“Good thinking.”
“Thanks. And then I saw this.”
He rotated his laptop so she could see the screen. The headline read TECH PROFESSOR LEAVES FOR PRIVATE SECTOR, FIRST JOB IS FOR UCLA STUDENT.
The article was published in September 1994, the first edition in the school year following Susan’s death, reporting the university’s loss of Richard Hathaway, a popular and prolific computer science professor, to a booming, Internet-fueled private sector job.
According to the article, a university policy requiring ownership of all faculty research and development could have played a role in Hathaway’s departure. The author hinted that the policy could make it difficult to hire and retain professors in the most innovative and profitable fields. It also reported that Professor Hathaway’s first private-sector gig was as a consultant to UCLA junior Dwight Cook, who was currently seeking financing for his Internet-search technology.
The caption beneath Professor Hathaway’s photograph read, “Professor could earn his annual UCLA income in a day’s work for a successful start-up.”
But it was the last paragraph of the article that Jerry highlighted for Laurie on his screen:
Professor Hathaway may be familiar to students beyond the computer science department as the male professor named “most crush-worthy” by this publication for three of the last five years. Though that award is one of many tongue-in-cheek honors bestowed by the paper’s editorial board, not everyone always saw the humor. Last year, a student filed a complaint with the university, repeating campus rumors that Professor Hathaway had dated female students and alleging that he showed favor to attractive female students on that basis. The student withdrew the complaint when she was unwilling to provide the names of any students who may have been involved with the popular teacher, and no other students came forward to confirm her allegation.
Jerry looked at Laurie to make sure she had finished reading. “We know Susan was one of his favorite students. And she was definitely attractive.”
Laurie looked again at the photograph accompanying the article. Hathaway would have been in his late thirties at the time. When she met him in Dwight Cook’s office, she had noticed he was handsome, but his face was fuller and his hair thinner than in this photograph. As she looked at the younger version, it dawned on her that Hathaway’s features were similar to Keith Ratner’s. Dark hair, strong cheekbones, and a killer smile. She could imagine that a woman might be attracted to them both.
Susan and her professor? It was a theory that the police had never even considered.
“I’ll check with her roommates, see if there were any signals that Susan and Professor Hathaway might have been an item. If they were, Dwight Cook certainly didn’t know about it. I could tell when I first spoke to him that he’d been carrying a torch for Susan himself, and then Keith made it sound like Dwight was pretty obsessed with her. No way would he have kept Hathaway as his right-hand man at REACH if the teacher crossed that line with Susan. But the article calls him a consultant. We know that Hathaway was instrumental to REACH from the very beginning. That means he got stock options and big money. I know you told me that Hathaway confirmed that the idea for REACH was Dwight’s and not Susan’s, but-”
“You’re thinking Dwight Cook might have murdered Susan?”
“I don’t know, Jerry. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that it’s often the least likely suspect.”
She thought of her husband’s murder. Because Greg was an emergency room doctor, the police thought he might have crossed paths with a deranged patient who became fixated on him. It never dawned on anyone that Greg was targeted by a sociopath consumed by hatred of her own father, NYPD inspector Leo Farley.
Laurie was reminded of her conversation with Alex that morning; Jerry really had moved on since his intern days. He was now close to a partner for her on the show, and she needed to treat him that way. “I’ll call Rosemary again so we aren’t just taking Hathaway and Dwight’s word for it about Susan’s lab work. She’ll know what Susan was working on.”
Laurie had hoped to narrow the field of people under suspicion before the summit session, but her list of suspects seemed to be growing.
43
By the time Dwight Cook slipped his key into the lock of his Westwood bungalow, it was nearly midnight. He and Hathaway had taken REACH’s jet to Los Angeles, but the flight had been delayed by fog in the Bay Area.
Hathaway teased him for hanging on to this modest little house, which Dwight had bought at the end of his junior year, once REACH appeared solid enough as a start-up for him to get a small mortgage. In fact, Hathaway teased him for returning to college at all. Hathaway was so confident in REACH’s potential to pull in major cash that he’d retired from his tenured position.
But Hathaway had always been more financially motivated than Dwight. It sounded overly simple, but Dwight really did enjoy college-not the parties or hanging out in the quad, but the learning. So even after REACH launched, he found a way to finish college. Besides, he had Hathaway to oversee the corporation.
As soon as he locked the door behind him, he opened his laptop and logged in to the surveillance cameras at the Bel Air house. He had not been able to check updates while he was with Hathaway.
He fast-forwarded through hours of tape for a quick overview. The house was empty most of the day. The little boy and his grandpa came home first, followed by some television for the boy and phone calls for Grandpa. Then Jerry and Grace, followed by Laurie and Alex Buckley. It looked like they were wrapping up the night with some kind of game in the den.
He hit PAUSE. Jerry was in the corner by himself while everyone else was playing the game. Laurie seemed to stop and talk to Jerry alone. He rewound to the beginning of their conversation and hit PLAY.
By the time he watched Laurie resume her seat at the game table, Dwight wanted to throw his laptop across the room. When he set out to monitor the activity at the house, he thought it would give him some semblance of control, but this was maddening. What he really wanted was to be in the room with them. If they would only ask him the right questions, he could set them straight.
Susan and Hathaway? The thought made him physically ill. It was also ridiculous. Susan was too blinded by her devotion to that abominable Keith Ratner to notice anyone else.
And the idea that Susan had been the one to develop REACH? The technology that had launched REACH wasn’t Susan’s idea; it wasn’t even Dwight’s-not really. As Hathaway had pointed out, he and Dwight were two halves of a whole. On his own, Dwight might never have conceived such a grand idea. But without Dwight’s programming talent, Hathaway might have gotten bogged down and someone else would have caught up and surpassed him before REACH was off the ground.
It had nothing to do with Susan.
He wanted Susan’s murder solved, but now the people at Under Suspicion were on the completely wrong track, and he couldn’t correct their misconceptions without revealing the fact that he was monitoring their conversations. He was stuck. All he could do was watch and listen and hope. Oh, Susan, he thought wistfully.
He switched his screen over to the We Dive SoCal website. He hoped someone might have tips about new sites for him to explore while he was in Los Angeles, but it looked like he was going to stick with his usual dives: Farnsworth Bank, on the windward side of Catalina, and the oil rigs off of Long Beach.
It was probably good he’d completed these tens of times before. Dwight was at his best when he kept a routine. Eight A.M. wake-up. Coffee. Three-mile jog. Cereal with fruit. Work. The occasional dinner with Hathaway. Reading. Sleep. Repeat.