I was kind of stunned by the idea. Specifically: the notion—it should have been obvious—that Dorian’s harassment wasn’t about me. It had nothing to do with who I was or what I looked like; I was just a convenient prop, someone who wouldn’t bite back. It should not have taken me this long to realize. It should not have taken Geoff pointing it out.
Behind Geoff, someone in a puffy red parka had walked to the gazebo and now circled it slowly, holding an iPad in front of his face. As far as I could tell it wasn’t Hector or anyone else from the defense team. Not that it mattered—Geoff wasn’t a witness—but it might look odd that I was playing out some awkward Romeo-and-Juliet scenario in back of the inn.
I said, “You want to come in? Over the railing?”
He shook his head. “Believe it or not, I still have two conference calls tonight. But let’s do breakfast. And then—I dug up the stuff I promised your students. Well, your former—”
“Stuff?”
“They’d been bugging me for photos, but it was all in my mom’s house. Old concert programs, whatever. I used to save things. I’m allowed to see them, right? Your students?”
“You can do whatever you want. You can talk to them, but only individually, because Britt’s a witness and Alder’s recording for the podcast, so he’s press. And you can talk to me. But none of us can talk to each other.”
“This puts me in an interesting position of power,” he said, and grinned. “How shall I abuse it?”
I put one pointer finger on his forehead and said, “Should I push you? Noted economist plummets to untimely end.”
He reeled his head back, fake-flailed with one arm, then angled toward the lawn and jumped, landing hard enough that I worried he had hurt himself. The man in the red parka turned to see what happened, hustled a few steps closer and into the lights of the hotel. But Geoff was fine. Geoff was already bounding off, calling that he’d see me at breakfast.
Then I saw: The man in the red parka was Dane Rubra. He looked up at me curiously. He was taller than I’d imagined, his stringy hair hidden under a gray winter cap.
The moment he recognized me back was a clear jolt; he went from looking up to staring up, stunned.
He did nothing, said nothing—just stood, six yards away, and for a moment we were two figures in a geometry problem. The dead girl’s onetime roommate is ten feet up on a balcony. Her YouTube avenger is eighteen feet from the inn and a little downhill. Solve for the line of their awkwardly locked eyes.
To put him out of his misery, I said, “You’re Dane.” I beckoned him closer.
He started to hold his iPad up in its thick green protective case as if to film me, then thought better, lowered it. This was a man who, in recent videos, had grudgingly thanked me for my work, but had also taken every opportunity to point out where he thought I or Alder and Britt had erred.
He said, “So we meet.” As if I’d been waiting for him. As if he and I were the two main characters in this drama. He was right below me now, nostrils flaring the way they flared on-screen when he thought he was onto some new lead, or when he talked with palpable hate about Robbie.
“I figured you’d be lurking,” I said, not unaware of my word choice. “You finding good stuff?”
“Sure. Maybe. Hey, you’re testifying about the dots, right? What are you planning to say?”
“You know I can’t answer that. Plus, I think you’re recording.”
He looked bewildered, then glanced at the iPad, still gripped in front of his crotch. He said, “No, I—” and flung the device across the frozen lawn like a Frisbee. It landed against one of the icebergs of old, brown snow.
“I’m still not telling you,” I said.
Seeing the iPad lie there, I realized I had an unprecedented opportunity—speaking to Dane in person with no email trail, no recording phone. There were other ways, besides the witness stand, to get information into the world. There were other ways to blast out your name, in time for some relevant person to hear it and come forward. And whatever I told Dane could make it online by tomorrow.
I sat down cross-legged, so my face was closer to his. I said, “Can I give you some advice, though?” He seemed to brace for something, like I was going to tell him to get a life. I added, “A lead.”
“Be my guest.”
I said, “I was never the biggest Robbie Serenho fan. He was that guy we all knew in high school, the big shot. And he wasn’t a great boyfriend to Thalia. But that doesn’t mean he did anything. You’re missing the obvious.”
Dane laughed awkwardly. I could tell he wanted to defend himself against such an accusation, but didn’t want to blow his chance of hearing what I had to say. He said, “I’m listening.”
“I hinted about it on the podcast, but the lawyers wouldn’t let me say the name. Dennis Bloch, the music director. He was definitely having sex with her. You have a guy whose marriage is on the line, whose job is on the line. Thalia’s about to graduate, maybe he can’t handle that. There’s something off about him to begin with, right? Not so much in being attracted to her”—I added because Dane was, himself, clearly a man in his forties with a thing for an adolescent Thalia—“but to manipulate her like that, take advantage of her, break every rule. He ruined her life. Chances are he took it, too.”
It was a melodramatic speech, to be sure. But I knew by then the way Dane talked, the way he thought.
I said, “The worst part is, he’s still teaching. He’s spent the past twenty-seven years out there, moving on to other kids.”
Dane cleared his throat. “I think,” he said, “that speaks more to the kind of cover-up Granby is okay with than to that particular individual. I’ve looked into Dennis Bloch, don’t think I haven’t. The school has covered up dozens of guys like him over the years. They give a letter of recommendation and send them on. I’m sure he was a creep, but this crime was juvenile. It’s a fit of rage, it’s sloppy. Put her in a bathing suit and maybe they’ll believe she drowned. That’s not a grown man thinking.”
I said, “Most killers aren’t Agatha Christie villains.”
“Well,” he said, and he turned in the direction of his iPad, “I thank you for your input.”
I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose this chance. “There was a phone in the gym lobby,” I said. I didn’t even know where I was going with this; I just needed to keep talking. “You could pick it up and hear whatever someone was saying on the pay phone in Barton, one of the boys’ dorms. No one will believe this, which is why I haven’t told anyone. Not even the lawyers.” I felt myself about to lie, felt myself stepping over a line. But it was in service of a greater truth. And if I wanted Dane to latch on to it, I needed to give him something he’d never heard, something he felt was exclusive. “I overheard all kinds of things. It was also the dorm where Mr. Bloch had evening duty once a week. And—listen, I probably shouldn’t tell you this. But I still think about it. It was threatening.”
“He threatened her?”
“He was saying, You have to say yes, you have to say yes. It was a week before she died. He was like, You can’t do this to me.” If I’d had time, I could have thought up better dialogue. “The thing is,” I said, “the threat was in his tone, not his words. It was subtext. It’s not something I could testify about. He didn’t say, If you don’t do it I’ll kill you. But it was—you know that voice alpha males get, just telling the world what to do?”