22.

SPRING 1971.

Because of the headaches he continued sleeping with Lila when his father was away.

Lila had enrolled him in a Saturday catechism class that also included his fourth-grade classmate Becky Tolland. Sister Susan McConnell taught the classes, which studied stories from the Bible. He especially liked those from the Old Testament such as Noah's ark and Moses parting the Red Sea.

Every Saturday at noon Lila picked him up and brought him to a park where she let him sit on her lap and drive the car. It wasn't real driving because he couldn't reach the pedals, so he just steered as she controlled the gas and brakes.

One warm Saturday in early April, Lila asked him what they had talked about in catechism. That day it had been about Adam and Eve. "Was the Garden of Eden a real place?"

"Well, I think so."

"Where was it?" He was sitting high on her lap and maneuvering the wheel around the serpentine blacktop that wound through the park.

"Far, far away in the Holy Lands. Israel or Egypt or someplace out there."

"Were Adam and Eve real people?"

"Uh-huh."

"And they were naked all the time?"

"Yup."

"That's kind of dumb. Didn't they get cold?"

"Nope. It was paradise, and paradise was always warm and sunny. And God was there to protect them."

They continued riding as he tried to imagine such a place-maybe a beach with lots of trees so they didn't get sunburned. He remembered from the story that Adam and Eve had picked the forbidden apple from the middle of the garden although there were plenty of other apple trees around, and that got God mad and He kicked them out of the garden into the wilderness, and He stopped talking to them, which he thought was really mean. Lila did that sometimes when she got mad at him. They drove on a little more. "So where did all the people come from?"

"Adam and Eve made them, or at least the first few, then everybody else came from them."

"But how?"

"But how what?"

"But how did they make people?"

"Uh-oh," she muttered. "Well, the way all people make people."

Becky Tolland had boasted once that she knew where babies came from, but she wasn't going to tell him because her mother told her to keep it to herself.

"But how?"

"Well...watch the road."

"I am watching the road."

"Well, a man plants a seed in a woman, and together they grow a baby just like a farmer does with fruits and vegetables."

He was silent for a long moment because his head filled with picture-book images of farmers with hoes and rakes and packages of pumpkin seeds-images that confused him. "But how? What's the seed, and where does he get it?"

"Oh, boy," she said.

While she turned something over in her head, he continued steering down the narrow tree-lined road. On the right was a golf course and ahead was a small playground area with slides and swings and picnic tables. When Lila didn't respond, he said, "Becky Tolland knows."

"She does? Well, good for her." Then she pointed to an opening in the road ahead. "Maybe you should pull in here."

"Okay."

He steered into the parking lot and they stopped under a copse of oaks. They got out and she led him to a small picnic table where they sat. Nearby some kids played on the swings. "Well," she began, "everybody in the whole world was made the same way. So it's not like what I'm going to tell you is weird. Except let's not tell Dad I told you, okay?"

He nodded.

"Well, when a man and woman love each other they make love. Know what that is?"

He didn't understand but sensed she was walking him onto forbidden territory, big people stuff. "They kiss?"

"Yeah, well, that's where it starts. They kiss. But it usually happens in bed when a husband and wife sleep with each other."

He still didn't see how sleeping with each other made babies. "They go to sleep?"

"Not really, they take their clothes off and get in bed. Then...well, how should I put it? Then the man enters the woman."

And in his mind he had impossible images of the man trying to crawl into the woman's mouth or somehow her body opened up like a jacket and he squeezed inside. "Huh?"

"God, I wish the nuns taught you something," she said offhandedly. In a sudden decisive move she pushed the hair out of her face and looked at him. "Did you ever get hard down there?"

He froze in shock. She had nodded at his pants. Was she really asking him that?

"You know, your peepee," she whispered.

Good God, she was. He had, but he didn't want to admit it, especially since it happened mostly when he slept with her.

"Come on, I know you do. It's only natural. Nothing to be ashamed of." She cupped his face with her hands and smiled. "It's all right, Beauty Boy. Every boy has that happen. And thank God, otherwise there wouldn't be any people around." She gave him a kiss on his nose.

He began to fidget because he sensed this was something that lay ahead of him-milestone stuff that was part of growing up like his voice changing and getting a driver's license, drinking beer.

She smoothed down his hair. "Well, do you know what girls have down there?"

He shook his head. But he had some vague notion because one day Becky drew a crude figure of a girl with a big hole below her belly and above where her legs came together. It was gross and made no sense. Wouldn't her guts fall out?

"Well, it's where babies come from. You've seen pregnant women. Mrs. Maloney up the street, in fact." She made a big belly with her arms. "That's a baby growing inside her. Pretty soon she'll go to the hospital so the doctors can remove it."

He said nothing, but his heart was racing, knowing she was sharing big truths.

She studied his face, probably detecting his confusion. "Do you know where it comes from? How the baby comes out?"

"The belly?"

She shook her head. Then she uncrossed her legs and spread her knees. "From down there."

He shot a fast look down at her yellow hip-huggers. He still didn't understand and wanted to change the subject.

She crossed her legs again. "It's where the man passes his seed into a woman, and then the baby begins to grow and grow until nine months later it's so big it has to come out. That's when she goes to the hospital where the doctors remove the baby and she becomes a mother. Get it?"

"I guess."

"There, that wasn't so bad now, was it?"

He shook his head.

"Any questions?"

He said nothing for a short while. Then he asked, "Why didn't you have a baby?"

Her face clouded over. "I did once, but he died."

"How did he die?"

"He just did." He could tell that she didn't want to go into that.

"How old were you?"

"Let's just say I was too young to understand."

"Who was the daddy?"

She just shook her head. "A man."

"How come you didn't have another one?"

She looked at him and smiled. "I do. You're my baby." And she gave him a squeeze.

"Did Jesus have babies?"

"No. He was perfect."

"Like you."

She kissed the side of his head. "You're a sweetie. No, I'm not perfect."

"I think so."

She gave him another kiss on his face and stroked the back of his neck. They were silent for several moments as birds filled the air with twitters.

"Does it hurt?"

"Does what hurt? Having a baby?"

"No. Planting the seed." All he could think was of the tender flesh being torn and split.

"No, in fact, just the opposite. But you'll learn that for yourself when you grow up." She looked at her watch. "But that's Babies 101 for today."

She put her arms around him and pulled him to her chest. The sun was beginning to burn through the underbelly of clouds and warm him. His face was up against her breasts and he was staring straight down to where her legs joined, thinking about the dark secret things she told him.

"Time to go. I've got to put the dinner on or your dad will holler."

He didn't want to go. He didn't want to get up. And it had nothing to do with breaking the magical coziness of the moment or being alone with her at the playground. He didn't want to get up because the moment he did she'd notice that he was hard.

23.

Earl Pendergast no longer had an active Web site, but his textbook publisher did. And on it was an author photo. Dressed in an open blue shirt and smiling at the camera, he was a pleasant-looking man with dark sharp eyes, a prominent brow, and long brown hair pushed straight back. Except for the rimless glasses, he looked less like a scholar and more like an aging model.

Steve printed the image, bringing it with him the next morning to the Mermaid Lounge. The place opened at eleven and closed at one A.M., so the daytime staff was different from the night crew and dancers. Steve went alone because Neil was at Terry Farina's funeral.

He interviewed dancers and staffers, but nobody could think of anyone who might have stalked Terry or wanted to do her harm. But DeLuca and a waitress recognized Pendergast. He had a favorite corner of the bar, the waitress said, and when Terry performed she'd play up to him, give him longer-than-usual glimpses. The waitress also said he was a big tipper. She added that Farina was good at manipulating customers, leading them to believe that they'd be going home with the beautiful naked woman who danced for them, but she'd just take their money and leave. No guilt. All business. But maybe some hard feelings. That Pendergast might be one of those whom Terry had playacted with was encouraging.

Hawthorne State was only fifteen miles to the southwest near the Medford-Everett line. Traffic was light and Steve didn't need to get back to the station until four. So he headed to the college to learn a little more about Professor Big Tipper.

The Hawthorne Student News office was located on the second floor of the student union, a gray stone building with lots of windows and an outside eating area. A few students were working at desks in a large and cluttered office. At a computer near the entrance sat a young woman in jeans and a baggy T-shirt with a red lollipop in her mouth. She looked up from her keyboard and took out the pop. "May I help you?"

Steve identified himself and said he wanted to know where he could find Matthew Seabrook. The woman looked at the badge. "Oh, wow, what'd he do?"

Steve explained he wanted to talk to him about a story he had written last year. The woman said she thought he had graduated but that she'd get Lisa Snyder, who was the editor. She went into a back room and came out with another woman who was wearing shorts, an oversized work shirt, and a pink Red Sox cap. Steve asked if they could talk privately, and he followed her into the room she had come out of.

He told her he wanted to see a copy of the Pendergast story. She said that the author had graduated last December, but she found the story in their files and printed a copy for him. Before Steve left, Snyder said that she was an English minor and had had Professor Pendergast for a course and that he was a terrific teacher and very popular. "The administration here is rather paranoid," she said. "Like any other school, there's a ruling against instructors getting romantically involved with students."

"Is that what the administration claimed?"

"Yeah. I guess he was something of a flirt, you know, he put a hit on some students. But I think his suspension was a knee-jerk reaction. Besides, he got awesome ratings on ratemyprofessors."

"On what?"

"Ratemyprofessors.com. It's a Web site where kids can evaluate their instructors."

It was nearly two and Steve hadn't eaten since breakfast, so he headed for the student union, where he picked up a tuna sub and took a table where he read the piece on Pendergast: The sexual harassment charge stems from last Spring semester when a junior English major complained that Professor Pendergast had made sexual overtures. She complained that over the term he had become overly friendly, asking her to concerts and plays, sometimes making her feel uncomfortable in class by singling her out for comments or calling attention to her outfits or hair.