Free Maria Hudgins - Lacy Glass 02 - The Man on the Istanbul Train by Maria Hudgins Page A

Paul’s lecture on Neolithic flint. “Let go outside. Do you mind missing some of this?”
    “Not at all.”
    In the dark, Henry steered her around the edges of the excavation with a hand on her elbow. They headed toward the parking lot. Paul’s lecturing voice faded, soon replaced by the night sounds of crickets and distant dogs baying at the moon. The glow from the big tent now hidden behind other tents, Lacy could see tiny points of light in the distance from open fires between them and the jagged line that far-off mountains traced against a star-speckled sky. The scene before her looked, she imagined, as it would have thousands of years ago.
    “As I was trying to tell you,” Henry said, “Max opened a bank account in Adana to keep the dig running and also for his own personal use. When he found something he wanted to buy, he could write a check without worrying about international monetary crap. At tax time, he always sent me to meet with the Foundation’s accountant and figure out what was personal and what wasn’t.”
    “Had you been with him long?”
    “Twenty years.” Henry paused and repeated, “Twen-ty years. Hard to believe. I started working for him right after college.”
    “Paul says Max had no family to speak of, but he was married, wasn’t he? They had no children?”
    “Actually they did have two children, but both of them were killed.” Henry stopped walking and turned to her, as if gauging whether she wanted to hear the story. As if it might be a long story. He hitched up his jeans, which had worked their way down below the mound of his belly.
    “Killed? What happened?”
    “Max and Nina had two kids, Rachel and George. George was a couple of years older than Rachel. He’d just finished his undergraduate work at Tufts and was planning to start graduate school in engineering when a friend with a small plane flew him to Rachel’s school and picked her up. They were flying home for spring break.” He paused a few seconds. “Something happened. Whether it was engine failure or pilot error or what, they never found out, but the plane went down and all three were killed.”
    They both paused a moment. Henry glanced quickly toward her then away, the whites of his eyes reflecting the light from a bulb mounted at the corner of the parking area.
    “Of course, Max and Nina never got over it. Nina was a nice woman. I always liked her.” His voice drifted off as if he was remembering her as she used to be. “But actually she wasn’t the strongest person in the world, you know? Emotionally, I mean. Clingy. You know what I mean?”
    “I do.”
    “She had a sort of breakdown when Rachel got suspended from high school for smoking pot. Nina went to pieces. ‘Oh, my poor baby! She’ll never get into college!’” Henry pitched his voice high his hands on the sides of his head. “Anyway, Rachel did get into a good college and everything was cool. Then the plane crash.
    “Both children. Gone in an instant. It’s understandable they wouldn’t get over a thing like that.”
    Lacy glanced toward him. Against the background of stars, his profile looked regal, as if it belonged on an ancient coin.
    “Max kept going, kept up his work with the Foundation and the museum, but sometimes it was like he was just putting one foot in front of the other. Nina went downhill fast, got hooked on tranquilizers and painkillers, quit eating, and finally took to her bed. She never leaves her bedroom now. They’re calling it Alzheimer’s but that’s just a handy name, I think.”
    “She has people taking care of her?”
    “Round the clock. Has for years.” He paused and looked toward a hill to the west.
    Lacy wondered if that was the Four Bars Hill where they all went to make phone calls.
    “Actually, that’s not completely true. That she never leaves her bedroom. Max got a call the other day from Nina’s nurse. She said Nina’s been getting up in the middle of the night, wandering around that big