“No one’s going to push me out of here,” Burton said.
“Do you seriously believe that if the Governor wants this project built, and he knows that logging interests and the unions are backing it, he’ll let people like you stand in his way?” Carlyle walked over to the large window that dominated Burton’s living room. “What do you think will happen once they discover there isn’t enough natural snow up there to generate the kind of profits they require? Phil Marshall and his partners have plans to throw up a dam across the Narrows that’ll divert ten thousand cubic feet of water a second into a holding pond for their snow guns. They’ve already submitted a permit to DEC and the federal government. Do you know what will happen to the rafting business if it gets in the way of a two-hundred-million-dollar project for that mountain?”
“Where’d you find this out?” Burton said.
“Bognor handed me a copy of the building permit applications and the environmental impact statements.”
“How much time do I have?”
“A day, maybe a bit more.”
“What’s the goddamn rush?”
“Betts called me last night. He said that Marshall had two other serious incidents last season that went unreported. If the press gets hold of that story, they’ll claim that a serial killer is on the loose in this region. And then everyone’s reservations, including yours, will simply vanish.”
Burton reached into a refrigerator and tore the top off a can of Bud. “You’ve got one week to interview my people. Then you leave me alone.” He started to take a gulp of beer and suddenly stopped, slopping a little onto the floor. “But not the guides. You don’t go near them.”
“I need to talk to the guides more than anyone.”
“Stay away from them. If I let you chase all my guides away, I might as well close up shop right now. Now get the hell out. I’ve got to fire two cooks and a waitress who’ve been stealing me blind.”
An hour and a half later, Carlyle jogged across the desolate central plaza of the university. Albany’s traditional architects, tenacious defenders of the Romanesque, had labeled the campus “a modernist nightmare” when it was built thirty years ago. Three decades later, after weathering two dozen ice storms, the concrete-clad buildings were beginning to resemble the Chernobyl reactor. Four ten-story student dormitories, each surrounded by soulless glass and steel “teaching and learning centers,” stood guard over the bleak, nearly treeless campus.
The political hack who designed the university had never given much thought to what it would be like to work here during the brutal, five-month upstate winters. Unprotected corridors between buildings funneled Arctic storms into fierce whirlwinds. Faculty and students were forced to sprint between classes in the poorly lit, dust-chocked subterranean tunnels rather than brave exposed, ice-coated walkways.
After picking up his mail, Carlyle went to his office, made coffee, and waited for his first appointment of the day. He’d come in this afternoon for one reason only—to terminate the career of a diligent but poorly prepared graduate student.
Two weeks ago, Adrian Long had failed his PhD qualifying examinations in criminal justice for the second—and final—time. A four-person dissertation committee, anxious to weed out students who might tarnish the reputation of the department, had decided that Long would have to leave the program at the end of the current semester. Although Carlyle knew his student would take this news badly, he had to give him notice in person.
Carlyle watched snow blanket the trees outside his office window. The sun had not appeared for more than an hour or two since early November. It began snowing just after Thanksgiving. At first it was just a couple of inches every few days. Then, in late December, major storms began arriving, nor’easters that brought six or seven inches every two weeks or so. By late January, the days began growing longer, but fierce Canadian winds, dubbed Alberta Clippers by some wise guy on a Montreal radio station, brought afternoons when the temperature struggled to reach ten degrees. The misery had continued until early April. Then, as if some weary meteorologist had finally had enough and had thrown a magic switch, the thermometer started climbing.
Carlyle looked around his office. Bookshelves and filing cabinets lined two walls. Law reports were stacked two-feet deep on the floor. His computer contained the final draft of a manuscript that he hoped would get him lifetime employment and financial security. He’d spent six years on the project, reading legal cases and scholarly studies, interviewing judges, lawyers, and prison officials, but the book was still years from completion. His department chair, Jason Pawa, kept reminding Carlyle that he had been hired to churn out academic papers describing the complex motives driving people to commit homicide, reports that would bring huge grants to the university. The Dean said, “No one gets tenure without a well-reviewed book,” but it was, as Carlyle knew, the way things worked in his department.
Carlyle’s next-door colleague, Bill Majors, described what would happen if Carlyle’s publishing career stalled. “Pawa will come into your office acting all apologetic of course. ‘Ric,’ he’ll say, ‘we know how hard you’ve worked. The teaching’s been great and those two small grants helped, but the Committee on Tenure and Promotion has said that without that book contract, we can’t offer you continuing employment.’ Then he’ll saunter back to his office and flush your career down the toilet.”
Five minutes after Carlyle sat down there was a knock at the door. Before he could get up, Adrian Long walked into the office. Long had served two tours with the Marines in Iraq before doing a ten-year stretch with the state police. He still looked like a grunt: a jarhead scalp, thick biceps, and stiff demeanor that could turn mean in a heartbeat.
“Doc, I got your message,” Long said. “What’s up?”
“Adrian, we have
