“Oh, right,” he finally said.
“So you did receive a list yesterday in the mail?”
“Uh-huh.”
She asked him the same questions she’d asked Ethan and got essentially the same responses. He didn’t know anyone on the list. Nothing unusual had happened recently in his life. As far as he knew, he had no enemies.
“I’m also going to need access to that letter, and the envelope if you still have it,” Jessica said. “Can you be at home in about half an hour?”
“I can’t really,” Arthur said. “I’m in the middle of my shift, and—”
“It’s important.”
“Sure,” he said, knowing that between Gina and Maggie they’d be okay for the next hour or so. He didn’t live far from the hospital, and he could be back in no time.
“And one more thing,” Jessica said. “This is a long shot, I know, but do you know someone by the name of Gary Winslow?”
Arthur thought, then said, “It doesn’t ring a bell.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m forty-five.”
“Your father’s not named Arthur Kruse, or Art Kruse, as well, is he?”
“He was,” said Arthur. “Art Kruse.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is he dead?”
“Actually, no. I shouldn’t have said ‘was,’ but I haven’t seen him or spoken with him in over ten years.”
“So his name is Art.”
“It’s Arthur but he goes by Art.”
“So I don’t suppose you remember if he knew anyone by the name of Gary Winslow?”
“I’m not sure I could name a single one of my father’s friends. Didn’t you say your name was Winslow?”
“Uh-huh. Gary’s my father and I remember that he had a friend named Art Kruse, or I think I do, and somehow the name stuck with me. They were college friends, I think.”
“My father went to Princeton.”
“Okay. So they weren’t college friends,” Jessica said.
“Your father went to …？”
“He went to UVM, but I know that he knew an Art Kruse. Does your father have a lake house?”
“No, but his parents did. I’ve seen pictures. Up at Squam Lake in New Hampshire. I’m confused. What does your father and my father being friends have to do with the list?”
“I’m sorry. It is confusing. I’m an FBI agent but I also received a list in the mail, most likely the same list you received.”
“Okay. That’s why your name sounded a little bit familiar to me. So do you know what the list is about?”
“No idea. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. What we’d like to know is if there are any connections between the people who received a copy. Do you think there’s any way you can call your father and find out if he had a friend named Gary Winslow, and where they met?”
“I don’t even know how to reach him, honestly,” Arthur said. “And if I did know how to reach him, I just don’t think I’d be able to call.”
“I understand. If there’s a way for you to find out how I could get in touch with him, then maybe …？”
“Sure.”
Arthur drove back home in Richard’s Subaru, past the barren fields and rotting farmhouses of the valley. One portion of the hazy sky had taken on a dark swollen look, and he wondered if a storm was coming through. Because his name had been brought up, Arthur thought a little bit about his father, wondering what his life was like now. He occasionally got a report from his sister, Samantha, who did talk to their father, but rarely saw him. Art Kruse lived in an over-fifty-five condominium complex in West Palm Beach, Florida. Samantha said that he once claimed he had a girlfriend who lived in one of the other units, but she said it took him a little while to even come up with her name. With the possible exception of this girlfriend, it was clear to both Arthur and Samantha that their father was entirely alone. It bothered Samantha a little bit, but Arthur never thought about it.
Art had cut his son out of his life after finding out he was gay, but Arthur sometimes wondered if they would have had a relationship even if he’d never told him. His father was a hardcore Republican, a Fox News addict, priding himself on not being politically correct, which meant he got to say his racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks out loud and feel as though he was bucking a trend. When Arthur had come out to his father, two years after his parents’ divorce, Art had given him a crooked smile, then said, “You’ll probably tell me you’re getting married next. Just don’t expect me to come.” In many ways, it had made things easier, his father’s dismissal of him. When he and Richard actually did get married, Arthur mailed an invite to his father, fully expecting to hear back that he wasn’t coming. Instead, he got no response, not even a refusal, and Arthur wrote him off for good. Richard once asked him if he thought about his father, and whether their relationship might one day be saved, and Arthur had answered truthfully that he rarely, if ever, thought about him.