Tamarack River Ghost (26 page)

“So, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on? How naïve can you be? You young assistant professors are all the same. Dumb and naïve. I came up with the same figures you did, and then I changed them a little. Made it look like the people of Ames County, and especially those living in the Tamarack River Valley, really wanted to see a new industry come their way.”

A different Emily than the one Randy had come to know was now speaking, and he was more than a little concerned about what he was hearing.

“But why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I believe the folks in the Tamarack River Valley deserve a boost to their economy. This big Nathan West operation will change everything for them, give them a glimpse into the future, a chance to change their outlooks. Don’t you think this happens all the time? These people don’t know what they want; how can they? Most of them have never left the valley. How could they know about a better life? Sometimes people need others to show them the way. Show them a better life in spite of themselves.”

Randy couldn’t believe what he was hearing; it didn’t make sense. Surely she must have another reason for doctoring the data. But what would that be?

“Don’t you know the risks you’ve taken in doing this, both for yourself and for me?” Randy asked.

“Risks, what risks? Do you see what I have here?” She reached into her purse and pulled out an iPad.

“Looks like an iPad to me.”

“How right you are.”

“So what’s that got to do with what we’re talking about?”

Emily used her index finger to unlock the device, then she touched the video icon on the screen, which opened up a folder. She selected one and opened it. “Here, have a look,” she said as she passed the device to Randy.

“Where’d this come from . . . where’d you get this?” Randy blurted out. His face turned a bright red as he looked at a full-color video. It was dark and grainy, but he could quickly see that both he and his graduate student were easily recognizable and doing something he hoped no one else would see.

“I’m sure you remember what happened in my bed a few nights ago. Well, what you didn’t know was that I recorded it all. I’ve got several copies, as well. That’s why I’m not worried about what I did. You say one word about me changing numbers on the research report, and a DVD of this little event will appear mysteriously on our department chairman’s desk.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Randy. He could feel perspiration beading on his forehead.

“Try me. Just try me.” Emily grabbed back her iPad and left the office.

Randy pounded his hand against his head. “What is going on?” he said aloud.

“Who is Emily Jordan? Surely not the person I’ve come to know.”

Although May was right around the corner, the last Wednesday in April was unusually chilly, even for central Wisconsin. Only two days earlier, after many area farmers had their potato and oat crops planted and vegetable growers had their peas and early sweet corn in, it snowed two inches, destroying anybody’s hopes that maybe this year spring would succeed in pushing winter aside before May. The snow stayed; it didn’t melt as it fell. It accumulated and even threatened to make those who put away their shovels find them again. The April snow put everyone in a deep funk, including Fred and Oscar, who sat at their regular Wednesday-morning table in Christo’s.

“So whaddya make of the snow, Oscar?” Fred asked.

“Not much. Don’t think much of it at all. Kind of pretty, though. Kind of a pretty snow, all white and fluffy.”

“Oscar, you are losin’ it. This time of year, no damn snow is pretty. Not one little bit pretty. People are sick to death of snow. They want spring. People have had it with winter,” said Fred.

“I suppose so,” said Oscar. “I can sure tell you don’t want no more winter.”

“You sure got that right, Oscar.”

With coffee refills, the two old men gazed out the window at the bright sun working hard to melt any last snow remnants from the restaurant’s lawn that fronted the Tamarack River, now running full and fast.

“Say, Fred, did you get a copy of
Farm Country News
in the mail yesterday?”

“I did. Good to see them back in business. I need to read a farm paper every week, see what’s going on. See what the farmers are gettin’ for their milk, that sort of thing. Check on the price for live hogs.”

“Did you read it?”

“Sure, skimmed right through it. Looked for stuff that’s interesting to me. The way I always did. Not much to it, I must say. Read it all in about fifteen minutes. Didn’t find what I kinda liked reading every week, though. Didn’t find it.”

“What was that?”

“That stuff this M.D. guy wrote almost every week. I like that guy’s spunk. Lotta spunk there. Even liked his attempts at poetry. I liked the farm cartoons too. Guy who draws them is from Iowa—gave me a chuckle every week. Yes they did. Everybody needs a chuckle once in a while. At least once a week.”

“So you really didn’t read much of the farm news?”

“Didn’t say that. Said I skimmed the farm news,” said Fred.

“You wanna hear what the new owner has planned for the paper?”

“Do I have a choice? I know you’re gonna tell me.”

Oscar took a long drink of coffee. “First off, this is the last copy of
Farm Country News
you’re gonna find in your mailbox.”

“Last copy. I thought this was the first one under new ownership; I did glance at the part about new ownership.”

“The paper is gonna be in electronic format, with only one print edition a month.”

“In what kind of format?”

“Electronic, which means you will have to read it on your computer.”

“I don’t own no damn computer. Don’t intend to buy one either.”

“Then you’ll see
Farm Country News
just once a month, and it won’t come to your mailbox either. You’ll have to pick it up at the feed store, or the John Deere dealer, or the bank. And it will be free.”

“Free, huh? Sounds like that’s what it will be worth.”

“It’s the wave of the future, Fred. The way newspapers in the country are headed.”

“What about all us old timers who don’t, and never will, have computers? What about us?”

“Guess you’ll have to buy one, Fred.”

“So I gotta buy a computer to read news about farmin’, and I get to read the
Farm Country News
on a TV screen.”

“Something like that, Fred.”

“Where’s it gonna end, Oscar? When’s all this newfangled stuff gonna quit comin’ at us? It’s about to drive me just a little crazy.”

“You sure it hasn’t already, Fred?”

“You want a kick in the leg, Oscar?” Fred picked up his coffee cup and looked out the window at the Tamarack River.

“You got your fishin’ license yet, Fred? Opening day for trout fishin’ is coming up before you can say ‘dig for some more worms.’”

“Don’t you worry about me none; I’ll have my license in plenty of time. Wouldn’t want to miss opening day on the Willow River Millpond for anything.”

“That old millpond sure attracts fishermen, just like flies to a cow pie. They come from all over: Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Appleton, Madison, Milwaukee. Come from all over to try and catch one of those little native brook trout,” said Oscar.

“Not something a person would want to miss, seein’ all those folks trying to catch a fish. Something to see, for sure,” said Fred as he set down his coffee cup and stood up.

“Where you goin’?”

“Home.”

“Why?”

“’Cause that’s where I live, and I’ve got stuff to do. I’m a busy guy, or haven’t you noticed?”

“Nope, I haven’t noticed,” said Oscar, smiling. Both old men left the restaurant laughing.

Randy spent two sleepless nights after his office meeting with his graduate student. She admitted she had doctored the research results she had reported at the Willow River meeting. Even more disturbing, she had threatened that if he told anyone about her manipulation of research data, she would make sure the chair of the Department of Agribusiness Studies would get an incriminating DVD.

Her reasons for tampering with the data didn’t make sense. Did she really believe she was helping the citizens of the Tamarack River Valley with her actions? What should he do? For three days, he rolled the alternatives around in his mind: not say anything to anyone about Emily’s admission of changing research numbers, say that she had made an honest mistake and reveal the true numbers, or go to the department chair and tell the truth in all its gory detail.

He considered the ramifications of each. If he said nothing, the phone calls about the research data would keep coming in. He would need to have an answer for these callers, and he didn’t have one.

He could make a case for the second alternative. He could say that in their haste to put together the numbers for the meeting, they had simply made some honest mistakes in analyzing the survey data. He would apologize, probably get a reprimand from the department chair, and the whole thing would blow over—he hoped. But Emily was still the unknown. What would she do? She had incriminating evidence against him and could, and probably would, hold it over his head throughout her PhD program. What if she ran into difficulty with a required course—say, advanced statistics? Would she come to him and say she would tell the
world about their little roll in the hay if he didn’t make the problem she was having go away?

The third alternative would be to go to Professor Evans and tell him what had happened, that his graduate student had manipulated the numbers—on purpose. That it was not an error. He wouldn’t mention that he and Emily had slept together. That little error in judgment he would keep to himself, unless Emily filed a sexual harassment suit against him. Then everything would hit the fan. He knew the university’s rules about sexual harassment; breaking them was grounds for dismissal. He would be looking for another job, and with this blemish on his record, finding another university research position would be difficult, if not impossible. Randy knew what he must do. He contacted the department administrator and set up a meeting for the following morning with the department chair.

Professor Evans sat behind his big wooden desk, with piles of paper on each side of it and on the chairs nearby and books stacked on the floor. He looked his dapper self, his signature bowtie standing out against his white shirt and his blue blazer hung behind the office door. With a corner office on the third floor of Agriculture Hall, he had a view of Lake Mendota to the north and campus buildings to the east.

He stood to shake Randy’s hand.

“How are things going, Randy? The research project on track?” he asked.

Randy expected him to ask about the phone calls Evans had been receiving from the press and others asking about the numbers presented at the Willow River meeting.

“I know you’ve been getting phone calls about the Willow River meeting,” Randy began.

“Yes, I have. Do you have some answers for me?”

“I do. That’s why I’m here this morning.” Randy opened his manila folder and pulled out Emily’s computer spreadsheets and his own hand-tally sheets.

Evans pushed aside some of the clutter on his desk to make room for the papers.

“These are our tally sheets for the one question on our survey that asked if the communities supported large, confined hog operations.”

Evans peered at the numbers and said “hmm” a couple of times.

“How do you account for the differences? Did Emily make some big mistakes along the way?”

“No, she didn’t. I asked her about the numbers, and she said she first came up with the exact numbers that I did.”

“What happened?”

“She manipulated them. Changed them.”

“Why would she do that?” Evans had a perplexed look on his face.

“She said that the good people of Ames County, especially the Tamarack River Valley, needed an economic boost and this new hog facility would provide it. She correctly figured that our research findings would influence the decision-making, and it seems that they did.”

“Randy, these are serious accusations. You realize that, of course. Do you have any proof beyond these tally sheets and what she told you?”

“I don’t. But these sheets seem to speak for themselves.”

“They do. But we don’t have any evidence of intent. Do you believe the reasons she gave for changing the numbers?”

“She seemed sincere, seemed to believe she was doing the right thing. But I must say, I have my doubts about her reasons for changing the data.”

“Hmm,” Evans said. He rubbed his chin with his hand. “Hmm,” he said again.

“Well, thank you, Randy, for sharing all this. You realize this casts a long shadow on your research supervision. It was your responsibility to make sure your numbers were accurate before they were presented to the public.”

Randy could see Evans was clearly agitated, his normally smiling face frowning. He tapped a pencil on the desk.

“I know that. I know it’s not an excuse, but we were in a hurry to have something ready for the meeting, and I didn’t take time to check Emily’s work.”

“You should have found some time, or you should have cancelled your appearance there.” Evans’s voice was stern and a bit too loud for the setting.

“I know that now.”

“Is Emily Jordan in this morning? I need to talk with her.”

“She is. Do you want me to ask her to come in?”

“Please. And leave these tally sheets with me.”

“Of course.”

Emily was her usual upbeat self. To see and hear her around the department, you would not realize that she and her major professor faced serious problems.

“Emily,” Randy said when he approached her desk. “Professor Evans would like a word with you.”

“About what?” She had noticed that Randy had just come out of Evans’s office.

“He’s waiting to see you,” Randy said.

Emily slowly got up from her chair, glared at Randy, and walked toward Professor Evans’s open office door.

“Emily, good to see you,” Evans said as he rose from his desk and shut the door behind her. “Appreciate that you could stop by.”

“Glad to do it, Professor Evans. How can I help?”