did happen. The trouble started when Lucas turned in his thesis, and this other professor, a Dr. Warren, convinced everyone on the committee that they should reject it.”
“Wait a minute-Warren? Andre never got along very well with Dr. Warren. What’s the connection? And what was the reason for rejecting the thesis?”
“He claimed that Lucas had cheated to make the data come out just the way he wanted it to-said Lucas had faked the numbers.”
“I don’t believe for a minute that Lucas would have resorted to something like phony data,” I said.
“Andre Selman said the same thing. Said there must be some mistake. Made a big show out of taking out the thesis and going over it and acting real surprised. In fact, when Lucas got called before the committee,
“Why?”
“It wasn’t his thesis.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Oh, there was a thesis with ‘by Lucas Monroe’ on the front of it all right, even lots of pages in there that were from his original thesis-most of it, really. But mixed in with the pages Lucas wrote were ones that weren’t his.”
“How could that be?”
“Well, that was the question, of course. Andre Selman stood up for Lucas in front of the committee, went on and on about how he knew that Lucas did fine work and was honest and so on. Then he said, ‘Lucas, you must have your own copy of this thesis. Can you bring it in?’
“And of course, Lucas says he doesn’t even have to go home to get it. Everything is in his office.”
“Which is also Dr. Selman’s office,” I said.
“Exactly right. Now what do you suppose he found there?”
“It was missing.”
She shook her head.
“It was there,” I said slowly, “but Lucas’s own copy matched the committee’s.”
“Yes.”
“But he must have had notes, or some other way to prove-”
“This is where they really did him dirty. This is how someone knew they could get away with this. Did you ever see Lucas’s handwriting?”
“Yes. It wasn’t the best.”
She laughed. “It wasn’t legible, you mean. He used to have trouble reading it himself. Couldn’t always make out his own handwriting if a week or two went by. So he had been typing up his notes since high school. And the same thing was true of his college work; he used to type almost everything. He’d take his notes and forms from the field and type them up. The good part was, it made him go over everything, organize it.”
“I was talking to someone about this the other day. I remembered that he hated to write on the black-board,” I said. “He even typed up overhead transparencies to teach his stat class.”
She nodded. “So going back to that day-he’s in this office, frantic. It’s like something from the
“Who had access to the office?”
“Only a few people. The chair of the department, Lucas, Dr. Selman, another research assistant, and the custodians-who weren’t likely to be typing up fake pages to a thesis. Lucas said the chair of the department was in the clear as far as he was concerned. At first he was just plain puzzled. Figured somebody must have broken into the office. But of course there was no sign of that, and so the committee was growing openly skeptical about Lucas’s innocence.
“So Lucas asked if he could talk to the other student who had access to the room. Nadine Preston was her name. Lucas was about to graduate-at least, that’s what everyone thought-and so, at Dr. Selman’s request, Lucas had been training this Nadine to take his place on the project. Did you know her?”
“No,” I said.
“Pretty little red-haired gal.”
“Red-haired?”
“Yes.”
“She wear it in a bowl cut?”
“Yes! I thought you said you didn’t know her?”
“I didn’t. But I’ve seen a photograph of her. Quite recently.”
21
DID YOU MAILa set of photographs to Ben Watterson?”
“Who?”
“The president of the Bank of Las Piernas.”
Before she could answer, Frank came into the kitchen. He was dressed for work, which reminded me that I needed to get myself into gear.
“Good morning,” she greeted him.
“Good morning,” he answered, and gave my shoulder a squeeze as he walked over to the coffeemaker.
He looked between us as he poured a cup of coffee, then asked, “Are you going into work today, Irene?”
“Yes, although I might go in a little late. June, what are your plans for the day?”
“I guess the first thing I’ll need to do is rent a car.”
“If you only need to get around town-”
“No, I have things to do here, but I need to get back to Riverside to…to make arrangements for the funeral and so on.”
No one said anything.
“Charles offered to drive back down here and pick me up,” she said. “But he works so hard and was up so late last night, I just hate to make him come all the way back out here. And the bus takes twice as long as driving. Besides, what it would cost to take cabs around town and then take the Greyhound home, I’d just as soon rent a car.”
“There’s a rental place downtown,” I said. “I can drop you off on the way to work.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have any other friends in Las Piernas?” Frank asked.
“Other friends?” She laughed softly and shook her head. “No, not now. I moved away from here just after Lucas started college. Our old neighborhood doesn’t even exist anymore. I might be able to find some of the people I knew from the church. Some of those people might still be around here somewhere. I could find out where the church moved to, see if any of my old friends are still in the congregation. But I haven’t seen any of them in so long, I wouldn’t even know who to ask for.”
“What do you mean, your old neighborhood doesn’t exist?” I asked.
“I mean, you go to look for it, you won’t find it. It’s gone. You might find a lot of empty buildings and some vacant lots. That’s all. We used to live in a big old hotel that had been turned into apartments. The landlord let it get so run-down, I hated that place. It wasn’t the worst by any means, but it wasn’t where I wanted my children to live. Lord, how I wanted to move out of that old place.”
“You worked as a teacher then?”
“Yes, but that was before I had a permanent position. We moved a lot when the children were small. My late husband was a good man, but he had trouble holding down a job. And he wasn’t the money-saving kind, if you know what I mean. We never had the ends to pay the rent, nothing. By the time we were living here in Las Piernas-must have been when Lucas was six or seven years old-my husband’s health began to fail. A man can’t drink like that and not have some kind of problem. Soon as I’d get money saved, he’d go into the hospital. Even after he died, it took me a long time to pay off all the hospital bills.” She shrugged. “About the time I got free of
