24

The Department of Chemistry’s website told me that Linda Chen taught an organic chemistry class from ten to eleven the next morning, so I figured the best way to catch her would be to show up right after her lecture. I got to the lecture hall at about ten forty-five and slipped into a seat in the back. As I expected, it was a big class. Maybe two hundred students. To her credit, almost all of them seemed to be paying attention. In fact, I’d give her high marks as a lecturer if I were here to evaluate her teaching. She was animated and kept the class engaged by asking questions and throwing in colorful anecdotes and the occasional joke as she went along.

When she concluded, half a dozen students went up to the front of the room with their books or lecture notes open. I waited at the back of the group while she answered their questions. When she finished, she turned to me with a smile. “Hi, I’m Linda Chen. Are you here evaluating my teaching for the Weinstein Award?”

I returned the smile. “No, but I’d give you high marks if I was. You’re an impressive lecturer.”

She looked puzzled. “Then who are you?”

“Brad Parker. I’m chair of the Integrated Life Sciences Department at the Boston Technological Institute. I’m hoping I can get a few minutes of your time to ask you about someone you knew when you were a graduate student at Yale. Martha Daniels.”

“I’m sorry—I don’t think I can help you. I don’t remember anyone by that name.” She started to walk away.

“Wait, please,” I said. “Clayton Marston said the two of you were roommates when you both worked in his lab as graduate students. I wouldn’t have come all this way if it wasn’t important.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “All right. Let’s go find a place where we can talk.”

“Your office?” I suggested.

“No, the Memorial Union is right next door. We can get a cup of coffee and sit by the lake.”

We got coffees and took them out to the terrace, overlooking the expanse of Lake Mendota. It was a chilly November day, maybe just hitting fifty degrees, but the terrace was crowded with students and faculty enjoying the view.

Linda maneuvered us to a table at the fringes of the crowd. It was a place we could talk privately but where we wouldn’t be alone. I wondered if that’s what she had in mind when she suggested it. Or maybe she just liked having coffee here.

“You’re right,” she said. “Martha and I were close friends as well as roommates. But why are you interested in her now? It’s been several years since her death.”

“I’ve been looking into a case of possible misconduct involving one of the faculty members in my department at BTI. It led me back to Yale, and Martha’s name came up. I understand that she underwent a big change in her professional direction right at the end of her graduate student career, and it may be important for me to find out what happened. Professor Marston thought that if anyone knew, it would be you.”

She looked out at the lake. “Yes, something happened all right. Everybody who knew Martha could tell that. But she made me promise never to speak of it. Warned me not to, really.”

“Warned you?”

“She said talking about it would only bring me trouble. That there were powerful men involved.” She sat up straight in her chair and furrowed her brow. “And now, ten years later, you’re asking about it. How do I even know you’re who you say you are? This could be some kind of sick test, for all I know.”

I gave her my BTI photo ID card, and she examined it briefly.

“Okay, so you’re Brad Parker,” she said. “BTI is where that girl was raped and murdered recently, isn’t it? Did you know her?”

A wave of sadness hit me as it came back. “Yes, I knew her. She was a student in my department.”

Linda gasped. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! That must be horrible for you.”

I tried to drink some coffee, but my hands were shaking. At least she seemed to have accepted me now. “What can I say? It’s awful to have that happen to someone you know.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I read about it, of course. It was all over the news.” Then her eyes widened. “Wait, that’s not why you’re asking me about Martha, is it?”

“No, it’s a different case that led me to Martha. A financial problem. Why do you ask that?”

Linda Chen took a deep breath. “Because Martha was raped. That’s what I was never, ever supposed to tell anyone.”

My mouth opened as the shock wave hit me. So Singer hadn’t been involved with financial shenanigans at Yale—but with a rape case! And if he was accused of rape back then, could it be him now? Except his alibi was solid.

Linda didn’t notice my surprise and stared out at the lake as she continued. “She went to a party given by one of her course instructors and didn’t come back until the next morning. A total mess, and she couldn’t even remember much. She said one of the faculty members who was there took her to a back bedroom, and she passed out, but she remembered him assaulting her.”

“Did she say anything about what happened?”

Linda fidgeted in her chair and spoke in a soft voice, as if she was still embarrassed for her friend. “He pulled down her jeans and stuck his fingers in her. She thought he must have put something in her drink to knock her out.”

“What a bastard! Did she know who it was? I hope she brought charges.”

“She knew, and she immediately went to the dean’s office to file a complaint. But the faculty member denied it, and it was just her word against his. They said that she didn’t have any proof, and they couldn’t allow her to slander an innocent faculty member. Then the dean threatened to expel her from school if she didn’t sign some kind of agreement to keep the whole thing confidential.”

I sighed. “That’s disgusting. I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen that way now, but who knows. Who was the faculty member?”

“Martha wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid of what might happen if word got out that she talked. All she would say was that he was a big shot, and that’s why she got screwed. In the end, she was so disgusted with the way the whole system turned on her that she left science. And eventually killed herself. She sent me an email before she did it, saying that those scumbags at Yale had ruined her life. She couldn’t go on anymore after what they did to her.”

“She sent you a suicide note? And you didn’t get it in time to stop her? My God, that must have been horrible for you.”

“She used delay send, so I didn’t get it until hours after she was dead. There was nothing I could do.”

Linda swallowed the rest of her coffee in one large gulp. There were tears in her eyes as she got up to go.

“Wait, there’s one more thing,” I said. “Did you know a faculty member by the name of Sally Lipton?”

“I took a course from her, I think the year before Martha was raped. It was one of those advanced seminar courses where a whole bunch of different faculty members come in to give lectures on their research areas. And she always had a party for the students and faculty in the middle of the semester so they could get to know each other informally. It was kind of nice. Except not for Martha. It was at one of Lipton’s parties that she was attacked.”

I played with the rest of my coffee as Linda left, extracting one more promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone that she’d talked to me.

She didn’t know who Martha Daniels’s rapist was, but I was pretty sure I did.

Mike Singer.

And maybe I was beginning to see how he’d fooled us.