Red Solaris Mystery Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Bourne Morris

  In the building? Sundays? “Did you ever get caught on a Sunday?” I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms.

  “Never. Until I was expelled and went home and told my dad, no one ever knew anything about Max and me. We were crazy in love but we were still very careful. He was worried about Trudy, I mean Mrs. Worthington, finding out before she had the baby.”

  “Was she supposed to find out after she had the baby?” I collapsed back into my chair. How could Max have been so manipulative?

  Celeste looked unhappy. “I’m not sure,” she said quietly. “Max never promised me anything. He just said he adored me and I was the most exciting woman he had ever known. But he really didn’t want his wife to get upset and have a miscarriage or anything.”

  “And you were all right with this arrangement?” Of course she had been all right with it. Max was so handsome, so smooth, so convincing. Damn him for what he had done to this girl.

  “I had never had a guy as good at sex as Max. Never.” Celeste stood up. “Dean Solaris, I know you’re going to hate me for this, but one of the reasons I’m scared to go back to school is starting up again with Max.”

  “Am I supposed to talk you out of seeing him?”

  “No. I thought maybe you could talk him out of seeing me. Or even calling me. You’re his boss, aren’t you?”

  Celeste’s request seemed extraordinary. I would have to think about this. I wanted to say yes to her sad little face, but I dreaded talking to Max now that I knew more about the affair. I needed time to think and get over my disgust.

  And the girl looked starved.

  “Hungry, Celeste?”

  “No thanks, Dean Solaris,” she said.

  “Well I am. We’ll have to finish this conversation in the kitchen.”

  Celeste followed me into the kitchen and sat in one of the kitchen chairs. I rummaged through the refrigerator and found some of Joe’s lasagna. Celeste watched wordlessly as I scooped the lasagna into a glass dish and put it into the microwave. Avoiding the red wine clearly visible on the kitchen counter, I poured myself a glass of milk. Charlie came over to Celeste’s side and nuzzled her knees. She patted him absentmindedly.

  It was nearly eight o’clock when I dished up the warm lasagna, offered her a plate which she refused, and sat down at the table. I thought Joe was probably having a pizza with his buddies. Celeste clutched at her tea mug and patted Charlie, averting her eyes as if giving me some privacy to eat.

  At length she said,” Dean Solaris, do you think you could talk Max out of seeing me?”

  “I don’t know, Celeste. You said you were crazy in love. Was that just you or is Max in love, too?”

  “I don’t know about Max. I know when he called me night before last he was telling me in code to be at the motel tonight.”

  “Were you?”

  “No. I came over here. I didn’t think he’d look for me here.”

  “How did he tell you in code?”

  Celeste shifted in her chair, perhaps ashamed to be revealing so many of her lover’s secrets. “He said something like, I’d like to continue the conversation we started on Grant Street,” she said.

  “If you had the will to come over here instead of meeting him at the motel, why do you need me? Why can’t you tell him it’s over and you don’t want to see him anymore? Tell him he’s part of the reason you drank so much.”

  “He was part of the reason. I mean I drank before Max but, when I couldn’t be with him, when I thought about him home with his wife, I would go crazy and head for the nearest bar.”

  “What about Thad? Couldn’t you talk to him?”

  “Thad was sort of a cover story for Max and me. Max said I should have a boyfriend, just in case people got suspicious. So, I slept with Thad a few times, but he was never important to me and he certainly wasn’t a substitute for Max. With Max it was always fireworks and...” she shuddered, “and that’s why I need you to make Max leave me alone, to tell him he can’t just walk up to me on campus, he has to keep away. Honestly, Dean Solaris, if he starts after me again, I’ll melt. I’ll give in.” Tears appeared and I went to the counter for a box of tissues.

  Celeste sobbed, “I’m so in love with him, Dean Solaris. I have no resistance to him.”

  I gathered her in my arms where her sobbing increased. Charlie got up and went to the front door. I heard a car door slam shut. I expected to hear Joe open the kitchen door but, instead, the front doorbell rang.

  I looked out the front window. Max Worthington was standing on my doorstep. “Stay in the kitchen and close the door,” I said to Celeste.

  I opened the front door a few inches. Max put one hand and his foot into the opening. “I’m sorry Max. Now is not a good time for a visit. I have someone here.”

  “I know,” he said through his teeth. “Someone I need to talk to.”

  “Not now, Max. This is not the time.”

  His face was full of pain. “Red, I’ve been driving all over town looking for her. I just now saw her car in your driveway. I need to see her, just for a minute.”

  “Not now, Max. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  His eyes were moist and his breath was labored as if he had been running.

  “Please, Red,” his other hand was on the edge of the door, pushing. Max is a big man and I wasn’t sure I could keep him out of the house.

  Another car pulled up in front of the house. I could see Joe get out and head across the lawn. He was hurrying.

  “Max, you have to leave,” I insisted pushing against the inside of the door.

  “I can’t leave, Red. Not without talking to her.”

  With one shove, Max was inside the entry hall. Joe was right behind him. “What’s going on?” I heard Joe ask. Max turned away from me to Joe.

  “I need to see Red’s visitor,” he said. Sweat was streaming down his face.

  “Red?” Joe asked, searching my face for clues.

  “Celeste Cummings is here, Joe, and this is not a good time for Max to see her.”

  “Please,” Max shouted. “Celeste, honey.”

  But there was no movement from behind the kitchen door.

  “Let me help you to your car, Dr. Worthington,” Joe said, taking Max’s arm.

  Max shook him off and stumbled out to the front step.

  “I’ll remember this the next time you need me to support you in something, Red. I’ll remember. You can be sure of that.” Max’s voice was choked with tears. Of grief? Or rage?

  It seemed best to have Celeste stay in my downstairs guestroom overnight rather than risk another encounter with Max. She accepted numbly, drank a glass of milk and headed into the room. I heard her crying at first, but then silence. I hoped that meant she was asleep.

  “What was that all about?” said Joe.

  “I’ll tell you upstairs.” I took his arm and led him to the stairs. “Although this is not a good bedtime story.”

  The next morning I insisted Celeste have a decent breakfast before she left us. Joe made French toast with maple syrup. I was hoping this would tempt Celeste and it did, a little.

  I urged Celeste to go back to her parents’ home for a day or so and said I would contact the history department on her behalf.

  “Don’t linger in town,” I said. “Max is still looking for you.”

  “I’ll follow her in my car,” said Joe. “From here to the next freeway exit.”

  I watched as the two cars backed out of my driveway, turned down the street, and drove out of sight. The day was warmer than usual suggesting the possibility of spring even though we were still in midwinter. I took Charlie for a short walk and then headed to school, determined to confront Max and settle this problem with Celeste for good. Even if Celeste was unwilling to bring up harassment charges, I could make sure Max knew the provost and I would discipline him, even fire him,
for having a sexual relationship with a student. That should scare him away. Max had a national reputation and a wife with three children and another on the way. He had much to protect from scandal.

  But Max was not at school. And, no, he had not emailed the manuscript of his book. I closed my door and asked Nell for some time alone. Should I call Max at home?

  I stared out at the yellow-brown grass that covered the lawn of the quad. I looked at the windows of larger brick buildings across the way. Did other deans have to deal with problems like mine? Was it possible to feel angry and depressed at the same time? I was suffused with ambivalence.

  Max had been a warm, affectionate friend, a helpful friend. Was it possible Max truly loved Celeste? I had made a few sexual wrong turns of my own. Had I turned into a prudish bureaucrat? Nell interrupted my internal soliloquy. She had an urgent look.

  “I have a Dean Lorenzo waiting on the phone. He says it’s important. And, Stoddard wants to see you in his office right away.”

  Now what?

  Manuel Lorenzo was a friend and recently appointed dean of a large journalism school back east. I had been meaning to call him. “Congratulations, Manny. Sorry to keep you on hold,” I said.

  “That’s okay.” Manny’s voice came back, leaden and cheerless. “I have some troubling news, Red.” Oh God. More trouble? So much for a peaceful week after the retreat.

  “What’s up Manny?”

  “This morning I received a registered letter from a Simon Gorshak, one of your faculty.”

  “I hope he’s applying for a job,” I said.

  “Sorry. He’s not. He has written a five-page diatribe against your school. He insists you are indifferent to the value of scholarly research, that you have encouraged frivolous changes to the curriculum and, let’s see, oh yes, you are romantically involved with a married professor and you and your lover are trying to get some unworthy fellow named Coleman tenured.”

  “Wow.” Simon must have lost his mind.

  “Yes, Red. Wow. He ends by saying he believes your school is at risk of losing its accreditation because of curriculum changes and weakness in research, not to mention your own questionable conduct.”

  “Jesus. None of that is true, Manny. I know Simon is unhappy about some of the changes we are considering, but I am surprised he would write anyone a letter denouncing his school. Especially since he knows we go up for re-accreditation next fall and we depend on the good opinion of others.”

  “Red, I don’t think I’m the only dean who received this letter.”

  Oh, that would be why Stoddard wanted to see me. I thanked Manny and urged him to keep an open mind about the school.

  Stoddard, a normally courteous man, did not rise from his desk chair when I walked in. His bald head shone, this time with sweat. He was furious.

  “Sit,” he said. No greeting, no how are you doing. Just the command.

  He handed me a letter. “Read,” he said.

  I read through Simon’s five pages.

  “It’s full of lies,” I said.

  “It went to the deans of every accredited journalism school in the country, plus copies to Lewis and me and, God knows who else.” The Provost’s voice was deadly calm, but he worked his huge fingers, tugging until the knuckles cracked.

  “It’s full of lies,” I repeated. “Simon claims we’re planning to abandon the teaching of writing and reporting in favor of teaching kids how to make websites. That’s not remotely true. He says we have no important research being done, but I have a roomful of papers and presentations delivered just this past year, plus four faculty members have written books.”

  “What about you and a so-called married professor?”

  “An absolute fiction. I swear. I’m seeing someone.”

  “Yes. I’m told you’re seeing Detective Morgan.”

  “I am.”

  Stoddard stopped pulling at his fingers and leaned forward, his face cupped in his hands. “Dean Solaris, I sincerely hoped last week when you told me you had a successful retreat and we announced Ben Howard’s gift, that the journalism school had turned the corner. But it would appear your faculty quarrel is alive and venomous.”

  “But none of what Simon writes is true.”

  “I understand, Meredith. But what in the name of God prompted him to denounce his own school to the entire world of academic journalism? What did he hope to gain?”

  I sat silent. Indeed, what did Simon hope to gain by writing this? Stoddard stared at me, expecting some explanation. After an agonizing pause, I answered:

  “Revenge.”

  Chapter 24

  I walked back to the journalism school, my ears ringing with Stoddard’s final instructions. “Meredith, write a rebuttal—with facts, lots of facts—and get it to Phil Lewis and me before the end of work tomorrow. We will need it to compose a letter from Phil to all these deans and, especially, to anyone on the committee coming to re-accredit the school next semester.”

  There had been no sympathy in his face and no sense of the friendship he had always shown me. He didn’t speak of my interim deanship, but his disappointment was palpable. I figured I was going to lose that job right after I handed in the rebuttal.

  “Here’s what I need,” I told Nell, asking for detailed records for everything from faculty research in the last five years to records of student accomplishments. “I’m sorry Nell, I know this is a horrendous request, but I will need all this stuff to back up my rebuttal to Simon’s letter. And, I’ll need it by end of work this afternoon so I can write it tonight. Stoddard insists I have a rebuttal to him tomorrow.”

  “Simon’s a lousy son of a bitch,” said Nell. I had never heard her swear before. “I hate him.”

  “So do I Nell, but right now I have to diffuse the situation he’s created.”

  I had one errand to do before I could go home to the comfort of Joe’s arms. It took me to the other side of campus. As I drove through the still winter landscape I realized how much I wanted to keep my job as dean. I had been feeling wonderful after the retreat and after the ceremony accepting Ben Howard’s gift. I had begun to enjoy being dean of journalism. I loved my students and my friends and this university. Now it was all in jeopardy. Now I had two faculty members in trouble, one who had to be disciplined and one who probably had to be fired. In less than three months, I had lost the confidence of the provost who had once admired me and the president who had appointed me.

  It was a mess. And, heading out the back gate of campus, I wondered how much I wanted to go to Max’s house and insist he see me and what? Get him to come outside, away from his wife, so I could talk to him about Celeste.

  Get it over with, I thought. Deal with Max today because tonight you have to deal with Simon’s betrayal.

  The drive to the Worthington’s took me through the main residential areas of Landry, a neighborhood that looks more like the towns I knew back east. In spring, maples, flowering plum, and linden trees bloomed in what had once been brown and barren high desert. Water from Lake Tahoe flowed downstream to nourish them.

  Max and Trudy lived in an old Victorian in a section that had been the historical center of Landry and was still the most prosperous. The Worthington’s house was gracefully proportioned and beautiful with a deep front porch and well-kept shutters at all the front windows.

  Trudy Worthington met me at the door. Her face was haggard, her body heavy with pregnancy. Her usually carefully arranged hair was straggling down her back and about her face and looked oily from lack of recent washing. I could hear the shrieks of children playing in a back room.

  “Hi, Red. Come on in. It’s great to see you, although I’m a bit frazzled today. Hope you don’t mind the clutter. Can I get you something to drink? I’m sorry about the noise and...”

  “Thanks, Trudy. But I really just stopped by to see how Max was feeling and to see if he felt
up to meeting with me.”

  “As far as I know, he’s feeling fine,” she said, brushing a stray lock of hair off her face. “But he’s not here.”

  I was almost relieved, but Max’s absence meant postponing a talk with him and I wanted to be done with it. I also wanted to be sure he didn’t follow Celeste to her parents’ home.

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked.

  “I thought he was at the school,” said Trudy. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all,” I said. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was upset Trudy.

  “How are you?” I said summoning up a smile.

  “Oh, this pregnancy is driving me insane.” She spread her hands under her massive belly. “But thankfully it will be over in a few weeks. Can I give Max a message for you?”

  I paused. Might as well get something useful done. I remembered his book. “Uh, well I was hoping to get the manuscript of his book. He promised to bring it in last week but he keeps forgetting.”

  “Oh. He’s been forgetting everything these days,” said Trudy, sighing. “Last month he forgot Max Junior’s birthday party. I know December birthdays are tough to remember, but really.”

  I decided to press on. “I wonder if I could trouble you to get the manuscript for me.” I tried to sound casual and cheerful. “I really need to go over it this weekend so I can complete his evaluation for a merit raise.”

  “Well, we need his merit raise all right,” she said. “Let’s see if we can find it in his den.”

  We headed down the hallway to a room at the back. The door was locked but she reached up to grab a key off the top of the doorframe. “Have to keep it locked,” she said, “or the kids get into it, and nothing upsets him more.”

  We entered a small cluttered room with a large desk in front of a back window and bookshelves on every wall. A computer sat in the middle of the desk and papers were stacked on either side.

  “I know the galleys are in here somewhere,” she said.