Cited to Death (19 page)

Diane DeLong did lose her job in the public schools. Liz heard through the grapevine that she’d gotten hired at a private high school in Riverside and had moved to the Inland Empire. Liz also heard that Diane had dyed her Mohawk light blue.

Life settled back down into a routine of sorts, even though it was a new routine. Most mornings, Pete and I went for a run, down to the beach and along the beach to the pier and back, sometimes farther. Instead of walking to work, I rode the bus. We still spent most of our Saturdays hiking. Pete cooked, I cleaned. Life was good.

I went back to work on a Thursday. I was sorting through two weeks of accumulated mail – again! – when Ben Goldstein showed up at my office. He'd sent me a get-well card, but I hadn't seen him since.

I stood up to greet him. "Hey, how are you? Come in." We shook hands and I offered him a seat.

"I'm fine, thanks." He looked around my office at the walls lined with books and photos. "This is nice."

"Thanks, I like it. What brings you here?"

"I wanted to touch base. See how you were doing and what had happened with the case."

I filled him in on the outcome. "And I'm fine, thanks." I smiled at him. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, okay, I guess. Now that it's all over, it's finally settling in on me that Dan's gone." He looked at his feet. "I really miss him."

"Yeah. I can't imagine."

Ben looked up at me, sideways. “He told me that you and he were involved.”

"Very briefly. Years ago. When I got his letter, it had been three years since I'd seen him."

He nodded. "He said he was a different person before he met me."

"Yeah. I - um - I was in his office after he died and saw the picture of the two of you. Looked like you were on an island, somewhere? He looked different in that picture from when I'd known him."

Ben smiled sadly. "That was a great trip. That was where we really came together as a couple." He sighed and looked out my office door into the distance. "I still can't believe what happened."

"Yeah. Me either."

He looked back at me. "I'm leaving town."

"You are? I guess that's a good idea?"

"Yeah, it is. The lab is finished, obviously, and I've kind of lost my taste for research." He laughed grimly. “Word has gotten around here about what happened, and even though there's no speculation that I was involved at all, everyone knows I'm innocent, I just think it would be better for me to make a clean start somewhere else."

"I guess you're right...where are you going?"

"Baltimore. I'm actually going to practice OB-GYN. Deliver babies and all that." He smiled, a little self-consciously.

"That's great." I smiled back. "LA's loss will be Baltimore's gain. I hear it's nice there."

"Yeah. It's on the water, near DC, not far from New York where I have family. Lots of advantages."

"Well, that's great." I wasn't sure what else to say.

He looked down and rubbed the carpet with his toe. "I also wanted to thank you for carrying out Dan's request. I don't think I said that before. I know he didn't involve me from the start because he was trying to protect me. And if there wasn't anything to his suspicions, then he wouldn't have had to ever say anything to me about it."

I considered that. "So he didn't know about the plagiarism already?"

"No. He suspected it, but he hadn't been able to get the Welsh article in its entirety, so he didn't know for sure. He did know that the calculations in our article didn't add up; he'd gotten that far.” He grimaced. “I went to see Alana before her sentencing. She knew Dan was sniffing around, because she knew that he'd tried to access the Welsh article, and she didn't want to let him get far enough to alert me. And she wasn't sure that he hadn't."

"So he left you the information that he'd gathered to that point."

"Yes. And he wrote you the letter, because he was paranoid, but also because he was determined to get to the bottom of it. And he trusted you to do that."

I was taken aback. "Really?"

"Yes." Ben smiled, sadly. "He did. I know you and he didn't end well, but he was impressed with your professionalism. Your librarianship, he called it. He said that you were working on his 'problem,' as he called it, and I should talk to you. That I should trust you."

"Wow." Once again, Dan had surprised me. "I had no idea that he thought of me in any positive terms whatsoever."

Ben laughed a little. "Yeah, I'm sure you didn't. Dan kept his feelings close to the vest. But that’s what he told me. And there's one thing that Dan was
not
, and that was a liar."

"That's very true."

Ben stood up. “Well, I don’t want to keep you. I’m leaving town tomorrow, and I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, and thank you.”

I stood up too. “Thank
you
. And good luck. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, let me know.”

Ben nodded. “I will. And tell Pete goodbye for me as well.”

I said I would, and Ben left. I glanced at the clock. 12:45 – almost time for my reference shift. I hit the coffee shop for a mochaccino, then met Liz at the desk.

It wasn’t too busy, now that summer had started. I was working on some research for a faculty member when Clinton appeared.

“Hi, Clinton.”

“The word for the day is
exultation
.” He bowed, and straightened back up.

Then he winked at me.