“And she found some information that troubled her—information that seemed to indicate that her husband had been misusing his computer skills and the knowledge of our financial systems that she had helped him to acquire.”

“He was embezzling,” his wife said. “He hadn’t taken much yet, but if she hadn’t turned him in, he’d probably have taken the college for millions.”

“I think we would have caught him before he stole quite that much,” Dr. Driscoll said, frowning at her.

Mrs. Driscoll looked at me, rolled her eyes, and took another deep sip of her wine.

“At any rate,” Dr. Driscoll continued, “Karen was instrumental in saving the college from substantial losses. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to bring the matter to trial—”

“Hired himself a hotshot attorney who tried to make it look as if Karen was involved, too, the son-of-a—”

“Mabel!” Dr. Driscoll looked over his glasses at his wife, who shrugged and took another gulp of wine.

“You all backed down,” she said. “You should have taken the jerk to court. He did it. You all knew that. Bastard should be in jail.”

“Perhaps we did make a mistake,” Dr. Driscoll said, with a sigh. “Karen’s absence has me worried. Obviously her estranged husband has reason to resent her. What if Walker is responsible for her . . . disappearance?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Mrs. Driscoll muttered.

“But if this all happened two years ago, what were the police investigating today?” I asked.

Dr. Driscoll looked embarrassed.

“It begins to look as if we may not have done as good a job of investigating Mr. Walker’s crime as we thought,” he said. “We handled it internally, of course—more discreet that way.”

Michael nodded sagely, and I wondered if, like me, he was having to bite his tongue at the notion of handling an embezzler discreetly—instead of bringing his crimes into the open, trying to have him prosecuted, and generally doing everything possible to reduce the chances that anyone would give him a chance to embezzle again.

“It appears that far from terminating with his employment, his crime has been, well, ongoing,” Dr. Driscoll said. “The police even seemed to think Karen was involved.”

“Idiots,” Mrs. Driscoll muttered.

“They have to investigate every possibility, you know,” he said. “And it really doesn’t look good, her running away like that, just when the whole thing came to light. If you see her—”

“I know,” I said. “She needs to come back, talk to the police, and clear her name.”

“If she can come back,” Mrs. Driscoll said. “What if something has happened to her?”

No one quite knew what to say to that, and luckily, before the awkward silence dragged on too long, the waiter came around to ask us if we wanted dessert. And along with dessert, another distraction arrived.

“Meg! Michael!” It was Dr. Blake, striding up to our table. “What brings you here?”

“The food,” I said.

“How are you, Dr. Blake?” Michael asked, standing up to shake my grandfather’s hand. “Have you met Dr. and Mrs. Driscoll?”