Dreaming of the Bones

just work together—we were friends. My son Colin goes to the same school as Kit, they’re even in the same form. The poor bloody kid.”
    Kincaid didn’t want to talk about Kit—just thinking of the boy threatened to breach the wall he’d built round his own emotions—but Laura plowed on without waiting for a response.
    ”You’d think he’d been through enough, wouldn’t you?” She jabbed at her glasses again as a pink flush of anger crept into her cheeks. ”And that anybody with an ounce of feeling would know he needs to go on with his life as normally as possible—anyone but his grandmother. I rang them and suggested that Kit come stay with us after the service tomorrow. He could go back to school, keep up with his sport and his friends, and he’d at least have something to think about until things are sorted out with his dad.”
    ”No go, I take it?”
    ”You’d have thought we meant to sell him into slavery. And cause Eugenia Potts a personal injury.” Laura closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head in disgust, then blinked and gave a startled exclamation. ”But you know them, of course,” she said, staring at Kincaid in consternation. ”Vic’s parents. Well, I’m sorry if I was out of line, but I’m that furious.”
    ”You’re not out of line. And I don’t mind at all.” He added, smiling, ”Eugenia can be a bit... There’s no diplomatic way to put it, is there?”
    Laura smiled back. ”How did Vic come from such a family?”
    ”I used to tell her they must have found her under a cabbage plant,” he said. He’d forgotten that.
    ”Have you any influence with them?” asked Laura. ”The father doesn’t seem unreasonable. I’m sure he’d see that it would be better for Kit to be in a familiar environment with children his own age.”
    Kincaid shook his head. ”I agree with you, but I’m afraid any intervention on my part would only prejudice them against your idea. Eugenia doesn’t care for me, to put it mildly.”
    ”I’d call that a sterling recommendation of your character,” said Laura, and this time the smile reached her eyes.
    ”Good,” he said, taking advantage of the opening. ”Because I want to ask a favor of you.” He hesitated, not sure how far he should commit himself. In the end, he compromised, telling her what he wanted but not why. ”It would help me to know how Vic spent her day on Tuesday. I’d like to talk to anyone in the department who saw her.”
    ”Those are the same questions the police asked.” Laura looked steadily at him.
    ”Yes.”
    ”You’re a detective, too. Vic told me. Are you helping the local police?”
    ”Not exactly.” He met her eyes. ”This is personal.” Laura held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded once, a signal of understanding. ”I’ve got to run some things to the printer”—she glanced at her watch—”now, as a matter of fact. But I’ll be back in a tick, and in the meantime, you could have a word with Iris—that’s Professor Winslow, if you remember, our Head of Department. And I think Dr. Eliot has a supervision finishing in about a quarter of an hour. You might catch him after that. The others are out for afternoon lectures, but then, they had heavy schedules on Tuesday afternoon as well, and probably wouldn’t be much use to you.” A model of efficiency now that he’d given her a direction, Laura pushed her chair back and stood up, then paused and plucked at the fabric of her plain, gray, longsleeved dress. ”I bought this yesterday,” she said. ”I know mourning went out of fashion with the Victorians, but it felt right, somehow.”
    ”They understood the use of symbols,” said Kincaid. ”We could do worse than to remember it.”

    Iris Winslow didn’t question Kincaid about his motives. She rose from her chair behind the scarred oak desk in her office and held out her hand to him as he sat down. ”I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said. Her sympathy, like Laura’s, seemed genuine, and he found it surprisingly hard to bear.
    But Iris Winslow was both tactful and perceptive, and without waiting for him to respond, she talked of how much she had liked Vic and of what it had been like to work with her, so that he began to feel more comfortable—and even, after a few moments, as if he’d been given an unexpected gift.
    ”Thank you,” he said simply when she’d come to an end. ”You’ve helped me fill in some of the blanks. You know I hadn’t seen Vic for a long time