She had a morbid curiosity. He was offering her so much. He was offering himself to her.
Instead of looking at his new book, Matthew went on the internet. He looked again at some of Hen’s art, and then, because he hadn’t done it yet, he looked up Hen’s husband, Lloyd Harding. There wasn’t much about him online. His name was listed on his company’s website. There was a LinkedIn profile. He did, however, find an old blog that hadn’t been updated for five years. It was called Documenting Lloyd and was a list of short, mostly snarky reviews of documentary features. On the About page, Lloyd referred to himself as an aspiring documentary filmmaker. Matthew wondered what had happened to that dream. He didn’t like Lloyd, hadn’t liked him the night he’d been over for dinner. He seemed soft and lazy and could barely hide his boredom at having to sit through dinner at his neighbors’ house. Matthew had also thought that he hadn’t been remotely complimentary enough of Mira’s cooking. Hen said several times how much she loved the food, while her husband merely shook his head minutely in agreement, made an affirmative grunting sound. Matthew remembered looking across the table at Lloyd and imagining how he’d look with plastic wrap across his face.
Matthew made a decision to find out what he could about Lloyd Harding. There was probably nothing, but you never could tell.
After dinner that night—Mira’s amazing lentil soup—Matthew finally relaxed, realizing that if either the police or Lloyd were going to come knocking on the door, they’d have done it already. Hen hadn’t told anyone about his visit. That didn’t mean that she would agree to meet with him, but at least it meant she was keeping it to herself.
They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.
Matthew didn’t hear from Hen that evening or the next day. Mira left early Monday morning to catch her flight, and Matthew went to school.
Michelle, after taking a week off from teaching, was returning to Sussex Hall. There was an early-morning all-staff meeting before she arrived, during which Donald Hoogheem, the head of the history department, told everyone that Michelle had indicated that she’d prefer to not talk about the death of her boyfriend. She’d rather spend her time catching up on the work she’d missed.
Matthew assumed he was exempt from that particular request, especially since he and Michelle had already talked on the phone. He wasn’t surprised when Michelle came by his classroom at the end of the day, closing the door behind her after she entered.
“What are people saying?” she asked.
“Nothing, really. Donald got us all together this morning before you got here and told us not to bring it up with you.”
Michelle rapidly shook her head, said, “Arrgh, I don’t know if that was the right choice. I just didn’t want to have to explain to everyone that we weren’t going out anymore, that I know nothing about what happened to him, that—”
“What did happen to him? Have they made an arrest?”
“I haven’t heard anything. They did question me, but it was for all of about fifteen minutes, just asking me about our relationship and if he had any enemies . . . I told you this already, didn’t I?”
“You did, but that’s okay.”
“Well, that’s the last I heard from them. My guess is he pissed off some guy at the bar by hitting on his girlfriend.”
“He was a bad guy, you know that,” Matthew said, trying to make her feel better.
Instead, she frowned, then her lower lip trembled and she started to cry. Matthew went to her, guided her to a chair, and they both sat.
When she could finally talk, she said, “I know that he was bad for me, but I’m not sure that means he was a bad man.”
“People are defined by their actions. What they do is who they are.”
“I know. I’m glad he’s not going to be in my life, but I’m still upset about what happened to him. He was so young.”
Matthew knew when to be quiet, and he didn’t say anything. After a moment, Michelle took a deep breath and said, “I think my students know what happened to me. No one—not even Ben Gimbel—gave me a hard time.”
“Silver lining,” Matthew said, and Michelle smiled.
“The other thing is that suddenly I have nothing to do in my life.” Michelle sat up straight. “When I was with