Deception

Milo said, “Juliet Harshberger’s address, please.”

“I’m sorry, we’re not supposed to.”

Brian cackled and rattled off a street name and three digits.

Maliciously helpful but unnecessary. The girl on the veranda, snuggling up with Franck.

Nadine said, “Brian!”

Brian slapped his mouth. “Oops, silly me. Guess that slipped out because my prefrontal lobes are clogged from long nights of actually doing work.”

“You’re a prince,” said his friend.

The receptionist said, “That was totally inappropriate.”

Brian said, “So is coasting through grad school in the comfort of your six-room apartment with no serious obligations other than showing up to seminars while everyone else has to R.A. and T.A. and do mind-eroding scut.”

Nadine flushed. “Brian, please—”

He stomped out, muttering, “Yeah, yeah, reality bites, big shocker.” His friend looked at us, shrugged, followed.

Milo said, “Grumpy fellow.”

Nadine said, “He just failed his orals.”

When we caught up with Brian he was smoking a cigarette under an oak tree. The stocky boy had departed.

He sucked in a lungful of poison. “Once again, the gendarmerie.”

Milo said, “Thanks for the info, Brian.”

“Lucky for you, I’m an asshole.”

“She’s a rich girl, huh?”

“Her old man’s Harshberger Petroleum Exploration. Nice Texas girl.”

“Not smart enough to get in on her own?”

Brian ran a tongue inside his mouth. “Should I be fair or just spiteful?”

“Fair would be better.”

“How about first telling me why the police are interested in her.”

“It’s in regard to her boyfriend.”

“Sir Coiffure?”

“Pardon?”

“Her squeeze, the chemist. Changes his hairstyle every month. I figure he’s researching dyes.” Dry chuckle. “What’d he do?”

“He’s a potential witness.”

“To what?”

“Brian,” said Milo, showing teeth, “I really need to be asking questions, not answering them. Juliet’s not smart, huh?”

“She’s plenty smart, but that isn’t the point. Dr. Chang—my advisor—has never accepted more than one student a year and sometimes not even that. This year he took two.”

“You and Juliet.”

“After she applied months past the deadline. I’m on fellowship, she doesn’t need one. Are you conceptualizing a causal thread?”

“So now you’ve got to carry her.”

“It’s not that she’s increased my workload, Chang would be a slave driver anyway. But she’s apparently exempt from everything the rest of us have to hassle with. Like I said, reality gnaws out huge chunks of raw flesh on a regular basis, but if she had a modicum of class she’d try to pull at least some of her damn weight.”

“Six-room crib,” said Milo. “Nice.”

“Never been invited, but Chang was much impressed.”

The Spanish-style building was even lovelier in daylight, trees perfectly barbered, shrubs glowing, sparkling beds of flowers a fauvist delight. A couple exited, arm in arm, white-haired, immaculately dressed, didn’t stop to greet the petite girl on the veranda.

She wore the same Brown sweatshirt as when she’d put her head on Trey Franck’s shoulder. The bench beneath her was stationary but she rocked back and forth, staring into the distance.

Like a whaler’s wife waiting for a storm to disgorge her man.

She saw us coming. Kept rocking.

Milo’s card caused her to burst out in tears.

¦

Juliet Harshberger’s apartment was done up in authentic Deco-Moderne and fragrant with scented candles. Signed Cartier-Bresson prints hung on the wall along with an unsigned cubist painting. A long-haired white cat, so inert its occasional eyeblink seemed battery-driven, perched on a divan and ignored the proceedings.

Its mistress perched on the edge of a cream velvet chair trimmed in macassar ebony and continued to weep.

Milo’s third tissue finally dried up the well.

“Ms. Harshberger—”

“I knew it would come to this. Trey was so scared, now you’re going to tell me something horrid and nightmarishly permanent has taken place and I’ll never be able to erase this terrible moment from my consciousness.”

“We’re not here to tell you anything bad. We’d just like to know where Trey is.”

Juliet Harshberger’s enormous pale green eyes stretched the limits of their sockets. She was five feet tall, probably less than a hundred pounds, with a pixie face dusted with buttermilk freckles under a mop of carefully layered mocha hair. Tiny pointy breasts fell short of filling her white cashmere sweater. Boyish hips were no more successful with razor-creased designer jeans.

Petite young woman easily able to pass as a high school student. I wondered if her bond with Franck extended to fraud.

She said, “You really don’t know where he is? Well, neither do I and I’m worried sick. It’s not like him to disappear.”

Milo said, “What was he scared about?”

Her answer came too quickly. “I don’t know.”

We waited.

Juliet Harshberger said, “I don’t know.”

Milo said, “Where’d you do your undergrad work?”

That threw her but she murmured, “Brown.”

So much for that rule.

“You went from there straight to Caltech?”

“I took a year off.”

“Lab work?”

“I traveled. Why would you care?”

“I love to travel,” Milo lied. “Where’d you go?”

“Europe, Southeast Asia.” A beat. “Africa.”

“World tour?”

Silence.

“Sounds nice.”

“I needed to do it,” she said. “Before the grind.”

“Grad school’s tough.”

“Grad school at this place is…” Her eyes moistened again. “Everyone’s a genius except me.”

Milo said, “I’m betting you made summa at Brown.”

Juliet Harshberger ground her teeth. “At Brown I was smart. At Caltech, I’m an inanimate object.” Glance to