once, but no more, had no desire to read again.
He turned quickly, walked inside, then down a corridor to a room marked RECORDS. “I’m trying to get a little information,” he said to the woman he found behind a large wooden counter.
She looked up from a stack of computer sheets. She wore glasses with pink tinted lenses, a style he’d even noticed on a few shooters in recent weeks.
“About a former student,” he added. “She graduated in 1988.”
“What do you need to know?”
“Her major. Maybe get a look at her transcript. Anything might help.”
“Some things require written requests,” the woman told him.
“Just give me the stuff that doesn’t.”
The woman snapped the sharpened pencil from her ear. “What’s the name?”
“Rosen. Sarah Judith Rosen.”
The woman wrote it down, disappeared into another room, and reappeared with a sheet of yellow legal-sized paper.
“That’s all I can give without some other kind of authorization,” she said. “It’s not very much.”
Corman took the paper. “Thanks,” he said as he began to read it.
It told him even less than he’d expected, certainly not enough to put a charge in Willie Scarelli. Rosen had graduated in 1988, as he already knew. Aside from that, the paper gave him only one additional fact. She’d majored in English Literature.
Corman looked up once he’d finished. “One more thing,” he said. “Do you know where I might find a professor in the Philosophy Department. His name is Peter Oppenheim.”
She reached for a directory, flipped through the pages and glanced back up at him. “Jay Hall, 308,” she said.
Oppenheim was a short, somewhat stocky man, balding as he neared forty, and he looked at Corman as if he were a workman who’d been summoned to repair something in the office, recaulk the windows, shore up the sagging floor.
“Yes?” he said when he glimpsed Corman standing at the door.
“I’m looking for Professor Oppenheim.”
“I’m Professor Oppenheim.”
Corman took a short, tentative step into the office and adopted the diffident, somewhat formal tone he remembered from graduate school. “I was wondering if I could have a word with you.”
“About what?”
“Sarah Rosen.”
Oppenheim’s face betrayed nothing. “Are you with the police?”
“No,” Corman answered immediately, then realized how odd the question was. “Have you talked to them?”
“No,” Oppenheim said. “But I know what happened to Sarah, and I thought there might be questions about her death.”
“From the police?”
“The authorities,” Oppenheim said. “Whomever they might be.” He turned from his desk, as if to get a better view of Corman’s face. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Corman. I’m a photographer.”
“What did you have to do with Sarah?”
“I was there after she … I’m a free-lance … I took some pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“I didn’t sell them,” Corman said. He took another small step into the office, noting the photograph of Einstein above Oppenheim’s desk. He remembered the ones he’d tacked to the wall of his own office—Shakespeare, Dante, other leading lights—and wondered whose face he’d hang now if he still had an office of his own. Lazar, perhaps. Lucy, without doubt.
“Would you mind talking about her?” he asked tentatively.
Oppenheim considered it a moment. “Have you talked to her father?”
“No.”
“He knows her best,” Oppenheim said a little stiffly.
“I plan to see him when I can,” Corman said casually, as if it were just a matter of making an appointment. “But for now, I’d like to …”
“Strange as it may seem,” Oppenheim said curtly, “I barely knew her.” He shrugged. “We were only married a few months. It was hardly a marriage at all.” He looked at Corman quizzically. “Has she been buried yet?”
“Her father didn’t tell you?”
Oppenheim shook his head, smiled bitterly. “Her father never told me anything.”
“There was a service yesterday,” Corman said. “On the East Side.”
Oppenheim nodded. “Did anyone show up?”
“Dr. Rosen,” Corman said then added dryly, “Me.”
“That’s what I would have expected,” Oppenheim said. “Knowing Dr. Rosen.” He indicated the chair in front of his desk. “Well, sit down,” he said. “I suppose I can give you a few minutes.”
Corman took his seat, then listened as Oppenheim began immediately, without waiting for a question.
“Sarah and I didn’t really choose each other,” he said. “That was Dr. Rosen’s choice. I didn’t realize that at the time. I’m not sure Sarah did, either. But, in any event, he introduced us when Sarah was a junior here at Columbia. He wanted her married before graduation. He told me as much several weeks later, when Sarah and I became engaged.”
“Told you when to marry her?” Corman asked.
“Well, let’s just say he made his preference quite clear,” Oppenheim said. “And I went along with it. So did Sarah.” He looked at Corman knowingly. “I hadn’t had a lot of experience, if you know what I mean. The marriage sounded good to me. Sarah was rather mysterious, difficult to know. Perhaps I found that somewhat alluring.” He sighed softly. “And she was young, and you know how it is, sometimes a man my age … he …”
“How long were you married?”
“Only a few months,” Oppenheim said. “After we lost the baby, she fell apart.”
“She lost a baby?” Corman asked.
“Well, not exactly lost,” Oppenheim said tensely. “Aborted.”
“When was that?”
“About the middle of her senior year.”
“What happened?”
“She was pregnant,” Oppenheim said, “and her doctor advised her that there was some risk involved, and after that, she decided that she’d rather not take that risk.”
“He advised an abortion?”
“A therapeutic abortion, yes,” Oppenheim said. “It was for her own safety. You can ask the doctor, if you like. Dr. Walter Owen, East Seventy-Sixth Street.”
“What happened after the abortion?” Corman asked. “You said she fell apart.”
“It was her last semester,” Oppenheim replied. “She had only a few courses to complete the degree, but I wasn’t sure she was going to make it. It was as if pieces of her mind were falling away. I’d come home and find her by the window, always by the window, looking out, like a cat.” He shrugged. “I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t really seem to be there.” He shook his head. “I knew she was in trouble, but I didn’t know how bad it was until Dr. Maitland called.”
“Maitland?” Corman asked. “From the English Department?”
“That’s right,” Oppenheim said. “You know him?”
Corman nodded.
“Well, Sarah had written a final examination for him,” Oppenheim said, “and he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He said it was very strange, and that he didn’t know what to do about it.”
“About what?”
“About Sarah’s grade, her graduation. He didn’t want to stand in her way, cause her more strain. We met, all
