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.