“Penny for your thoughts,” she murmurs.
“I’m compiling an enemies list,” I answer.
“Oh, Misha, don’t say that. It sounds positively Nixonian.”
“Doesn’t it, though?” I wink at her. “Nixon was my father’s hero.”
“Nobody’s perfect. Except Lemaster Carlyle.” Dana chuckles. She has used this line before. But I find it less funny than in the past.
“Speaking of Lem,” I hear myself asking, “has he seemed… a little strange lately?”
“He’s always strange.”
“No, I mean… I don’t know, I’ve been finding him… distant.”
“He’s always distant.”
“What I’m saying is, he is less friendly. Like he’s trying to avoid me.”
“Gee, I can’t think why. He only wants to be dean.”
I surrender, quite frustrated. In her teasingly direct way, Dana is reminding me that I am nobody’s favorite around the law school just now, except maybe hers. It hurts to hear it, but she might be right about Lem. Then another thought strikes me. Dana the gossip knows everything, surely. “By the way, and I know it isn’t any of my business, but have you heard any rumors about, um, some kind of relationship between Lionel Eldridge and Heather Hadley?”
Dear Dana seems startled. Then a slow, almost feline smile softens her face. “No, I seem to have missed that one. But that would be so delicious! I really must ask around.”
There’s more than one way to start a rumor, I tell myself sourly.
Leaving Dana’s office, I run into Theophilus Mountain, who is unlocking his door with the same laborious attention he gives to driving, walking, and teaching, none of which he any longer does particularly well. Under his arm are an ancient binder and a red-and-black casebook, so he has just returned from class. I greet him as he finally manages to work the latch.
The aging Theo swivels stiffly, like a mannikin on a stand, smiling benignly.
“Well, hello, Talcott.”
“Hi, Theo. Do you have a minute?”
He frowns as though this is a difficult question. “I suppose I might,” he concedes, his hand still on the doorknob. At eighty-two, Theo is not what he was in my father’s student days, or even in mine. A few days ago, he finally got around to offering his condolences on the Judge’s passing, oddly late, but he has never quite been subject to the expectations of others. He is the only survivor among the famous Mountain brothers, the other two being Pericles, who taught at UCLA, and Herodotus, who taught at Columbia. They were, once upon a time, considered the three great constitutional scholars of the age. Perry died a couple of decades go, Hero just last year. All three were among the century’s celebrated liberals, and Theo tends the flame. In his constitutional law class, Theo covers few cases decided after 1981, “when that son of a bitch Reagan took over and everything went to hell.” He teaches his bewildered students not what the law is, or even what it should be, but what he wishes it still were. A few years ago, he wrote to a Supreme Court Justice who was once his student, accusing him of “idiotic reasoning in service of your immoral reactionary campaign.” He then released the letter to the press, an act which earned him an invective-filled appearance on Larry King Live. Theo has always been willing to say anything to anybody. And so he does to me now: “You look terrible. Did the police do that to you?”
“Of course not.”
“I heard you were almost arrested.”
I wonder whether I will be stuck with the story for the remainder of my career. “No, Theo, I was not almost arrested. It was just a misunderstanding.”
“Oh.” Spoken dubiously.
“Theo, I wanted to ask you about my father.”
“What about your father?”
I hesitate as a couple of students pass us, deep in argument over what Hegel would have said about some rule of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When they are out of earshot, I continue. “You knew him when he was a student. And after.”
Theo nods, still standing in the doorway. “We were pretty good friends, till he went off the deep end. Excuse me.”
“By the deep end, you mean…”
“After his hearings.” He waves a vague hand. “Lots of people in this building signed petitions against his confirmation, Talcott. Well, you know that. You weren’t here at the time, but you remember.”
“I was a student, Theo, so I remember.”
“Well, also remember that I didn’t sign.” Splaying his hand on his chest. His shirt, as usual, seems incompletely laundered. “I didn’t agree with him about very much, but we were friends. Like I said, until he went off the deep end.”
“Well, what I’m wondering is… after the two of you weren’t close any more… if, uh, if there’s anybody here on the faculty my father would have been close to. Somebody he would have trusted.” I pause. It is so typical of my family that I must ask an outsider who my father’s friends were on the very faculty where I teach. “Somebody he might have trusted with confidences.”
Theo’s disordered beard splits in a grin. “Well, Stuart Land is certainly a Reaganite prick.”
Is this the non sequitur it seems? Maybe not. “So he trusted Stuart, you’re saying.”
“I don’t know if your father even knew Stuart, but it wouldn’t surprise me. All those neo-cons stick together. Excuse me.” He tips his head back momentarily and frowns, gazing at the ceiling. “Who else? I guess he must have known Lynda Wyatt, from all his alumni work. And I think he knew Amy Hefferman pretty well. Amy was his classmate.”
I shake my head. Poor Amy, the much-beloved Princess of Procedure. I have almost forgotten that she and my father were in law school together. Over the years, my father seemed never to tire of cruel jokes at her expense, all of them about her intellect. The second-best third-rate mind in the building, he would say of her student days, shaking his head in wonder that she was invited back to teach. His evaluation of her work on the faculty was little different, bordering at times on misogyny. Dizzy, he would call her writing, or not serious. As so often, the Judge was frightfully unfair; but whatever devils drove him to dismiss Amy Hefferman would also prevent him from trusting her with whatever elaborate secrets he wanted me to uncover. “Not Amy,” I say sadly.
Theo squints. He is not as quick as he was, but he is no fool. “Not Amy what? Are you up to something, Talcott?” He does not sound disapproving. If I am up to something, he probably wants in on it. He leans close, his breath hideous, and whispers, “Is it about Stuart? Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“Uh, not that I know of.”
“Too bad.” Theo finally opens his door and steps into his office, which, although long and high-ceilinged, is so thick with huge piles of books and papers that a trip inside can be like a spelunking expedition. He does not invite me to follow. “I haven’t really been keeping close track of your father, Talcott. Not since…”
“He went off the deep end,” I finish for him.
“Oh, so you noticed too?” Theo’s tone is somber. “He was a good man, your father. Not my kind of politics, but a good man. Until your sister died. Then it all went downhill.”
“Wait a minute, Theo. Wait. After my sister died?”
“Right.”
“But before you said he went off the deep end after the hearings.”
Theo blinks. Has he forgotten what he said? Is he confused or clever? “Well, I don’t know exactly when it happened, but he did go off the deep end.” Then his eyes brighten once more. “But if it’s not Stuart you’re looking for, then I guess you must be looking for Lynda.”
“Do you seriously think my father would have trusted Lynda Wyatt?” Even as I say the words, it occurs to me that Lynda knew I was going to be at Shirley’s party. Could she have noticed, from her office window, that I was headed for the soup kitchen all those weeks ago? Could she have known I was planning to go to the chess club last Thursday? I cannot see how, but I cannot see a lot of things that are true, like why Kimmer married me.
