He answered the second part first. His stamp collection, gone when he got into his apartment.
Youre a stamp collector? Seriously?
Well, it was a hobby, but I was pretty serious about it. I gave it a lot of my time, and put quite a bit of money into it. He told her a little about his collection, and how the childhood hobby had drawn him back in as an adult.
And the friend?
It was a woman, he said.
Your wife? No, you said youve never been married.
Not a wife, not a girlfriend. It was never physical, it wasnt that kind of a relationship. I suppose you could say she was a business associate, but we were very close.
When you say business associate
He nodded. She was killed by the same people who set me up. They tried to make it look as though shed burned herself up in a fire, but they didnt try too hard. They set a fire any rookie investigator would spot right away as arson, and they left her with two bullets in her head. He shrugged. They probably didnt care what the cops called it. Its not like anybody could do anything about it.
Do you miss her?
All the time. Thats probably the reason I talk so much. I wouldnt ordinarily, not on such short acquaintance. Theres two reasons, actually, and one is that youre very easy to talk to, but the other is that Im used to talking to Dot, and shes gone.
That was her name? Dot?
Dorothea, actually. I always thought it was Dorothy, and either I got it wrong or the papers did, because Dorothea was the way it appeared in the press coverage of the fire. But all anyone ever called her was Dot.
I never had a nickname.
People always call you Julia? There!
Except for the kids, who have to call me Miss Roussard. Thats the first time youve ever used my name, do you realize that?
You never told me what it was.
I didnt?
I figured thered be papers in the house, but I didnt want to snoop around. Youd tell me when you wanted to.
I thought you knew. I just took it for granted we had that conversation. You saved my life and I got to watch you break a mans neck and then you walked me home and we drank coffee in the kitchen. How could you not know my name?
I opened a book, he said, and there it was. Oh, for Gods sake.
What?
Well, how did I even know it was you? Maybe you bought the book secondhand, or maybe it came down in the family.
No, its me.
Julia Emilie Roussard.
Oui, monsieur. Cest moi.
French?
On my daddys side, Irish on my mamas. I told you she died young, didnt I?
You told me she went gray early.
And died early, too. Thirty-six years old, and she left the table one night and went straight to bed because she felt a little feverish, and the next morning she was dead.
My God.
Viral meningitis. She was healthy one day and dead the next, and I dont think my daddy ever did understand what happened to him. To her of course, but also to him. And to me, and I was eleven at the time. She looked at him. Im thirty-eight now. Im two years older than she was when she died.
And you dont have a single gray hair, either.
She laughed, delighted. He said he was several years older than that, and she told him he looked it. With your new haircut, she said. I think what well do is bleach it, and then dye it a nice medium brown. If youre not happy with the way it turns out, we can always dye it back to the way it is now.
But it turned out fine. Mousy brown , Julia called it, and said that women supplied by nature with hair that color were often moved to do something about it. Because its kind of blah, you know? It doesnt attract attention.
Perfect.
If her father even noticed the difference, he didnt see fit to comment on it. Keller, checking the mirror, decided the lighter color went with the professorial effect, which the bifocals had reinforced big-time. The glasses, now that he was getting used to them, were a revelation. He hadnt exactly needed them, hed been getting
along fine without them, but there was no question they improved his distance vision. Out walking on St. Charles Avenue, he could make out street signs hed have squinted at previously.
He went for that walk on a day when Julia was teaching, and a plump brown dumpling of a woman named Lucille came to see to Mr. Roussard. When Julia got home he was waiting for her on the front stoop. Its all arranged, he said. Lucilles agreed to stay late, so lets you and I go to an early movie and a nice dinner.
The movie was a romantic comedy, with Hugh Grant in the Cary Grant role. Dinner was in the French Quarter, served in a high-ceilinged room by waiters who looked almost old enough to be playing Dixieland jazz at Preservation Hall. Keller ordered a bottle of wine with dinner, and they each had a glass and agreed it was very nice, but they left the rest of the bottle unfinished.
Theyd taken her car, and when it came time to drive home she handed him her keys. It was a mild night, and the air had a tropical feel to it. Sultry, he thought. That was the word for it.
Neither of them spoke on the way home. Lucille lived nearby, and wouldnt accept a ride, and just shook her head when Keller offered to walk her home.