Facade

by Susan Cory

  She'd now need to backtrack out of the house and off the property. She slipped out the kitchen door and hugged the house's back wall until she reached the fence. She ducked down and crawled along the perimeter until she arrived at the spot shielded by the neighbor's garage. She found the opening where she'd pried off the planks and squeezed through. She was just rising to her feet when a bright light blinded her. When her vision cleared, she could make out two dark forms standing in front of her and recognized the unmistakeable shrill voice of Budge Buchanon.

  “Iris Reid? Is that you? What are YOU doing sneaking out of Xander DeWitt's back yard?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Iris was squeezed into the front seat of Budge's compressed Fiat 500. She twisted sideways to face him. He had slipped her past the other reporters before they could register that she was one of the prey, not a fellow predator. What did he intend to do with that photo?

  The Globe cameraman sat in the tiny back seat, his knees up to his chin, chain smoking out the partially opened window. Iris fanned away the secondary smoke.

  Budge had moved the car around the corner to Wendell Street so they could talk in private, but now sat focused on his blackberry, thumbing in stacatto questions and reading the responses. After a few minutes he looked up. “So, you've been teaching this semester at GSD, alongside our mystery professor. You've come a long way, Iris, since our days at the Big D.”

  “You too, Budge.” Iris eyed him cooly. “Down into the depths of tabloid journalism.”

  “I'm Bobby now. Have you been following my story—on the front page? Looks like your friend has become a 'person of interest' to the cops. Why would a professor visiting from Europe have any connection to a twelve-year-old schoolgirl from some Bay State city? I know they have more liberal views on sexual mores in some of those countries. So, since you're obviously a close bud...”

  “Professor DeWitt is a colleague. We had professional things to discuss this morning.” Iris sat up tall, which wasn't easy to do in the dinky confines of a Fiat. It felt like the thing might tip over sideways. “I was trying to avoid the paparazzi phalanx you harpies created around the poor guy's house. I'm sure Professor DeWitt has had nothing to do with the missing girl. I don't know where you get your information, but I'd guess you'll be hearing from his lawyer about your article's, um, insinuations. Gee, you'd think you wrote for the Herald with that kind of mudslinging.”

  “We journalists just state the facts. For example, the fact that you were caught crawling through this guy's fence this morning—caught on film I might add—could well interest our readers.”

  Iris blanched. She could picture Luc's reaction. And what would her students think?

  “Budge, if that photo ever shows up in print, my brother, the lawyer, will sue you personally, along with the paper, for libel. And I will hunt you down and string you up by your wretched little balls.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Whoa, Nellie—there's nothing libelous about printing a photo and telling people where it was taken. Our esteemed readers are free to draw their own conclusions.”

  Iris took a deep breath and counted to ten. Maybe she'd better try a more conciliatory approach. “Okay Budge. What do you want?”

  “How about an exclusive interview with the professor? You get me that and we'll forget about your morning escapade.”

  Fuming, Iris grabbed her purse and slammed the car door behind her.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Iris marched back to her house, grabbed her gym bag and headed to her karate dojo a few blocks away on Mass Ave. She needed to punch something. Hard.

  After wrapping on her gi and belt in the locker room, she entered the studio, bowing quickly at the portrait of Master Kanbun Uechi before sliding to her knees in the second row of brown belts just as her instructor, Sensei Ono, entered the room and kneeled, facing them. Iris had resumed attending karate classes after a fight for her life at her GSD reunion the previous summer. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed the sense of strength it gave her.

  They went through a series of stretches, conditioning drills, and katas, using movements of various sacred animals, before pairing off to practice their kicks. A beefy M.I.T. grad student she recognized from the occasional after-class bar crawl looped a cushion through his arm and braced himself to block her kicks as Sensei Ono began to shout out random heights for the students to strike.

  “High.”

  She pictured Budge's face and she gave it a powerful roundhouse kick.

  “Low.”

  She drilled into Budge's ankle with the side of her foot.

  “Mid.”

  She grunted and nailed Budge's groin with the side of her heel.

  “What did the guy do to make you so mad today?” her partner joked.

  Iris tried to rein in her feelings and focus on her form before Sensei Ono wandered by to murmer some gentle restraining cautions. He'd often reminded them that this branch of karate was about self-defense, not attack.

  They spent the rest of the class on Iris' favorite activity—sparring. She was again partnered with Mr. M.I.T. and was thrilled to be evenly matched in blocking kicks and delivering punches, despite his greater height and weight. Her signature move was a leg sweep, where she would get her opponent off balance by hooking his ankle, then yank him forward with one hand into a punch in the nose or chin by her other hand's palm. It required a great deal of control to stop the punches short of contact. Even with the padded head protectors and padded gloves, you could still injure your sparring partner if you couldn't pull your punch back in time. After half an hour, Iris was breathing hard and her skin glistened. By the time she tossed her red pads and gloves into their separate bins, she knew where she needed to go.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Luc started most mornings at an ungodly hour—not even morning by Iris' definition. Meats were delivered from private farms two afternoons a week, but he needed an early start at his purveyors every morning except Sunday to gather the pick of the crops and the freshest seafood. After unloading his morning haul into the cold room next to the Paradise Café's kitchen, he would plan that day's dinner menu while sipping the first of several espressos at the Café's mahogany counter. Iris had fallen in with him the previous Spring when her own breakfast ritual at the Café had happened to intersect with his.

  Despite Luc's prodigious caffeine consumption, he usually finished his mornings back in bed. So, that Saturday around noon, after her karate class and a quick shower in the dojo dressing room, Iris headed for his condo.

  It hadn't really been a lie—not telling Luc about her dinner and lunches with Xander. It had been an error of omission. Or was it called a lie of omission? It wasn't as if anything had happened romantically.

  She used her key so as not to wake him and, as expected, found him asleep in the bedroom. He was tangled in his sheets, breathing softly, with cheeks slightly pink, and his blond hair splayed across the pillow. His mouth was slightly open and she could see the crooked eye tooth she found so sexy. His eyes opened and he smiled up at her. “Take off your clothes. Come join me.”

  An hour later, Iris rummaged through leftovers in Luc's refrigerator for whatever might be interesting to throw into a frittata.

  “Is this salmon still good?” She sniffed under the plastic wrap.

  Hearing no response, she looked over at the table by the window to see Luc intently reading the Globe.

  He didn't look up as he asked “Have you read about this lost girl, Lara? It mentions a GSD professor who might be involved—Xander DeWitt. Didn't you tell me you knew him?”

  Here was her opening to come clean. “He's the visiting architect from Amsterdam I told you about. I read that article this morning but I can't imagine he'd be involved.”

  “How well do you know the guy?”

  “He's a colleague. We've talked a bit. Everyone was pretty curious about him because of his reputation. There's talk he may win the next Pritzker Prize.” She wasn't explaining this well.
<
br />   Luc looked up at her. “Sounds like you admire the guy.”

  “Well, he is an amazing architect. It would be like you working alongside Ferran Adrià or René Redzepi.”

  “He's that kind of superstar?”

  “He's up there. The guy's a real inspiration. When he's not designing beautiful buildings, he's writing poetry, or listening to music. God knows, he probably composes it, too. He makes me feel like an undisciplined slacker.”

  “Maybe he has a dark side. The police must think he knows something about the disappearance of this girl or they wouldn't be hauling him in for questioning. What would her connection be to him, unless she's a relative or something?”

  “The girl stopped by his office looking for him when he wasn't there. Xander said he's never met her. He has no idea why she wanted to see him.” Iris hadn't noticed that she'd slipped into dangerous territory until she saw Luc's cloudy expression.

  “You've discussed this with him? When? The article only came out this morning.”

  Damn, she was not defusing the situation. “I saw him this morning,” she admitted.

  Luc looked confused. “But it's Saturday. Did you go in to GSD this morning?” Then his expression turned to shock. “Wait—did you spend the night with this guy?”

  “No—of course not. I just talked with him this morning as a friend. We'd had one dinner together...” Iris trailed off as she saw the hurt look on Luc's face.

  “You're getting the wrong idea,” she said. “It was a meal with a colleague—nothing more. I was curious about his work. Then I saw him briefly this morning.” Her words sounded desperate, even to herself.

  Luc sat rigidly, staring at the newspaper. After a minute he got up. “I need some air.”

  He walked out.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Iris went home and collapsed at her kitchen table, her head in her hands. She felt sick.

  If Luc was upset over the dinner she'd had with Xander, how would he feel tomorrow, seeing a photo in the newspaper of her furtive exit from Xander's house? It would look like she really had spent the night with him. She groaned and Sheba, startled, looked up from her favorite sleeping spot inside the kitchen fireplace.

  Iris speed-dialed Ellie for advice, then pressed “end” before the call went through. It was time for Iris to sort out her own problems.

  “I'll give Luc some space,” she said to Sheba, “then go by the restaurant later to grovel. I need to prepare him before that photo shows up tomorrow.”

  The dog blinked up at Iris with liquid eyes.

  “You're right, girl. First I'll behave like a responsible professor and check on my AWOL student.”

  * * *

  Iris ended up getting Jasna's address from the on-line student records. She navigated her Jeep through the streets of Cambridge, too accustomed to the pot-holes and patched pavement to give in to her natural urge to check for a flat tire. A few blocks from Fresh Pond Parkway she pulled up to a brick apartment building with peeling paint trim.

  She was about to press the “Unit 3: Jasna Sidran” button above the mailboxes, when a harried young mother holding a mewling toddler bustled out through the inner door. Iris stuck her foot in the door before it closed. She figured Unit 3 to be on the second floor of a building this small. She couldn't help noticing a structural problem as she climbed a staircase which pitched downward from the outer wall.

  The strong smell of curry filled the hallway. As Iris approached the door of Unit 3, she could hear someone's conversation in rapid French passing through into the hall.

  “Where did you leave it?” said a voice that sounded like Jasna's. Iris hadn't thought of her as French.

  Iris rapped on the door. The voice went silent but no one answered. She knocked louder. “Jasna, it's Iris. I wanted to make sure you're okay.”

  After a moment, the door opened a crack. A sliver of Jasna's face appeared. The sockets under her eyes looked hollowed-out. Her skin was sallow.

  “We've missed you in class these last few days,” Iris said. “I wanted to make sure you weren't sick.”

  Jasna started coughing and backed away an inch or two. “I have the flu but I am getting better,” she said a bit stiffly.

  “Do you need anything? Some soup or juice?” Iris could now see enough of her student to notice some lines of blood on Jasna's bare outer thigh, below the girl's huge, paint-splattered t-shirt.

  “It looks like you're hurt. Do you need me to drive you to Harvard Health?”

  “No. I'm fine.”

  “But... ” Iris tried to nudge the door open further with her foot.

  “I will be in class Monday. Thank you for coming. I need to sleep now.” Jasna pushed the door closed.

  Iris trudged back to her car. Was the blood on her thighs from Jasna cutting herself? How could she get her troubled student to accept help?

  She couldn't seem to do anything right today. She couldn't get Jasna to trust her, she had managed to hurt her lover's feelings, and now, to top it off, an embarassing photo of her would be in tomorrow's paper. She should've stayed in bed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Luc wouldn't return her calls to his condo, the café, or his cell. When Iris had broken down and called Ellie, her friend had assured her that Luc would relent. But when Iris told her about the kicker, that morning's visit to Xander, captured on film and set to be plastered in the Globe, even Ellie couldn't offer much optimism.

  But at six that evening Ellie called back. “Iris, turn on the news. Channel 4. There's going to be an announcement about Xander's connection to the missing girl. It was on the banner that scrolls along the bottom of the TV.”

  Iris ran to her living room and fumbled with the remote. An overly-loud Bernie and Phil furniture commercial, usually producing a reflex jab to the mute button, was just ending. Then Xander appeared on the screen in an elegantly tailored suit. He closed his front door, then tried to make his way past a dozen reporters shouting questions and thrusting microphones toward him. Iris thought she could spot Budge's emerging bald spot among the heads.

  At the top of the porch stairs Xander stopped, in a seemingly impromptu move, and said “I would like to clear something up. There's been speculation about a connection between me and the missing girl, Lara Kurjak. I do not know Lara, but was told she might have tried to come to my office last week. I've been searching my memory to try to find a reason for her visit and the only possible link I can come up with might stem from my days of military service in the Dutch division of the UN Peacekeeping Troops. I was stationed in Bosnia in 1994 through 1995. I was romantically involved with a Bosnian woman during my time there and since the dates seem to align, I can only speculate that this girl might be a product of that romance. I returned to Bosnia after the war to re-unite with this woman but, by that time, she had left her village and I couldn't find her. I was never told that there might have been a child. I want to repeat that I don't know if this was what happened, but it's the only scenario I can think of that might explain her coming to see me.”

  At this point Xander's dazzling blue eyes had turned misty and he looked off into space. The reporters seemed spellbound. Xander had taken on the air of a romantic hero, perhaps the lead from “Miss Saigon.”

  Xander snapped out of his trance and continued. “I would like the focus to be on finding Lara. That's all that matters now.” Then he bustled down the steps and disappeared into a waiting taxi. The frenzied pack of reporters shouted unanswered questions at the departing vehicle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  After Xander's media “confession,” Lara mania went into high gear throughout the Commonwealth. The idea of the lost girl being on the verge of finding her photogenic birth father seemed irresistible.

  Iris was relieved to find no humiliating photo of herself in the Sunday paper. Not even a little one buried in the Metro section. Instead, the insufferable Budge had featured on the front page a noble-looking photo of Xander next to one of the troll-like Ivano Kurjak. The hea
dline read Who is Lara's Real Father?

  Budge had interviewed Mr. Kurjak directly after the Saturday “bombshell,” and the man had been apoplectic in his denials about any part Xander might have played in Lara's parentage after an affair with his wife. “The disrespect this man shows me!” he was quoted as shouting. “How dare he?”

  Ever the conscientious reporter, Budge had done follow-up interviews with “persons on the street” reacting to Xander's speculations.

  “Lara looks a lot more like that cute architect than the other guy. The cops need to find her so they can, you know, be a family,” said Tiffany from Quincy.

  “I think it's tragic. Poor kid gets nabbed from her own apartment. I hate that,” said Ritchie from South Boston. “Oh, yeah. The Harvard guy. He needs to man up—get out there and find his kid.”

  “I pray for Lara. I'm sure the police are doing their best to bring her home to whichever man turns out to be her father. Poor thing doesn't have a mother,” said Mrs. Edward Stritch from Scituate.

  That last was the most noncommittal of the reactions that Budge offered up.

  Iris took a bowl of oatmeal out of the microwave and put it in the freezer to cool.

  “Sheba, Xander bumped us off the front page. Bless the man!”

  Sheba, from her resting place inside the kitchen fireplace, raised her head at mention of her name, then sensing a rhetorical comment with no pathway to treats, lowered it again.

  The memory of the photo Budge was holding over her head brought a pang of guilt as Iris remembered how hurt Luc had looked. Even though she'd confessed to Luc that she'd spoken with Xander the previous morning, he still didn't need to see a photo of her sneaking out from under the guy's fence looking guilty-as-sin of something. She checked her watch. Nine in the morning was too early to wake him after his typical frantic Saturday night of cooking at the café. This was the only morning he had to sleep in, a Sunday with no trip to the food market, no suppliers to call.