The Puzzled Heart Page 5

  “Consider them established.”

  “Okay. What I’m suggesting, as you’ve no doubt already guessed, is that this may well be a prank of some student, particularly the sort who belongs to a fraternity—an assumption based on what some of my women students have told me of assaults on them in fraternities—though not all fraternities, one hopes—and I intend to follow that lead as far as I can. For instance, who rented the limo into which Reed was forced?”

  “Naturally Toni thought of that. She has already discovered the car was hired under a corporate arrangement a male undergraduate at your university’s father has with a limo company.”

  “Nice of you to let me know,” Kate interjected, “however ungrammatically.”

  Harriet ignored this. “A man called up and ordered the car, giving the name of the company and the number of the account. Of course,” Harriet said, pausing maddeningly to refill her glass, “we interviewed the student in question. He turns out to be a wealthy, generous, rather laid-back guy who had been heard often ordering limos through his father’s firm. But he didn’t do this; someone else did, and he is certain it isn’t one of his close friends. The company had nothing to add except that the car picked up two young men in midtown, took them up to the law school, waited for a ‘friend,’ i.e., Reed, and took them only a few blocks before it was dismissed. Toni has talked to the driver, who rather had the impression the passenger they picked up was requiring persuasion to get into the car and then to leave it, but it wasn’t anything heavy—his word. So you see, my dear, we have got that far. But we still think the letter-writer was probably involved.”

  “Good,” Kate said. “We have a meeting of minds then, which is always so encouraging. Now, I’ve decided a few things. First, no more of this secrecy and message game. That is, I think leaving messages at the dog place is a good idea, and we might as well continue with that. But I want to meet with you openly, and to be in on all the operations. Otherwise, I’ll hire another firm.”

  “Toni wouldn’t like it.”

  “So much the worse for Toni. I have a job for her, by the way.”

  “I don’t think she’ll like that either.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t like it, I’ll have to find another operator—is that the right term? I’ve a number of friendly students who will gladly take on the task, but there’s some danger involved, and I’d rather have Toni, who looks the part and can handle trouble better than students. Will you tell her, or should I?”

  “Let me tell her,” Harriet said. “I might be a teeny bit more persuasive, under the circs.”

  “The what?”

  “That’s what the British used to call the circumstances in the good old days of Lord Peter and company. I suspect you haven’t been keeping up with your literary reading.”

  “Not lately,” Kate said, and really smiled for the first time since Reed’s kidnapping.

  “That’s better. What is Toni’s assignment, then, although I hardly dare ask?”

  “I want her to get herself up looking both like a student and sexy. She’ll know what I mean, and if she doesn’t, tell her to rove around the campus and observe. Then I want her to visit all five fraternities. She needs a reason, subscriptions to a new magazine or flyers for a student production, something of that sort. I want her to case the joints. ‘Gee, I’ve never been in a fraternity. Would you guys show me around, like where do you sleep and all?’—well, you get the picture. I think Reed may be being kept in one of those houses. Toni wouldn’t be able to determine that on her first visit, but she’ll get some idea of the layout and the possibility of keeping a prisoner there. And all this has to be done tomorrow, need I say?”

  “Toni’s going to love it, but I’ll tell her orders are orders. She may want to talk to you.”

  “I’ve thought of that; if she does, let’s use e-mail. It’s totally insecure, and therefore we will be assumed not to use it. We will simply have to think of roundabout ways to say things.”

  “I didn’t know you had e-mail.”

  “Of course I do. It’s the best way of getting department notices without having to drop in and confront one’s most tiresome colleagues. Here’s my e-mail address,” Kate said, handing Harriet a slip of paper.

  “All right,” Harriet said, taking it. “On your head be it. Well, tally-ho and all that, as they also said in the good old class-ridden days. Toni or I will report back real soon.”

  “Don’t tally-ho quite yet, if you don’t mind,” Kate said. “I think I have a task for you, but I’ve got to dig up some information. Do you mind having another glass by yourself? I won’t be long.”

  “A pleasure,” Harriet said. “But don’t dawdle.”

  Kate went into her study to look through her class lists from recent semesters. There was often a young man in one of her classes, and sometimes a young woman, who took offense at any mention of women’s oppression or revolution, or the assignment of a book by a woman. This was, Kate had discovered after much suffering, not always because of “this feminist crap,” as angry students had been known to call it. Women like Kate in positions of authority always evoked the mother in students’ minds, and sometimes that was sufficient for a negative personal response, particularly when added to a general hostility on the part of students to seeing women in positions of authority and power. It occurred to Kate, not for the first time, that someone ought to write a manual on the dangers for women in teaching, with a chapter on women teachers who were no longer young.

  Kate found names of four students who might have harbored resentment and nursed it sufficiently to have it flower into a kidnapping. She doubted, however, that such resentment would lead to actual danger for Reed. But, danger or not, it must be horrible to be kept a prisoner and to know why, for surely part of the fun would be in telling him he was suffering because he had her, Kate, for a wife.

  On the other hand, Kate thought, if this really was a radical and probably mad fringe of the religious right, they might go further, as they so often had, even in academic surroundings. One of the chief spokesmen for the radical right, for example, had sat in on the class of a French scholar at Harvard, with her permission, and then maliciously misrepresented what had gone on there. Dartmouth, to mention no other college, provided ample evidence of right-wing malice in action. Hardly an encouraging thought. Kate was hoping for a fraternity prank, though kidnapping was serious and they would suffer for it. That she had long since promised herself.

  Reminding herself of the waiting Harriet, Kate searched her notes for the addresses of the four resentful students. Not, she realized, that they are necessarily still living there. Students move around a lot, and some of them had given just their parents’ address. As she had guessed, none of the four, two men and two women, lived in a college or graduate dormitory.

  List of addresses in hand, Kate returned to the living room. “I’ve a task for you too,” she said to Harriet. “Here are four addresses with names. Would you go to the two addresses where the women live and dream up something—you’re inspecting for roaches, the university is thinking of combining apartments, whatever. You’re better at this than I am. You’re so delightfully harmless looking—grandmotherly, not to put too fine a point on it—that I don’t think they’d hesitate to let you in if you’re both unthreatening and persistent. I want to know the same stuff Toni’s finding out: would it be possible for them to be hiding Reed? Don’t do anything about it, just investigate and then let me know.”

  “Right you are,” Harriet said, rising to her feet. “Back to the old entrance trick; I’ve always claimed gray-haired women of sufficient age can get in anywhere and are later unidentifiable. I’ll report soon—that is, if Toni hasn’t insisted on abandoning you and the case. Oh, hell, I’ll let you know what happens, whatever happens. Don’t forget to check for messages tomorrow at the vet’s, sometime in the afternoon.”

  And Harriet was gone.

  Five

  WHEN Kate and Banny went around to their training cl
ass the next afternoon—the classes were offered at various hours, and once enrolled, owner and dog might come to the class most convenient to their schedule—there were two messages offered by Ovido. Toni, her annoyance at the flaunting of her orders fairly sizzling off the paper, reported that her assignment was complete, and that she would report to Kate that evening, not in Kate’s apartment, but above the boat basin on Seventy-ninth Street in Riverside Park, Kate to turn up with dog at seven P.M. Don’t look for her; she would spot Kate.

  The second message was from Harriet saying she would be at Kate’s apartment at six with extraordinary news. It was with some difficulty that Kate kept herself attentive to the lesson and Banny’s tendency to wander off and inspect the other dogs. Kate’s barely controllable urge to rush home and wait for Harriet was all too clearly apparent to Banny, who kept heading for the exit. It was not one of their better sessions.

  Eventually the class was dismissed, not without a frown at Kate (not Banny) from the patient instructor. Kate departed guiltily but immediately, and they ran home—with Kate carrying Banny, who was not prepared to rush at so pell-mell a pace.

  Harriet was there.

  “Well?” Kate said when they arrived upstairs. She knew Harriet would not have held out the promise of news if there was not news, probably good news, in the offing.

  “Sit down,” Harriet said. “This is going to take some working out, so don’t leap to your feet and rush out the door like a lunatic. Listen. I said sit down.”

  Kate sat.

  “Good,” Harriet said. “I understand you’re meeting Toni tonight, and she’ll tell you her findings and plans. I gather she had a somewhat raunchy time with the fraternity boys and picked up some interesting clues, but nothing decisive. I, on the other hand, have real news. Don’t interrupt.” Once again Kate subsided.

  “The two women on your list lived in quite different circumstances. The first had a small, one-room apartment, hardly room to swing a cat—though I have always been shocked at the idea that anyone would want to swing a cat—all right, all right, and the other lived in a large apartment shared with three other women. Only two of the four were home, including the name on your list. She looked decidedly unwilling to let me into the apartment, or even inside the door, but I did a pretty good act, though I say it myself, of an authoritative person from the university housing office—”

  “You mean it was a university apartment?” Kate asked. “I didn’t know they gave large apartments to students.”

  “They don’t. It turned out that one of the young women was the granddaughter of a retired professor, more or less illegally occupying his apartment with three roommates to help with the rent. I had a suspicion the university wasn’t too happy about this, given the shortage of large apartments, and that made my threats of what might happen if they didn’t let me in more convincing. I’d taken the precaution of visiting the housing office first, passing myself off as the dithering aunt of a student, and found out that the apartment house in question was university property. Now don’t rush me, Kate, we can’t do anything right now, so contain yourself. Whatever that means.

  “After I got in, I asked to be shown the whole apartment and to be given a detailed account of who was living there, their university status, the number of people in each room—that sort of thing. And here’s the clincher. One of the rooms was locked, and they said they couldn’t possibly let me into it because its occupant, presumably a young woman, was ill with the flu and several other feverish and quite contagious ailments. I said I would risk the ailments; please unlock the door. They stubbornly refused, and I made large noises about reporting this to the authorities when the occupant of the room coughed and then began singing, softly but unmistakably, in a baritone voice. What’s more, he, or up to that moment the possibility of a very hoarse, deep-voiced woman, was singing ‘Loch Lomond.’ ”

  “It was Reed!” Kate screamed, jumping to her feet. “You and he were always going on about that song, how you could never tell whom the singer was talking to, his true love or his friend, and why they were taking different roads.”

  “I do remember, my dear. We discussed it one whole evening shortly after we all met, at the first mention of single malt Scotch as I recall. We kept sipping and wondering why one was taking the high road and one the low road, and whether the roads were metaphorical or geographical—”

  “Harriet, please.”

  “Well, my dear, they tried to lead me away from the door, but I spoke up and he sang it again. I’m sure he heard me. So that is probably where he is.”

  “I’d already gathered that,” Kate said, beside herself. “Why are we just sitting here? Are you trying to drive me mad? Is this some sort of sadistic practice you and Toni are developing for unknown reasons?”

  “When I left the apartment sometime later, not hurrying in my inspection so that they would think I hadn’t noticed much—in fact, I had suggested by a certain knowing, disapproving look that I understood that one of the young women had her lover with her in that room—where was I? Oh, yes, I finally made my slow way out of the place, doing my best to calm any suspicions they might have of my interest in the locked room, taking notes and muttering about renting so many rooms and sanitary conditions and everything I could think of. I’m pretty sure I had calmed their fears. But I stopped at a phone on the corner and called Toni. She arranged for some of her operators to stand at the apartment house entrances once I left and make sure they didn’t try to move their prisoner.”

  “Suppose they had?”

  “They would have been stopped, of course. Those operators are large men with weapons. Fortunately, nothing happened. The operators are still there, by the way, connected to Toni by cellular phones. You and I will go around to meet Toni at seven as previously scheduled and then we’ll go and liberate Reed. He didn’t sound at all bad, not in pain or weak or anything, so I don’t think there’s much to worry about. What time is it now?” Harriet gazed at her watch. “That late?” she exclaimed, in what Kate thought a highly irritating manner. “Perhaps we better get going soon.”

  “Toni said to bring Banny,” Kate said. “But surely, if we’re going to storm that apartment and rescue Reed—”

  “We’re not going to storm the apartment. We’re going to pay a call, three well-dressed ladies complete with puppy. I, as the inspector of the afternoon, will say that my two companions are particularly eager to take over this apartment and may they please look at it. I shall remind them that they are probably there illegally, and it would be better for them if they cooperated. Once in, we’ll spring Reed, with Toni in charge, definitely in charge. The two operators will be outside the apartment, available if needed. Banny is to come along, first to give you a reason to be in the park, and second to make our visit look innocent and what it pretends to be. One hardly enters an apartment with evil intent accompanied by a large puppy. Of course, if you’d rather wait for Reed here, you and Banny—”

  “We’re on our way,” Kate said, getting her jacket and Banny’s leash. “I’m going to have a word or two or three to say about your high-handedness in this whole matter. Or perhaps I should say Toni’s high-handedness.” Kate ushered Harriet out, locked the door, and awaited the elevator with unconcealed impatience.

  The whole operation of freeing Reed could not qualify for a place in any account of dramatic rescues. Harriet, using the method she’d described to Kate, bullied herself, Toni, Kate, and Banny through the apartment door. All the young women were home. Kate’s student recognized her and blanched, although, as they would later discover, her look of horror was merely at seeing her professor under these circumstances; she had not known Kate’s connection to the man she and her roommates were imprisoning when she agreed to go along with the scheme.

  Harriet immediately began showing the layout in the manner of a real estate agent, flinging open doors and identifying the rooms. When they came to the room where Reed had been heard singing “Loch Lomond,” Harriet tried the door and r
eacted with shocked disbelief to find it locked. “Open this door at once,” she imperiously said.

  “One of our roommates is sick in there,” the renter of the apartment said. “We really can’t disturb her. That room is no different than the others.”

  “From the others, please,” Harriet insisted. “Let us try to preserve what is left to us of a once proud language. No different it may be, but we want to see it. We will tiptoe in no farther than the entrance to look around.” Banny, meanwhile, had jumped up on the door, perhaps feeling it her doggy duty to embody Kate’s fervor.

  “What a cute puppy,” the young woman said, a last diversionary tactic.

  “Open the damn door—now,” Toni ordered. For a moment Kate expected her to flourish a revolver, but she withheld that gesture, if only for a moment. “Open the door or I’ll force it open,” she said. She retreated down the hall, clearly readying herself for a run and a lunge to smash the door in. “Stand back, Reed,” she shouted. “Here I come.”

  “All right, all right,” the young woman said. “Here’s the key.” And she removed it from her pocket. “I told you this wouldn’t work,” she said to the three other young women. Glumly, she gave Toni the key. Toni handed it to Kate, who found her hand shaking as she put the key in the lock. Toni retrieved the key, opened the door, and stepped back. Kate moved in and Reed moved out, into each other’s arms. Banny leapt up on Reed.

  “And who the hell is this?” Reed asked, bending down to seize the puppy. “And where’s the brandy? Don’t Saint Bernards always have a small cask of brandy around their necks when they rescue people?”

  Reed, Kate, and Banny were about to set off for home when Toni appeared with the two operators. Someday I must ask them their names, Kate thought, and stop considering them only by their function.

  Toni asked the men to make sure no one left the apartment, and then asked Reed and Kate to sit down a moment and listen to her. “Please,” she all but commanded, as they looked reluctant. “Harriet has those young women corralled in a room. She’s keeping them away from telephones, and doing her best, which we know will be stunning, to fill them with apprehension. Naturally, she’s muttering on about the illegality of this apartment, but I told her, never mind that, just keep them worried.