Chapter 10

The early morning traffic on the Mass Pike had been mercifully light as Irina and I drove back to Cambridge to pick up Greg and three graduate students from the lab. From there, we made it to Hamilton in good time for Justin’s funeral Mass.

The service was a mixture of solemnity and prayerful hope, even joyful in its way. On the ride to the burial site, though, the starkness of death, its finality, reasserted itself.

Saint Julian’s Cemetery at Hamilton was an old one, dating back to before the Civil War. It was not quite as lavish in funerary statuary as Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, but, in the older part where Justin’s mother’s family were entombed, it was nearly so.

It was raining hard. Irina, Greg, and I stood clutching umbrellas at the periphery of the sizeable knot of people who were in attendance. There had been no need to break through frost-hardened ground to make a final resting place for Justin; instead, his casket stood on a wooden platform before the aboveground family tomb. The name emblazoned in block letters on the nine-foot high structure was not Marsh, but Eames—his mother’s side of the family.

The Episcopal priest officiating intoned a few prayers, his voice barely audible above the patter of rain on the umbrellas. I looked over at Justin’s mother, her handsome profile firmly set, her only admission of emotion a faint redness about her eyes. Why New England ladies of the “old school” have to put on such impassive fronts, I don’t know. Maybe they all imagine how Katharine Hepburn might behave at a funeral—Yankee gumption, and all of that—and comport themselves accordingly.

A distinguished-looking man in a pale yellow rain slicker was seated in an electric motor-chair next to Justin’s mother. From the length of his legs and height of his torso I judged that, were he able to stand, he would have towered above her and most of the present company. His head was bent over in evident sorrow, and he had allowed his umbrella to tilt to one side so that the pelting rain ran in rivulets through his graying hair.

Later, the entire funeral party was invited back to the Marsh home, a large, rambling two-hundred-year-old structure painted a shade of pinkish purple that only ancient New England manses seem to be able to pull off. Family and friends filed in, leaving quivers of umbrellas in the commodious clay pots set just inside the front door. We all proceeded into the living room—nearly as large as that at the Hales’—where a pair of fireplaces and a long table laden with silver coffee urns and trays of sandwiches awaited us.

Justin’s mother, together with other family members, formed a receiving line, and all of us—friends, neighbors, and MIT acquaintances—began to file by them.

Moving through the line, I shared mutual introductions and commiserations with Justin’s relations, and in due course came to the distinguished man in the motor chair. “Hello. I’m Bennett Eames, Justin’s uncle,” he said as he grasped my hand with a grip that, in contrast to his low, halting voice, was surprisingly strong. “We became very close after his father died when Justin was only six. I’ll surely miss him.”

“I’m Bill Rundle,” I responded. “I was his advisor at MIT. We’ll all miss Justin at our lab.”

“‘Rundle,’ you say. Wasn’t it you who—who found him?”

“Yes. I found him that morning.” In response to the questioning look in his eyes, I said, “No, I guess the police don’t know anything more about what happened.”

Eames held onto my hand.

“Can you come by my house sometime? I want to know—anything you can tell me.”

“Yes. I’ll come by, if you like. I don’t know what I can tell you, really, but I can come by.”

“Good. Thank you.” Eames glanced at Karen Hewitt, who was standing immediately to his left. “You’d met Karen before, with Justin, I trust?” I nodded. “She can tell you how to get to my place.”

I assured him I would come, and he released my hand.

Next, and last in line, was Justin’s mother.

She took both my hands in hers. “Professor Rundle,” she said, “it’s comforting to see you. Justin thought so well of you. He felt you were someone he could really trust.”

The words of Justin’s email echoed in my mind as she spoke.

“I suppose,” she continued, her expression softening, “in the world of academia it’s reassuring to have a mentor one can have complete confidence in.” She smiled. “Anyway, you were that for him, and we all thank you for it.”

Her eyes misted as she added, “Thank you, too, for—for finding him.” Her reserve and mine broke momentarily and, awkwardly and a bit off balance, we embraced. Wordlessly, we let go, and I moved on while she resumed the air of formality she shared with the grand living room with its oriental rugs, Wedgwood vases, and antique silver.

On the drive back to Cambridge, the rain fell even harder, washing the muddied snow from the sides of the road. For most of the trip we all were silent, though now and then one of the students would relate some memory or anecdote concerning Justin.

“Justin was real great at getting us organized and out of the grad school rut,” said Miriam Katz, who was seated in the middle of the rear seat. “Remember how he got the softball league going. Jeez, we were awful, but it was so much fun.”

“Yeah. And remember how he got our rowing regatta started last spring?” said Orrin Clafin, a tall, gangly young man in a gray duffle coat who was squeezed in the front seat between Irina and me. He let out a muffled laugh. “What a bunch of clowns we were, trying to launch the shells in the Charles…” He stopped, then muttered, “Sorry, gang. I didn’t mean to talk about the Charles…where Justin and all…” His voice trailed off.

Everyone was silent again, until Claudia Rossi, one of the grad assistants working for Harry Mirsky, spoke in a low, deliberate tone from the left rear of the car. “I hope to hell they find out who did it.”

“What do you mean, ‘Who did it?’” asked Orrin.

“Where have you been?” Claudia hurled back, her voice rising. “Who killed Justin is what I mean!”

“Yeah,” joined in Miriam. “Yeah. Why don’t they really look into this? The Cambridge cops, I mean. All they seem to be able to do is tag cars and bust up frat parties. But when it comes to a real case, they’re completely out of it.”

Greg—stuffed into the right rear seat—called across to Claudia, “Is that what the lab students are saying, that Justin was murdered?”

“It’s not what they’re saying, necessarily. But it’s what most of us are thinking. I mean, isn’t it obvious that Justin wasn’t the kind of guy to just go and kill himself?”

“Wasn’t he pretty moody, though, this last month?” said Orrin. “I mean, he wasn’t like he always used to be, since maybe after Thanksgiving or so. The last couple of weeks, anyway. You know, kind of glum and looking washed out.”

No one spoke for a moment, then Greg asked, “Hey, Claudia, what does Mirsky think? Does he think Justin was…I mean, that something happened to Justin?”

“Harry’s in the hospital, Professor Evans. Remember?”

“Oh, that’s right. So much has been going on…”

Miriam spoke up, “Maybe there’s some new gang lurking around Kendall Square. It’s happened before. Like that outbreak of muggings that went on for maybe a month, spring before last, until the cops broke this bunch up.” She paused a moment, then added, “OK, I take it back about the cops. Well, maybe not all of it back. Anyways, they did a good job on that.”

“You know, Miriam could be right,” said Orrin. “I mean about some gang doing this. Both of these things happened at night. When it was dark, anyway. Justin at the river. Professor Mirsky getting beat up in the parking lot. Yeah. Maybe there’s some new gang targeting Tech people. Didn’t the MIT cops issue some advisory?”

“They did. I saw it in the emails,” said Greg. “You know, it’s really too bad there’s stuff happening after dark on the streets around the Institute, with students headed for the library, going for pizza, whatever.”

Everyone fell silent for the rest of the trip. I dropped Greg and the students back at the lab. Irina and I debated a moment whether we’d go to a Starbucks for coffee, but with the rain not letting up and the gloom of Justin’s funeral still full upon us, we opted not to. I took Irina to her office at Harvard, and drove back to the lab.

Back in my office, I stared out the window toward the vacant tennis courts on Ames Street and beyond to the gray waters of the Charles. The view was as fittingly somber as my mood, the rain now turned to swirling snow.