The Exile

 A university professor without a past, a missing student on a search for a mythic symbol, and a mysterious Tarot reader lead Tom Jurgen on a case that threatens to shatter the barriers between dimensions.

The Exile, Part One

Francis Beckerman looked up from the computer monitor on his wide oak desk as I sat down. In his 60s, he had thinning hair, bushy gray eyebrows above round glasses, with a long face and shoulders that slumped inside his conservative gray suit. “What do you have for me, Mr. Jurgen?”

            I could have done this over the phone, but Beckerman, a VP at a big investment firm, had insisted—politely, to be sure—that I report in person. So I opened my laptop and started reading from the file.

            “Quentin Styles is an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago. Age 49, unmarried, author of several books, earned his Ph.D. in anthropology at UC Davis in 2009. Taught at several colleges and universities before landing a position at the U of C—”

            “Yes, I know all that.” Beckerman tapped a pen at the edge of the desk. “Did you find anything that’s not on his résumé?”

            I suppose he had a right to be impatient. “It’s what I didn’t find.”

            His eyebrows rose. “Yes?”

            “Nothing before 20 years ago. No early social media, no work history, no school records that I can find, starting in California where he first pops up. The earliest trace of Mr. Styles I could find was in 2006, when he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly inside a cemetery outside of Los Angeles. He pleaded guilty and did community service. His record seems clean since then. I have lots of documents I could show you if you want to see them.”

            Beckerman stared at me, but he wasn’t really thinking about me. He’d hired me a week ago because of his son, David, a 20-year-old student at the U of C.

            “I’m—concerned about his relationship with one of his instructors,” Beckerman had told me in this same office last week. “Not that kind of relationship. This man Styles has recruited him into helping with his research, and it’s becoming an obsession. His grades have started to slip in his other classes, and that shouldn’t happen. David is very smart—I know, I know.” Beckerman leaned forward, hands on his desk. “Yes, I push him. But he has no problem pushing back. He learned it from me. And his mother, I guess.” He sighed. “He wouldn’t be majoring in international finance if he didn’t want to do it, but Styles’s class in an elective, and David has lots of other interests. As he should. As I should have at his age, maybe.” Another sigh. “At any rate, I want to know more about this Quentin Styles. Just for my own peace of mind.”

            So I took the case and did the work, and now I was reporting back to my client. 

            Beckerman frowned. “Nothing before 2006?”

            “Nothing I could find. Of course he could have been using a different name before that.”

            “Witness protection?” He stared at me.

            I shrugged. “I have no way to find that out. Ultimately it is possible for people to change their identities and avoid being found as long as they don’t break the law.”

            “Uh-huh.” Beckerman sat back and crossed his arms. “That’s all?”

            “All I could get without talking to Styles directly, or talking to anyone who might mention it to him.” Beckerman had wanted my inquiries to be low profile.

            “All right.” He stared at a pen on his desk, thinking for a minute. “All right,” he said again. “Send me your invoice. If anything else occurs to me, I’ll be in touch.”

            I stood up. “Thank you. I hope it turns out all right.”

            Beckerman nodded. I was dismissed.

 

The next day Rachel was working from home. “I’ve got to take one call at two o’clock,” she warned me from her side of the office we share. “Can you clear out?”

            “Probably.” Rachel is a therapist. Sometimes does sessions by phone from home, and I can usually do whatever I need to on my laptop in the living room—if I’m not out tailing a cheating spouse or interviewing someone. It might have bene easier for her to relocate to the living room, since she only needs her phone to talk to patients. But she doesn’t feel professional doing therapy on the sofa or at the kitchen table, and I’ve learned it’s safer to do what she wants. Most of the time. 

            Rachel’s my wife. She’s got red hair and hazelnut eyes, and she’s sort of psychic. She insists she never uses it with her clients, but I can’t help wondering.

            My phone buzzed at 1:30, while I was in the middle of looking through a series of social media photos for a client’s. possibly unfaithful husband. I checked the number. Francis Beckerman.

            “My son is missing,” he said without warning. “I spoke to him yesterday, after you and I met, to invite him to dinner, but he never came. I’ve talked to his roommates and he didn’t come home last night. He doesn’t answer my calls or return my texts.”

            “Did you mention anything about Professor Styles? Do you think this is connected?” 

            “No. I mean—David knows I’m suspicious of him, but I only invited him to dinner. One of his favorite restaurants. It’s—we talk at least every two or three days, and he wouldn’t just not show up and then ignore me. We’re not always the closest, especially since his mother died, but we get along. This is worrying.”

            College students get mad and shut parents out for all kinds of reasons—I know I did. But Beckerman didn’t want empty reassurance, “I can go down and talk to his roommates, his friends, if you want.”

             He sighed. “Yes. Do that. Maybe he’ll call me in half an hour, but if he doesn’t, I want to be doing something. Can you go right now?”

            “Ten minutes,” I promised. I hung up, sent a few emails, and turned to Rachel. “You’ve got the office to yourself. I’ve got to go look for a missing college kid.”

            “I usually hid in the women’s room in the library,” Rachel said. “Be careful checking that out, though.”

            “It’s a guy, so I won’t get arrested for that. Maybe I can just search every bar in Hyde Park.”

“Good luck. Oh, I used to wear a hoodie and sit in the cafeteria for hours hoping no one recognized me. Just a thought.”

“I’ll try that if I get hungry.” I headed for the door. 

            An hour later I was in Hyde Park, talking to David Beckerman’s roommates in their apartment off Woodlawn Avenue. Parker Scott was a 20-year-old white kid majoring in marketing and management, and Chet Lowe, Black and 21, was studying chemistry. Neither one of them had much idea of where their roommate was.

            “He’s never really stayed out all night,” Parker told me, sitting at a small folding table in the kitchen with a can of Mountain Dew in front of him. “He’s not much of a party hound. He’s pretty serious about school. His dad sort of rides his ass, I think.”

            “Yeah,” Chet agreed, leaning against the counter. “He’s a good roommate. He’s quiet, cleans up, doesn’t play loud music or bring weird friends over.”

            “Girlfriend?” I asked.

            Parker shook his head. “Not a real girlfriend. There’s this one girl, Hallie. Hailey?” He looked at Chet.

            “Hallie,” Chet said. “They’re not dating or anything. I think they’re working on some project for a class.”

            “Which class? Hallie who?” I had my notebook out.

            “Hallie. Hallie Garner,” Chet said. “I don’t know what class.”

“They worked in his room,” Parker said. “But it was just, you know, work. Nothing else.”

“He walked her home at night, if it was late,” said Chet. “But he came right back. She must live close.”

“Do you know his class schedule?”

They looked at each other. “Hang on.” Chet went down a short hall, and I heard a doorknob turn. He came back a minute later with a printout. “Shouldn’t really be going into anyone’s room,” he said, holding it out. “But I get his father being worried.”

I looked at the schedule. Today was Wednesday, a morning and an afternoon class, both related to his major. Yesterday was one class in the afternoon: History of Mythology, with Q. Styles. One o’clock to three.

“You saw David yesterday morning?” I asked.

“Yeah, he was watching TV, and then studying, and he left around 1:30 for class.” Parker shrugged. “That’s it.”

“Did anyone call him? Did he talk to anyone?”

“Not that I noticed. I was in my room, mostly, doing a Zoom for a class project.”

I asked a few more questions without learning anything. I thanked the boys and left, remembering my college apartment and feeling old.

In my car I looked up Hallie Garner. After some internet fishing I had an address and an email, so I went to her apartment building on the next block. No one answered my ring, so I sent her an email with my phone number. 

 I had one more person to question.

The U of C campus was walking distance and I needed the exercise, so I sent a text to my client and headed off. Beckerman responded five minutes later to give me the go-ahead. 

I found the office in a distinguished stone building that looked down on the campus quad. The door was half open, with a female student sitting in front of a desk. A schedule of office hours and a signup sheet was posted on the door. No one had signed up for the next slot, so I took a seat on a wooden bench and waited.

When the student left I stood and rapped my knuckles on the door.  “Professor Styles?”

Quentin Styles had black hair and blue eyes that looked like diamonds. He wore a blue shirt with a buttoned-down collar and, his suit jacket slung casually over the back of his chair. “Yes? Can I help you?”

I dropped my card on the desk. “Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective, working for Francis Beckerman. His son David is in your class on History of Mythology.”

“David, yes.” He picked up my card, then set it down and looked me over as if I was an interesting photo in a book of ancient myths. “What’s this about?”

“He’s been doing some research for you.”

Styles cocked his head, cautious. “Yes. I asked him to research some ancient symbols that have been found on objects around the world. Again, what is this about?”

“He’s missing. Was he in your class yesterday?”

Styles blinked, thinking back. “Yes. Yes, second row. Missing?”

“He hasn’t been seen since your class. His father’s kind of worried.”

            “His father.” Styles frowned. He seemed about to say something, but changed his mind

            “Do you know him?”

            “No.” He shook his head. “David has mentioned him, of course.”

            I waited, but he didn’t elaborate. So I went ahead. “Mr. Beckerman asked me to look into your background.” 

His shoulders rose, as if he was about to stand and order me out of his office. Before he could erupt in indignation, I went on. “You don’t seem to have existed before about 2003. Is there some secret about what you were doing before that?”

            Styles stared at me, as if we were playing poker and he was trying to see what cards I was holding and how much I could afford to bet. Then he turned in his chair and peered out the window behind his desk, down at the students walking through the quad. When he turned back to me he was com posed again, as if he’d decided how much to bet. 

            “All right.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “It’s not a big secret, exactly. I just don’t tell it to everyone.” He looked over my head, as if gazing into the past. “I was found, apparently in a cemetery in southern California on Sept. 12, 2002. I woke up in the hospital. I had no—I couldn’t remember who I was. My name, my family. I couldn’t say why I was in the cemetery. I didn’t know my address or my own birthday. They did all kinds of tests, all kinds of therapy, but it just—it never came back. I was tabula rasa, a newborn in an adult body, a man without a country. I still have no idea what happened.”

            I wished Rachel was here. She can’t read minds, but she can usually tell when someone is lying. Me, after years as a reporter and now a private detective, I can usually spot lying too, and I thought Styles was telling the truth as he knew it. But I’m not perfect—as Rachel will point out about me in many contexts.

            “The papers said you were drunk and disorderly.”

            He frowned. “I was—disoriented. I probably seemed drunk. I didn’t fight it, I pleaded guilty and picked up trash by the roadside while I tried to decide what to do.”

            I gestured around the office. “You’ve done pretty well for yourself.”

            Styles chuckled. “It hasn’t been easy. The state, once they figured out they couldn’t pawn me off on some long-lost relation, helped set me up in an apartment, and I managed a scholarship to a community college. Since I didn’t remember anything about myself, I became fascinated with history. That led me to anthropology—the study of humans and their culture. Since I had no preconceptions, I was able to develop some theories that struck other people as fresh and innovative. The rest is history.” He smiled. “Small joke.”

            I smiled politely. “What about Hallie Garner?”

            Styles blinked. “Who?”

            “Another student in your class. She’s helping David with the research.”

            “Oh.” He thought for a moment. “Yes. Good student. He must have asked her to help. Maybe he has a romantic interest?” He shrugged.

            “What kind of symbol is it?”

            He tapped some keys on his computer.  “It shows up on tombs and temples around the world, in at least a dozen different cultures. Here.” He motioned me around his side of the desk. “This is a burial site in Germany. Next to it is a tombstone unearthed in North Ireland.”

            I leaned over to look at two images. Both were circles, with two lines leading toward the center. The German one looked like arrows crossing in the middle of the circle; in the Irish one, the lines were dotted, not continuous, and met at the center at a small dot.

            “What do they mean?” I asked.

            “That’s the thing. I don’t know.” He closed the file, and I went back to my chair. “It’s just sort of a pet project of mine. I offered David some extra credit. His father, for some reason, decided it meant I was, I don’t know, trying to exploit him. I’m sorry he feels that way, but I haven’t done anything inappropriate.” He hesitated. “I do hope David is okay.”

            “He didn’t speak to you after class yesterday? Tell you where he was going?”

            Styles shook his head. “No. Oh, now that I think of it, I think he and this girl Hallie left together. But I didn’t talk to either of them.” He glanced at the door. “Do you mind? I have work to do. Emails to send, that sort of thing.”

            “Thanks for your time.” I stood up. “If you hear from David, would you let me know?”

“Of course.” We shook hands. “If you find him, please let me know too.”

“I will.”

Out in the hall, I checked my phone. I’d felt it vibrate in my pocket while talking to Styles, and my hopes were confirmed: I had an email from Hallie.

The Exile, Part Two

Hallie Garner was blond, short, and cute in the typical college student way. She had a yin/yang tattoo on her wrist, and a blue backpack sitting next to her chair. We sat in a coffee shop near the Museum of Science and Industry. Hallie

            “We left class together. It was about 3:15. He was excited, because he heard about a place that had a book with some stuff about that thing, that symbol Professor Styles had him looking for.”

            “What place?”

            She closed her eyes. “It was a, a fortunetelling shop. Madame Olivya. On 55^th Street.”

            I made a note. “How did he hear about it?”

            Hallie thought for a moment. “I don’t know. He spends a lot of time looking for anything about that symbol.”

            “What do you know about it?”

            “He’s obsessed.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. He’s getting some extra credit, I guess, but it’s more than that. He spends hours looking stuff up online and in the library, getting books from other libraries, watching videos. I’m surprised he gets any studying done for his other classes.”

            “Do you know why Styles picked him?”

            Hallie shrugged. “Not really. I think David was just really interested in it. He does all the international business stuff because it’s what his father expects. This is something different.”

            “How do you know David?”

            “We met in class. We’re not dating or anything,” she added quickly, looking away from me, embarrassed. 

Maybe she wanted to? But that wasn’t any of my business. “So you’re not as obsessed with the symbol as he is?”

            “It’s—interesting. I like doing this kind of research. I like digging into stuff.” She shrugged. “I’m prelaw. You do a lot of reading and research.”

            “Do you talk to Professor Styles a lot?”

            She shook her head. “I don’t talk in class. I went to his office once with a question, but that was only five minutes. I’m not sure he knew who I was.” She giggled. “But David—he spends hours in his office talking about stuff.”

            “The symbol? Or other stuff?”

            “I don’t know. Mostly the symbol, I guess, and the different places it’s been found, the civilizations and cultures around it.” Her head jerked up suddenly. “There’s nothing going on. I mean—it’s only school. Nothing else.”

            “That’s what everyone says.” I finished my coffee and stood up. “Thanks for your help.  If you hear from David, will you let me know?”

            “Sure. I’ve got your number.” She stayed in her chair and unzipped her backpack. “I’ve got some work to do.” She pulled out a laptop.

            “Have at it.” I left Hallie to her studies.

After a quick search on my phone and a 10-minute walk, I found Madame Olivya’s Fortunes & Futures between a Thai restaurant and a liquor store on 55th Street. Her name was in dark red on the front window, and the black velvet curtains inside the window made the name hard to see from across the street. They also hid the interior of the shop when I got up close. 

Inside I smelled incense. Of course. Candles flickered in sconces, naturally. Shadows shrouded the room. A counter ran across one side, with another velvet curtain behind it. No one was in obvious sight. “Hello?”

The curtain swung open. “Yes?”

The woman spoke with a slight accent. Her complexion was dark, a Pacific Islander maybe. She wore a floor-length black dress and a silver bracelet.

“Hi.” I raised my hand.  “My name’s Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective. I’m looking for a student named David Beckerman. Do you know him?”

She cocked her head. “I know many people.”

“He was here yesterday to buy a book from you. He’s missing. His father is concerned.”

She stared at me. Trying to read my mind? Gauge my sincerity? Or estimate how much money she could take me for? Finally she sighed. “Yes. He was here.”

She gestured for me to follow her behind the counter and through the curtain. The room behind was small, dark, with a circular table covered with a red damask tablecloth and a stack of Tarot cards in front of her chair. A gas lamp glowed on a small table behind her.  All fairly stereotypical, including the leatherbound books lining the walls around the room.

She reached underneath the table and came up with a bottle of red wine. “Would you like a glass?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

Madame Olivya brought up a glass and poured. After a sip, she sighed. “David.”

“Does he come here a lot?”

“Sometimes. Maybe every month or so. I do readings for him. He looks at my books.”

“What do your readings tell you?”

She seemed surprised at my question, as if she didn’t expect a detective to take her seriously. “He’s afraid of his father. He enjoys many advantages and privileges. He values knowledge and learning.”

“Most of that could match any student in this neighborhood,” I said.

Madame Olivya frowned. “He’s looking for another father and he think he’s found one. He likes a girl but he’s afraid to tell her because he broke up with his last girlfriend a year ago and it still hurts. He’s scared of monkeys.”

That fit what I’d found out about the boy in an afternoon.  Except for the monkey thing. “What book did he want?”

Another sip of wine. “He’s always looking through my books. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he was here last week, and after my reading he was going through again and he saw something, and he left right away. When he came in yesterday he didn’t want a reading, he just wanted to buy the book.”

“So you sold it to him.”

She shook her head. “I don’t sell my books. I don’t know what he saw in. it, but he had to have it. I told him he could borrow it.”

“What book was it? What’s the title?”

Madame Olivya leaned back, tilted her head, and closed her eyes. Was she going into a trance? But she just shook her head. “I don’t know. It was something like, Stones and Symbols of Illinois, I don’t really remember. To be honest, I bought a lot of these books by lot at an estate sale. They give this place the right atmosphere.” Then she leaned forward. “But I’m not a fake. Try me and see.”

Again I wished Rachel was here—a psychic I could trust. “Do you remember the author?”

She rolled her eyes. “Sanderson, I think. A man’s name.” She pulled her stack of cards to the center of the table. “Try me now.”

I needed to get home, but I was curious. And I like to keep an open mind. “Okay. Just a few minutes, though.”

“Some things can’t be rushed.” She invited me to shuffle the cards. They were thick and awkward. Then she arranged them in five stacks, and invited me to pick the top one in each pile.

I don’t know Tarot cards very well, but I didn’t recognize any of these as I placed them face up between us. “This isn’t a standard Tarot deck, is it?”

“It’s been in my family for generations. It comes from Italy, of course.” She stared at the first card for a moment—a figure in a hood, riding a black horse and carrying a broad scythe. “You have seen death. More than your share.”

True enough, although she could have been mistaking me for a stereotypical P.I. from TV who stumbles over corpses every episode. “Keep going.”

This one showed a dancing man with his arms raised toward the sun, in a suit of many clashing colors. The fool. “You are met with distrust frequently. People accuse you of lying and you are helpless to change their minds.” She cocked an eyebrow.

“Usually they say I’m crazy,” I said. 

She looked at a third card. A man and a woman, nude, embracing. “You have one true love to depend on. You worry that you are unworthy of their love. But you are not.”

I thought about Rachel. “Good to know. Go on.”

She tapped the next card with her finger. This one had a man in a chariot, driving forward as arrows shot through the air around him. “You are driven. Unstoppable. When you believe in a cause, you cannot be turned away.”

That tracked. I’ve been called a stubborn asshole by too many people, Rachel included.

            She looked at the last card. The moon on a starless night, with a man—or a woman—staring up at it. She said nothing for a long time, until I said, “What is it? I’m getting struck by lightning? Winning the lottery? I’m dead and I don’t know it?”

            She shook her head. “There’s a darkness around you. Too deep to see through. You can see through the shadows, but no one else can see in. A part of you is—hidden. In the dark.”

            I looked down at the card. Clouds covered a new moon as smoke rose from a distant mountain. “That was more than just the cards.”

            “The cards are a window that allows me to see the deeper truth.” She started gathering them together. 

            “What deeper truth did they tell you about David Beckerman?”

            She took her time assembling the deck into a neat stack. Then she looked at me. “He’s searching for something, and forgetting what he has. He may lose both.”

“Cheery.”

            “The cards tell the truth.” She set them at the center of the table, waiting for her next reading.

            “Do you?” I stood up.

            She shot a stare into my eyes. “Always.”

 

Out in my car I spent a few minutes looking for the book online. Amazon didn’t have it, and neither did any of the used book resellers I usually go to. It didn’t sound like something any of the more esoteric libraries I’ve visited would have, but I’d call them when I got home just in case. Before starting the Prius, though, I spent a few minutes looking through library databases. 

            The Tarot cards hadn’t said anything about my luck, but I hit a small jackpot today. The book was at the U of C library. Not something students or professor could take out, let alone private detectives, but available for viewing. Score one for me.

            I texted Rachel that I might be late for dinner. Fortunately it was her night to cook. Her response: Fine. It’ll be cold. Or maybe burned. 

            Whatever, I texted back, and started the car.

            I found parking a block away from the library, and straightened my collar and jacket to try looking at least a little bit collegiate as I walked up to the front doors.

            Inside, after talking to a research librarian, I turned over my ID and was directed to the floor where the book could be found. A university student helped, and soon I was in a study cube leafing through Stones and Symbols: A Tour of Illinois and the Midwest, by Alan J. Sanders. Close enough. 

            The book was more than 400 pages long, with lots of photos and a lengthy index. The index gave me no guidance to obscure symbols anywhere in Illinois or the surrounding states, so I resigned myself to looking through the book one page at a time. I had to stop myself from going too quickly more than once, and twice I went back just to reassure myself that I hadn’t missed something important.

            Then I found it—a photo on page 324. The back side of a tombstone, and carved into it was a circle with two straight lines running through it, meeting at the center.

            Underneath the drawing were the words: Symbol (unknown origin) found in Oak Woods Cemetery, 2003. 

            I took a picture with my phone. Then I used the phone to look up Oak Woods Cemetery.

            It was only a few miles away.

            Rachel was going to be mad, but I had to let her know. Checking out a graveyard. Not sure how long it’ll take. I gave her the address. 

            She texted back: Don’t fall into anything. Once I take my shoes off I’m not coming to dig you out.

            I sent her a heart and got up to return the book.

 

At the welcome center just inside the cemetery gates a woman looked at the picture on my phone and shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you.” She was in her 50s, Black, and tired. She looked closer. “It’s a drawing, not a picture. Could be anywhere, you know?”

            “Yeah.” I showed her a photo of David Beckerman. “Have you seen him? He’s looking for it too. He might have been here yesterday.”

            “I wasn’t here yesterday.” She peered at David. “Good looking kid.”

            “Who was here? It would have been around this time.” It was 4:30 or so.

            “Well . . .” She took out a map, frowned, and drew a circle around an area toward the west side of the cemetery. “You might find Yune around here. He was working the front yesterday. He’s out checking the site. We rotate working up here.”

            I thanked her and went to my car.

            I could almost feel the ghosts around me. I seem to attract the supernatural in a lot of my cases, and nothing gives off supernatural vibes like a cemetery. I kept an eye open for wandering spirits.

            I only got lost once before finding Yune. He was cleaning a gravestone about 20 yards off the road. In his 20s he had a thin beard and a shaved scalp, and wore a green jacket. He looked up as I walked toward him. “Help you find someone, sir?”

            “Hopefully someone still alive.” I showed David to him. Yune stared at my phone and slowly nodded. “I think so. He was around yesterday, looking for something.”

            I showed him the symbol. “Is this it?”

            “Yeah. He had a book. I told him I thought I remember seeing it over on the north side. Maybe up by—oh, yeah, the map.” He took it from me, frowned, and pointed. “Somewhere here, I think. Maybe. I spend a lot of time out here.” He looked off into the distance. “It’s peaceful.”

            I thanked him, and he went back to cleaning the tombstone.

            I drove around to the north side of the cemetery and got out. The sun was almost down, and clouds drifted in the darkening sky. I stood on the grass for a moment, slowly turning, trying to convince myself I wasn’t just wasting my time. Maybe I wouldn’t count this time in my invoice. Maybe dinner would still be warm when I got home.

            I walked randomly. In a half hour I’d need a flashlight, but for right now everything was clear. I looked at the tombstones, walked past the plates in the ground, gazed at the mausoleums, and spent a few moments wondering where I’d end up. I’d told Rachel I wanted be cremated, then scattered in the lake where we’d encountered a Bigfoot several years ago. She didn’t promise to do it.

            After death? I’ve met a few ghosts, so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t just end once you’re in the ground—or in the lake. What would that be like? I was in no hurry to find out.

            The dark was coming, and I’d need to go back to the car soon. I decided to make one more long arc to the north, hoping I didn’t get lost among the tombstones or encounter any ghosts angry that I was disturbing their eternal sleep. Just a few more minutes . . .

            I found David lying on the grass in front of a tall granite stone for a woman named Mary Atkins, who’d died in 1971. He was on his back, breathing shallowly, no obvious signs of assault or injury. A backpack lay next to him, halfway unzipped. 

He looked a lot younger than 20 years old.

            I called 911 for an ambulance, and I called the front gate to let the woman there know what was happening. Then I called David’s father: “I’ve found your son. He’s unconscious in a cemetery in Hyde Park. He doesn’t seem injured seriously, and I’ve called an ambulance.”

            “What?” Beckerman started gasping. “He’s—okay? He’s not hurt?”

            “He’s unconscious,” I said again. “I don’t know why. He’s breathing and he’s got a decent pulse from what I can tell. I’m not a paramedic. They’ll be here soon.”

            “Okay. Okay.” He was struggling to breathe. “A cemetery? I don’t—what happened?”

            “I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I know later. Why don’t you catch your breath and I’ll call you when I know where they’re taking him.”

            He coughed. “Yeah. Right. Call me.”

            We hung up. Then I texted Rachel to let her know I was going to be really late. 

The Exile, Part Three

“I don’t remember,” David said.

            He lay in a bed at the U of C Hospital. The ER doctors hadn’t found anything seriously wrong with him, but they were keeping him overnight for observation.

            I was there with his father. And Rachel. She’d decided to come down when I told her as much of the story as I could before the paramedics showed up. I felt as if my fairy godmother had landed, if a fairy godmother’s standard greeting was to punch me in the ribs and demand, “What the hell are you up to, jerk?”

            Things were quiet now in the room. David looked tired and weak, trying to answer our questions. “You don’t remember anything?” Beckerman demanded.

            “Do you remember Madame Olivya’s?” I asked, more quietly, as Rachel held his hand.

            David nodded. “Y-yeah. She let me borrow the book. Then I—I remember the front of the cemetery, and this guy giving me a map, and then . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

            “Who is this Madame Olivya?” Beckerman asked. “Is this part of that ‘special research’ you’re doing?”

            “I go there—” He looked at his father, nervous. “It’s just for fun. I like her readings.”

            “Tarot cards?” Beckerman rolled his eyes. “I suppose there are worse things, but really?” He started to pace, hands behind his back as if he needed to keep them from doing something awkward.

            “Did Quentin Styles tell you about the book?” I asked. 

            “No.” David looked puzzled. “I told him. I found it, but they wouldn’t let me take it out of the library, but then I remembered seeing it at Madame Olivya’s. I told him after class. He said I should check it out. That’s why I went to Madame Olivya’s. I guess I went right to the cemetery, but I just—” He closed his eyes and rubbed his head. “I remember walking through the cemetery. I had a map. I think I fell, and it seemed like a long time, and after that—” He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

            I looked at Rachel, still holding his hand. She nodded. “He really doesn’t remember. I can feel something blocking him, but I can’t do a Vulcan mind meld or anything like that. Maybe it’ll come back.”

            Beckerman stopped pacing and stared at her. Rachel smiled. “I’m psychic. Sort of. A little.” She shrugged. 

            He sat down with a sigh. “I don’t know what to think. I’m just glad—” He looked up. “Okay. Thank you for finding my son. You can go home now.”

            “I’m glad he’s okay.” I took Rachel’s hand. “Let’s go.”

            She let me hold her hand until we were out in the hallway, and then she yanked it away from me. “You’re just holding hands because I held his hand.” She smirked. “Jealous much?”

            “Did you have to hold his hand for five minutes? I think he was starting to enjoy it.” I looked down the hall at the elevator. “What’s for dinner?”

            “Cheese and crackers. I never got around to actually making anything.”

            I pressed the elevator button. “I got a Tarot reading today.”

            Rachel lifted an eyebrow. “What’d you find out?”

            “I’ve seen death, people don’t trust me, I’m a stubborn asshole. Oh, and there’s a darkness around me.”

            She shrugged. “Yeah, that all tracks.” The elevator door opened.

            “Even the darkness? What does that mean?” I pressed the first floor button, and the doors closed.

            Rachel smiled. “I like the darkness.”

            This was a little disconcerting. “What kind of darkness?”

            She reached for my hand, as if confirming what she already sensed. “I don’t know. But it’s what I noticed about you when we met the first time. It’s what I liked about you first.”

            “Not my debonair good looks?”

            She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. That.”

            The door opened. “Did you Uber here?” I asked.

            “I drove in case you had to head out somewhere else.”

            We headed for the front door. “So I guess I’ll see you at home.”

            She grinned. “If you’re lucky.”

 

The next morning my client called me at 8:15 as I was still eating my cereal. “He’s still in the hospital. They’re doing more tests. He still doesn’t remember anything. And Styles came to see him this morning.”

            “What did he want?”

            “I wasn’t there. I got there at 7:30, and David told me he’d been there. He came in and asked all sorts of questions—"

            “About what?”

            “David—he couldn’t say. He’s still pretty out of it, and it was early in the morning and I guess he didn’t sleep well. Nightmares.” He sighed. “The thing is, I called him last night. Styles. Told him to stay away from David. I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

Interesting. What was Styles looking for? “I could talk to him again if you want me to.” 

“Yeah. I want to know if he’s a danger to my son.”

            “I’ll do what I can,” I promised. We hung up and I finished my cereal.

            Rachel was working at her office today, seeing clients in person, so I couldn’t bounce any ideas or jokes off her. That usually makes her mad anyway. Instead I checked Styles’s schedule—it was posted online—then drank coffee and did some other work until it was time to catch him during office hours.

            But he wasn’t there. When I drove down to Hyde Park, parked my Prius, and went up to his office, I found a note taped to the door: OFFICE HOURS CANCELED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE—PERSONAL EMERGENCY. Underneath someone had drawn a heart. 

            Now what? I sat on the bench and took out my phone. I had an address for Styles, a house a few blocks south of the main campus, just close enough to qualify as walking distance. I headed out.

            I found the house 15 minutes later—two stories, a tree in the front yard, vines covering the fence around it—but Styles didn’t answer when I rang the bell from his porch. I walked over and peered through the front window, its curtains half closed, but saw nothing. 

            I could have broken in, but I’m not on TV and I don’t want to go to jail. So I started back to my car. At least I was getting some exercise. Rachel had been talking about getting me a foot counter lately. 

            My phone buzzed. Beckerman. “Have you talked to Styles yet?”

            “No,” I told him. “He skipped office hours and he’s not answering the door at his home.” I turned and looked back down the street toward Styles’s house. “Are you at the hospital now?”

            “No, I’ve got meetings I can’t get out of. He’s there with some girl named, uh, Hallie.”

            “Is he going home today?”

“They don’t want to discharge him yet. He’s still dehydrated, and some other numbers are low. I’m coming out there this afternoon as soon as I finish up with some clients.”

            “I’m in Hyde Park right now,” I told him. “I’ll go over to the hospital.”

            Thirty minutes later I was in David’s room. He was sleeping, and Hallie was sitting, reading on a laptop as I entered. She looked up, startled, and closed her computer. “Oh. What are you doing here?”

            “Looking for Professor Styles. His father said he was here this morning.”

            “Yeah. I wasn’t—I had class, but I came right after.” She seemed embarrassed. “David’s taking a nap right now—”

            “I’m awake.” David coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Tired.” He reached for a cup of ice water. 

            “Sorry to disturb you.” Hallie had the only other chair in the room, so I stood at the foot of the bed. Monitors beeped above and behind him. “Your father says Professor Styles was here this morning.”

            David sighed. “I still don’t really get what you’re doing here. My father hired you to snoop into Professor Styles, and then he sent you to look for me when—whatever it was happened. How is this any of your business?”

            “It literally is my business.” I smiled. “Look, you don’t have to talk to me. But I do have to ask questions. It’s my job.”

            “Look, I know he hates Quentin,” David snapped. “It’s because he’s afraid Quentin’s going to, I don’t know, steal me away from the bright future in finance my dad has planned out for me.” He looked disgusted. “I mean, maybe he will, I don’t know. But it’s my life, isn’t it? Don’t I get to decide?”

            I hid a sigh. “Of course. My father wanted—well, he never planned on me being a reporter, or a P.I. He was an accountant, and my mother wanted me to be an accountant too. But that seemed too boring for words. And I probably hurt his feelings when I said that to him.” I was getting off track. “The thing is, you never know where you’re going to end up, whatever your parents want. Or what you want when you’re 20, for that matter.”

            David grimaced. “You sound like a professor.”

            “Is that a compliment?”

            “I don’t know what kind of class you’d teach.” He sighed again. “Okay. What do you want?”

            “You call Professor Styles by his first name? Quentin?”

            Not the question he expected. “Well, yeah. He told me. I think he’s trying to be the ‘cool’ prof or something. Is something wrong with that?”

            “No.” I shrugged. “He came here to see you this morning?”

            “Yeah, he came in at 6:30. I don’t know how he got in, but he woke me up.” David groaned. “I’m still not great.”

            “What did he want?”

“What I found at the cemetery. He didn’t ask how I was doing, or anything. He just wanted to know about the cemetery.”

            “What did you tell him?”

            “Same thing I told you, I don’t remember.” He rubbed his head. “I mean, I told him about walking through the cemetery, and the map.”

            “What map?”

He rubbed his head. “Uh, last night after you left I remembered someone said he thought he saw the symbol on the north side of the place. I don’t know where it was, but it was on the map.” His eyes widened. “Yeah. I gave him the map.”

“And that’s what Styles wanted? To find the symbol?”

“He was—I didn’t understand some of what he said. I don’t know if I was too tired or what. Some if it didn’t make sense, words that sounded like Latin or Greek. ‘Where is the—thing?’ But what he said wasn’t a word.  I knew. ‘Did you see—something?’” David shook his head. “Then I remembered the map. It was in my pocket.” He pointed to a plastic bag in the corner. “My clothes are in there. He took it and left.”

            “Did he say anything when he left?”

            David frowned. “I don’t—I think I fell asleep.”

            I nodded. “Okay. Sorry to bother you. You should get some rest.”

            “What’s going on?” Hallie demanded, as if she’d been holding it in since I walked into the room. “What happened to David? Is he going to be all right?”

            I sighed. “The doctors can tell you if he’s going to be okay better than I can. But what happened—I don’t know. Yet.”

            “What are you going to do now?” David asked. “Report to my father?”

            I shook my head. “I’m going to look for Professor Styles some more.”

            “Where?” Hallie asked.

            “Where else? The cemetery.”

The Exile, Part Four

Today there was a man working at the welcome center inside the front gate. He didn’t recognize my picture of Styles. “People don’t have to stop in here,” he told me, looking suspiciously at me. “Anyone can come in as long as the gate’s open, at least until closing time.” He cocked his head.  “Anything wrong?”

            “He’s looking for something.” I showed him an image of the symbol. “Ever seen that here?”

            He leaned in. “I don’t think so. But we’ve got thousands of people here.” He looked over my shoulder out the window. “Lots of tombstones.”

            “Thanks.” He’d been reading a book—an actual book, with a cover and pages and everything—when I came in. I left him to it.

            I headed toward the north side of the cemetery, where I’d found David. I had no idea what kind of car Styles drove, but the grounds weren’t exactly crawling with mourners’ vehicles. I passed one funeral in progress, and spotted an elderly man placing flowers on a grave. A young man rode a riding mower over the grass in the distance.

            With yesterday’s map in hand, I started my search at the spot where I’d found David. The stone for Mary Atkins stood silently in the ground. A quick internet search on my phone came up with nothing that seemed relevant to Styles or the symbol. 

            So I started circling, clockwise. The clouds above were gray and the ground was soft as I walked, looking for Styles and/or the symbol that was so important to him. The few mourners I saw either glanced nervously in my direction or ignored me as if I were an unwanted ghost, but I found no sign of Quentin Styles or the circle with two lines through it. 

            After an hour I was thinking about going home. I was at least two miles from the Atkins tomb in every direction, and I’d started straightening out the flowers people had left and brushing dirt off the ground markers. Too many young people, a lot of families buried together, the occasional lone grave that looked as if no one had visited it in 50 years. It was getting depressing. But I was in a graveyard, after all.

            I kept at it. Madame Olivya had said I was stubborn, and I wanted to prove her right. But after I another half hour I was getting hungry and I needed a bathroom if I didn’t want to defile the sacred ground. I started looking around, trying to figure out which direction my car was waiting and wondering how long it would take me to get back to it. I turned around, looking for the road.

            Then I found the symbol.

            It wasn’t on a tombstone, but carved into the thick trunk of a tall, old oak tree. The drawing in the book had been wrong somehow—or maybe the tombstone got repaired and the symbol somehow got carved into the tree? I didn’t know. But it was here, in front of me.

            I took several pictures on my phone, then circled around the tree. Now what? No sign of Styles. Had he been here and left? Or was he wandering somewhere nearby? Or was I just completely mistaken about what he was up to? My moment of triumph at finding the symbol faded as I realized I was as lost as before. Clueless, which is bad for a detective. 

            I stood around for a few minutes, hoping Styles would appear from behind a tombstone. When he didn’t, I used my phone to pinpoint the exact location of the tree. Then, after a few more minutes, I started the hike back to my car.

            My phone buzzed just as I reached it. Unknown number. I was tired, my feet hurt, and I still needed the bathroom, more urgently now, so I let it go to voicemail and made my way back to the front gate. I stopped inside the building to use the restroom, then checked my voicemail.

            “Mr. Jurgen? It’s Hallie. Could you call me? David says he remembers something.”

            Okay. I went back to the car and called the number. 

            “Oh, Mr. Jurgen. Yeah, it’s Hallie, I called you. David had a seizure and they’re giving him a scan right now, but he wanted me to tell you that—it’s hard to explain, but he figured out some of what Professor Styles was saying. Like he could suddenly understand the language or something. I don’t really know—" She stopped to catch her breath.

            “Is he okay? Did somebody call his father?”

            “I don’t know. I mean, yes, they called his father, he’s not here yet. He came out of the seizure and they took him for the scan, but he managed to tell me about it, that he remembered some of it. He didn’t have time to tell me anything. They were taking him away.”

            I checked the time. It was 2:15 and I was hungry, but they probably had a cafeteria at the hospital if I started to feel faint. “I’ll be right there.” 

            We hung up. I texted Rachel. Day is officially out of control. Back to U of C Hospital. I started the car.

 

David was sitting up and eating chocolate pudding, the remains of a turkey sandwich sitting on a plate in the corner of the tray next to a cup of ice water. “Where’s your father?” I asked.

            “He’s coming,” Hallie said. She was drinking a can of Coke. “But David really wanted to talk to you.”

“What happened?”

            “I had a—a seizure, I guess.” David sipped water from a straw. “It didn’t hurt or anything, it just felt—weird. Then they gave me a scan, and I don’t know what they found. But I feel fine now. Better.” He finished his pudding. 

            “What about Professor Styles?”

            “Yeah.” Another straw slurp. “It’s like I just suddenly figured it out, you know? At least some of it, some of what Quentin was saying. Like ‘Did you find the passage?’ And ‘Did you see the domination?’ I don’t know what he meant, what it means, but he said ‘domination,’ I can understand it now. It’s—weird.”

            Very. “I found the symbol. It’s not on a tombstone, it’s on a tree. A couple of miles from where I found you.”

            “Oh, good.” David leaned forward, as if he was ready to jump out of the bed and go looking for it. But Hallie put a hand on his arm, and he sank back down. “I mean, that’s great, but—what does it mean?”

            “What happened?” Beckerman came through the door. “David? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

            ‘Dad—” David forced himself to sit forward again. “I’m fine, I guess. They haven’t come in and told me what happened on the scan. I was just telling Mr. Jurgen about what Quen—what Professor Styles said to me—"

            “Where is he? Have you found him?” He swung to me, his eyes hard.

            I shook my head. “Not yet. I was at the cemetery where I found David, looking for him. I did find the symbol he’s obsessed with, but no trace of Styles.”

            “What are you doing here, then?” He obviously thought I wasn’t doing the job he was paying me for.

            “David remembered what the professor told him,” Hallie said. “He thought—he wanted to tell him.”

            “Will that help?” Beckerman was skeptical.

            I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.” I looked around the room for ideas. “I don’t have a lot of leads. I suppose I could talk to his colleagues, ask them some questions—”

            “No!” David shook his head. “You’ll get him in trouble. They’ll start talking, there’ll be rumors—”

            “David, for God’s sake!” Beckerman slapped the edge of the table holding his lunch tray, almost knocking his water over. “This guy is nothing but trouble. He’s got you running around in graveyards looking for drawings that don’t mean anything, and now you’re sick and having seizures! I don’t care what happens to him, I just want you to start focusing on college again. If that means—” 

            He stopped. Beckerman looked at me, then at Hallie. “You seem like a nice girl. Woman. Whatever. Thank you for being here. I just want—David, I don’t want to run your life, I just want to see you grow up and be able to take care of yourself. After your mother . . .” He groaned quietly. “I’m sorry. I just want you to be all right.”

            The room was silent. Beckerman and his father didn’t look at each other, and Hallie didn’t seem to know who to look at. 

A nurse peeked his head through the door, hesitating. “I can come back.”

            “No, come on in.” Beckerman waved a hand. “I’m David’s father.” He patted his son’s shoulder, then looked at me. “Go ask around the other profs. Just to find out where he might be. Do it—discreetly. I don’t necessarily want to get him in trouble, I just want to know what he’s up to.”

            David sighed. “Thanks.”

            I nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

 

So I went back to the big building where Styles had his office and started knocking on doors, or peeking inside them when they were open. 

            The professors were suspicious of me, naturally. They probably thought I was on some witch hunt for scandal, and that anything they shared would end up making them all look like sexual predators or undercover Marxists or secret anti-Semites or all three. So they didn’t tell me much, and a few refused to even talk to me.

            “Quentin is fine,” said Ingrid Hoffman, a professor of Medieval history in her 50s with a windowless office. “He’s extremely intelligent, and his research is solid. I’ve never been to his house or socialized with him at all.” She shook her head, as if the question was ridiculous.

            “Is it odd that he’s just canceled his office hours and classes for the day?”

            “We all have emergencies sometimes.” She gestured toward a stack of papers. “I’m about to have one if I don’t finish these reports today.”

            I left her. When I’d talked to all the teachers I went to the office, where the administrative assistant gave me an icy look when I asked about Styles’s emergency. “I can’t share details about our staff’s personal issues.”

            “Is this unusual? Is he generally reliable?”

             “We’ve had no complaints. That’s all I can say.” She tilted her head. “Is there a problem we should know about? If there is, you should go to—”

            “No problem.” I smiled. “Thanks for your help.”

            Time to admit defeat, at least for now. It was 4:30 and I hadn’t had lunch, so I found a vending machine and bought a wrapped sandwich. I was just starting to text Rachel that I was heading home when she called. “Wow, you really are psychic,” I said.

            “Are you okay? There’s this fire down there somewhere and I wanted to make sure you weren’t in the middle of it. It’s your turn to make dinner.”

            I looked out the window for smoke. “Where?”

            “It’s south of the Midway. They didn’t say the street. You aren’t doing anything stupid, are you?”

            “No stupider than usual.” South of the—Styles’s house? “Wait a minute. Okay, I might be late again.”

            “Of course.” She wasn’t mad. More like amused. “We’ve got to have a conversation about dinners. It was one thing when I was home all day—”

            “Right, right. Order whatever you want. I love you. I’ll call you later.” I hung up.