Read Cold Rain Online

Authors: Craig Smith

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Thrillers, #Crime, #Thriller

Cold Rain (7 page)

BOOK: Cold Rain
3.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

I still had a class to teach that afternoon.

‘I haven’t even read the assignment yet, I’ve been so busy!’

We shook hands and parted like friends, but I left the meeting with that sick feeling one gets when one’s lies are not properly and politely swallowed. This would get back to his mother. Instead of feeling guilty, I was irritated at myself. I should have told Walt upfront I couldn’t do what he asked. Failing that, I should have given the manuscript a couple of hours and then told Roger that was what I had done, two hours, and this is what I think.

Did I regret my failure to act properly? Well, not really. Like most people, my only regret was getting caught.

 

DENISE WAITED FOR ME after class that afternoon.

I was not in a particularly good mood, and the sight of Buddy’s girlfriend with that we-need-to-talk look on her pale, lonesome face put me on the defensive.

‘Is this about Buddy?’

Denise shook her head morosely.

I relaxed but only slightly. ‘You don’t like
Medea
?’

She stared at me as if I had written the thing for Euripides. ‘I hate it! I hate the Greeks!’

‘Let me guess. She killed her own kids.’

‘It’s sick!’

‘You need to speak up in class, Denise. That’s the best place to talk about something you don’t like.

You’d be surprised how many people will back you up if you speak your mind.’

‘What’s the
Aeneid
about?’

I smiled. ‘We’re just reading a single passage, the love story between Aeneas and Dido. Not even adultery if you can believe it. Exactly your kind of story.

Except... well, she kills herself.’

‘Why?’

‘Why else? Aeneas leaves her.’

‘Men are pigs.’

‘All men or just the ones you sleep with?’

Denise looked like I had slapped her, and I apologized. I said I was out-of-line. I didn’t mean it. Bad day. She smiled, but it wasn’t as forgiving as I would have liked.

 

FOLLOWING THAT ABYSMAL day of quarrels and miscues, I managed to bury myself in my work. I expected Buddy to drop my class. I even thought Denise Conway might.

To my surprise, Buddy returned to class the following week with a good attitude. He was not especially attentive to me, but he did his work. His comments about the writings of others were competent, even insightful.

In fact, he was pretty good at finding both the positive and negative with the occasional plot twist that even left the prof nodding with approval. I had seen this kind of thing before, a student with modest abilities as a writer suddenly emerging as a potentially outstanding teacher of writing.

In my worst fears I was that guy. Under different circumstances I probably would have approached Buddy to let him know I was impressed with his involvement. Even though it was the right thing to do, I just couldn’t manage it. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like the way he treated Walt or for that matter Denise.

And Denise had become important to me in her own right. To my surprise, she took my advice about speaking up in class. She actually began raising her hand on a regular basis. She was blunt, sometimes funny, sometimes the star of the discussion. An issues-kind-of-student, Denise could complain about Dido’s lack of professionalism with a straight face. She had a country to run. Sure, she had feelings, but she had responsibilities too! Didn’t she think about that? ‘I mean the world isn’t all guys! There’s other things important too!’

Othello got no sympathy. What a dumbass! Hamlet needed to get laid. And what was with Ophelia? What was the real message here? Girls are nothing without guys?

If a teacher is lucky, there’s always one student who can jumpstart a flagging discussion or, in my case, a flagging semester. That was Denise Conway for me, and in various ways I let her know I was proud of her.

Whether in response to my encouragement or because of her own unexpected excitement for all things literary Denise liked to drop by my office two or three times a week. She had an idea for one of the required papers and we talked through that. Another time, she wanted to talk about changing jobs. Did I have any ideas? Jobs? As in no more dancing? She was, she said, starting to feel like a piece of meat. I talked about student worker programs. One day, she came in looking exhausted. There had been trouble at the club the night before. The police had come. One of the patrons had gone to the hospital, one to jail. Walt was there. Walt had crawled under his table. I told her Walt wasn’t the man for a crisis. No argument there, but the student worker thing was looking better and better. I made a call across campus and got her set up to meet someone.

The next day Denise dropped in to tell me Buddy didn’t want her to quit her job at The Slipper. Could I believe that?

I made a point of asking her some hard questions about the relationship and what she thought the future might hold.

‘You know,’ I said finally, ‘when you’re into something like you are, a business like that, it feels like you don’t have options. People make you believe you can’t do something else. But you can do what you decide you want to do, Denise. It might cost. It might even bruise you, but you alone have the power to change your own life, if that’s what you want.’

Denise missed the next class. The day following that, I got a call from Leslie Blackwell in Affirmative Action.

Could I come across campus and talk to her?

We made an appointment for the following morning.

Chapter 6

AS A RULE I DIDN’T talk much with Molly about what went on at school. It was my way of separating my realities, and she was okay with that. She knew Buddy Elder was taking my class, but not that he and I had squared off in my office. I told her Buddy’s stripper girlfriend was taking my Intro to Literature class but that was the extent of it. I certainly didn’t tell her I had been summoned to appear at the office of Affirmative Action. It was simply not Molly’s world.

She had no interest in it.

Affirmative Action operated under the control of the university president as an investigatory agency.

Through its work, the president’s office monitored every aspect of the university’s compliance to federal law regarding civil rights, including sexual discrimination.

Are departments hiring a racially and culturally diverse faculty? Are women treated without bias, provided with the same opportunities, paid according to the same scale as men? Affirmative Action’s mandate was to investigate, and naturally the office intruded into business that various professors and departments considered their own.

At that stage, however, most of us were used to investigations. Though it was a bit intimidating getting The Call, most of us had learned to pass it off as part of the modern landscape. Having been interviewed a couple of times in cases relating to Walt, I was actually used to it, and I had no reason to believe this would be any different. All the same, I did not know Leslie Blackwell and decided to check her out through the university website the evening before our appointment. I discovered she was an acting director and new to campus that fall, complete with a doctor’s degree in law. I recall thinking that might not be a good thing for Walt, and my first impression of Dr Blackwell the following morning confirmed it.

Leslie Blackwell was a beautiful woman, thus had endured more than her fair share of unwelcome advances. Young enough to want to nurture her career, entrenched enough in bureaucratic matters that she had confidence, she would be, I thought, the kind to confront threats of legal action head-on, and take Walt through every hoop, from complaint to early retirement. Poor Walt.

I had it figured almost perfectly. In fact, I only missed the object of Dr Blackwell’s new passion in life.

She placed me at the side of her rather imposing desk, smiled prettily and wasted no time informing me that two of my students, Denise Conway and Johnna Masterson, had charged me with sexual harassment.

While I tried to fathom what in the world had precipitated a complaint, Dr Blackwell informed me that it was her job to investigate, that she needed to ask me a few questions in an attempt to verify the statements of the two women, and that I should be aware that sexual harassment was a federal crime, punishable by imprisonment in a federal facility.

Leslie Blackwell’s queries came with all of the subtlety of a concussion grenade. Did I sometimes use the phrase bodacious ta-tas to describe female breasts? Of course not. Was I in the habit of talking about talent when I meant the woman had large breasts? Not at all. Had Denise Conway ever been in my office? Certainly. Did I talk about how much I liked her hair? I had commented on it once, as I recalled. Had we talked about the possibility of her dancing in the nude while I watched? Once, I believe. Maybe a couple of times.

I found myself crossing my legs and settling my hands squarely in my lap at this point. I expect Leslie Blackwell got that from a lot of men.

Had I ever been to a bar called Caleb’s with Denise Conway? Yes. Had we ever discussed the kind of movies she liked to see? Yes. Had I invited Johnna Masterson to my house? Yes. Had I invited other students? Of course. Had I ever told Buddy Elder I thought Johnna Masterson had extraordinary talent? I had. Had Johnna presented to the class a story called ‘Sexual Positions?’

Yes. Which was about underage sex? Yes. Was oral sex involved? A couple examples of it, as I recalled, neither to completion. Had I told the class it was delightful? No. I said it was funny as hell.

Did I refer to it, Johnna’s story, in later classes by title? I had. Had I talked to Walt Beery about Johnna Masterson’s breasts? The topic came up. Had the word, and excuse her please for being so blunt, tits come up? Yes, it usually did when I talked with Walt. And bodacious ta-tas? Walt said tits, I said the other. She scribbled excitedly. Hadn’t I denied using that word?

No. I wasn’t in the habit of using it. But sometimes I did use it?

‘Use what?’

‘The term bodacious ta-tas.’ It actually looked like it hurt her to say the word.

‘Depends,’ I said, doing my best Bill Clinton, ‘on how one defines
sometimes
.’

More notes. Had I tried to get Denise Conway to give up her job as a dancer, promising her I would arrange to get her something on campus in Work Study?

I said I had made a call to Work Study to help her set up an appointment. Had I ever asked Denise about her relationship with Buddy Elder? Yes. Did I ask if they lived together? Yes. Had I inquired about their living expenses, who paid for what? Yes. Had I ever suggested that Buddy Elder was in trouble in my class?

No. Had I asked her if the men she slept with were all pigs? Yes. Had I made jokes to Denise Conway about adultery? Yes. Incest? No. Had I told my class that in the Old Testament adultery applied only to married women, that married men sleeping with unmarried women committed no sin whatsoever? Yes.

Had I called it the Golden Age of Patriarchy? Guilty.

Had I ever made jokes about homosexual monkeys?

‘Chimps.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Homosexual chimps,’ I said, ‘tossing quarters on the shower floor.’

After a moment of murderous contemplation, Dr Blackwell asked me if I thought such humour was appropriate?

‘Seemed so at the time.’

When Leslie Blackwell had finished her questions, she capped her ink pen and gave me a cool gotcha smile. ‘I should tell you you’re entitled to legal representation.’

‘I guess you should have told me that before you asked your questions.’

‘This is just a preliminary investigation, Mr Albo.

If the charges have any validity, I will forward them to the vice president for academic affairs, and he will conduct a formal inquiry.’

‘What exactly are the charges?’

Dr Blackwell blinked as if talking to an idiot. ‘Sexual harassment.’

‘Sexual harassment involves unwanted sexual advances, bargaining sex for a grade, that kind of thing. Are you saying I did that?’

‘I’m not saying you did anything at this point. I’m simply looking at the complaints as they were filed.’

‘May I see the complaints?’

‘The actual complaints are part of my work product at this point.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that material is not available to you until I’ve completed my investigation.’

 

I WANTED TO KILL Buddy Elder, but the moment I left Leslie Blackwell’s office I had more pressing concerns. I called our lawyer and told her what had happened.

‘I want to know what the charges are, and they’re refusing to provide me with copies of the complaints.’

‘Give me the name,’ Gail Etheridge answered. I did, and Gail told me she would take care of it.

I thought about going to Walt Beery, if only to gather courage from the voice of experience, but I decided there was an outside chance that Leslie Blackwell would actually keep the investigation confidential, as that was university policy.

The following Monday, four days after my interview, Dean Lintz called me into his office. He shut the door and sat down behind his desk. ‘What the hell is going on, Dave?’

‘You tell me,’ I said.

‘Leslie Blackwell in Affirmative Action informs me that two of your students have brought charges against you.’

‘What kind of charges?’

‘Sexual harassment. Look, don’t play the innocent with me. I know you’ve been told what’s going on.’

‘Do you have the complaints?’

‘Of course not. That’s confidential.’

‘Then why are we talking?’

‘There’s some concern that you will attempt to approach some of the witnesses. Dr Blackwell wants you to understand that any attempt to talk to anyone involved in the investigation will result in your immediate suspension.’

‘Who are the people involved?’

‘She says you have that information. You want to be careful, David. There’s a general feeling that Affirmative Action hasn’t done a good job for quite a while. That’s why they brought Blackwell in. People want to see her take somebody down, and she knows it.’

I gave Dean Lintz a relaxed smile. At least it was meant to be relaxed. ‘Wrong man, wrong case.’

BOOK: Cold Rain
3.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Husbands by Adele Parks
Erotic Encounters by Gentry, Samantha
Hidden Scars by Amanda King
Masquerade of Lies by Wendy Hinbest
Bittersweet by Danielle Steel
Shutterspeed by A. J. Betts
The Wagered Miss Winslow by Michaels, Kasey