by Lev Raphael
Delaney was still dilating about academics. “They don’t think that solid work like a bibliography is a contribution to the field, and that’s what’s wrong with the profession. Being grounded, being steeped in a subject doesn’t count for anything. Research doesn’t mean anything. Slinging around Lacan and Kristeva and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is what matters. The more incomprehensible and self-important your language, the narrower your focus, the better.”
I chuckled.
Emboldened, Delaney smirked. “Forget hard to follow. Try boring, try dismal.”
“Lugubrious,” I said, and he sighed, leaning back into the chair with the gratified smile of a game-show host who’s just seen a contestant win big.
We both smiled. To my surprise, I was beginning to like Delaney a bit.
I had said many of these things to myself, to Stefan, alternately mournful or angry, but hearing them from someone young who was still a graduate student struck me as a hopeful sign. Maybe the profession could change and creep out of the corner it had painted itself into. Maybe other academics in the making would see sense, would understand that criticism was only a tool and could never be as important as the literature it analyzed.
Yeah, right. And maybe Bob Dole would appear on America’s Funniest Home Videos.
“You know, you’re bucking the odds,” I said to Delaney. “Because you’re talking sense. Remember, common sense and the academy don’t go well together. Where else in the world can you find so many people who believe that Marxism can improve your life?”
“Good example,” he said. And when he smiled that oddly disturbing smile, I felt our roles uncomfortably reversed once again—as if he were the professor and I were a graduate student trying to score points in his seminar.
Suddenly I felt someone standing at the open door, and when I turned, it was hard not to moan.
There was Detective Valley of SUM’s campus police, eyeing me with a pinched look that made it clear he was not happy to see me. Yet every time I’d seen that look before, it seemed to flicker on and off, so that I assumed the truth was more complicated. He hated having to talk to me, but it gave him a welcome opportunity to torment a faculty member, and a queer, too.
Valley looked like a cross between a freckled, redheaded Ichabod Crane and the Grim Reaper, and he dressed like he worked at a Burlington Coat Factory. He’d been the principal investigator at SUM each time I’d been “confronted” with murder, as Minnie had put it the previous Friday night. Valley had a nasty habit of sneaking up on me that made me feel as guilty as a little kid screaming, “I didn’t do it—I didn’t do it!” to his mommy before even knowing what he was accused of.
“Professor Hoffman.” Valley nodded at me.
“Detective Valley.” Jeez, I felt like Jerry Seinfeld saying “Hello, Newman.”
“I need to talk to you,” Valley said, ignoring Delaney, who seemed intrigued by our exchange. “But not you.” Valley pointed to Delaney and then out to the hall.
Delaney obediently rose and left the office, slinging his overstuffed backpack onto a shoulder.
I protested. “You shouldn’t treat students like that!”
Valley shrugged and came in, closing the door behind him. It occurred to me then that Lucille Mochtar had left Delaney waiting a long time. I didn’t know her very well, but I had observed she was very punctual. What if he ran into her out in the hall—Valley surely wouldn’t ask Lucille to stay out of her own office, would he?
Valley sat down where Delaney had been perched, lazily crossing his legs as if he were a hired thug paid to intimidate me. If I hadn’t been pissed off about his rudeness, I probably would have quailed.
“That guy was a graduate student,” I said.
“They’re all the same to me. All the students here. Criminals waiting for their chance. Rape in the arboretum, stealing backpacks in the library, lifting wallets at the football games, getting drunk on Friday night and breaking car windows, setting bonfires. Flashers. Vandalism. Graffiti. Peeping Toms. Arson. Drug addicts.”
I felt a little overwhelmed by his catalogue. I had heard some of it from my own students, who complained it was impossible to leave your things alone for a minute at the library now—they’d get rifled or stolen for sure. Despite the facts, I rallied. “You see it that way just because you’re a cop. That’s the only side of students you get to know.”
“Right. Tell me that teaching makes you think they’re all saints.”
“No, not really, but—” He had me there, and he knew it by my hesitation. Teaching freshman composition was like what people in retail often told me: it did not generally instill in you a high regard for your fellow human beings. But neither did associating with my colleagues in EAR, who often made me think that the idea of an asteroid hitting the Earth and starting another Ice Age would not be much of a real tragedy.
“What do you want?” I asked Valley, impatient.
“It’s about the incident last Friday on the Administration Building bridge.”
“The riot. Why talk to me?”
Valley shook his head. “Because you were there.”
“How do you know?”
He frowned. “Are you denying it?”
“No.”
“Then cut the crap. You think you can stall by asking dumb questions? You think this is some stupid mystery novel where everybody’s a moron?”
He must read mysteries, I thought, very surprised. I had pictured him reading Soldier of Fortune magazine or something like that. And he must like mysteries enough to dislike bad ones. I think I knew exactly the kind of book he meant: the ones where writers obviously desperate to churn out book after book filled them with long stretches of pointless dialogue that ran in circles, and had their characters talk the way no human being ever did, constantly asking for clarification in conversation. It was highly stylized, and highly boring, like: “Where were you last night?” “Last night?” “Yes, last night, after the party?” “The party?”
I said to Valley now, “I wasn’t stalling. It just made me feel nervous to be singled out.”
My honesty seemed to surprise him. He cleared his throat behind a fist and said, a little less combatively, “I’ve been talking to a lot of people—as many as we can find—who were there at the bridge. So tell me what you saw.” He took out a small red memo pad from his notebook and a chewed-looking ballpoint.
“I thought you said you had a good memory and didn’t need to take notes.”
He shrugged. “Getting old.” He looked up at me, pen poised.
I took him through the scene from the moment I spotted those blood-red Bibles to when I stood there looking at the cops examine Jesse Benevento’s body. Talking about it had become easier, as if I were seeing everything through some kind of protective scrim: Jesse’s pallor, the blood, that ironic book cover. Slowly I supplied as much detail as I could, explaining that he could also discuss my story with Angie Sandoval.
Valley shook his head. “I know about her. She’s the first one who called nine-one-one—she gave us her name. But she’s gone. We’re trying to track her down.”
“I wonder if her parents did make her leave, after what happened.”
“What’s this with her parents?”
I shrugged. “Before people went nuts on the bridge, Angie was telling me they were pushing her to drop out—her parents, I mean—and transfer because they thought SUM was getting too violent and they were worried about her.”
Valley looked pained, as if I were blaming him personally for the deteriorating conditions on campus.
“Nothing ever happened to her personally,” I rushed to point out, absurdly trying to make Valley feel better. “But, hey, being that close to a murder, I can see how it would freak people out.”
“You think so?” He shook his head. “Just wait. Next year’s freshman class will be bigger.”
Thinking of the gawkers at the bridge who had loitered there before the riot ever happened, making jokes about Perry Cross’s death, I
said, “God, that’s so sick, but you’re probably right.”
And we both shared a silent, cynical, “Kids!”
Valley and I sat there for a moment, in full agreement. It seemed amazing after all we’d been through together over the last few years. Stefan would never believe this.
Maybe I’d been too harsh in judging Valley up until now. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy, just doing his job and a little over his head at a university where there were many difficult people. Hell, my colleagues could drive me crazy, and I hadn’t ever investigated a crime. Well, not officially. And what if Valley knowing me had actually made him more tolerant? Was that possible?
At any rate, I certainly didn’t envy him working on such a high-profile murder case: the death of a department chair’s son, national publicity, state legislators sharpening their budgetary fangs.
“Why did you want to talk to Angie?” Valley asked.
I shrugged. And I lied: “To see if she was okay.” I didn’t want him to suspect her of anything.
He nodded. “Did you see anything suspicious before the riot—or during?”
“Define suspicious.”
He waved a hand, clearly wanting me to make the definition. I thought that over. “Not really. I mean, someone suggested to me maybe all that stuff with the Bible box was some kind of setup, but I don’t know if that’s plausible—”
Valley eagerly interrupted me. “Who told you that?”
Now I regretted having been so relaxed. Grudgingly, I said, “My mother-in-law.”
“Your—?” He actually scratched his forehead, but mockingly. “How can you have a mother-in-law if you’re not married? You are still gay, aren’t you?”
His quiet contempt irked me. “Stefan’s stepmother,” I explained. Valley knew well enough who Stefan was. “It was her idea. She reads a lot of mysteries.” I half-expected him to volunteer that he did, too, but Valley wasn’t here for a chat.
“Gotcha. Forget that. Did you know Jesse Benevento?”
“Yes. He took one of my classes last year.”
“Uh-huh…. Did you like him?”
“Wait a minute! Are you trying to—?”
“Easy. We have to put together a picture of this kid, okay? Did you like him?”
I sighed. If I was uncomfortable being criticized by my students, I also didn’t enjoy letting people know they’d gotten under my skin. “He was very religious,” I said.
“You mean he prayed in class? No? Then what? How did you know? He wore a big cross or something?”
How was I going to answer Valley’s question without embarrassing myself? His eyes were narrowed, and he licked his thin upper lip with obvious anticipation. For whatever reasons, he delighted in seeing me on the spot, and I was wrong to assume otherwise.
“He gave me a pamphlet about chastity.”
Valley grinned. “What the hell for? Was he trying to save your soul?”
Eyes down, I said, “He objected to a mild, very mild, sexual reference I made in class.”
“What did you say?”
“Is this necessary?” I snapped. “He was a fanatic. He was intolerant of difference.”
“And you’re not?” Valley sneered. “It bugged you that he was religious.”
“That’s not the same. What I didn’t like was him telling me what to do.”
“Because you’re the professor and he was the student.”
I sighed. “No, because it was mean-spirited. Listen,” I said. “It wasn’t just me. I found out that Jesse had a reputation for confronting professors he thought were trying to indoctrinate students with ‘anti-Christian’ ideas. He accused people of forgetting this was a Christian nation. But his father was the chair of the History Department, so it’s not like anyone could really put him in his place the way he deserved.”
“Did anyone try?”
I thought about it for a moment and suddenly felt very uncomfortable.
“Who?” Valley pressed, picking up on my unease.
“At least two faculty members I know of.” And I pictured them together near the bridge the day of the riot. “Iris Bell told him he was anti-intellectual, and Carter Savery said he should start a group: Nazis for Jesus.”
Valley frowned, jotting all this down.
“Come on,” I said. “Nobody’s going to kill a student for disrupting a class—that’s ridiculous!” But as wild as it was, if it were true, and they were murderers and convicted—then I’d get someone else on my tenure committee. I tried not to grin at the prospect.
“How about other faculty?” Valley asked.
I shrugged. “Ask around.” And then something popped into my mind and I said, “What if he was in a cult or something?”
Valley’s face went blank, and I wondered if I’d stumbled onto part of the truth, but he moved in a completely different direction. “How about the rest of the class? He piss anyone off?”
I told Valley I couldn’t remember, but if he wanted, I’d find my old class roster book from last year at home and see if going over the names brought anything back to me.
“Sure,” he said, sounding disappointed.
I wondered if I should mention anything that Polly Flockhart had told me about Jesse arguing with his father, but decided that I’d said enough for one morning. Besides, I assumed that was hearsay anyway, and useless.
“Do you know what really happened?” I asked. “How he died?”
Valley gave me a sarcastic stare that said he wouldn’t tell me the time if he could avoid it. He was about to get up when suddenly loud footsteps sounded in the hall, and the door was flung open. Delaney stood there, pale. “I was just down in the EAR office—something’s happened to Dr. Mochtar!”
5
Before either one of us could ask Delaney what exactly had happened to Lucille, he rushed off back down the hallway, heading for the stairs.
Valley and I followed, though Valley stopped to eye me curiously as I closed and carefully locked my office door. I didn’t explain my suspicions that last year someone had gone through papers on my desk and used them against me.
On the way to the staircase we bumped into Harry Benevento—at least Valley did. They glared at each other. I assumed Benevento was angry that there’d been no progress on solving his son’s murder, but what was Valley pissed off about? I asked him as we headed down the stairs, and he muttered, “Guy doesn’t think we’re competent. He’s talking about lawsuits, private investigators.” He shrugged.
When we got to the EAR office a floor below, I was surprised to see Lucille sitting on a battered wooden bench in the hallway, looking very calm. No, she was more than calm; she actually seemed to be enjoying herself, and she certainly didn’t appear injured or even shocked in any way. So why had Delaney been alarmed?
Lucille was surrounded by our department chair, Coral Greathouse; Dulcie Halligan, EAR’s prissiest secretary; Iris Bell; Carter Savery; Bill and Betty Malatesta; and Delaney. Lucille had the bemused, indulgent air of a cynical dowager after a fainting spell, watching her heirs dance attendance on her.
They made quite a picture, but then Lucille, a woman in her late forties, drew your eyes wherever she was. It was the contrast of those dreadlocks and her oval, high-cheeked face people often assumed was part Korean, or Japanese. Actually, Lucille was half Indonesian, of Chinese descent. Her cool, appraising dark eyes often seemed at odds with her wide, loving smile, and though she was short and rather chunky, she bore herself regally in Laura Ashley dresses that fit her pear-shaped body perfectly.
By regal I don’t mean that Lucille brought to mind the distant land of monarch. It was the friendlier, Scandinavian kind I thought of. You know, the ones out at the flower market, bicycling to work, doing infomercials about their cosmetics line. Shy and reserved person that I am, I had of course once shared this private imagery with Lucille, and she had laughed. “You don’t sound like any bibliographer I ever met! You’ve got too much imagination.”
That, of course, had always be
en one of my problems.
“Hi, Nick,” she said now, smiling broadly. “Join the circus.” She patted the bench, and I sat down by her. I half expected her to thank me for coming and ask if I wanted a drink.
This was very strange, and I peered at Delaney—why had he been so upset? Then I asked her what was up.
Lucille sighed, but Coral Greathouse, wearing another one of her dreary suits, answered my question. “Someone sent Lucille a horrible postcard. An odious postcard.” She brandished a white rectangle that looked like one of those pre-stamped USPO cards, the kind that Stefan used when replying to fans he didn’t want to hear from again (interesting fans always got a card printed with our address).
Coral shuddered as if wishing she could destroy the card. Betty and Bill murmured to each other, and I suddenly recalled that Bill had wanted to talk to me about something, but it was fuzzy, and I couldn’t remember how important it had been.
Valley spoke up. “I’m Detective Valley with the campus police. Who’s in charge here?” He probably expected to hear that no one was. Valley had a very low opinion of our department, having run across its denizens twice before during murder investigations and interviewed many of us. We’re not really any worse than other English departments across the country, but we’re certainly no better. In other words, we have all the charm and dignity of snarling terrorists turning on each other in the last ten minutes of a thriller like Cliffhanger.
“I’m the chair,” Coral said. “Professor Greathouse.”
Lines like that always want me to quip, “If you’re the chair, then I’m the footstool.” Stefan has made me swear to never say that aloud.
If Coral expected some kind of acknowledgment of her status from Valley, she didn’t get it. Instead Valley snatched the card from her, and she glared at him. Coral was quiet and controlled and depended on her absolute straightforwardness to keep the department in line, but I could tell by her tight jaw that Valley was pushing her limits.
“How many people have touched this?” Valley asked sharply, holding the card by its edges as if it were a CD he was about to slip into his car stereo. I wondered what could possibly be on the card to have caused this much commotion.