On Wednesday afternoon, butterflies somersaulted in my stomach as I crossed the campus to Dean Klink’s office. He wanted a report on how I planned to cut spending in my department. I had one. Would he like what I came up with? Probably not.
I stepped through the glass doors that led to the administrative building. It was strange to think I had only been working at Harshberger for two weeks. It seemed like so much longer.
Dean Klink’s secretary, Irene, raised one of her penciled-on eyebrows as I entered her office. She picked up her phone. “Miss Humphrey is here to see you, sir.”
“Chloe, so good to see you!” The dean spoke as if he hadn’t just seen me a few days earlier. “Let’s go to my office.” He pointed to the open doorway.
I sat on one side of a paper-covered coffee table, and Dean Klink sat on the other. Behind him a bookshelf filled with management and higher-education tomes lined the wall. A three-by-four wooden shadow box hung next to the only window, hundreds of fishing lures decorating its shelves.
He stood and removed a dragonfly lure from the box. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
“They are.” The detail and bright colors of several of the lures surprised me.
“Here.” He handed it to me. A serious-looking hook sat at the end of the lure. Is this for shark fishing?
“That one’s for salmon fishing. I used it two years on a fishing trip in Alaska. I reeled in a forty-pound King Chinook with that one.” He clapped his hands, and I returned the lure. With care, he set it back into place. “Have you thought anything about our last meeting?”
Did our discussion on the softball bleachers qualify as a meeting? It felt more like an ambush to me. “I have.” I handed him a proposal of several areas the computer services department could cut back.
He flipped through the pages. “There aren’t any personnel reductions.”
I folded my hands in my lap.
“This only cuts seventeen percent from the budget. I asked for twenty and would love twenty-five.”
“Dean Klink, I’ve only been here a few days. I don’t feel that I know the staff well enough yet to let anyone go. I’m still learning everything each person does. Can I have until the end of the fall semester?”
He shook his head. “The college can’t afford it. You have until the end of this week, or I make the decision for you.”
“That’s not enough time. I—”
“It will have to be because I have to answer to my boss, the college president, about how I’m going to reduce the budget.” He sighed. “I know these are tough decisions, Chloe, but they are the ones you were hired to make. Now bring me something I can use tomorrow morning.”
I left the dean’s office deflated.
From the green, I could see the hood up on my rental car. I increased my pace. A man was bent over the engine. I called out before reaching the car. “What are you doing?”
Joel pulled his head out from under the hood. “I saw this death trap out here and wanted to make sure it had all its moving parts.”
I furrowed my brow, and something in me snapped. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“Excuse me for trying to help. Is taking care of cars something else you’re so good at? Considering the dead Amish bishop, I don’t think so.”
“What do you know about cars?” I peered under the hood, my arms crossed, checking to see if anything had been tampered with. The brake line looked fine. Good thing I had seen those photos on the Internet that showed how to cut one.
Joel glowered at me. “I work on antique cars, which this contraption doesn’t qualify for. This is just junk.”
“You work on cars?” Could Joel have cut my brake line?
“Does it surprise you that I have a life outside of Harshberger?” Joel released the prop rod and let the hood slam shut. “We both know that most of your interests are off campus.”
I stumbled out of the way and watched him lumber toward Dennis. I stood in the parking lot a few minutes, waiting for my heart rate to come back down. My cell phone rang, and I jumped. It was a local number but not one I recognized. “Miss Humphrey?” The male voice sounded like it could be on the radio.
“Yes.” I took a seat on a bench outside my building.
“I’m Tyler Hart,” the radio voice said. “You called my office yesterday. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to answer. I was in court, and I can’t seem to keep a secretary on my payroll.” He laughed. It was a rich deep laugh that reminded me of Santa Claus.
“Thank you for returning my call.” I walked over to a nearby park bench and sat.
“You need a criminal lawyer,” the Santa Claus voice said.
I dropped the stack of files onto the bench beside me. “Yes—I mean, no—I mean not for myself, for a friend who is in some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“She was in a car accident and the person in the other . . . um . . . vehicle died.”
I heard the lawyer’s deep intake of breath. “That is serious. When was this?”
“Last Friday.”
“She was driving the car?”
“Yes.” I paused. “And she doesn’t have a license.”
Hart clicked his tongue. “This doesn’t sound good for your friend.”
“I know.” I straightened the files sitting next to me on the bench, but only succeeded in making the stack less tidy.
“Was the accident in Knox County?”
“Yes.”
The sound of typing came though my cell phone. “I’m at a computer now, and the only fatal accident that happened in the county last Friday was an auto-buggy collision.”
“That’s the one.”
He whistled. “Her name is Rebecca Troyer.”
“That’s right. Will you take the case? Billy from Uncle Billy’s Budget Autos recommended you.”
He laughed. “Billy’s one of my best clients. I wish he was able to stay out of trouble though. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you and Miss Troyer stop by my office later today?”
“Are you available after five?”
“Sure. I’m usually in the office well past seven.” He rattled off the address.
I hung up my cell and gathered the files into my lap. I would need to do more research on Tyler Hart before our meeting. I wanted to make sure he was the right lawyer for Becky. I stood, trying to concentrate on the different places that I could search for Hart online, but thoughts of Joel peering under the hood of my rental car hood weren’t far from my mind.