The Rational Faculty (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  To Somers’s surprise, Cynthia giggled. She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked mortified.

  “Sorry,” Dulac said, still grinning. “Totally out of line. Keep going.”

  But the cat was out of the bag, and Cynthia was staring at Dulac with newfound appreciation. “So, just hypothetically, let’s take . . . you. Purely theoretical.”

  “Sure,” Dulac said. “Theoretical.”

  “A gay man who’s white, middle class, educated, so on, is much safer than a gay man who’s black, lower class, no education. A gay man who’s butch is safer than a gay man who’s campy.”

  Nodding, Dulac said, “Sure. Like women. Women, on the whole, get paid less than men. But women of color get paid a lot less than white women.”

  Cynthia was nodding excitedly. “Exactly.”

  “Boom,” Dulac said, grinning as he smacked the table and turned over his shoulder to look at Somers. “Intersectionality.”

  This time, Somers couldn’t help it: he rolled his eyes.

  Dulac just grinned bigger.

  “It sounds like Fabbri was a good fit for the job,” Somers said. “His work sounds like it’s at least in the same general area as Fukuma’s. He was a rising star—your words.”

  Cynthia gave a single nod.

  “So why was Professor Brigaud so upset that Fabbri got the position? She said the college had compromised itself ethically. She said she wasn’t sorry to see him dead, and that she almost resigned when he was hired.”

  “He’s a straight, cis white man,” Cynthia said with a shrug.

  “And?”

  “And he got a job that a queer woman of color held.”

  Dulac spread his hands. His grin had taken on an apologetic tint: the kid who just got caught cutting a laundry line. “And?”

  “And that’s a big problem,” Cynthia said, scooting forward again. Too many more questions, Somers thought, and she’d be flat on her back, answering questions from the ground. “Women of color,” she continued, “and especially queer women of color are drastically underrepresented in academia.”

  “Intersectionality,” Dulac said triumphantly.

  “How did you feel about the hire?” Somers said.

  The pancake makeup made it hard to tell, but Somers thought Cynthia might be blushing. “I wasn’t totally on board at first. I knew his work—believe it or not, I’d already cited him in a draft of my thesis. And I’d heard him speak once at a conference; he was the keynote. But I was very close to Professor Fukuma. And I know how important it is to increase representation.” She seemed to be struggling. “I mean, he already had a good job at a state school in Illinois. It wouldn’t have hurt him if the college hired someone else. They could have hired almost anybody: a person of color, someone who identifies as LGBT, an other-abled person. But they didn’t. I think that’s what Professor Brigaud meant. She was good friends with Professor Fukuma too. They had to be friends; they were living in a sea of white men.”

  “But it sounds like Fabbri was the best candidate?” Dulac said.

  Cynthia shrugged. “Maybe. I guess so. It’s hard to tell, I think. And a lot of people believe there are weightier factors than the number of published articles you can list on your CV.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I thought I did. But then I met Jim, and he was really wonderful. Funny and smart and cool. He wasn’t like one of those professors who are desperate for the students to like him. He could be really tough. But he wasn’t unkind. He was . . .” She was blushing now, Somers was sure of it. “He was kind of perfect.”

  “Was there a romantic component to your relationship with Jim Fabbri?” Dulac asked.

  “What?”

  “You had a relationship with your previous advisor. I was wondering if something similar had happened with Jim.”

  “No.”

  “Professor Brigaud said something to imply that Fabbri had inappropriate relationships with students.”

  “There wasn’t anything going on between us.”

  “Do you know what Professor Brigaud might have meant?”

  “No.”

  “Was he serving alcohol to minors?”

  “No. I don’t know. What does it matter? He’s dead. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

  “Yes,” Dulac said. “Why don’t you tell us about tonight?”

  “It was horrible. I was right there. One minute, Jim was trying to get our attention, and then the TV turned on. It was showing these awful things—spiders, roaches, dead animals. I was staring at it. I couldn’t even look away. It showed a truck coming down a highway and running over a dead dog. It exploded.” She took a breath. “Everybody was staring at it. I couldn’t believe what Jim was doing. I mean, it was a Halloween party. There were undergraduates there. What was he thinking? So I turned around. And that guy was coming across the room.”

  “Just a second: the party. Who was invited?”

  “Anyone. Everyone. He was resident head, so most of the students in that dorm dropped by for a few minutes, at least. And then Jim’s grad students.”

  “Like you.”

  “Like me. And Jim’s friends, I guess. A few people from the department. He was still pretty new to the area, and I don’t think he knew many people well.”

  “And Lena Brigaud?”

  Cynthia was silent.

  “Why was Professor Brigaud at the party? She didn’t seem like a friend.”

  “You saw her costume.” Dulac’s face was expressionless, but Cynthia studied him for a moment before adding, “I think she wanted a fight.”

  “About her costume?”

  Cynthia pointed to her chest, the same spot where Brigaud’s bedsheet had been stenciled with two words. “White privilege,” Cynthia said. “That’s why she thought Jim got the job.”

  “All right,” Dulac said. “Thank you. Now, can you describe the man you saw?”

  “Cardinals hat. Dark clothing. Not black. But maybe brown? I don’t know, I wasn’t really looking at his clothes.”

  “What about his face? If we got someone to—”

  “No. He had something over his face. Sunglasses, I mean, over his eyes. But something tied over the lower half of his face. Like a scarf, maybe. He had—on his arm, he had this swastika tattoo.”

  Dulac nodded. “Anything else you noticed about him?”

  Shaking her head, Cynthia said, “I wasn’t even really paying attention. I just assumed he was a kid getting to the party late.”

  “Kid,” Somers said. “You thought he was college age? And he was there with a swastika tattoo?”

  “Yes.” Cynthia hesitated. “I mean, I did think that. I guess I should say I assumed it. I don’t really know why.”

  “But you didn’t assume he was an adult? A faculty member? Maybe a friend or partner of a faculty member?”

  Slowly, Cynthia shook her head. “No. I just thought he was a kid.”

  “Ok,” Dulac said. “Go on.”

  “Well, I was going to tell Jim to shut off that horrible movie. But Jim was staring at the guy who had shown up. And Jim looked pissed. Furious, I mean.”

  “Do you know why he was angry?”

  “Maybe because the guy was crashing his party.”

  Dulac waited.

  “I don’t know,” Cynthia said. “I guess I don’t really believe that. The way Jim looked at this guy, it was intense. Like he knew who he was. And he was pissed—furious—that this guy had shown up.”

  “Any idea how Jim might have known him?”

  Cynthia shook her head.

  “And no guesses as to why he might have been there, or why Jim might have been upset with him?”

  Another slow shake.

  “Ok,” Dulac said. “What happened then?”

  “I was kind of nervous. I hadn’t really seen Jim lose his temper before, but I knew he had one, and I didn’t want to get caught in the cros
sfire. I turned back around and started watching the stupid movie. I figured I’d tell Jim the next day that I thought it was in poor taste. But it could wait. And then everybody started screaming. Somebody shouted that Jim had been shot. Somebody shouted something about a knife. People were pushing, and—”

  “Hold on,” Somers said. “Did you hear a gunshot?”

  “No.”

  “Why would someone say something about a gunshot?”

  Cynthia shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe something on that video?”

  “But you were watching the video. You would have heard it too, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  Dulac raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean, I was kind of focused on what was happening behind me. Listening, I mean. I was curious; I wanted to know who the guy was and what Jim was going to say.”

  “Then everyone started shouting.”

  “Right, and pushing. I turned around. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I mean, I heard someone say that Jim was shot or stabbed or whatever. I thought maybe I could do something. I saw Professor Brigaud, and she was on her phone, and I remember thinking, ‘Ok, the police are coming, the ambulance is coming.’ And then I saw Jim.” A shudder went through her, and she pressed both hands to her face. “Can you believe I thought I could do something? I mean, he’d been—” She cut off and made a gesture at her own belly. “I can’t even describe it. And that horrible video was still playing. And he was still alive. He was screaming.” She burst into tears.

  They let her cry for a while. Then Somers got her a cup of water and tissues, and Cynthia began to calm down.

  “He died,” she said; ripples ran through the water as her hand trembled. “I watched him die. And then I realized it was just me in there. Just me. I turned off the DVD player. I couldn’t stand it anymore. And then I went to the window and opened it. I was burning up, and I thought I was going to be sick, but I had this idea I might see the guy getting away, see who did this.”

  “And did you?”

  “I saw people, but it was just everybody running out of the dorm. Besides, the quad was too dark, and the apartment was too high for me to make out any details.” She smiled weakly. “I think I was in shock; I don’t even really remember waiting there. I just remember that woman, the police officer, the pregnant one. And she was shouting, asking all these terrible questions, and I started to cry.”

  The interview went a little longer, with Dulac and Somers pressing for details she might have forgotten in the first telling, but they came up empty. When Cynthia left, she was crying again, smearing white pancake makeup onto the slinky Halloween costume.

  CHAPTER NINE

  NOVEMBER 1

  THURSDAY

  1:01 AM

  WHEN SOMERS WAS ALONE with Dulac, the new detective glanced over his shoulder. “Better?”

  “I think we’re hitting our stride,” Somers said. “Let’s keep going.”

  So Lloyd brought in a waifish ginger. The guy looked like he might have been eighteen, but only barely—and a very scrawny eighteen—and he was wearing one of those leprechaun costumes that comes in a plastic bag. He blinked at Dulac with watery blue eyes. When Dulac smiled, the poor ginger looked like he was about to melt.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Dulac said. “Why don’t you sit down? Let’s get started.”

  So the ginger sat.

  “Your name is Mitchell Martin?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re a program administrator at Wroxall?”

  Dulac’s skepticism leached into his voice; Somers felt the same way.

  Mitchell must have been used to it, though, because he grinned for a moment. “I know. I look like I should be taking your order at Taco Bell, right?”

  “Nothing wrong with looking young,” Somers said.

  “He’s just saying that because he’s in his thirties,” Dulac said, flashing one of his stolen-pie grins.

  Mitchell laughed, stealing a look at Somers and then going back to Dulac. Then he started to laugh harder.

  Somers laughed too, and it surprised the hell out of him.

  “You’re going to be grateful for it when you’re his age,” Dulac said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Somers.

  “Oh, um.” Mitchell blushed, a dark maroon in contrast with the fiery orange of his hair. “I actually am, uh, nineteen.”

  “And you’re a program administrator?” Dulac was leaning back, arms behind his head, showing off for this kid. And the whole time, Dulac had that hellion smile that was turning the poor kid to jelly. “Come on. There’s some kind of story there.”

  “I guess high school was boring.”

  Somers raised an eyebrow.

  Mitchell blushed harder. “I blew up a couple of mailboxes. Then everybody thought it’d be better if I got my GED, so I did that. Then I was bored at home—”

  “Watch out, mailboxes,” Dulac said.

  “So I decided to try college.”

  Somers thought about the story; if the kid really was nineteen, then Somers would have been working on the police force the entire time the kid was in college.

  “Why don’t I remember any of that?”

  “What?” Mitchell said.

  “I don’t remember a kid blowing up mailboxes.”

  “Oh, I didn’t live here. I lived down in Branson. I came here because of Wroxall.” He shrugged at their twin looks. “Scholarship.”

  “And how did you know Jim Fabbri?” Dulac asked.

  “I’m the program administrator for the Center for the Study of Humanity. We’ve been funding a lot of WAG research lately, and Jim had come by a few times to talk about grants that we administer, things like that.”

  “WAG?”

  “Women and Gender Studies.”

  “And based on a few interactions about grants, Fabbri decided to invite you to his Halloween party?”

  “It’s not as strange as it sounds. Wroxall really isn’t a big place. Wahredua isn’t a big place, for that matter. I know most of the upperclassmen—I only graduated a year ago.”

  “And you’ve already moved up this far?” Somers asked.

  “Two spots,” Mitchell said with a shrug. Then, blushing again: “I told you, I get bored.”

  “And that’s all,” Dulac said. “Jim Fabbri invited you to his party because you guys had gotten to know each other through work.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There wasn’t any other element to your relationship?”

  This time, Mitchell blushed fire. “What do you mean?”

  “Were you romantically involved?”

  “No. I mean, Jim was straight. At least, I thought he was straight. Anyway, didn’t he have a girlfriend or something?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Dulac said.

  “Did Jim have a girlfriend?” Somers asked.

  Mitchell shrugged. “I thought he was dating a student. That’s what I heard anyway.”

  “From whom?”

  “No idea. I just heard it, you know?”

  “All right,” Dulac said. “Tell us about the party.”

  And Mitchell did, but he couldn’t add anything they hadn’t already heard. Unlike Brigaud or Cynthia, Mitchell hadn’t seen the actual attack; he’d been too focused on the offensive video.

  “But then,” Mitchell said, “I turned around. Everybody was going crazy, you know? And this guy, the one in camo, he was rushing at me. I saw the knife, blood all over it. I was mad. Or, maybe not mad. But my adrenaline was up. I grabbed him.”

  “That was not a smart thing to do,” Dulac said. “You could have been hurt.”

  “I know; you’re right. But I wasn’t even thinking. Anyway, the guy was a lot bigger than me, and he just pulled free and kept going.”

  “Did you notice anything about him?”

  “Not really. I mean, I told you about the kni
fe. And I know he was wearing camo. When I think back, I can’t really say exactly if it was camo pants or a camo shirt. But I remember: camo. Clear as day.”

  “His face?”

  “He had it covered. Something on the lower half, and then sunglasses. I think he had a hat on. I mean, he was a white guy. I know that much. But that’s about all I can tell you.”

  “Anything else? Any other senses?”

  Once again, Mitchell looked like he was on fire. “I think he was probably cute.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. I could be wrong. I mean, I just saw his nose. But just his build, like, he wasn’t fat or even skinny. He was jacked. And he was young. I mean, that’s what I thought, anyway.”

  They ran through a few more questions, but Mitchell couldn’t give them anything else.

  Their next interview was Carl Klimich, who looked fortyish, overweight, with a sponginess to his soft, pale bulk that made Somers think of things that lived in the dark. He was wearing a red velour smoking jacket and toyed with an electric cigarette, spinning it between his hands.

  “I really think it’s unacceptable that you’ve kept us here this long.”

  Somers, who had tagged in for this interview, tried his best smile. “I’m sorry. And we really appreciate your time. Talking to eyewitnesses is one of the most important things we can do after a horrible crime like this.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it horrible.” And then Carl began to snicker: an unsteady, nasty laugh like the smartest guy in the room had just gotten one up on everybody else.

  “Really?” Somers said. “What do you mean?”

  Carl shut off the laugh in an instant, staring out at Somers from behind dark, pinched eyes. “Nothing. What do you want to talk about? I’m tired, and I need to get home to my cats.”

  No comment, Somers thought. But he was starting to get a read on this guy. What Hazard would have called Somers’s interpersonal skills, and what Somers just thought of as a gut feeling about people. And he was starting to get a pretty clear gut feeling about Carl.

  “I think someone told me you’re a teacher.”

  “I’m a professor,” Carl snapped, slapping one hand down on the e-cig.