track Mrs. Avery down.
I circled Sylvia Avery, Natalie’s mother.
Back to the timeline. I moved up through the years until I reached twenty years ago when Todd Sanderson was a student. He had nearly been expelled after his father’s suicide. I thought back to his student file and his obituary. Both had mentioned that Todd had made amends by launching a charity.
I wrote down
One, Fresh Start had been birthed on this very campus in the wake of Todd’s personal turmoil. Two, six years ago, Natalie told her sister that she and Todd were going to travel around the world doing good works for Fresh Start. Three, Delia Sanderson, Todd’s real wife, told me that Fresh Start had been her husband’s passion. Four, Professor Hume, my very own beloved mentor, had been the faculty adviser during Fresh Start’s creation.
I started tapping the paper with my pencil. Fresh Start was all over this. Whatever “this” was.
I needed to look into that charity. If Natalie had indeed traveled for Fresh Start, someone there might at the very least have a lead on where she was. Again I started doing web searches. Fresh Start helped people get new starts, though the work seemed a bit unfocused. They worked with kids who needed cleft palates repaired, for example. They helped with political dissidents who needed asylum. They helped people with bankruptcy issues. They helped you find new employment, no matter what issues you’ve had in the past.
In short, as the mantra on the bottom of the home page said, “We help anyone who truly, desperately needs a fresh start.”
I frowned. Could that be more vague?
There was a link to donate. Fresh Start was a 501(c)(3) charity, so all contributions were tax deductible. No officers were listed—no mention of Todd Sanderson or Malcolm Hume or anyone. There was no office address. The phone number had an 843 area code—South Carolina. I dialed the number. An answering machine picked up. I didn’t leave a message.
I found a company online that investigates various charities “so that you may give with confidence.” For a small fee, they would send you a complete report on any charity, including an IRS Form 990 (whatever that was) and a “comprehensive analysis with full financial data, mission-driven decisions, officers’ biographies, charity holdings, money spent on fund-raising and all other activities.” I paid the small fee. An e-mail came to me saying that the report would be in my e-mail the following day.
I could wait that long. My head throbbed like a stubbed toe. My craving for sleep was overwhelming, emanating from the marrow of my bones. Tomorrow morning I would head to Otto Devereaux’s funeral, but for now, the body needed rest and nourishment. I took a shower, grabbed a bite to eat, and slept the sleep of the dead, which, based on what was going on around me, seemed apropos.
Chapter 25
Benedict leaned into the car window of his own car. “I don’t like this.”
I didn’t bother responding. We had been through this a dozen times already. “Thanks for letting me borrow your car.”
I had left my car with its altered license plate on the street in Greenfield. At some point I would have to figure out a way to retrieve it, but it could wait.
“I can go with you,” Benedict said.
“You have a class.”
Benedict didn’t argue. We never miss class. I had hurt enough students, in ways small and big, by taking up this bizarre quest. I wouldn’t allow more to pay even a minor price.
“So your plan is to show up at this gangster’s funeral?”
“More or less.”
“Sounds like less to me.”
Hard to argue. I planned on staking out Otto Devereaux’s funeral. My hope was that I could somehow learn why he attacked me, who he worked for, why they were searching for Natalie. I wasn’t big on the details—like how I’d accomplish this—but I had no job right now and sitting around idly waiting to be found by Bob or Jed didn’t seem like a terrific alternative either.
Better to be proactive. That was what I would tell my students.
Route 95 in Connecticut and New York is basically a series of construction areas masquerading as an interstate highway. Still I made decent time. The Franklin Funeral Home was located on Northern Boulevard in the Flushing section of Queens. For some odd reason, the picture on their website was of Central Park’s beloved Bow Bridge, a place you’ve seen lovers get married in pretty much every romantic comedy that takes place in Manhattan. I had no idea why they had that, as opposed to the photographs of their actual funeral home, until I pulled up to it.
Some final resting spot.
The Franklin Funeral Home looked as though it’d been built to house two dentists’ offices with maybe room for a proctologist, circa 1978. The facade was the yellowing stucco of a smoker’s teeth. Weddings, parties, celebrations often reflect the celebrants. Funerals rarely do. Death is truly the great equalizer, so much so that all funeral services, except the ones in movies, end up being the same. They are always colorless and rote and offer not so much solace and comfort as formula and ritual.
So now what? I couldn’t just go in. Suppose Bob was there? I could try to stay in the back, but guys my size do not blend well. There was a man in a black suit directing people where to park. I pulled up and tried to smile as though I was heading for a funeral, whatever that meant. The man in the black suit asked, “Are you here for the Devereaux or Johnson funeral?”
Because I was quick on my feet, I said, “Johnson.”
“You can park on the left.”
I pulled into the spacious lot. The Johnson funeral, it seemed, was taking place by the front entrance. There was a tent set up out back for Devereaux’s. I found a parking spot in the right corner. I backed into it, giving me a perfect view of the Devereaux tent. If by some chance someone in the Johnson party or the Franklin Funeral staff noticed me, I could pull off being bereaved and needing a moment.
I thought back to the last time I was at a funeral, just six days ago in that small white chapel in Palmetto Bluff. If I still had my timeline on me, there would be a six-year gap between a wedding in one white chapel and a funeral in another. Six years. I wondered how many of those days passed without Natalie in some way crossing my mind, and I realized that the answer was none.
But right now, the bigger question was, what had those six years been like for her?
A stretch limousine pulled up to the front of the tent. Another strange death ritual: The one time we all get to ride in cars we equate with luxury and excess is when we are mourning the death of a beloved. Then again, when better? Two dark-suited men came over and opened the limo doors, red-carpet style. A slender woman in her mid-thirties was helped out. She was holding hands with a long-haired little boy who looked to be six or seven. The little boy wore a black suit, which struck me as borderline obscene. Little boys should never wear black suits.
The obvious had not dawned on me until this very moment: Otto might have had a family. Otto might have had a slender wife who shared his bed and dreams. He might have had a long-haired son who loved him and played ball with him in the yard. Other people poured out of the car. An elderly woman wept hard in a handkerchief kept crumpled up in her fist. She had to be half carried toward the tent by a couple in their thirties. Otto’s mother and maybe siblings, I didn’t know. The family made a receiving line by the front of the tent. They greeted mourners, the devastation obvious in their bearings and on their faces. The little boy looked lost, confused, scared, like someone had sneaked up on him and punched him in the stomach.
That someone being me.
I sat perfectly still. I had thought about Otto as some contained entity. I thought killing him was merely a personal tragedy, the end of one isolated human life. But none of us are truly contained. Death ripples, echoes.
In the end though, hard as it might have been to watch the result of my actions, it didn’t change the fact that my actions were justified. I sat a little straighter and kept a closer eye on the mourners. I expected that the line
