Stephen L. Carter

by New England White

  Much later, when the winter turned bleak and scary, it was this moment that Julia would remember: sitting in the living room looking out on the early snow, the detectives plodding through their questions, while stray thoughts teased her mind—thoughts of Ladybugs, thoughts of Granny Vee, thoughts of the stories she had heard all her life about the old Harlem days when the Clan still mattered, even to black people not a part of it. It was almost as though, even on the terrible morning after she discovered the body of Kellen Zant, Julia Carlyle knew that the answer to the mystery that would soon coil around her wounded family lay in the darker nation’s shadowed past.

  (II)

  THE TERRIERS MOVED ON to Kellen Zant as flames flickered in the grate. The Carlyles knew him, of course, and admitted it at once: knew him not only from campus, but in the casual way that most members of the Clan knew each other, for they bumped up against the same people constantly, brown skin to brown skin, in the endless spiral of dinner parties, fund-raisers, club dances, book circles—although Kellen Zant, a poor Southern boy of no certain origin, was not born to the Clan, and had spent years battering his way in.

  Did you see him often? asked one of the terriers.

  Not often, answered Lemaster before Julia could think.

  But you saw him socially?

  Lemaster again, playing games: That depends on what your definition of saw is.

  Back at their notebooks, unamused. An important man, they said, not quite asking. He was just an economist, said Lemaster, past master of the unspoken campus put-down, implying not that economics was not serious but that Kellen was not serious, for despite his notoriety in the field he had committed little scholarship in recent years, preferring to earn income by consulting for large corporations. Was he good at his work? the twin terriers asked, and Lemaster offered his most charming smile and answered. “He held the Tyson professorship in economics. One of our most prestigious endowed chairs. We don’t give those out for good behavior.”

  Misunderstanding the irony, perhaps deliberately, the detectives asked whether Professor Zant was guilty of bad behavior.

  Lemaster had a way of lifting his thick, upswept eyebrows that was supposed to remind you that he was the smarter. He did it now. Julia could not tell whether the detectives reacted. “The entire university community will miss his wisdom and his wit,” he said, as if composing the eulogy, or perhaps the statement for the press, for the director of campus information had called four times since last night.

  The detectives made a note, perhaps about Kellen’s wisdom, perhaps about his wit, and kept punching. They asked about enemies. None known. They asked about scandals and corruption. None known, but Julia had to hide a secret shrinking. They asked about recent fights and arguments and grudges, they asked about how he got along with colleagues and students and neighbors and friends. Oh, and, as long as we are on the subject, had not President Carlyle and Professor Zant had a recent, rather public feud?

  Julia sat up straight, as did the detectives, although Officer Nilsson had the grace to look embarrassed. Lemaster’s hand tightened on his wife’s, who had not realized he was holding it, but his cool voice told Julia that she was the one being reassured. “No. That was media silliness, hunting for stories to make African Americans look bad.”

  Might he tell them what actually transpired?

  “I had a series of private meetings with leading faculty last spring, after I had accepted the job but before I took the reins. In my chat with Kellen, I suggested that an economist of his eminence could do much to change the world if he would spend less of his energy on his private clients, and more on scholarship.” A bemused smile. Lemaster’s intelligent eyes sought out the shining grand piano rather than the attentive faces of the terriers. “Kellen said he would think about it. That was all.”

  The skinnier detective, a man named Chrebet, grew interested. “I found some reports saying the two of you hadn’t ever gotten along. Some private thing.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I read in the paper where Professor Zant was so mad he was thinking about leaving the university.”

  An old Lemaster dictum: “I prefer facts to news.”

  Nobody smiled.

  “The meeting was private?”

  “Just the two of us.”

  “Then how did the media find out about it?”

  But Lemaster chose to take the question as rhetorical. He looked at his watch, making sure he had their attention first.

  Just a few more questions, they promised. Professor Zant was worth a lot of money, right? From those private clients of his? This for some reason aimed at Julia, who dropped her eyes to examine the intricate yet ordinary stylings of the not-quite-Persian rug. She shrugged. Back to Lemaster: He invented some formula or something, right? A better way of estimating past stock prices adjusted for hypothetical events, said Lemaster, playing mind games once more. That was back in graduate school. They waited. Lemaster filled the gap. The Zant-Feldman equation, he said, was one of the greatest advances in finance theory in the past half-century. But perhaps the terriers were aware of a greater, because, unimpressed, they consulted their notebooks and kept on questioning. Not married? No girlfriend, to your knowledge? Boyfriend, then? No? Any idea who would want him dead? The Carlyles professed mystification.

  Chrebet said, “You heard we found the car?”

  “Saw it on the news,” said Lemaster.

  “In an industrial park on Route 48. Near as we can tell, he was shot in the car—two bullets in the head—and dumped on the road, and then the shooter drove to the industrial park and left it.”

  “And no suspects?”

  “Not yet.” Julia was impressed at how her husband had taken charge of the conversation; but he always did. Just weeks after their move to the Landing, he had wandered into a packed meeting of the zoning board, grabbed a seat at the back of the auditorium, lone representative of what his fraternity called the darker nation, and, within an hour, was all but giving the orders.

  “Was anything taken?” he asked now.

  “His wallet. Keys. Maybe other things.”

  “Robbery?”

  “Could have been a robbery. Could have been meant to look like a robbery.”

  Again Julia was on edge. She expected, from what she saw on television, that this was the moment when the detectives would ask where each of them had been between eight and ten last night. Instead, the photographs came out. Chrebet slid two from a folder. He slipped the first to Lemaster, who gave it a quick glance and passed it on to his wife, waiting for the next. Julia looked, and looked away. The gold Audi TT in which Kellen had taken such pride, for he used to say he had all the luxury of the fools who bought more expensive sports cars, except that his cost less, got better mileage, and was more reliable. The seats were of a cream-colored leather, but in the photo the passenger’s seat was black with blood.

  “He was shot somewhere else and driven to Four Mile,” Chrebet said, turning a page. “He bled for a while.”

  Two bullets, Julia was thinking. Surely only one was needed.

  Lemaster spent longer on the second photo as the detectives asked if they had any idea, however faint, about who would do such a terrible thing.

  Then the second photograph was upon her, and she understood still less the motive for sharing, unless they intended only to shock. A close-up of Kellen’s face, taken presumably at the morgue. Yes, it was he, as best she could tell from what little was left unmarked. Kellen’s eyes, usually laughing and dark brown, were tightly closed. There was no such reflex, she remembered from a seminar back in college. When one died slowly, yes, the eyes would close, as in sleep. But in the case of a sudden, violent trauma, they should have remained open. She frowned. Did coroners close eyes? Maybe the killer did it to be nice. Or maybe she remembered wrong.

  No, Lemaster was saying, and Julia noticed that the photographs were back in the folder. Neither my wife nor myself would have any idea who would do such a thing, he said, lightly m
ocking their cadences.

  Julia waited again for them to ask where the Carlyles were last night at whatever hour the thing occurred.

  Instead, Chrebet asked about what the economist had been working on. Lemaster said that if they meant his scholarship, they should ask his colleagues in the department. The detectives waited. He said that he himself had no idea, and glanced at his wife, who echoed the theme. They asked what Professor Zant might have been working on besides his scholarship, and, again, the Carlyles could offer no assistance: thus pronounced Lemaster, speaking for both.

  A signal passed between the detectives. Oh, yes, we almost forgot, one more thing. Would you, Mrs. Carlyle, be able to characterize for us your relationship with the decedent?

  Relationship?

  Weren’t you once close and personal friends?

  A speechless moment, only the detectives able to make eye contact with anybody else in the room. History piled up behind her, thick and strong. She recalled a face of quite seductive jolliness, a sparkling delight focused on her alone.

  Yes, we were, briefly. But that was before my marriage.

  Can you tell us when you talked to him last?

  As much as saying they did not believe her.

  We have a busy day, gentlemen, Lemaster said, and her appreciation of him quickened, and felt like love.

  They sorryed and thanked their way out the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  KEPLER

  (I)

  “CITY’S A POWDER KEG,” said Boris Gibbs, with satisfaction. “Ready to blow any minute.”

  Julia, who had noticed no protesters or riot police on her way in to the divinity school this morning, nodded politely, and said nothing. By the city, he meant Elm Harbor, where the university was located, and where she and Boris were having, for the moment, lunch; not the Landing, nearly half an hour distant. The Landing, of course, where they both lived, was nearly all white; and the city…wasn’t.

  “I’ve been listening to that radio guy, Kwame whatsisname. All right, he’s a little bit over the top, but he has a ton of listeners, Julia. A ton of listeners. They hang on his every word, and, believe me, he’s riling them up.” He seemed to hope something would happen. A lot of white liberals were like that these days, waiting desperately for African America to reawaken and lead the Left out of the wilderness. But Boris Gibbs was no liberal. He owned no politics anyone could discern, and few emotions apart from a stormy self-satisfaction. He lived to slice up events, or ideas, or egos. Pressed, he would concede the sinfulness of the desire to flay others. It was, he often said, the thorn in his flesh. He seemed delighted to have one.

  “I believe you, Boris.”

  “That black professor the campus cops beat up a couple of years ago. Remember? The unarmed kid who got shot in the car chase. Plus all the ordinary bullshit of everyday life. This business with Kellen is the last straw, you mark my words. The racism your people have to face these days is depressing.”

  Your people. She liked that one, almost as much as calling murder this business with Kellen. She said, evenly, “I read the papers, Boris. It was armed robbery, not a hate crime.”

  Boris shook his head at her naïveté and took a huge and ugly bite of his huge and ugly burger. He was, by his own reckoning, a huge and ugly man, with a bloated pink face and twisted, unhappy features that bespoke a life of misery, but he was one of the happiest people she knew: he always said what was on his mind, and so avoided the stress of holding back. They were deputy deans together at Kepler Quadrangle, the popular name for the div school, even though Boris, something of a campus historian, would rush to tell you that Kepler was the building, not the school. When not busily carping, Boris taught a bit and mainly managed the div school’s budget, at which task he was a wiz, but the dean wisely kept him out of public view.

  “At least that’s what the police say,” he smirked.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, you’re a grown-up, Julia. You get to decide for yourself what to believe.”

  Julia swallowed the sharp retort that sprang to her throat. It was Tuesday, and she was tired of speculation about Kellen Zant. But the campus could speak of little else. Not many Ivies see a professor shot dead, and never one as popular as Kellen. The college paper had managed to mention six times in two days that the president had found the body of what the articles kept calling his “occasional adversary.” Not even Kepler was immune. Little Iris Feynman, the third deputy dean in their underpaid administrative triumvirate—she managed “external affairs,” meaning relationships with the university, the few alumni who had money to give, and any reporter who might accidentally wander in while looking for, say, the business school—had been in Julia’s office earlier today to report a rumor that a disgruntled graduate student had done it. But the smart money—according to old Clay Maxwell, the New Testament specialist, whom Julia had encountered when she went to the drafty faculty lounge to fill her coffee mug with the vile brew that was all Kepler could afford—the smart money was on a jealous husband.

  Julia said, “Can we please get back to the budget?” Because that was the subject of her lunch with Boris at one of the many undistinguished cafés near the div school. Claire Alvarez, their dean, under orders from the provost, had requested proposals for a 5 percent trim, and, like Scrooge, wanted their memos by Christmas. Everyone at Kepler knew bad news was coming. A cluster of students sat in a nearby booth, eyeing the two deans uneasily, worrying which of their favorite programs would go under the ax. Far more campus energy was spent nowadays placing blame than fixing problems, and it was plain where the blame would fall. Julia carried the portfolios of dean of students and acting dean of admissions—the budget no longer called for separate posts—and collected a single half-time salary for the two full-time jobs. She had prepared, unhappily, three proposals to reduce her chunk of the budget: one that would turn the foreign students against her, one that would outrage the women, and a third that would persuade the minorities that she was an Oreo cookie—dark on the outside, white on the inside—which was what they used to call her in college.

  “The budget?” Boris laughed. “They’re cutting it again.” Gesticulating with one hand, holding his burger with the other. Outside, the sky had gone the color of fresh slate. Julia was Yankee enough to read the signals: more snow was on the way. Besides, the Weather Channel said so. She watched Boris waving his burger, which, piled with every condiment known to man, was leaking. Messy sauces dripped everywhere. Other diners turned away. The waitress swung by the table to mop up the worst, and to bring him another Dr Pepper. He ignored her, as always, but he was a known big tipper. He licked mustard from thick fingers. Two wives had divorced Boris Gibbs. It was easy to see why. “They’ll always cut our budget. It’s because we’re not scientists or capitalists, Julia. We don’t splice genes or write software. We don’t build huge fortunes. We do God, so we’re not important.”

  “I’m a scientist,” she said, forcing a grin, and it was true: her undergraduate degree was in biology, and she had taught middle-school science for years.

  Boris raised notched brows like devil’s wings. His eyes bulged, but they always did. He grabbed the filthy napkin to wipe his mouth, a simple act he managed to make slurpy and loud. Sometimes Julia suspected that the whole I’m-so-ugly-and-disgusting thing was an act, designed less to keep the world at bay than to render intriguing what would otherwise bore. Unlike Julia, Boris also taught a class every semester, and was among the students’ favorites, even though his subject was systematic theology, a bear of a course, a rite of passage that left future pastors trembling. Julia and Boris were not quite friends, but she found his obstinate rudeness a source of endless fascination, the same way, as an undergraduate, she had been fascinated by a species of beetle that ate its siblings.

  “Well, fine. If you’re a scientist, add this up. If it was a robbery, how come they left the car? That Audi must be worth something, right? Right?” In the classroom, he bludgeoned his students
much the same way: Are you talking about Christology or soteriology? Well? Do you even know the difference? “And how come they drove him out to the suburbs? Well? Why didn’t they just dump him in the city? It’s not like anybody would notice.” Boris sat back, very content with his argument, and immediately ruined the effect by spilling his soda.

  “I don’t know, Boris,” said Julia, as if she had not spent hours puzzling over the same questions. “I haven’t thought about it. It was an unpleasant moment, and I’d kind of like to put it behind me instead of everybody asking all the time.” A long intake of breath. “Now, can you please look at these numbers I worked out? Because I think I’ve found a way to keep both of my assistants.” For Boris wanted her to lay off her full-timer and keep her half-timer: the last thing Julia intended to do, given that her full-timer was the only black secretary in Kepler.

  “Tell you something else. Your friend Kellen? The story is, he was having this hot-and-heavy affair with some married woman.” His eyes were greedy. “I wonder who.”

  “Kellen had nothing but affairs.” Her cheeks grew warm. “He liked life to change around him. Nothing excited him except the future and its…possibilities. He used to say he never wanted to do anything twice.” Julia winced, and made herself stop. How on earth had she allowed her fellow dean to lead her down this path? Kellen had been talking about sex when he made the remark a lifetime ago—sex, as it happened, with her. “Boris, please, if you look at my proposals—”

  “Already looked. They’re garbage. You’re trying too hard to be nice. Face facts, Julia. Somebody’s going to wind up hating you, right? Right. So the only way you exercise any autonomy at all is by choosing who.” The waitress, who knew Boris’s proclivities, had brought a third Dr Pepper without being asked. He downed half in one dribbling gulp. “Anyway, this married woman? I hear she’s pretty prominent around town. Or her husband is.”

  “What are you trying to say, Boris?”

  He ignored her indignation. Wiping his fingers on the tatters of his napkin, he hunched closer, increasing the likelihood that he would sputter on her. “So, are you going down to New Orleans or whatever for the funeral?”