A Simple Act of Violence (43 page)

Miller took his pocketbook out, flipped it open to reveal his badge. ‘I’m Detective Miller. I wonder if it would be possible to take a moment or two of your time, sir.’

And John, neither lowering his cup from his lips nor turning around to face them, nodded slowly, closed his eyes, and said, ‘Got all the time in the world, Detective Miller . . . all the time in the world.’

Clearing his throat, Dean Alan Edgewood of Washington’s Mount Vernon College leafed through the manila folder before him and found the page he was looking for. He smiled, withdrew the page from the sheaf, and then looked across his vast desk at the detectives facing him. Their names were Riehl and Littman respectively, the former a middle-aged, grey-haired man with a face like a dockyard prize-fighter, the latter somewhat younger, but something around his eyes that spoke of in-built suspicion regarding everything he heard and saw.

They had come to speak about Professor Robey. They wanted to know about Professor Robey’s classes, his students, how long he’d worked at the college. They asked where he’d come from, the nature of his employment, the terms of his contract, his salary, his home address; they wanted his social security number, any forms of ID that existed on file, and where they would find his on-campus car parking space. They wanted to know everything. It was already past ten o’clock, they had been there more than an hour, and it seemed they had only just started.

‘His resume, right?’ Littman asked.

Edgewood held up the single sheet of paper and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘his resume.’

Riehl crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. ‘Shoot,’ he said.

‘Well, he was deputy head of the English Language Department, NYSU—’

Littman was making notes. He looked up at Edgewood.

‘New York—’ Edgewood began.

‘State University,’ Littman said, and looked down at his notebook and wrote something.

‘Yes, like I said, he was deputy head of the English language department at New York State, graduated from Oxford University, England, with an honors degree in European Studies. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Quincy College, Illinois, a Ph.D in Special Sociological and Anthropological Studies . . . He’s a National Defense Foreign Language Fellow, and also a member of the team who lectured in the Great Books Program, St. John’s College, Santa Fe, New Mexico.’ Edgewood smiled. This was something of note, something of significance. Neither Riehl nor Littman reacted at all.

Edgewood looked at the page once more. ‘He was resident for three years at La Salle, Philadelphia, he has testified before the U.S. Congress, the legislatures of Massachusetts, Philadelphia and Ohio, and he’s also a life patron of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.’

There was silence in the room but for the rustle of paper as Edgewood returned the resumé to the file.

‘And he wrote some books you said?’ Littman asked.

‘Yes, detective, he wrote some books.’

‘Under his own name, or did he use a pseudonym?’

‘His own name.’ Edgewood rose from his desk and went to the wall of bookshelves. A moment or two scanning the volumes, and then he withdrew a pair of slim hardbacks. He handed the books to Littman.

‘Easier Than Breathing,
’ Littman read out.

‘And the second one,’ Edgewood said, ‘is entitled A Sacred Monster.’

‘And what kind of books are they?’ Riehl asked.

‘What kind of books?’ Edgewood asked.

‘Sure . . . they’re - like - thrillers or horror books, romance stories, you know?’

Edgewood smiled understandingly. ‘They’re not John Grisham or Dan Brown. Nor are they Nora Roberts. Professor Robey writes challenging literature. The first one was long-listed for the Pulitzer in its year of publication.’

‘And the second one?’ Riehl asked.

Edgewood shook his head. ‘The second one upset a few too many people to be considered for anything at all. Professor Robey wrote some things that certain people did not take too kindly to.’

Littman frowned. ‘Such as?’

‘Open the book,’ Edgewood said. ‘Read the first line of the prologue.’

Littman opened the book, leafed through to the first page, read out loud. ‘ “As far as worldwide organizations are concerned, the Catholic Church is the richest, the CIA the most powerful. The jury’s still out on which is the more corrupt.” ’

Edgewood laughed to himself. ‘That, gentlemen, is not the opening line of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book.’

‘I get what you mean,’ Riehl said. ‘So how is he? What’s he like?’

‘How is he?’ Edgewood echoed. ‘Far as I can tell he’s fine, detective. He very rarely takes time off sick.’

‘As a person. How is he as a person?’ Riehl said. ‘I’m sorry, that’s what I meant to ask.’

Edgewood frowned. ‘I’m a little confused about the reason for your visit, gentlemen. Am I under some sort of legal obligation to answer your questions, or is this merely an appeal to my generosity of nature? You haven’t really given me a proper explanation as to why you’re here, and right now I have a junior lecturer taking Professor Robey’s class, and though the lecturer is a perfectly good teacher he is most definitely not someone who should be taking Professor Robey’s class.’

Littman smiled. ‘You’re not under any legal obligation, Mr Edgewood.’

‘Doctor Edgewood.’

‘Sorry, Doctor Edgewood. Like I say, you’re not under any legal obligation, though I would say that our questions do have a degree of importance.’

‘Which implies that Professor Robey is in bad with you boys, does it not?’

Littman looked at Riehl, Riehl looked back at him and then at the dean.

‘Answer me straight and I’ll help you,’ Edgewood said. ‘Bullshit me and I’ll ask you to leave. Politely of course, like the well-meaning and contributive member of this community that I am, but nevertheless I will ask you to leave.’

‘Professor Robey is assisting us with an investigation,’ Littman said.

‘You have arrested him?’ Edgewood asked.

‘No, he has not been arrested.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘He is with one of our detectives,’ Littman told him.

‘And he’s being questioned about something you think he might have done or something he might know about?’

‘We can’t tell you that,’ Riehl said.

Edgewood nodded. He leaned back in his chair and turned slightly towards the window. ‘John Robey has been here since May of 1998. We consider ourselves very lucky to have him. He has been a great asset to this college. There are many students here who came simply because John Robey is here. Their parents knew who he was - by name and reputation - and they wanted their budding-writer children schooled in the ways of the writer’s world by the man himself.’ Edgewood inhaled deeply and sighed. ‘John Robey is an enigma to me, gentlemen. He does not assume importance, and yet he knows he is important. He does not deal with things in an intense manner, and yet he is one of the most intense people I have ever met. He is a quiet man . . .’ Edgewood paused, looked away for a moment. ‘But then the Chinese say that a quiet man either knows nothing, or he knows so much he needs to say nothing at all. If that is true I would place John Robey in the latter category. As far as I can tell he has no vices. He does not drink, nor does he smoke, and as far as women are concerned, he could have the run of any of the faculty wives or girlfriends or mistresses, but he does not. Is he gay? I am sure he isn’t. Does he take drugs? God knows, but if he does he disguises it so well I would swear that he does not and never has. What do I think of him as an educator, as a scholar and a lecturer? I hold him in the highest regard, though that does not necessarily mean that I approve of or condone all of his teaching methods.’

‘How d’you mean?’ Littman asked. ‘What don’t you approve of?’

Edgewood smiled knowingly. He walked to the window, a leaded light with a centerpiece of red and green diamonds. Through the window the grass verges were a dull mid-brown, the paths swept clean, the flower-beds pruned back for winter.

‘I have received a not insignificant number of pupils in tears during John Robey’s tenure here. He does not criticize his charges, but he challenges them aggressively. He is a man of passion perhaps . . .’ Edgewood clasped his hands behind his back and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘The world of the academic is a world all its own, gentlemen,’ he said quietly. ‘Whereas you might find the car chase and the gunfight reason enough to feel exhilarated, we in the circles of academia find our adrenaline in much more sedate and cerebral things. A new text by Norman Mailer. A collection of previously unknown Emily Dickinson poems.’ He smiled. ‘I understand that such things may seem desperately unimportant to you, and perhaps they are, but the fact of the matter is that Man has been telling stories for an awful lot longer than he has been breaking into houses and stealing things. John Robey is a man of extremes, you could say. He will not tolerate complacency, unprofessionalism, mediocrity. He would rather you hand in a dreadful piece of prose that you believed in than a great piece of prose that took no effort at all. He does not upset his students about what they do, but about what they do not. He sets exceptionally high standards, and he demands those standards be met as best the student can.’

‘You said there were students who had come to you in tears?’ Riehl asked.

Edgewood walked away from the window and once more sat at his desk. ‘In tears, yes. Because of something they themselves believed they could not do. Professor Robey demands of them ten thousand words a month. For a professional writer such a number of words could be produced in a day or two, but these students are not professional writers. What they are and what they aspire to be are not the same thing. Robey pushes them to run before they have begun to walk, and though this is his method, and though he has produced consistently higher results than any other teacher here, the extent to which he drives them has sometimes upset the board of directors and the parent-student liaison group.’

‘And there have been words about his methods?’

‘Words? There will always be words, detective, but whatever anyone might say they cannot argue with results, with statistics of performance. Regardless of what a parent might say about how upset their son or daughter was, you can see in their eyes a sense of gratitude for someone like Robey. This is not an inexpensive college, detective, and parents are reassured to know that their sons and daughters are being pushed to their limits.’

‘You think a great deal of him,’ Littman said.

‘I think a great deal of him, and I am envious of the man, and other times I am very pleased that I am in no way like him.’

‘How so?’

‘Because he has no life,’ Edgewood replied. ‘He has no wife, no children, no interests that he pursues. He appears at the parent-student liaison only because his contract states that he has no choice but to do so. He is brusque with people, he is a loner, his sense of humor is drier than Arizona scrubland. He can look at you in a way that makes you feel like nothing, and then he can say something that makes you feel that he understands you with greater clarity than you have even considered yourself—’

Edgewood stopped mid-flight. For a moment he looked awkward. He frowned, shook his head almost imperceptibly, and then he smiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I am rambling. You understand that what I’m saying is merely my own personal opinion of Professor Robey . . .’ He laughed, a touch nervously. ‘I really wouldn’t want him to think I’d been talking about him out of school - if you’ll excuse the pun.’

Littman smiled reassuringly. ‘Not at all, Doctor Edgewood, not at all. This is simply an enquiry about Professor Robey as a person, how he is viewed by the college, what his contemporaries and colleagues might think of him. Obviously, being the dean, you are better qualified than anyone to—’

Edgewood interrupted. ‘I would have to disagree with you, detective. I might have employed Professor Robey, but I don’t have to work with him day in and day out. The lecturers in his department and his students would be far more qualified to level an accurate opinion about his everyday manner and attitude. I see him in the corridor. We pass, we nod deferentially, but we very rarely speak. I meet with him once a month for a departmental review, and those meetings are relatively brief and one-sided. I tell him the areas where there have been questions, sometimes complaints. He makes notes, he grunts a half dozen acknowledgements, and we . .’ Edgewood smiled, tailed off.

‘What?’ Riehl asked.

‘We always seem to end up talking about the book I keep threatening to write.’

‘You are writing a book?’

‘I am threatening to write a book, detective. Professor Robey is my literary conscience, my taskmaster. He urges me to write, but I do not. I rationalize and justify, and he tells me that my excuses are more lame than those on offer from his students. We laugh about it, but I know he means well.’

There was silence in the room for a handful of seconds.

‘So is there anything else, gentlemen?’ Edgewood asked.

‘Is the college open on Saturdays?’ Littman asked.

‘It is open yes, for extra-curricular studies. The library is in use of course, and there are some tutors who supplement their income by taking additional classes. Why do you ask?’

‘Do you keep a record of who takes those classes?’

‘Yes we do.’

‘And Professor Robey . . . can you tell us whether he was here on Saturday, November the 11th?’

‘I know he was not,’ Edgewood replied.

‘Because?’

‘Because the college was closed on the 11th for Veterans Day.’

Littman and Riehl were silent.

‘So, gentlemen, is there anything else?’ Edgewood asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Littman replied, ‘Except to thank you for your time and your candor.’