by Mike Markel
I need to work out some sort of signal with her that says it’s my turn to act really pissy now, could she hold off until later?
“Okay,” I said to Ryan, “while we wait thirty-six hours on Tiffany’s DNA, how do you want to go at Suzannah Montgomery?” She had handed in her promotion papers a few days late, which obviously marked her as a natural-born killer. “You want to track down her husband, the environmental guy?”
Ryan was wearing a pained expression. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Because he’s—what was that word you used about his wife when the kid had those seizures?—he’s all disturbed?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I said she was distraught.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Because he’s all distraught?”
“Well, I think he might still be distraught, disturbed, distressed, discomfited. Upset.” He paused. He can be a real showoff. “But that’s not why I wouldn’t go after the husband now. I’d rather run down Van Vleet’s story about her tenure case.”
“Why’s that?”
“We talk to the husband, what are we going to say? ‘Could you tell us if your wife was having an affair with her grad student?’”
“I like it,” I said. “Then we ask, ‘And do you know if she strangled him? Did she mention any of that during pillow-talk?’”
“True, that would make for an interesting interview, and we could get thrown out of whatever room we were in when we asked him, just like his wife threw us out of her house. But we don’t yet have any evidence of an affair, and all we’d accomplish is to have another member of that same family call the chief to complain about his two unhinged detectives.”
“You’re such a pussy, you know that?” But I did appreciate how he said there were two unhinged detectives.
“Let’s run down that thing we do know about: the tenure case. If it turns out there’s anything to it—the story doesn’t add up—then we can go after the husband. But if she turns out to be clean, there’s really no reason to pry into their marriage, is there?”
“Really? You’ve heard of a lot of grad students living on mac and cheese and selling their fluids so they can give money to a disease charity?”
He looked at me. “Not a lot. A few.”
“Without getting to screw somebody for their good works?”
“A few,” he said again. “Remember, I’m LDS. We’ve got some real Boy Scouts.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s find out all the horrifying details about how Suzannah Montgomery submitted her papers a few days late.”
“Another way to look at it: by the time we cross Suzannah off our list, Pelton and Malone will have tracked down Brian Hawser, and we’ll be sitting across the table from him in Interview 1.”
“Then I can get really unhinged?”
“Then you can break him like a matchstick.”
I nodded. “I’m gonna hold you to that. Okay, how do we go at Suzannah Montgomery? Frances Hamblin was the department chair who backed her up. Want to interview her again?”
Ryan shook his head. “She’s not going to be straight with us. Since she was a player, all we’ll get from her is what she gave to the appeals committee years ago.”
“Then who?”
“Let’s try the provost. I don’t know who he is, but if he can’t tell us what really happened, he’ll know someone who can.”
“And you’re thinking this guy’s gonna dish some dirt on one of his faculty members?”
“We’re going to have to figure out a reason for him to be candid with us.”
“So it doesn’t get into that teachers’ trade paper again?”
“That, or because telling the truth is the right thing to do?”
I looked at him.
“Would you like to call me a pussy again?”
“No, you’re a child.”
“Okay, I’m a child.”
“A little, tiny girl child.”
“Would you please drive me home?” Ryan said. “I don’t think I can go on.”
“I have a better idea. I drive us over to the university. You phone the provost and see if we can talk to him about Suzannah Montgomery.”
As I turned the Charger over and headed toward campus, Ryan swiveled the computer and started looking stuff up. He opened his phone and made a call.
“Dr. Audrey Miller will be able to see us for a few minutes before her next appointment.”
“I feel blessed,” I said.
I parked in the lot behind the Administration Building. We made it to the executive offices on the first floor. Inside the glass doors with all the big cheeses’ names painted on them stood Audrey Miller, a short, stocky woman of about sixty, with black and grey wavy hair, cut short. She was wearing a severe black dress, a couple of inches below her knee, and office-camo black-tinted stockings over her thick calves. “Audrey Miller,” she said, and I introduced me and Ryan. We all shook hands. She didn’t bother to smile.
She looked down at her black pumps, which were covered in dust. “Jennifer,” she said to one of her assistants, “could you get me a wet paper towel?” Then, to me, “I’m sorry, I just came from a groundbreaking.”
I nodded, wondering if it was my turn to tell her where I just came from. I decided not to mention that Ryan and I had just interviewed two stoners who had screwed Emily Johnston and the late Tiffany Rhodes Sunday night.
The assistant hurried back. “Let me do that,” she said, bending down on one knee to clean off the provost’s shoes. She had two paper towels, so she didn’t have to lick the shoes clean.
“Thank you,” she said to the assistant. “Come in,” she said to me and Ryan. We walked into her big office, which had a massive oak desk with matching file cabinets, a couch, three upholstered chairs, and a conference table big enough for six, all sitting on a deep-plush slate-colored carpet. One wall was reserved for diplomas, plaques, and large, framed professional photos of campus. The other walls had what looked like real paintings on them. Off to the side was a door that I think opened to her own bathroom. Her office was bigger than any room in my house.
Audrey Miller gestured for us to sit. She took her high-backed black leather desk chair and stared at her laptop. She looked at her laptop and hit a few keys, then squinted through her rimless glasses at her watch. “I have a very important meeting in exactly seventeen minutes. What can I do for you?” She looked at me, assuming I was the senior cop.
“Why don’t you start?” I said to Ryan. Since I was running on fumes and my head was still throbbing, I thought we’d have a better chance of getting something out of this woman if Ryan led.
He nodded. “Provost Miller, we’re hoping you can help us with some information related to the Austin Sulenka case.”
She put out her hand, telling him to continue. She wasn’t going to waste everyone’s time cluck-clucking about how terrible it all was. I liked that. She sat stock still, eyes focused on Ryan, the creases between her eyes sharp.
“It’s about an incident from seven years ago. The tenure case of Suzannah Montgomery, in the English department.”
Audrey Miller looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with the murder?”
“Well, ma’am, we can’t go into any detail about that. But I can say that some questions have been raised about Professor Montgomery in her role as Austin Sulenka’s adviser.”
“Raised by whom?”
“Unfortunately, all we can say at this point is that we’d like to understand a little more about Professor Montgomery’s tenure case and Professor Hamblin. Do you have any knowledge of that situation?”
“I was the chair of the Faculty Senate at that time.”
“There was another tenure candidate that year—”
“I knew Mitch Abrams.”
Ryan sat up straighter in his chair. “Professor Abrams appealed his denial of tenure. Professor Hamblin supported Professor Montgomery. Do I have this correct so far?”
“What happened is this: Mitch made some allegations
about due-process problems with Suzannah’s case. Frances Hamblin said those problems were her fault. The appeals committee ruled in favor of Suzannah and Frances and against Mitch. That is what happened.” She shifted her weight on her chair to signal that she had spoken and the truth was now established.
“As we understand it, Mitch Abrams argued that he was entitled to a new review of his case because of irregularities with Suzannah Montgomery’s case. Apparently, her papers were submitted late.”
“That is what appeared in the university’s public statements, and in the Chronicle.”
Ryan looked at her intently for a moment. “Is that not the truth?”
Her gaze drifted off beyond Ryan’s shoulder. She was silent for the longest while. “No, that is not the truth.”
Ryan looked at her. “Could you tell us what the truth is?”
“Close the door.” Ryan rose briskly and did it, then came back to his seat. “Mitch alleged that while it was true that Suzannah submitted her papers late, the irregularities extended beyond lateness. Much beyond lateness.”
“Could you tell us what the allegations were?”
“Would you excuse me a moment?” She stood, walked around from behind her big desk, and left the office, leaving the door open.
I looked out to the outer office, but I couldn’t see where she had gone. “Bladder-control issues?”
Ryan said, “I think we’re supposed to sit here.”
Two minutes later, Audrey Miller walked back into her office. She was holding a plain manila envelope, which she placed on the edge of her desk, in front of where Ryan was sitting.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” she said, looking at her watch. “I need to get to my appointment. Can you show yourselves out?”
“Thank you, Provost Miller,” Ryan said. The two of us stood up.
She walked out of her office.
Ryan picked up the envelope from her desk, dropped it into the leather briefcase at his feet, and clicked the clasp shut.
Chapter 26
Back in the Charger, Ryan said, “Well, what would you like to do next?”
I gave him a look. “Open the damn envelope.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” he said. He opened his briefcase, pulled out the envelope, opened the shiny tab, slid out the documents, and started reading. And he kept reading. I counted six pages. The sun streamed through the passenger window, highlighting the shape of the writing on the other side of the photocopies. They were letters.
After about three minutes, I said, “I’m not disturbing you, am I?”
He turned to me. “No, not at all. I’m good, thanks.” Finally, he straightened the pages and slid them back into the envelope.
This time, it was me who said, “Well, what would you like to do next?”
He smiled. “They’re photocopies of three recommendation letters for Suzannah Montgomery. From seven years ago, when she was coming up for tenure.”
“Since she did get tenure, I assume they were positive letters.”
“Correct, they were.”
“Any thoughts on why the provost put those three letters in an envelope and placed them in front of you so you would pick them up?”
“My guess is that she wanted us to read them.”
When my son, Tommy, was small, he would occasionally play that annoying kid’s game where he repeated everything I said. One day, I’d had enough. We got some quizzical looks in the grocery store, this six-year-old crying hysterically and shouting “Stop it, Mommy,” and me, age thirty-two, shouting “Stop it, Mommy” right back at him. Ryan is quite a bit smarter than me in almost every measurable way, but when it comes to infantile behavior, he’s not in my league.
I looked at him. “Why do you think that is?”
“To be perfectly honest with you, Karen, I don’t really know.”
“Can I assume that you didn’t see anything in those three letters that would provide a clue?”
“Yes, you can assume that,” Ryan said.
“In that case,” I said, “I think we have two alternative explanations.”
He looked at me, raising an eyebrow.
“One,” I said, “is that the provost is mentally incompetent. Or, two: she wanted us to take the letters back to headquarters, read them a few more times, and try to figure out why she gave them to us.” I paused. “Which alternative would you think is more likely?”
“I like Alternative Two.”
“Thank you.” I paused. “If I drove us back to headquarters now, do you think you could start to act like an adult?”
“I’m sorry,” he said through an enormous yawn. “The baby’s decided that the best way to get a lot of attention from his parents is to cry for five minutes every hour, all night long. When you called me last night in the middle of the night—whenever it was—Kali and I had just fallen asleep for about the sixth time. I’ll behave. I promise.”
“I’d appreciate it. Because if you’re the idiot, I have to be the adult, and I don’t want to confuse everyone.”
“Got it,” he said as I turned over the big Hemi engine in the Charger.
We drove back toward headquarters in silence. I glanced over at Ryan, whose eyelids were drooping, his chin sinking onto his chest.
At our desks, he handed me a letter. I read it over a couple of times. It was from a Robert Harson from University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He said Suzannah Montgomery seemed like she had done useful work in the four articles of hers that were included in the package. Her research was “interesting” and “opened up several intriguing new avenues of inquiry on Crane’s ‘The Open Boat.’” This other thing she had written about Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was good, too. And this conference paper about Vonnegut and technology was “a refreshing take on a well-researched topic.”
“Ryan, do you know how to read these things?”
“What do you mean?”
“This letter says Suzannah’s scholarship is good, intriguing, whatever. What the hell are we supposed to be looking for?”
“Not exactly sure,” he said. “Give me another minute to go through these two again.”
I read my letter again. Everything looked fine. The professor thought Suzannah was a good scholar. I sat back in my chair, pulled the lever under the seat so I could lean back, and closed my eyes. In a few seconds, I was out.
My head snapped back and I woke up all of a sudden. It took me a few seconds to realize where I was.
Ryan was talking to someone on his cell. He was asking all kinds of questions about what it meant if the letter said this or said that. I couldn’t quite follow the conversation, hearing only half of it. Every few seconds, he’d go “uh-huh,” “yeah,” or “I see.” Then, he broke out in a big grin. “That’s it. Thanks a lot, Dad. Love to Mom.” He ended the call.
“Did Dad tell you who killed Austin Sulenka?”
Ryan laughed and snapped his fingers. “That’s what I forgot to ask him.”
“What’d you get?”
“He was going on about how professors write these letters about other professors. You know, how if they don’t like something the professor has written, they’ll be snarky, but in a subtle way. They’ll say it was “fully satisfactory” or “competent” or “workmanlike” or some other phrase that says it’s second-rate. If they like it, they’ll use all kinds of over-the-top language, like the book is a breakthrough, or scholars will have to rethink how they approach the author.”
“Okay, so what does that tell us about Suzannah?”
“Well, if my dad is right about how to translate these letters, Suzannah is just what Frances Hamblin and that grad student, Melissa, said about her. She’s competent. She produces acceptable research, but nothing extraordinary.”
“So that’s why the provost slipped us the letters? To tell us her faculty member was acceptable but not extraordinary?”
“Nope.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair, his fingers intertwined behind his head.
“Why
’d you say ‘That’s it’ at the end of the call?”
“Because something my father said helped me figure out why the provost gave us the letters. He said that when three professors study a tenure candidate, they each see a different person.”
“So?” I was shaking my head.
“So, your letter, from the professor in Nevada, says Suzannah’s okay, not great. One of the two other letters—a professor in Santa Barbara—says Suzannah’s okay, not great. But this letter,” Ryan said, picking it up and waving it at me, “this professor from Massachusetts, says Suzannah is great.”
“I don’t get it. The Massachusetts professor likes her more. So what?”
“Like my father said, that professor is seeing a different person.”
“We got two different people coming up for tenure?”
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’m going to find out right now.”
“How exactly do you plan to do that?”
“Not exactly sure, but this professor in Massachusetts is the key. I can feel it.”
I nodded my head, telling Ryan to go right ahead. He looked at the letter, then punched in a number on his desk phone, and hit Speaker.
“Frederickson.”
“Professor Frederickson, my name is Ryan Miner. I’m a detective with the Rawlings Police Department in Montana.”
There was a pause, like the professor needed to process all that. “Yes?”
“Professor, can you give me a couple of minutes to help with a case we’re investigating?”
“You sure you have the right person? I’m an English professor at UMass.”
