Mental State, page 7
“Black. A black man.”
“How can you be sure, at this distance?” Royce looked down the sidewalk in the direction of where the person would have been standing.
“He wear shorts. He was dark skin.” Fernandez walked to where he remembered the man standing. “About here. You see my skin, right?”
“Anything else?”
“He wearing a green sweatshirt, and hood pulled over his head.”
It was impossible good luck. Royce typed “Rockefeller University sweatshirt” into Google on his phone. He clicked on the first result. When the sweatshirt came up, he held it out.
“Like this?”
“Color the same. His had a hood.” Fernandez knitted his brow, concentrating. “As I watch him run away, he reach into his pocket and pull out what I think was phone. I don’t think he call anyone—he just look at the phone and put it back in his pocket.”
Royce held out his hand and gave the gardener a two-handed shake. He knew he was right to like him.
CHAPTER 14
Rockefeller Law was a gleaming six-story glass tower among the Gothic architecture of one of the world’s great universities. It looked like investment bankers should be walking the halls talking about reverse triangular mergers instead of avowed Marxists and critical race theorists debating the role of the patriarchy in modern political discourse.
The security agent at the reception desk was distracted by computer solitaire, so Royce could have walked right past him. But he stopped. Every conversation in Alex’s world was a potential lead.
“I’m Alex Johnson’s brother,” he said to the top of the man’s balding head. Seeing his nametag, he added, “Sidney.” The man didn’t look up but motioned toward the sign-in sheet that was set cockeyed on the shelf in front of him. It wasn’t exactly tight security in what was a tough part of town.
“I’m here to pick up his things. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he passed away.” This got Sidney’s attention.
“Oh, yes. I’m so sorry to hear about Professor Johnson. A nice man, always very nice to me.” He fumbled with a directory while he talked. “Let me…just give me—” holding up a finger as he dialed the phone. Royce stepped away and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the vast zero-depth fountain that covered the entire courtyard in front of the building. The Captain would not have approved. A building like this and a fountain like that was a sign there were too many lawyers making too much money.
“Mr. Johnson,” the guard shouted over. “The dean will see you now.”
He got up from his station, put on a green blazer with a Phoenix emblazoned on the pocket and led the way down a long hall, through the student lounge, and over to the dean’s office.
“Good luck,” he said.
It was an odd remark. Royce kept seeing the word “Dean” circled on his desk blotter back in Pittsburgh.
Dean Ostergaard appeared and held out her hand to embrace his with a grip that betrayed her blue-collar roots.
“Sylvia,” she said forcefully, maintaining fierce eye contact and flashing a bright, pearly white smile. Despite her Ivy-League pedigree and the fact she’d lived far from Parkersburg for decades, the hollers of West Virginia were still in her voice. Pittsburgh was just over the hill from West Virginia, and Royce could identify a Mountaineer in even the slightest twang.
“Please. Come in. We are all heartbroken. Can I get you anything?” It ran together awkwardly.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” He was far from fine.
Royce took a seat at the marble side table.
“How can I help you? What can we do for Alex? For you and his family?” Before he could respond, she added with a sense of urgency, “He really was one of our beloved faculty members.”
She put her hand on Royce’s shoulder, and gave a warm smile and a wink. She was trying to charm him, but it was awkward and inappropriate. “Alex was special. We started here just a few years apart, so we went through the trials of the academy together. I really loved him, if you don’t mind me saying so.” Her words were like bullets from a machine gun. In his mind’s eye, Royce tried to dodge them.
The dean reached to the center of the table, took a piece of black licorice out of a Chinese bowl, and put it in her mouth. She chewed on the stringy candy expectantly.
“Well, I’m here for a few reasons. My brother’s things, pictures…knickknacks. His files. That kind of thing.” A bald-faced lie. He wanted the computer. But honesty rarely served the investigative purpose. “Also, I wanted to come and see this place so I could say goodbye. Losing him has opened him up to me. I’m finding I understand him…that I’m closer to him now. More than ever.”
The dean tilted her head and smiled broadly.
“What a wonderful sentiment.”
“Thank you.”
“We can definitely help you with his things. Give us a couple of days?” It was halfway between a question and a command.
Forcing a smile, he decided the woman was not all she seemed.
“Thanks but I’d rather take care of it now. I need to get back to my work. To my family. Is there any reason I can’t just grab a box and get to work?”
“I can certainly find out for you. There are some administrative rules that we need to follow. Let me look into it.” She rose and walked over to her desk. “I’ll send an email to our business manager, and we’ll see what can be done.”
Royce didn’t know the way universities worked, but he doubted the dean of a law school had so little power. She was deliberately not helping him—but why? A murderer? Why would she want to kill Alex? The stakes in the academy seemed far too low for murder.
“I’m not trying to be difficult.” He was.
“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong. I’m just…we do things a certain way around here, and my job is to make sure that I follow the rules to the letter. For all you’ve heard about this place, we are actually very conservative in the way we do things. Change doesn’t happen fast around here.”
“I think I should be totally honest with you, Dean Ostergaard.” He paused for effect. She turned from her computer, her fingers still on the home-row keys. “I’m an FBI agent. I’m leading the federal government’s investigation of my brother’s death.” He let the statement hang in the space between them like a piece of meat hung in a tree hoping to attract a bear. “This isn’t strictly personal. I’m here following leads that originated in Pakistan and ended in my brother’s living room.”
The dean wheeled the rest of her body to catch up to where her eyes were.
“What exactly are you implying?” Her mouth was like sand.
“Do you know anything about my brother’s recent travel? I know he was in Lahore last year, Beirut the year before that.”
“I don’t.” She seemed relieved, perhaps because it was a question should could answer truthfully, he thought. “Each faculty member has a budget for travel, and no one approves trips in advance. Frankly, I don’t know where any of them are on a daily basis. They have to teach their classes and be ‘in residence—’” she made little air quotes with her hands, “—whatever that means, but those are pretty trivial constraints. I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.”
“Hmmm,” he moaned, while pretending to jot something down in a Moleskin notebook he’d pulled out.
“One thing I can tell you is that Alex seems like the least likely person I’ve ever known to be involved in something…”
“It’s way too early to jump to any conclusions. I’m just in the data collection phase.”
“Of course, of course. I’m just a bit rattled.” She walked back over toward him. “We are scrambling to arrange for a suitable way to honor him, to set up counseling for students and staff, and to find replacements to teach his classes and fulfill his other duties. Plus, we all lost a friend. I’m sorry if I’m not thinking straight or as clearly as I should.” Sylvia was pleased with how that came out, and she couldn’t hide the small smile that formed in the corners of her mouth.
“I do have one thing you can help me with.”
She settled back into her chair at the side table but sat like she was on a porcupine.
“Yes, anything.” She stretched her hand out as if inviting him to hold it. He didn’t take it but smiled as though appreciating the gesture.
“I need access to all of your files related to Alex: student records, employment file, expense receipts, evaluations, his work files, that sort of thing. Basically, I need to paint a picture of his activities on campus for the past year or two. Can you pull these together for me? Maybe by the end of the day?”
“As I said…”
“Right,” he nodded, “the procedures.”
“Exactly.”
“Then just point me to the relevant administrator. I’d be happy to go work with them to get what I need.”
The dean stood and walked back behind her desk. By the time she turned around, he was also standing.
“I’d love to help you, but as you can imagine, the things you are asking for are private and quite confidential. We are bound by rules of our university, as well as state and federal law. I can’t do it today.”
He nodded understandingly.
She went on, “Let me confer with the lawyers in the general counsel’s office, and I’ll get back to you. Say, first thing tomorrow?”
Royce shook the dean’s extended hand firmly. He squeezed and looked deeply into her eyes. He saw there what students, faculty, and donors saw—a reflection of their best selves. Sylvia Ostergaard was a blank slate of ambition. People wrote in dusty chalk whatever they wanted on her, and in doing so, saw the very best of themselves and their ideas. Her chameleonic personality enabled her to be a prolific fundraiser and effective dean. It might make her capable of murder.
“I’d appreciate it, Dean Ostergaard. The sooner, the better. I’m afraid there may be forces at work here that aren’t as they seem, and the faster I have what I need, the faster I can stop them.”
“Of course. I’ll be back to you soon.” He took a piece of licorice from the bowl on the table and put it into his mouth. He chewed deliberately, staring at the woman he was increasingly certain played a role in Alex’s death.
Dean Ostergaard patted him on the shoulder and closed the door behind him. She waited until the outer door closed, then walked back over to her desk and picked up the phone.
“We have a problem.”
CHAPTER 15
He wasn’t going to hear from Dean Ostergaard ever again. Only a court order was going to get him what he wanted, and an NSL couldn’t push that far. It was flimsy on its own terms, and the university’s records were outside its obvious scope. The files from Verizon and Bank of America were on the way, but these companies were used to playing ball with the feds. Ever since 9/11, American corporations were practically agents of the government when it came to spying and data mining. But universities were another matter. Nope, they wouldn’t play along, whether out of politics or principles or whatever. They’d have to be forced.
At the security desk, Sidney was doing a Sudoku puzzle.
“Excuse me, I need a favor.”
“Sure, what can I do you for?” So the dean hasn’t called down yet.
“I wanted to get a few personal effects from my brother’s office—family pictures, that sort of thing. Do you think you can help me?”
“No problemo.” Sidney jumped up from his puzzle and pressed the elevator button. “Follow me.”
Minutes later they were standing at an office door where a child’s drawing of Alex hung on the frosted glass.
Sidney keyed Royce in.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Sidney said in a caring tone.
“Thanks, appreciate your help.” Sidney was going to be in hot water and Royce felt a pang of guilt. He took comfort in the fact Sidney’s union would stand up for him. Whatever happened, a greater good was being served.
He shut the door, walked to the center of the expansive office, and spun in a circle taking in the pictures, bobbleheads of judges, mementos from various universities, and piles and piles of books. There was also an incredibly gaudy and profane painting on the wall. It warranted closer scrutiny but he didn’t know if he had minutes or hours. So he took out his phone and photographed everything, then walked over to Alex’s standing desk, where his office computer was plugged into three large monitors. Royce hit the space bar, and a password prompt appeared.
“What’s your password, bro?” He danced his fingers on the home-row keys. Then pulled away.
Combinations of children’s birthdays came to mind, only some of which he could remember. The names of favorite things, his wife’s name. The list quickly became long. The Bureau could access it, but the fewer resources he drew, the better.
He looked up in frustration. Stuck to the corner of the center monitor was a shriveling yellow sticky. On it was written, “Steelers6.” Alex’s favorite team and the number of Super Bowls they’d won.
He typed it into the prompt and the computer came to life. He stuck a flash drive into the USB port on the computer and dragged the Documents and Mail folders over to be copied. This was going to take few minutes.
His eyes scanned the office. On Alex’s desk were pictures of the kids, and in an exquisite silver frame that undoubtedly used to hold a picture of Claire, there was a picture of Alex with five men with cigars and shotguns. He picked it up and looked closely while the flash drive hummed and blinked in the background. The six of them were standing in front of a sign that read: Quail Meadows Gun Club. There was a message written on the photo in a black Sharpie: “Thanks for the great event and your support of public interest scholarships!”
Every year Alex donated a shooting day to an auction where students bid to hang out with their professors. Royce snapped a shot of it and set it back down.
The file transfer was at fifty-seven percent. There were over a hundred unread emails on the computer and nearly eighty thousand saved messages. Clicking on the search bar, he typed in “kill.” Over a thousand messages contained that word in one context or another. Invitations from criminal law conferences, recent case reports, and countless other variations of the word appeared at a quick glance. He even saw one from himself, dated about ten months ago: “I think the Rams are going to kill the Steelers this week—what do you think?”
Royce erased “kill” and put “discuss my grade.” The mail program showed a few lines from each message, in addition to the sender and the subject line.
Quite a few students complained about their grades aggressively, but one stood out. Several months back, a student named Marcus Jones wrote multiple times regarding his performance in Securities Regulation. The first few were relatively benign—a disappointed student, “Student 1189,” whatever that meant, writing to his professor to understand what went wrong. Pleading that there was some sort of mistake. They got more intense. Then they turned desperate, as the student pleaded with Alex to regrade the exam, to reconsider the grade after he had regraded it, to meet in person to discuss it, and to not to get an F. Alex had been firm but compassionate. He listened well, wrote many lengthy emails in response, and offered to help in a variety of ways. Royce smiled. His kid brother had been a caring professor.
The emails turned scary. Marcus told increasingly of his plight, his family’s desperate situation, and the impact that an F was going to have on him and them. The emails got longer, more emotionally charged, and aggressive. The last one, sent shortly before Alex’s murder, made his blood run cold.
Professor Johnson,
I’m sorry it has come to this. I do not understand why you have taken it upon yourself to ruin my life. I’m now deep in debt and unemployable. I will never be able to work myself out of this hole you’ve put me in. I was my family’s hope, and now that hope is lost. I don’t know why you’ve used me to send whatever message you are trying to send to the world, but I can’t allow this to stand. I’m sorry that I have to take matters into my own hands, but this isn’t just my life at stake.
Mr. Jones
Student 1189
Royce read it again. He pressed the printer icon, and heard the printer spin up and spit out a piece of paper on the table behind him. He could see the image in his mind that one of the Fernandez brothers painted for him—a black man in a green hoodie running away from Alex’s house right after the shot.
“Marcus, if you killed my brother, I’m not going to be sorry for what I have to do to you,” he said to the screen.
He pulled the flash drive and ordered an Uber to pick him up. Where he was hoping to go, it would be better to not be seen in Alex’s car.
At the door he listened for noise in the hallway. Minutes later he was in a Nissan Altima that was waiting for him in the law school parking lot.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asked.
“Hold on for a second, will you?”
“It’s your dime, man.”
Royce picked up his Blackberry.
“Vasquez,” he heard on the other end of the line.
“It’s Johnson.”
“Johnson who?”
“Very funny.” Deep breath. “I need a favor.”
“Hey, before that, I’m sorry to hear about your brother.”
“Thanks. Screwed up.”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, man. Just shit. Why’d he do it?”
“I’m not sure he did it.”
“What? I just saw…Your old ASAC told us all this morning—she said it was a seppuku.”
“Well, you know me, never believing the chain of command.”
Vasquez snorted.
“Look, I need a solid from you.”
“Don’t tell me—for old time’s sake?”
“Yeah, for that, and for San Feliz. Remember?”
“You don’t need to sell me, brother. I’m just ridin’ you. What do you need?”
“An address for a Marcus Jones in Chicago, probably. He was a student or maybe is a student at the Rockefeller University Law School. Twenties.”
