out Sharon?"

            "That's right, I forgot you knew her."

            Knew her? "You know she's dead," Stu announced, hoping to shock him but knowing it was too late if he already knew.

            "Dead—yes, I know. Got a call from one of her students, going through her address book and making calls." Same way Stu found out. Jenkins wouldn't look at him, instead playing with the pen on his deskset, taking it out of its holder and replacing it. "You know what happened?"

            "Mugged. In the park."

            Jenkins shook his head slowly. "She ran there. I told her it wasn't safe."

            "I suppose you're going to the funeral," Stu said, looking him up and down.

            "Yes, I am." Jenkins looked up at him. If Stu didn't know better, he'd say Jenkins regretted Sharon's death. "I want to show you something." He took a photo out of his pocket and handed it to Stu.  "I was going to ask her about it. I didn't know she knew him."

            It was a picture of Sharon and Reed, sitting at a table in an outside café. The photographer must have been standing across the street. "When was this taken?" Stu asked.

            "There's no date," Jenkins said. "Recently, I think.That particular café wasn't open six months ago."       

              Stu didn't understand. Sharon had claimed she didn't know Reed. Their meeting might have been innocent, might have concerned Prudhomme if it had taken place after his death, but why hadn't she mentioned it? He realized he'd have to confront Reed, ask him and hope he'd tell Stu the truth. "I understand you graduated from Princeton," he said.

            "Now you mention it," Jenkins said, "I may as well ‘fess up. I went there for a couple of semesters, but I didn't actually graduate."

            "You put it on your employment application," Stu accused.

            "How'd you know that? Never mind, I already know. The faithful secretary.  She doesn't like me much."

            "If my father found out, he'd've fired you."

            "I planned to tell him. Reed too. After I proved myself. Moot now, isn't it?"

            "What do you mean?" Stu asked.

            "If you don't sign that contract, the development can't take place. That's our last chance to be profitable again, but you won't sign."

            "That's right," Stu said.

            "Then what difference does it make?" Jenkins asked.

            No difference. No point bringing it up anymore either. "What about Joyce?"

            "Reed's daughter? What about her?"

            "She says you want to marry her."

            Jenkins reacted to Stu's statement unexpectedly by laughing at him. "She's playing us both," he said. "She already has a boyfriend."

            "And Reed?" Stu asked. "She says Reed's pushing her at you."

            "Guess he'd rather have me as a son-in-law than the twit she's in love with. Don't blame him myself."

            He had an answer for everything, but Stu didn't believe him. Or was it that he didn't want to believe him? In the back of Stu's mind was his distrust of Jenkins and the fear that he had killed her, but how could he prove it?

            Judging his red convertible too bright, too trivial for the occasion, he had rented a car. The bored young car rental agency attendant had asked him what kind of car he preferred and seemed surprised when Stu said he didn't care just so long as it was either black or white. He didn't explain, but surely it wasn't so unusual, renting a car more suitable to a sober occasion than one's own. His mind kept turning on nonessentials like the car, a defense mechanism, he guessed, to keep from dwelling on Sharon's death, the fact that Jenkins knew about it and the photograph recording a meeting between Sharon and Reed.

            The day was hot, humid, and he turned on the air in the white New Yorker for the long drive to Westchester. His jacket lay on the seat, partly because of the heat, although it soon became cold in the car, partly because he didn't want to look like he was going to a funeral. Why should he care, but he did. None of the men in any of the cars passing him on either side of the road, everybody seeming to be in a hurry but him, no one was wearing a jacket or a shirt with a tie. It looked like what it was, a typical Saturday crowd on their way to the lake or mountains. Some of them must have been on their first day of vacation, judging by the clothes piled up in the back seat, suitcases on the roof. Some of the occupants might have been moving, boxes in the trunk, the trunk lid half open and tied with string.  Moving day, and they were all going in one unexpected direction, from the suburbs into the city instead of the other way. First the exodus to the suburbs in the fifties and sixties, and now the other way, back to the city. No one going north, like Stu, looked to be on the way to a funeral on this warm, sunny day.  Lucky them. Sharon's couldn't be the only funeral taking place—could it? Had death taken a holiday?

            Driving slowly—in no hurry to get there—he arrived at the funeral home in good time anyway.  The number of cars in the parking lot amazed him.  The funeral had attracted more people than he thought. Unless they were her parents' friends too. He parked the car as far away as possible, dissociating himself from the event, as if that were possible, and went inside, to the room the shell that had been Sharon occupied, and Stu realized that not all the cars outside were for her. Other funerals were taking place. Stu shrugged his jacket on, went in and paid his respects to what had been Sharon but was Sharon no longer. The casket was open, and he forced himself to look at her face, paler than he had seen her, but this was better than the garish makeup, the heavily rouged cheeks and lips he remembered from the only other funeral he had ever attended. He suddenly shivered. 

            When he looked around, he noticed that some people were sitting while others, mostly young, former students perhaps, stood together in a group, conversing in whispers. He sat down, and a man about thirty, with reddish hair, sat down on the vacant seat next to him and introduced himself. "I'm Sharon's brother.  Charlie."

            Stu could see the resemblance. They shook hands. "I'm so sorry," Stu said.

            In Charlie's voice, as in his father's over the telephone, lurked curiosity, not to say hostility. Stu didn't blame them. "You were a friend of hers?" Charlie prompted.

            "I only met her recently."

            "Nice of you to come," said Charlie, "all the way from the city."

            "I liked her," Stu said.

            "She must have made an impression." Stu nodded. "Are you Roy?"

            "No, I'm not. I'm Stu." He hoped the name would sound familiar, hoped she'd mentioned him, but Charlie didn't recognize the name. Yet he recognized Roy's. Roy had made an impression. Stu felt ashamed of his jealousy.

            Sharon's brother appeared to relax as he glanced over the rows of people. Looking for someone?  For Roy, who had not yet arrived? Sharon must have told them about Roy, described him in a more positive light than she had displayed to Stu. If there was something between them, she may have been reluctant to tell him, afraid he might think less of her because of Prudhomme's recent death. Jenkins was closer to her age, knew more about her, knew she ran in the park, for instance, which she never bothered to tell Stu. What did he really know about her?  Why did she run in the park at night, alone, when she had lived in the city long enough to know how dangerous that was? Unless she had not been alone.  Unless she had gone to the park to meet someone.  If not Roy, then who?  Stu remembered the snapshot Roy had shown him. Reed?

            "A terrible thing," Charlie said. "I used to live here, used to work in the city, and it was bad then, but I thought it was getting better. Safer. Who knew. She took too many chances. She shouldn't have been running in the park at night." He shook his head. "I can't understand it. She lived in the city long enough to know better."

"The police have any leads?"

"None they saw fit to mention. Just another street crime. I wouldn't be a policeman, couldn't put up with it, not being able to do anything." 

Charlie changed the subject. "She had started seeing somebody, and I'm hoping to meet him." He looked at Stu. "You know this guy, Roy Jenkins?"

"I've met him," Stu said.

"What do you think of him?"

Stu wondered what difference it made. "I don't know him well enough to comment," he said, and Charlie nodded.  

            Stu surveyed the college kids in their sweaters and jeans, standing in tight groups and looking scared. How much had they known about Sharon? They had no way of knowing about her relationships with either Prudhomme or Jenkins. What would Charlie's reaction be if he knew what Stu was thinking, that someone Charlie assumed was her boyfriend murdered her. But Stu wasn't sure anymore, not since Roy showed him the photograph. He couldn't put a murderer's face on the person he wanted to, Jenkins.

            "You know what this guy Roy looks like?" Charlie asked. "Will you point him out to me?"

           "If I see him," Stu said.

           "You don't think he'll come? Why wouldn't he come?"

           "I don't know," Stu said, regretting his mark. Hoped he wouldn't have to be a party to their conversation, realized that he would have to be, in order to find out whatever there was to find out. "You said you didn't know her that well," Charlie said, "yet here you are at her funeral. Were you in one of her classes?"

            Stu realized that Charlie was trying to figure out how to cast him. If he wasn't Sharon's lover, who was he? "No. We knew some of the same people. She made an impression, and I felt like paying my respects."

            Not good enough. Charlie looked disappointed, as if he knew Stu was holding out on him. "You said your name's Prudhomme? Was that a relation of yours, who died recently?"

            "My father."

            "Oh.  I'm sorry." Charlie chewed on this for a few moments. "Sharon and I fell out of touch with each other," he confided. "My parents moved out here to be closer to both of us, but then I moved back to Des Moines."

            "She said she was born in Iowa."

            "They thought she needed them, I don't know why. Maybe it was the other way around. They needed her. They'll move back now. They already told me." He glanced at Stu, glanced away again.  "She ever talk about us?"

            "No," Stu said, remembering that Sharon had hinted of a troubled relationship and aware that this was not the place to go into it.

            He seemed relieved. "No reason she should. We used to be close, the two of us, but we drifted away after I moved back. You know how it is."

            Stu, an only child, didn't know but agreed anyway. He was toying with the question of how much Charlie knew about Jenkins, what Sharon might have told him.

            "Most people avoid funerals, but you made the trip all the way out here."

            "I was coming up here anyway. My grandfather lives near here." It had not occurred to Stu before that he might as well drop in on his grandfather.

            "Oh.  That's different." Stu had said the right thing. "I sure wish I knew more about her life in the big city, people she knew. I asked some of the kids, but they can't tell me anything. I don't know why I asked, how would they know? We used to email each other, but I get my email at work so we couldn't get too personal."

            "She emailed you about this guy, Roy?" Stu asked him.

             "Before him she was dating someone older. She liked older men. I used to kid her she was looking for a father figure. Made her mad."

             "She didn't tell you the older guy's name?"

             "No, something happened to him, or else they broke up. She stopped mentioning him anyway. I expected him to show up here if he's still around, but if he's here I don't know it."  He looked around as if he was looking for him. "You know who it was?"

            "No," Stu lied.    

            Her parents sat in front of the casket, her mother a pretty woman with Barbie doll hair, bleached to a pale, dynel blonde. Eye makeup had been a mistake as tears had caused it to run. The father looked pale and shaken. In other circumstances he looked like he'd be pleasant enough, but Sharon had described him as overbearing. Like Prudhomme.  Stu excused himself and walked over to them intending to express his condolences, trying, impossibly, to express what he felt in a look since he knew that anything he could say would be inadequate. He didn't think they really saw him. Just as well.  When he sat back down, he looked around. Who did he expect to see, or recognize? No one, they were all strangers. If the killer were here, would he recognize him? Was it Reed or Jenkins, or someone else, yet unnamed. In this room full of strangers, he knew no one. These students, looking fearful and ill at ease, the others, dignified older men and women, faculty or family friends, they weren't killers. Were they?  He couldn't get it out of his head that Sharon's and Prudhomme's deaths were connected and wondered if he was just avoiding facing what he already knew.

            Finally, he spotted Jenkins, striding in from the street. Jenkins, who had Prudhomme's painting in his office, who said Sharon asked him to give it to Reed. He walked over to him. Jenkins was fingering something in his pocket; Stu saw the outline of a pack of cigarettes. "Why'd Sharon ask you to give the painting to Reed?" he asked. "That photo you showed me proved she knew him. Why didn't she give it to him herself?"

            "I don't know," Jenkins said.  "Why does it matter?"

            "Because I don't know what matters so everything does," Stu said. He watched Jenkins walk over to Sharon's parents, saw Charlie, her brother, join them. Her mother's lips trembled. She must be thinking of what might have been, if Jenkins had been Sharon's love interest. Stu shook his head. He wanted to hear what they were saying but hesitated to intrude, moved closer seemingly by accident, listened, but all he heard was platitudes.

            Eventually the time came for the procession to the cemetery, where the service would be continued and, finally, the burial would take place. The attendees rose as if with great effort. Charlie, who one of the pallbearers, disappeared, and Stu found himself standing beside a young man wearing a jacket over a denim shirt and a clean pair of jeans. He looked at Stu as if he wanted to say something, finally confessed that he was the caller who'd gone through Sharon's address book and phoned everyone in it.

            "You were her student?"

            "Friend, too."

             "Me too," Stu said, "but I didn't know she ran in the park."

             "She didn't," he said. "At least, she didn't when I knew her. Didn't run, period. She walked."

            "She had on running clothes when she was found," Stu said. "Shorts and sneakers." 

            "Yeah, sounds like she took it up. Running, I mean. Unless she was going to the gym."

            Stu thought that was more likely. She hadn't suddenly taken up running; she'd gone to the park to meet someone. Or someone had transported her there to make it look like that's where it happened.  Possible only if she had been a passenger in someone's car.

            The young man stared at him. Stu realized he wasn't as young as he'd thought. 

            "How well did you know her?" Stu asked.

            He rubbed his hand over his face. "Not like boyfriend girlfriend, if that's what you mean. She was a good teacher, made sure she was available, not like some of them. Supposed to have office hours but never there when you want to see them."

            "Were you ever in her apartment?"

            The boy stepped back. "Never," he said. "What are you thinking?"

            "Nothing," Stu said. "I'm trying to find some rhyme and reason in what happened."

            "Well, there isn't any." 

            They followed the other mourners outside, where Sharon's former student joined a group traveling together. They separated themselves into two beatup cars. Stu didn't feel like going any farther but punished himself (for what?) by following the procession through the blazing summer streets, turning on his lights like the others so no other car would cut in front of him inadvertently or beep his horn because the driver didn't know he was part of a funeral procession for a young woman who should have lived for a half-century more at least.

            Stu stood at the rear of the party and watched as the others threw flowers, red roses, into the grave. The mother broke down; Stu heard her cries. They followed him as he stumbled back down the hill to his car. She was blaming everything for her daughter's death—the times, the schools, the morals of young people nowadays. If only Sharon had remained in Des Moines, married when she had the chance, and she had had plenty of chances. She wanted everyone to know that Sharon had had chances, had been successful as a woman even if she had died young. If only she had chosen a husband, babies, saved the painting for weekends, for later on. Her daughter had independence, a livelihood, but it had killed her, and she had left nothing behind but a bedroom full of paint-daubed canvases. Stu caught a glimpse as her husband and son supported her, half carried her, to the waiting limousine, her Barbie hair sticking out all over her head.

            Stu continued to sit in the car after everyone had gone and the gravediggers were still at work.  After a few minutes, a man ambled over and introduced himself. A detective.  Stu got out of the car to talk to him, recognizing him as the detective, Fitzgerald, he had tried to convince to re-open his father's case. It took a minute for him to recognize Stu. "She wasn't killed in the park," he said.

            "Oh, no?"

            "She was killed somewhere else and left in the park."

            "Do you know who did it?" Stu asked.

            "You?"

            "Not me. Check it out.  I don't live in the city, I live on the island."

            "You have a car." Not a question.

            "Of course. Not this one, though. I rented this one for the funeral. Mine's red. You're welcome to examine it. I didn't kill her. I didn't even know her that well." Not a lie. He knew her even less well than he thought he did.

            "Yet you're here."

            "She knew my father," Stu said. "Don't you think it's a coincidence that first he died and now somebody killed her too? Doesn't it make you wonder?"

            Fitzgerald stared at him. "You have anything concrete, or are you just speculating?"

            Stu opened his mouth, closed it. Hell, he decided to say it. "She was looking into his death. That guy over there," he indicated Jenkins with a nod, "she thought he knew something." He watched Fitzgerald amble away in Jenkins' direction.

             Stu reflected on what he had learned up to now, but the little he knew, thought he knew, was not worth much. That Prudhomme's death and Sharon's were related he had no doubt.

              He watched Fitzgerald as the policeman talked to Jenkins. The conversation appeared amiable, and in the end Fitzgerald walked back to his car, and Jenkins returned to the family. The police had not listened to him before, and they weren't listening now. Easier to pretend that Prudhomme killed himself and Sharon was the victim of a mugging. Because Stu had no proof of anything else.

               In the car, alone, he started speaking to them both, his father and Sharon, as if they were alive and seated next to him. Maybe that meant he was crazy, but it was a way for him to promise himself as well as whatever remained of their earthly presence that he would find out what had happened, who caused their deaths. What if Sharon had learned who murdered Prudhomme--but, if so, why hadn't she informed Stu? Unless she had taken it upon herself to extract some sort of payback. From whom—Reed, Jenkins? Jenkins seemed too young to have been one of Prudhomme's victims in business, but he had some hold on Reed. Had one of them, or both of them, acted boldly and swiftly to silence her?  Who wouldn't doubt that robbery and murder couldn't occur in Central Park at night? Only the police were not so easy to fool as someone thought.

            Would Jenkins have the face to appear at Sharon's funeral if he killed her?

            Stu drove his fist into the steering wheel. He'd guessed she knew something, or suspected someone; why hadn't she told him, why hadn't he pushed her? Had she feared his delicate scruples might keep him from acting? He should have kept after her, she would have told him eventually, but instead he had waited. As usual, he had been afraid of acting too soon. Or, having stood by so long, a spectator in his own life, had he just been afraid to act at all? 

            Or knowledge and death had arrived simultaneously, and Sharon was not a good enough actress to pretend that she had not guessed. Toward the end of the day, everyone, even the mourners whom Stu had already discounted, were beginning to seem guilty to him, as guilty as he'd imagined Reed and Jenkins might be. The students, had she made one of them angry because she refused to give out an "A"?  Stu brushed a hand over his eyes. He was being idiotic. Past disagreements had vanished, forever.

            Stu didn't have the stomach for confronting his grandfather. He dropped off the rented car, paid the bill and drove home. Normally, the little beach house restored him no matter what the trouble was. Ever since the break with Prudhomme, he had returned here seeking and finding comfort. Today, however, he found no solace in the sun-drenched rooms of the many-windowed cottage.

            When the phone rang, he nearly didn't pick it up, did so thinking it might be Janet. Instead, Reed's thin voice came to him from the other end. He sounded strained, or, Stu wondered, maybe the strain was his own. He couldn't believe his ears when he realized what Reed was trying to tell him, that the odd tone in his voice wasn't strain but anger. "What did you say?"

            "You heard me. Stay away from Joyce."

            "What are you talking about, Reed? I haven't seen her since the party."

            "You're lying," Reed insisted. "She admitted it."

            Stu scornfully asked him if Reed thought he was cradle-snatching. "She's much too young for me, and you know it."

            "I told you, she admitted it. I always knew something was going on between you two, and, I admit it, I was surprised, you being so much older. But I should have known. You Prudhommes are all alike."

            Stu frowned. "What the hell do you mean by that? I'm no older than your assistant—Roy Jenkins, and Joyce tells me you're throwing her at him. That's probably why she told you we're involved. To get herself off the hook with Jenkins. That or she wants to get your goat. Of course we're not involved. She's a kid." Stu remembered what Jenkins told him, that Janet was in love with somebody her own age, but he chose not to blow the whistle on her.

"Since when would that stop any of you?" Stu grasped the phone more tightly, hoping Reed would talk some more, explain, sensing the meaning was important, but Reed, obviously regretting what he'd said already, fell silent for a few moments. Stu waited. "I'm not throwing her at anyone, least of all Jenkins. Stay out of it, Stu. Let me keep the Prudhommes out of my personal life this one time, or I won't be responsible for the consequences. And there will be consequences. Of that you may be sure." This time? What did he mean? Now Reed was threatening him? "There's a good reason you and she wouldn't work, and it has nothing to do with the difference in your ages."

"What then?"

"That's my business. Just stay the hell away."

"What is it between you and Jenkins? You know he lied on his employment application. Why don't you fire him?"

"None of your business," Reed said.

"Why'd you hire him in the first place?" Stu persisted.

"Don't change the subject. Stay away from Joyce."

"I never had any intention of doing anything but." Stu hung up the phone, but a minute later it rang again, and he picked it up angrily, prepared to fight with Reed some more. Only this time it was Joyce. "What have you been telling your father?" he asked.

"Why?"

"He called me just now to tell me to keep away from you."

"I don't care. I have to talk to you. Can I come over?"

"You're a cute kid, but you have a corkscrew brain." And she was a liar. "Why'd you tell your father we're seeing each other?"

"In person, okay? I'll be there soon. Wait for me." She hung up.  He thought about leaving the house, taking a walk on the beach, but in the end decided to stay home, hear her out. He didn't have to wait long. In fact, he would have preferred it if the wait had been longer. He didn't feel up to dealing with her. She was used to getting her own way, would expect him to roll over for her the way everybody else did.

She walked in and looked around, plopped down in the one comfortable chair. "So this is where you live."

"This is where I live," he said. "What brings you here?"

"Long story, but first, what did you tell Reed? You didn't tell him I lied about us, did you?"

"I told him the truth."

She looked down at her hands, picked at the cuticle. "Damn.  I'm really sorry. I thought I could trust you."

What the hell was she talking about?  "Trust me to lie?"

She sighed.  "He probably didn't believe you anyway. I'll tell you the truth," she said, and Stu managed to keep himself from saying anything sarcastic. "I'm in love."

Jenkins was right after all. "Anybody I know?"

"Actually no," she said. "I'm sorry about the other night. I was trying to throw Reed off the scent. Looks like I succeeded."

"Too well," Stu said. "So who is he? Somebody Reed wouldn't approve of, I gather. Does he even know him?"

"He doesn't approve of anybody, and no, he doesn't know him."

"So why not come clean about him?"

"Reed's a snob," she said. "Reed won't look at anybody who's not rolling in it."

"Except for Jenkins," Stu interjected. "By the way, he told me he's not serious either. He knows about your …friend." 

She looked crestfallen. "Right.  I'm sorry. I knew you weren't interested in me, and I thought I could fool them both. I thought Reed would be glad if he thought you and I, you know. It's not like we're related. Jeff—that's his name, Jeff—has this thing about rich girls. He thinks I'm poor, like him.  He wouldn't go out with me if he knew I'm not poor. Even now, I'm not sure what he'll do when he finds out. I can't lose him. I'll have to tell him, won't I?"

"Better tell him before he finds out," Stu said.

"I'll wait as long as I can, maybe till we're married. We plan to elope. You won't tell Daddy, will you? He makes plans without asking me. He thinks I'm going to marry Roy, but that'd never happen, even if I didn't have Jeff."

"Roy's playing games," Stu said. "He's not interested in you. Reed's using me, I guess, to make Roy jealous." Stu said.

"You told him the truth," she said, "there's nothing between us."

"He doesn't believe me."

"He asked me one time where I was going," she said. "I couldn't tell him I was meeting Jeff so I said I was meeting you."

"How did Jenkins find out about you and Jeff?"

"He saw us together when Jeff brought me home one night."

"You want my opinion? I think you should come clean, Joyce. Tell the truth."

"You don't know Reed. He's scary when he gets mad."

"What can he do, yell at you?" Apparently, Reed still hadn't learned to control his temper.

"Worse. He gets quiet and kind of—deadly. It's happening a lot more since your father died." Why was that, Stu wondered. Proof that Reed knew what happened? "So," she continued, "I'm not saying a word till it's too late for him to stop us. I'm too afraid."

"I won't spoil your plans, Joyce, but what about Jenkins?"

"He won't say anything. He likes it that Reed doesn't know."

After Joyce left, Stu told himself he'd done the right thing by agreeing to keep her secret. What else could he do? Love deserved every break it could get. One thing he didn't understand, though. How come Reed thought Stu wasn't good enough for his daughter?  

He kept butting up against Reed's long association with the his father. If they didn't like or trust one another, why were they in business together?  Something here Stu didn't understand. No doubt about it, he was going to have to talk to Reed again.