any state but calm and friendly. Well, that was a pattern he was about to break.
“I’m sorry,” she said in her meek voice. “I’m afraid Jamal is not in right now. Is there a message?”
“Don’t worry,” Hannibal said, pushing the door open. “You’re the person I really want to talk to anyway.” He took five or six steps toward the living room before he realized that Nina was still standing at the door. He turned to see her flushing, her eyes darting left and right. His eyebrows rose, forming a question.
“Mr. Jones, I am not permitted to have visitors when my husband isn’t at home,” Nina said. “Please, if you could come back when he is…”
Hannibal stepped toward her and she shrank back against the door. “You put up with that bullshit?” he asked. “He’s really got you, hasn’t he? Well, you answer my questions and help me get the story straight, and maybe, just maybe, I can free you from him.”
“Free me? No, Mr. Jones, I love Jamal.”
“Do you?” He went into the living room and dropped onto the sofa. “Well, what I want to know is, how much does he love you? Tell me about Jamal’s relationship with Viktoriya Petrova.”
Nina followed but stopped at the center of the living room floor. Barefoot, in a shapeless neutral color shift, she could have been a Nigerian child in a television commercial asking for donations. She raised her fists in front of her chest but they were too small to provide much defense.
“There is nothing to tell. She was one of his students.”
“I see,” Hannibal said in a softer tone. “And weren’t you one of his students?”
Nina nodded, her lower lip covering its upper sister in what looked like a childish pout.
“And what happened? Is what Eric Van Buren told me true?”
Her head snapped up. “You spoke to Professor Van Buren at UVA?” After Hannibal nodded her shoulders seemed to drop farther than shoulders can. “Then you know what happened.”
“Maybe, but I need to hear it from you. Did you…fall in love?”
“You don’t know Jamal,” Nina said, as if that explained something. When she saw it didn’t, she said, “Jamal is a very intense man. He loves a woman so much that she can’t help but love him too. He was a powerful, influential man on the college faculty and I was just a lowly freshman come to America from Algeria.”
“You dated,” Hannibal said. “And things went too far, maybe?”
“No, I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted his…” the next word caught in her throat, choking her. With her elbows still pressed to her ribs she pointed toward the kitchen. “May I get some water?”
Hannibal waved toward the kitchen and she shuffled off with short, quick steps. He stood and followed at what he hoped would seem a safe distance to her. He stood at the entrance to the room while she pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank a few swallows.
“Stop me if I go wrong,” Hannibal said. “You two were together, but not officially. Professor-student relationships are rather frowned on. But it’s impossible to keep such things secret. When you became pregnant, everyone knew who the father was.”
“He did the honorable thing and offered to marry me,” she said, standing a little straighter than before. “But to the college that was no solution. They cast him out.”
“Imagine that,” Hannibal said. “So he found a position up here but still made you get rid of the baby?”
Nina spun on him with grief and hurt fighting for space on her small face. “No! He could never. It was me. I could not carry the baby. I lost it. I failed him.”
Her legs seemed weak, making Hannibal realize how raw the wound he just touched still was. He helped her into a chair at the table. He wanted to comfort her, to protect her, to make her feel safe, but he also knew that if his guesses were right, time might be short.
“You’ve done your best to make a good home for him, I can see that,” Hannibal said. “But you need to be honest with me. He couldn’t stop looking at his younger students, could he?”
Her eyes met his and for the second time that day he felt the need to remove his glasses. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for in there, but she appeared to find it.
“The black-haired girl,” she said with unexpected venom. “She was so… white. But he loved her from the first.”
Hannibal sat facing her, holding one hand. “But you were stuck here at home, alone, right? He came and went as he pleased. You knew nothing of what he did when he left here.”
“Ahh, but I knew his students,” Nina said. “I saw them all at his parties when they all but ignored me as you would a serving girl. But I saw them. And anyone who saw her with him could see what was between them. At least, until she met that other student, Gartee. I guess she wanted an African man, but this one was closer to her age.”
“By then it was too late,” Hannibal said. “He did to her what he did to you, but she decided not to keep the baby. I know she had an abortion. But there was no way for anyone to know who the father was.”
“There was no doubt in her mind,” Nina said.
“Why would you say that?”
“She said so when she called the other day,” Nina said, smiling at some private joke. Hannibal sat back, mouth open.
“She called here?”
“Oh, those two have never lost touch,” Nina said. “I know that if he could ever make her his, he would leave me. He can’t, but they still talk.”
“They talk, and you listen.”
Nina leaned in very close. Hannibal could smell her sandalwood scent and something else. Was that alcohol on her breath?
“She called after she learned of her mother’s death. She accused Jamal of killing her parents to cover it all up. They knew the baby was his. She thought he would be thrown out of a second college if it became public knowledge that he had misused another student, this time while he was married. She thought he would kill for that.”
“I’m not so sure he wouldn’t,” Hannibal said. “But how could her parents know? No way she’d tell them.”
Nina leaned even closer and this time he was sure of the smell. She was a lonely daytime drinker, one who could keep her secrets but could share them at the right time. He knew a fraction of a second before she said it.
“Me,” she said, waving a finger at him. “After she had the abortion, I called her father and told him his precious daughter had just killed his grandson.” In response to Hannibal’s shocked expression she added, “Didn’t he have a right to know?”
“What did he say?”
“Well, he was not a stupid man, for a Russian.” Nina said. “He said he already knew who the father was, and that the bastard should be ashamed of touching a girl that young at his age. Say, would you like some sherry?”
Once she broke through her normal screen of secrecy, Nina was getting quite relaxed. Hannibal shook his head no, still considering her words. Did Nikita ever know the truth? Or had he assumed that Boris was the culprit? That would explain Nikita flying into a violent rage at the suggestion that Viktoriya go traveling with Boris. Boris would respond with equal violence. Nina’s helpful selfishness may have been the catalyst for Nikita’s death.
“You don’t think there’s any way Jamal had anything to do with Nikita’s death, do you?” Hannibal asked, watching Nina stretch up on tiptoe to reach into a cabinet above the refrigerator. When she came down she was clutching a long-necked bottle.
“I don’t really know. But I did hear that Vikki’s father died the very next day.”
“Well, at least he probably didn’t have a chance to share that awful news with his wife,” Hannibal said.
“Oh, she didn’t know,” Nina said, pulling down two water glasses. “She was completely surprised when I called her.”
That news, shared so casually, chilled him to the marrow. “You needed to tell her too?”
“Her own fault,” Nina said, carefully filling two glasses. “The little whore shouldn’t be calling my husband. This time I think she called to tell him she might get married, just to make him jealous.”
“So for that, you called Raisa Petrova and told her that her daughter had an abortion.”
“Oh, I think she knew that much,” Nina said, sipping her sherry. “But she had no idea that Jamal was the father. She didn’t sound all that upset, but she swore she would be talking to him. And in fact, she did call him the very next day. I heard them talking.”
