'Yes. Her mother graduated from Pemberton as did her grandmother. I was a student here with her mother.'
'What can you tell me about Melissa?'
'Nothing.'
'Good student? Bad student?'
President Evans shook her head. 'She have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?'
'How contemporary,' President Evans said.
'Did she?'
'I don't know.'
'Was she a girl who would be likely to have one?'
President Evans shrugged.
'I think I'll stop wasting our time,' I said.
'Good,' she said.
I stood. She stood. We shook hands.
'If there is something that comes up in the future,' she said, 'which does not threaten my college, I would be pleased to help you.'
'Thanks,' I said. 'And if you ever need a thug…'
'Maybe for fund-raising,' she said and smiled. And I smiled. And she came out from behind her desk and walked with me to the door and opened it. And I left.
Chapter 9
THE THING I dreaded most was talking to the victim's parents, so I figured I might as well get it done. They lived in Brookline in a big red brick house with a wide porch; a couple of blocks uphill from the reservoir. Mr. Henderson was The Henderson Corporation, a firm that occupied most of the floors in the Mercantile Building that Cone, Oakes and Baldwin didn't occupy. The Henderson Corporation owned banks, and fertilizer companies, and a stock brokerage firm, and a company in Switzerland that made faucets, and a lot of other stuff that I couldn't remember, because I didn't take notes when I looked them up. He was a medium-sized guy with no hair and horn-rimmed glasses. His handshake was firm, his gaze direct. He was still in his suit, with his jacket off. He wore a white shirt and broad suspenders in a colorful pattern-the kind of no-nonsense guy that you'd trust with your money, though you might trust him more with his own. Mrs. Henderson was slim and dark with her black hair in a severe Dutch boy cut. She had on a mango-colored dress with a square neck and a short skirt. It looked good on her.
'You wish to talk about our daughter,' Mr. Henderson said when we were seated in some bentwood furniture covered in floral prints in the sunroom off the formal living room.
'Yes, sir,' I said.
'We had hoped to put that behind us,' Henderson said.
He and his wife sat together on the sofa against the white painted brick back of the living room fireplace.
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'But I've been employed by Cone, Oakes and Baldwin to look into her death more closely.'
'To what purpose?' Mrs. Henderson said.
She held her hands folded in her lap. There was a stereo setup to my right, in front of one of the windows. On it was a picture of a young woman wearing a much too big Taft University letter sweater. The sweater had a big blue chenille T on the front. There was a pair of small tennis racquets woven into the crosspiece of the T. Beneath the racquets the word co-captain was embroidered.
'Is that Melissa?' I said.
'Yes,' Henderson said.
'What is the purpose of your investigation?' Mrs. Henderson said.
'To make sure they've got the right guy.'
They were both silent for a moment, and then Mrs. Henderson said, 'You mean you're not sure?'
'I have just begun, ma'am. I'm not sure of anything. It's why I'm going around talking to people.'
'This law firm, this Cone whatchamacallit, they think Alves is innocent?'
'They feel he got an inadequate defense,' I said. 'They wish to be sure it's the right man.'
Again they were quiet.
Finally, Henderson said, 'I realize you're just doing your job…'
His wife interrupted.
'Walton is always reasonable. He can't help it. But I don't care about your job. I care about my daughter. And I will not permit the man who murdered our only child to be set free.'
Henderson looked at his wife and at me. He didn't say anything.
'You have no reason to question the verdict?' I said.
'Absolutely not,' Mrs. Henderson said.
