by Robin Kirman
Childish creatures, both her and Storrow, Charlie had decided, because they’d both somehow belonged to his childish fantasy, creatures of a world dreamed up during Hamptons summers of some golden aristocracy. A bygone world, a narrow one and a boring one, besides—how flat in comparison to the actual, multifarious reality he’d been refusing to appreciate. On that day in Storrow’s classroom, Julie Patel came to represent this new reality and all its possible allurements, all the beauty he’d failed to see that was everywhere around him, only waiting to be noticed by him to come, fully, to life.
9
The last morning of exams: students came rushing past, a nervous blur of bouncing ponytails and baseball caps. Alice looked on, squinting against the sun. She wasn’t sure which exam she might be missing; she’d lost track of which papers were due when. The typed pages that she carried weren’t meant for some professor’s desk. She was headed to the office of the Crimson.
Her temples throbbed: too many cigarettes and cups of coffee, too little sleep; she’d caught maybe an hour between the time she’d finished writing and when she was awoken by Charlie’s roommate—Robert, Roger, whatever the fuck his name was—his beard-trimmer buzzing in the bathroom at six. Unbearable, that guy, with his geriatric schedule, but she would have to bear him, and whatever other inconveniences she faced as Charlie’s guest. Like it or not, she was stuck there until graduation: someone had to vouch for her with health services and there was no going back to Georgia’s now. No going back to how things were. Not in a hundred ways.
A classmate was dead. Her life had been stopped short, and for those she’d left behind, events plunged forward all the more quickly.
—
Within hours of the murder, the news was everywhere, spread during the night via the victim’s boyfriend, Lucas Parker, who’d been called in by police to identify the body. By dawn a group of twenty or so students had assembled on the Quincy green outside Stone Hall. Gerry had passed by on his return from a late night, so Alice had learned the first bare facts from him: Julie Patel, a fellow senior, had been murdered on campus around one a.m. that morning.
From then on, Alice kept up with every mention of the murder appearing anywhere: on the TV networks and in the papers, local and then national. Reports were sketchy in those first days; police weren’t yet releasing details of the crime, out of concern for the investigation and for the grieving family, so they said. But by the following Wednesday, when the chief of police held a press conference, attended by reporters from Reuters and CNN, among others, a more thorough account of events was provided.
May 4 was a Sunday, the last day of reading period, the week preceding finals, and Julie Patel had spent the afternoon and evening, like many of her classmates, studying in Lamont. At seven, she was due to meet her boyfriend at his dining hall in Winthrop House; however, she called him just before to cancel, claiming, curtly, that she needed the time to study for a final in the morning.
At around 8:15 p.m., Julie Patel was next observed, by two students, exiting Adams House on Linden Street. Neither of these witnesses spoke with her, but one did note that she appeared distracted and upset. Her mood had apparently improved by the time she called her boyfriend again, around 8:45, to say that she’d finished her work and would be coming by Winthrop after all.
The last person to see Julie Patel alive was her boyfriend, who reported nothing unusual about her behavior that night, and who said good-bye to her outside his dorm around eleven. Julie was then heading back to her room in Quincy House, just around the corner, but it was on the northeast edge of Harvard Yard, between Robinson Hall and Memorial Church, that her body was discovered two hours later.
So far, the investigation hadn’t determined any motive for Julie to have proceeded to this location; Robinson housed the History Department and was, according to the cleaning staff interviewed, otherwise deserted at that hour. Julie’s roommates couldn’t account for her detour, and there were no witnesses who’d observed Julie in the old Yard past sundown. One student, however, stepping out for a smoke by Sever Gate at half-past midnight, claimed to have noticed a slender white man in a dark suit walking out through the gate, head down. Neither this witness, nor any other, reported seeing or hearing anything else remarkable that night—not an argument, not a single scream—until, at one a.m., a member of the Harvard Police Department came upon Julie’s corpse.
The homicide, police determined, resembled a professional execution more than a simple street crime. There was no evidence of a struggle or of sexual assault or robbery: Julie Patel was found fully dressed, in a corduroy skirt and button-down blouse. Her backpack, left behind with her, contained twenty-seven dollars. A gold necklace, a present from her boyfriend, remained hanging from her broken neck.
Experts determined the cause of death was asphyxia. The break was neat; the attacker had come from behind and employed a technique likely taught in military training. None of the assailant’s DNA was discovered on the body; no traces—not a footprint—were left by him at the scene. It seemed whoever had done this was also familiar with forensics methods.
Based upon these facts, the chief investigator had issued an announcement, on the morning of May 6, that the department was focusing its attention on a certain Law and History professor, a man with a military education and an acquaintance with the victim. The suspect wasn’t named, but Alice wasn’t the only one to recognize Storrow’s description.
—
The Crimson’s office was on Plympton Street, less than a block from Quincy House. Plympton was quiet now; just a few students trickled from New Quincy and Stone Hall where, in the week since the murder, crowds had stood gaping at news vans. Sometimes two or three vans had been parked there at a time, and Alice had been among those listening in as reporters questioned passing students. The day after Storrow’s picture ran in the papers, one local reporter managed to get hold of Lucas Parker, a neat boy with even features, attractive in a sexless way. The sort of boyfriend, Alice thought, who must have been sick with guilt after his first timid fumbling down Julie’s pants—Can I? Is it okay? The sort who stood as further proof of Julie’s virtue—that virtue which everyone seemed so eager to establish—Julie had so many friends; she volunteered! As if the real tragedy was that Julie Patel was lying dead and not someone a bit less nice and inclined to public service, someone who could lie and cheat and fuck.
“Julie was just this amazingly good person,” Lucas had announced before the cameras. “She stood up for what she felt was right; she wouldn’t be intimidated—which was what Professor Storrow tried to do. Julie was the only one who saw him for what he was: a racist and a bully. In the end, I got the sense she was even a little afraid of him. But she wouldn’t let that stop her; and I mean she couldn’t have thought—how could anybody think that this…something like this…?”
The reporter—tan brunette, shining orange in her makeup—patted the boy’s shoulder as he left off, his voice strained by the effort not to cry.
Inarticulate, confused, pitiable—the way Lucas appeared that afternoon was how a man ought to seem under such circumstances. Had Storrow managed a similar performance, Alice believed, he might not be facing the mess that he was now.
Storrow’s 60 Minutes interview had aired four days after the segment with Lucas made the rounds of weekday news shows. Alice had watched it that Sunday night, alongside a small group of mostly Adams seniors who’d assembled for the event at Gerry’s. The interview was staged in Storrow’s office. Seated at his desk, spiffy in his navy suit and checkered shirt, the man exuded a false freshness: only someone truly dirty would contrive to look so clean.
Julie had been his student, nothing more, Storrow insisted. They’d had a few lively debates in class, but he’d always appreciated her intelligence and verve. In words that seemed rehearsed, Storrow went on to address each of the reporter’s queries: yes, Julie had threatened to make a formal complaint about him, but ultimately, she had not. An understanding had been reached bet
ween them; the calls that had been discovered by then, from Julie’s dorm room to his office and spanning the last month, were a part of these efforts at reconciliation.
The last he’d had any contact with Julie was in class as usual, said Storrow, ten days before her death. He couldn’t comment on reports of her leaving Adams House on the night that she was killed; he certainly hadn’t crossed paths with her, not there at seven and not later, either, outside Robinson Hall. Whatever conservatively dressed white male had allegedly been spotted near the murder scene, it wasn’t him—surely he wasn’t the only man at Harvard to fit that broad description. As for his keeping an office in Robinson, he only used it to meet students and preferred to do his solitary work at home. That was where he’d been the night of Julie’s death, his only company the draft of the final exam he was preparing.
Storrow had concluded his remarks by quoting the Harvard motto—Veritas—as if he hadn’t yet come off as pretentious enough. Truth, he’d told the interviewer, truth will prevail.
—
Alice could have forgiven him his lies—petty stuff, considering—but not that colossal arrogance. Watching Storrow on TV, she’d been reminded of her own meeting with him inside that same Robinson Hall office; a few days after she’d caught him with Georgia in New York, he’d called her in for a private conversation.
“You’ve missed some work recently, Ms. Kovac, and I’ve been informed you may not graduate with the rest of your class. That seems a shame. You were a member of Adams House once, and I’d like to advocate on your behalf; I understand that you’ve been sick.”
Storrow had addressed her as a concerned housemaster, merely, showing no signs of culpability, making no reference at all to the real reason she was there, to his misdeeds. Whatever nasty ideas she’d contrived about him were her invention, his tone made clear: symptoms of her sickness, which he, in his munificence, was prepared to pardon.
That afternoon, she’d looked across at Storrow, at his proud, immaculate features and depthless gaze, and felt as if this man was every man she’d ever hated. He was Torsten; he was Vasily; he was every brutal narcissist who lived to impress his distortions of reality upon souls weaker than his own—which Storrow had, misguidedly, taken hers to be.
—
A red door led to the offices of the Harvard Crimson. Alice stepped inside, jiggling the lock that had never quite worked; pizza boxes and old issues were strewn around the newsroom, and each desk was occupied. Most editorial staff were in already; many had no doubt stayed the night.
The editor in chief was upstairs, hunched up in a leather chair stained with newsprint and beer; he was drinking black coffee from a beer stein and reading over copy. Alice knew him only slightly; she hadn’t written much for the Crimson since the start of junior year, and she had never been involved in the politics or weighed in on the election that had earned him his post. He raised a finger and went on reading, caught up in his own importance at this moment—this being possibly the biggest story he would ever oversee. Alice pulled another chair across from his, and sat down, awaiting the moment he would notice the pages she’d placed between them, on her knees.
Not one among the professional journalists out there had anything like she had on Storrow: those that mentioned his argument with Julie attributed it to cultural insensitivity, a consequence of the man’s conservative upbringing. Storrow was either described through institutions and accolades—West Point Cadet, Rhodes Scholar, Bronze Star Medal winner—or with recourse to a few oft-recycled adjectives— “disciplined,” “aloof.” This was as far as anyone had probed into the man, all everyone but Alice seemed prepared to let him be.
10
Ms. Kent was Mather House’s senior tutor: a pear-shaped, short, dark blonde with a gap between her top front teeth. Her smile was wide, overly friendly; until now Georgia had met the woman only publicly, at Mather House functions.
“I want to thank you for coming in.” Touching Georgia lightly on the back, Ms. Kent guided her inside her tidy, book-lined office. “I wasn’t sure you’d be up for meeting me today.”
“Today?” What was today? For her, it had been a day exactly like the one before it, and like the one before that. Since she’d been questioned by police on Friday, Georgia hadn’t left her apartment but once, for the nearest grocery to buy bread and sleeping pills, nor had she spoken to anyone except her parents.
At first she’d just confessed her situation to her father, less prone to judge her than her mother. But the madness of those days soon left her craving her mother’s cool, practical advice. “I’m getting you a lawyer now,” her mother promised; meanwhile her father vowed to catch the next flight to Boston. He was supposed to reach the campus later that afternoon.
“I looked for you at the vigil this morning.” Ms. Kent took her seat behind the desk. She was wearing a black dress; chalk smudges showed around her elbows.
“I haven’t really been following…”
Ms. Kent gripped her hands together and made a perch for her chin; she was watching Georgia, thoughtfully. “I’m sure that’s best, keeping distance. Press was there. Bit of a circus, honestly. I don’t know if you heard, Professor Storrow chose to make an appearance.”
The reference to Storrow startled her. Of course, she reminded herself, Storrow was in the news now, his name—along with Julie Patel’s—must be on everybody’s lips. If Ms. Kent happened to mention him, that didn’t mean Georgia’s fears were realized: that officer Lombardi had notified the school of her affair.
After all, there were other reasons Ms. Kent might have called her in this afternoon: she’d missed two exams; she hadn’t turned in final papers or been answering her phone. Likely the school was on alert, following up with anybody whose behavior was affected since the murder. It wouldn’t do to have students breaking down, especially not during finals; no one wanted outraged parents, more bad press. This was Harvard: a cautious and thorough institution.
“Georgia, I want you to rest assured: you’re not in any trouble. You’ve been a fine student and you have the full support from your dean and your professors. No one wants your academic record to be affected or your future to suffer. No one blames you. You’re also a victim in this case.”
“How am I a victim?”
“He was the adult, after all…” Ms. Kent left off, alarmed. “You do know why I called you in? I was sure someone had shown you.” Her stubby finger tapped on a newspaper on the desk.
There was a picture on the cover page, but it took Georgia a moment to recognize what she was seeing upside down: her image from the student directory, her friend’s name at the byline: Alice Kovac.
The last she’d heard from Alice was before the murder; returning home from a party, Sunday night, Georgia had found Alice’s drawers emptied, the girl and her belongings gone. A curious exit, but Alice had been acting strangely since her hospitalization, if not before, since meeting Torsten. Probably Alice had gone back to him, sneaking off, without warning, to avoid having to hear what a huge mistake this was. Under ordinary circumstances, Georgia would have tried to track her down, or informed the psychiatric resident that she was missing, but the next days had been anything but ordinary.
—
The pages of the Crimson were crumpled from her grasp; she’d clutched them tightly on her way, resisting the urge to stop and read on the Mather quad or stairwell, awaiting the privacy of her own room before she dared confront the damage that Alice had done. All around her, on her tabletops and sofa, lay manila folders containing notes for exams and drafts of papers: everything was almost exactly as it had been before the news of violence had yanked her out of her routine. She settled down with the Crimson on the floor.
Police are now inquiring into a pattern of sexual misconduct involving Professor Storrow and several female students, among them senior Georgia Calvin…Calvin, it seems, was not the only undergraduate toward whom Storrow made advances: “A second student, who preferred to remain nameless, alleged she’d al
so had a sexual encounter with the man.”
According to the chief investigating officer, Joseph Lombardi, “Certain facts revealed by the investigation—calls to Storrow’s office, vague excuses made by Julie to her boyfriend, a personal animus in her complaints against Storrow—all of these details, taken together, could suggest either an affair or its aftermath.”
Police have yet to establish a sexual motive regarding Ms. Patel, or to charge Professor Storrow in connection with her death. Still, there will be consequences if these allegations of sexual misconduct are confirmed: at the least, Professor Storrow will lose the right to insist with indignation on his innocence, even if, on the greater charge of murder, the law falls short of establishing his guilt.
The phone was ringing. A male voice—not, as she’d hoped, her father’s—began to speak through the answering machine: “Murphy again, from the Globe. If you could spare a moment, just to comment on these statements.”
Georgia stood and climbed the stairs to her bedroom; she pulled a suitcase from the closet and shoved her clothes haphazardly inside. The clock on her bedside table read two thirty; her father’s flight ought to have landed. She hoped that at this moment he was speeding toward her, down the highway; when he arrived, she’d crawl into the rental car beside him and ask him to drive, as far and as fast as possible.
Just a few more hours, she told herself, and she’d leave it all behind: the course work she’d never finished and didn’t give a damn for now; the so-called friends who clearly didn’t give a damn for her—Charlie, who still wouldn’t speak to her, and Alice, who’d proven more devious than even Georgia, who’d believed she could handle the hazards of their friendship, could have guessed. A few more hours and she’d have them all relegated to her rearview: the reporters and the gossips, the meddlers both malicious and benign, like Ms. Kent.