When she concluded, half a dozen students went up to the front of the room with their books or lecture notes open. I waited at the back of the group while she answered their questions. When she finished, she turned to me with a smile. “Hi, I’m Linda Chen. Are you here evaluating my teaching for the Weinstein Award?”
I returned the smile. “No, but I’d give you high marks if I was. You’re an impressive lecturer.”
She looked puzzled. “Then who are you?”
“Brad Parker. I’m chair of the Integrated Life Sciences Department at the Boston Technological Institute. I’m hoping I can get a few minutes of your time to ask you about someone you knew when you were a graduate student at Yale. Martha Daniels.”
“I’m sorry—I don’t think I can help you. I don’t remember anyone by that name.” She started to walk away.
“Wait, please,” I said. “Clayton Marston said the two of you were roommates when you both worked in his lab as graduate students. I wouldn’t have come all this way if it wasn’t important.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “All right. Let’s go find a place where we can talk.”
“Your office?” I suggested.
“No, the Memorial Union is right next door. We can get a cup of coffee and sit by the lake.”
We got coffees and took them out to the terrace, overlooking the expanse of Lake Mendota. It was a chilly November day, maybe just hitting fifty degrees, but the terrace was crowded with students and faculty enjoying the view.
Linda maneuvered us to a table at the fringes of the crowd. It was a place we could talk privately but where we wouldn’t be alone. I wondered if that’s what she had in mind when she suggested it. Or maybe she just liked having coffee here.
“You’re right,” she said. “Martha and I were close friends as well as roommates. But why are you interested in her now? It’s been several years since her death.”
“I’ve been looking into a case of possible misconduct involving one of the faculty members in my department at BTI. It led me back to Yale, and Martha’s name came up. I understand that she underwent a big change in her professional direction right at the end of her graduate student career, and it may be important for me to find out what happened. Professor Marston thought that if anyone knew, it would be you.”
She looked out at the lake. “Yes, something happened all right. Everybody who knew Martha could tell that. But she made me promise never to speak of it. Warned me not to, really.”
“Warned you?”
“She said talking about it would only bring me trouble. That there were powerful men involved.” She sat up straight in her chair and furrowed her brow. “And now, ten years later, you’re asking about it. How do I even know you’re who you say you are? This could be some kind of sick test, for all I know.”
I gave her my BTI photo ID card, and she examined it briefly.
“Okay, so you’re Brad Parker,” she said. “BTI is where that girl was raped and murdered recently, isn’t it? Did you know her?”
A wave of sadness hit me as it came back. “Yes, I knew her. She was a student in my department.”
Linda gasped. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! That must be horrible for you.”
I tried to drink some coffee, but my hands were shaking. At least she seemed to have accepted me now. “What can I say? It’s awful to have that happen to someone you know.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I read about it, of course. It was all over the news.” Then her eyes widened. “Wait, that’s not why you’re asking me about Martha, is it?”
“No, it’s a different case that led me to Martha. A financial problem. Why do you ask that?”
Linda Chen took a deep breath. “Because Martha was raped. That’s what I was never, ever supposed to tell anyone.”
My mouth opened as the shock wave hit me. So Singer hadn’t been involved with financial shenanigans at Yale—but with a rape case! And if he was accused of rape back then, could it be him now? Except his alibi was solid.
Linda didn’t notice my surprise and stared out at the lake as she continued. “She went to a party given by one of her course instructors and didn’t come back until the next morning. A total mess, and she couldn’t even remember much. She said one of the faculty members who was there took her to a back bedroom, and she passed out, but she remembered him assaulting her.”
“Did she say anything about what happened?”
Linda fidgeted in her chair and spoke in a soft voice, as if she was still embarrassed for her friend. “He pulled down her jeans and stuck his fingers in her. She thought he must have put something in her drink to knock her out.”
“What a bastard! Did she know who it was? I hope she brought charges.”
“She knew, and she immediately went to the dean’s office to file a complaint. But the faculty member denied it, and it was just her word against his. They said that she didn’t have any proof, and they couldn’t allow her to slander an innocent faculty member. Then the dean threatened to expel her from school if she didn’t sign some kind of agreement to keep the whole thing confidential.”
I sighed. “That’s disgusting. I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen that way now, but who knows. Who was the faculty member?”
“Martha wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid of what might happen if word got out that she talked. All she would say was that he was a big shot, and that’s why she got screwed. In the end, she was so disgusted with the way the whole system turned on her that she left science. And eventually killed herself. She sent me an email before she did it, saying that those scumbags at Yale had ruined her life. She couldn’t go on anymore after what they did to her.”
“She sent you a suicide note? And you didn’t get it in time to stop her? My God, that must have been horrible for you.”
“She used delay send, so I didn’t get it until hours after she was dead. There was nothing I could do.”
Linda swallowed the rest of her coffee in one large gulp. There were tears in her eyes as she got up to go.
“Wait, there’s one more thing,” I said. “Did you know a faculty member by the name of Sally Lipton?”
“I took a course from her, I think the year before Martha was raped. It was one of those advanced seminar courses where a whole bunch of different faculty members come in to give lectures on their research areas. And she always had a party for the students and faculty in the middle of the semester so they could get to know each other informally. It was kind of nice. Except not for Martha. It was at one of Lipton’s parties that she was attacked.”
I played with the rest of my coffee as Linda left, extracting one more promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone that she’d talked to me.
She didn’t know who Martha Daniels’s rapist was, but I was pretty sure I did.
Mike Singer.
And maybe I was beginning to see how he’d fooled us.
25
My mind was still swirling as I took an aisle seat on the six-thirty flight home from Madison. I could put a story together at this point, all pointing at Mike Singer. It seemed pretty clear that he’d assaulted Martha Daniels years ago in New Haven. It had happened at one of Sally Lipton’s parties, and I was willing to bet that she’d seen something, which would explain her name on the nondisclosure agreement. And the dean responsible for shutting down Martha’s complaint had been Kenneth Emerson. The current president of BTI. The same asshole who’d tried to shut me down yesterday.
I was pretty confident about what had happened at Yale. And if Mike Singer was a rapist ten years ago, why not now? The implication that he was the one who’d assaulted Emily was unavoidable. An assault that involved drugging and then manually penetrating the victim, just like the attack on Martha Daniels.
The only problem was his alibi, which placed him firmly in his office when Emily was assaulted. But what Linda had told me about the suicide note she received from Martha Daniels might hold the key to that too. I googled “delay send email.” Th
e lead entry was clear.
Delay the delivery of a single message.
It described how to schedule an email to be sent automatically at any desired time after it was written. Martha Daniels used it to send her suicide note to Linda after she was dead. And Mike Singer could have used it to fake what had seemed like a convincing alibi.
So was Mike Singer, my colleague and an eminent scientist, really a rapist and a murderer? And just how much was Emerson trying to protect him from?
I needed a reality check. A talk with Karen to see what a professional would say. I texted her that I’d be home around eleven and had quite a story to tell. Her response was immediate.
I’ve got some news to talk about too. Meet you at your place.
I was trying to puzzle that out when a tap on my shoulder broke my concentration. “Excuse me, could I get by for a minute? I’m in the window seat.”
I looked up at a red-haired woman in a gray wool skirt and black suit jacket standing in the aisle.
“Of course.” I got up and moved into the aisle while she maneuvered across the row to take her seat. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. “I feel like we’ve met,” I said. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
She looked at me coldly. Maybe she thought I was trying for a quick pickup. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Anyway, I have work to do.”
She focused her attention on her laptop, effectively demonstrating that she had no interest in chatting. Which was fine—I had enough to think about.
Maybe I was letting my imagination run away with me. Just because Singer had been involved in a sexual assault ten years ago in New Haven, it didn’t mean that he’d become a serial rapist and murderer. And Emerson might have used the nondisclosure agreement as the best way to get rid of him. Nothing sinister, just like our dean had gotten rid of Steve Upton. And with all the money Singer was bringing in for the institute, an amount that could soar with the licensing of Immunoboost, it wasn’t surprising that Emerson wanted to prevent further scandal by my raising a nasty incident that was now far in the past. Sure, the assaults on Emily and Martha were similar. Drugged and then raped. But that was a common-enough scenario that it didn’t necessarily mean the same person was responsible. Wasn’t Upton still the obvious candidate?
My mental ping-pong was interrupted when my seatmate muttered an apology and squeezed across me to the aisle. She didn’t give me a chance to get up and let her out but was in such a hurry that she crawled over me, muttering a startled “Oh!” when the back of one of her legs rubbed against me. Then she turned and glared at me before going over to the flight attendant who was serving drinks a few rows behind us. They spoke briefly, and the attendant escorted her to another seat at the front of the plane. Then he came back to pick up my former seatmate’s laptop and bag from the overhead compartment.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
He looked at me blankly. “No, she just needed to move her seat.”
“Oh, did she know somebody up there?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not your concern, okay?”
Weird, I thought. As if I’d somehow offended her, but we hadn’t even spoken since she sat down. Maybe I was supposed to be telepathic and know when she wanted to get out of her seat without her needing to say anything. Something else to ponder. A little break from thinking about Mike Singer.
I got off the plane eager to get home and see Karen when four of them converged on me. Two state troopers in uniform and two guys in conservative dark suits.
The uniforms blocked my path, and one of the suits asked, “Are you Professor Brad Parker?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“We need you to come with us.”
What the hell was this? “Wait a minute. What’s going on?”
He flashed a badge. “I’m Special Agent Larson, FBI. Again, we need you to come with us. Now.”
“Look, I need to get home. Just tell me what this is all about.”
“Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.” He turned to one of the uniforms. “Cuff him.”
One of the troopers grabbed my arms behind me and slapped handcuffs on. I started to struggle but got hold of myself. Resisting would only make things worse, whatever was going on.
“All right,” I said. “Wait a minute—you don’t need those.”
“Screw it. Just bring him,” Larson ordered.
They marched me through the airport, a perp walk with my hands cuffed behind me. We went down to the lower level, and they led me to a room in the bowels of the airport, behind the baggage claim area, away from normal passenger traffic. It was small and windowless, with no carpeting and painted a dull institutional gray with a single fluorescent light in the ceiling. The only furniture was a stark metal table with several chairs scattered around. A video camera was mounted on the wall.
“If you sit down and stop being an asshole, I’ll let him take the cuffs off,” Larson said.
I glared at him but took a chair. The uniform uncuffed me, and Larson sat at the table across from me.
“So will you tell me what this is all about now?” I asked.
He held up his phone and showed me a picture. “Do you know this woman?”
It was the woman who’d been seated next to me on the flight. “Not really. She was sitting next to me on the plane, but I don’t know who she is.”
He stood up and leaned over in my face. “You don’t, huh? She’s the woman you assaulted when she tried to get out of her seat to go to the bathroom. You stuck your hand up her skirt and grabbed her ass. Do you remember that, you damned pervert?”
“Wait a minute! Nothing like that happened!”
“Oh no? Did she keep her seat next to you for the whole flight?”
“No. She got up and said something to the flight attendant. He moved her to a new seat.”
“And you’re telling me you don’t know why? You’re unbelievable.” He was shouting now.
I tried to stay calm. “No, I don’t know why she wanted to move. I never touched her.”
“You’re a liar. She told the flight attendant what you’d done, so he moved her and called us to meet the plane. Two other passengers confirmed her story.”
“No, that’s just not true.” This was the kind of situation where I knew that anything I said would be disbelieved. But I couldn’t keep myself from trying. “Absolutely nothing like that happened. This is ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous, is it? Are you aware that sexual assault on an airplane is a federal crime? That’s why you’re talking to the FBI, asshole. And I don’t think you’ll find federal prison to be ridiculous. Not a pansy college professor like you.”
I took a deep breath and tried to fight the panic rising in me. “Look, all I can say is that I didn’t assault her. And I want to talk to a lawyer.”
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said so far.” He picked up his file. “And apparently someone’s looking out for you. I understand your legal beagle is already on his way.”
He turned and left, slamming the door behind him. I got up and tried it, even though I knew it’d be locked. It was. I sat back down to wait.
Where was a lawyer coming from? Karen could have sent one, but how did she know about my predicament? And more than that, what the hell was going on?
Time passed slowly. I had my phone, so I tried texting Karen. But no service—they presumably had the room blocked. I was sure the cops were watching, but I restrained myself from yelling at the video camera. Better to stay in control and wait for the unknown lawyer to appear.
It was almost three hours later when there was a knock on the door and two suits came in. The first, a tall, slim guy with silver hair, introduced himself as being from the BTI Office of General Counsel. His companion was Doug Westman, executive assistant to the president.
Westman took the lead. “You’ll recall that we spoke by phone two days ago to arrange the meeting you had with President Emerson yesterday?” He stared at
me with unblinking gray eyes that looked as cold as he’d sounded on the phone.
“I remember,” I said. “But how did you know I was here?”
He ignored the question. “It seems like you didn’t understand what President Emerson said to you. He told you to stay the hell away from Mike Singer, didn’t he?”
I returned the cold stare. “What’s that have to do with anything?” I turned to the lawyer. “Who called you guys to come down here? And more important, how about getting me out of this mess?”
“Who called us doesn’t matter,” Westman said. “What does matter is that you don’t seem to have gotten President Emerson’s message. You went straight from his office to Madison, sticking your nose in the wrong place again.”
So somehow this was all tied in with Mike Singer. But how did they know what I’d done after meeting with Emerson? And were they really using these charges to get me to back off?
“I don’t see what that has to do with these ridiculous allegations,” I said.
Westman handed me a letter. “Ah yes, the allegations. Unfortunately, we don’t think they’re ridiculous at all.” He sniffed. “Quite credible, actually. This is formal notice of your removal from the position of department chair and your placement on administrative leave from your faculty appointment. You are to stay away from campus and avoid any contact with students until the matter is resolved. And I would suggest that you follow President Emerson’s advice about terminating your illicit investigative activities.”
“There are two ways this can play out,” the lawyer said. “It could be that your seatmate will decide not to press charges, and the whole matter will be dropped. Unfortunately, if she decides to go ahead, it looks like the case against you is quite strong. What you’ve done is a federal offense, and I can tell you that they come down hard on this kind of thing. You could be looking at years in prison. Not something you want to mess around with.”
“You could help yourself by voluntarily leaving BTI,” Westman said. “We’d ask you to resign and sign a nondisclosure agreement covering any information you have pertaining to Mike Singer. In that case, I’m sure we could get the charges dropped. You’d be free to find another position and move on with your life.”
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