Ghosts of Columbia by L.E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

and she got you and Rick through your educations, and if she had a trace of self-pity, well, I think maybe she deserved it.” She took out a plain white handkerchief and blew her nose, then continued as if she had never stopped. “Besides, no one ever murdered someone for feeling sorry for themselves. There has to be a reason. She had friends and men friends, but no lovers that anyone could even hint at. She was not robbed, or attacked in … untoward ways.”
    “Murder is untoward enough, I fear,” I said, and added, “but what you say makes sense. Did she have enemies from where she came from?”
    “How?” asked Alfred. “She’s been here for almost fifteen years. The teaching was her life after I went to Louisiana and Rick to California.”
    “It does not make sense,” I agreed. “I assume the watch has questioned every member of the music faculty.”
    “They still are.” Alfred sighed. “But everyone was miles away or with someone else—usually two others.”
    “I am afraid I have taxed your hospitality at a trying time.” I rose. “I did not mean to intrude so long, only to return what should be returned.”
    “And perhaps,” added Kristen with a faint smile, “to try to make some sense out of something you also find senseless?”
    “You are perceptive, young lady. Yes,” I admitted, “that also. But there is no point in overstaying my welcome when you are as baffled as I.” I extended a card. “If there is anything with which I could help, please do not hesitate to ask.”
    “Thank you.” Alfred belatedly rose and took the card. “We appreciate your concern.” He grinned briefly. “And your forthrightness.” He looked at the card, and frowned. “You aren’t the Johan Eschbach?” He handed the card to his wife.
    “I’m afraid you have the better of me.”
    “The former Subminister of Environment that the Hartpencers went after, I mean. Why are you here?”
    “In Vanderbraak Centre?” I smiled—wryly, I hoped. “My family had a home here, and there really was nowhere else to go. I had the doctorate, and I still needed to make a living.”
    “Even stranger,” he murmured.
    “How so, Alfred?” asked Kristen, except her words were too matter-of-fact.
    He shook his head. “Mother once wrote about you. She said you were the only honest man in a den of thieves, carrying about a lantern looking for another honest man. I’m sorry. I just didn’t connect. I guess I am not thinking very well.”
    “Your mother must have been mistaken.” I wouldn’t have characterized myself as a Diogenes.
    “No.” He looked at me. “She also said that you were looking for a ghost in Doktor duBoise, and she—Doktor duBoise—was all too willing to oblige you, as desperate women often are.”
    I must have staggered, or reacted, for Kristen stood at that point. “Forthrightness is all very well, Alfred.”
    “No,” I demurred. “I would hear more, if there is more.”
    “There’s not much. She just wrote that she felt that all the recent arrivals at the university carried secrets too terrible to reveal and too heavy to bear. She meant the newer faculty, I think.”
    “Was your mother psychic?”
    “Sometimes we thought so. But most of the time she kept her secrets—that’s what she called them, her little secrets—to herself.”
    “It’s amazing what you never know about people.”
    “I can see that.” Alfred’s tone was friendlier, for some reason. “How many people at the university really know your past?”
    “You probably know more than most. I have said little, and most of the older Dutch do not ask. I would not, certainly.”
    “You would characterize yourself as older Dutch?” asked Kristen.
    “By birth, but not by inclination.” I frowned. “But how did your mother know? I cannot recall providing so much detail.”
    “I fear I’m the guilty one.” Kristen grinned. “When Mother Miller wrote about you, I was skeptical, afraid that you might not be quite so