I didn’t respond.
He removed the sunglasses. Small black eyes scanned my face like a dermatologist probing for lesions. “Clouds the judgment, serious drinking.”
I said, “It’s a problem in some families.”
He turned to Milo. “What the hell were you thinking taking him along to the Freeman scene without authorization, then bullshitting Creighton about it? Didn’t you figure he’d check with me?”
“I assumed he would, sir.”
Down went the chopstick. “It was a Fuck you?”
“No, sir. It was a Doing my job as best I can given the constraints.”
“You can’t do your job without him? We’re talking some kind of psychological dependency here?”
“We’re talking preference based on past experience, sir.”
“You need a shrink on board to function?”
“When cases are unusual and Dr. Delaware has time, I find his input helpful. I thought you agreed, so I didn’t foresee any objection.”
“And Creighton?”
“Creighton’s a bureaucrat.”
The chief retrieved the stick, rolled it impressively from finger to finger. The black eyes divided their time between Milo and me. “You didn’t foresee any objection.”
“Based on—”
“I get it. But it’s still bullshit. Amazing the doctor still puts up with you.”
Twice, the chief had offered me important-sounding jobs with the department that I’d turned down.
“I can see the value of shrinkery for weird cases, Sturgis, but I’m not sensing any psychosexual horror on this one.”
Milo said, “A body packed in dry ice, no obvious cause of death, and a total disregard for proper procedure made it unusual to me.”
“You think it’s unusual, Doctor?”
“It’s different.”
“Sturgis explain to you why discretion is paramount?”
“He did.”
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“That your son attends Windsor Tech and has applied to Yale.”
“What do you think about Yale?”
“Top school.”
“Great reputation,” he said. “Just like the hedge-fund wizards and the cretins at Fannie Mae had until they got their britches yanked and guess what was underneath? Empty space.”
“You don’t like Yale?”
“I don’t care enough about the place to like or dislike, Doctor. They’re all the same, holding pens for spoiled rich brats and kids who aspire to be spoiled richer brats. A few years ago, the geniuses on Yale’s admissions committee rejected thousands of smart, qualified American kids but accepted some Afghan who’d served as the Taliban’s spokesman. Want to take odds the guy ever took AP calculus and served as captain of his Model U.N. debate team? Then those same geniuses let in an alleged art student, her idea of creativity is getting knocked up, aborting the fetus, and videotaping the mess. After which she repeated the freak show over and over or maybe she was faking. We’re living in Bizarro World, Rembrandt’s writhing in his grave.”
“No doubt,” I said.
“I have nothing against Yale more than any other Ivy League resort. What I can’t figure out is why Charlie wants to go there when my wife went to Columbia and Penn law school and I got that ridiculous master’s degree at Harvard—two years commuting to Boston every week, my reward was listening to puffed-up fools yakking about nothing. I made the mistake of attending graduation, brought my wife and my mother, Charlie wasn’t born yet. They do the ceremony in Harvard Yard, which was fine back in the seventeen hundreds when it was a little divinity school for rich twits. Now there’s space for maybe a quarter of the people who show up, they give you a predetermined seat number with preferences for rich assholes who endow buildings. My wife and my eighty-seven-year-old mother stood for two hours in ninety-degree weather, finally they get to their seats and end up not seeing a damn thing because inconsiderate twits stood in front of them the whole time. A bunch of nice black ladies from the Bronx were in the row behind, their niece was the first person in the family to attend college, they had no clue what the hell was going on. My wife turned around and said, ‘These are the geniuses who ran the Vietnam War.’ They’re all the same, Doctor. Arrogant, thoughtless, impractical.”
“Ivy League schools.”
“Any elite institution. It’s like junior high: Insecure assholes can’t feel popular unless everyone else is an outcast.” Head shake. “My kid’s got legacy status at Columbia, Penn, and Harvard, he obsesses on Yale.”
“Kids will do that,” I said.
“Be stupid and obnoxious?”
“Try to differentiate themselves.”
“Psych-talk,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what my wife says. Supposedly Charlie’s got a tough row to hoe being under the alleged shadow of his father so he needs to find himself as an individual. Which is ridiculous, you see me as intimidating? Not to him, trust me. He’s twice as smart as me and plays the fucking cello.”
Milo’s smile was fleeting but the chief saw it.
“You’re just loving this, aren’t you? I’m in a spot where I can’t kick your ass with my customary aim and fervor.” To me: “I told Charlie apply to Harvard for early acceptance, it’s nonbinding, he’ll have a fallback. No, he said, that wouldn’t be fair to kids who really want to go to Harvard. Guess what the average acceptance rate was last year at the big three—H, Y, and Princeton? Six fucking percent and this year’s going to be worse because of the baby boom. Charlie’s got over a 4.0 when you factor in APs and honors courses and he scored 1540 on the SAT, only took it once. Sounds like a shoo-in, right? Forget that fairy tale.”
I said, “Sounds like he’s a strong applicant on his own and being your kid—and your wife’s—should help him.”
“Why?”
“You’re famous.”
He jabbed his chest. “If I was a brain-dead actor with a brain-dead kid, I’d be famous. To those twits I’m a right-wing social climber—and don’t think politics doesn’t play into it. Yeah, Charlie’s brilliant but I’m not booking advance flights to New Haven under the best of circumstances. Now I’ve got this. That stupid DVD, then she actually goes and gets herself killed. Give the twits an excuse to pass over my kid for some some Hamas engineering whiz from Gaza who they can teach to build better fucking bombs and they’ll jump at it.”
I said, “So you don’t see it as a suicide?”
“Body’s packed in ice but no bags on the scene, vic’s computer’s missing, she’s already given advance warning people are out to get her? Why the hell would I see it as a suicide—oh, Jesus.” Sharp laughter. “You geniuses actually thought I was gonna push suicide on you? Turn this into some fucking Ice-Gate? Give me a break, I went to fucking Harvard.”
He resumed eating. When Milo said, “Sir,” he was waved into silence.
Milo tried again, two bites later: “So I’ll be able to do my job as I see fit?”
“Now,” said the chief, “you’re sounding paranoid. Maybe you’re the wrong guy for this case, seeing as it has psychological overtones.”
“Even paranoiacs have enemies,” said Milo.
“If they’re assholes, they have a whole bunch.” The chief’s face flushed but a tirade was cut short by the arrival of our food.
My burger was dry and I put it aside.
Milo feasted.
When he’d cleared half his platter, he inhaled and put his fork down. “Sir, apologies for any offense, but I’m still not clear what’s expected of me.”
“Close the damn case is what’s expected of you, but do it with discretion. What does that mean? Fine, I’ll tell you: Do not go public on anything prior to my approval. No unnecessary ruffling of feathers, no loose talk about Windsor Prep being a den of iniquity, no stomping into the place like a storm trooper, no intimidation of administration, faculty, students, janitors, the squirrels that scurry up their damn trees, the birds that fly in their damn airspace.”