Family Money(30)

As if on cue, Joe crossed the banquet hall and settled in next to me. He held a glass of red wine in his hand and was smiling ear to ear.

“Look at her,” he said, also staring across the floor at Taylor.

“Believe me, I can’t stop.”

He laughed. “What a party, huh?”

“I can’t thank you enough,” I told him.

“It’s just money, son. I’m fortunate to have it.”

“No, I mean for everything you’ve done for me, Joe. I wouldn’t be standing here today if you hadn’t given me the little kick I needed.”

“You’re welcome, son. The joy on my daughter’s face right now tells me my gut has been right about you all along.”

“I appreciate that.”

“So don’t blow it,” he kidded.

“I don’t plan on it.”

Then he turned to me, put his hand on my shoulder, pressed his lips together. I could tell Joe was a bit tipsy. “I’m serious, Alex. You’re a blessed man. Don’t ever forget it. And I’m not just saying this because it’s my daughter. I’m saying it because you two are meant to be together. I know the term ‘soul mates’ gets thrown around casually these days, but I honestly believe in it. That’s you and my Taylor. Cherish it. Not everyone gets to end up with their soul mate. Sometimes it tragically slips away. Sometimes one or the other makes a big mistake and lets it go. And, sometimes, it gets brutally stolen from you through very cruel circumstances. That’s probably the worst one of all.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “C’est la vie.”

For a second, my father-in-law’s face soured, like someone had pinched two wet fingers around the lit candlewick to his big smile. Momentarily sullen, he stared off, as if thinking about something else. Or someone? I wasn’t sure.

“You all right, Joe?”

My father-in-law turned back to me, the smile gradually returning. “You bet. Hey, let’s go grab our girls and show everyone here how to properly cut up this dance floor. I didn’t get all dressed up for nothing.”

I figured that Joe must have been talking about Greta. Had they reconnected recently? Was Greta why Joe was in DC two weeks ago? I again wondered about a possible affair between the two of them. I think we’ve been found out. Could that have somehow played a part in Joe’s death?

I put my car into drive, punched the gas, and sped over to the SMU campus.





EIGHTEEN


I paid for parking in a garage and then found my way over to the impressive DeGolyer Library. After roaming for a few minutes among the college students and various sections, I found a helpful library clerk who informed me that most of the university’s archives were online and pointed me to a computer station. She suggested I could simply search for what I was looking for rather than starting the tedious task of pulling out old yearbooks and such.

I sat down and typed Daniel Gibson into a search box on the computer screen. Forty-nine different results appeared, dating all the way back to 1947. Most were from the Rotunda, SMU’s student yearbook. I carefully scrolled through them and focused only on the years associated with the dates from the golf-team photo. The first thing that popped up on my screen was the same photo I’d found on Ethan Tucker’s shelf. The names on this photo matched Ethan’s. The next two listings were for golf-team photos from the two years prior. In each of them, Joe stood among his teammates wearing the official golf-team attire but was again listed as Daniel Gibson. I shook my head and couldn’t believe my eyes. What did this all mean? Did my father-in-law change his name after college? If so, why?

A fourth listing pulled up a photo showing my father-in-law in a full-action golf swing at a collegiate tournament. The caption said: Daniel Gibson places fourth at San Joaquin Country Club in Fresno, California. A fifth listing in the archive was not golf related. It was a photo of Joe standing with a few other students at a campus event in front of the historic Dallas Hall, which I’d passed on the walk over to the library. They were all wearing jeans and T-shirts. With each discovery, I found myself more baffled. Joe was standing there, smiling away. And yet he was again listed in the caption as Daniel Gibson. I scanned the other faces in the photo and then paused on a certain girl two people down from my father-in-law. I immediately recognized her. She was the same attractive blonde woman wearing the red dress in the photo I’d found inside the letter written to Daniel from Greta. I quickly read the other names listed in the caption from the yearbook photo: Tommy George, Wallace Kaper, Daniel Gibson, Mary Mosely, Greta Varner, and Vanessa Wilkens.

Greta Varner. I now had a last name.

I pulled out my phone, searched Google for Greta Varner. There were only a few listings online. A handful were from obituaries of much older people than the girl in this yearbook photo. There were only two Greta Varners on Facebook, but neither of them looked remotely like the girl in the photo. They couldn’t be the same person. I searched for Greta Varner, DC. Nothing at all popped up. And that was it. There was nothing else online about Greta Varner.

I sat back in my chair, wondered what happened to her. Perhaps she’d gotten married again and changed her last name. I went back to my university archive search. The very next listing I found online felt like it reached out and punched me in my chest so hard, I could barely breathe. It was a Dallas Times Herald news article reprinted in an SMU Dedman School of Law publication called The Brief from thirty-five years ago.