Out of Order by Charles Benoit Page A

and his former classmates out of a fortune, his sudden move to the States evidence of his crime. And even if the program was as “academic” as Ravi had claimed, Sriram had still betrayed his friends for a chance to make it rich. Attar’s faith—or whatever this Krishnamurti thing was—helped him, to a degree, move past the betrayal, to focus on today and forget about yesterday’s lost millions, something Jason was sure few others would do. And he wasn’t sure he could blame them.
    Jason thought back to the dinners at the Sundarams’ and how little Sriram had discussed his job. He loved to ramble on about the role of computers in society and the philosophy behind artificial intelligence and self-writing programs, but when it came down to what he did each day, Sriram had said little. If he was to believe Sheriff Neville and the reports in The Leader , there were a lot of things Sriram didn’t share. Jason knew that his feelings towards his friend were shifting, that he was beginning to accept that Sriram had sold out his partners for thirty pieces of silver and a pair of green cards, but he still couldn’t imagine Sriram murdering Vidya and then shooting himself. With the more he learned about Sriram he wondered if that, too, would start to shift. Maybe they weren’t as happy as he thought, maybe there were passions he never imagined burning behind the smiling mask. He didn’t know what went on when they shut their door.
    And he still didn’t know where to find Sriram’s mother or what he would say when he handed her the gold-embroidered, blood-red sari.
    A sari with a pattern he knew he had seen somewhere before.
    A pattern that Rachel seemed to recognize as well, as she had folded the makeshift blanket early that morning.

Chapter Nine
    With his spiral-bound notebook atop his carryall, M.V. Dharmadeep, Ph.D., rushed his hand along the page, documenting the conversation before it slipped from his memory. His penmanship was neat and tight and, although the train rocked heavily on this stretch of track, the notes on this page were as precise as those he had written yesterday in his university office, a skill acquired from decades of travel on India Railways.
    When he had finished he reread his notes, placing a small star by the most salient passages. It was, as his students were wont to say, good stuff. Of course there was no place for anecdotal evidence in his monograph, but the interview was filled with the kind of trivial quotes that the general public lapped up, too undisciplined to understand that the truth was to be found not in the individual, but rather in the statistical collective. The kind of quotes that would help fill out that fluff piece he was ghostwriting for The Express .
    He had spotted the couple before they had boarded the train, the man tall and proportionally built, his wife shorter, that silly cap making her look like the sport-mad co-eds he had seen around the university. She was attractive, yes, but her beauty was hidden by her slovenly appearance. He had planned to speak to them as soon as the train was underway, but, in typical liberated, western-feminist fashion, the woman was wandering about the train on her own, eventually opening one of the car’s side doors to stand in the doorway for all the world to see. It wasn’t till some time after noon that she settled back in her seat, and he had used that opportunity to introduce himself and conduct his research. He flipped back to the first page of his notes and read them through a third time.
    Question: Is your marriage an arranged marriage or a love marriage?
    Answer: (wife) It was definitely a love marriage. More like a love at first sight marriage.
    Dr. Dharmadeep shook his head as he reread the line. They had seemed like such a nice couple.
    He had been quite up front with them, explaining that he was the chair of the sociology department at the university in New Delhi, his specialization the statistical analysis of marital systems,