Death by Dissertation (16 page)

There was a certain amount of satisfaction in Logan’s tone, as if he had been delighted to see Whitelock come out the loser in that particular incident.

“That didn’t stop Julian, though,” Logan went on. “He’s always had a thing for students, although he was careful to make certain that they were of age. I used to imagine that he asked to see their birth certificates first.” He looked directly at me, and I couldn’t suppress a somewhat embarrassed smile of complicity. “But Julian did manage to keep his nose clean, so to speak, after that. As he grew older, he grew wiser. He began to find the charms of older women more enticing, though he still couldn’t quite manage to separate his work from his private life.” Logan’s gaze slid away from mine.

What was that supposed to mean? Was he hinting that Whitelock had messed around with someone in the department? Once more thinking of Azalea’s reaction to Whitelock’s death, I nearly choked on the tea I had just sipped. I had speculated that Azalea might have been the woman in Whitelock’s sex tapes, but I hadn’t seriously believed this was what Logan was hinting at.

Evidently, Logan had decided to say no more on the subject, because he went quickly on to something else. “Julian has been something of a jinx on his male students as well. Two of them have died violent deaths.” He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what he had to do with either of the deaths, if anything, but the coincidences are startling, to say the least.”

I ventured a remark. “I know about Charlie, sir, only too well, but what other student of Dr. Whitelock’s died violently?”

Logan blinked at me. “That was poor Philip Dunbar. He was one of the best graduate students we’ve ever had in this program, and he would have made a fine historian, poor lad, had he lived to fulfill his promise.”

The name “Dunbar” made me flash on the truth. The Dunbar Award, that macabre little statue in the graduate lounge.

Logan noticed my reaction. “I see you’ve made the connection with the award.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir, but I’m afraid I don’t really know the story.”

He refilled his teacup, then continued. “About five years ago, Julian had an exceptional student named Philip Dunbar. He was a handsome and gifted young man, and he passed his qualifying exams with the highest honors. He spent several months in Paris and provincial French archives, doing research for his dissertation. He and Julian had apparently agreed, very loosely, on a topic. Julian was rather afraid of him, I think, so he didn’t supervise Philip closely. Julian knew Philip needed him only for a signature on his dissertation.” Logan sighed sadly. “In this case, the student had outpaced the master, and Julian was smart enough, as were the rest of us, to realize that.

“Well, Philip had completed his dissertation. I believe he had even typed it himself. This was before all of you students had word processors at home. Philip was on his way to have copies of the dissertation made for his readers when he was killed in an accident on the freeway. The car exploded and destroyed everything.”

Logan fell silent, and I felt great sadness for the violent end to such promise. The story, coming on top of everything that had happened in the past two days, touched me in a way that even the deaths of Charlie and Dr. Whitelock had not.

“So someone established an award in his name,” I said finally. “The money that’s given each year to a graduate student for travel expenses for dissertation research.” Once again, my mind unwillingly conjured up an image of that grisly little statue.

Logan must have seen the sick look on my face, but he couldn’t know just what bothered me so much. I made an effort to control my emotions, and he continued.

“Yes, that’s right. Philip’s family gave the money to begin with, and people associated with the university more than tripled the original sum, so it grew to quite a valuable prize.” He sighed. “But at such cost. We wanted to look at Philip’s dissertation, since it was supposedly complete, with a view to awarding his degree posthumously and even trying to get it published, if possible. Julian was in charge, of course, since Philip had been his student. But look how we might, we couldn’t find any other copy of it. Julian swore at the time that he hadn’t seen any of it, other than a brief proposal. It seems so bizarre now, but Philip had either destroyed any copies he had, or else he had them with him in the car when he died. No rough drafts of the manuscript were found, only some of his note cards.” Logan shook his head and looked at me, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “Even Philip’s close friends, Selena Bradbury and Margaret Wilford, couldn’t explain it.”

The sadness of the story touched me deeply; but, although poignant, and certainly curious, in light of what had happened to Charlie Harper and Julian Whitelock, it seemed to have little to do with the murders, as far as I could tell. The only link was that statue. I found it hard to believe that all traces of Dunbar’s dissertation had vanished. What if someone had found a copy? But surely it would have surfaced by now. Though the story didn’t seem relevant, I supposed that Logan wanted me to know, for some reason. Maybe he just needed to talk to someone, but I had the idea there might be more to it than that.

Logan seemed to have run out of things to say, and I decided I had better be on my way and get the fingerprint business taken care of. I didn’t relish the thought, but I wanted to do my duty as a good—and innocent—citizen.

“Thank you for the tea, sir.” I stood up. “I feel better now. I think I needed it more than I had realized. And our discussion has been quite... well... enlightening.”

Logan shot me a sharp look, but he stood up to usher me out of the office. “You’re quite welcome, Andy. You should never underestimate the effects of shock.” He paused, and I registered once again the tiredness in his face. “We’re all terribly upset right now.” He shook his head. “Such a tangled web. Well, with regard to our conversation this morning, I’m certain you’ll be discreet.” He looked expectantly at me, and I dutifully nodded before I left.

As the door closed behind me, I glanced around the hall. Logan’s office was at the same end of the hallway as Whitelock’s, and Dr. Farrar’s office was between the two. I wondered if she had observed anything. Had she heard Rob’s argument with Whitelock? And maybe she had heard anyone else who had talked with the man. If he had contacted his videotape partner, as we suspected he must have, he might have talked to one or more in person. Surely the police would be checking phone records. But of course, I didn’t have access to phone records. Maybe, just maybe, Dr. Farrar might have noticed whoever came in and out of Whitelock’s office the day before.

I decided to wait until later to ask her about it. For once, her office was dark. Besides, Herrera wouldn’t be happy if he discovered I talked to her before he did.

I glanced at my watch. It was already eleven o’clock, and I was getting pre-lunch munchies. I often reacted to stress this way. Since one of my few physical gifts was a metabolism that made binge munching of little consequence, I decided to look for Maggie and Rob and persuade them to join me. I didn’t have any set time to share my fingerprints with the campus police.

I walked through the halls of the fifth floor, looking and listening, but didn’t catch any glimpse of them. A peek in the door of the department office earned me a dagger-sharp glare from Azalea. I grinned at her in defiance, then withdrew.

Maybe the police had finished with them and they were both on the fourth floor. I took the stairs near the grad lounge. I was right. Maggie and Rob, along with Bella and Bruce, were huddled around Maggie’s carrel.

“Are you kidding?” I heard Bella hiss as I approached. “She and Whitelock were screwing each other’s brains out!”

Chapter Fifteen

“Surely not,” Maggie protested, as I walked up. The others barely acknowledged my presence, they were so intent on what Bella had to say.

“They were,” Bella asserted, looking to Bruce for confirmation.

He nodded. “We saw them not long ago. We were down in Galveston with the mayor one weekend, and we saw the two of them together at a restaurant.”

“Maybe he was just taking her out for a meal,” Rob offered, “to thank her for doing something extra for him.” Even he didn’t believe his own explanation.

Bella sniffed. “Professors who want to say thanks to secretaries take them to the Faculty Club for lunch or send them a big bouquet. They don’t go all the way to Galveston on a weekend.” Her scorn was sharper than necessary.

I decided I had waited long enough to find out who “she” was. “Who are you talking about, Bella?”

“Azalea Westover and Julian Whitelock, of course.” She seemed surprised that I had to ask.

I glanced at Maggie, then at Rob, the three of us trying carefully to seem nonchalant. None of us wanted Bella to know how important this information could be.

“That’s why she overreacted this morning when she slapped you, Rob,” Bella concluded with smug satisfaction. “She thought you’d killed her lover.”

That explanation made sense, and if Azalea had thought she and Whitelock were going to be the victims of blackmail at Rob’s hands, her reaction signaled the depth of her unease. Perhaps it was time to have a talk with the police and give Herrera a hint where to look.

“I have to say, though,” Maggie interjected, “that they seem like an awfully odd couple.”

“
Chacun a son gout
,” Bella observed, with an accent that sounded more Urdu than French, but we all got the point. “Besides,” she went on, her voice dripping with venom, “you don’t think that dear ol’ Julian contented himself with just li’l ol’ Azalea, now do you?”

I had the impression that a theatrical gasp would be just what Bella wanted. Maggie obliged, with a quick wink in my direction. Bella liked to think that Maggie was slow on the uptake, and Maggie was usually willing to play along, for reasons of her own.

“Really, Bella,” she whispered. “What do you mean?”

“Selena Bradbury,” Bella replied, nodding her head. “I’ll bet you she’s logged a few hours in Julian’s bed.”

“Oh, come on!” Maggie said, frowning. “Did you ever see the two of them together anywhere?”

“Well, no,” Bella was forced to admit, the reluctance obvious in her voice. She thought for a moment, then brightened. “But they’d act kind of strange around each other. You know, like people who are more intimate than they want anyone to know. I caught them a couple of times in ol’ Julian’s office, and the air was distinctly heavy between them.”

Maybe Bella wasn’t exaggerating, for once, and Whitelock had been having an affair with Selena, as well as with Azalea. I had difficulty imagining the Ice Queen in bed with anyone, let alone with someone who liked his sex kinky. Then again, I mused, maybe that was exactly what Selena liked. I could easily see her as a control freak.

A new voice broke into the discussion. “Don’t you guys have something bet¬ter to do than disturb the real scholars around here?” Dan Erickson had come quietly from his carrel and stood grinning. “What’s all this frantic whispering about, anyway?”

“Gossip, what else?” Maggie replied, her voice cool. She and Dan had dated a few times, but then they stopped. Maggie hadn’t told me why, but she had been polite and reserved with him ever since. Dan pretended not to notice anything off-putting in her manner and always treated her with friendly courtesy. Their paths didn’t cross that much anymore, because Dan, in the final stages of his dissertation, spent most of his time writing, either at home or in his carrel—when he wasn’t working. I wondered again about his job at a gay and lesbian bookstore. Curious, to say the least.

Bella failed to notice the coolness between the couple. Bent on spreading the dirt, she quickly filled Dan in on what we had been talking about.

“How tacky.” He gave Bella a sardonic look.

Maggie, unable to help herself, grinned at Dan, then quickly extinguished the grin when he grinned back.

Taking for granted that Dan meant Whitelock, Bella said, “The man had all the self-control of Jell-O in the desert. He just couldn’t keep his pants zipped. You should have seen the way he leered at some of the freshman girls in his class!”

Bella could cheerfully have sat all afternoon chattering away, but Maggie had had enough. “Well, guys,” she said, “I hate to shoo you away when we’re having such fun trashing somebody’s reputation, but I’ve got to go over my paper for this afternoon.”

“Oh, no,” Rob cried, “I forgot you were reading your paper at the Medieval Club today!”

I had forgotten as well, but we all had sufficient cause. Anyway, with the murders of two members of the group, composed of medievalists from the various disciplines around campus, the ranks of attendees might be a little thin. Then again, maybe not—academics were no less ghoulish than the rest of the population, and where better to gather the latest dirt?

Bella stood up reluctantly. There was nothing she disliked more than a short session minding someone else’s business. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “Besides, I’m ready for lunch. All the excitement this morning has made me hungry.” With another goal now in mind, she disappeared rapidly, Bruce on her heels. Next to gossip, Bella adored food more than anything else. Fortunately for her dynamite figure, she had a metabolism even more active than mine.

Maggie, Rob, Dan, and I stared after the other two, trying not to laugh. Thank God for Bella, I thought affectionately. Nobody else could invest the situation with quite that note of vulgar normalcy. Life must go on, and Bella would enjoy every minute of it.

“Anybody for lunch?” Dan asked.

“Might as well,” Maggie replied, as Rob and I nodded.

The four of us spent a companionable hour at the cafeteria in the student center, discussing anything but the murders. Dan talked a lot about his favorite subject—the post-doc at Harvard for which he had applied. He never needed much encouragement; he couldn’t see why we weren’t as fascinated as he was by the topic. We also managed, eventually, to talk about Maggie’s paper, which examined the role of Matilda, the queen of Henry I of England, as her husband’s regent in his frequent absences from England.