by Mike Markel
“Young man.” She turned to him, the tip of her cane clicking as it came down on the marble floor. “When I said ‘Who cares?’ that was a rhetorical question. I meant to suggest that I certainly don’t, and therefore I’d like you to come to the point. As I said a minute ago, I am very busy.”
“All right, Professor,” I said, “we were hoping you could tell us a little about Suzannah Montgomery.”
“I could tell you quite a bit about Suzannah, but at the moment I don’t know why you want to know about her, and therefore I wouldn’t know where to begin. Tell me what this is about—or let me get back to my work. Please, choose the latter.”
Since the news of the murder was going to be broadcast within the hour, I decided to tell her. “We’re investigating a possible homicide, a graduate student named Austin Sulenka.”
“Austin Sulenka …” she said, tipping her head. “A graduate student here?”
“Yes, Professor, in American literature. He was about to finish his MA. He was working with Suzannah Montgomery, something about … what was it about, Ryan?”
“Edgar Allan Poe,” Ryan said.
She frowned and shook her head.
“He was in a couple of your seminars,” I said. “Tall, good-looking. Long dark hair, goatee.”
Frances Hamblin’s expression was a combination of confusion and impatience. “I have no interest in what he looked like. I don’t know whom you’re referring to.” She paused. “You say he was one of Suzannah’s advisees?”
“Yes, that’s right,” I said.
“So why are you bothering me about this?”
I’d forgotten: the dead kid isn’t your responsibility. We shouldn’t be taking up your time. Maybe no man is an island, but this old bitch hadn’t gotten the memo.
“We’re trying to determine who might want to hurt him. We were hoping you could tell us something about him.”
“Well, another hope dashed, young lady. I work with my graduate students. She works with hers. To my recollection, she has never mentioned him to me.” She looked at Ryan, then at me. “Will that be all?”
“Can you tell us a little about Suzannah Montgomery? She’s been here six or seven years, right? You must have gotten to know her.”
“Detective, my relationship with Suzannah Montgomery, such as it is, is of no relevance to your investigation, I assure you. She is my colleague in the English department. I see her at the various department functions and meetings. She asks me how I am, and I reply conventionally. I ask her how she is, and she replies in kind. I serve on her grad students’ committees; she serves on mine. It is a fully satisfactory relationship, one of my better ones with my colleagues.” She paused. “She was very solicitous when my husband passed away four years ago, for which I will always be grateful. Will that suffice?”
“Professor Hamblin,” Ryan said. “I apologize in advance for what I am about to say.” She sighed, and a scowl settled in. “When I was in college I read your book on slave narratives. This was at Brigham Young. I don’t have to tell you about the sad history of my church’s relations with African Americans. Your book helped me understand that history better—and helped me re-think my relationship with my faith in a very fundamental way.”
“Yes, your church, as you choose to call it, has left quite a lengthy trail of shame, not least in its relations with African Americans.” I took this to mean she was giving Ryan ten more seconds to say something interesting or get out of her foyer.
“Yes, Professor. I’m quite certain that I will never be able to think about my church’s role in the nineteenth—and even the twentieth century—without considering the context of its relationship with African Americans, and, by extension, the native peoples.”
I had no idea what Ryan was up to, but since Frances Hamblin hadn’t started jabbing at us with her cane I was willing to sit back and see where he took us. She nodded her head, telling him to continue.
“It would be a real privilege if you could tell us—just very briefly—what you’re working on now.”
She stared at Ryan a moment. “Have you read any Melville?”
“Just Moby-Dick. Billy Budd. A handful of the stories.”
“You haven’t read The Isle of the Cross?”
Ryan looked sheepish. “Sorry, ma’am, I’ve never even heard of it.”
“Very good.” Frances Hamblin nodded. “You’re correct. You haven’t. Only a few dozen people in the world have. And nobody has read it, with the possible exception of Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
“It’s unpublished? A Melville novel?”
“That’s right.” She held her gaze. “An unpublished Melville novel.”
Ryan was shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe it. “You’ve seen it? Where is it?”
She smiled. Ryan had gotten the old snot to smile. She had a full set of beautiful teeth. She pointed over her left shoulder. “It’s in my study.”
“I can’t believe what you’re telling me.”
“I found it quite hard to believe, as well, last summer, when I discovered a holograph manuscript in a box of unrelated papers in a local historical society in Gloucester, Massachusetts.”
“This is unbelievable,” he said.
“I have been looking for this manuscript for more than thirty years, and I believe I have found it. If I am correct …” she said, pausing for emphasis, “and I do believe I am, this will constitute one of the greatest discoveries in literary studies in the last fifty years.”
“What are you planning to do with it?” Ryan had an expression on his face that I’d never seen on him, a mix of awe and excitement. He had this crazy old professor going, and it was almost working on me.
“I’m going to Harvard this summer to meet with a group of Melville scholars, where I will present my case that this is indeed the manuscript that Melville was ‘prevented’ from publishing—”
“I’m sorry, Professor, did you say ‘prevented’?”
“Indeed I did.”
“What do you mean?”
She smiled again. “I have no idea. Or, to be precise, I do not yet have an idea what Melville meant in his letter to Hawthorne stating that he was prevented from publishing it. But I will be presenting my preliminary conclusions to the community this summer.”
“If you’re right—I mean that this is Melville’s book—will you then publish it?”
She nodded. “It will be my final—and my greatest—project.”
“Professor Hamblin, I cannot tell you what an honor it was to hear about this enormously exciting discovery. This is just so thrilling.” He shook his head at his own inarticulateness. “I’m just speechless. Thank you so much for sharing this.”
She nodded, almost a bow. “It was my pleasure talking with you, young man.”
“Karen,” Ryan said, turning to me and giving me a big smile, “let’s let the professor get back to her work. And Professor Hamblin,” he said, taking a card out of his jacket pocket and handing it to her, “again, my sincere thanks. If you need a research assistant, would you please keep me in mind?”
She smiled and nodded. “I do appreciate your gracious offer,” she said, “but I don’t believe I will have any trouble securing a research assistant.”
“Have a good day, Professor,” Ryan said to her as the door closed slowly behind us.
We walked back to the Charger and got in. I turned the ignition so I could lower the windows. The sun was streaming in, heating up the black plastic seats.
I looked at Ryan, my brows furrowed. I didn’t say anything.
He looked back at me for a long moment. “Is there something you’d like to say, Detective?”
“I’m just wondering,” I said. “How long do you think you could be charming? I mean, before you make yourself vomit?”
He rubbed his chin for a moment. “Well, let’s see, I became charming sometime in 1996, I believe it was, and I’ve been charming every moment since then—by the way, have I mentioned that you’re looking quite
well? Very strong, confident, well-rested.” He gave me a big smile.
“All that horseshit about that book—anything to do with who killed the grad student with the Moby Dick?”
“Uh, no,” he said, “I don’t think so. Frances Hamblin lives on Planet Hamblin, and I don’t think she has much to do with Suzannah Montgomery—and I’m sure she had nothing to do with Austin Sulenka. As long as the university doesn’t make her work with dull grad students like Melissa Harmon or Austin, or do too much teaching, she’s happy. She’s all about her research.”
“So you believe she doesn’t know who Austin was?”
“Yes, I do believe that. I wouldn’t even assume she could pick Suzannah Montgomery out of a lineup.”
“And the Melville book? That’s a big deal?”
“If you care about Melville, I guess. Otherwise, no. Personally, it does nothing for me. But the professor was so egotistical, I just wanted to see if I could get her to open up a little. For most people, there’s one sure-fire topic.”
“Themselves?”
“Have I mentioned how well you’re looking these days, Karen?”
“Are you interested in how she can afford that house?”
“Not particularly,” Ryan said. “She could have gotten some money from her publications—I’ll check to see if she’s written a big textbook or something—but I doubt if it would be enough for that place. Or she married well. Her husband could’ve been an oil man out in the Bakken. Maybe Van Vleet could tell us, or Suzannah Montgomery.”
I thought for a moment. “Let’s call it a day. We’ll get Austin’s phone records tomorrow morning, and maybe Robin will have some prints for us.”
Ryan smiled. “Absolutely. This is fun, huh?”
“To quote you, ‘not particularly.’”
“Oh, come on. You just learned there might be a new Melville book coming out. You read Moby-Dick, didn’t you?”
“The first five pages. Then I skimmed the CliffsNotes.”
“Why’d you give up?”
“All the blubber.”
Chapter 11
The Hispanic lawn guys who kept the expensive houses in Ravensmere looking expensive were quitting for the day, gathering up their big water jugs and rakes and edgers and steering their riding mowers up the steel ramps onto the trailers hitched to their pickups.
“You let me know if you see a homeowner working on his house,” I said as we drove toward the gate that would automatically swing back to let us re-enter the world of the ninety-nine percenters.
“I’m not sure you understand how the economy works,” Ryan said. “The homeowners aren’t home now. They’re at the office earning a million bucks so it can trickle down to the workers, nine dollars every hour.”
“Are you a socialist, Ryan?”
“Not as much as Jesus, but more than a Christian politician.”
My cell rang. I reached around and fished it out of my big shoulder bag on the back seat. It was Jorge Espinoza, our IT guy. He had a preliminary report on what was on Austin Sulenka’s laptop.
I looked at my watch. It was twenty to five. “Can you give us five minutes to get there?”
“Of course, Karen.”
We made it back to headquarters and hurried downstairs to Jorge’s den. He had two small, windowless rooms. One was a noisy closet with super air-conditioning, filled with steel racks holding all the servers and routers. The other was a ten-by-ten bare-walled cell with fluorescent tube lights overhead, a desk and chair, and a worktable full of desktops, laptops, and tablets, some working, some cracked open like black plastic lobsters.
“Thanks for getting in touch,” I said as Ryan and I squeezed into the small office.
“No problem,” he said. He was about thirty, tall and thin. He favored Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, and rubber flip-flops, regardless of the season. “You wanna hit the light?” he said to Ryan.
Ryan turned it off as Jorge powered up a small projector, throwing an image of a directory on the tan wall of his office. “Here’s a mirror of the hard drive.” He passed me a memory stick, which I passed to Ryan. “Just want to give you a big picture on what’s going on.”
I recognized the image on the wall as Austin’s main directory, the My Documents view. “He’s got Windows 7, so there’s Pictures, Movies, Music, and Documents. The Movies directory is empty, the Music directory is full of what looks like bootleg music files from a Russian server, and the Pictures directory is full of photos.”
“What kind of pictures has he got?” I said.
“It’s him with girls, some older women, some outdoor scenes. Nothing surprising. Some nudes of a really fine young woman.” That would be May Eberlien. “And he’s got a folder full of porn.”
“Anything interesting there?”
“No,” Jorge said. “It’s all women, all of legal age. No kids, no animals. But he did like Japanese women.”
I shrugged. “Okay. What are you seeing in the documents?”
“It’s all school work. Papers from courses, stuff like that. He was trying to get some papers accepted at conferences. He’s got a folder for conferences and one for journals.”
“Boring,” I said. “So you didn’t see anything that tells us who killed him?”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, no. But there might be some interesting things out in the cloud.”
“Yeah?”
“His browsing history shows that he’s been some places you’ll want to check out. He’s got an account at A1-TermPaper, which sells term papers to students. He’s got an account at Central Montana First National Bank. A PayPal account.”
“Can we see what he was up to?”
“Not yet,” Jorge said. “He used Mitto.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a site that stores all his passwords,” Ryan said.
“I already put in a request through the chief’s office to unlock the Mitto account. Margaret said they’ll have to figure out whether they need separate authorizations to look at his financials. She said she’d have an answer tomorrow morning.”
Ryan held up the memory stick. “Did you check his system for malware?”
“I cleaned it up before I imaged it.”
I turned to Ryan. “That all you need?”
“This is great.” He nodded to Jorge. “Gracias,” he said.
Jorge waved his hand. No problem.
“Thanks a lot, Jorge,” I said. “We’ll get back to you if we have any questions.”
Ryan turned the light back on and we headed upstairs. He was leaning on his cane. I noticed that he gets tired late in the afternoon. That didn’t happen before he got shot. “Okay, Ryan, call it quits for today?”
“Kali’s going to be out with the kids till six-thirty. I’m going to take a quick look at Austin’s computer.”
“Knock yourself out.” I headed toward the break room, where I bought some calories from a machine and wolfed down the doughnut half from the box on the counter. The two ends were squashed, like a guy had just ripped it in two with his fingers. But I didn’t have time to get home, cook a regular dinner, and make it to my seven pm AA meeting.
So I was still eating crappy food all the time, but at least I had the drinking mostly under control. When you’ve got six or eight major bad habits going at the same time, you start with the one that’s most likely to kill you the soonest. For me, it’s liquor. I’ve been going to the meetings now for almost a year. The deal I had with the chief was that I had to get my card signed, seven days a week for three months, or I was gone.
So now I don’t have to go to any more meetings. But I’m still going. I’m done feeling like I want to throw up at the meetings. I can stand in front of the room and talk to the other drunks about any of the topics that come up. I’m reasonably comfortable blah-blahing about how my drinking made me selfish, busted up my family, hurt everyone in my life, and all the rest. I know it did all that, I’ve got the stories to prove it, and I’m on board the AA trai
n.
I do wish I could get past the “recovering alcoholic” bit. I’d like to be recovered already. But since I still can’t smell Jack Daniel’s without wanting to drop everything I’m doing and have just one small glass or four, maybe I haven’t actually recovered. The thought that I’m going to be like this for the rest of my life sucks, actually, but not as bad as nailing strangers at a bar and passing out six or seven times a week.
I was at the stove, around eight-thirty, when my cell rang. I’d ditched my land line a little while ago, but I hadn’t yet gotten into the habit of keeping my cell with me at all times, like the kids do. I turned off the stove and followed the ring tone into my bedroom.
“Detective Seagate, this is Tiffany. Tiffany Rhodes?”
It took me a second to remember who she was. Then I pulled it up: the freshman who screwed Austin, then got pissed at him because he gave her the C she deserved.
“Yes, Tiffany. This is Detective Seagate.” I didn’t know why she was calling. I threw in a “How ya doin’?”
She didn’t answer that question. “Do you have a minute? I mean, to talk?”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m sorry to call you so late, but I wanted to talk to you. You want me to wait until tomorrow morning?”
“No, that’s fine. Let’s talk now.”
“Okay, thanks,” she said. Then there was a long pause.
“You still there, Tiffany?”
Nothing. Then, “Yeah, I’m still here. It’s just hard for me to say what I have to tell you.”
“Listen, Tiffany, just say it. You won’t get in any trouble if, you know, you want to change anything you told me and my partner earlier. It happens all the time. As long as you’re being truthful with me now, I promise you, you won’t catch any shit for it.”
I knew what she was going to tell me: she was in town Sunday night.
“It’s about Austin,” she said. “I wasn’t telling the truth when I told you I wasn’t still seeing him.”
“Yeah?”
I should start to feel a little better about myself. Once each blue moon I get something right.
“I was thinking about what I said to you. Some of my girlfriends know I was still seeing him. I didn’t want you to find out from them.”
