At first I didn’t answer. I felt like I’d just been hit on the head with a hammer. Some ideas are like that. Also, I felt like a total dumbo. Why had I never thought of Mr. Burkett before?

“Jamie? Earth to Jamie.”

“Sure,” I said. “Happy to do it.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “Funny as a rubber crutch.”

She grabbed her purse. “I’ll give you cab fare—”

“Nah, just put the casserole thing in a carry-bag. I’ll walk.”

“Really?” she said again, looking surprised. “All the way to Park?”

“Sure. I can use the exercise.” Not strictly true. What I needed was time to be sure my idea was a good idea, and how to tell my story if it was.

36

At this point I’m going to start calling Mr. Burkett Professor Burkett, because he taught me that day. He taught me a lot. But before the teaching, he listened. I’ve already said I knew I had to talk to somebody, but I didn’t know what a relief it would be to unburden myself until I actually did it.

He came to the door hobbling on not just one cane, which I’d seen him use before, but two. His face lit up when he saw me, so I guess he was glad to get company. Kids are pretty self-involved (as I’m sure you know if you’ve ever been one yourself, ha-ha), and I only realized later that he must have been a lonely, lonely man in the years after Mona died. He had that daughter on the west coast, but if she came to visit, I never saw her; see statement above about kids and self-involvement.

“Jamie! You come bearing gifts!”

“Just a casserole,” I said. “I think it’s a Swedish pie.”

“You may mean shepherd’s pie. I’m sure it’s delicious. Would you be kind enough to put it in the icebox for me? I’ve got these…” He lifted the canes off the floor and for one scary moment I thought he was going to face-plant right in front of me, but he got them braced again in time.

“Sure,” I said, and went into the kitchen. I got a kick out of how he called the fridge the icebox and cars autos. He was totally old school. Oh, and he also called the telephone the telefungus. I liked that one so much I started using it myself. Still do.

Getting Mom’s casserole into the icebox was no problem, because he had almost nothing in there. He stumped in after me and asked how I was doing. I shut the icebox door, turned to him, and said, “Not so well.”

He raised his shaggy eyebrows. “No? What’s the problem?”

“It’s a pretty long story,” I said, “and you’ll probably think I’m crazy, but I have to tell somebody, and I guess you’re elected.”

“Is it about Mona’s rings?”

My mouth dropped open.

Professor Burkett smiled. “I never quite believed that your mother just happened to find them in the closet. Too fortuitous. Far too fortuitous. It crossed my mind to think she put them there herself, but every human action is predicated on motive and opportunity, and your mother had neither. Also, I was too upset to really think about it that afternoon.”

“Because you’d just lost your wife.”

“Indeed.” He raised one cane enough to touch the heel of his palm to his chest, where his heart was. That made me feel bad for him. “So what happened, Jamie? I suppose it’s all water under the bridge at this point, but as a lifetime reader of detective stories, I like to know the answers to such questions.”

“Your wife told me,” I said.

He stared at me across the kitchen.

“I see the dead,” I said.

He didn’t reply for so long I got scared. Then he said, “I think I need something with caffeine. I think we both do. Then you can tell me everything that’s on your mind. I long to hear it.”

37

Professor Burkett was so old school that he didn’t have tea bags, just loose tea in a cannister. While I waited for his hot pot to boil, he showed me where to find what he called a “tea ball” and instructed me on how much of the loose tea to put in. Brewing tea was an interesting process. I will always prefer coffee, but sometimes a pot of tea is just the thing. Making it feels formal, somehow.

Professor Burkett told me the tea had to steep for five minutes in freshly boiled water—no more and no less. He set the timer, showed me where the cups were, and then stumped into the living room. I heard his sigh of relief when he sat down in his favorite chair. Also a fart. Not a trumpet blast, more of an oboe.

I made two cups of tea and put them on a tray along with the sugar bowl and the Half and Half from the icebox (which neither of us used, probably a good thing since it was a month past its sell-by date). Professor Burkett took his black and smacked his lips over the first sip. “Kudos, Jamie. Perfect on your first try.”

“Thanks.” I sugared mine up liberally. My mom would have screamed at that third heaping spoonful, but Professor Burkett never said boo.

“Now tell me your tale. I’ve nothing but time.”

“Do you believe me? About the rings?”

“Well,” he said, “I believe that you believe. And I know that the rings were found; they’re in my bank safety deposit box. Tell me, Jamie, if I asked your mother, would she corroborate your story?”

“Yes, but please don’t do that. I decided to talk to you because I don’t want to talk to her. It would upset her.”

He sipped his tea with a hand that shook slightly, then put it down and looked at me. Or maybe even into me. I can still see those bright blue eyes peering out from beneath his shaggy every-whichway brows. “Then talk to me. Convince me.”

Having rehearsed my story on my crosstown walk, I was able to keep it in a pretty straight line. I started with Robert Harrison—you know, the Central Park man—and moved on to seeing Mrs. Burkett, then all the rest. It took quite awhile. When I finished, my tea was down to just lukewarm (maybe even a little less), but I drank a bunch of it anyway, because my throat was dry.

Professor Burkett considered, then said, “Will you go into my bedroom, Jamie, and bring me my iPad? It’s on the night table.”

His bedroom smelled sort of like Uncle Harry’s room in the care home, plus some sharp aroma that I guessed was liniment for his strained hip. I got his iPad and brought it back. He didn’t have an iPhone, just the landline telefungus that hung on the kitchen wall like something in an old movie, but he loved his pad. He opened it when I gave it to him (the start-up screen was a picture of a young couple in wedding outfits that I assumed was him and Mrs. Burkett) and started poking away at once.

“Are you looking up Therriault?”

He shook his head without looking up. “Your Central Park man. You say you were in preschool when you saw him?”

“Yes.”

“So this would have been 2003…possibly 2004…ah, here it is.” He read, bent over the pad and occasionally brushing his hair out of his eyes (he had a lot of it). At last he looked up and said, “You saw him lying there dead and also standing beside himself. Your mother would also confirm that?”