Hush Money (4 page)

We had annoyed the hell out of Amir Abdullah but hadn’t learned a thing. I had talked with KC Roth and hadn’t learned much about that case, except that KC was a piece of work. I had talked with Belson and gotten nothing to help me. My next appointment was at the university with Professor Lillian Temple of the English department tenure committee, that afternoon at two. Until then I had nothing else to do except watch the swelling subside in my lip, so I decided to go up to Reading and talk with the cops about KC Roth. No grass growing under my feet. Two cases at a time. I thought about having “Master Sleuth” added to my business cards.

I talked to a beefy red-faced Reading police sergeant named O’Connor in the squad room.

“Yeah, we have a car go by there usually about every hour. It’s easy enough, we routinely patrol that stretch anyway.”

“You vary the time?” I said.

“We’re just sort of shit-kicker cops out here, a course,” O’Connor said, “but we did figure out that if we showed up the same time every night people might start to work around us.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “You have any thoughts on the stalker?”

“Like who he is?”

“Un huh.”

“Well, the ex-whatever is usually the one you look at, if there is somebody.”

“You have any reason to think there might not be a stalker?” I said.

“Well, you’ve talked to the lady,” O’Connor said. “What’s your impression?”

“Good-looking,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Seems as if she might be sexually forthcoming,” I said.

“You bet,” O’Connor said.

“You got any information on that?”

“Nope, just instinct.”

“Nice combo,” I said. “Good-looking and easy.”

“The best,” O’Connor said, “if there wasn’t the next morning to think about.”

“That could be grim,” I said. “But what’s your point?”

“Just that she seems like she ain’t wrapped too snug,” O’Connor said. “Nothing about her bothered you?”

“She seemed a little contrived.”

“Contrived? I heard you was a tough guy. Tough guys don’t say contrived.”

“Probably don’t say sexually forthcoming either,” I said.

“A course they don’t,” O’Connor said.

“Part of my disguise,” I said. “So you haven’t seen any sign of a stalker.”

“No.”

“Telephone records?”

“She hadn’t talked to the phone company when we talked with her. They weren’t keeping track.”

“I suggested she do that,” I said.

“We did too.”

“Damn. She acted like I was smarter than Vanna White when I suggested it.”

“Sure.”

“So why would she make it up?” I said.

“You’ve seen broads like her, probably more than I have. Husband dumps them, they’re alone out in the suburbs, and they want men around. They want to be looked after. So they call the cops a lot. Maybe Mrs. Roth just took it a step farther and hired a guy to look after her.”

“Me,” I said, “after you broke her heart.”

“Could be.”

“On the other hand, you look like her, you probably don’t have to hire anyone,” I said.

“After they get dumped,” O’Connor said, “they’re pretty crazy. Ego’s fucked. Maybe she don’t know she’s good-looking.”

“She knows,” I said.

O’Connor thought about it for a minute. “Yeah,” he said. “She does.”

“And there’s at least two ex-whatevers,” I said.

“Boyfriend?” O’Connor said.

“Yep. Way she told me,” I said, “she left her husband for the boyfriend and the boyfriend dumped her.”

“Fucking her was one thing,” O’Connor said. “Marrying her was another.”

“I guess,” I said. “You know the other thing that bothers me, her husband’s got the kid.”

“She got a kid?”

“Yep.”

“And the kid’s with the husband.”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t fit with your usual stalker,” O’Connor said.

“Custody of the kid?”

“Yeah.”

“No it doesn’t. But you never know. He could love his kid and still be crazy.”

“I got seven,” O’Connor said. “The two may go together.”

“You going to stay on this for a while?” I said.

“Yep. We’ll keep a car checking her, keep the file open. ‘Bout all we can do.”

“I’ll talk to the ex-husband, and the ex-boyfriend,” I said. “I learn anything I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” O’Connor said. “You learn who it is you might try dealing with him one to one. We can help her get a restraining order and we can warn him he’s subject to arrest. And sometimes if it’s done right he can get hurt resisting arrest. But it usually works better if you get his attention before we’re involved.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.

She was plain, and she was plain in the Cambridge way, in that her plainness seemed a deliberate affectation. Had she chosen to treat her appearance differently, she might have been pretty good-looking. She was in the thirty-five to forty range, tallish, maybe 5’8“, brown hair worn long, no makeup, loose-fitting clothes straight from the J. Crew catalog. Large round eyeglasses, quite thick, with undistinguished frames, a mannish white shirt, chino slacks, white ankle socks, and sandals. She wore no jewelry. No nail polish. Her most forceful grooming statement was that she seemed clean.

“May I see some identification, please,” she said.

I showed her some. She read it carefully. It was a small office on an interior wall, and it was lined with paperback editions of English lit classics:
The Mill on the Floss, Great Expectations,
case books on English lit classics. Blue exam booklets were stacked in a somewhat unstable pile on a small table behind her chair. Above her desk was a framed diploma from Brandeis University indicating that she had earned a Ph.D. in English language and literature. She wore no perfume, but I could smell her shampoo – maybe Herbal Essence, and the faint odor of bath soap – maybe Irish Spring. I could see the neat part line on the top of her head as she looked down at my credentials.

She looked up finally, and handed me back my identification.

“I’ve asked the department ombudsman, Professor Maitland, to sit in on this interview,” she said.

Ombudsman. Perfect. I looked serious.

“Gee,” I said. “Couldn’t we just leave the door ajar?”

She suspected I might be kidding her, I think, and she decided that her best course was to look serious too.

“Is Amir Abdullah an English professor?” I said.

She thought about my question and apparently decided that it was not a trap.

“Yes,” she said. “African-American literature.”

“But he has offices in the Afro-American Center.”

“The African-American Center, yes, he prefers to be there.”

“And what do you teach?”

“Feminist studies,” she said.

“Anybody teaching dead white guys?” I said. “Shakespeare, Melville, guys like that?”

“Guys,” she said, “how apt.”

I think she was being ironic.

“Apt is my middle name,” I said.

She nodded, still serious.

“Traditional courses are offered,” she said.

A tall handsome man with a thick moustache walked into the office. He had on a brown Harris tweed jacket with a black silk pocket square, a black turtleneck, polished engineer’s boots, and pressed jeans.

“Hi, Lil,” he said, “sorry I’m late.”

He put out his hand to me.

“You must be the detective,” he said. “Bass Maitland.”

He had a big round voice.

“Spenser,” I said.

We shook hands. Maitland threw one leg over the far corner of Lillian’s desk and folded his arms, ready to listen, alert for any improprieties. I restrained myself. Whenever I got involved in anything related to a university, I was reminded of how seriously everyone took everything, particularly themselves, and I had to keep a firm grip on my impulse to make fun.

“I’m here at Lillian’s request,” he said. “My role here is strictly to observe.”

“Open-shuttered and passive,” I said.

He smiled.

“How do you feel,” I said to Lillian Temple, “about the allegation that Robinson Nevins was responsible for the suicide of Prentice Lamont?”

“What?”

“Do you think Nevins had an affair with Lamont? Do you think that the end of the affair caused Lamont’s suicide?”

“I… my God… how would I…?”

“Wasn’t it discussed in the tenure meeting?”

“Yes… but… I can’t talk about the tenure meeting.”

“Of course,” I said, “but such an allegation would certainly have weighed in your decision. How did you vote?”

“I can’t tell you that.” She looked shocked.

“You could tell me how you feel about the allegation.”

She looked at Maitland. Nothing there. She looked back at me.

“Well,” she said.

I waited.

“I feel…,” she said, “that… each person has a right to his or her sexuality.”

“Un huh.”

“But that with such a right there is a commensurate responsibility to be a caring partner in the relationship.” She stopped, pleased with her statement.

“You think Nevins was a caring partner?”

“Not,” she spoke very firmly, “if he left that boy to die.”

“And you think he did,” I said.

“I suspect that he did.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“What are they?”

She shook her head.

“Oh,” I said, “those reasons.”

“There’s no call for sarcasm,” she said.

“The hell there isn’t,” I said.

“I think that’s probably enough, Mr. Spenser,” Maitland said.

“It’s not enough,” I said. “But it’s all I can stand.”

I stood. Maitland still sat half on the desk, looking bemused and neutral. Lillian Temple sat straight in her swivel chair, both feet flat together on the floor, her hands folded in her lap, looking implacable. I got to my feet.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you more,” she said. “But I do not take my responsibilities lightly.”

“You don’t take anything lightly,” I said.

As I walked past the African-American Center on my way to the parking lot, I thought that while I had been fiercely bullshitted in the English department, no one had tried to kick my head off. Which was progress.

“She always had that flair,” he said. “It made her seem maybe more special than she really was.”

“You miss her?” I said.

“Yes. I do. But not as much as I first did. And of course I’m really angry with her.”

“Because she left.”

“Because she took up with another man, and left me for him, and for crissake she wasn’t even smart enough to find a good one.”

“What would have constituted a good one?”

“One that loved her back. The minute she was free of me he dumped her.”

“You’d have felt better about things if she’d married him?”

“And been happy? Yes. This way she wasted our marriage, for nothing, if you see what I mean.”

“I do,” I said.

He was a well-set-up man, middle sized with sandy hair and square hands that looked as if he might have worked for a living. On the mantel over the fireplace was a picture of a young girl. It had the strong coloration of one of those annual school pictures that kids take, but the frame was expensive.

“Your daughter?” I said.

“Yes. Jennifer. She’s eleven.”

“How’s she handling all this,” I said.

“She doesn’t understand, but she’s got a good temperament. She sees her mother usually every week. Divorce is hardly a stigma in her circles, half her friends have divorced parents.”

“She’s all right?”

“Yes,” Roth said, “I think so.”

“Where is she now?” I said.

“She has soccer practice until six,” Roth said. “I have to pick her up then.”

“You dating anyone?” I said.

“I don’t mean to be discourteous, but you said you were investigating something about my ex-wife and a stalker.”

“Stalking is usually about control or revenge or both. I’m trying to get a sense of whether you are controlling or vengeful.”

“My God, you think I might be stalking her?”

“It’s a place to start,” I said.

Roth was quiet for a time. Then he nodded.

“Yes, of course, who would be the logical suspect?” he said.

“Did you say you were dating?”

“I’m seeing someone,” Roth said. “She’s fun. We sleep together. I doubt that we’ll walk into the sunset.”

“Do you think your ex-wife would invent a stalker?”

“Well,” he said, “she’s pretty crazy these days. So much so that I’m careful about letting Jennifer spend time there. KC and I had a pretty good fight about it, and I can’t simply keep her away from her mother. But I always stay home when she’s there so she can call me if she needs to.”

“So you think she might?” I said.

“No, I don’t really. I think she might go out with her boyfriend, now former boyfriend, and leave Jennifer alone. Or I think she might bring her with her when she and the boyfriend went someplace that was inappropriate for an eleven-year-old girl. She might be crazy that way, sort of like in junior high school where there was a girl who was boy crazy. But for all her drama and affect, she is a pretty shrewd woman in many ways, and I think she loves her daughter, and I don’t think she’d invent a stalker, even to blame me.”

“Why would she want to blame you?”

“Because she feels guilty about leaving me, and she feels like a fool for being in love with a guy who dumps her, and she can’t stand either feeling, so she needs to make it my fault somehow.”

“You seeing a shrink?” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” Roth said. “This is much too hard to do alone.”

“You know the boyfriend?”

“We’ve never met.”

“Know his name?”

“Just his first name, Louis.”

“How do you feel about him?”

“I’d like to kill him.”

“Of course you would,” I said.

“But I won’t.”

“No,” I said.

“You sound like you understand that.”

“Yes,” I said.

He looked at his watch.

“I’ve got to pick up my daughter,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss this in front of her. Would you like to schedule another time to talk?”

“Not for the moment,” I said. “If I need to, I’ll call you.”

“I am happy to help with this. I don’t want Jennifer’s mother to be stalked.”

“Do you still love her?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “But less than I used to and in time I won’t.”

“Good,” I said.