“ I only heard about it from her after.”
“ Go on.”
“ Called her in… something to do with a grade he said. One of those late afternoon conferences, man, and the building's as empty as a crypt. He forced Lina into a corner of his office, tore her clothes before she got outta there. Lina claimed he didn't get far, that she brought her knee up right into his nuts. Nex' day I did notice him staring at her like he was going to kill or rape her if he ever got a chance.”
“ This is beginning to sound like bullshit,” said Gagliano, unconvinced.
“ It was him who gave her the poem book! I saw him give it to her. And those passages that're marked? Lina didn't mark 'em; he did, he did!”
“ George, you lied to us about the last time you saw Linda,” said Parry, immediately waving off Oniiwah's objections. “I think I'm hearing some lying going on now. I can tell when a man lies. I'm a walking detector. Now, do you want to amend anything you've said about this Professor Claxton before I go after his ass?”
“ What I said was the truth… only…”
“ Only what, George?”
“ The part about his having marked the pages. I don't know that for sure. Could've been her that marked the pages. I don't know. She was in his ten o'clock class. I had him at nine, an hour earlier.”
“ Anything else you wish to amend?”
“ I tol' you what Lina tol' me. What reason did she have to lie? She was real upset. I think it was one of the things that led her to the street; I mean, think of it. Someone in a position of trust and power over you, someone like a teacher that you look up to all of a sudden trying to put his hands all over you and shit like that?”
“ Yeah,” Tony agreed, “the bastard.”
Trying or succeeding? Parry wondered. It was an all-too- familiar story in these days of sex, scandal and betrayal in the American classroom.
“ I want to meet this guy Claxton,” said Parry.
“ He's got morning classes only. Disappears at night. Nobody knows where…” George's Sherlock Holmes intonation didn't help his credibility.
Outside, Tony said to Parry, “Damned if you didn't shake something out of that punk, but what's with the book? You copped it from Linda Kahala's room, didn't you? And why'n hell didn't you tell me about it?”
“ Picked it up from Lina's room the other night, and-”
“ Now you're calling her Lina?”
“ She went by Lina, the Hawaiian equivalent. Guess she preferred it. So maybe we should, too.”
“ If it'd make a difference…” Gagliano began, but let it go.
“ I took the book home with me that first night.”
“ You might've told me about it.”
“ Did a little bedtime reading. Wasn't sure how I might use it until I saw Georgie's smug face. But after laying it on him, I agree, he's not our killer.”
“ I knew that much.”
“ Now we locate this Claxton character.”
“ I wanna know why you didn't tell me about the Shakespeare, and why you didn't hash it over with me, Boss.”
“ I didn't know if it was relevant or not, and the case didn't need another confusing dead end, Tony; simple as that, all right?”
“ You're raising your voice, getting angry at me for asking about an oversight on your part?”
“ I thought it best to keep her private thoughts private if they held no bearing on the-”
“ Private? Christ, Jim, private?”
“ Yeah, private, you remember the word?”
'There's nothing in this world that's private when it comes to a murder victim, Jim. You know that!”
“ Yeah, yeah, I know that… sorry, Gag.”
Like silence broken the moment you said something, privacy was shattered the moment a crime was committed.
9
The state of man: inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.
Midnight July 16, 1995
Claxton wasn't in the phone directory. They found the name of the Dean of Faculty on a placard in front of a closed and darkened administration building of gleaming steel and glass. Parry telephoned the dean, identified himself and asked for the whereabouts of Dr. Claxton. The dean, shaken by the late night call, finally gave him the home address for a Dr. Donald G. Claxton. He lived within walking distance of the campus and they were soon on his doorstep, pounding away like a pair of Nazi Occupation troops.
Claxton was a big man, filling the doorway. He was also a belligerent bastard who refused to allow them inside where the sound of some less-than-classical music blended with heavy breathing, the telltale blue cast of a video screen rising and falling. Parry caught sight of someone hastily dressing and stumbling around behind Claxton's large frame, no doubt another of his students catching up on some late assignment.
Claxton was bearded and balding with the appearance of a man once active and involved in sports. Nowadays it appeared that boredom, beer and coeds made up his sporting life, and if his students were good sports, they'd receive good grades; otherwise, they got what was considered in college the ax, a grade of C. Parry recalled that Linda Kahala had gotten a C in her Shakespeare course, but had done superbly well in all of her other English classes.
Parry quickly introduced himself and Tony. “I want to talk to you about Linda Kahala.”
Claxton was immediately on the defensive. “Yes, of course, I'd heard about her disappearance. Tried to locate her about a grade conference but, well, some kids don't want to be found. Has she? Been found, I mean?”
“ Found, yeah, she's been found.” Parry watched intently for any reaction to this news.
“ Thank God. It must've been a nightmare for the parents.”
Either Claxton was an extremely cool character, or a sociopath-which their killer must be-or the man had no idea that Linda Kahala had been brutally murdered. At this point, Parry didn't want to disturb his line of questioning with the fact the girl was found dead. “I understand she had a problem with you, Dr. Claxton?”
“ Problem? Oh, well, she wasn't too bright; she failed to do well in my class, but-”
“ Why's that, Doctor?”
Tony snidely asked, “She didn't do well on her orals or what?”
“ Because she didn't pass your goddamned sex exam?” Parry bluntly added, having agreed on the ride over to press the man this way.
Claxton visibly reddened there in the dark doorway. “What the hell is this? I'll thank you to leave now, you gentlemen of the law.”
“ We know all about your classroom tactics, Claxton,” Parry retaliated. “And now one of the girls you sexually molested has turned up dead, mutilated beyond recognition and-”
“ Dead? Mutilated?”
“- and that's a bit too much to overlook, Doctor, even for a man of your refinement and reputation. Now, are you going to cooperate, or do I have to get a warrant to search, and maybe a second to arrest?”
He stood there breathing heavily, pondering his options. “All right, all right, what the hell do you want from me?”
“ We'd like to come inside, look around,” said Tony. “ 'Less you got somethin' to hide.”
He looked over his shoulder, eyeballing his guest. “It's really a bad time for me. What about coming back tomorrow, say two in the afternoon?”
Parry pressed on. “You gave Linda a book of sonnets?”
“ I give a lot of books away.”
“ Did you or not?”
“ What if I had? What's it to you?”
“ This book?” Parry's sleight of hand with the book impressed Tony, whose eyes bored into Claxton, his fists clenched.
“ Yeah, maybe… I suppose I may've given her a book. I give away a lotta books.”
“ When? Before or after you raped her?”
“ Raped her? Are you guys nuts? What rape? There was no… never any rape. She… consented.”
“ Yeah, right,” muttered Tony.
“ Right there in your office, Doctor? Where you backed her into a corner?”