Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 17 - A Cold Heart

by A Cold Heart(Lit)

  Charter College was 150 acres nestled in the northeast corner of Eagle Rock, set apart from that bedroom community's blue-collar, mostly Latino, bedrock sensibilities by ivy-covered stucco walls and grandiose trees.

  The college had been established 112 years ago, when Eagle Rock's twelve-hundred-foot elevation and clean air had led developers to frame it 'The Switzerland of the West.' Over a century later, the surrounding hills were pretty on the uncommon clear day, but chain motels were the closest Eagle Rock came to resort living.

  I drove up Eagle Rock Boulevard, a broad, sun-bleached haven for garages and auto parts emporia,

  turned onto College Road, and entered a residential neighborhood of small, craftsman bungalows, and chunky stucco cottages. An arch emblazoned with the school's crest fed into Emeritus Lane, a broad, spotless strip heralded by a shield-shaped flower bed spelling out the institution's name in red and white petunias.

  The campus buildings were Beaux-Arts and Monterey Colonial visions, all painted the same gray-dun and set, gemlike, in the jewel box of old-growth greenery. I'd treated a few Charter students, over the years, was familiar with the school's basic flavor: selective, expensive, established by Congregationalists, but decidedly secular now, with a bent toward activist politics and community involvement.

  Visitor parking was easy and free. I picked up a campus map from a Take-One stand and made my way to the Anna Loring Slater Library. A good number of the handsome kids I passed were smiling. As if life tasted delicious, and they were ready for the next course.

  The library was a two-story, twenties masterpiece with a mediocre, four-story, eighties addition tacked to its south wing. The ground floor was all hush and computer-click, a hundred or so students glued to their screens. I asked a librarian the name of the school paper and where I'd find back copies.

  'The Daily Bobcat,' he said. 'Everything's on-line.'

  I found a computer station and logged on. The Bobcat file contained sixty-two years of back issues. For the first forty, the paper had been published as a weekly.

  Kevin Drummond was twenty-four, meaning he'd probably enrolled six years ago. I backed up a year to be careful and set about scrolling thousands of pages and

  scanning bylines. Nothing with Drummond's name on it showed up for the first three years. No pieces by Faithful Scrivener or E. Murphy, either. Then, in the March of what turned out to be Drummond's junior spring semester, I got my first hit.

  Kevin Drummond, Communications, had penned a review of a showcase at the Roxy on Sunset. Seven new bands doing their thing in hopes of a breakthrough. Thumbnail reviews of every act; Kevin Drummond had liked three, hated four. His prose was straightforward, uninspired, with none of the puffery or the sexual imagery of the SeldomScene pieces.

  I found eleven more articles, spread out over a year and a half, ten write-ups of rock acts, similarly bland.

  The exception was interesting.

  May of Drummond's senior year. Faithful Scrivener byline. A retrospective look at the career of Baby Boy Lee.

  This one, longer, gushing, termed Baby Boy, 'a manifest icon, whose elephantoid shoulders may sag Atlas-ly under the ponderous mantle of Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jackson, the entire pantheon of Delta-Chicago-craw-aching royalty but whose soul is whole and will never be sold. Baby Boy deserves the weight and the pain of a genius's crushing burden. He is an artist with too much emotional integrity and psycho-pathology to ever achieve long-lasting popular acclaim.'

  The essay ended by quoting lyrics from 'the totemic, aorta-straining lament "A Cold Heart," ' and concluded that, 'to a bluesman, the world will always be a cold-hearted, unwelcoming, treacherous place. Nowhere does the adage "no gain without pain," apply more than in the

  noir universe of smoky bars, loose women, and sad endings that has fed the genius of every scurvied picker and addicted string-bender from time immemorial. Baby Boy Lee may never be a happy man, but his music, raw and vital and resolutely uncommercial, will continue to warm the hearts of many.'

  A year later, Lee had put the lie to that thesis by sitting in on the sessions that produced Tic 43 9's monster pop hit.

  Cognitive dissonance, but on the face, not much of a motive for murder.

  I needed to know more about Kevin Drummond.

  Charter College's Communications Department was housed in Frampton Hall, a majestic, Doric-columned affair, separated from the library by a five-minute stroll. Inside were worn mahogany walls, a domed ceiling, and cork floors that muted footsteps. The building also hosted the departments of English, History, Humanities, Women's Studies, and Romance Languages. Communications shared the third floor with the latter two.

  Three faculty members were listed on the directory: Professor E. G. Martin, Chair; Professor S. Santorini; Professor A. Gordon Shull.

  Start at the top.

  Chairperson Martin's corner suite was fronted by an empty reception area. The door leading to an inner office was six inches ajar and a keyboard click-clack solo in the same key as the library soundtrack leaked into the anteroom. Sepia photos of Charter College in its infancy decorated the walls. Big, clean buildings dominating twiggy saplings; grim, celluloid-collared men and

  high-buttoned women with the resolute look of the heaven-sent. A sign above the nearest file spelled out the chair's full name. ELIZABETH GALA MARTIN, PH.D.

  I approached the inner office. 'Professor Martin?'

  A sentence worth of key-presses, then silence. 'Yes?'

  I stated my name and appended my academic appointment at the med school downtown and cracked the door another couple of inches.

  Professorial.

  A very dark black woman in a calf-length, topaz silk dress and matching pumps came around from her desk. She had cold-waved, hennaed hair, wore a string of pearls and matching earrings. Forty or so, plump, pretty, puzzled. Sharp licorice eyes above gold, half-moon glasses looked me over.

  'Professor of pediatrics?' An alto that might have been mellow under other circumstances, sectioned each word into precise syllables. 'I don't recall any appointment.'

  'I don't have one,' I said, showing her my LAPD consultant ID. She came closer, read the small print, frowned.

  'Police? What's this all about?'

  'Nothing alarming, but if you'd be kind enough to spare me a moment?'

  She stepped back and appraised me again. 'This is irregular, to say the least.'

  'I apologize. I was doing research in your library, and your name came up. If you'd rather set up an appointment-'

  'My name came up how?'

  'As chair of Communications. I'm looking into one of your alumni. A man named Kevin Drummond.'

  'You're looking into him,' she said. 'Meaning the police are.'

  'Yes.'

  'What, exactly, is Mr Drummond suspected of?'

  'Do you know him?'

  'I know the name. We're a small department. What has Mr Drummond done?'

  'Maybe nothing,' I said. 'Maybe murder.'

  Elizabeth G. Martin removed her glasses. Dull thumps sounded from the corridor. Shoes on cork. Youthful chatter crescendoed and diminished.

  She said, 'Let's not stand out here.'

  Her office was Persian-carpeted, book-lined, compulsively neat, with two walls of windows that looked out to luxuriant lawns. California impressionist landscapes, probably valuable, probably college-owned, hung wherever the bookshelves left off. Elizabeth Martin's Berkeley Ph.D. and ten years of ensuing academic honors were heralded on the wall behind her carved, gilded-age, partner's desk. On the desk were a smoke gray laptop and an assortment of crystal office niceties. A green marble fireplace hosted a rack of cold, scorched logs.

  She sat down and motioned me to do the same. 'What exactly is going on?'

  I tried to be forthcoming with as few details as possible.

  'Well, all that's dandy, Professor Delaware, but there are First Amendment issues here, not to mention academic freedom and common courtesy. You don't really expect to waltz in here an
d have us throw open our files simply because that would abet your investigation. Whatever it's alleged to be.'

  'I'm not interested in confidential information about Kevin Drummond. Just anything that might be relevant to a criminal investigation, such as disciplinary problems.'

  Elizabeth Martin remained impassive.

  I said, 'We're talking multiple murders. If Drummond turns out to be involved in criminal activities, that will become public. If he posed problems here, and Charter hushed it up, the college will be drawn in.'

  'Is that a threat?'

  'No,' I said. 'Just a statement of how these things play themselves out.'

  'Police consultant... your academic department's comfortable with your activities? Do you keep them fully apprised?'

  I smiled. 'Is that a threat?'

  Martin rubbed her hands together. A silver-framed photo on the mantel showed her in a formal red gown, next to a tuxedoed, gray-haired man ten years older. Another shot pictured her in casual clothes, with the same man. Behind them, gold-and-rust tile-roofed buildings in the background. A diagonal stretch of teal canal, the curve of a gondola prow. Venice.

  She said, 'Whatever the contingencies, I can't go along with this.'

  'Fair enough,' I said. 'But if there's something I should know - that the police should know - and you do eventually find a way of helping, it will make a lot of people's lives easier.'

  She picked a gold pen from a leather box and drummed the desk. 'I can tell you this: I can't recall Kevin Drummond posing any problems for the department. There

  was nothing... homicidal about him at all.' The pen tapped her in-box. 'Really, Professor Delaware, this all sounds quite outlandish.'

  'Did you teach Kevin, personally?'

  'When did he graduate?'

  'Two years ago.'

  'Then I'd have to say yes. Two years ago, I was still teaching my mass-media seminar, and every Communications major was required to take it.'

  'But you have no specific recollection of teaching him?'

  'It's a popular class,' she said, without hubris. 'Communications is an arm of Charter's Humanities Nexus. Our students take core classes in other departments and vice versa.'

  'I assume Kevin Drummond had a faculty advisor.'

  'I wasn't his advisor. I work with the honor students.'

  'Kevin wasn't an honor student.'

  'If he was, I'd have a specific recollection.' She began typing on the laptop.

  Dismissed.

  Stepping down the hall to seek out Professors San-torini and Shull was unlikely to escape her scrutiny. I'd find some other way to contact her colleagues. Or have Milo do it.

  I'd gotten up when she said, 'His advisor was Gordon Shull. Which is lucky for you, because Professor Susan Santorini's doing research in France.'

  Astonished by the sudden turn, I said, 'May I talk to Professor Shull?'

  'Be my guest,' she said. 'If he's in. His office is two doors to the left.'

  *

  Outside in the mahogany corridor, several students lounged. Down a ways, near Romance Languages. No one congregating at Communications.

  A. Gordon ShulFs office door was locked, and my knock was answered by silence. I was writing a note when a hearty voice said, 'Can I help you?'

  A man wearing a backpack had just come up the rear staircase. Midthirties, six feet tall, well-built, he had ginger hair buzzed to the skull and an angular, heavy-browed, wind-toughened face. He wore a red-and-black plaid shirt, black tie, black jeans, brown hiking boots. The backpack was Army green. Pale blue eyes, craggy features, five day stubble-beard; handsome in a coarse way. A National Geographic photographer, or a naturalist adept at obtaining grants to study rare species.

  'Professor Shull?'

  'I'm Gordie Shull. What's up?'

  I repeated the spiel I'd given Elizabeth Martin.

  A. Gordon Shull said, 'Kevin? It's been what... a couple of years. What's the problem?'

  'There may be none. His name came up in an investigation.'

  'What kind of investigation?'

  'Homicide.'

  Shull stepped back, loosened the pack, scratched his big chin. 'You're kidding. Kevin?' He flexed his shoulders. 'This is mind-blowing.'

  'When Kevin was your student did he pose any problems?'

  'Problems?'

  'Disciplinary problems.'

  'No. He was a little... how can I put this... eccentric?'

  He pulled a large chrome key ring out of his jeans and unlocked the door. 'I probably shouldn't be talking to you. Privacy... and all that. But homicide... I guess I should check this out with my boss before we go further.' His eyes traveled down the hall to Elizabeth Martin's office.

  'Professor Martin directed me to you. She's the one who told me you were Kevin Drummond's advisor.'

  'Did she? Hmm... well, then okay... I guess.'

  His office was a third the size of the boss's, mocha-walled and gloomy-dark until he raised the blind on a single narrow window. The panes were blocked by a massive, knobby tree trunk, and it took Shull's flicking the lights on to brighten the room.

  Faculty status was clearly demarcated at Charter College. Shull's desk and bookshelves were almost-wood Danish modern, his side chairs gray-painted metal. No California impressionism here, just two posters for contemporary art exhibitions in New York and Chicago.

  Two black-framed diplomas hung askew behind the desk. A bachelors' degree fifteen years ago from Charter College and a masters' four years later from the University of Washington.

  Shull tossed his backpack in a corner and sat down. 'Kevin Drummond... wow.'

  'In what way was he eccentric?'

  He swung his feet atop his desk and placed his hands behind his head. His basic-training hairdo revealed a large knobby skull beneath the ginger stubble. 'You're

  not actually saying the kid's a murderer?'

  'Not at all. Just that his name came up during an investigation.'

  'How?'

  'I wish I could tell you.'

  Shull grinned. 'No fair.'

  'What can you tell me about him?'

  'You're a psychologist? They sent you because someone thinks Kevin's psychologically disturbed?'

  'Sometimes the police feel I'm right for a specific task.'

  'Incredible... for some reason your name's familiar.'

  I smiled. He smiled back. 'Okay, Kevin Drummond's eccentricity... for starters, he kept to himself - at least from what I saw. No friends, no campus involvement. But not a scary kid. Quiet. Thoughtful. Medium-bright, not too socially adept.'

  'How much contact did you have with him?'

  'We met from time to time for curriculum guidance, that kind of thing. He seemed to be drifting... seemed not to be enjoying the college experience. Which is nothing unusual, lots of kids get down.'

  'Depressed?' I said.

  'You're the psychologist,' said Shull. 'But yes, I'd have to say so. Now that I think about it, I never saw him smile. I tried to draw him out. He wasn't much for casual conversation.' 'Intense.'

  Shull nodded. 'Definitely intense. Serious kid, no sense of humor that I ever noticed.' 'What were his interests?' 'Hmm,' said Shull. 'I'd have to say pop culture. Which

  would describe half our students. They're products of their upbringing.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'The Zeitgeist,' said Shull. 'If your parents were anything like mine, you got some grounding in books, theater, art. Today's under-grads are likely to grow up in homes where episodic TV's the entertainment of choice. It's a little tough getting them jazzed about quality.'

  My childhood had been grounded in silence and gin. I said, 'What aspects of pop culture interested Kevin?'

  'All of it. Music, art. In that sense, he fit the department perfectly. Elizabeth Martin dictates that we take a holistic approach. Art as a general rubric, the interface of the art world with other aspects of the culture.'

  'Medium-bright,' I said.

  'Don't ask me to te
ll you his grades. That's a definite no-no.'

  'How about a ballpark appraisal?'

  Shull got up and turned toward the tree-filled window, rubbed his head, loosened his tie. 'We've moved onto touchy ground, my friend. The college is adamant about protecting grade confidentiality.'