Melancholy Baby

11

Of the twelve names I had wrenched from Sarah, four were still around. One of them was Bobby O’Brien, the name she’d mentioned first. I talked with him at the pub in the student union at Templeton College.

“You sure don’t look like a detective,” Bobby said.

“I’m in disguise,” I said.

“It’s working good,” Bobby said.

He was a chunky kid with a rust-colored crew cut and a flat nose.

“You look like a hockey player,” I said.

“Yep.”

“How are you in the corners?” I said.

Bobby grinned. “Terrifying,” he said.

“You went to school with Sarah Markham,” I said.

“Sarah? Sure. First grade on.”

“Do you see much of her anymore?”

He shook his head.

“Tell me about her.”

“Whaddya want to know?” Bobby said.

“Anything you can tell me. What she was like, what her family is like, anything that strikes you.”

“And why do you want to know?”

I thought about it. No one had sworn me to secrecy, and the more the question was out there, the more chance that someone might think of something.

“We’re trying to establish if she’s adopted.”

“Adopted?”

“Yes.”

“She doesn’t know?”

I shook my head.

“Her mother and father don’t know?”

“They say she’s not adopted. We’re just trying to establish it for sure.”

“Man,” Bobby said. “That’s weird.”

“Because?” I said.

“I mean, you live your whole life with your mother and father, and then you all of a sudden think maybe they’re not? What the hell is that about?”

“We’re looking into that,” I said. “What was she like in school?”

“Fine. She was pretty smart, and kind of popular and, you know, was part of the right group until maybe seventh grade.”

“And then?”

“She started hanging with the frazz-outs.”

“Frazz-outs?”

“Losers, dopeheads, dropouts, the bad crowd.”

“Oh,” I said, “those frazz-outs. She do drugs?”

Bobby looked down at his thick, freckled hands resting in front of him on the chipped Formica tabletop.

“I don’t like talking about her,” he said.

“Why not.”

“It feels like I’m ratting her out.”

“I work for her,” I said. “She’s paying me to ask these kinds of questions.”

He nodded.

“Yeah, she did a lot of drugs. Still does, I’m pretty sure.”

“Was she... sexually promiscuous?”

“She was pretty slutty in high school,” he said.

“Did you ever go out with her?”

“A little,” he said.

“Did you ever sleep with her?”

“Hey.”

“I told you,” I said, “I’m a detective.”

He nodded again.

“Yeah. I slept with her. Once. Then it was over. She wouldn’t go out with me again.”

“Did she not want you to sleep with her?”

“That’s the funny part,” Bobby said. “She was hot. It was her idea, but after we did it, she didn’t want to see me anymore.”

“What did she say?”

“That’s how weird it was. She didn’t say anything. She just got up, put herself back together, you know, got out of the car, and walked away.”

“She told me she stopped seeing you because you got a girlfriend.”

“I got a girlfriend, but that was a long time after I had anything to do with Sarah.”

“Do you know if she was this way with anyone else?”

“Lotta guys,” Bobby said. “It was like she wanted you to do it to her, and when you did it, she didn’t like you anymore.”

“To her,” I said.

“Whaddya mean?”

“It sounds as if she didn’t enjoy it,” I said.

“No. Not when it was happening, just before.”

“Is there someone I could talk with who knows her now?”

“Her college roommate. They go to Taft together.”

“And her name is?”

“Polly Murphy,” he said. “What’s all this got to do with whether her parents adopted her or not?”

“I have no idea,” I said.