The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(23)

“A signal would require premeditation on my part. I just open my mouth and stuff comes out.”

“The mental image was too much for me. I instantly saw Grider in drag. I’ll never be able to look at him the same way again.”

“And you just know he’s hairy everywhere,” Nikki said as they got in the car. “A plunging neckline is not going to be a pretty look.”

She shuddered at the thought, and looked at Nilsen’s house. The old man was standing in the doorway, staring at them, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He was probably calling the department to complain that detectives packing vaginas had come to his house.

His original statement given at the time of Ted Duffy’s murder had been less than a page long. He didn’t know anything. He hadn’t seen anything. Nikki was puzzled: He was the kind of neighbor with his nose in everyone’s business—by his own admission, he had been bothered by the noise from the Duffy household in general—but he had not stuck his head out a window at the relentless sound of Duffy splitting wood or at the sound of two gunshots. He had spied her and Seley in the Duffy yard quickly enough, but he hadn’t seen Ted Duffy lying dead on the ground. Duffy’s body had been discovered by his wife at around six o’clock in the evening.

“See if you can find his ex-wife,” Nikki said. “I want to know more about the Nilsens.”

“Will do. What next?”

“We meet the Widow Duffy.”





9


“I don’t know what to say.”

Forrest Foster, chair of the History Department, had turned the color of chalk. He sank down into the chair behind his desk looking like he might pass out. He was a rail-thin man in his fifties, dressed like a history professor from Central Casting: shirt and bow tie, burgundy sweater vest, tweed jacket, horn-rimmed glasses. His hands were trembling as he placed them on the desktop.

Located in Heller Hall on the U of M’s West Bank campus, Foster’s office was small, with a tall, narrow window that allowed him a view of the next brick building.

“I knew when Lucien didn’t show up for the meeting this morning something had to be wrong,” he said quietly. “I thought an illness, maybe, or a car accident. With the way the roads were . . . But then when Sondra didn’t answer her phone, either, or the house phone . . .”

The Chamberlains’ landline had been cut. The fact that the wife had not called 911 on her cell phone suggested the murder of her husband had been as quick and efficient as it was brutal. Chargers had been found on the nightstands in the master bedroom, but no phones. No laptop computers. No iPads or tablets of any kind. The wallets of both Professor and Mrs. Chamberlain had been cleaned out of cash and credit cards. Jewelry boxes had been raided. A lockbox in the master bedroom closet had been forced open and left on the floor. Anything in it that might have been valuable was gone.

A nice slick burglary with an unexpected side of murder.

“What was the nature of the meeting?” Taylor asked.

Foster blinked like a man waking from a nightmare, relieved for the distraction of a mundane question. “A very generous alumnus has donated a substantial amount of money to the university to be used to expand our programs in East Asian history and art history. It’s very exciting,” he said with no excitement at all. “We’ll be adding two faculty positions, and will be naming a head of East Asia studies. Lucien was one of our final four candidates.”

“Does this new job carry a lot of prestige?” Kovac asked.

“Our Asian studies program has always been small but well regarded,” said Foster. “With this new influx of money, and expansion, yes, the title will carry cachet in the academic world.”

“And money?”

Foster’s answer stuck in his throat as the implication struck him. “You don’t think— Surely you can’t believe— No. No, no. That’s insane.”

“Yeah,” Kovac said, nodding. “So is what happened to the Chamberlains. We’ll need to speak to the three other candidates.”

Foster pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, mumbling, “Oh my God. This is unbelievable.”

“It’s routine procedure, Professor,” Taylor assured him. “We have to examine every possibility, even the far-fetched variety.”

“Ken Sato,” Foster said, looking through a file on his desk. Too nervous and flustered, he sat back again. “Ken is already on staff here. A very dedicated, innovative teacher. Dynamic. Popular with the students. Then we have a candidate currently teaching at the University of California–Los Angeles. Hanh Luu. Our interviews with her have been via Skype up to this point. She’s flying in this Friday.”

“And the fourth one?” Taylor asked, glancing up from his note taking. “You said there were four finalists. Chamberlain, Sato, Luu, and . . .”

“There were four. This is just all the more tragic . . .” He shook his head in disbelief. “Stuart Kaufman. Professor of East Asian art history. He passed away suddenly about two weeks ago. We’re all still reeling from his loss.”

“Passed away of what?” Kovac asked, on point.

“Pancreatitis and kidney failure. It was terrible. He went home with the stomach flu one day, and the next day he was dead. We were all so shocked.”