by David Waters
I placed a call to the university’s public relations office and agreed to meet Gibbs that afternoon at three. Then I called Professor Harold Hendricks, the gnome-like engineer in the photo. Apart from Dean Gooden he was the only one in the photo still working at the university. He agreed to meet me at the faculty club at four. I finally called Gina. She sounded annoyed. I would have been too, if I had had to sit around a second-rate motel room until well after lunch waiting for a phone call. I gave her an edited summary of my day so far and mentioned the two appointments I had made for that afternoon.
“I want to come along.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she said sounding exasperated, “I want to hear for myself what these people have to say, not just get a filtered version from you.”
I hesitated. I had always preferred to work alone. I wanted as much as possible to keep her on the sidelines. I reminded her, as I had done the night before, that as a journalist I had a degree of protection that she didn’t have.
After a pause she said: “It’s my life.”
I thought that over. If her father had indeed been guilty, she had a right to come to that conclusion herself, not arrive at it second-hand. I agreed that she could sit in on my meeting with Hendricks. But I told her my courtesy visit to Joe Gibbs, the university’s director of public relations, would be more productive if I did it on my own. Joe Gibbs did not interest her. I arranged to meet her at the main entrance to the administration building at a quarter to four.
Joe Gibbs had an office that was better than anything I had ever had. It had hard wood parquetry flooring partially covered by an oriental carpet. The mullioned windows had heavy green velvet drapes. They had been pulled aside to let in the afternoon light.
“He didn’t waste much time contacting you,” I said. Joe Gibbs just gave me a vague smile. He stood at the window looking down at the campus.
“I wouldn’t read too much into that,” he said. “He’s a very efficient dean.” He motioned me towards a chair. “Universities have become aggressive, competitive institutions. Not like they were in our day.” Reluctantly he returned to sit at his desk. “Internally there are lobby groups, counter lobby groups, byzantine structures, legions of administrators, everyone zealous of their own turf and, of course, of their powers. And as if that were not enough, there’s anger lurking in every classroom, every meeting room, sometimes I think it has become worse than working in the political arena.”
I placed my hands on the polished arms of the chair. It was a very comfortable chair, designed to make one feel a part of a very important establishment. I said, “I presume the Dean explained the purpose of my visit.”
He nodded. “I got out the old PR file with all the press clippings this morning. It was before my time but I forced myself to read through them.”
Twenty years ago, he had been a reporter on a rival paper. But public relations had paid better. He had gone to work for a banking conglomerate but had eventually switched to the university: maybe searching for some of the tranquility and innocence that had been such a part of our lives as students. But you can’t return to the well of youth without finding that the water has turned brackish.
“So when are you planning to write something?” He smiled. “That is the first question my superiors always ask me.”
“Maybe never,” I said for openers. That caught him by surprise.
“I’m semi-retired,” I explained.
“So then why are you here?”
I explained about Montini’s death and the discomfort I felt about what I had written when the charges had been dropped against him. I mentioned that his daughter had approached me to help clear his name. “But I have no intention of just rehashing an old story. It’s too late for that now. I only intend to write something if I have a very solid reason to do so, and some new facts to back it up. If that doesn’t happen I won’t write anything.”
He inclined his head slightly to one side and nodded, as if he understood. Maybe he did.
“The powers that be, here at the university, are not going to believe that.”
“Do you mean the rector?”
“The rector and Dean Gooden in this case.”
I laughed. “And so I presume I can expect a phone call from someone to someone at the paper.” I was only mildly amused.
He shook his head. “We have a new rector. He’s more sophisticated than that.”
I nodded. But I was dubious. Power still functioned according to the old codes. But maybe he believed it.
“So I come back to my first question,” he said. “What would constitute a good story that you would write and the paper would run? And how soon would that happen, if it did?”
I gave that a moment’s thought and replied prudently. “If and when I come up with some new evidence that Monaghan’s murderer is still out there enjoying the good life.”
We both pondered the implications of what I had just said. I decided it was time to try my gambit. “Otherwise as I’ve said I won’t write anything. But for me to arrive at the right decision I need your help.”
A bemused look flickered across his face.
“There’s always a catch isn’t there?”
“But this time there’s a difference.”
“What difference?”
“If there’s a murderer, there’s a kind of justice to be done. And of course there’s a story. But I can say that the university co-operated. If there’s no murderer, there’s no story. The sooner I can decide that the better. For me, and for the university.”
He frowned.
“So what kind of co-operation would you want?”
“Access to some records from back then. About some professors who may know more than they’ve admitted. The courses they taught. The grants they received. Their class lists. The articles they published.” I had written out a list of those in the photo and handed it to him. “That kind of stuff.”
He frowned again. “Some of that information the university would be loath to hand over to a reporter. You know that. Some of it might even be legally confidential.”
“I would be prepared to trust your judgment in that regard.”
“I would have to consult the rector.”
I felt he needed a little extra nudge. “Joe, I want you to trust me on this one. I won’t write the story unless both of us are convinced that the evidence is strong enough to warrant that the file be re-opened.” I knew I was putting a burden on him that he did not need, and probably didn’t want. Nor was he stupid. He knew that I controlled only what I intended to do. What the paper might do with just some juicy tidbits was another matter. But I think he was too proud to ask me to keep everything I found out to myself until we both agreed on the need for a story.
He returned to the window and stared outside. I watched his shoulders slump a little and then square themselves.
“Okay.” He said. “I’ll speak to the rector as soon as I can. Call me after ten tomorrow morning.”
“Deo gratias, Joe.” We had both been around long enough to have studied Latin in High School. And maybe to trust each other a little. A younger PR man would have found a way to turn me down. Maybe even to put some roadblocks in my way.
CHAPTER THREE
I met Gina at the main gate. Decades ago the approach from the gate to the administration building had been composed of gravel pathways surrounded by grass and well-tended flower beds. Now most of it had been paved over to provide a parking lot for senior administrators. A few buildings still had a certain charm, even though their style was imitation Gothic. A century ago they had been set in a very ample green space and surrounded by a countryside that had yet to be turned into suburbia. But the city had grown and surrounded the site. Time, the value of real estate, and the change in university vocations had bowdlerized any of the original architect’s concept. The change was now beyond redemption. New cost-efficient buildings had sprouted like concrete
bunkers around an under-sized grass quadrangle. The university had originally been an Arts College. But who needs labs that look like libraries? Not the technicians who work in them. And who needs business faculties that do not resemble the corporate world that students are being trained to manage? As I walked with Gina towards the main building, I wondered if she saw what I saw. Maybe she was too young. I wondered if this kind of ad-hoc mess of pottage was all that she had ever known.
The faculty club was on the top floor of the main building. We walked up what had once been an ornate staircase rather than wait for the rickety elevator. The faculty club, too, looked as if it had been recently modernized. The bar was now black leather and silver chrome rather than polished mahogany. Couches were a pale green, made of some imitation leather material that could be easily wiped clean. The parquetry floor was covered in a hard wall-to-wall, dark brown, industrial carpeting. All the original paintings had been replaced by lively, colorful prints. The old original paintings were probably now too valuable to be hung in a public place where petty theft had probably become a way of life. But the tall, leaded windows remained. Near one of these, at a small low table, I recognized Harold Hendricks from the photo. A drink and a small pitcher of water sat in front of him. I had told him I would be coming alone. He rose with a puzzled smile as I approached with Gina. When I introduced ourselves, he said to Gina, “Of course, I should have recognized you right away. You have your mother’s bone structure. Mind you, you’ve changed a lot since I saw you as a young teen.” He seemed uneasy. I wanted to think that perhaps there was some residual guilt about the fate of her father.
“You may have heard,” Gina said, “my father died recently.”
He nodded with a glance in my direction. “I’m truly sorry to hear that.”
He made a very slight clicking sound and shook his head ever so slightly in what seemed to me to be an effort to convey sympathy. As we sat he motioned to the student bartender. “Myself,” he said, “I drink a special single malt whisky with a bit of bottled water at room temperature.” Perhaps he was a connoisseur. But I think I recognized the kind of rationale that is often used to mask the more private motives of a heavy drinker. I told the waiter that I would have the same as professor Hendricks. Gina ordered a spritzer.
Hendricks sniffed and sipped from his drink. He beamed at us, intent on being a good host. “It’s from the only distillery on the Isle of Islay. It’s the island’s peat moss and the sea air which gives it its distinctive flavor.”
At the very least, I thought, it would be a change from the cheap blend I usually drank. Hendricks leaned back in his chair as the waiter deposited our drinks. He had brought Hendricks a refill.
“So, what can I do to help you?”
I expanded on the brief explanation I had given him over the telephone. He listened attentively, periodically sniffing and sipping from his scotch glass. I told him I was particularly interested in any tensions which might have existed between Monaghan and the close group which surrounded him. “I understand,” I said, “that you were an integral part of that group.”
He seemed to be pondering his reply as he swished a mouthful of Scotch from one cheek to the other and back again before swallowing. “Well, to begin with,” he said with an amused smile, “while I feel honored to be thought of as a member of that particular group I must tell you that I was certainly not part of the inner circle. My role was neither that exalted nor my presence that wanted.”
I did not know whether to believe him. Like Gooden, was he now trying to take a safe distance from what had happened?
“You see,” he went on to explain, “the group had a nucleus of true insiders which included Monaghan, Symansky, Montini, Gooden and maybe one or two more. Then there were others like me, who were slightly inside, but mostly outside. And then there were the usual hangers-on who occasionally attended the parties and the meetings that were called in the early days and who may have thought of themselves as a part of it all.”
I must have looked puzzled and out of my depths. “You said you were partly inside, partly outside this group. I don’t understand.”
He smiled with amusement again, as if to say, ah, life is never quite what we would like it to be. “Temperament was a part of it,” he said. “And besides to be a true insider one had to be an American or at least have a natural grasp of the ideology which knit the group together. I was always too much of a cynic by temperament, and as a structural engineer, and originally from Scotland to boot, I was never sufficiently familiar with the shared rhetoric to be a true insider. Being American and having been virulently against the Vietnam War was almost a sine qua non.”
“What about Professor Monaghan,” I asked. “He was an engineer like you, wasn’t he?”
He nodded. “But first and foremost he was an angry American. Secondly, his area of specialization involved ballistics and hence weaponry. He was fascinated by military hardware and could quote facts and figures which delighted the anti-imperialists like Frank Montini.” He threw Gina an avuncular look. “As an historian, your father had a soft spot for all oppressed people.” He turned back to me. “And then, of course, Monaghan was zealous to the point of arrogance. Most of us at the time saw him as somehow cool and commanding. I came to the conclusion eventually that he was just cold and self-centered. But then most brilliant scientists are.” He brought the glass of scotch to his face and breathed in the bouquet before adding a small amount of water to it. I watched him. “Go ahead,” he said, “breathe it in. Then let a small quantity touch the taste buds at the back of your throat.” He smiled to encourage me. I did what he suggested and then smiled to indicate my pleasure at the experiment. I was in fact pleasantly surprised. But I had done it primarily to establish empathy.
I put my glass down. “Steve Symansky and Peter Gooden? What about them?” I asked.
“Symansky was a political scientist. His wife, Stella, was, I believe, in sociology. They were also both American. As you know Canadian universities were expanding very rapidly back then. There was a dearth of home grown talent, and consequently places like Winston accepted a veritable invasion of American professors.” He frowned. “Gooden, I think, was one of those rare birds with dual citizenship. His mother was American. Or something like that.”
“And you say he was part of the inner group?” I kept to myself Gooden’s claim to have been otherwise.
“Definitely.”
“Even if he was only a graduate student?”
He nodded. “Like many of them he had been given an undergraduate course or two to teach. He was briefly one of Monaghan’s favorites. I think he represented the new generation who would carry the flag and go on to build the new Jerusalem. Or something like that.” He said the words with an alcohol-assisted irony. He stared into his glass and chuckled. “Oh, what a fall from grace was there. If only Monaghan could see him now!” His eyes watered at what I took to be a flood of new memories. “We all fell from grace, I suppose. All tumbled off our once vaunted ideological perches.”
“You too?” Gina said. There was a mock irony in her voice. It was a deliberate provocation. She had little tolerance, I suspected, for cant in an older generation. Professor Hendrick’s left eyelid began to flutter.
“But unfortunately my perch was not as high as the others, and like many cynics I fell into the sauce and not into a cushy administrative position.” His index finger made a diving motion towards the liquor in his glass. “Professor Gooden, on the other hand, bounced right back up to become a member of the new business-government backed establishment.” I watched in fascination as his eyelid fluttered again. “As my mother used to say, when she wanted to hold up some other person’s son as a model with which to admonish me, he will go far, that boy, very far, mark my words!” I decided to push ahead.
“What about the women in the group.”
“Which ones?”
“Any that you feel might have been pertinent.”
“Well, then, I’ll leave ou
t the female students. There was always a few around, but they were really marginal. There was Stella of course, Stella Symansky. She had a degree, as I said, probably, in sociology. She taught a couple of courses part time.” He closed his eyes as if to beckon back certain images from the past into sharper focus. He held his glass cupped in both hands as if to warm the liquor and himself. “I think she was more active as part of the inner circle than I may have realized back then. I was going to say that she was a shrewd one. But she was a good observer, and she had a disciplined control of herself that most of us didn’t.” As he opened his eyes, his left eyelid fluttered again briefly and then went still. “Strange, she was well-liked, had no apparent enemies. Probably because she was a very good listener. No one ever gossiped about her. Then, of course, there was Mrs. Monaghan. A very different kettle of fish. She was a bit of a tease.” He sneaked a glance at Gina. She gave him a secretive smile but held his gaze. “In a way she was quite remarkable. I think she spoke at least three languages fluently. I suspect she came from one of those wealthy families where the children get sent to Switzerland for part of their education. She knew Europe well. Probably had spent her summer vacations there. I suspect that’s where she is now.”
“Actually she’s living in the east end of Montreal.”
“Is she?” He seemed to have been caught by surprise. “Really? How odd.” I gave him a puzzled look. He went on, “she always spoke longingly of Paris. I think she did it to annoy her husband who seemed to be content in what she apparently considered the backwater of the universe. We always suspected that she had married Monaghan as a form of rebellion against her family background. The few contacts she had with her family that I was aware of did not seem to be pleasant ones. Professor Monaghan was from a lower stratum of American society. I think his father was a mechanic. Or something like that. Still in Montreal is she? Interesting. But odd.”