Rough Weather

21

Lydia Hall College was north of New York City, near Greenwich, Connecticut. About a three-hour drive from Boston, unless you stopped at Rein’s Deli for a tongue sandwich on light rye. So it was almost four hours after I left home that I was in the alumni office talking to a very presentable woman named Ms. Gold.

“At various times,” I said, “her name has been Heidi Washburn, Heidi Van Meer, and currently, Heidi Bradshaw.”

“Marriages?” Ms Gold said.

“Yes,” I said. “All to men of substance, I believe.”

Ms. Gold smiled.

“The best kind,” she said. “And what is your interest?”

“You know who Heidi Bradshaw is?” I said.

“I’ve heard of her,” Ms. Gold said.

“Then you know of the recent kidnapping?”

“Of her daughter,” Ms. Gold said. “Yes.”

“I’m involved in that investigation,” I said.

“Are you a police officer?” Ms. Gold said.

“Private detective,” I said.

“Do you have any identification?” Ms. Gold said.

I showed her some. She looked at it and handed it back.

“We do not normally give out information about our alumni,” she said.

“I really only want to know that she is an alumna, and what her maiden name is.”

Ms. Gold looked like she approved of my use of alumna.

“Well, I think we can tell you that,” she said. “We’ll take up the maiden-name business later.”

“She may have graduated in 1980,” I said.

She turned to the desktop computer and worked it for a while.

“We have no Heidi Van Meer. We have a Heidi Washburn, but she graduated in 1926. And we have a Heidi Bradshaw who graduated in 2001.”

“How about under her husbands’ names,” I said, and gave her the names that were in Healy’s background folder. “Mrs. Peter Van Meer. Mrs. J. Taylor Washburn. Mrs. Harden Bradshaw?”

She did the computer thing again.

“No,” she said.

Her voice lingered on the no.

“But?” I said.

“Let me think a moment,” Ms. Gold said.

I waited. She was ash-blonde and slim. She wore a pair of glasses with big blue frames. She was nicely dressed in a tasteful well-tailored cashmere-and-tweed kind of way. There was a wedding ring on the appropriate finger. After a time she exhaled softly.

“Do you suspect Heidi Bradshaw of involvement?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m collecting information.”

“Who are you working for?”

“This is pro bono,” I said.

“Really? I was under the impression that everyone involved is wealthy.”

“I was there when the kidnapping went down, and couldn’t prevent it,” I said.

“And it rankles you?” she said.

“It does.”

“So you are investigating basically in service to your own self-regard?” she said.

“You could say so.”

“Your self-regard seems very high,” she said.

“And I want to keep it that way,” I said.

She nodded and smiled and sat another moment.

“We have a senior faculty member named J. Taylor Washburn,” she said.

“Was he married to someone named Heidi?” I said.

“I don’t know. It just seemed a sufficient coincidence that I should tell you.”

“Would it be in your best interest,” I said, “if I didn’t tell anyone how I learned of Professor Washburn?”

“His existence is hardly a secret,” Ms. Gold said. “He’s listed in our catalog.”

“Can you tell if she ever attended this college?” I said.

“If she did, it is unlikely that we wouldn’t have her,” Ms. Gold said.

“Even if she didn’t graduate?”

“This office is about acquiring money for the college,” Ms. Gold said. “Once you are no longer a student, you become alumni, which is to say a source of revenue.”

“So you are quite assiduous,” I said.

Ms. Gold smiled.

“Like wolverines,” she said.