Bloody Genius (Virgil Flowers, #12)(14)

“I don’t believe I ever said a word to him in my entire life before he came to my lecture and began yelling at me,” Green said. “Then I went to his seminar, and, well, we didn’t actually speak, we shouted at each other.”

“And you didn’t kill him?”

“Of course not! I mean—”

“I had to ask,” Virgil said, holding up his hands, flashing another smile. “How about other people from Cultural Science? Is there anyone involved with your department that you might think capable of murder? Even if the murder was impulsive, as opposed to planned?”

She stared at him for a moment, then said, “I suppose you do have to ask.” She turned away, looking out a window at the brick wall of another building, then turned back and said, “Do you know about Clete?”

“Clete? Was he the guy charged with assault after your speech?”

“Yes. Clete May. He has what I’d call a machismo thing—sometimes a problem, sometimes not. That can be quite useful when doing cultural research. You know, he’s happy to carry heavy things for us women, pick up the check more often than he has to, possibly defend us in the more misogynistic cultures. That kind of thing. He also has a tendency to lean into our female students and staff.”

“‘Lean into’? You mean ‘grab’? ‘Pressure’? ‘Assault’?” Virgil asked.

“No, I meant what I said: lean. He leans into them. He moves into their spaces, whether he’s welcome or not. Somehow, I feel that you might be familiar with the concept.”

“I would never lean into anyone’s space if I weren’t welcome,” Virgil said.

“How can you tell without trying?” Green asked.

“You’d have to be a moron not to know,” Virgil said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. Differing levels of empathy among males. Does it begin in childhood? Is a dominant mother involved?” She made another note, then asked, “Would you consider your mother to hold the dominant role in your kinship group?”

“Who?”

“Your nuclear family?”

“Well, I never thought about it. Now that you ask, no, not especially. We were all pretty equal.”

“Interesting,” she said. “Did your family group hold any extensive moral attitudes?”

Virgil shrugged. “My father’s a Lutheran minister. I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night until I was eighteen.”

“Interesting,” she said, and she made another note.



* * *



—

Virgil tried to regain control of the interview. “This Clete May. Do you think—”

“He might be capable of violence, but he’s not a stupid person, a thug, by any means. I know that he’s studied martial arts, but also that he’s deeply interested in Zen Buddhism. He makes friends easily enough, yet I sense a certain . . . calculation . . . in all of it. I’ve heard him talk about fighting—street fighting—but I’m not sure he’s done it, but he sure talks about it. Maybe he gets it from movies, I don’t know.”

“I’ll speak to him,” Virgil said. “You won’t come into it.”

“I appreciate that,” Green said. “There’s another man, Terry Foster, who served in the military in the Middle East. He’s quite mild-mannered. I’ve never seen anything that would suggest that he could become violent, but I’ve been told that he was wounded in action over there. I’ve never heard him speak about it and I never asked.”

Virgil noted the names, and Green said he could get contact information from the secretary. He pushed her on her relationship with Quill, and if she was telling the truth, there was nothing there but an academic conflict.

“Quill was trying to get your department abolished. If that happened, who’d be hurt worst?”

“Well, me,” she said. “I’m the head of the department. If the university abolished the department, I might be able to move to Anthropology, but it would certainly be a step backwards. Most of the students could probably transfer their credits there, but we have two Ph.D. candidates who’d be badly damaged by such a thing. They are deep into their thesis work and might have to start over.”

Virgil took their names. They were both women, and Virgil said, “Women are less inclined to this kind of violence. A heavy physical attack. When women kill, it’s usually a last resort to fend off what they see as a life-threatening situation. They use a gun or a knife, but they don’t bludgeon somebody, because they recognize that men are larger and stronger. If they feel desperate and cornered, they go for a real kill, with a real weapon. And they’re often older than student age. Not always, but usually.”

“Then you think the killer is male?”

“Oh, probably. Not a sure thing, but probably,” Virgil said. “Women do bludgeon people to death, but it’s usually a child. Usually their own.”

Green winced, then asked, “Anything else?”

Virgil shook his head. “No, not at the moment. I might come back to consult with you if anything suggests that one of your students or staff was involved . . .”

She smiled for the first time, but her smile reminded Virgil of Lucas Davenport’s smile, which could turn predatory and even downright mean. “Do that.”