“I hope you didn’t try to take advantage of me while I was sleeping,” Marlee joked.
“Don’t flatter yourself. You snored all night. And sometimes you growl in your sleep. I almost went back to the couch with Pippa.” Hector got out of bed wearing his boxer shorts, white undershirt, and black socks. “I’ll make some coffee while you get dolled up.”
“Dolled up? I’m not going to a sock hop, Grandpa.” Marlee teased Hector about his age since he was a little over a decade her senior. “I’ll shower and get ready for classes while you get breakfast.”
“I’m not cooking breakfast. Not after that comment about my age.” He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and put them on.
“Jeez, somebody’s really sensitive this morning. You don’t like being slapped in the head. You don’t like being teased about your elderliness. There’s no pleasing some people,” Marlee grumbled as she grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later she was treated to fresh coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast. “Thanks for making breakfast. Even after the rough start to the morning.” Marlee looked at Hector across the table and they smiled at each other. The crime chart was still in the middle of the table, and they both glanced at it as they finished their meal.
“Well, I have to get to work. You have the morning to do whatever you want while I’m slaving away,” Marlee said.
“I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and read the newspaper. Then make some calls.”
Marlee gave him a quick wave as she gathered up her belongings and went to campus. Once in her office, she remembered she had a department meeting at noon and would not be finished until 1:00 at the earliest. Crap, not an office meeting, she thought. I’d rather be punched in the gut than sit through another meeting with this group. Academic meetings were known for very little getting accomplished, while at the same time riling up at least half of the faculty in attendance.
Her class that morning went well, and she almost forgot about the meeting until bumping into Della Halter in the hallway. “Fuck! Did you know we have a meeting at noon?” Della drawled, unconcerned that a student or colleague might overhear her salty language.
“Yeah, I just remembered. Do you know what it’s about? Willy emailed an agenda, but I’m sure we’ll be talking about more than student scholarships,” Marlee said. William Cameron was the head of the department. His hobbies were spreading right wing propaganda and stirring up trouble.
“It’s not what’s on the official agenda that you have to worry about. It’s what’s not on the agenda that you need to be concerned about,” Della said knowingly. The first year Marlee was on campus, Della missed a department meeting and the majority of the department floated a plan to oust the tenured professor from MSU. Marlee had objected to the plan and told Dr. Ellis, the dean at the time, who then put a stop to the coup. Della and Marlee had never talked about it, but Marlee figured she knew what the others in the department had tried to do to her.
“When a meeting pops up out the blue like this, it’s usually bad news.” Marlee was in her fifth year on campus and could now apply for tenure. She was in the precarious position of knowing enough about the university not to put up with bullshit from administration, yet she had to stay on everyone’s good side so she could be awarded tenure.
“Willy’s going to drop the shit hammer on somebody at the meeting!” Della called out as she walked toward the restroom. “I can’t talk any more. I have the squirts!”
With that disturbing visual in mind, Marlee walked back to her office and gathered up papers she intended to take home. She hauled everything into the conference room, intending on grading a few quizzes while she waited for the meeting to start. Before she could completely read one quiz, Hank Barnaby, the newly-appointed dean entered the room and sat beside her.
“Hey, Marlee. We’ve got some big problems. You’ll be hearing all about it in your department meeting, but I thought I’d give you a heads-up.” Hank was a former biology professor who moved into the dean’s position when the previous person in that position was fired. He wore his usual attire, a plaid flannel shirt, khakis, and hiking boots. Since his promotion to dean he’d started wearing a tie and had acquired a few new academic buzz words in his vocabulary. Otherwise Hank was the same guy he’d always been. Marlee appreciated that he had not let his elevated status go to his head.
“Oh, no. That doesn’t sound good. What’s going on?” Marlee’s heart was in her stomach now as she braced herself for the impending problem.
“It’s the proposal for the new major in Geriatric Studies. This needs to get pushed through by your department, so we can move to the next phase. A few people in your department are against the new major and are trying to torpedo it. I want this proposal to go through so we can have Geriatric Studies available as a new major next fall,” Hank reported. “I just thought I’d tip you off before the meeting and let you know what I was thinking.”
“Thanks. It’s always good to have some advance notice on these things,” Marlee said, reading between the lines and playing along with the game.
“Oh, and one other thing. Anyone applying for promotion or tenure needs to have their materials to me by next Friday.”
“Next Friday? I thought we had until Spring Break. I’ve barely started,” Marlee moaned, knowing that putting together a stellar tenure packet would require several hours of work on top of her already busy work load.
“Do you have your recommendation letters?” Hank asked.
“Yes, I have everything I need from outside sources. I just need to organize everything and write up my justification for why I deserve tenure.”
“Don’t forget, next Friday. I can’t accept anything any later than 5:00 p.m.,” Hank said, leaving the table and exiting the room. “I need plenty of time to go through everyone’s applications so I can decide who to recommend to the president.”
Marlee sighed. She had just been told about the proposal for the new major which would be addressed in the department meetings. Dean Barnaby also told her how he wanted things to work, and then he’d talked about her tenure materials. It could not be any clearer how he expected her to vote on the issue.
Twenty minutes later, the conference room was nearly filled with her department members, and it was only fifteen minutes past their designated start time. Not bad for academics. One colleague had not shown up yet and a second one had notified the department head that they wouldn’t be present due to a family emergency. Yeah, right, thought Marlee. As soon as I get tenure I can skip a department meeting now and then. But until then I have to be on my best behavior.
William Cameron started the meeting by talking over the individual faculty conversations. He circulated copies of the meeting agenda in case someone had forgotten or ignored the agenda he previously emailed. Then he fussed with his laptop until it linked to the projection system displaying three graphs and a column of numbers in yellow ink on the pull down screen at the front of the room. “It’s time we get started,” he announced as he tugged at his bow tie and the neck of his sweater vest.
“Will, I can’t read that. It’s too small. Can you enlarge it?” asked Bob Ashman, known as Asshat among students, faculty, and staff, due to his snarky personality and his love of hats. Today Asshat wore an oversized cowboy hat and sat in the front row, effectively blocking the view of the projection screen for anyone sitting behind him.
“Why is everything in yellow? I won’t be able to see it no matter how big you make it,” grumbled Della.
“Don’t worry folks. I’m going to tell you what all of this means, so it really doesn’t matter if you can see it or not,” Will said condescendingly. He droned on about existing majors within the program and those that would be phased out due to lack of enrollment.
“Do we need to vote on any of these majors today?” interrupted Della, growing impatient with the tedium of the meeting.
“No, but we need to come to a consensus about a proposal for a ne
w major. As you know from my emails, Edison Snarvel has proposed a major in Geriatric Studies. If we approve it, then it goes up the ladder. If it reaches the Board of Regents, and they approve it, then we can start marketing this new major immediately. It would be a real boost for the department for recruiting new students,” Will said. There was no doubt he was in favor of the proposition and, in true Will Cameron character, he tried to present the addition of the new major as if it were an obvious choice. Anyone who disagreed with Will would risk looking foolish. Luckily, most of the faculty saw through Will’s façade and began to debate.
“Why do we need this major? What will it add to our department? How many new students can we expect to recruit if we have a Geriatric Studies major?” Asshat asked, not waiting for answers to any of the questions. He opposed the major and wanted everyone to see it as a farce.
Before Will could provide answers, Della chimed in. “Isn’t this more of a medical program? This major should be taught in the Biology and Chemistry department as part of their pre-med program. It doesn’t fit with any of our courses in Sociology, Criminal Justice, History, or Political Science. Why would we want something like this in our department? What next, auto mechanics?” Della flailed her arms around her head as she spoke.
Will raised his hand to silence the detractors and respond to the questions. Before he could speak, he was interrupted by Edison Snarvel, the professor responsible for the Geriatric Studies proposal. “If I may, I have information that will address all of your concerns.” Edison, who was in his mid-60s, wore a black turtleneck under a light blue Oxford shirt and sported a maroon crushed velvet jacket over the top. His polyester flare-legged slacks were hiked up to his chest and fastened with a brown belt featuring an enormous belt buckle. No one liked meetings more than Edison, and he made sure each and every topic was discussed until it was dead. Completely dead.
Edison strode to the front of the room and began a monologue on Geriatric Studies which nearly put Marlee to sleep. After forty minutes, Edison returned to his seat at the urging of Will. Marlee didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Geriatric Studies major, but anything that kept Edison occupied and out of more important department matters was a bonus. In the end, the faculty voted 12-2 in favor of the new major. Della and Asshat, who were polar opposites on most issues, stomped out of the meeting in defeat.
“It’ll never work!” Asshat predicted as he stormed down the hallway, his cowboy hat pushed to the back of his head.
There’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back, Marlee thought as she race walked through the building and to the parking lot. The quicker she got off campus, the sooner she and Hector could resume their investigation.
When Marlee arrived back home, she found her dining room and living room in complete disarray. Hector had piles of papers stacked on the table, the coffee table, and all over the floors of both rooms. He was pouring over one page while lounging on the couch, a cup of steaming coffee beside him.
“What’s going on?” Marlee was curious about Hector’s sorting method. He liked organization, and there would be some method to his madness.
Looking at Marlee over the paper he was studying, Hector said, “I’ve been looking through the papers you brought from Bridget’s apartment. I think you’ve misjudged your cousin. Bridget has been up to far more than any of us could have predicted.”
So what if I cut a few corners? Everyone does it.
Chapter 14
“What do you mean?” Marlee asked Hector, curious as to what he had discovered about Bridget.
“Bridget has been in contact with several art collectors and dealers over the past year. Most of them are legit, but some seem a bit shady. She has a letter from one art collector asking her to help him get access to the urn that Thayer owns.”
“You think she took the urn in order to give it to someone else? I can’t imagine her doing that.” Marlee struggled to wrap her head around the idea of her cousin as an art thief.
“It’s right here in black and white if you want to read it.” Hector waved the sheet of paper at her that he’d been studying so closely when she walked in. “It’s all spelled out. She would take the urn, turn it over to this unnamed person, and then collect money as payment for her services.”
Her legs trembling, Marlee walked closer to Hector and took the paper from him. Glancing over it, she noted it was a page printed from an online journal where Bridget documented the proposition she had received from an unnamed art collector. “Oh my God,” she whispered as she sunk down onto the couch beside Hector. “I never would have believed it.”
“I found it when I was looking through the files on Bridget’s jump drive. I found it in the box you brought home last night and thought I’d look through it. I didn’t expect to find anything like this. I printed it off so I could look at it closer.”
“Are you sure it’s Bridget’s journal? I mean, it could be anybody’s. Maybe Bridget found the jump drive and just had it at her home. Maybe somebody planted it there waiting for the cops to find it.” The professor was spinning her wheels, and she knew it. The most obvious and likely explanation was that journal was written by Bridget.
“It’s Bridget’s journal. She refers to her visiting professor position at Marymount College, some of her colleagues, you, and your supper club friends. Bridget is clearly the author,” Hector reported.
“Did she write anything about actually taking the urn? We don’t know that she decided to accept the proposition. She may have documented it but then not followed through,” Marlee said.
“There’s nothing that I’ve found stating whether she took the urn or not. But the rest of the information in here is pretty damning. The very fact that she was asked to steal it and then apparently did so and confessed to it makes this a slam-dunk for the prosecution.”
“But the cops and the prosecutor don’t know about the journal. And I’m sure as hell not going to turn it over to them,” Marlee said, looking at the page from the journal she had just read. “And neither are you.” Marlee ripped the paper to shreds and then threw the pieces into the stainless steel sink and poured dish washing detergent over them.
Hector stood and marched into the kitchen behind Marlee. He gave her a hard look that only a cop could give a suspect. “Neither of us wants to get caught destroying evidence. I’m going to take a shower. When I come back I hope the jump drive and the pages I printed aren’t missing.” With a wink and a smile, he walked into the bathroom.
This was her chance to hide or destroy all the evidence from the online journal. Marlee took the twenty pages Hector had printed out, ripped them up, and put them in the sink with the others. After pouring more detergent on them, she took a large wooden spoon and stirred them until each scrap was coated. Then she ran some water on them, hoping that would make the ink smudge.
Marlee took a small garbage bag, and using salad tongs, placed the soapy scraps inside. Then she went to Pippa’s litter box and cleaned it, throwing the clumps on top of the paper she was intent on destroying. From the box of clean litter, she poured in a couple shakes of the crystalized granules for good measure. After that, she went to the kitchen and poured in some cabbage salad that she made before the conference last week and had forgotten about. It was well past its expiration date and smelled up the whole kitchen when she opened the container. She dumped that into the garbage bag as well and gave it a few good shakes to mix everything together. She tied the bag shut and hurried out the back door to dispose of it.
Since she was still under suspicion by the police, she knew they might be watching her and take her trash if she placed it in the container outside her garage. Instead, she took it across the street to a giant garbage dumpster used by residents in an apartment building. She pushed to the side a few bags of various sizes and colors the residents had placed within it. Marlee tossed her smaller bag in the apartment building’s bin and then pushed other bags on top. The police could take anything deemed to be discarded, but there was a slim ch
ance that they would look in all the garbage bins belonging to her neighbors.
Hurrying back into the house, Marlee noticed the water in the bathroom was off. Hector would be out any time, and she still needed to find a good hiding spot for the jump drive. She didn’t want to destroy it because it could contain information that might help Bridget. Her main worry was that if the police searched her home again that they would find the jump drive, thus implicating Bridget further and also involving Marlee.
She rushed to the kitchen and found a small Ziploc baggie under the sink. She put the jump drive in it and sealed it tightly, making sure the seal was secure. Then she went back to Pippa’s litter box and buried it. As long as Pippa didn’t dig it up, the jump drive would remain hidden until Marlee retrieved it.
By the time Hector was showered and dressed, the two decided it would be a good idea to grab some lunch before they went to talk with Derek Geppert, the guy who worked occasionally for Sean.
“Let’s go to the new Chinese place that opened up last month,” Marlee suggested. She’d been meaning to go, but hadn’t had the chance. The informal reviews from her friends and colleagues were all glowing, although one professor from the sociology department was quick to add that “it’s good, but it’s not like San Francisco.” His review of anything was always held up in comparison to San Francisco, where he lived for six years while working on his doctorate degree.
It was nearly 2:00 when they arrived at Panda Chang. The lunch crowd had long since dissipated, so they were among the few diners in the restaurant. The buffet looked picked over and was set to close in a few minutes, so they opted to order off the menu. Marlee chose egg drop soup and shrimp lo mein, while Hector ordered spring rolls and Mongolian beef. Their first course arrived almost immediately, leaving them little time to enjoy the complimentary hot tea.
Art of Deception Page 12