seems to have a thing about you. Maybe you should write down the names of those who have it in for you.”
I laughed and saw Guy’s face go steel gray with anger.
“I’m not laughing at you, honey. It’s just that the list you’re suggesting would be too long to generate in my lifetime. When you’re in the education business, you draw the ire of a lot of people—students angry over grades, parents angry over their children’s grades, administrators angry that you’re not volunteering more time for committee work, other faculty angry because you got a grant they didn’t. It goes on and on. You must run into it at the high school level too.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But someone furious enough to commit murder, or even to break into someone’s lab and interfere with an ongoing research investigation?”
“The more I think about it, the more I believe the link between the person who is messing around in my research and the murderer of Marie Becca is tenuous at best.”
I am sometimes so naïve.
*
The following week Der began interviewing the students who signed up for the research to see if they remembered anything in the testing session that would help the investigation. In addition, he talked with my research assistants on several occasions and with me daily. By the end of the week, the dearth of leads stymied and frustrated him. As for me, that creepy feeling lifted, and I felt eager to get on with the research. Der agreed to let me go ahead, and informed the president that he was encouraging me to continue with the project. President Evans agreed, but argued that the Committee on Research with Human Subjects should be involved. Der said no to that; he didn’t want the description of the murder and how it was found to be public knowledge.
Der spoke with the college attorney and he and the attorney worked out procedures that would insure everyone’s safety, or so we believed.
*
“We won, you know,” I said. It was the next weekend, and Der, Guy and I sat in front of the woodstove enjoying some of Der’s brandy. Although Guy wasn’t planning to come for the weekend, his ex-wife asked if she could take his kids off to Montreal for a few days to visit their grandparents. Guy agreed, realizing that the weather was turning and this might be the last chance he had to get his bike into my garage for storage.
“I’m going ahead with the research, and you’re hoping we will pick up additional clues when I do. It’s the best we can do.” I patted Sam’s head with one hand while Guy held the other.
It was now late in October, and the skies threatened snow. I knew Guy had a cold ride down, although he hadn’t complained, but I was glad he could come for the weekend. The return trip would be far warmer. One of his friends was in the area visiting relatives and would give Guy a ride back north.
I was eager to resume the research project, as were my assistants. In the testing sessions coming up the research team decided that students could only enter the sessions by showing their student I.D.s and the names on the I.D.s had to correspond to those on the sign-up sheet. If the murderer took the name of Charles Darwin in the earlier session to gain access to the testing materials, he surely would not appear again in a later session for fear one of the assistants would recognize him. We assumed he would want to be cautious. I did not point out that it was audacity not caution he demonstrated by coming into the lab and leaving a note.
In the time between the discovery of the murder description and the upcoming testing sessions, the assistants and I talked less and less about the murder. Most of them shoved it to the edge of awareness. Karen admitted to me that she sometimes found it difficult to get to sleep and had nightmares. When I suggested she might want to see someone at the counseling center, she shrugged off the suggestion with a “maybe, not just now.” She was keeping up with her work and began
I laughed and saw Guy’s face go steel gray with anger.
“I’m not laughing at you, honey. It’s just that the list you’re suggesting would be too long to generate in my lifetime. When you’re in the education business, you draw the ire of a lot of people—students angry over grades, parents angry over their children’s grades, administrators angry that you’re not volunteering more time for committee work, other faculty angry because you got a grant they didn’t. It goes on and on. You must run into it at the high school level too.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But someone furious enough to commit murder, or even to break into someone’s lab and interfere with an ongoing research investigation?”
“The more I think about it, the more I believe the link between the person who is messing around in my research and the murderer of Marie Becca is tenuous at best.”
I am sometimes so naïve.
*
The following week Der began interviewing the students who signed up for the research to see if they remembered anything in the testing session that would help the investigation. In addition, he talked with my research assistants on several occasions and with me daily. By the end of the week, the dearth of leads stymied and frustrated him. As for me, that creepy feeling lifted, and I felt eager to get on with the research. Der agreed to let me go ahead, and informed the president that he was encouraging me to continue with the project. President Evans agreed, but argued that the Committee on Research with Human Subjects should be involved. Der said no to that; he didn’t want the description of the murder and how it was found to be public knowledge.
Der spoke with the college attorney and he and the attorney worked out procedures that would insure everyone’s safety, or so we believed.
*
“We won, you know,” I said. It was the next weekend, and Der, Guy and I sat in front of the woodstove enjoying some of Der’s brandy. Although Guy wasn’t planning to come for the weekend, his ex-wife asked if she could take his kids off to Montreal for a few days to visit their grandparents. Guy agreed, realizing that the weather was turning and this might be the last chance he had to get his bike into my garage for storage.
“I’m going ahead with the research, and you’re hoping we will pick up additional clues when I do. It’s the best we can do.” I patted Sam’s head with one hand while Guy held the other.
It was now late in October, and the skies threatened snow. I knew Guy had a cold ride down, although he hadn’t complained, but I was glad he could come for the weekend. The return trip would be far warmer. One of his friends was in the area visiting relatives and would give Guy a ride back north.
I was eager to resume the research project, as were my assistants. In the testing sessions coming up the research team decided that students could only enter the sessions by showing their student I.D.s and the names on the I.D.s had to correspond to those on the sign-up sheet. If the murderer took the name of Charles Darwin in the earlier session to gain access to the testing materials, he surely would not appear again in a later session for fear one of the assistants would recognize him. We assumed he would want to be cautious. I did not point out that it was audacity not caution he demonstrated by coming into the lab and leaving a note.
In the time between the discovery of the murder description and the upcoming testing sessions, the assistants and I talked less and less about the murder. Most of them shoved it to the edge of awareness. Karen admitted to me that she sometimes found it difficult to get to sleep and had nightmares. When I suggested she might want to see someone at the counseling center, she shrugged off the suggestion with a “maybe, not just now.” She was keeping up with her work and began
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