22: The Prosecutor Rests

“It was all rather amusing,” I assured Popcorn. “To me, anyway.”

“Oscar didn’t think so,” she informed me.

“Maybe if Marvin Slade gets wind of it, he won’t be so eager to take us to lunch. And where did Mac get off just blithely assuming I would go along on this little field trip to some highfalutin club in Cincinnati?”

“Well, you always do go along, Boss,” Popcorn said. “Besides, he needs a chauffeur these days.”

A chauffeur! And I thought being a Watson was demeaning!

“Meanwhile, Santa Crook is still on the loose,” I pointed out. “Mac says the solution is ‘almost painfully evident,’ but I think he’s just posturing.”

“Oscar will get him,” Popcorn said loyally.

It was Monday morning of exam week, five days before the December commencement rites on Saturday. With Warren Burch waked and buried, life proceeded for the rest of us. Jason Danvers had even taken a holiday from Twitter, probably to prepare for exams. It struck me, irreverently, that the dead man’s final exam for his students in “International Economics and Finance” really was his final exam, found among the papers on his desk. Wendy Yazane would administer it to his students this week, along with the exam for his post-graduate course on “European Monetary and Fiscal Policy.”

I spent a chunk of that morning in the presidential office prepping GK for an interview he had scheduled with Maggie Barton that afternoon. He had already started to make the quarters his own with a sign on the desk proclaiming his motto: LEADERS LEAD. Maggie would probably ask some of the same questions as Tony Lampicke, as well as some that the university employee wouldn’t dare pose. The role-playing went like this:

“How do you feel about replacing a legend?” (Softball.)

“Nobody can replace Father Joe, least of all an interim appointment like myself. But I intend to be more than a place-holder in the short time I occupy this office.”

“How is the search for a new president going?” (Softball.)

“It hasn’t begun yet, but it will soon. Sister Jacinta is putting together an eighteen-member committee, which will include wide representation both from the campus community and from the broader Erin community.”

“How do you feel about the university’s settlement with the late Warren Burch?” (Hardball.)

“At this point, Maggie, that’s a moot point. The important thing is that I want to make it clear to all our faculty, staff, and students that every member of the St. Benignus family is to be treated with respect. There will be zero tolerance not just of any violation of Title IX, but of any violation of personal dignity.”

And so forth.

Softball or hardball, GK hit all my practice questions out of the park. I gave him a few suggestions and a set of talking points to drag into his answers, no matter what the questions were. He had to affirm SBU’s Catholic identity and its commitment to the local community, for example. If Maggie didn’t bring up campus safety (unlikely), GK would do so. Best not to stress the video surveillance, since that (a) didn’t help Warren Burch much, and (b) it riled up civil libertarians. But he should stress the system of Help Phones throughout the campus that provided a hotline to Campus Police for anybody in trouble.

“Got it.” Grant Kingsley reached across his desk and gave me a retired-colonel handshake. “This should be fun.”

Do you also enjoy swallowing razor blades?

I was back in my office an hour or so later, inserting final numbers into the news release on the December commencement, when I took a call from Banfield.

“Jeff? It’s Aurelia. I had an idea that panned out and I thought you and Seb would want to know about it.” She tried to sound off-hand, but it wasn’t working. She was excited.

“I’m all ears.”

“Okay, so, I have a friend who has a friend who’s a pilot for Altiora Corp. He flies the top brass in and out of Erin Municipal Airport. And he says—the friend of a friend, that is—that he took Grant to the corporate HQ in Connecticut on Monday morning and back on Wednesday afternoon. So, Grant’s alibi checks.”

So that was the “c”—the third possibility other than Gibbons messing up or GK lying: Grant Kingsley didn’t fly commercial. Of course, you could argue that Gibbons did mess up by not thinking of the corporate aircraft angle, but that would be picky.

“I’d call that good news, even though it doesn’t help the investigation,” I said. “How’s Gibbons taking it?” I assumed she’d called him first.

“He’ll get over it eventually.”

I thanked her and hung up, feeling slightly guilty that Mac and I hadn’t told her about our meetings with the fourth woman and, upcoming, with Marvin Slade. But we’d promised confidentiality in both cases. If she ever found out, she’d get over it eventually.

In deference to Mac’s massive bulk, his crutches, and the forty-mile trip downriver to Cincinnati, I borrowed Lynda’s yellow Mustang for the day. I tried not to look annoyed when she prayed over the thing before I left in the morning. Just for the record, I returned it without a scratch.

“At least I can move Grant Kingsley off my worry plate,” I told Mac as I drove. “His alibi is solid.”

“In a Golden Age detective story, an unbreakable alibi would almost guarantee his guilt,” Mac observed.

“Yeah, well, good thing we’re not in a detective story, Golden Age or otherwise.”

But the Nonpareil Club was something out of the Gilded Age, with tall ceilings, lots of columns, and marble with gold trimmings. The painting of William Howard Taft on the first floor was about five times the size of the one in Saylor-Mackie’s office. It looked like the sort of place where they would turn you away in a sniff if you weren’t wearing at least a three-piece suit, if not a tux. I was disappointed that the dress code for the club’s Grill Room, which I found online, permitted “business casual.” For men that meant collared shirts, turtlenecks or sweaters; dress slacks, khakis or corduroy trousers; and socks. Good thing I didn’t spring for a tux at the Black & White going-out-of-business sale. But I wore my best Frank Lloyd Wright tie and a blue suit anyway, and Mac showed up in tweeds and one of his customary bow ties, this one yellow with blue dots.

Marvin Slade awaited us at a table in the Grill Room. He wore a blue pinstriped suit, white shirt, and red tie. His dyed brown hair, which he’d been combing over for years, needed cutting.

“Thanks for making the trek,” he said, after the usual round of handshakes.

“I assume you wished to assure the private nature of our meeting,” Mac said.

“Exactly. Do I have your word that everything that was said on Friday and everything we talk about today stays strictly between us?”

“Deal,” I said.

“Certainly,” Mac agreed. “Assuming, of course, that you are not going to confess to a felony that we would be obligated by law to report to the proper legal authorities.”

Slade glowered. Nobody ever accused him of having a sense of humor. But maybe Mac wasn’t kidding.

At that point the waiter swept in with menus and all meaningful conversation ceased for several minutes as we got down to the serious business of deciding what to eat. I settled on grilled Atlantic salmon, with summer vegetable ratatouille, while Mac chose lamb chops. Prices weren’t listed, but I assumed that Slade was shelling out big bucks indeed for the pleasure of our company.

He didn’t wait for the salads to arrive to dive in.

“I’m sure you can imagine that this whole Warren Burch affair has been very difficult on our family,” he said.

That was just the wind up, but Mac didn’t wait for the pitch. “Indeed,” he said, “given what your daughter suffered at Professor Burch’s hands, I should think you might find it hard to prosecute his killer.”

Especially if it’s you, Marvin!

Slade shook his head. “I won’t be doing that, not personally. I’ll have one of my assistants take the case to court. I’m just too emotionally involved. And even if that weren’t the case, the optics would be bad. I’m sure you understand that as prosecutor it would be well within my purview, totally appropriate, to ask how the investigation into Burch’s death is going. But I would feel awkward talking to Hummel or Decker about it. I mean, I assume they know Zoe has been questioned.”

“If they don’t, they will,” I confirmed. “Banfield reports up the chain of command.”

“Sure. So, I’m asking you instead of the chiefs. How’s it going?”

“The inquiry is still in the early stages,” Mac said. “We know a fair amount. We may even know more than we know we know.” Right. “However, the matter does not yet begin to assume a shape.”

Slade looked exasperated right down to his gray hair roots. “You’re not making this easy on me.”

“I apologize.”

“I was hoping to hear that the girls, Burch’s victims, had been cleared so the whole issue could be avoided in the murder trial. Erica doesn’t want Zoe on the stand.”

“I quite understand.”

“No, you don’t.” The quick and firm rebuttal came across like a shout, even though Slade didn’t raise his voice. Just then the food came, and we took a time-out while the waiter and his help set it before us. When they left, Slade leaned forward. “She’s never talked about it publicly, but Erica was abused by an older cousin when she was fourteen years old. The abuser refused to accept a plea deal and Erica had to testify. She’s adamant that she doesn’t want our daughter to go through that. You heard her on that subject.”

“Loud and clear,” I said. “And I take it that you and your ex are on the same page for a change?”

“We are. In fact, we’ve been spending some time together as a family recently. It’s been good. So good I’m thinking about remarrying Erica. I don’t know why I’m telling you two this.”

I didn’t know either, but I almost fell off my chair. Mac blinked, too surprised to raise an eyebrow. I wondered whether Slade had told Erica yet.

“You two didn’t seem all that cozy the other day,” I observed.

Slade shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

Tell that to Facebook.

Mac sighed. “I am sorry that we cannot yet give you the assurance that Warren Burch’s depredations are unconnected to his murder. Granted, the young women involved do not seem likely suspects for various reasons.” He paused. “They do have parents, however. I am sure you recall that Ms. Slade herself expressed a desire to do physical violence to Professor Burch.”

Slade looked almost panicky. “But that was just talk. You know how Erica is—hard as nails on the outside.” And hard as bullets on the inside.

He turned reflective. “I’m still stunned by all this crap. When Zoe went out for track and field as a first-year student, that worried me a little. A lot of stories were breaking in the media then, still are, about team coaches and doctors abusing college athletes—men on women, men on men, women on women, women on men. Nobody seems safe from anybody! When Zoe gave up running to concentrate on her studies, I was kind of relieved. I never dreamed that in the business school that bastard Burch—”

“Clearly, you are not a believer in de mortuis nil nisi bonum,” Mac rumbled.

“‘Of the dead say nothing but good?’ No. How about, ‘of the dead say nothing but truth.’ Let’s face it, Burch was a waste of perfectly good DNA. But I’ve dealt with dozens of abuse and sexual imposition cases as prosecutor, and none resulted in the perpetrator being murdered two or three years later. A few perps have been killed in the act and our office agreed that it was self-defense. None were killed by somebody other than the victim.”

Slade paused to emit a sigh. “You’re not helping me much, McCabe.”

“Then perhaps you can help us. Who do you suggest might have killed Professor Burch?”

Slade studied his water glass, weighing his words. “You’ve had a lot of success dabbling in crime-solving, Mac.” Oh, now it’s ‘Mac’. You’re making a sale. “A lot of success. I can’t deny that. But I’ve prosecuted hundreds of cases in my career and most of them weren’t Sebastian McCabe cases. I’ve thought about this, and maybe you’re overlooking the obvious here. The murderer didn’t show up on the surveillance video—Chief Hummel told me that. Very mysterious, but there’s an easy explanation. Maybe Jackson, that campus police officer who supposedly found the dead body, made the body dead instead of just finding it that way.”

“Why would he do that?” I blurted out.

“It looks unpremeditated. Maybe Burch caught him doing something he shouldn’t.”