rear entrance. Then she could knock on a window or door to get his attention.

After searching her pockets for a tool, she came up with a poop bag, some dog treats, a used tissue and a pencil. Nothing close to useful. So much for that. She squatted in the dirt, testing the wooden pickets. One plank was loose, so she worked it free, then used it to pry off three more, reminding herself to return with her tool kit later to repair the damage. She ducked through the small opening and scratched herself on a nail in the process. Creeping along the inside of the fence toward the kitchen door, she stayed low. She peeked through the upper glass pane of the door and spotted Xander, drinking coffee and running his hand through his hair. She rapped softly on the glass. He jumped up with a start, moved quickly to the door, and unlocked it for her.

“Iris, what are you doing here?” he whispered as he pulled her inside.

“I need to talk to you.”

“I'm afraid this is not a good time.”

“I know. I saw the reporters, I've read the paper, and I can help you. But first, I need to ask you something.” Unasked, Iris took a seat. Xander joined her at the table, his place marked by a half-empty coffee cup and an ashtray brimming with butts.

“Really, Iris, it's kind of you but there's nothing you can do. I'm waiting for a call from the Dutch Consulate.”

“Why did that girl come to your office last week?”

“How do you know about that? Were you the one who told the police that story?”

“No, but I saw her in the hall at GSD. Why did she come to see you?”

Xander looked directly into her eyes.“I have no idea. I'd never seen her before in my life.”

Iris stared at him. “You don't know her?”

“I do not. I told that to the police.”

“Did they ask you anything else?”

“I asked for a solicitor. That ended the discussion.”

“Did you know of a solicitor, I mean a lawyer, to call?”

“Nils found me one who showed up within the hour. But as we left the police station, the reporters outside took pictures. They figured out who I am and somehow connected me to the case of the missing girl.”

Iris exhaled loudly. “What a mess.”

“Yes. Anyway, what is it you came to tell me?”

“I may be able to provide an alibi for you on Wednesday night if it turns out that you need one.”

“But I didn't see you on Wednesday night. Unfortunately I was alone.”

Iris tried to hide her chagrin behind a facade of innocence. “I was out taking my dog for her nightly walk on Wednesday. I went by the Bioscience building on Hammond Street to see how its construction was progressing, and I passed your house on my way back. The light was on. I was going to ring your bell to say hello but happened to glance in and see that you were listening to music so I decided not to disturb you.”

Xander wore a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

What must he think of her? Iris willed herself not to blush. “Would you like me to explain this to the police?”

He looked perplexed, then said, “That's quite generous of you, Iris. Let me ask my solicitor. I find it hard to believe that I need to defend myself from this preposterous innuendo.”

Xander's mobile phone buzzed and he walked off to the hallway to answer it.

Iris decided to give him his privacy. She had delivered her offer, at much cost to her pride. Now Xander probably thought she was some kind of groupie, stalking him, or worse.

She'd now need to backtrack out of the house and off the property. She slipped out the kitchen door and hugged the house's back wall until she reached the fence. She ducked down and crawled along the perimeter until she arrived at the spot shielded by the neighbor's garage. She found the opening where she'd pried off the planks and squeezed through. She was just rising to her feet when a bright light blinded her. When her vision cleared, she could make out two dark forms standing in front of her and recognized the unmistakeable shrill voice of Budge Buchanon.

“Iris Reid? Is that you? What are YOU doing sneaking out of Xander DeWitt's back yard?”

I
ris was squeezed into the front seat of Budge's compressed Fiat 500. She twisted sideways to face him. He had slipped her past the other reporters before they could register that she was one of the prey, not a fellow predator.
What did he intend to do with that photo?

The
Globe
cameraman sat in the tiny back seat, his knees up to his chin, chain smoking out the partially opened window. Iris fanned away the secondary smoke.

Budge had moved the car around the corner to Wendell Street so they could talk in private, but now sat focused on his blackberry, thumbing in stacatto questions and reading the responses. After a few minutes he looked up. “So, you've been teaching this semester at GSD, alongside our mystery professor. You've come a long way, Iris, since our days at the Big D.”

“You too, Budge.” Iris eyed him cooly. “Down into the depths of tabloid journalism.”

“I'm Bobby now. Have you been following my story—on the front page? Looks like your friend has become a 'person of interest' to the cops. Why would a professor visiting from Europe have any connection to a twelve-year-old schoolgirl from some Bay State city? I know they have more liberal views on sexual mores in some of those countries. So, since you're obviously a close bud...”

“Professor DeWitt is a colleague. We had professional things to discuss this morning.” Iris sat up tall, which wasn't easy to do in the dinky confines of a Fiat. It felt like the thing might tip over sideways. “I was trying to avoid the paparazzi phalanx you harpies created around the poor guy's house. I'm sure Professor DeWitt has had nothing to do with the missing girl. I don't know where you get your information, but I'd guess you'll be hearing from his lawyer about your article's, um, insinuations. Gee, you'd think you wrote for the
Herald
with that kind of mudslinging.”

“We journalists just state the facts. For example, the fact that you were caught crawling through this guy's fence this morning—caught on film I might add—could well interest our readers.”

Iris blanched. She could picture Luc's reaction. And what would her students think?

“Budge, if that photo ever shows up in print, my brother, the lawyer, will sue you personally, along with the paper, for libel. And I will hunt you down and string you up by your wretched little balls.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Whoa, Nellie—there's nothing libelous about printing a photo and telling people where it was taken. Our esteemed readers are free to draw their own conclusions.”

Iris took a deep breath and counted to ten. Maybe she'd better try a more conciliatory approach. “Okay Budge. What do you want?”

“How about an exclusive interview with the professor? You get me that and we'll forget about your morning escapade.”

Fuming, Iris grabbed her purse and slammed the car door behind her.

I
ris marched back to her house, grabbed her gym bag and headed to her karate dojo a few blocks away on Mass Ave. She needed to punch something. Hard.

After wrapping on her gi and belt in the locker room, she entered the studio, bowing quickly at the portrait of Master Kanbun Uechi before sliding to her knees in the second row of brown belts just as her instructor, Sensei Ono, entered the room and kneeled, facing them. Iris had resumed attending karate classes after a fight for her life at her GSD reunion the previous summer. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed the sense of strength it gave her.

They went through a series of stretches, conditioning drills, and katas, using movements of various sacred animals, before pairing off to practice their kicks. A beefy M.I.T. grad student she recognized from the occasional after-class bar crawl looped a cushion through his arm and braced himself to block her kicks as Sensei Ono began to shout out random heights for the students to strike.

“High.”

She pictured Budge's face and she gave it a powerful roundhouse kick.

“Low.”

She drilled into Budge's ankle with the side of her foot.

“Mid.”

She grunted and nailed Budge's groin with the side of her heel.

“What did the guy do to make you so mad today?” her partner joked.

Iris tried to rein in her feelings and focus on her form before Sensei Ono wandered by to murmer some gentle restraining cautions. He'd often reminded them that this branch of karate was about self-defense, not attack.

They spent the rest of the class on Iris' favorite activity—sparring. She was again partnered with Mr. M.I.T. and was thrilled to be evenly matched in blocking kicks and delivering punches, despite his greater height and weight. Her signature move was a leg sweep, where she would get her opponent off balance by hooking his ankle, then yank him forward with one hand into a punch in the nose or chin by her other hand's palm. It required a great deal of control to stop the punches short of contact. Even with the padded head protectors and padded gloves, you could still injure your sparring partner if you couldn't pull your punch back in time. After half an hour, Iris was breathing hard and her skin glistened. By the time she tossed her red pads and gloves into their separate bins, she knew where she needed to go.

L
uc started most mornings at an ungodly hour—not even morning by Iris' definition. Meats were delivered from private farms two afternoons a week, but he needed an early start at his purveyors every morning except Sunday to gather the pick of the crops and the freshest seafood. After unloading his morning haul into the cold room next to the Paradise Café's kitchen, he would plan that day's dinner menu while sipping the first of several espressos at the Café's mahogany counter. Iris had fallen in with him the previous Spring when her own breakfast ritual at the Café had happened to intersect with his.

Despite Luc's prodigious caffeine consumption, he usually finished his mornings back in bed. So, that Saturday around noon, after her karate class and a quick shower in the dojo dressing room, Iris headed for his condo.

It hadn't really been a lie—not telling Luc about her dinner and lunches with Xander. It had been an error of omission. Or was it called a lie of omission? It wasn't as if anything had happened romantically.

She used her key so as not to wake him and, as expected, found him asleep in the bedroom. He was tangled in his sheets, breathing softly, with cheeks slightly pink, and his blond hair splayed across the pillow. His mouth was slightly open and she could see the crooked eye tooth she found so sexy. His eyes opened and he smiled up at her. “Take off your clothes. Come join me.”

An hour later, Iris rummaged through leftovers in Luc's refrigerator for whatever might be interesting to throw into a frittata.

“Is this salmon still good?” She sniffed under the plastic wrap.

Hearing no response, she looked over at the table by the window to see Luc intently reading the
Globe
.

He didn't look up as he asked “Have you read about this lost girl, Lara? It mentions a GSD professor who might be involved—Xander DeWitt. Didn't you tell me you knew him?”

Here was her opening to come clean. “He's the visiting architect from Amsterdam I told you about. I read that article this morning but I can't imagine he'd be involved.”

“How well do you know the guy?”

“He's a colleague. We've talked a bit. Everyone was pretty curious about him because of his reputation. There's talk he may win the next Pritzker Prize.” She wasn't explaining this well.

Luc looked up at her. “Sounds like you admire the guy.”

“Well, he is an amazing architect. It would be like you working alongside Ferran Adrià or René Redzepi.”

“He's that kind of superstar?”

“He's up there. The guy's a real inspiration. When he's not designing beautiful buildings, he's writing poetry, or listening to music. God knows, he probably composes it, too. He makes me feel like an undisciplined slacker.”

“Maybe he has a dark side. The police must think he knows something about the disappearance of this girl or they wouldn't be hauling him in for questioning. What would her connection be to him, unless she's a relative or something?”

“The girl stopped by his office looking for him when he wasn't there. Xander said he's never met her. He has no idea why she wanted to see him.” Iris hadn't noticed that she'd slipped into dangerous territory until she saw Luc's cloudy expression.

“You've discussed this with him? When? The article only came out this morning.”

Damn, she was not defusing the situation.
“I saw him this morning,” she admitted.

Luc looked confused. “But it's Saturday. Did you go in to GSD this morning?” Then his expression turned to shock. “Wait—did you spend the night with this guy?”

“No—of course not. I just talked with him this morning as a friend. We'd had one dinner together...” Iris trailed off as she saw the hurt look on Luc's face.

“You're getting the wrong idea,” she said. “It was a meal with a colleague—nothing more. I was curious about his work. Then I saw him briefly this morning.” Her words sounded desperate, even to herself.

Luc sat rigidly, staring at the newspaper. After a minute he got up. “I need some air.”

He walked out.