The Never List

Stiller?” I flipped through the pages of the Bataille books, stopping here and there to read passages. It made no sense to me whatsoever. And it was sick.
    I looked back up at Tracy, “What is wrong with these people? ‘Horror,’ ‘desire,’ ‘corpses,’ ‘filth,’ ‘sacrifice’… Jesus. Was Jennifer sacrificed ?”
    I put the book down slowly and gripped the sides of the chair, the images of debauchery and mayhem from those pages spinning in my head.
    Tracy looked alarmed, but I think it had more to do with the color draining from my face than from our discovery.
    “Whoa, whoa, you’re jumping the gun here, aren’t you? So Jack had a thing for some dead philosophers with a perverted social club. Most psychopaths have some strange interests, to say the least.”
    “But there’s something weird about these three. The venom David Stiller directs at Adele is pretty intense.”
    “Welcome to academia. You have no idea. It’s such a circus.”
    “Circus?” Something was tugging at my brain. “David Stiller used that term, and so did Jack … in a letter.”
    “It’s actually a pretty generic metaphor,” Tracy said wryly.
    “David Stiller misspoke when he said it though. He said …” I thought a minute. “He said the conference circus, and then corrected himself to say circuit.”
    “That’s actually kind of funny. It is a conference circus.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Some people see it as one of the perks of academic life. You know, the university pays for your trip. The conferences are usually held in decent places. There are some lectures, some panels, and then everyone goes out and eats and drinks like they’re senators of the Roman Empire. Lots of affairs. Plenty of academic intrigue. Alliances form and break off, that sort of thing. It is a bit of a traveling circus, I suppose—of highbrow, know-it-all intellectuals.”
    I pulled Jack’s letters out of my bag and carefully started unfolding them, spreading them out on Tracy’s desk. She sighed and cleared some space for me. I looked through the letters, and finally, in the third one he sent, I saw it.
    “There,” I pointed at it triumphantly.
    Tracy picked up the letter and read it out loud.
    “‘And I met you while on the circus train. Two sideshows. More travelers.’”
    “‘I met you’ …Tracy, do you think he was in town for an academic conference when he abducted Jennifer and me? And what about you? Would Jim have these details? We need to call him.”
    Tracy looked at me hard, thinking. Finally, she nodded, picked up her phone, switched it to speaker, and dialed. By heart, I noticed. As always, Jim picked up at once.
    “Jim?” Tracy began, taking the lead as usual. “I’m here with Sarah.”
    Jim was silent for a moment. I was sure he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
    “That’s … wonderful,” he finally said.
    I jumped in. “Jim, at the time of my … abduction, was Jack at an academic conference?”
    Jim paused as he always did before giving us any new information about our case. I didn’t know if he was worried about our mental states or about breaching his confidentiality obligations. Finally, he spoke. “Yes, actually he was.”
    “And what about when I was abducted?” Tracy asked.
    “That we aren’t sure of. There was an academic conference at Tulane the week before, but it wasn’t his field. And if he was in town for that, there is no definitive record of it.”
    “What was the conference?” I said, realizing that I was holding my breath. I looked at Tracy and saw she was too.
    “It was a literary conference.”
    “Do you remember the topic?” Tracy said. We knew now that Jack’s interests were broader than psychology.
    “Hold on a sec. I’ll pull it up.” We waited, hearing the click of his keyboard over the line. “Looks like … the conference title was Myth and Magic in Surrealist Literature .”
    Tracy and I exhaled simultaneously. There was something here, whether Jim knew it or not. We looked at each other, and Tracy nodded at me to start.
    “Jim. I know you have massive databases and minions to troll through all that information. I want you to do something for us. I know you think everything I am doing is far-fetched, but if you do this for me, I promise I will show up at the hearing and cry my eyes out before that parole board.”
    “I have to hear what it is first, obviously.”
    “Can you have someone do an analysis of Jack Derber’s attendance at academic