boiled water—no more and no less. He set the timer, showed me where the cups were, and then stumped into the living room. I heard his sigh of relief when he sat down in his favorite chair. Also a fart. Not a trumpet blast, more of an oboe.
I made two cups of tea and put them on a tray along with the sugar bowl and the Half and Half from the icebox (which neither of us used, probably a good thing since it was a month past its sell-by date). Professor Burkett took his black and smacked his lips over the first sip. “Kudos, Jamie. Perfect on your first try.”
“Thanks.” I sugared mine up liberally. My mom would have screamed at that third heaping spoonful, but Professor Burkett never said boo.
“Now tell me your tale. I’ve nothing but time.”
“Do you believe me? About the rings?”
“Well,” he said, “I believe that you believe. And I know that the rings were found; they’re in my bank safety deposit box. Tell me, Jamie, if I asked your mother, would she corroborate your story?”
“Yes, but please don’t do that. I decided to talk to you because I don’t want to talk to her. It would upset her.”
He sipped his tea with a hand that shook slightly, then put it down and looked at me. Or maybe even into me. I can still see those bright blue eyes peering out from beneath his shaggy every-whichway brows. “Then talk to me. Convince me.”
Having rehearsed my story on my crosstown walk, I was able to keep it in a pretty straight line. I started with Robert Harrison—you know, the Central Park man—and moved on to seeing Mrs. Burkett, then all the rest. It took quite awhile. When I finished, my tea was down to just lukewarm (maybe even a little less), but I drank a bunch of it anyway, because my throat was dry.
Professor Burkett considered, then said, “Will you go into my bedroom, Jamie, and bring me my iPad? It’s on the night table.”
His bedroom smelled sort of like Uncle Harry’s room in the care home, plus some sharp aroma that I guessed was liniment for his strained hip. I got his iPad and brought it back. He didn’t have an iPhone, just the landline telefungus that hung on the kitchen wall like something in an old movie, but he loved his pad. He opened it when I gave it to him (the start-up screen was a picture of a young couple in wedding outfits that I assumed was him and Mrs. Burkett) and started poking away at once.
“Are you looking up Therriault?”
He shook his head without looking up. “Your Central Park man. You say you were in preschool when you saw him?”
“Yes.”
“So this would have been 2003…possibly 2004…ah, here it is.” He read, bent over the pad and occasionally brushing his hair out of his eyes (he had a lot of it). At last he looked up and said, “You saw him lying there dead and also standing beside himself. Your mother would also confirm that?”
“She knew I wasn’t lying because I knew what the guy was wearing on top, even though that part of him was covered up. But I really don’t want—”
“Understood, totally understood. Now concerning Regis Thomas’s last book. It was unwritten—”
“Yeah, except for the first couple of chapters. I think.”
“But your mother was able to glean enough details to write the rest of it herself, using you as her medium?”
I hadn’t thought of myself as a medium, but in a way he was right. “I guess. Like in The Conjuring.” And off his puzzled expression: “It’s a movie. Mr. Burkett…Professor…do you think I’m crazy?” I almost didn’t care, because the relief of getting it all out there was so great.
“No,” he said, but something—probably my expression of relief—caused him to raise a warning finger. “This is not to say I believe your story, at least not without corroboration from your mother, which I have agreed not to ask for. But I will go this far: I don’t necessarily disbelieve. Mostly because of the rings, but also because that last Thomas book does indeed exist. Not that I’ve read it.” He made a little face at that. “You say your mother’s friend—ex-friend—could also corroborate the last and most colorful part of your story.”
“Yes, but—”
He raised his hand, like he must have done a thousand times to babbling students in class. “You don’t want me to speak to her, either, and I quite