by Neil Plakcy
“I’ll be in the bedroom reading. Come in whenever you’re finished.” She kissed my cheek and walked out of the room, and I let my fingers do the walking through the Internet. Everything I found tied back to that student at Carleton University, but I couldn’t discover any records from before that time that matched him.
I called Rick again. “I have an idea I want to run past you.” I explained about the way Peter Bobeaux scrawled his name, and the confusion over Jean or Joan Bean, and what I’d discovered about Bobeaux’s background.
“You think he could be the same guy?” Rick asked. “But why would he come back to Stewart’s Crossing?”
“He didn’t,” I said. “From what I understand, he needed a job, stat, and saw the one available at Eastern. He may not even have known that Leighville and Stewart’s Crossing were in the same area. Or he may be some kind of psychopath who wants to revisit the scene of the crime. You pick.”
“Spell the new name,” he said, and I did. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll call this university and check his credentials.”
“More than that. See if you can find out where he grew up, where he went to high school, that kind of thing. If you come up blank, then we know we’re on to something. Or else you find something that eliminates him.”
After I hung up, I went into the bedroom, and Rochester and I spent the night at Lili’s, where she and I further cemented our affection. When we woke up I said, “I hope you’re going to bring these pillows with you, because they’re a lot more comfortable than the ones I have.”
“Always the romantic,” she said, and she turned on her side to face me. “Think Rochester can wait a little while for his morning walk?”
I leaned over and kissed her. “My dog is very attuned to my moods. “He’ll wait.”
31 – Information Technology
By the time I got to Friar Lake on Wednesday morning, Joey’s crew had cleared away the debris from the fire. A crisp breeze that rolled down from the higher mountains pushed away all but a lingering scent and moved puffy white clouds restlessly above us. I noticed that more of the trees were losing their leaves as autumn crept up.
My email box was full – a request for an update from President Babson, order confirmations for finishes that Mark and I had agreed on, and a raft of the usual academic business. The Faculty Senate wanted input on a resolution to ban student cell phones and the smoking of electronic cigarettes in classes. New parking decals were available for faculty and staff.
The last message was an invitation from Dr. Bobeaux, who had scheduled another meeting of the IT committee for that afternoon. I grumbled, because I preferred more notice for trips on campus. But a meeting organizer could view faculty schedules through the college intranet, and anybody could schedule an appointment with you as long as it didn’t conflict with teaching. I’d have to drop Rochester at Lili’s office, because I couldn’t take him to the meeting and I wouldn’t have time to drive him back home.
Around noon, Rick called. “You remember Hank Quillian from the FBI, don’t you?”
I had met Agent Quillian a couple of months before, when my snooping into a murder turned up a website selling stolen goods. He was in his early thirties, with the kind of weathered, wary look I’d come to associate with ex-military guys. “Sure,” I said.
“I got him to expedite a request for me. Peter Bobeaux got his GED right before enrolling at Carleton, and they have no records that would indicate where he came from or where he went to high school.”
“I guess they were more lax back then,” I said. “I can’t imagine a kid getting into Eastern today without a pile of recommendations, authenticated transcripts, and a laundry list of high school activities.”
“It doesn’t mean that he’s the same guy as that kid who left the Meeting House in 1969, but it doesn’t eliminate him from suspicion.”
“What are you going to do now?” I asked.
“Keep checking. Hank’s going to cross-reference immigration records for me and see when Peter Bobeaux entered and left Canada, but that’s going to take more time.”
I thought about telling Rick that I’d be seeing Dr. Bobo that afternoon, but I knew he’d caution me not to say anything. I figured I’d think on my feet, and see if any opportunity came up to ask Bobeaux about his background. I wondered if I could drop in a mention of my own application to Eastern, all the hoops I’d had to jump through back then. Maybe casually ask him if that had been the case when he applied to Carleton for his undergraduate degree.
I remembered Lucas Harriman’s request, and I did some quick research on academic format for research papers. Every reputable site indicated that what Lucas was asking for was standard. I printed pages from a site I’d often used myself to bring to the committee.
I left Friar Lake at three and parked behind Harrow Hall. Lili’s office door was locked, but I got her secretary, Matilda, to open it for me. “Don’t destroy anything, Rochester,” I said. Lili kept a couple of his toys there, and I retrieved a green squeaky ball and a blue-and-white rope to keep him occupied.
I was the last one to arrive at the meeting. I noticed that the collar of Peter Bobeaux’s navy pinstriped suit jacket was a bit threadbare, but his white shirt was starched and gleaming, his red power tie spangled with tiny blue stars.
He had a whole agenda prepared for us. “Let’s start with problems with the learning management system,” he said. “I had lunch yesterday with Dr. Marshall, the AVP for Educational Technology, at the Faculty Club. He’s very concerned about the way the system interacts with our college computers.”
“I’ve complained to him myself several times,” Jackie Conrad said tartly, “though not over lunch at the Faculty Club.” The Club was a separate dining room at the rear of the college’s new Howard M. Burgers Dining Commons, with separate entry and what was rumored to be higher-quality food than was served to the hoi polloi.
She crossed her arms over her white lab jacket. “My students are not able to access their exams, even though I know that I’ve set the dates and times correctly. And I’m tired of tech support simply telling me to go back and check my work.”
“I agree,” Marie-Carmel Etienne said. She was chic as ever in her tailored black suit and white cowl-neck blouse. She could have been a runway model as easily as a professor of computer science. “I’ve called a dozen times with problems and all I get is a run-around. My students are having problems uploading PowerPoint presentations because they’re too large for the system to handle. That is ridiculous considering how much server capacity we have and what fast upload speeds we have.”
None of the problems with the learning management system were anything we as a committee could handle, which was annoying. We went on to the monitors in teaching podiums, which were tilted too far down to be easily visible, then updates to Flash and Java which professors were prevented from installing. As we went through items, I couldn’t manage to work in a reference to student applications or credentials, which was frustrating.
The last item on the agenda was identity theft. “I’ve been hearing of several cases recently where student passwords have been compromised,” Bobeaux said. He looked down at the sheet in front of him. “Rachel Ritchie, a junior, had her entire schedule dropped. She said that an ex-boyfriend had access to her password and had done it to get back at her. Nelson Tarrazu was accused of sending suggestive messages through the college instant message system, and he alleges that he accidentally stayed logged on at a computer classroom and someone else sent those messages under his name.”
“Those are user errors,” moon-faced Oscar said. “There’s no way we can prevent that kind of abuse.” I had the feeling he’d worked too long for his predecessor, Verri M. Parshall, the Preventer of Information Technology. Then again, I’d worked in IT myself for years, and I knew that the habit of blaming users for tech problems ran deep.
“We could ask for double-secure logins,” Marie-Carmel said. “You’d have to know a student password and some other
piece of data.”
Oscar shook his head. “If you know something as personal as someone’s password, then you probably know any other piece of data we could use. And an outsider hacking into our system and stealing passwords could steal the confirmation data as well.”
“Is someone breaking into our computers?” Bobeaux asked. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”
“There have been instances at other schools and colleges of hackers changing grades,” I said. I’d never done anything like that myself, but I’d read enough about it on hacker bulletin boards.
“Your identity is the most important thing you have online,” Oscar said. “It’s your responsibility to make sure you protect it. Not ours.”
I saw my opportunity, and I jumped on it. “But how do we know who any student is, in the end?” I asked. “I’ve read about people who enter college or graduate school with false credentials, under assumed names. Every other week it seems you read about someone who’s lost a job because he faked his graduation records.”
Was it my imagination, or did Peter Bobeaux look directly at me? I looked back at him and smiled.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to solve this easily,” he said. “We’re done here.”
“I have something to add,” I said, and I thought that was fear I saw in his eyes. “A request from the English department.”
The tension went out of his shoulders and I explained Lucas Roosevelt’s request. “Other classes meet in those classrooms when English isn’t using it,” Oscar said.
“I’m not asking for anything specific to English,” I said. “I’m talking about standard academic format.” I handed around the pages I’d printed.
“Dr. Conrad?” I asked. “Would you have any objection to a science paper presented this way?”
She laughed. “Objection? I’d be delighted to have the formatting done for them.”
Marie-Carmel Etienne agreed. “As you probably know, students have to take a computer proficiency test when they arrive at Eastern.” I loved listening to her, all those “th” sounds rendered as zees. “Those who score below a certain range have to take a class in basic computer skills, where we teach them how to change the defaults in various programs. But a lot of students slip through the net and don’t have these skills themselves.”
“Even more reason why they should be learning them in class,” Oscar said.
Jackie Conrad, Marie-Carmel, and I all began speaking at once, complaining that we had too much of our subjects to teach to get into such details.
Finally, Oscar held up his hand. “I’ll look into it,” he said.
“Excellent,” Bobeaux said. “I’ll expect some feedback by our next meeting.”
We left the building, passing a hipster girl with Ray-Ban wayfarers and a white panama hat, carrying a trade paperback edition of On The Road. Her companion was a young guy wearing a hot pink polo shirt with a bright green T-shirt underneath, peeking out at the collar.
“College fashions,” Jackie said.
“When I went to school here I lived in polo shirts and khakis,” I said. “My roommate was a T-shirt and ripped jeans kind of guy so we never had confusion over wardrobe.” I had a sudden memory. “The only problem we had was that we wore the same size and style of shoes—Sperry Top-Siders.” I looked down at my feet, where I was wearing those very same shoes. “I guess people don’t really change.”
“Some do,” Jackie said. “I wore sneakers in college and looked down at the old ladies who wore sensible shoes. And look at me now.”
All the talk of shoes reminded me, as I walked back to Lili’s office, of the faded Chucks Don Lamprey had worn. He never had the chance to see his style change with age, but at least I felt we were closer to figuring out what had happened to him.
32 – Gunshots
When I knocked at Lili’s office door, I got no answer except the scrabbling of doggie toenails on the wood floor and snuffling at the door. I tried the handle and it was unlocked, so I pushed it open. “Lili?”
Rochester launched himself at me. “Yes, I know, you missed me,” I said, as he put his paws on my thighs and sniffed me. “Where’s Lili?”
I looked around the office. Lili was like my mother in that, like nature, she abhorred a vacuum. Every inch of wall space, other than the floor-to-ceiling windows, was covered with her own photos and the work of others, friends, students, colleagues and idols. Her shelves were stacked with big art books and souvenirs of her travels – South American fabric panels, an enameled vase from Turkey, wooden animals from Africa.
I finally saw a post-it on her computer screen. “Steve: Had to help a student with a darkroom problem. Talk to you later.”
I wrote my own. “Auntie Em: I hate Kansas. I’m leaving and taking the dog.” I added my name, a heart, and a couple of Os and Xs.
It was still daylight when got home, so I took Rochester for a long walk along the nature preserve and down toward the river. The current was strong, bubbling around rocks and splashing against submerged tree branches. Washington had made his famous crossing of the Delaware a few miles upriver from where we stood, on a bitter Christmas morning.
As a kid, I’d gone to the recreation of that crossing, Grace Kelly’s brother playing General Washington, local fathers and businessmen dressed in colonial era uniforms rowing flat-bottomed Durham boats, letting the current carry them down toward Trenton. I didn’t think, back then, of what a daring leap those soldiers had made, braving not just the ice-choked river but the Hessian soldiers garrisoned at Trenton, hoping that they’d be too wiped out from holiday celebrations to put up a good fight.
Now that I’d made a few dangerous crossings myself, I appreciated more what they’d done. I hadn’t risked my life the way soldiers like Tamsen Morgan’s husband had, but I had launched myself into the unknown a few times, stepping through the prison gates that first day, then stepping out a year later completely on my own. Coming back home to Stewart’s Crossing with my tail between my legs, starting my life over.
I had come to understand how precious this life was, and how much the love of those around me mattered. When we reached Ferry Road, I tugged on Rochester’s leash and turned him inland, toward home.
Darkness fell quickly as we walked inland. Cars whizzed by us in the deepening gloom, some drivers without headlights on. The pines and firs in the nature preserve huddled together, blocking my view of anything to the right or left. An owl hooted somewhere and a nearby car horn blared.
We had just reached the entrance to River Bend when I heard three gunshots, one after another, very fast. Rochester spooked and reared backward at me, knocking me to the ground.
Like many dogs, Rochester hated sudden, loud noises like thunder and firecrackers. He was even more phobic because he was there when Caroline was shot to death while walking him.
The gunshots made him completely nuts. While I was trying to get up from the ground, he was pulling on his leash as if he was going to tow me all the way back home. I scrambled forward on my hands and knees, tugging him toward me like he was a fish I was reeling in. I caught up with him by a big oak tree, and wrapped my arms around his neck. “It’s all right, puppy,” I said. “It’s okay.”
As I leaned back against the oak and sat on the sidewalk, holding his head against my chest, I realized that someone might have been aiming directly at me. Fortunately, we were blocked by the massive trunk, and I couldn’t hear anyone coming toward us, on foot or by car.
My body started to shake but I struggled to hold myself together for Rochester’s sake. He was already freaked out, and if he sensed I was scared that would only make things worse for him. I took a couple of deep breaths, then felt my arms and legs. No blood, no pain.
I stayed there on the sidewalk, holding Rochester, until we both stopped shaking, then stood up. He immediately lunged forward, eager to get back home. I race-walked behind him, and as we got closer to the house my brain was able to work logically again. Why would someone want to shoo
t me? I’d put myself in danger a few times, but I always knew who I was up against. Now, I was baffled. Had they been warning shots? Scaring me away from investigating the body in the Meeting House? Was it someone Rick and I had spoken to in the course of the investigation?
From the speed of the shots, I figured they had come from a moving vehicle. Since there were only three, and I didn’t know of any gun that could only shoot three shots before needing to be recocked or reloaded, I figured that the shooter and his or her weapon had probably gotten out of range by then.
As soon as we got inside, Rochester scrambled up the stairs and crawled beneath my bed, his place of refuge during storms or loud holidays. I sat Indian-style on the floor beside him, one hand petting his tail, the only part of him I could reach, and took a couple more deep breaths, trying to push the tension away. Once my heart rate and pulse had returned to normal, I called Rick.
“I think somebody shot at me this evening,” I said, when he answered.
“You think?”
“Well, I’m not bleeding.” I explained how I had heard the shots, and how Rochester had freaked out. “That’s what made me think they were bullets, because of the way he reacted. Dogs have pretty acute hearing—I bet he can distinguish the sound of gun shots. Probably reminds him of when Caroline was killed.” I stroked his tail once more. “He’s under the bed now.”
“Could it have been a hunter?” Rick asked. “That area along Ferry Road attracts wildlife, and you’re close to the river there. Duck season doesn’t start for a couple of weeks, but that doesn’t stop some folks.”
“I suppose it could have been.” My voice started to shake, which I hated, but I couldn’t help it. “But what if it was someone shooting at me or Rochester? Maybe Eben Hosford. He has a shotgun, I saw it.”
“He’s a Quaker,” Rick said. “They’re supposed to be non-violent, remember? Doesn’t eliminate him, but still. Anybody else you might have pissed off lately?”