“ Talcott? Hi, it’s Lynda Wyatt.”
The Dean. Great.
“Hi, Lynda, how are you?” I am deflating fast, and I know my voice betrays my disappointment.
“I’m fine, Talcott. But how are you?”
“I’m just fine, Lynda, thanks.”
“I hope that you’re having lots of fun on the Vineyard. I love it up there in the fall, but Heaven knows when Norm and I will have a chance to get to our place.” Serving to remind me that she and her husband own a huge, modern house on the pond in West Tisbury, the up-Island town where many artists and writers spend their summers. Actually, I know about the house only by the tales my law school colleagues tell, because, in all the years that Lynda Wyatt and I have both been vacationing on the Island, she has invited my family to her house exactly never. (I have reciprocated just as often, so perhaps the fault is mine.)
“We’re having some fun,” I concede, smiling desperately at my son. Bentley, glaring, toddles to a corner of the kitchen and sits on the floor.
“Well, that’s great, just great. I hope you’re getting some rest, too.”
“Some,” I say. “So, what’s up?” I am rushing her, I am probably being rude, but I figure I have lots of excuses.
“Well, Talcott, I’m actually calling for two reasons. First of all-and I wouldn’t make anything important of this”-meaning, of course, that she thinks it very important indeed-“first of all, I received the strangest call from one of our graduates who is a trustee of the university. Cameron Knowland. You must know Cameron?”
“No.”
“Well, he has been a great friend of this school, Tal, a great friend. In fact, Cameron and his wife just pledged three million toward our new law library. Anyway, he says that his son got kind of a rough going-over in your class. Said you made fun of him or something.”
I am already steaming.
“I assume you told Cameron to butt out.”
Lynda Wyatt’s voice is amiable. “What I told him, Tal, was that it was probably blown out of proportion, that all first-year students complain. I told him that you weren’t the type to abuse a student in class.”
“I see.” I grip the telephone but sway on my feet. I am appalled by the weakness of this defense of a professor from the dean of the law school. I am growing hotter and the kitchen is growing redder. Bentley is watching me closely, a hand to his ear as he holds an imaginary receiver of his own. He is mouthing occasional words, too.
“I think it would be helpful,” Dean Lynda continues soberly, “if you were to give Cameron a call. Just to reassure him.”
“Reassure him of what?”
“Oh, Tal, you know how these alumni are.” Offering me her charming side. “They need to be stroked all the time. I’m not trying to interfere with how you run your classroom”-meaning she is trying to do exactly that-“but I’m just saying that Cameron Knowland is concerned. As a father. Think of how you would feel if you heard that one of Bentley’s teachers was beating up on him.”
Red, red, red.
“I didn’t beat up on Avery Knowland-”
“Then tell his father that, Tal. That’s all I’m asking. Calm him down. As one father to another. For the good of the school.”
For the three million dollars, she means. She seems to assume I care. In my current state, however, I would not object if the library sank into the earth. Gerald Nathanson is often there: it is quieter than his office, he says, and he can get more work done. Another reason I stay out of the place is to avoid running into him.
“I’ll think about it,” I mutter, not sure what I will do the next time I see young Avery Knowland’s insolent face.
“Thank you, Tal,” says my dean, knowing at once that this is as much as she will be able to get. “The school appreciates all that you do for us.” For us -as though I am an outsider. Which I pretty much am. “And Cameron’s a nice guy, Tal. You never know when you’ll need a friend.”
“I told you I’ll think about it.” Letting some ice slip into my voice. I am recalling what Stuart Land said to me about pressures being brought to bear, and I wonder if this call is a part of it. Which leads me to be ruder still: “You said there were two things.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Well.” Another. I imagine that she is leading up to a comment of some kind about the competition between Marc and Kimmer, along the lines of what Stuart attempted. Except that Lynda is unlikely to back down.
I am right… but Lynda is more subtle than I am.
“Tal, I also had a call from another one of our graduates. Morton Pearlman. Do you know Mort?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Well, he was four or five years ahead of you. Anyway, he works for the Attorney General these days. He called to see… he wanted to know… if you’re doing okay.”
“If I’m doing okay? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Again Dean Lynda hesitates, and it occurs to me that she is trying to be kind, in the manner of a physician looking for the words to explain what the tests uncovered. “He said that you’ve been… well
… that the FBI and various other agencies have received a lot of calls on your behalf recently. Most of them, I gather, at your behest. Calls about… oh, things related to your father. Questions about the autopsy, about that priest who got killed by the drug dealer, all sorts of things.”
In the ensuing pause, I almost burst out that it was my sister, not me, who wanted those calls made, and sometimes who actually made them. But I am lawyer enough to wait for the rest. So I say only, “I see.”
“Do you? I can’t make any sense of it at all.” Her voice is growing harder. “Now, we’ve known each other a long time, Tal, and I’m sure you have a good reason for just about everything you do.” I register, with dismay, just about. “But I have a feeling that what Mort was trying to ask, in a nice way, was whether you might need a little rest.”
“Wait a minute. Wait. The Deputy Attorney General of the United States thinks I’m crazy? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Calm down, Tal, okay? I’m only the messenger here. I don’t know what you’re up to, and I don’t want to know. I’m just repeating what Mort asked me. And I probably shouldn’t even be telling you, because he said it was confidential.”
I unclench my fist, make myself speak slowly and clearly. I am not worried, now, about Kimmer and her judgeship. That can wait. I am worried about whether the FBI plans to stop taking my concerns seriously. “Lynda. This is important. What did you tell him?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What did you tell Morton Pearlman? When he implied that I needed a rest?”
“I told him I was sure you were fine, that I knew you were a little upset, and that you were away from the school for a few weeks.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“I did. What did you expect me to say? I didn’t want to mess anything up for you, but… well… Tal, I’m worried about you.”
“Worried about me? Why are you worried about me?”
“I think maybe… Tal, look. If you want to rest for a couple of more weeks before you come back, I’m sure it would be no problem.”
For a moment I can think of nothing to say. The implications of her machinations briefly overwhelm me. Put simply, if Morton Pearlman can be persuaded that Kimberly Madison’s husband is a nutcase, then there is no way that she gets the seat on the court of appeals. Tagging me with that label, and thus helping Marc achieve his lifelong goal, is evidently Dean Lynda’s purpose. And although I am impressed by the elegance with which she is trying to do it, I am infuriated that she would use the complications of my father’s death this way-and that she would hold me in such low regard as to think she could get away with it. Well, Stuart tried to warn me.
