Chapter 16

Julian decides on Friday afternoon that they’ve waited long enough to return to the university. Piper has informed them about the email that was posted online, and Charles can tell he’s frustrated by not having been able to pursue the matter in person. He’s tapping his fingers against his desk and ignoring the voicemail memos Charles made about a lost pet and a cheating spouse case.

“Come on,” he says, sweeping up his coat with one long arm and striding towards the door. “Let’s go back to Schenley. We’ve waited long enough.”

Charles’ stomach gives a sharp little twist at his automatic inclusion. He scrambles to follow the detective, turning the sign on the door to OUT - CALL FOR INQUIRIES on his way.

Schenley University feels subdued. Charles isn’t sure how much of that is in his head and how much of that is in response to the murder of Jack Hart. Certainly the English department has an air of melancholy; a scrap of leftover crime scene tape sits crumpled in a patch of mud by the entrance and the halls are quiet. Julian pauses on the threshold, wiping his feet, then leads Charles upstairs. When they reach the door of Isabel’s office, Charles notices just a fraction of hesitation, barely perceptible, before Julian raises his fist to knock.

“Dr. Ortiz?” he calls out when there is no answer. He knocks again. “Dr. Ortiz, it’s Julian Ellsworth. I want to ask you some more questions about Lu Fairchild.”

“I don’t think she’s here,” Charles murmurs. Julian huffs impatiently. Then a door down the hall opens.

“Excuse me, may I help you?”

The voice comes from an older man with a mild expression on his face. It takes Charles a minute to place him as the professor who took over the vigil after the argument broke out. Christopher Maynard, whom Piper described as “old school”—not on the side of either the historicists or the presentists, but a traditionalist.

“Sorry to disturb you,” says Charles after a moment. “We were looking for Dr. Ortiz.”

Dr. Maynard cocks his head. Charles supposes he and Julian look rather out of place. “I don’t believe she’s in today. Anything I can do for you?”

Julian glances at the older professor, then says slowly, “Well, maybe you can.”

Maynard smiles. “Come into my office.”

They step into a very different office from Isabel’s. Maynard’s is tidy and typical. Shelves of old books line the walls; an electric kettle, a paperweight, and a little bust of Shakespeare sit on his desk; two faded upholstered chairs face the desk. There’s a young man—blonde hair, round face, brown jacket—sitting in one of them.

“My student, Todd Burns. Todd, would you mind coming back a little later?”

Todd nods and gets to his feet. He gives Julian and Charles a curious glance as he walks out.

“Please, sit. Would you care for some tea?”

The chair sinks under Charles as he sits. Julian refuses the offer of tea.

“Well, gentlemen. How might I help you? I’m Christopher Maynard, by the way.”

“Julian Ellsworth.”

“Charles Shelley.”

“Hello, Mr. Ellsworth and Mr Shelley.”

Julian, Charles thinks, looks slightly impatient with all this preamble. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Dr. Maynard.”

“Oh, Christopher, please.”

“Christopher. My partner and I are making some unofficial inquiries into one of the graduate students in this department.”

Maynard’s eyes widen. “Oh, dear.” He clears his throat uncomfortably. “Perhaps I’d better direct you to the dean—I’m afraid I can’t divulge any information without the university’s permission…”

Charles jumps in. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Apologies for alarming you. No, we’re looking into a student who’s just left the department—Lu Fairchild. She didn’t leave a forwarding address, and her friend Piper Awasthi has asked us to try and figure out where she went. They just want to make sure she’s all right.”

Maynard blinks. “Oh, my. Ms. Fairchild has—forgive me, our work doesn’t overlap very much so I don’t see her often, but by all accounts she’s quite bright—Ms. Fairchild has left the department?”

“You didn’t know?”

Maynard shakes his head regretfully. “I’m often rather out of the loop when it comes to department goings-on. Probably comes from having been here going on forty years—my head is too full of things that happened decades ago. At any rate…” He pauses. “When you say she has ‘left’…”

“She has unenrolled,” Julian says. “And left town, to all appearances.”

“Well,” says Maynard, and sits back in his chair. “That is unfortunate.”

There’s a pause. Charles glances at Julian, wondering if he’s stuck in a moment of awkwardness, but he’s looking at Maynard like he’s waiting for him to say something more.

Maynard gives a rueful smile. “Unfortunate, but not entirely unusual. This department is…how shall I say it. Beset by controversy. It’s not always an easy environment for our graduate students. I try to stay neutral as much as I can—the departmental Switzerland, as it were. Would that I could be a safe haven for those caught up in the storm.”

“But you can’t?” Julian asks.

“I do try. But these days, taking a dramatic stand is de rigueur in the world of literary criticism, I’m afraid. Well. Even that term—literary—seems to mean less and less. It’s all video games and vampires, these days.”

Charles bites back a question that will take them further down the road of academic trends and instead asks, “So you think Lu is another victim of the controversy?”

Maynard spreads his hands. “She’s not the first, Charles, I’m afraid to tell you. We have quite some trouble retaining graduate students long enough for them to obtain their doctorates. The stress, you see. So Ms. Fairchild has been claimed by the beast.” He sighs.

“Actually,” Julian says abruptly, “we have reason to believe she may have left under more suspicious circumstances.”

The conversation seems to skip a beat. Maynard says, slowly, “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Mr. Ellsworth.”

“She may not have left entirely of her own accord.” Julian’s voice is quiet but steady. Charles thinks, suddenly, how easy it would be to underestimate him. “It’s possible she was trying to get away from something. Or someone.”

“Good heavens,” Maynard says. He surveys Julian, head tilted. “That’s positively Shakespearean. Or perhaps Jacobean would be more accurate. Why do you believe this, gentlemen?”

“Certain indications. And her friend Piper doesn’t believe she’d have gone away without a forwarding address.”

“Hm. Well, that’s certainly unsettling.”

“Do you think it’s possible?”

Maynard hesitates. “Far be it from me to question those with superior knowledge of Ms. Fairchild. It does seem to strain credulity, however. You see, this really is a very tumultuous department.”

“Wouldn’t that make it more likely for something to have happened to Lu?”

“Ah. Well. When I say ‘tumultuous’…we are academics, Julian, we tend to take our feelings out in print. No doubt personal conflicts are rampant, but as a rule they are channeled through academic debates about methodologies and textual interpretation. Perhaps if someone…well, perhaps if someone close to Ms. Fairchild criticized her work, she might have decided to leave.”

“You believe that her departure could just be about her academic work, then?”

Maynard smiles. “It’s hard for non-academics to understand, I know. You can’t imagine the kinds of uproar caused by the letters section of the Modern Language Association’s journal or an inflammatory conference paper. We take our work very personally. It’s the substance of who we are, after all. Our thoughts. Our ideas. What could more important? But we are also creatures of the written word. Nothing wounds more than language. Rarely do we need anything other than a devastating takedown of a cherished reading or theoretical framework to inflict damage on each other. Figurative damage, of course, but very real to us.”

“The damage done to Jack Hart was more than figurative.”

Startled, Charles looks at Julian. His tone is mild, but Charles feels the observation as a challenge—a subtle poke, perhaps, to see how Maynard will respond?

The professor’s smile flickers. “Well. That was a case of the outside world intruding upon our sacred halls. Someone brought material violence in, Julian. We did not birth it here.”

Julian walks rapidly down the hall when they leave Maynard’s office. “I want to look into Jack Hart.”

Charles hurries to keep up. “You think he and Lu were linked?”

Julian shakes his head in annoyance. “Maybe. I don’t know. It seems too much of a coincidence for these things to happen so close to each other.”

“Everyone’s very eager to blame Lu’s disappearance on departmental conflict.”

“It makes sense. We’ve heard again and again how many grad students drop out. Make a note to look that up, would you? Attrition rates for the department.”

“But it wasn’t just the usual situation with Lu.”

“No. I don’t believe it was.”

Julian pauses at the top of the stairs. “The police will have searched Jack’s office. It would be good if we could take a look, too, but I don’t think we’d better try now. But the graduate students’ lounge…”

“We turned it upside-down,” Charles says, reluctant to object but worried about being caught snooping. “We’d have found something if there were anything to find. And if Jack was killed by an intruder…”

“If,” says Julian. “And there is one place we didn’t look.”

Charles wonders if Julian will have to pick the lock to the grad lounge, but the door isn’t shut all the way. No one is inside, though; someone, it seems, failed to observe the sign reminding people of the faulty lock.

Julian does pick the lock on Jack’s locker, though, and Charles tries to push aside the fluttery feeling in his stomach upon watching his long fingers’ gentle maneuvering.

He swings open Jack’s locker. It’s empty—except for a single white envelope, with the name JACK HART typed in 12-point, Times New Roman font on the back.

Julian takes it out. Carefully, he flips it over and slides one long finger under the sealed flap, prizing it open.

He pulls out a note.

SHUT UP AND GET OUT—OR ELSE BE SILENCED.

Charles stares at it, heart racing. Then Julian tilts the envelope, and into his palm slide five orange pips.

“Holy shit,” Charles breathes. He and Julian bend over the seeds, heads a hair’s breadth apart.

“Do you think Lu is still alive?”

Charles asks this under his breath, furtively glancing around as he follows Julian down the corridor.

Julian gives a short nod and continues to walk more quickly than is entirely comfortable for Charles. “Jack’s body was displayed very publicly. If Lu had been killed by whoever threatened them both and then, presumably, murdered Jack, we’d know it.”

A rush of relief. “Right. Yes.”

“Besides, it’s clear Jack didn’t ever see his note. Lu did, and she left in time.”

In time. In time to avoided being murdered.

“It’s possible that killing Jack in this building was meant as a warning to Lu, in fact,” Julian says. “It would have been safer to kill him and dispose of the body away from campus. Why else would the killer risk suggesting a connection between the murder and the department, unless he wanted to ensure the body was discovered right away?”

“So the murder is connected to the department, then,” Charles says. “It definitely wasn’t the man the police arrested.”

Julian shakes his head. “There’s no way it was random, not after this. And the killer wanted Lu to know—this is what could happen to you.”

“But Lu is gone.”

“Yes. But in case she thought about coming back. Or speaking up. ‘Shut up and get out.’”

“Shut up about what?”

“Exactly.”

Julian pushes open the front door of the humanities building. The chill outside air wakes Charles from his reverie. Muddy ground, bright sun, the chatter of students as they make their way across campus. Lu should be among them. Why isn’t she?