'And you're employed by Ms. St. Claire's husband?'
'Yes.'
'I'm afraid I'll need his authorization.'
'Of course you do. After all, I'm asking if she's enrolled here, and if so what courses she's taking. Hot stuff like that has got to be handled discreetly.'
'You may be as scornful as you wish, Mister Spenser, but it's not a question of what you're asking. There's a larger issue here.'
'I think it's called self-importance.'
'I beg your pardon?'
The dean's name was Fogarty. He was a small man with a trimmed beard and receding hair. He wore a business suit. He'd probably started life as a high school principal somewhere and moved up, or down, depending on your perspective. The state college system was not a hotbed of erudition.
'There is no issue here. I'm not asking you to reveal anything which is in any way of a private nature. You just like to think that whatever goes on here is weighty with high seriousness.'
'Are you afraid to have me call Ms. St. Claire's husband?'
'Ms. St. Claire's husband is suffering from gunshot wounds. It will not help him to talk with a pompous asshole.'
'I'm sorry. But there's no need to be offensive.'
'You think I'm offensive? I'll give you offensive. Ms. Lisa St. Claire's husband is a cop. Cops look out for each other. I can, if I have to, have some really short-tempered guys from the Essex County DA's office come in here and ask you what I'm asking you. I could probably even get them to come in here in force with the sirens singing and the blue lights flashing, and haul your ass down to Salem and ask you these same questions in a holding cell.'
Guys like Fogarty have power over a bunch of kids and it gets them thinking it's real, which makes them think that they're tough. It took Fogarty a minute to adjust to the fact that he was misguided in these perceptions. He stared at me with his mouth partly open, and nothing coming out.
Finally he said, 'Well!'
'Well,' I said.
'I don't wish to be unreasonable.'
'Good.'
We sat and looked at each other. Neither of us anything.
'Well,' he said again.
I looked at my watch. Fogarty picked up his phone. 'Clara, could you see if we have a student named Lisa St. Claire, please. Probably continuing education. Yes. If we do, may I have her folder? Thank you.'
He hung up and looked at me and looked away.
'I guess it's why I'm an educator, Mister Spenser. I'm invested in students. Sometimes, maybe, too invested.'
'Sure,' I said. 'That's probably it.'
He was pleased that I agreed with him. He leaned back in his chair and patted his fingertips together.
'Young lives,' he said. 'Young lives.'
A very small woman who might have been 125 shuffled in with a folder in her hand. She shuffled across the room, put the folder on Fogarty's desk, and shuffled backwards out of the room. She did not speak. She did not kiss the hem of his garment.
Fogarty picked up the folder and opened it and looked at it for a moment as if he were studying the Book of Kells. Then he raised his eyes from it and looked at me.
'Yes. Ms. St. Claire is enrolled in our continuing education program.'
'What I would have called night school in my innocence,' I said.
Fogarty smiled politely.
'Well, it's not really night school. Classes are held in the late afternoon and in the evening.'
'What course is she taking?'
'HD31-6,' he said. 'Self Actualization: An Analytic Feminist Perspective.'
'Yikes,' I said. 'What's HD stand for?'
'Human development.'
'When's it meet?'
I was asking him to violate the code of Omerta again. He looked uncomfortable, but he rallied. 'Tuesday and Thursday; eight to nine forty-five p.m. In the Bradford Building.'
'Who teaches it?'
'Professor Leighton.'
'And where do I find him?'
