The Evil That Men Do Page 17

  He slid down a little in the chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and fixed his eyes on mine. He invited me to begin. I had already decided to trust his discretion and tell him everything I had learned. In return, I hoped that he might then provide some shred of knowledge that would help me find Lucy. While he had already heard about the deaths of Judy and Troy, my reasoning that they were murdered left him visibly moved.

  “I find it hard to believe.” He ran his hand through his hair and massaged the back of his neck. “Not you, Dagny,” he added quickly, “but that these kids were killed. There’s never been anything like this in my thirty-five years of teaching. If everything you’ve told me is accurate, I have to agree with your conclusion, unlikely as it seems.”

  His support was welcome. I had been over the facts many times—organizing, arranging and interpreting them—and had hoped I would be able to present my deductions with the same logical certainty they had for me.

  “But I interrupted you,” he said. “I take it there’s more.”

  I related what Melanie told me the previous day and finished with Lucy’s kidnapping. This agitated him so much he rose from his chair and walked across the room, stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out, ran one through his hair again, came back and sat down. I explained to him why I didn’t think going to the police would help yet.

  “Why come to me?” he asked, after a long silence.

  “Because the Churoks are the common thread that tie Lucy, Judy, and Troy together, and I want to find Lucy very badly. I want to learn everything I can about the people and events in the lives of the three students.”

  “And they’re all students of Julius Akrich, my former student, right?”

  “That’s right, Professor, I mean Bill.”

  “So that’s another thread, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I consider it part of the Churok thread.”

  “And the gold mine,” he went on, “is another Churok thread.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s my interpretation.”

  “So it’s more like the Churok sewing circle.” He smiled at his own joke. “Are there any non-Churok commonalities? Maybe they patronize the same dry cleaner, shop in the same super, bank at the same bank?”

  I smiled politely and went on, “I haven’t had time to find out any more about the three, and time is of the essence. The Churok connection is the best lead I have, so that’s the one I’m following.”

  “I think you’re right,” he finally said, after gazing at me for a minute. “How can I help you?” He leaned forward in his chair, his knees nearly touching mine.

  “I’d like to know more about this person they call Starry Night. I’d like to know more about Tommy. And I’d like to know more about Professor Akrich.”

  “You’re not recording this conversation?” he asked, nodding at my handbag.

  “No, sir, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “How privileged is our conversation?”

  “I’m not a priest, doctor, or lawyer. If I ever had to give sworn testimony, I’d have to be truthful. But let me add that private investigators with big mouths don’t last long. My livelihood depends on my discretion. I’d go to great lengths to maintain the privacy of our meeting.”

  “And your client, isn’t that Lucy Navarro? Is she entitled to know everything? She’s paying you, I presume.”

  “She hired me specifically to investigate Judy Raskin’s death. Anything I discover regarding it I’d have to tell Lucy, assuming she’ll be around to be told.”

  “And other stuff?”

  “What are you getting at, Bill? I’m not a tabloid reporter, for crying out loud.”

  “Hmm, paparazzi. I never thought of that.” He grinned broadly. “They bothered me once. I think I’d know one if I saw one. You don’t fit the description.” His look turned serious. “I can tell you a few things that may help you. If they have relevancy to these horrid crimes, then I’m glad to do it. If these students have tangled with the Mafia or some such, and the Churoks and the university are not common threads, then I’d want confidence respected. The effectiveness of my own research into Native American cultures relies fairly heavily on my discretion. Matters are often confided in me with the assurance that they won’t go any further.”

  “Yes, sir. I can only stand on what I said.”

  “I appreciate your being frank. What I have to say isn’t earth shattering. I’m not Perry Mason. I can’t point to the murderer. I knew Starry Night for years. She was a great leader, but she also felt that the grandiosity of her ideas and the nobility of her motives, together with her high office, gave her certain rights. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when you told me about the notebooks. I’m not so sure her efforts were as secret as Melanie and Tommy seem to think. And she had political enemies within the tribe—politics is universal. They wouldn’t have hesitated to use the notebooks against her.”

  “What about Melanie?” I asked. “Could she have been caught up in the politics? Does she have an agenda of some kind?”

  “Good question. I don’t think so. Like teenage girls everywhere, Melanie didn’t get along that well with her mother. I believe she welcomed the opportunity to leave the reservation. She spent some time in the Peace Corps, I think. She didn’t care for tribal politics and she didn’t share her mother’s passion for preserving Churok culture.”

  “Whoa, I’m confused. I thought Starry was the one who was breaking tradition.”

  “Starry felt that the change in the oral tradition was necessary to preserve the larger body of culture. It’s perhaps like amending a constitution to adjust to changing times.”

  “How does Tommy fit into the picture?”

  “Tommy’s passionate about the Churok culture and very much the traditionalist. I’m surprised he tolerated the existence of the notebooks. He’s worked hard to preserve the Churok way of life. I don’t think he’d put up with any attempts to compromise it.”

  “Could he have destroyed the notebooks, or lied that they were stolen?”

  “Maybe. But he could destroy them openly, and even claim credit for it. If he left them alone all those years, he probably had a reason.”

  “You used the word passionate. Is he passionate enough to kill someone he thought was betraying him or undermining his philosophy?”

  Gribith’s forehead wrinkled while he pondered an answer. “The Churoks aren’t a violent people. They believe deeply in the harmony of nature. Killing disturbs that harmony. For a Huruku to use violence in the name of promoting harmony would be the ultimate contradiction. On the other hand, religious wars have always been contradictory. What religion lacks ‘Thou shalt not kill’ in its doctrine? What religion fails to kill in defense of that doctrine? We cannot conceive what evil deeds may be committed in the name of goodness.”

  “In other words, ‘maybe.’”

  He smiled at that. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Professor Akrich is a common link among the three students, and he was your student once, like you said”

  “Yes, indeed. My bright shining star of a student scholar. Julius could wring facts out of data, and theories out of facts, like no other scholar I’ve known. He’s made a brilliant career out of his Churok studies. When he was a young professor his publications were controversial. He made unconventional and unsupported statements. For a while I thought his career was in jeopardy, but time proved him right. Nothing promotes a career like being both controversial and right.”

  “Have there ever been any difficulties with students? Lucy said that Akrich came down pretty hard on Judy.”

  “Julius has had many students over the years, though few as promising as Judy Raskin. There’ve never been difficulties, apart from the common ones.”

  “What are the ‘common ones’?”

  “Oh, students drop out or don’t fulfill their scholarship commitments. There are disagreements among us professors and our students regarding methodology, theory, style, and what have you. These disagreements
can be acrimonious. We’re not one big happy academic family. Good scholarship requires tension and disagreement.”

  “Does anyone ever get violent?”

  “Actually, yes. Physical scuffles occur. But really, Dagny, we don’t kill each other, much as we’d like to sometimes.”

  “Did you know Judy personally?”

  “Somewhat. She was an undergraduate here. She took two classes from me and earned an A both times. She was a lovely person, too. I wrote a recommendation to graduate school for her. I also saw her at conferences. When she was on campus, she’d poke her head in to say hello. She is, or would’ve been, my academic grandchild, a student of my student. I can’t tell you how badly I feel about what has happened.”

  “After the blowup at her defense, where she was denounced and humiliated by Professor Akrich, was there a danger that she might implicate another person, a collaborator, who might also have their career jeopardized? Would that someone want to kill her, making it look like suicide in circumstances where suicide was plausible?”

  “It’s unlikely but not impossible. Of course, I don’t fully understand the circumstances, but I’ll say this: if Judy had gone and shot Julius, I’d be less surprised. She was the injured party, after all. It seems to me he could’ve found a more tactful way to handle the matter.”

  “Have you spoken with Professor Akrich since?”

  “Yes. He called to tell me about Judy, how sick he felt about the way he’d dealt with the situation. I think he wanted my understanding—my forgiveness, as it were.”

  “Did you give it to him?” I asked.

  Gribith shrugged. “Julius is a reputed professor in his own right. He doesn’t need my approval or forgiveness. He must’ve been under tremendous pressure. I wasn’t sympathetic. I told him I thought he should’ve called the whole thing off, either without explanation, or by inventing some harmless lie. Then the matter could have been settled in private.”

  “How did he respond to that?”

  “He agreed. He explained the circumstances of the plagiarism to me, and how shocked and betrayed he’d felt. He’s a religious, moral person, and cheating’s an anathema to him. He wanted to excuse himself on the basis that, had it been caught later, it would’ve reflected poorly on the university, and, of course, on him. I still couldn’t condone what he did, but I think his regret at how events transpired is genuine.”

  I couldn’t think of any further questions. I asked Gribith to keep my visit a secret. Particularly, I wanted his promise that he wouldn’t discuss the fact that these suicides were homicides. I felt a bit guilty telling him. I thought anyone who knew might be in danger. Since arriving in L.A., I had been taking precautions to make sure nobody was following me. I was as positive as I could be that no one was. John had trained me well. Gribith promised his discretion and agreed to ask Anna to do the same.

  I handed him my card with my well-rehearsed “If anything occurs to you, please call.”

  His response surprised me. “I’m going to think hard about this,” he said. “There’s something nagging deep in the back of my mind. Do you ever get that?”

  “Do I ever! It’s common in my business. And when I retrieve whatever it is, it’s generally useful.”

  “I’ll do my best to dig it out. It gets tougher as you get older. Maybe it’s nothing. I’m especially concerned about Lucy. I wish I could help more. I promise I’ll call if I have any ideas.”

  I exited the building into a dazzle of light. Half a dozen students were sprawled on the grassy square in the quad soaking up rays. One boy had stripped down to his boxer shorts; his clothes were folded under his head for a pillow. The female next to him had hiked her skirt to just beneath her crotch to expose her discreetly open thighs to the streaming ultraviolet. It was nearly noon and I needed to get a move on if I wanted to be on time for my appointment with Richard Maas. I trekked back to my car, planning the return route to Santa Barbara as I walked. At this time of day I’d do best to take the interstates. It’s about 90 miles and I could make it easily in 90 minutes.

  I drove up to Sunset and turned left, then north on the 405 to the 101. From there, I could run on autopilot and digest what I had learned from Bill Gribith. I, too, had an unfocused mental itch, a feeling that something wasn’t kosher. This was good. Often it presaged a breakthrough. Scratch, itch, rich, Akrich—I free-associated. I think I’d known all along that I’d have to speak again with Professor Julius Akrich.

  Chapter 19

  But first things first, and first was my interview with Dr. Maas. Yet another doctor. What was this, six? Charles and Bob Peters were medical doctors. Professors Akrich and Gribith, Jeanette Briggs and Richard Maas were doctors of philosophy. I was running in a rarefied crowd. If only I could harness all that brainpower to my cause, I might get somewhere. But then, they’d all have to pull together, and I wasn’t sure they all would.

  I was clueless as to what to expect from my interview at Wellex. Pharmaceutical companies are among the most proprietary businesses in the world. Everything is patented, trademarked, and ultra-secret. There is always pending litigation involving pharmaceuticals on some court calendar. It isn’t hard to see why. A cure for AIDS would be worth billions. Hell, a cure for the common cold would be worth billions. Who wouldn’t pay fifty or a hundred bucks to cure a damn cold?

  My ploy was to appeal to the company’s civic-mindedness. While they aren’t legally responsible for what people do with their products, they might take an interest if something they manufactured was being used in a novel way to commit murder. I hoped to get a fix on how Nandrolex might get into the tranquilizer darts that had immobilized Judy, Troy, and Charles.

  Traffic thinned as I climbed out of the San Fernando Valley. I kept my mile-a-minute average despite a five-minute stop near Thousand Oaks for gas, a snack, and a quick visit to the restroom.

  I turned onto Yorktown Avenue at a quarter to the hour. It winds through an industrial complex of so-called clean industries such as computer software and telecommunications. Private roads that lead to parking facilities branch off the main artery. The various company names and street numbers are proclaimed in white letters stenciled vertically onto redwood posts at each corner.

  I turned right at the road whose signpost read Wellex, Inc. and found myself in a parking lot separated from the main building by a large, rectangular, reflecting pool. Near the pool was an area reserved for visitor parking. I pulled into the nearest available space. I removed the Glock from my handbag and locked it in the glove compartment. I took one of the several wide footpaths that crisscrossed the water. A huge glass door—bullet proof, no doubt, and perfectly balanced to open at the lightest touch—gave entrance into a reception area protected by two armed guards. One of them, a black man with biceps the size of cantaloupes, stood at the far end of the lobby by the entrance to the building proper. The other stood behind a counter where non-employees had to register.

  I identified myself and told the guard I had a two o’clock appointment with Dr. Richard Maas. He picked up a phone, dialed some numbers, and after a moment hung up. “Dr. Maas’s secretary will escort you,” he said. “Please print your name and company on the sign-in roster and on the badge.” He handed me a clipboard and a blank nametag. I signed in as Dagny Taggart Jamison of Jamison & Jamison, Private Investigators.

  I took a seat in one of the chairs by a table on which lay several issues of in-house glossy magazines about wonder drugs and the wonderful scientists who had discovered them. Many of the scientists portrayed were women, including a Nobel Prize winner. Times they are a-changin’.

  A male voice interrupted my thoughts: “Miss Jamison, I’m Greg, Dr. Maas’s secretary.” Jesus, times really are changing.

  I followed Greg into the building. The big guard opened the door for us, and when we walked through I heard singing. The sounds came from a theater large enough to hold a couple of hundred people. Singers were on the stage belting out a lively rendition of “She’s a Grand Ol’
Flag.” A small man in a dark suit, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and brandishing a baton, gesticulated frantically in front of the group, jabbing first one way, then the other, as he attempted to balance the voices and keep them in synch.

  “That’s our company’s little choral group,” explained Greg. “They’re rehearsing for the Fourth of July party.”

  “Do they get paid for singing?” I asked.

  “They give up their lunch hour to rehearse,” Greg answered. “You’d be surprised at the number of people who do music. The conductor is our chief research chemist. Do you see the gray-haired lady in the red sweater? She’s secretary to Mr. Wolfe, the company president. She has a great voice. And the guy playing the bassoon—corporate finance director. The pianist—you can barely see her across the stage—is the VP of I.T. That’s information technology, of course.”

  We continued down the hall past a door signed To Animal Facility. “What’s with the animals?” I asked.

  “We raise our own special breeds for drug testing. Dogs, rabbits, mice, even monkeys. The biologists guarantee their genetic uniformity. That helps us isolate the effects of the drugs we test.”

  I grimaced mentally at the idea, but I certainly owed my life to cancer-fighting drugs that had attacked my disease without overwhelming and killing my body. They had had to be tested and I could only hope it had been done without inflicting cruelty or unnecessary suffering on animals.

  Dr. Maas occupied a large corner office in the back of the building. As I was ushered in, he stepped out from behind an executive desk to greet me with a strong handshake. He was short, not even up to my height, with the solid build of a man who gets more exercise than golf on Sundays. His mottled skin, large, crooked nose, and thick ears gave him the appearance of an ex-fighter. He was well groomed, however, and his neatly combed hair made no attempt to conceal his half-bald head.