by Linda Barnes
He scanned it briefly. “Well, anything I can do to hurry Wilson’s return, I’m more than happy to do. I just don’t understand what that can be.”
“Why did you feel it necessary to restrict Dr. Chaney’s teaching? He hasn’t been charged with any crime.”
“Nor do I believe he will be. The idea that anyone could imagine Wilson Chaney running down a stranger in cold blood! I work closely with the man. His judgment is not impaired. He is not an alcoholic or a drug abuser.”
“I don’t think anyone claimed he was.”
“Then what? Do the police believe he did this as a deliberate act? What reason have they given? Are they implying he did it to test some psychological theory? Some Raskolnikov crime and punishment thesis gone mad? Guilt and its repercussions are not Wilson’s areas of study.”
Fording used his hands when he spoke, waving them in the air. I bet he missed the comforting business of his pipe.
“Then why isn’t he teaching?” I asked. “If you believe so strongly in his innocence?”
“Dr. Chaney is simply taking some personal time off, by mutual agreement. He is not forbidden to teach his classes. Far from it, in fact. He’s working very hard under considerable pressure, and we agreed that, with this added complication, perhaps it would be best for all concerned if he were to concentrate on his Medical School responsibilities and his very substantial research.”
He gave the impression of absolute sincerity, but Chaney had reported the event differently—as a suspension. I wasn’t sure which one to believe. After all, Chaney had lied about being home with his wife, thought it better not to mention that Denali had died by her own hand.
One corner of Fording’s elegant desk held a glass bowl filled with smooth dark pebbles. He seized one and placed it in his palm. It weighted his hand, restricted his gestures, and seemed to calm him. “What is it you want?” he asked. “How can I help?”
“Dr. Chaney maintains that his van was stolen.”
“If he says, so, I believe him. Absolutely.”
“If he was not driving his van, someone went to considerable trouble to make the police believe that he was.”
He smiled. His top teeth were white and gleaming, but no one had taken the same care with his unevenly spaced lowers. “Surely it’s more likely that the police are mistaken, or actively malevolent. He is a black man. Possibly they act out of prejudice. You know what they are.”
“I used to be one,” I said.
He shrugged, as if to say he meant no offense. “There is also an ancient prejudice at work here, town versus gown. I understand the man who was run over was an ordinary working-class type?”
“An ex-convict.”
“Ah. The new working-class hero. Now, it’s my belief that a man like Wilson Chaney ought to be the working-class hero, a man of no particular background, who by the sweat of his brow has made himself into someone who can and should be held up as an example to others of his race.”
I hadn’t been in his office five minutes and Fording had mentioned Chaney’s race twice.
“Chaney lied to the police,” I said. “They don’t like that.”
“Wilson must have had a reason.”
“He said he was at home; his wife says he wasn’t.”
He shook his head with a rueful grin. “You have met Margo?”
I nodded.
He passed the smooth pebble from palm to palm. “Well, frankly, I adore her—not for who she is right now, but for the memories I have of her. I always try to humor her when I can.” He stopped, and it became clear that he was not about to proceed without prompting.
“She rarely leaves home, I understand.”
“Well, believe me, it wasn’t always like that. She is a very unusual woman. You know she divorced her first husband to marry Wilson? Margo is a—she was a magnet, a glorious presence, ten, fifteen years ago, a dynamo, a force of nature. If she wanted Wilson, and she did, no one would wager against her.”
“Why him?”
He smiled and clasped the pebble in his right hand. “I’m an educational pychologist, not a psychiatrist. It’s easy to sit on the outside and speculate, isn’t it? Tempting, too. I’m not saying it was a question of race, but Margo’s first husband was Caucasian, and her family disapproved strongly. Wilson was Harvard, plus he was black, and that must have seemed a potent combination.”
Three times. Oh, he was good. He was “not saying,” but he was saying in terms so twisty, I wondered if he could keep track of his implications and inferences. Race kept coming up in responses that required no reference to race.
“As for the conflict in what the police no doubt call Wilson’s ‘alibi,’ I will say that lately poor Margo has not been as much of a companion as she might have been in previous years. You might wish to discreetly ask Dr. Chaney whether he’s having some kind of an affair. I know that would be the old-fashioned, honorable type of thing he’d be likely to do. If he was with someone other than his wife, in that way, well, he wouldn’t want to harm the other party’s reputation or hurt his wife’s feelings. Margo is quite a wealthy woman, with a battery of lawyers, and they say that once a woman has weathered that first divorce, well, some do get the hang of it.”
“Are you married, Dr. Fording?”
“No.” He was too surprised at the question to refuse to answer.
“Do you know for a fact that Dr. Chaney’s having an affair?”
He hesitated, fiddled with the pebble, and popped it back in the bowl. He smiled slowly, then shook his head to indicate that he didn’t. I was sure he had more than an inkling that Chaney had strayed.
“When I spoke to Mrs. Chaney earlier, I asked her whether her husband had any enemies,” I said. “She sent me here.” I left it deliberately ambiguous to see how he’d handle it.
That smile again as he carefully rephrased my statement. “To inquire whether Dr. Chaney had enemies? Enemies.” He tasted the word. “So melodramatic. Has Margo filled your ears with tales of academic back stabbing? I assure you we have no junior faculty members stealing cars and running down strangers in an attempt to move into positions of seniority. We tend to confine our battles to committee assignments and class schedules. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not peace and bliss at all times. We disagree on methods of defining learning disorders, the effectiveness of biofeedback techniques, and behavior-modification strategies. We are becoming more aware of the biochemistry required for proper learning. Our Mind, Brain, and Behavior Program, with its cross-disciplinary thrust, is a model for other universities. Many of our educators are close to becoming psychopharmacologists. It’s a vast new field, and an exciting one.”
He came up for air and quickly interpreted my glance. “Ah, a scary one, you think? Brave New World and all that.”
“It crossed my mind.”
“And yet you wouldn’t raise an objection if I said every child ought to have a nutritionally sound breakfast before beginning the school day. Education on an empty stomach is wasted education. The school breakfast program is valid; it’s a great success. But children are regularly sent to school who can’t organize, who can’t process information, who can’t differentiate between important and unimportant data.”
“Maybe I’ll take a class some other time,” I said, “but right now, I want to know about Dr. Chaney’s enemies.”
“Yes. Excuse me, I got quite carried away. I don’t get into the classroom as much as I used to. Perhaps I should.”
“Chaney’s enemies?”
He held a finger momentarily to his lips. “Helene Etheridge, who used to be his secretary, has absolutely no use for him. He saw that she got transferred to another department, but I believe that now she actually likes it over there. In the past eight years, he has refused three doctoral theses. Normally, your doctoral candidate in education is not prone to hit-and-run revenge, but I can give you their names if you wish to waste time. Dr. Chaney is a very successful member of the faculty. He is on the cutting edge of what we do here, and
perhaps some faculty who hold with more traditional approaches to educational theory and practice are resentful of his ascension. A medical credential is a very attractive one.”
“Do you know any of his colleagues at the Medical School?”
“Any who wish him harm? Certainly not.”
“And at the lab, the research facility?”
“Dr. Chaney is a prominent researcher. Other faculty members might envy the sort of financial rewards that can bring. He has a drug in clinical trials, human trials.”
“And those are progressing smoothly?”
“No clinical subject under the influence of Dr. Chaney’s therapeutic ministrations has yet taken up an AK-forty-seven and positioned himself on a rooftop. There has been no adversity in the clinical trials. Far from it.”
“Would you say that his research—I understand he’s developing some form of Ritalin substitute—would make him a lot of money?”
“Well, that depends, of course, on interpretation. What is a lot of money these days?”
“Millions.”
“I wouldn’t think so. There are a great many drugs similar to Ritalin, mixed salts of single-entity amphetamine products, Adderall and the like, and lately there are nonstimulants as well, like Strattera, which I believe is atomoxetine. I wouldn’t think so, because frankly, Chaney’s is not a revolutionary change. He is using a stimulant approach, but he hopes to develop a drug with far fewer side effects. All I can say is that I imagine there are those who are jealous of his success. There are even those who would tell you that I am Dr. Chaney’s enemy.”
“Really. Are you?”
“We have had our differences. He is more concerned perhaps with his individual reputation, while I am concerned for the reputation of this department and the ed school and the university. We are not temperamentally alike. I wish he would publish more scholarly articles, spend less time on his research.”
He grasped another pebble and clutched it tightly in his hand. “But make no mistake about it, young lady, his success reflects well upon me. I believe Wilson and I understand each other. As long as his work enhances this institution, I will protect him and intrigue for him, and make sure that he sits on the right committees. Loyalty for loyalty. Is that all?”
“Is there any particular reason you believe Dr. Chaney is having an affair?”
“Will you be speaking to Wilson today?”
“Probably.”
“Perhaps you could give him a message?”
“Certainly.”
“Give him my regards, first of all. Tell him I assume his innocence and am certain he will be back with us shortly. And you might tell him that I received a phone call from a friend of mine in Legal Services. Tell him Ms. Brinkman’s name has been dropped from the lawsuit.”
“Ms. Brinkman?” I kept my voice flat, pretended I’d never heard the name.
“A student, a former student. Her people were misguidedly suing this institution, but they’ve evidently seen the light.”
“How does that concern Dr. Chaney?”
“If he wishes to tell you, that’s his business entirely. Good day.”
He knew. He knew Chaney’d been sleeping with Denali Brinkman, and he wanted Chaney to know he knew it. He rose and I followed suit. I shook hands with him at the door. His skin was as cool as one of the pebbles in his glass bowl.
Did he also know about the blackmail? Damn, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t see him as Dowling’s accomplice. Working with Dowling, a commoner, a townie, an ex-con, would be impossible for such a flagrant elitist. Oh, he was a blackmailer all right, but not for cash, not for a piddling five thousand bucks. For power, for prestige. I bet he had the secrets of all his faculty indexed, filed, and memorized, ready to trot out when he needed them.
No wonder Chaney had described the little man as his enemy. No wonder Mrs. Chaney felt he’d do anything for her. The little man was as slippery as silk, as changeable as New England weather, as treacherous as a rocky cliff. Whether he supported Chaney or not would have little to do with Chaney and everything to do with what Fording perceived as being to his own advantage.
I wondered about his personal life, or lack thereof. Maybe he had no personal ties, no life outside the office. Like a puppet master, he seemed to enjoy being above it all.
CHAPTER 20
So absorbed was I in my admiration of Fording’s deviousness, I almost tripped over a man fixing the electrical socket on the ground floor of Thompson Hall. I mumbled an apology and was halfway down the corridor before I suddenly halted, turned, and stared back at him—an ordinary Joe wearing ordinary coveralls similar to the ones Leroy and I had worn to impersonate exterminators. The man didn’t react to my glare. He probably was exactly who he seemed to be, but how could I tell? I took a few more steps, recalled the coveralls hanging from the hook on the back of Dowling’s closet door.
The blackmailer didn’t need an accomplice within the ed school, be it department chair, student, professor, or secretary. Dowling could have gained entry to the ed school the same way Leroy and I had gained entry to his flat. Who’d think twice about a man in coveralls kneeling by Chaney’s office door?
Harvard has its own janitorial services, but what if one of the cleaners called in sick? Would they use a temp service for replacement help? Hadn’t Freddie Church said that his buddy Dowling was looking for cleaning work?
A huge SUV had parked nose to my bumper, so it took me longer to extricate my car from its slot than it would have taken me to walk home. Once I’d regained the street, home I went, eager to peel out of my suit and plan my next move. I’d have gotten out of the suit a lot sooner if I hadn’t been confronted with a visitor, Cambridge rookie cop Danny Burkett, smack on my living room sofa.
A cop on the doorstep is one thing, a cop in the living room another. You’re not required to open your door to a cop. You can pretend you’re not home, or openly refuse entry. Your house is your castle.
My house, alas, is also Roz’s castle. Did I mention that Danny Burkett was a very handsome and well-built man? Roz doesn’t care so much about the handsome. She doesn’t go by faces, and she certainly doesn’t care about such niceties as intellect or personality. A well-muscled body is all it takes. Music spilled out of the speakers, the same damn oldies radio station Leon had tuned to, the same Motown soul. The lights were dim. Should I mention that there was heavy breathing involved and that both sofa gropers quickly reacted to my presence and got vertical once I shut off the radio?
I didn’t make any hasty remarks like “I see you two know each other,” because with Roz, that’s not a given. She sees a dude she fancies on the street, she goes up to him and makes arrangements. Lucky her. I had a pretty good idea this one had walked right up to the door and rung the bell.
You ring my bell three times, you get Roz. From the dazed look on Burkett’s face, she was his vision of paradise. Me, I flat out don’t know how she manages it, juggling all those guys, not getting involved, not getting diseases. One way she manages, she neglects the goddamn housework.
“Uh,” Burkett began eloquently, patting his uniform into place, his face aflame.
“Glad you’re home,” Roz said cheerfully, although I knew she was anything but. “I let him in to wait. A cop, I figured, how much could he steal?”
“You came to see me?” I asked Burkett.
“Uh, yeah. I had a couple questions.”
“Did you happen to have a warrant?”
“Huh?”
“Just kidding. Roz?”
“Yeah?”
“Got anything to do? The dishes, maybe?”
“Very funny.” She was wearing—well, how shall I describe the look? Cheap and ready? It’s not the clothes, though, not the skimpy Day-Glo green tank or the black microskirt. It’s the body. I’ve tried to explain it to Paolina. There are clothes that some girls wear and they look fine, and then a Roz, with boobs, tattoos, and attitude, dons the same outfit and it’s the wrong side of porno. She made trac
ks for the stairs.
Burkett called after her, “Uh, can I call you?”
“Sure.”
I said, “I’ll give you her number. Scram, Roz.”
She gave me a look, but she stomped off.
“Wanna lie back down?” I asked the rookie. “Sorry. Hey, don’t worry, I won’t mention this to Kevin.” No way would I mention it, but I wanted to keep Burkett rattled.
“What do you mean?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Just that it’s a novel way of questioning a witness. What was it you think she saw?”
“Hey, come on. I—”
“I know. But it’s been a long day and I think of this as my office.” To emphasize the point, I sat at my desk and did my impression of Paolina’s high school principal. “What can I do for you? You need a PI?”
“No. It’s just I’m working a little thing for myself. I noticed an odd thing.”
Damn. “What’s that?”
“You came asking about that guy, Benjy Dowling, right before he got killed.”
“No,” I said. “Wrong. I came asking about the fire on Memorial Drive. You told me about Dowling. File it under coincidence.”
“Sure. But then I thought, What if it doesn’t belong there? What if the lady followed up on it?”
“Didn’t get around to it.”
“Why did you say you were checking on that fire?”
“I didn’t.”
From the look on his face, he’d run out of things to say, so I took a turn. “It would have been nice to know he was a con right off.”
“So you did follow up.” He looked like he thought he’d scored a point.
“Didn’t take much to find that out. You could have given it to me, but you didn’t.”
“Hey, why should I?”
“’Cause that’s how it works. You give; I give.”
“Hey, I gave you a lot, the whole load—the scene at the fire, the delay with all the fucking false alarms, the smell, the names of the witnesses.”
“You didn’t say anything about false alarms.”