Hideo blew a plume of smoke up toward the sky and held his cigarette with two fingers.
“Apparently Thomas went away after he dropped out. Hannah doesn’t want to get rid of his stuff because last year they accidentally chucked a suitcase from a kid who transferred to Emersonand then the kid threatened to sue or something like that. If he doesn’t come back for his boxes by the beginning of the new school year, then we can dump them in the garbage bin.”
“Can’t she phone him? Ask him to drive over? He was local, from Quincy or something of the sort.”
“She didn’t talk to him, she talked with his sister. The sister hasn’t heard from him in months and doesn’t have a number, so Hannah is following the campus housing guidelines: items not picked up from storage will be disposed of after three months. The problem here is the boxes were left in the room, not placed in storage, so the clock won’t start ticking until you put them in the basement. She said your basement should have space left.”
“Space where? She’s trying to cover her bases. That way if there’s any trouble, she can blame me for it. She should have phoned me and told me all this stuff herself.”
“Classic conflict avoidance.”
“The sister really hasn’t heard from him in months?”
“Apparently not.”
“I thought he transferred. To Northeastern, wasn’t it?”
“I doubt it. If he’d transferred, Hannah would have said so.”
Hideo asked her if she wanted to stay for dinner, but Minerva needed to keep working, so she declined and promised they’dwatch a movie on the weekend. When she reached her dorm, Karnstein was waiting for her and she fed the cat.
She went for her first round at nine, taking the path that cut through Briar’s Commons, and tried to remember the last time she’d seen Thomas Murphy. It had been late in December, before the break. He’d stopped lodging complaints against his roommate, so she’d imagined that they’d either come to a truce or he’d found a way to stomach Conrad.
In fact, now that Minerva thought about it, the last time she’d seen him had been on that very same path. Thomas had bumped into her, almost making her flashlight fly through the air—at night, and especially in winter, you couldn’t do the rounds through campus without a flashlight.
She’d been alone. Although they were supposed to complete theshifts in pairs, she didn’t mind covering for a resident assistant when they were studying for a final.
Thomas had apologized and continued on his way. It had been an ordinary encounter.
Although, hadn’t he seemed rattled? And he hadn’t been wearing a jacket. That detail, which she’d forgotten, now made her pause in her steps, clutching the same flashlight and frowning.
Why had she thought he’d transferred to Northeastern? Had she seen that in any of the paperwork from the housing department? Had she heard it at a meeting? Likely she’d simply assumed he’d transferred and picked a random school in her head to fill the information gap. She hadn’t known the guy well, although she’d seen him in the tutoring center in the library, which was where the language lab was also housed.
She recalled politely nodding at him a few times late at night, when she’d spotted him on one of the green couches where some of the students caught a wink between study sessions.
They’d crossed paths quite often in November. He’d had a book under his arm every time. Her life was a hectic succession of classes and dorm duties and language tutoring. She understood what it was to have so many balls in the air and didn’t inconvenience him with idle chatter.
Then in December he hadn’t been there a single day, though it was the time of year when the tutoring center was stuffed with students desperate to pass a class and trying to cram in a few more hours of learning. All the tutors were booked solid. She was aware that Thomas worked as a teaching assistant for Christina Everett, in addition to tutoring students, so it could have been that he was busy helping prepare a course for her.
In January he had emailed the school—at least she thought he’d emailed in January—to say he was not returning. And yet he hadn’t transferred. Thomas had been a good student. From what she recalled many of his conflicts with Conrad had taken place because Thomas needed to concentrate on his studies and Conrad was noisy.
Dropped out and didn’t transfer or stay in touch with his sister. How odd.
When she stepped off the path and saw Briar Hall she recognized a car parked in front of the building: it belonged to Conrad Carter. Minerva tucked the flashlight in a pocket and went up the stairs to the third floor. She heard loud music coming from Conrad’s suite long before she reached the door. She had to knock several times before a young woman opened it and almost stumbled to the floor.
“How much is it for the pizza?” she asked. In her right hand she was clutching a beer bottle.
“Sorry, I need to speak to Conrad,” Minerva said, stepping into the suite. She immediately maneuvered toward the stereo that sat in the common area and turned it off.
“Hey!” the woman protested.
Conrad poked his head out of his room and looked at Minerva. “How’s it going?” he asked casually.
“You have about three violations in one night, Conrad,” she said. “Car parked in the wrong spot, alcohol, and a guest past eightp.m.”
He didn’t seem bothered by her enumeration. “Come on, Minerva, you’re not going to enforce that silly shit, are you? We’re all grown-ups here. We had one beer and it’s barely nine.”
“You knew the rules when you decided to stay on campus. I have to report the violations and your guest needs to leave.” She turned to the woman. “I’ll call you a cab.”
