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

by Gregory Ashe

“Yep. Said he was a man of the world.”

  “Shit. What does that mean?”

  “It means maybe he gave Fabbri an STI. Or the other way around. People kill for less.”

  Somers rolled his shoulders. “You know what I don’t see?”

  “A cold beer.”

  “Nice try.”

  “A hot guy waiting to give you a foot rub.”

  “Third time’s the charm.”

  “Gee, I like this game. Umm. Ribeye. Rare.”

  Somers offered a smile that faded slowly. “I don’t see anything that ties Carl Klimich to the Ozark Volunteers.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  NOVEMBER 2

  FRIDAY

  8:17 PM

  HAZARD SAT BEHIND THE Odyssey’s steering wheel, parked at the end of a blind alley where somebody had broken the only security light; shards of glass still littered the pavement. Not a great parking spot, not really. But he wanted to be close to campus. And he wanted, as much as possible, not to be seen.

  After his conversation with Mitchell, Hazard had spent hours struggling with how to tell Somers. Not just about the fact that Hazard was going to continue investigating Fabbri’s death but also about his decision to take a paying client. He had played out a dozen different scenarios, running combinations and strategies, anticipating objections and counter-moves.

  And then Somers had called and apologized that they’d have to cancel date night. Somers was going to work late. He thought they might have a break in the case.

  That was all. No explanation. No account of what had changed. Just that carefully neutral tone Somers used when he was on thin ice. A break in the case. It might have meant fucking anything.

  Not that Somers had to tell Hazard. Not that Hazard expected it. He’d been the first one to warn Somers from disclosing sensitive information.

  A break in the case.

  It could have meant literally fucking anything.

  He couldn’t stall any longer, so he got out of the minivan. The night was cold, and it smelled like the day-old pastries that employees from La Tres Bonne had bagged and dumped while Hazard was sitting in the van. He walked, glass crunching underfoot, and looked around, hoping somebody would try something, hoping somebody would jump out and then Hazard could let go a right hook. Bam. No complications. No side-stepping. No pretending everything was all right when everything, the entire universe, had burned down to the ground. Just a right hook that left some stupid motherfucker slurping soup through his wired teeth.

  A break in the case. What the fuck did that mean, anyway?

  The celebration of life, as Mitchell had called it, was taking place in the dormitory where Fabbri had been resident head. Hazard knew the way, since he’d been there earlier that week, but this time, he found the door locked. He buzzed, explained why he was there, and the lock released. He let himself inside.

  Finding the party was easy; in the dining hall, someone had pushed all the tables and chairs up against the walls, and now people filled the space, holding drinks and shouting over a steady whump of music. Lots of students, Hazard noticed. Lots of intoxicated students. Lots of intoxicated students who were underage. And several adults who could be prosecuted.

  Hazard took up a spot near the door, where the crowd was thinnest, and began a more detailed study. When Mitchell had said a celebration of life, Hazard had assumed this was just a slightly updated, agnostic version of a funeral. He had anticipated, without even really thinking about it, a mortuary with industrial sympathy and innocuous watercolors and cream-colored walls. Uncomfortable chairs. Maybe some sort of soft jazz playing in the background. And, of course, lots of telling stories, forced laughter, the airing of unnecessary opinions and positions that Jim Fabbri would have probably found incredibly tedious in life.

  Instead, Hazard found himself confronting a rave. It wasn’t just the music, although it had taken him a moment to recognize all the elements. It wasn’t just the drinks. Lights splashed color across the crowd, swiveling in time with the beat, and a smoke machine puffed clouds into the tangle of bodies. A celebration of life. For some reason, he thought Somers would probably like it.

  Thinking about Somers made his jaw ache. Probably because he was clenching his teeth so hard.

  “Mr. Hazard.” Mitchell worked his way through the crowd, his fiery hair bobbing in and out of sight, one arm waving as though he desperately needed a life preserver. A moment later, Mitchell slipped free and joined Hazard by the door. “Mr. Hazard, oh my God. This is so awesome. This is so freaking awesome.”

  “I’m not really sure what you want me to do here.” Hazard raised an eyebrow as he gave the mob a glance. “It’s not exactly ideal for asking questions.”

  “I wanted you to see some things for yourself,” Mitchell said.

  Hazard looked over at Mitchell, but before he could ask, Mitchell pointed across the room.

  It took a moment for the shifting bodies to reveal what Mitchell was pointing at: a tall, dark-skinned woman in a white sheath dress, pressed up against a much younger girl—Asian-American, although Hazard couldn’t tell much more at that distance.

  “Is that appropriate?” Hazard asked.

  “Everybody else is dancing. It’s not really a funeral, but someone was convinced this was what Jim wanted.”

  Hazard considered the answer before responding. “No, I meant, is it appropriate for Lena Brigaud, a tenured faculty member, to be dancing with that girl?”

  “Faculty and students can ‘socialize,’” Mitchell drew air quotes around the word, “as long as there’s no conflict of interest.”

  “Why do I feel like there’s a conflict?”

  “Kory is Professor Brigaud’s research assistant.”

  Hazard nodded slowly. “This seems like a pretty bold move; why take the risk?”

  “Because it’s just dancing.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Hazard said.

  “No,” Mitchell said in agreement. “It isn’t. But people do things like that all the time; they’re in love, so they think they’re special. Unique. They think the rules don’t apply, or they think they’re smart enough or clever enough to get away with bending them.”

  “Or breaking them.”

  Mitchell shrugged.

  “Is that all?” Hazard said.

  “Let’s talk outside.” Hazard took a step, but Mitchell grinned and put his hand on Hazard’s arm. “Want a drink?”

  Shaking his head, Hazard tried to pull away.

  Mitchell squeezed his arm and said, “I’m going to grab one for me, then. Meet me on the quad.”

  Hazard escaped the dining hall, trading the sweltering heat of bodies for the November chill. Instead of the smell of sweat and booze, the air carried a hint of grass and wet leaves. Hazard walked twenty yards, just to give them some space from the dorm’s front entrance, and then leaned up against the stone. It was cold and damp, soaking through his shirt. Hazard pulled away as Mitchell emerged, carrying a drink in each hand.

  He was a cute kid, Hazard thought as Mitchell approached. The hair, that was a lot of it: big, windswept, the color of fire. But a lot of it was the smile, the nervous energy. Tonight, in a denim jacket and white tee, Mitchell looked good. And then Hazard thought about the note in Mitchell’s voice when he said, Mr. Hazard. Like a kid. Wonder and excitement and disbelief. And then Hazard thought about the way Mitchell had laid his hand on Hazard’s arm, about the way Mitchell had smiled and then squeezed. Something like heat was going through Hazard. Or maybe something like electricity meeting resistance. It was nice not to have a history. It was nice not to have to think how he’d make Somers’s eggs the next day or where Somers might have lost a sock. It was nice to have someone look at him the way Mitchell did.

  Code red. Code red. But even the warning was a type of light. Even the warning, flashing in the back of Hazard’s head, made him feel more alive than he had in months.

  Mitchell’s smile was more ner
vous than ever. “I know you said you didn’t want one, but I grabbed you Wild Turkey.” He pressed it into Hazard’s hand, ignoring Hazard’s objection.

  “Thanks,” Hazard said; his wet shirt clung between his shoulder blades, and he shivered.

  “Geez,” Mitchell said, slipping out of the jacket. “Put this on. You’re freezing, I bet.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Come on, put it on.”

  “You’ll be cold.”

  “No way.” He must have seen something on Hazard’s face because he laughed. “It doesn’t bother me, I swear.”

  “You’re not my size.”

  “Just—here, drape it around your shoulders.” Mitchell was moving with compressed bursts of speed. “Yeah, like that. Better, right?”

  Code red. But shit, at least code red was bright and earnest and present.

  “It’s fine.” Somehow, that just made Mitchell smile more, and then Hazard added, guiltily, “Thanks.”

  “Cheers.” He rapped his plastic cup against Hazard’s and drank. Hazard took a sip of the Wild Turkey. It wasn’t exactly his drink, but it didn’t matter tonight, with the smell of wet leaves, the feeling of electricity slamming into something solid inside him and turning into heat.

  “So, how’s it going with you and your boyfriend?” Mitchell asked.

  Hazard fought to keep a smile off his face and lost. It was like watching a five-year-old do a magic trick. Here’s the card, here’s the card, here’s the card, and then the fumble.

  “You didn’t ask me out here to talk about my boyfriend, did you?”

  Mitchell blushed, the color washed out by the night. “No, I just—um. Sorry. You guys are just, like, legends. You know?”

  “What did you want to talk about, Mitchell? You’re paying for this, remember? And I’m still waiting for that retainer.”

  Mitchell laughed, but the color in his cheeks darkened. “Ok, Mr. Hazard. I’ve got your money right here.” He pulled out cash, and Hazard gave it a once-over and folded it and put it in the back of his jeans. “And maybe it’s worth it.”

  “What?”

  “Talking. I just like talking to you, ok? Maybe I don’t mind that I’m paying for ten minutes of it.” Mitchell dropped his plastic cup between his feet and tucked his hands into his armpits. “It’s not like the guys my age, it’s not like they’re anything special. I mean, half of them are so immature that all they care about is who’s hot and who’s built and who’s got a big dick.” Here, Mitchell glanced at Hazard and, in spite of the darkness, blushed so hard he looked like he might set himself on fire. “The rest of them, I don’t know. They’re not all, um. They’re not that smart.”

  “Mitchell.”

  He looked up, eyes bright. “Yeah?”

  “Let’s talk about this case.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “You brought me here to show me Lena Brigaud and to make me believe she has an inappropriate relationship with a student.”

  “I’m not trying to make you believe—”

  “For the moment, I’m inclined to believe that what I saw is the truth. So let’s hear the rest of it. What did you want to tell me? Or am I supposed to go in there and talk to people? That’s why you brought me here, right? You told me all the people from the Halloween party would be here. You made it sound like I’d be investigating, not like we’d be having drinks and I’d be wearing your jacket like we were on a date.”

  For a long moment, Mitchell was silent. “Geez, the guys at the Pretty Pretty are right: you really are an asshole.”

  “I’m leaving. And I’m done working for you. I’ll mail you the remainder of your retainer with the invoice.”

  “No, wait. Sorry. I just—ok. I did what you said. I mean, I might have given you the wrong idea about the celebration of life. But I was telling the truth: all those people from the party, they’re here. And I wanted you to see Professor Brigaud. And I wanted you to see something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “Wait.” Mitchell held up both hands. “You can charge me by the hour, but just wait. I’m not pulling your leg.”

  “I am charging you by the hour.” Hazard studied Mitchell, and the redhead shifted with discomfort. “I’m going to say this once, and then I don’t want to have to say it again. I have a boyfriend. I love my boyfriend. I am very happy with my boyfriend.”

  Mitchell dropped his head. “Yeah. Um. I never—I mean, I didn’t think you and I—”

  “That’s enough. Did you really have something to tell me, or are we just waiting for this second thing you wanted me to see?”

  “What do you know about Jim?”

  “Not much, I guess. Single. Supposedly straight. Apparently people liked him.”

  Mitchell made a game-show buzzer noise.

  “What? You didn’t like him?”

  “No, I liked him. In fact, I think most people liked him as a person. He was funny, smart, good looking.”

  “So you buzzed me on, what? Semantics? Most people liked him, but not everyone? Isn’t that the case with everybody?”

  “Not you. I bet everybody likes you.”

  Hazard snorted. “Even my own boyfriend doesn’t like me most days. Who didn’t like Jim?”

  “Professor Brigaud.” Mitchell said the name like a man dropping the mic and walking away.

  “No surprise there.”

  “Dr. Klimich.”

  “Ok.”

  Mitchell was looking a little desperate.

  “Cynthia.”

  “All of this came out in the interview—although, do you think Cynthia still hated him? It seems like they patched things up.”

  “God, no way.”

  “He was her advisor.”

  This seemed to take Mitchell by surprise. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he took Hazard’s glass and threw back some of the Wild Turkey. He was studying something in the distance, and one of the security lights painted his face with blue shadows.

  “I don’t think you understand,” he said. “Not really. I mean, they hated Jim. It’s the kind of hate that doesn’t get better. Ever. Lena made herself physically sick over him. Did you know that?”

  “Now she’s Lena? Not Professor Brigaud?”

  Mitchell answered the question by tossing back more whiskey. “She didn’t eat. When they were hiring him, I mean. And for a couple of weeks after. She’d come to work a total mess: dirty clothes, hair undone.” Mitchell seemed to consider something. “She smelled bad, and I know it’s gross saying something like that. I’m not trying to be, you know, bitchy. But she did. She was falling apart, and she’d tell anyone who listened how much she hated Jim Fabbri, how he didn’t deserve this job, how the university was morally compromising itself.”

  Hazard watched Mitchell carefully as he asked his next question: “What is your relationship with Lena Brigaud?”

  “Huh? She’s a lesbian.”

  Somewhere across the quad, a pair of boys emerged from a building, and one of them let out a whoop and screamed something about a calc exam.

  “And I’m,” Mitchell continued, his gaze sliding to Hazard before he could pull it back, “um, you know. Like. Flexible, I guess.”

  “Do you have some kind of social interaction with her outside of work?”

  “What? No. She’s a bitch.”

  “You just called her by her first name.”

  “I know her through work. Colleagues.”

  “She’s in mathematics. And you administer the Center for the Study of Humanity. How does that work?”

  Confusion mapped itself across Mitchell’s face. “I mean, I’ve only been at Wroxall, so I don’t know how other colleges and universities work. But here, professors are involved in all sorts of stuff. Even the ones who are in a ‘science,’” he mimed the scare quotes, “pick up all sorts of side projects and activities. So Professor Brigaud, she helps run the LGBTQ advocacy program. We throw a little money her w
ay, but most of their funding comes from the college directly. That’s it, ok? That’s how I know her.”

  Hazard nodded.

  “Anyway, I didn’t even tell you the important part. The day Jim moved into his office, she showed up. It was a weekday, like a Tuesday or Wednesday, thank God, otherwise nobody would have seen what happened. She walked right up to him, still looking like she’d dragged herself out of a dumpster, and started screaming about white privilege and injustice and on and on. I wasn’t there, but I heard it from a dozen people. She kept saying she wished he were dead. She kept saying he deserved to die for committing the ultimate sin of privilege. I think that’s a quote, by the way, about the ultimate sin. You can ask anybody, though. She said it straight out: ‘He deserved to die.’”

  “Ok.”

  “And, um, Dr. Klimich,” Mitchell said, stealing sidelong looks at Hazard as he picked up the thread of his account, “he’s totally insane. Did you know that? I mean, like, I think clinically. I was working late one night, around the time they hired Jim, and I heard someone shouting. And then glass breaking. Like, a lot of glass. I was frozen. I mean, I get bored kind of easily, and I need a lot of stimulation—” The double meaning caught him, and he fixed his gaze somewhere near Hazard’s feet and blushed. “Normally, I’d have shot out of my seat just to see what was going on. But it was so freaky. I thought maybe it was an active shooter kind of thing. And then, after a few minutes, it stopped. And then I got curious.”

  “Pretty brave,” Hazard said.

  “Um.” Mitchell blushed harder.

  “And fucking stupid.”

  “Oh. Yeah. But it was ok. I mean, nobody was there. But someone had used a chair to break out all the windows in one of the front classrooms.”

  “Carl Klimich did that?”

  “Nobody could prove anything. I think they tried to pin it on him, actually, but they don’t have security cameras inside the building. But it makes sense: from what I heard, that night the hiring committee had decided the finalists for the job, and Dr. Klimich didn’t make the cut.”

  “And they told him in person?”

  “Oh no, I don’t think so. But I think he found out anyway. He’s a creep, you know? And a sneak. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was spying on them.”