by Mike Markel
“You asked me who else might’ve messed with the letter. All I’m saying is, it could’ve been the woman put the letter in the envelope for you to put in your briefcase.”
“So your point is we don’t know Suzannah Montgomery doctored the letter.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And we don’t know Suzannah Montgomery is Carol Winters. My point is, the less Aaron Montgomery thinks we know about his wife—and him—the more bullshit he’ll feed us. Make sense?”
“Yup,” Ryan said. “You want me to call him, see if he’s home? She said he works at home, right?”
“First let’s see if she’s home. I’d rather she not be there when we talk to him.”
“Let me call the English department, see what her schedule is.”
I nodded. Ryan looked in his notebook and picked up his phone. I walked over to the north end of the bullpen and into the break room, where I rinsed out an old glazed mug that said World’s #1 Dad. The underside said Made in China. I guess that’s what they call irony. Kid buys a nice gift for Daddy, maybe ends up giving him a little hit of lead every morning. I poured a cup of coffee. When I got back to my desk, Ryan was finishing up with the call.
“She’ll be teaching and in office hours for the rest of the afternoon. I called Aaron Montgomery. He’d be ‘pleased’ to see us.”
“That’s what he said? Did he sound really stupid?” I picked up my bag and headed over to the coatrack for my jacket.
We drove out to Table Rock, up the windy road toward the top, where the air got a little cleaner and the houses a lot more expensive. We parked on the street, outside the stone wall enclosing the courtyard of the Montgomery house with its orange tile roof.
I rang the doorbell. Footsteps came quickly. The door opened. Aaron Montgomery was a handsome man, a little over six feet, good shoulders, thin hips. His face was deeply tanned, the crow’s feet pale from squinting in the sun. His hair was medium brown, thick, going grey at the temples. He had round lenses in his rimless eyeglasses. His tan chinos were sharply pressed, his wool shirt expensively tailored, the sleeves half rolled up. There was some kind of dish towel over his right shoulder. I’d put him at fifty, but the kind of fifty who would still interest the typical thirty.
“Detectives.” He gave us a broad smile. “Aaron Montgomery.” He reached out a meaty hand to shake mine, then Ryan’s as I introduced us.
“Thanks for taking the time to speak with us.” I could be polite, too. It didn’t come as naturally to me as it did to a smooth character like this guy, but I could do it.
He repeated our names to make sure he got them, as if that’s something he’s used to doing and thinks is important, and then invited us in. I remembered how you can see right through the house to the big floor-to-ceiling windows that led to the deck overlooking the city. The view was probably half the price of the house.
He led us into the living room. His son, Adam, looked up at us apprehensively. He was twelve, but he looked eight. He was a cute kid, with his father’s coloring and sandy hair, but he was sitting in some kind of wheelchair that I’d never seen before, where the seat was reclined like a hospital bed that bends in the middle. The chair had big pads on either side of his head so he couldn’t tilt it too much to the left or right. The boy’s arms and legs were all tight, contorted. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own if he were out of the chair. His eyes went back and forth from me to Ryan. He made some kind of gurgling sounds that weren’t exactly words.
Aaron Montgomery walked over to him and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, then leaned down and whispered something in his ear. A crooked smile came over the boy’s face, and his muscles relaxed a little. He made a cooing sound.
“This is my son, Adam.”
Ryan and I said hello to him, and he smiled at us but didn’t seem to understand what was going on.
“Won’t you sit down, Detective Seagate, Detective Miner?” I could see Montgomery working to use our names. That was probably his way of imprinting them in his brain. The three of us sat.
I looked at Adam, then at his father.
“Go right ahead,” Aaron Montgomery said. “Adam’s happy to watch people talking.”
That sounded like a phrase he had worked out over the years. I nodded. “As you know, Mr. Montgomery,” I said, “we’re investigating the murder of Austin Sulenka, your wife’s graduate student.”
His face took on a serious look and he nodded gravely. “Horrible,” he said. “Just unbelievable.”
“Yes.” I paused a moment. “As I’m sure you can imagine, during an investigation like this, we need to understand all sorts of things about the victim’s close associates, things that don’t necessarily seem closely related to the crime but might be relevant in one way or another.”
He was still nodding. Maybe he wasn’t going to give us any attitude about insulting his wife.
“We wanted to ask you about one of those things.”
“Please,” he said. “Go ahead.”
“You’re aware, of course, of the situation that arose during Professor Montgomery’s tenure case, about seven years ago?”
He shook his head sadly. “What a mess that was.”
“It sure does sound like quite a stir about something pretty small.”
He held my gaze. “That’s exactly how I would characterize it. I mean, Suzannah’s papers were submitted a couple of days late. Frances admitted—”
“That’s Frances Hamblin? The department chair?”
“That’s right,” Aaron Montgomery said. “She’s a wonderful woman, a real treasure, but it was her first semester in the job. She admitted that she dropped the ball. Frankly, I think it was absurd that anyone made anything of it at all. Suzannah is a superb teacher. The kids all love her. She gives so much to the department—to the whole university, in fact.” He put up his hands and shook his head, like he had to stop himself from going on about the injustice.
“Did you know Mitch Abrams, Mr. Montgomery?”
He shifted in his chair. “Yes, we did. Suzannah was quite close to him. They were cut from the same cloth. Both student-oriented, I mean. Lots of thesis committees, active in the grad-student organization, brown-bag lunches on how to get into PhD programs, that sort of thing. It was a shame, his not getting tenure.”
“What did you make of his appeal of that decision?”
“Personally, I don’t know enough about whether his credentials merited tenure. Suzannah said they did,” he said, with a smile, “but when she likes someone, as I know she liked and admired Mitch … well, she might not be the most unbiased observer.”
“But about his decision to appeal his case. If I understand the facts correctly, his appeal wasn’t based on any allegations of unfairness about how the various committees treated his case. It was about how Suzannah’s papers were a few days late—and she wasn’t penalized—which constituted a violation of due process. What did you think about that approach?”
“As I say, I’m not that familiar with the details of the situation,” he said, his palm out, “but I would say this. If my experience as an environmental advocate has taught me anything, it’s that these conflicts are almost never about the strict merits of the case. More often than not, they’re a power struggle. They’re about setting down a marker for some future case, or payback for something that has already happened.”
“Do you think that’s what was going on here?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, I don’t know the particulars. But I do know that when you have a powerful institution judging whether a person meets its standards of quality, deserves to be admitted to the holy circle …” Montgomery paused. “Then, all the power is with the institution, not the applicant. The only protection the applicant enjoys comes from the policy documents. And I have no problem with an applicant holding the institution’s feet to the fire on its adherence to its own policies and procedures.”
“So you don’t think a technical violation of the pro
cedures, like Professor Montgomery’s late papers, is necessarily a mere technical violation—I mean, from Mitch Abrams’ perspective.”
He smiled. “You said that better than I could have. That’s right. There is no such thing as a ‘mere’ technical violation. It’s like in law enforcement. If the police obtain evidence without having followed the proper procedures, you can’t use that evidence. What’s that concept called?” He looked at me, then at Ryan.
“Fruit of the poisoned tree,” Ryan said.
“That’s it,” Aaron Montgomery said, giving Ryan a broad smile. “That’s a terrific metaphor, isn’t it?” Ryan returned his smile. “But my point is, the law says there’s no such thing as a mere technicality.”
Ryan said, “If you think there’s no such thing as a mere technicality, Mr. Montgomery, does that mean you think Professor Montgomery should have been denied tenure because her papers were late?”
Montgomery’s eyes flashed for a second, then he caught himself and switched on his big smile. “That would follow if it were my wife’s fault that the papers were late.”
Ryan nodded.
“Mr. Montgomery,” I said, “do you know a faculty member named Audrey Miller?”
He frowned, then shook his head. “Sorry, no,” he said.
Adam started to whimper and shift in his wheelchair, his arms and legs tightening up.
Aaron Montgomery turned to the boy, then raised his nose into the air. “You’ll have to excuse me a moment, Detectives. I need to change Adam.”
“Of course,” I said as he got up and walked over to his son and pushed the wheelchair toward a hallway that extended off to the side of the room.
“What do you think?” I said in a quiet voice to Ryan after Aaron Montgomery was out of earshot.
“I think he’s a very good father.”
I gave him a look. “About what he said to us.”
“Well, I did notice he said he didn’t know who Audrey Miller is.”
I nodded. “That’s bullshit. A woman who was head of the faculty senate during the Mitch Abrams case, who’s provost now, who’s apparently trying to destroy his wife—no way he doesn’t know exactly who she is.”
“Would seem to me,” Ryan said.
“And by the way,” I said. “Don’t go pointing out when he contradicts himself.”
Ryan smiled. “You mean about how if there’s no such thing as a mere technicality, his wife shouldn’t have gotten tenure?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. This isn’t a debate. We’re civil servants. We want to come off dumber than him. You don’t hear me sounding smart, do you?”
He raised any eyebrow. “Not sure how you want me to answer that.”
“Good. Then don’t answer it.”
Aaron Montgomery came back into the room, pushing his son in the wheelchair. “I’m sorry to keep you both waiting.” He gave us a small smile.
“Not at all,” I said. “Professor Montgomery mentioned to us how much she relies on you in caring for Adam.”
He nodded. “She’s just being gracious. He’s at his school most days. We let him stay home today because the seizure yesterday upset him so much. Most days, Suzannah does much more for Adam than I do.”
“Where did you and Professor Montgomery meet?” I said.
“University of Delaware,” he said. “She was getting her PhD in English, I was getting my MS in architecture.”
“You didn’t know her at Clemson, then.”
“No. I did my undergraduate work at Cornell. In fact, I’ve never even been to South Carolina.”
“What did you do after Cornell? I mean, before you went to Delaware?”
“I was a junior architect for a man named Lawrence Yu, in Berkeley. He was one of the pioneers in sustainable architecture. He’s retired now. A great man. It was one of those lucky accidents in life. Working with him got me into environmental activism, which is the focus of my life now. ” He glanced over to Adam to make sure the boy was okay. Then he smiled at me and Ryan.
“This was in the late nineties, right?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Suzannah and I are almost exactly the same age. Off by a month.”
“What was she doing at this time?”
“After she got her MA from Clemson, she went home to care for her mother. She had liver cancer. The woman’s gone now,” he said, shaking his head. “Two years caring for her. Suzannah is really a special person. Caring for her mother like that, and then Adam.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Amazing the strength some people have. Then off to Delaware? I mean, then she went to Delaware, where you two met?”
Aaron Montgomery smiled. “First, she took a year off. She went to Europe for a year. Her mother had left her a few thousand dollars, so she went off to Europe. She was a big fan of Henry James. Still is. She kind of followed his tracks, you know, visiting the places he went, the places where he set his novels.”
“That sounds delightful.” Which was more polite than, You are so full of shit.
“I think she really needed that time off. After the experience with her mother. But then,” he said, glancing at Adam, “adult responsibilities have a way of catching up with all of us.”
“Yes, they do,” I said. I glanced over at Ryan. “Do you have any other questions for Mr. Montgomery?”
“No,” he said, then turned to Aaron Montgomery. “You’ve been very generous with your time, sir.”
“Yes, Mr. Montgomery,” I said. Ryan and I stood.
“It was my pleasure. Detective Seagate, Detective Miner. I hope I’ve answered your questions.”
“Yes, you certainly have,” I said. Then I waved and smiled at the boy. “Goodbye, Adam.”
Ryan waved and said goodbye, too, but the boy seemed locked in his own world and didn’t respond in any way I could see.
I glanced at Aaron Montgomery, who was gazing at his son. It was plain that he loved the boy, and his eyes showed the sadness that he never would be able to make contact with the boy trapped in his ravaged body.
“Thank you again,” I said to Aaron Montgomery as we walked out the front door into the bright sunshine.
Back in the cruiser, Ryan said, “That boy’s lucky to have those parents.”
“He sure is.” I started the engine. “Unless they end up in prison.”
Chapter 30
I’d slept well that night, finally having gotten rid of the headache. And shaken at least a portion of the dread I’d been feeling for somehow having gotten Tiffany killed. Next morning I was focused and hopeful that today would be the day we wrapped this up. We met up with Chief Murtaugh in the incident room.
The chief pointed to the photo of Suzannah Montgomery taped to the whiteboard. “You two ready to move her into the girlfriend category with Tiffany Rhodes and …” He turned back to the board. “May Eberlein?”
I frowned. “What we got from her husband yesterday doesn’t decide it—for me at least.” I looked at Ryan.
“Aaron Montgomery is a pretty sophisticated character,” Ryan said. “He doesn’t let on that he knows we’re looking at his wife. He makes a very logical case for what happened with his wife’s tenure case. It was the department chair’s fault, so the university shouldn’t punish his wife.”
I said, “And he doesn’t say anything bad about that guy Mitch Abrams—”
“Who’s that again?” the chief said.
“The guy who didn’t get tenure. The one who started all the trouble by appealing the decision, saying it was a due-process violation by the university so he should get a do-over.”
“I don’t know about Karen.” Ryan put his cane down on a table. “But I think Aaron Montgomery’s not coming clean with us. He told us he didn’t know who Audrey Miller was—the head of the Faculty Senate during this whole incident.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I agree. Just not sure whether he’s a lawyer-type liar—you know, leaves stuff out if it makes his wife look bad—or if he’s a bald-ass liar
who’ll make shit up to keep her out of jail.”
“Bottom line,” the chief said, “you’re not ready to put Suzannah Montgomery in Austin Sulenka’s bedroom.” He looked at me.
I nodded. “But I’m not ready to say she wasn’t there.”
“Okay,” the chief said. He turned and started toward the door. “Keep going until you run it down or something else turns up.”
“So, nothing from Pelton and Malone about Brian Hawser?”
“They briefed me this morning at the end of shift. Nothing.” He sighed. “I did talk to Larry Klein. He told me I have to inform Tiffany’s parents this morning that she’s dead.”
“Shit. If they’re in contact with Brian, he’s halfway to Mexico right now, feeding them some bullshit about how he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
The chief shook his head. “Maybe so,” he said. “Or they could tell us where he’s couch surfing in Billings. Either way, we have to inform them. If they find out we’ve kept that under wraps for more than twenty-four hours, a bunch of us’ll be looking for work. Larry put it in writing. Called it our ‘ethical duty.’”
“Okay,” I said. “So Larry’ll still be employed.”
The chief gave me a hard look. “I’m calling them when I get back to my office. That way, we’ll all be employed. Then he’ll show up. We’ll get him. We’ll bring him in.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Excuse me,” he said as he pulled his phone out.
His expression turned grim. “Be right there,” he said into his phone, then closed it and put it back in his jacket pocket. “You two come with me.”
He wasn’t asking.
We hurried along behind him as he rushed out of the incident room, down the hall leading to his office.
Margaret was standing in the outer office, her face ashen.
“Did you notify the Tactical Unit?” he said to her.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
The chief waved us into his office. He shut the door behind us. “That was the Substation on campus. There’s a gunman in the English Department.”
