Hush Money

CHAPTER TEN

I got to Lillian Temple’s office in the university English department at two o’clock exactly, hoping to impress her with my punctuality. It proved an ineffective approach, because she wasn’t there and the office was locked. I leaned on the wall outside her office until ten minutes past two when she hurried down the hall carrying a big blue canvas book bag jammed with stuff. She didn’t apologize for being late. She was, after all, a professor, and I was a gumshoe. Apology would have been unbecoming. At first glance I figured that Hawk had called it on her appearance, but when we got seated in her small office and I looked at her a little more, I wasn’t so sure.

She was plain, and she was plain in the Cambridge way, in that her plainness seemed a deliberate affectation. Had she chosen to treat her appearance differently, she might have been pretty good-looking. She was in the thirty-five to forty range, tallish, maybe 5’8“, brown hair worn long, no makeup, loose-fitting clothes straight from the J. Crew catalog. Large round eyeglasses, quite thick, with undistinguished frames, a mannish white shirt, chino slacks, white ankle socks, and sandals. She wore no jewelry. No nail polish. Her most forceful grooming statement was that she seemed clean.

“May I see some identification, please,” she said.

I showed her some. She read it carefully. It was a small office on an interior wall, and it was lined with paperback editions of English lit classics: The Mill on the Floss, Great Expectations, case books on English lit classics. Blue exam booklets were stacked in a somewhat unstable pile on a small table behind her chair. Above her desk was a framed diploma from Brandeis University indicating that she had earned a Ph.D. in English language and literature. She wore no perfume, but I could smell her shampoo – maybe Herbal Essence, and the faint odor of bath soap – maybe Irish Spring. I could see the neat part line on the top of her head as she looked down at my credentials.

She looked up finally, and handed me back my identification.

“I’ve asked the department ombudsman, Professor Maitland, to sit in on this interview,” she said.

Ombudsman. Perfect. I looked serious.

“Gee,” I said. “Couldn’t we just leave the door ajar?”

She suspected I might be kidding her, I think, and she decided that her best course was to look serious too.

“Is Amir Abdullah an English professor?” I said.

She thought about my question and apparently decided that it was not a trap.

“Yes,” she said. “African-American literature.”

“But he has offices in the Afro-American Center.”

“The African-American Center, yes, he prefers to be there.”

“And what do you teach?”

“Feminist studies,” she said.

“Anybody teaching dead white guys?” I said. “Shakespeare, Melville, guys like that?”

“Guys,” she said, “how apt.”

I think she was being ironic.

“Apt is my middle name,” I said.

She nodded, still serious.

“Traditional courses are offered,” she said.

A tall handsome man with a thick moustache walked into the office. He had on a brown Harris tweed jacket with a black silk pocket square, a black turtleneck, polished engineer’s boots, and pressed jeans.

“Hi, Lil,” he said, “sorry I’m late.”

He put out his hand to me.

“You must be the detective,” he said. “Bass Maitland.”

He had a big round voice.

“Spenser,” I said.

We shook hands. Maitland threw one leg over the far corner of Lillian’s desk and folded his arms, ready to listen, alert for any improprieties. I restrained myself. Whenever I got involved in anything related to a university, I was reminded of how seriously everyone took everything, particularly themselves, and I had to keep a firm grip on my impulse to make fun.

“I’m here at Lillian’s request,” he said. “My role here is strictly to observe.”

“Open-shuttered and passive,” I said.

He smiled.

“How do you feel,” I said to Lillian Temple, “about the allegation that Robinson Nevins was responsible for the suicide of Prentice Lamont?”

“What?”

“Do you think Nevins had an affair with Lamont? Do you think that the end of the affair caused Lamont’s suicide?”

“I… my God… how would I…?”

“Wasn’t it discussed in the tenure meeting?”

“Yes… but… I can’t talk about the tenure meeting.”

“Of course,” I said, “but such an allegation would certainly have weighed in your decision. How did you vote?”

“I can’t tell you that.” She looked shocked.

“You could tell me how you feel about the allegation.”

She looked at Maitland. Nothing there. She looked back at me.

“Well,” she said.

I waited.

“I feel…,” she said, “that… each person has a right to his or her sexuality.”

“Un huh.”

“But that with such a right there is a commensurate responsibility to be a caring partner in the relationship.” She stopped, pleased with her statement.

“You think Nevins was a caring partner?”

“Not,” she spoke very firmly, “if he left that boy to die.”

“And you think he did,” I said.

“I suspect that he did.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“What are they?”

She shook her head.

“Oh,” I said, “those reasons.”

“There’s no call for sarcasm,” she said.

“The hell there isn’t,” I said.

“I think that’s probably enough, Mr. Spenser,” Maitland said.

“It’s not enough,” I said. “But it’s all I can stand.”

I stood. Maitland still sat half on the desk, looking bemused and neutral. Lillian Temple sat straight in her swivel chair, both feet flat together on the floor, her hands folded in her lap, looking implacable. I got to my feet.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you more,” she said. “But I do not take my responsibilities lightly.”

“You don’t take anything lightly,” I said.

As I walked past the African-American Center on my way to the parking lot, I thought that while I had been fiercely bullshitted in the English department, no one had tried to kick my head off. Which was progress.