The Spire

by Richard North Patterson

  “Which people?” Darrow inquired.

  “In this case, your faculty. A potential charge of sexual harassment.”

  Grimacing, Darrow waved him to a chair. “What’s the genesis?”

  “Stupidity. You took a history course from Tom Craig, right?”

  “Uh-huh. A good professor, I thought.”

  “He still is. Also easily bored. So he decided that sleeping with a student might, as it were, help him fill the void.” Farr’s tone held weary exasperation. “The wrong student—a young woman from India of considerable volatility, spiked by cultural misunderstanding. Whatever the reason, Ms. Kashfi imagined that Tom planned to leave his wife.”

  “Which he didn’t.”

  “Of course not. So our student showed up at Tom’s house two days ago, threatening Anita with bodily harm. Dr. Craig has become a bystander—for Anita, the price of marital peace is having Ms. Kashfi deported.”

  “Is she crazy?”

  Farr emitted a mirthless laugh. “For my money, they both are. But now we own the problem.”

  Darrow sighed in irritation. “Ms. Kashfi requires counseling, not expulsion—let alone deportation. As for Craig, any time a professor’s screwing a student you’re risking angry parents, potential lawsuits, and the possibility of trading grades for sex. Not to mention an erosion of student respect for the faculty and damage to Caldwell’s reputation. So what is our policy on faculty-student involvements?”

  “There is none,” Farr conceded. “We have ‘guidelines.’ In all of these cases, you’re dealing with two people who are over the age of consent—”

  “Granted,” Darrow cut in. “But also with a power differential ripe for abuse. Describe these so-called guidelines.”

  “We strongly discourage romantic relationships between faculty and students, listing all the reasons you suggest.” Pausing, Farr added dryly, “In reality, we’re asking for a modicum of judgment and discretion among consenting adults. For faculty, the unwritten message seems to be ‘It’s okay to marry a student, but please don’t date them first.’ At least not where anyone can see you.”

  Darrow shook his head. “That’s like sitting on nitroglycerin. As we both know all too well, people kill each other over sex. What if Ms. Kashfi had shown up at midnight and Anita Craig had put a bullet through her brain? Or vice versa? And even short of murder, the whole thing reeks.

  “Bring our general counsel in. We need to craft a stronger policy, clearly understood. Our faculty should know that I’ll go after anyone guilty of abusing their power over students—if I could, I’d bar these relationships outright. But if any professor still insists on dating a student, we should require them to disclose that to their department head and to you, and to refrain from teaching anyone they’re involved with. If they don’t, I’ll do my damnedest to get rid of them.”

  “The faculty may bridle, Mark. Some will call it an invasion of privacy.”

  “No doubt. But it would cut down on the threat of lawsuits and put the fear of God in married faculty that their spouses will find out.” Darrow’s own voice held a trace of sarcasm. “I’ll solicit faculty responses, of course—I’m sensitive to their prerogatives, and I’ll hate cutting down their dating pool. But reasonable professors will understand, and the rest will be wary of making themselves conspicuous. Especially if we cite Tom Craig’s embarrassment as a teachable moment.”

  Farr smiled a little. “I’ll call our general counsel, Mr. President. Are you ready to face the chairman of our board?”

  THE SPIRE WAS Ray Carrick’s favorite place on campus, and so his tour of Caldwell’s facilities ended in its shadow. He walked between Farr and Darrow, his paunch preceding him, his movements ponderous and heavy-shouldered. He had the self-satisfied countenance of a provincial worthy with, in Darrow’s estimation, the sensibility to match: tough, shrewd, reliable, loyal, and wholly unoriginal. In better times, Darrow judged, he would have been a proper steward of Caldwell’s affairs. But becoming a leading business magnate in a central Ohio town had dulled Carrick’s self-perception and inflated his self-regard. Though no friction had developed between Caldwell’s new president and its board chair, Farr had counseled Darrow to treat Ray Carrick with care.

  Now Carrick turned from the Spire, facing Darrow. “We need money,” he summarized peremptorily. “The science building’s outmoded, and so’s our field house. As for Huntley Stadium, it looks more like a soccer stadium in downtown Baghdad.”

  Darrow smiled. “Never seen one, Ray. But I’ll take your word.”

  Carrick’s mouth clamped down. “It’s no joke, Mark—we’ve got to get cracking on a big endowment drive. Why do you want to cancel our feasibility study? Walter Berg’s all ready to go.”

  “No doubt. But I don’t want to pay Walter’s consulting firm a hundred grand to tell me what I already know—that we can’t raise a hundred million until the alumni believe that I’ve straightened this place out.” Glancing at Farr, Darrow finished: “Lionel and I have talked about this. In the short term, the best way to engage our alumni is to ask them not for money but ideas. If I can enlist them in defining our needs and goals, they’ll pony up when I ask them to.”

  Carrick turned to Farr. “Mark’s right,” Farr said simply. “For the next year or two we just have to keep the school afloat.”

  Carrick crossed his arms, eyeing the grass at their feet and then Mark Darrow. “You say the alumni need to know you’re cleaning things up. Isn’t the best way to ask Dave Farragher to indict Clark Durbin? Let’s place the blame where it belongs and put the Durbin era behind us.”

  “Perhaps. But I don’t want to do that yet, Ray.”

  “Why not?” Carrick asked with palpable annoyance. “Most folks on the board see this as a moral issue. If Durbin won’t cooperate by helping us trace the money, then he deserves a stretch in jail. Give the bastard a choice, I say. Where’s the virtue in shilly-shallying when a man we trusted turns out to be a crook?”

  “Because Durbin’s not the problem anymore. Assuring alumni that another embezzlement won’t happen is, and I’ve begun to do that. As for Durbin,” Darrow continued in the same calm tone, “he’s not running off to Paraguay. Within a month the accountant I’m bringing in can help us decide what to do with him.”

  Carrick’s eyebrows shot up. “What about Joe Betts’s man? Doesn’t he already have this buttoned up?”

  “Fox is good,” Darrow answered. “So’s my guy. I want him to look at this without preconceptions.”

  “Durbin stole the money,” Carrick snapped. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “It seems so. But there are a couple of things about the embezzlement I’d like to nail down. After that we can consider the benefits of prosecuting Durbin or letting him go quietly.” To placate Carrick, Darrow added, “You’re right about the money—assuming there’s any left. If Durbin’s guilty, we can give him some hard choices.”

  With a dubious expression, Carrick turned to Farr. “What do you think, Lionel?”

  Farr inclined his head toward Darrow. “That we hired Mark to make these calls. Besides, he knows more about financial chicanery than both of us combined. If there’s something here that bothers him, I think we’d do well to listen.”

  Carrick wheeled on Darrow. “Is there, Mark?”

  Darrow found himself cornered. “I can’t tell you, exactly. Maybe that’s what troubles me. It’s too neat.”

  Carrick gave a snort—half laugh, half resignation. Then he turned again, gazing at the base of the Spire. “Such a tragedy,” he said with surprising quiet. “All our troubles started here, when Tillman killed that black girl. To associate a murder with such a special place makes it that much sadder.”

  Darrow thought of Taylor Farr. “The other day,” he told Carrick, “someone asked if we’d consider tearing the Spire down.”

  Carrick gave him a hard sideways look. “Over my dead body, Mark. Over my dead body.”

  “That,” Farr ventured mildly, “is an unfortunate tur
n of phrase.”

  Carrick shook his head. “Damn Steve Tillman,” he said to Farr with muted vehemence. “I wish you’d never given him that scholarship.”

  “So do I, Ray. But that’s how we got Mark.”

  This exchange, Darrow discovered, touched the nerve ends of his guilt and obligation. Facing Darrow, Carrick said softly, “So it was, and I’m glad for that. Once you finish those alumni calls, Mark, let me know how they went.”

  The two men shook hands. Extending his hand to Farr, Carrick said with genuine warmth, “Thank you, Lionel. Without you, I don’t know where we’d be.”

  Shaking Carrick’s hand, Farr smiled. “You have no idea, Ray. But neither do I.”

  Carrick chuckled, and headed off for the parking lot.

  Darrow and Farr watched him go. “Thanks,” Darrow said. “It’s clear you’ve got more credibility than I do.”

  “More years, anyhow.” Farr turned to him. “You know how Ray is. He’s smart enough to know you’re smarter, and spoiled enough not to enjoy it. Mind if I reiterate a word of advice?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don’t alienate him over Durbin. Do whatever you need to feel more comfortable, then move as quickly as you can. As a practical matter, feeding him Clark Durbin will buy you Ray’s goodwill on bigger issues. It’s the kind of callous act that makes a leader great.”

  Darrow laughed softly. “I’ll remember that, Chairman Mao.”

  DARROW PLACED ALUMNI calls through lunch, then used the afternoon to catch up with his schedule. A little after five o’clock he stuffed the budget figures in his briefcase, pledging to revisit them before he went to sleep, and left his office for the day.

  The police station was new since Darrow had graduated, a two-story building constructed of red brick, its modernity suggesting that Wayne was now on the cutting edge of law enforcement. Darrow went to a reception area protected by bulletproof glass and, reminded of his visits to Steve Tillman, spoke through a grid to the receptionist. A moment later George Garrison leaned through a metal door. “Come on back,” he said.

  Darrow followed him to his corner office. One bookshelf was filed with tomes on criminology; on another, next to George’s college diploma and certificates of completion from advanced policing courses, was a picture of a smiling, round-faced woman and two bright-eyed kids. Families everywhere, Darrow thought.

  “Have a seat,” Garrison said brusquely. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “A couple of things. For openers, I went to see Steve again.”

  Garrison’s face turned opaque. “And?”

  “He told me about the incident involving you and his sister. He also claims that he told Angela about it shortly before the murder, apparently by way of apology.”

  “That’s what you came to tell me?” Garrison paused, then muted his tone of incredulity. “You don’t just ‘get over’ a prejudice so deeply ingrained. Even by your account, Angela was Tillman’s one black ‘friend,’ and his idea of racial amity was fucking. God knows what happened between them in that room.”

  Darrow shifted in his chair. “Maybe so. But murder’s an extreme form of prejudice. Did your investigation come up with any other instance where Steve became violent—whether with women, blacks, or otherwise?”

  “Not that I know of,” Garrison said. “But suppose you believe, like Tillman says, that Angela left his room alive. Then who killed her? Someone lurking by the Spire at two A.M.? A random murderer walking across a deserted campus, looking for some equally random victim to strangle but not rape or rob? Some drunk who had the sudden inspiration to kill the first woman he saw?” Once more, Garrison modulated his tone. “Why don’t you ask Fred Bender. Should be easy enough—in case you’ve missed it, Fred became Caldwell’s chief of security. He’ll know who the suspects were, if any.”

  “What about Griff Nordlinger?” Darrow asked. “I’d ask him, but he seems to have disappeared.”

  “All the way to heaven. Nordlinger died in Phoenix, several years ago.”

  “Of what?”

  “Heart attack, I think. The man had worked his ticker overtime.” Garrison seemed to sit more heavily. “A couple of years after the trial, I busted him for possession of cocaine. By then—or so his ex-wife said—he had a wicked cross-addiction to powder cocaine and whiskey. Nordlinger was finished as a lawyer—I had him ready to flip, name Carl Hall as his supplier. But instead of pressing charges, the chief let Griff’s daughter hustle him off to rehab in Arizona. Not my call—I wanted Carl pretty bad. Needless to say, Nordlinger never came back to Wayne.”

  Darrow parsed the implications of this. “During Steve’s trial, was Nordlinger screwed up?”

  “Thought you’d ask that,” Garrison answered with a trace of asperity. “As far as I recall, no one ever said so during the trial. In Tillman’s case, I doubt it would have mattered. Anything else you want to know?”

  “One thing. Who performed the autopsy on Angela? All I remember is that she was blond.”

  Garrison nodded. “That would be Carly Simmons.”

  “Know where I can find her?”

  “Yeah. She lives here in the county, out by Cahaba Road.” Garrison leaned forward, gazing at Darrow across the desk. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Mark. But I don’t have the time or the manpower to excavate the past. Or, in Tillman’s case, a reason. So the next time we discuss him, it’ll be because you’ve got something real to say.”

  Darrow thanked him. Leaving, he walked swiftly to the parking lot, hoping to beat Taylor to his door.

  10

  T

  AYLOR FARR, DARROW NOTED, WAS A PUNCTUAL WOMAN—AT six-thirty she arrived at his door, wearing jeans and a sweater and carrying a thick black binder. Pointing at the binder, Darrow asked, “Is that my homework?”

  “More or less,” she said briskly. “A survey of postmodern art, culled from the Internet and screened through my quirky sensibilities. But after you called me, I tried to be gentle. There may be something in here that you actually like.”

  “It’s fat enough.” Motioning her inside, Darrow said, “Ready to inspect the chamber of horrors?”

  She walked past him into the living room, her swift, graceful strides reminding him of both an athlete and a runway model. From the back he watched her look from piece to piece: the pastel watercolor portraying spring; a winsome girl with saucer eyes; the nondescript Swedish modern furniture; the dining room table of blond wood; the glass coffee-table top set on the lacquered stump of a redwood tree; and, over the fireplace, an oil painting of the Reverend Charles Caldwell, his forbidding mien meant to signal rectitude but, to Darrow, more evocative of a hanging judge. She studied the Reverend Caldwell for a good while, her long raven hair tilting with the angle of her head.

  “Well?” Darrow asked.

  Taylor did not turn. “I’m speechless.”

  “Try.”

  Facing him, she knit her brow in mock concentration. “ ‘Dreadful’? No. What word means both ‘depressing’ and ‘horrifying’? The art’s insipid, the furniture sterile, and nothing goes together. You’re living in the Museum of Modern Dreck.” Waving a hand at the Reverend Caldwell, she said, “Then there’s him. If you look at him too long, you’ll never have sex again. And if you stay here too long, you’ll kill yourself.”

  “The thought’s occurred to me,” Darrow answered solemnly. “Tell me, are art historians always this scathing? Or is this lacerating commentary inspired by my decor?”

  Taylor laughed. “Both. There’s no art historian typology, really. But all of us tend to be passionate about art, and more than usually opinionated.” Placing her binder on the coffee table, she added, “We’re also trained to see things, though I think some of that’s inherent. Even as a kid, I saw that what I drew wasn’t as good as what I could perceive in someone else’s work.”

  “I liked what you painted.”

  Taylor smiled up at him. “That’s because you’re inherently nice. You’d have said some
thing kind if I’d painted a lopsided dollhouse with smoke coming out the chimney. But I wasn’t an artist, like my mother; I was an interpreter and describer, like my father. Sometimes I think we’re too much alike.”

  For an instant, Darrow thought of Taylor at eight or nine. The image he retained was of a lovely child, serious and very observant, who seemed to harbor more thoughts than she cared to express. “You’re certainly less quiet than you were,” Darrow remarked lightly. “And very clear about what you think. That’s Lionel as I know him.”

  Taylor’s smile was fainter. “So’s the quiet. Beneath what my father chooses to express is a bottomless well of silence. I try to guess his thoughts and feelings, and all too often draw a blank. Perhaps he’s lonely, an introvert by nature.”

  Though Darrow shared this sense of Lionel Farr, he had come to accept it as a given. “I’ve sometimes thought that,” he responded. “Though I’m sure it’s more perplexing in a parent than a provost. Would you care for some wine, by the way?”

  “Yes, thanks. A white, if you have one open.”

  Darrow went to the kitchen. When he returned, Taylor was flipping pages in her binder, her concentration total. It gave him a moment to consider, once again, the evolution of child to adult. The child Taylor’s beauty had a porcelain quality, contained within itself; the woman radiated a more vibrant beauty, a presence that filled a room even when, as now, she was silent.

  He sat beside her, placing two glasses on the table. “So,” he asked, “you think you’re more like Lionel than your mother?”

  Taylor took a sip of wine. “I guess I’d like to be my mother’s daughter, if only because I remember feeling so loved by her. But my dad’s a strong personality, and the genetic lottery has whims of its own.” She smiled again. “One thing for sure—we both have way too many books. In my case, big ones, filled with paintings. Half my income is spent hauling tomes from place to place.”

  “Where do you want to end up?”