Second Chance (3 page)

"When's the last time you saw Kirsten, Marnee?"

"Thursday morning. She was packing the car,
getting ready to leave. I had a conference to go to. When I got back
that afternoon, the car was gone. I assumed she went to the airport."

"What kind of car does she drive?"

"A yellow VW Bug. I don't know what year it is,
but it's pretty beat up."

"Did Kirsten plan to see anyone before leaving
for home?"

"She might have mentioned stopping at a
friend's."

"What friend?"

The girl balked. "Look, I don't know what to
say. I don't want anything bad to happen to Kirsty. But I don't want
to feed her dad's obsessions, either. If you knew what he's done to
her, what he's put her through . . ."

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

Marnee Thompson bit her lower lip so hard it turned
white. She'd started to look younger, less cocksure of herself. More
like a nineteen-year-old girl who was worried about a friend and
didn't know what to do about it.

I smiled reassuringly. "I just want to find
Kirsty, Marnee. If she's okay, I go home and make my report to her
dad."

"And if she isn't okay?"

"
Then we can talk about what to do—you and me
and Kirsten."

"You're not going to . . . de-program her or
something?"

I laughed. "Somebody'd have to re-program me,
first."

The girl half smiled. I had the feeling that that was
all she ever permitted herself—ha1f a smile—like it was a kind of
dieting.

"We could get some coffee, maybe," Marnee
Thompson allowed.

"Okay," I told
her.

* * *

The coffee shop was on 54th Street and Lake, a little
storefront with an icy awning over its window. It was a student
hangout, warm, trendy, and virtually empty on a Sunday night. We sat
at a wooden table with a big bowl of unshelled peanuts in its center.
The hardwood floors were covered with peanut shells that crackled
underfoot. Peanuts seemed to be the theme.

I said, "I wouldn't want the job of sweeping up
in here."

Marnee Thompson gave me her Weight Watchers grin.

"
They don't sweep up. They harvest."

I laughed. "Are you from Chicago?"

She shook her head, no. "Cleveland, Ohio. I came
here because I didn't want to go east."

The way she said it, "east" sounded like
the place where the rich snobs congregated.

"Chicago's a serious school", she said,
unbuttoning her topcoat. "And, believe me, I'm serious about my
education."

I believed her.

"What's your major?"

"English Lit," she said. She stored her
mittens carefully in the pockets of her coat. "Kirsty's an
English major, too, but she's a writer not a scholar."

"What does she write?"

"Poetry. Several of her pieces have been
published in small magazines. TriQuarterly. Antioch Review. Last
spring, one of her poems was almost accepted by The New Yorker.
Kirsty's very ta1ented—the most talented person know."

I was surprised and impressed by Kirsten Pearson's
achievements. I was also impressed by the pleasure that Marnee
Thompson took in her friend's success. In my day students weren't
quite so gracious about each other's accomplishments.

"
The manuscript I found in Kirsten's room,"
I said, poetry?"

Marnee shook her head, no. "Kirsty's been
working on a novel. She completed the first draft right before the
break. I haven't seen it yet."

"Someone must have read it. It had a message
written on it in big letters."

"That's from Dr. Heldman," the girl said.
"He's Kirsty's adviser."

"Maybe I should talk to him?"

"It couldn't hurt. He lives in Hyde Park. His
address is in Kirsty's book."

Marnee Thompson toyed with the bowl of peanuts, while
I sipped coffee.

"If I talk to you about her," she said,
without looking up, "it's because I'm worried. I don't want to
do Phil any favors. And I don't want to get Kirsty in trouble. But I
am worried."

Marnee Thompson cracked open a peanut between her
thumb and forefinger. "I think she started to see Jay again a
few weeks ago."

"Is Jay the friend she said she was going to
visit before leaving on Thursday?"

Marnee nodded. "He's the one who caused all the
trouble last year. Jay Stein. He's an adjunct instructor in the
department. He and Kirsty . . . they had an affair last spring."

She dropped the cracked peanut shell back in the bowl
and looked up at me nervously.

"Nobody's supposed to know that. I don't even
think Phil knows it. If he did, he'd probably kill the son of a
bitch."

"This guy, Stein, teaches at the university?"

"Creative writing," Marnee said with a
forced laugh.

"He's just a thirty-year-old swinging dick—one
of those perpetual grad fellows who hang out in English departments
instead of singles' bars. If Kirsty hadn't been so damn naive, it
wouldn't have happened. Jay hits on everybody in the world, but
Kirsty didn't understand that. She thought he was someone special,
and he took advantage of her. Christ, she didn't know anything about
sex."

She knew now, judging from what I'd found in her
bureau drawer.

"
What happened this spring?" I asked.

"What always happens with a guy like Jay,"
Marnee said sarcastically. "She got attached to him and he
dropped her. He stopped seeing her. He wouldn't take her calls.
Kirsty was so emotionally vulnerable anyway . . . Jay just pushed her
over the edge."

"She had a breakdown?"

"That's what Phil called it. She did get pretty
violent for a while, but I think she would have been all right if
he'd given her a chance to recover on her own. She was under
medication and seeing a therapist at the university clinic. But that
wasn't good enough for Phil. He came storming up here like God
Almighty and just . . . took her away. She didn't have a choice. He
just did it to her."

Marnee Thompson gave me an incredulous, accusatory
look, as if that was what men always did to women.

"If she was suicidal . ."

"You don't understand," Marnee said
angrily. "It goes way beyond paternalism with him or concern for
her health. It's sick the way he spies on her and interrogates her
and runs her life. He acts like he owns her sou1."

Some kid at a nearby table laughed loudly, and Marnee
scowled at him as if she thought he was laughing at her.

"Drink some coffee," I said to the girl.

"Don't patronize me!" she snapped.

"Don't drink, then," I said. "You're a
hard person to be nice to, Marnee."

"I don't want to be made nice to. Christ, you're
just doing a job." She dropped her head. "And I'm helping."

"You're helping Kirsty."

"I hope so," she whispered.

4
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Marnee Thompson didn't have anything more to say to
me at the restaurant. She was feeling guilty, and she wasn't trying
to disguise it. But then she loved Kirsten and despised Papa Phil.
Her hatred of the man was so intense that it made me wonder if she'd
told the whole truth about the past summer. It was possible that
Marnee had taken it upon herself to phone Phil Pearson when Kirsten
became distraught over her failed love affair. It would have been the
natural thing to do under the circumstances. If so, she'd unwittingly
put her friend in a mental ward—and that would have made anyone
vengeful. Her anger toward Pearson had that kind of feel to it—the
feel of betrayal. It occurred to me that, even if I was only half
right, Marnee Thompson had to be more worried about Kirsty than she'd
let on or she wouldn't have said anything at all. I didn't force the
issue. As it was, she'd given me enough to get started. More than
enough.

So we finished our coffee in silence, then walked in
silence through the bitter cold to the apartment house. Upstairs, I
found Kirsten's address book and looked up Jay Stein and Professor
Heldman. Stein lived at 8550 Kenwood, apartment 917. Arthur Heldman
lived on 56th and Blackstone.

While I was waiting for a cab, I thumbed through the
postcards I'd found in Kirsty's desk. There were no messages on any
of them—just the name Ethan. Marnee Thompson watched me from the
living room chair.

"They're from her brother," she said,
breaking the long silence between us.

"He seems to travel around a good deal."

"I think that's all he does. He's sort of a
Gypsy. Kirsty's the only person in the family he talks to. In fact he
called the other night to talk. Kirsty says he's got a terrible
grudge against Phil."

"How come?"

"I don't know. Maybe Phil put him in a mental
ward, too.."

"It's an odd family," I said, putting the
stack of cards back down on the desk.

"lt's a tragic family," she said solemnly.

"Fathers get panicky and do stupid things,
Marnee. It happens."

"
That's not what I meant. " She shook her
head, instead of completing the thought.

A car honked outside, making the girl jump.

"That's the cab," I said.

As I put on my coat and hat, Marnee stood up and came
over to me.

"I haven't been much help, have I?" she
said, biting her lip.

"Enough."

"If she isn't with Jay . . ."

"I'll find her,
Marnee."

* * *

It was past six when the cab dropped me in front of
Jay Stein's apartment building on Kenwood. It was a modern high rise
set on pylons sunk into a concrete plaza. The ground floor was all
glassed-in lobby, with a bank of brass mailboxes and elevators in its
center. A border of potted ferns and chrome—and plastic benches ran
around the edges like selvage.

The outer door was unlocked, but the inner door
leading to the lobby had an intercom system. I found Stein's name and
pressed the button. Through the plate-glass window I could see the
cab heading down the icy block. If Stein wasn't home I was in for a
long walk back to Kirsty's apartment.

But I was lucky because Jay Stein buzzed me through.
He must have been expecting someone because he didn't bother to ask
who I was. If l was really lucky, he might have been expecting
Kirsten Pearson.

I asked myself what I was going to do if the girl was
there—or showed up—and decided to see how she reacted to me
before doing anything. I had no legal right to interfere in her life,
although, after what Marnee told me, I knew that I wasn't going to
like Stein.

A tall, spindly man with a drooping moustache and
lank brown hair was waiting for me in the ninth-floor hall, just
outside the elevator door. His face was pale and horsey, with a
sad-eyed look of suffering to it that might have impressed the young
girls. He wasn't that old himself. Maybe twenty-eight or -nine. He
was dressed even younger than that in torn jeans, cowboy boots, and a
faded lumberjack shirt.

"Are you Jay Stein?" I asked.

"Why don't you tell me who you are first?"
the man said nervously. He'd been smiling when the elevator door
opened, but the smile went away as soon as he saw me.

"My name is Stoner. I work for Phil Pearson,
Kirsten Pearson's father."

The man's right hand shot to his shirt pocket as if
he'd felt a chest pain. He pulled out a pack of Winstons and shook a
cigarette into his palm. His hand was trembling so much that three
extra cigarettes fell onto the floor. Making a disgusted face, he
reached down and scooped them up.

"I don't think I want to talk to you," he
said, stowing the extra cigarettes back in the box.

"You're Jay Stein, aren't you?"

The man lit a cigarette and took a puff.

"C'mon, Jay. You don't have to think about
that."

"I'm Professor Stein," he said indignantly.
"And I've got nothing to say to you—or Phil Pearson. Now get
out of here before I call security."

"And what are you going to tell security? That
you're screwing one of your students?"

The man's eyes got very large. "That's an
outrageous lie!"

There was an open door down the hallway on the
left—probably the door to his apartment. Stein started to move in
that direction, and I stepped in front of him.

"This is ridiculous," he said, backing up.
"I don't know where you're getting your information, but there
is nothing between Kirsty Pearson and me. " He tapped the
cigarette, scattering ashes down his shirt and onto the floor. "We're
friends. No more than that."

"You haven't seen your ‘friend' in the last
couple of days, have you?"

He shook his head, no.