Bloody Genius by John Sandford Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “Interesting. Differing levels of empathy among males. Does it begin in childhood? Is a dominant mother involved?” She made another note, then asked, “Would you consider your mother to hold the dominant role in your kinship group?”
    “Who?”
    “Your nuclear family?”
    “Well, I never thought about it. Now that you ask, no, not especially. We were all pretty equal.”
    “Interesting,” she said. “Did your family group hold any extensive moral attitudes?”
    Virgil shrugged. “My father’s a Lutheran minister. I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night until I was eighteen.”
    “Interesting,” she said, and she made another note.
----
    —
    Virgil tried to regain control of the interview. “This Clete May. Do you think—”
    “He might be capable of violence, but he’s not a stupid person, a thug, by any means. I know that he’s studied martial arts, but also that he’s deeply interested in Zen Buddhism. He makes friends easily enough, yet I sense a certain . . . calculation . . . in all of it. I’ve heard him talk about fighting—street fighting—but I’m not sure he’s done it, but he sure talks about it. Maybe he gets it from movies, I don’t know.”
    “I’ll speak to him,” Virgil said. “You won’t come into it.”
    “I appreciate that,” Green said. “There’s another man, Terry Foster, who served in the military in the Middle East. He’s quite mild-mannered. I’ve never seen anything that would suggest that he could become violent, but I’ve been told that he was wounded in action over there. I’ve never heard him speak about it and I never asked.”
    Virgil noted the names, and Green said he could get contact information from the secretary. He pushed her on her relationship with Quill, and if she was telling the truth, there was nothing there but an academic conflict.
    “Quill was trying to get your department abolished. If that happened, who’d be hurt worst?”
    “Well, me,” she said. “I’m the head of the department. If the university abolished the department, I might be able to move to Anthropology, but it would certainly be a step backwards. Most of the students could probably transfer their credits there, but we havetwo Ph.D. candidates who’d be badly damaged by such a thing. They are deep into their thesis work and might have to start over.”
    Virgil took their names. They were both women, and Virgil said, “Women are less inclined to this kind of violence. A heavy physical attack. When women kill, it’s usually a last resort to fend off what they see as a life-threatening situation. They use a gun or a knife, but they don’t bludgeon somebody, because they recognize that men are larger and stronger. If they feel desperate and cornered, they go for a real kill, with a real weapon. And they’re often older than student age. Not always, but usually.”
    “Then you think the killer is male?”
    “Oh, probably. Not a sure thing, but probably,” Virgil said. “Women do bludgeon people to death, but it’s usually a child. Usually their own.”
    Green winced, then asked, “Anything else?”
    Virgil shook his head. “No, not at the moment. I might come back to consult with you if anything suggests that one of your students or staff was involved . . .”
    She smiled for the first time, but her smile reminded Virgil of Lucas Davenport’s smile, which could turn predatory and even downright mean. “Do that.”
----
    —
    In the outer office, Virgil got contact information for the people mentioned by Green. He asked the secretary, “The Wilson Library is around here, isn’t it? I went to school here, but it was quite a while ago.”
    “It’s right next door,” she said. “You gonna go look at the murder scene?”
    “I guess,” Virgil said, “since I’m right here.”
    The secretary dropped her voice. “It was pretty gory. The blood soaked into the floor, and I’m told there’s no way to get