“I’ll see what Sly has to say,” I said, making no promises.
She sighed. “The exec committee met yesterday. Human Resources will post a search notice for both the president’s position and the academic vice president’s as soon as they get job descriptions written. The process can drag on for months, but we’re hopeful we can fill both slots before graduation.”
“Do you think Hiram Chin will apply?”
She raised a palm. “Don’t know. At the meeting, someone asked him that and he was noncommittal.”
“Could he make it through the normal process and get hired here?”
“Depends, I suppose, on the curriculum vitae he submits and the way he handles the mess when Park’s private fund-raising shit hits the fan.”
“That’s coming?”
“Joan Givens showed her evidence that Park was soliciting donations to the board members you met Friday, Tom Juarequi and Melanie Marino. They listened to her, but they asked her to keep a lid on it until they can make inquiries,” Kate said. “Whatever that means. She thinks they want to bury the issue along with Park, but she promised them that if they don’t act appropriately, she will go to the authorities. So, what happens, I suppose, depends on what the Board does. Or doesn’t do.”
I took the lid off the cafeteria coffee and tried it. It wasn’t bad, except that Kate had added milk and sugar, the way I used to dose it when we still lived together in college. I now preferred black. But, it was hot and my office felt damp and chilly, so I drank some, thinking about what she had said.
“Kate?”
She looked up out of her own reverie.
“Saturday, Hiram Chin showed up at that very posh party Jean-Paul took us to. He’s a neighbor of the host; Broad Beach.”
“Holy crap,” she said. “If he can afford to live there, what’s he doing here?”
I chuckled. “You can afford to live on Broad Beach, even if you don’t. So what are you doing here?”
She gave me a little self-deprecating smile. “Point taken.”
“Anyway.” I scooted my chair closer to hers and lowered my voice. “Hiram seemed pretty upset about Park’s death. He asked if it was a suicide. I think he was relieved when I said I didn’t think it was.”
“Really?” She thought that over. “He was more worried about suicide than murder?”
“That was my impression. But I didn’t use the M word, so maybe his assumption was that it was either suicide or an accident.”
“Interesting.” She took her feet off my chair and rose. “Did you tell Roger?”
“The Roger who is not investigating a murder?”
“Bullshit.” She dropped her empty cup into the trash. “You knew he couldn’t stay away. Any more than you can.”
She took a deep breath. “I need to get productive. I’ll talk to you later.”
At the door, she turned and smiled at me. “God, Mags, it’s so good to have you around. The man you’re replacing for the semester told Lew that he’s not well enough to come back; he’s retiring. Lew is going to put in a request to hire a full-time, tenure-track replacement. Will you apply?”
I shook my head.
“This has been interesting,” I said. “And I’ve loved seeing so much of you, Kate. I like the kids. But last night I signed a deal with my old network. If things work out, it may lead to something more permanent.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
I laughed, a reaction to the flash of chagrin I suddenly felt.
“Kate, I signed to make a film about Park Holloway. When it comes out, I doubt I could get hired here on a bet. And chances are, after the broadcast it might be better for you if people on campus forget we’re friends.”
“Oh bite me,” she said, wrapping me in a hug. “They’ll just have to get over themselves.”
I looked at the wall clock as the door closed behind her. Something Kate said; I needed to talk with Joan Givens. There was still time before class. I grabbed my umbrella and walked over to the Foundation office.
Joan was working on a flyer for an upcoming fund-raiser when I knocked on the jamb of her open door. The sound startled her.
“Maggie,” she said, looking up, smiling. “Hi.”
“Have a minute, Joan? I have a favor to ask.”
I told her that I would be making the Holloway film, and asked her to speak to me about his fund-raising efforts.
“Do you call that deep background?” she asked.
“More like a starting point,” I told her. “Later, maybe as early as the end of this week, I’d like to get you in front of a camera.”
“Oh, wow.” She laughed softly to herself, looking out the window at the rain as she made her decision. Then she turned back to me and pointed to a chair, an invitation to stay.
“I was going to say that I needed to run your request past the college administration first,” she said. “But at the moment, I don’t know who that would be. Hiram?”
She shook her head. “I’m an army brat. When men reached the end of their enlistment, we used to say they had wheels. Right now, that’s the best way I know to describe Hiram; he has wheels. So, yes. But let me explain why.”
Joan was smart, and conscientious. She truly cared for the college community. She said she would talk to me on camera about Holloway’s secret slush fund, as she called it, because she was afraid that the Board of Trustees would do their best to sweep it under the carpet to save themselves and the college from embarrassment. But word was already out among her best donors that they may have been cheated. Joan depended on their generosity to fund scholarships and programs like theater productions and student publications that could not survive on their allotted college funds alone. To keep her donors from decamping, she wanted to reassure them that no one, not even the college president, would ever get away with misusing them or their donations.
“Do you know who Jacob Riis was?” she asked.
“The nineteenth-century muckraker?”
She nodded. “He said the best way to stop corruption is to expose it to the full light of day. I agree. If Park Holloway did something that was corrupt, he must be exposed, no matter what happened to him.”
“You’re brave, Joan,” I said.
“Not really.”
She opened a drawer and removed the same thick file she had taken to the meeting with Holloway on Friday; I recognized the notations written on the front.
“When we heard that Park had gone to David Dahliwahl for money, Bobbie Cusato and I began making calls to our donors. Thirty of them-our thirty most generous donors, by the way-told us they had been solicited by Park. We asked them to document the requests by writing us a note, and if they had sent money to give us a copy of the cancelled check.”
Joan began taking letters out of the file. She made two piles, one for letters with copies of cancelled checks stapled to the backs, one for those that did not.
I counted the checks, a baker’s dozen. It wasn’t the number of checks as much as it was the total amount of Holloway’s score, something in the neighborhood of four hundred thousand dollars. The checks were all made out to The President’s Fund and deposited in the Seacrest Bank.
“I’ve never heard of this bank,” I said. “Is it local?”
“No. I checked it out. Maggie, it’s an offshore bank.”
“Why am I not surprised? Did you show any of this to the police?”
“No. I left that to the Board of Trustees for the time being.”
“Kate must have said something to Roger.”
“You’ll have to ask them about that. He knows, of course, that Park was raising money because Kate is on the list of people he tried to tap. Both she and Bobbie turned him down. But the details, like the bank, I haven’t said anything about that until now, except to a couple of Board members.”
“Marino and Jaurequi?”
“Yes.” Lines appeared between her brows for a moment and then she said, “I forgot, you met them.”