New England White (21 page)

Bruce stood, too, towering above her, but she was not cowed. “Julia, wait a minute. Hold on. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Bruce, I’m sorry. The answer is no. Just no. No ifs, ands, or buts. No, you may not talk to Vanessa, or any other member of my family. Not about that night. Not about anything.”

“Julia—”

The defiant mother, determined to protect her child. “We’ve known each other a long time, Bruce. I loved Grace, and she loved you, so I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I’m not going to mention this to Lemaster. But if you make any attempt to speak to my daughter, about any subject, if you ever raise the question of Vanessa and Kellen Zant again, with anybody, and I hear about it, I will definitely tell my husband, and not only will you get fired, we will come down on you with all the influence we have. And, around here, Bruce, that’s an awful lot of influence. So remember that,” she finished, more lamely than she meant to.

Bruce was staring. Not frightened but certainly astonished. And, again, he seemed to her oddly pleased. Julia knew she had said too much, gone too far, a Veazie family trait. But this was hardly the moment to back down.

“Just remember that,” Julia repeated, because Bruce was not saying a word. She pointed at their coffees. “I assume you’ll take care of this,” she added. “I think I can find the way out.” And, trembling—more with fear than with rage—she stormed from the room.

She had survived. That was what Julia kept telling herself as she hurried home in the Escalade, her show tunes turned up loud to drown the fear. She had survived, her daughter had survived, her family had survived. The official investigation was closed, Tony Tice and Mary Mallard had nothing to go on, and Bruce was skimming the surface, worried about who had killed Kellen, not seeking a deeper truth. He was not concerned, as everybody else seemed to be, about what Kellen might have uncovered that got him killed. Bruce did not care about the dirt Astrid had tried to dig up. He was not interested in the possibility that, unlikely though it seemed, plagued her through the late hours as she lay sleepless in her gigantic house: that thirty years ago, when he was a student, the man who was now President of the United States had committed a terrible crime; or that the man who was now president of the university was helping him cover it up.

(III)

B
RUCE WAS IN
his beloved vintage Mustang, cruising back toward Elm Harbor. He had forgotten how good it felt to be a cop instead of an administrator. He had accomplished exactly what he had set out to accomplish. He had never expected Julia Carlyle to let him interview her daughter. But her responses had told him that she knew perfectly well that there was some sort of extracurricular involvement between Vanessa and Kellen Zant. What its bounds were, he did not know, and did not really care. That it existed was enough.

He mentally toted up the evidence he had gathered. Julia Carlyle had once been involved with Kellen Zant, and the relationship was said to have scarred her. Julia was often seen in his company even in recent years. The economist, moreover, was obsessed with Julia, and was quite open in his disdain for traditional marital boundaries. As for Vanessa, her connection to Zant was the sort of thing that no West Indian father of Bruce’s acquaintance would have tolerated for an instant. Add to all that the simple fact that there had long been bad blood between Kellen Zant and Julia’s husband. As to the mysterious black woman with the British accent—well, Bruce was pretty sure he had the answer to that one, too.

Streaking down the highway, Bruce Vallely marveled at the possibility, the growing likelihood, that Zant’s death was no robbery, and had nothing to do with his work. No doubt the crime was committed through intermediaries layered on so thick that the instigator might never be caught. But all Bruce’s instincts told him that Lemaster Carlyle had arranged for the killing of Kellen Zant.

PART II

SUPPLYING DEMAND

Supply Curve
—In economics, a graph showing how supply of a good or service varies according to the price offered. Supply curves usually slope upward, meaning that a greater demand for a product, by raising prices, will produce a greater supply. If the demand cannot be met by existing producers, new firms may be attracted into the market.

CHAPTER 22

SEMI-PRECIOUS

(I)

C
AMERON
K
NOWLAND ARRIVED
on Thursday, rolling merrily along the drafty halls of Kepler Quadrangle, dodging the falling plaster and the crumbling cardboard storage boxes crowding every passageway, until he found his way to Julia’s small, neat office with its aging furniture, its gorgeous spill of mid-December sunshine, and its distracting cacophony of sound from Hudson Street, which ran, it sometimes seemed, within mere inches of her desk.

Her door, as usual, was standing open, a tradition that went back to the founding of the divinity school, something to do with avoidance of sin. Latisha, the tenacious full-time assistant Boris Gibbs had wanted her to fire, was off on some errand, so Minnie Foxon—the lazy part-timer Boris had wanted her to keep—announced him, her airy tone and averted eyes informing the world she would rather be doing anything else. But this was one of those days when Julia felt the same way, wondering how she herself had ended up here, a biology teacher who only half believed in science settling at a divinity school that only half believed in God.

“Up here anyway,” Cameron boomed, for he was the sort of small, tubby man who creates space around himself by the radiation of sheer power. “Meeting with Claire Alvarez. Your dean,” he added, in case Julia had forgotten.

“It’s always a pleasure,” lied Julia, mystified by the unexpected visit. “What brings you to my end of campus?” She tried for coquettish, probably managed arch: “I would have thought you’d stick down the hill with the seculars.”

She projected as much warmth as she could, given that the man was technically Lemaster’s boss, and so, of course, hers too. Actually, her mood was grim. She had just returned from an overlong lunch with Suzanne de Broglie and Stanley Penrose, who were trying to persuade her not to cut the program that sent two students to Latin America each summer to study liberation theology firsthand, building houses, teaching school, organizing workers, and generally participating in the global war against the forces of reaction. Julia tried not to let on that she knew the program was doomed because of the way her husband, in unguarded moments at home, made fun of it.

“Not actually in Elm Harbor on business,” said Cameron, whose use of verbs tended toward the forgetful, like a man who had learned the language from e-mail. His flat blue eyes were angelic with sympathy, as if he was suffering for a pain she would soon experience. “In New York to see some money people. Came up to settle some kind of trouble my boy is having. Harassment by a campus cop. Don’t remember the details. Probably exaggerated. My Nate does that.” He crossed pudgy legs. His dove-gray suit was so skillfully cut you might easily have mistaken him for buff instead of fat. “Thought I’d take a stroll up to Kepler because I always hear the sob stories, how nobody cares to fund God any more.” Julia was not sure her dean would ever choose quite those words, but elected for once a prudent silence. He glanced around her office. “Wanted to see for myself,” he added, dubiously. “Not much of a God man myself. Still, might be ways to help.”

“That would be lovely.”

Julia meant this seriously, but Cameron frowned as if suspecting an insult. He was in his early sixties, came from nothing, and, from his splendid castle in San Marino, near Los Angeles, ran the family of mutual funds he had founded almost forty years ago. He seemed wonderfully energetic, despite his roly-poly form, and affected a delightful breadth of gesture that filled the air with possibility, with energy, even with hope: you had the sense that this was a man who commanded resources, and could solve all your problems if you only gave him the chance.

“Stuck my head in the chapel. Scaffolding. What’s that all about?”

“A piece of the roof fell in.”

“Mmmm. Heavy symbol.” He strained the other way in the hard wooden chair, eyes now on the biblical scenes in the leaded glass windows. “Faculty still up in arms? Adopting resolutions? Think Lemaster’s the tool of the alumni? Going to put an end to multiculturalism or something? Suppose they think we should just give money and shut up.”

The swift change of subject caught Julia by surprise, and she heard herself offering too many explanations. “That’s all blown over. The media exaggerated it anyway. It was just a handful of professors. Besides, you know Lemmie. He’ll charm his way out of—”

“Good. Right.” Julia realized, too late, that Cameron had not really been asking a question. “Let me tell you why I’m here.”

“Certainly,” said Julia, smiling, but worried about how long this would take, because she had only another hour to finish the day’s work, if she meant to beat the school buses.

The Senior Trustee read her mind. “Don’t mean to take too much of your time,” he said, glancing at his watch to show her whose time he valued more.

“It’s just, I like to be home before my kids.”

Cameron nodded. “Don’t you have a couple in college?”

“One. Our oldest. Preston.”

“Liking it?”

“I think so. He’s in grad school now.” At twenty. “He’s thriving.”

“Don’t you have a daughter who’s applying now?”

Of course they did, and Cameron knew it. He must also know of the confusion attending her applications, given Vanessa’s difficulties over the past year. So this was just campus one-upmanship.

“It’s still pretty early in the process,” she said cautiously.

He scarcely heard. “Know what I’ve been doing the past couple of years?”

Getting richer. Ripping off investors. Protecting your children from the consequences of their actions. “I’m afraid not.”

“I help out the President with fund-raising, especially in the West. Help out the whole party.” It took Julia a moment to process this intelligence, because she had thought he meant the president of the university. “Don’t mean to brag. But it’s possible I’m the best fund-raiser they have.”

“I see,” said Julia, who did not. He could not be asking her for money. He had a better chance of predicting the date of the Second Coming.

Not that she necessarily believed in the Second Coming.

“Thing is, Julia, I don’t think your husband is being reasonable.”

This sat her up straight. “Reasonable? About what?”

“The election coming up. Most important in decades. Need to pull out all the stops, or the liberals could win. Lemaster’s a smart man. Must see it. But he won’t help.”

“What kind of help did you have in mind?”

“Awkward to talk about, but I tend to speak my mind.” Uncrossing his soft legs, leaning forward, crowding her in the tiny space behind her desk. “Simple, really. Lemaster has known Senator Malcolm Whisted for more than thirty years. College roommates, et cetera. Whisted always struck me as a pompous so-and-so. Rumor is he has a lot to hide. Could be some of it has to do with his college years. And Lemaster—”

Julia let out a hoot of laughter. She could not help herself. Déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra put it. Same question. Same answer. “My husband is a very principled man, Cameron.”

“Principles be damned,” said the money manager, perfectly serious. His fingers rested on the edge of Julia’s desk. “Not just some election. This one
matters.
”

“I’ll tell you why I laughed before. Would you be surprised to learn that somebody from, ah, the other side recently tried to get Lemaster to turn over dirt on your guy?”

“I’m not a bit surprised. The liberals will stop at nothing to gain control of the country. They’ll make it unlivable, believe me. Especially for business. That’s why Lemaster has to help.” Raising a hand to forestall her reply. “Don’t worry. Easy to do it quietly. Nobody would have to know the information came from Lemaster. Could use an intermediary, for example—”

Julia felt nervy, jangly, ready to attack. She had always hated overheated rhetoric, and refused absolutely to participate. When people talked this way, even people with whose positions she agreed, Julia invariably gravitated toward whatever camp they were opposing. Back in college, after discovering that Mona liked to call her “Jewel,” the other black students christened Julia “Semi-Precious,” mocking what they saw as her refusal to get involved in the causes they considered important.

“Lemaster turned the other side down, Cameron. He’ll turn you down, too.”

“Already did. But you should get him to change his mind. Make him see that it’s in his interest.” The Senior Trustee was on his feet. His pale eyes flicked over her, lingering once more where they should not. “In your interest, too, Julia. Get him to change his mind.”

“I hardly think it’s my place to—”

“We’ll fix some of this.” Waving vaguely around. “Find the money somewhere. Don’t worry.” Smiling suddenly. “Julia. Say. Don’t happen to know what your friend Kellen Zant was working on, do you? When he died?”

Startling her into truthfulness. “Ah, no. No. I’ve been wondering myself.”

“Tell you the interesting part, Julia. Called me up. Not two weeks before he died. Wouldn’t talk to an assistant, insisted on the big boss. Company hired him before, do a little consulting work. Designed this market game to let our analysts bet on which way stocks are going to move, get points if they’re right, lose ’em if they’re wrong, and nice rewards at the end. Real salesman, that Zant.” Words rich with admiration. And relish. “Had some fresh information, he said. Swing the balance in the campaign. That’s what he said. Wouldn’t say which way it would swing. Clever bastard. Said it was for sale. Sale, Julia. Imagine that. Putting a price on the future of this nation!”

“You turned him down?” she said, very attentive, waiting for him, like Mary Mallard, to mention the Black Lady.

“Told him we’d talk next time I was back east. Supposed to have breakfast the morning after he got his head shot off.” A handshake like a swift thunderclap. “Listen. Love home, right, Julia?”

(II)

J
ULIA WAS EDITING A MEMO
when old Clay Maxwell stuck his head into her office. He had been her favorite professor twenty years ago, although she had been anything but his favorite student. “I guess you heard the news,” he said.

“What news?”

“About your husband’s cousin. Astrid Venable.”

“What about her?” Panic. “Is she all right?”

“Whisted fired her this morning. Something about unauthorized opposition research.” A shrug of Clay’s carefully apolitical shoulders. “He gave a nice little speech, too, all about how he planned to run a clean campaign, but I’m sure there’s another reason. Nobody would be fired for what Astrid is supposed to have done. I mean, that’s all they do these days, isn’t it? Candidates? They dig up dirt.”

(III)

L
EMASTER WAS ABLE TO GIVE
his wife ten minutes that afternoon in his capacious Lombard Hall office, right before the provost and vice-president for finance, who usually managed to depress even their irrepressible president, and right after the leaders of a student protest movement demanding that the university divest from companies doing business wherever American troops served abroad—not realizing that there existed no more than a dozen or so countries in the world where no American forces were present, few of which possessed a hard currency to invest in.

“I had nothing to do with it, Jules. You’re crediting me with too much power.”

“You said you talked to Mal. To get him to call her off.”

Lemaster nodded somberly. “I did exactly that. I didn’t complain or make demands. I suggested that he get Astrid to slow down a little on the oppo research, or the story would become not whatever she dug up but the fact that she was digging.”

“And that was all?”

The charming elfin smile. “There wasn’t need for anything else. Or time. I got my point across, and Mal said he would look into it. Then he had to go to some meeting. We talked for, oh, five minutes. Six or seven at the most.”

Julia frowned, sure she was missing something—not in her husband’s explanation, but in Malcolm Whisted’s. But trying to work it out by force was like trying to breathe by grabbing air. She said, “Have you talked to her?”

“Of course.”

“And how was she?” Julia prompted.

Lemaster, as so often, answered the question he wished she had asked instead, for he valued being one up, and on anybody in the vicinity. After his selection last spring as president of the university, he had granted the obligatory
Times
interview. The reporter had asked what he planned to do about charges that the campus administration was insufficiently diverse, with none of the top jobs being held by anyone not white. Lemaster, offering his most supercilious smile—Julia had been there, and saw it, and cringed—had answered that what he planned to do was accept the post. The reporter, unamused, perhaps even feeling patronized, had spun the quote to make it look as if the new president was insensitive to the issue, and Lemaster, before even receiving his first paycheck, had been forced to write one of those humiliating
I-didn’t-choose-the-best-language-to-make-my-point
letters to the editor. Only his wife knew how it had pained him. But nothing in the experience had changed him. He still could not stand not being the smartest person in the room, and searched constantly for the opportunity to prove it. Night after night, at official dinners and receptions but also at home, Lemaster proved afresh his genius at the casual, complimentary put-down.

Especially when Kellen was around: then her husband’s juice of intellectual competitiveness seemed to flow with special vigor, and Kellen’s ego flashed right back, as though the ancient male blood-competition over mates had, in their generation, been transformed into a jargon-ridden, name-dropping, erudition-proving version of the dozens. The economist seemed to push her husband’s buttons, probably on purpose; and Lemaster, for all his charm and placid grace, knew how to use his tongue to slice you up and leave you bloody on the floor.

Now he said, “Astrid assured me that she doesn’t blame me. Probably that is not true. I would think she would surely blame me, whether fairly or not. It would seem, ah, anomalous of her to blame anybody else.”