The Broken Window

Midwest in her class years ago. His name was Arthur Rhyme. Was he any relation?
    “My cousin, I told her. She went on to tell me what an interesting thing Arthur had done. He’dsubmitted a scientific paper with his application in lieu of an essay. It was brilliant, she said. Original, well researched, rigorous—oh, if you want to compliment scientists, Sachs, say that their research is ‘rigorous.’ ” He fell silent briefly. “Anyway, she encouraged him to flesh it out and publish it in a journal. But Arthur never pursued it. She hadn’t stayed in touch with him and wondered if he’d done any research in the area since.
    “I was curious. I asked her what the subject was. She actually remembered the title. ‘The Biologic Effects of Certain Nanoparticulate Materials’ . . . Oh, and by the way, Sachs, I wrote it.”
    “You?”
    “It was a paper I’d written for a science fair project. Came in second in the state. It was some pretty original work, I will admit.”
    “Arthur stole it?”
    “Yep.” Even now, after all these years, the anger rippled within him. “But it gets worse.”
    “Go on.”
    “After the conference I couldn’t get what she’d told me out of my head. I contacted M.I.T.’s admissions. They kept all the applications on microfiche. They sent me a copy of mine. Something was wrong. My application was what I’d sent them, my signature. But everything sent by the school, from the counselor’s office, had been altered. Art got a hold of my high school transcript and changed it. He gave me B’s instead of the A’s I really had. He’d forged new letters of recommendation, which were lukewarm. He made them sound like form letters. They were probably the ones he ’d gotten from his teachers. My uncle Henry’s recommendation wasn’t included in my packet.”
    “He took it out?”
    “And he’d replaced my essay with some generic Why-I-want-to-go-to-M.I.T. crap. He even added some very choice typos.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand harder. “And Adrianna worked in the counselor’s office, right? So she helped him.”
    “No. I thought so at first but I tracked her down and called her.” He gave a cool laugh. “We talked about life, our marriages, her kids, careers. Then the past. She always wondered why I’d cut things off the way I did. I said I thought she’d decided to go out with Arthur.”
    That had surprised her and she’d explained that, no, she was only doing Art a favor—helping him with his college application. He’d come to her office a half dozen times simply to talk about schools, look at some samples of essays, letters of recommendation. He said his own college counselor was terrible and he was desperate to get into a good school. He asked her not to say anything to anyone, especially me; he was embarrassed that he needed the help, so they’d snuck off together a few times. She still felt guilty that Art had made her lie about it.
    “And when she went to the bathroom or off to copy something he raided your file.”
    “That’s right.”
    Why, Arthur never hurt a single soul in his life. He isn’t capable of it. . . .
    Wrong, Judy.
    “Are you absolutely sure?” Sachs asked.
    “Yep. Because right after I hung up with her, I called Arthur.”
    Rhyme could hear the conversation almost verbatim.
    “Why, Arthur? Tell me why.” No greeting other than this.
    A pause. Arthur’s breathing.
    And even though years had passed since the transgression his cousin knew immediately what he was referring to. No interest in how Rhyme had found out. No interest in denying or feigning ignorance or innocence.
    His response: to go on the offensive. He’d blustered angrily, “All right, you want to know the answer, Lincoln? I’ll tell you. The prize at Christmas.”
    Mystified, Rhyme had asked, “The prize?”
    “That my father gave you in the contest at the Christmas Eve party when we were seniors.”
    “The concrete? From the Stagg Field stadium?” Rhyme had frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?” There had to be more to it than winning a souvenir of significance to only a handful of people in the world.
    “I deserved it!” His cousin had raged, acting as if he were the victim. “Father named me after the man in charge of the atomic project. I knew he’d kept the memento. I knew he was going to give it to me when I graduated from high school or college. It was going to be my graduation present! I’d wanted it for years!”
    Rhyme