Honest Doubt by Amanda Cross Read Free Book Online Page A

it?”
    â€œI’m pretty tired of tact,” Kate said. “It’s mostly a technique useful to those trying to get away with something.” She looked at her watch. “I’d like a drink. Can I offer you something? I’m having Scotch, but you can have whatever you want. It is well after five.”
    â€œ ‘And as the sun sinks my thirst rises.’ I had an uncle who used to say that. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait till I’ve gotten through these notes and heard what you have to say. I’ve got to go and see these professors, and it’s absolutely new terrain for me. Maybe after I’ve talked to you, I won’t sound quite so ditsy. It’s not exactly in my usual line of work.”
    â€œPerhaps you’ll make a specialty of it when this case is over,” Kate said. She went across the room, where there was liquor and ice and everything, and made herself a drink. I agreed to have a glass of seltzer, and settled down. I hoped Scotch didn’t affect her too much, but what the hell. At least she made me feel welcome. Banny’s eyes followed Kate’s passage across the room, but Banny didn’t move; Kate wasn’t going anywhere.
    Kate sipped her drink. “Claire Wiseman told me that the department sounded like a business the owners were trying to wrest from one another. She seems to know someone who used to work there, and her tales are pretty harrowing, Claire says. Not that I’ve ever been an admirer of small colleges in the countryside; there’s far too much togetherness and far too much interest in one another’s lives. In a university in New York City, like mine, we all go home at night and fade into a different, largely private world. Certainly there are departmental struggles, but they aren’t each professor’s whole life. Also, small departments are either pleasant or hell. Tell me about this one—the details, I mean. I know you can’t make any judgments yet.” She took another sip and sat back, all attention.
    I took a deep breath and peered at my notes, though I had them by heart. It does no good to sound too knowledgeable before those who may offer information; it’s best if they feel themselves to be the authority in the matter, which of course they usually are, to some extent. I didn’t act differently with Kate.
    â€œIt’s a department of ten professors,” I reported, “six tenured, four not. Divided, as I suppose all English departments are, into periods, or maybe they should be called fields, or areas—I’m not too clear on that. Anyway, the periods or fields, in no particular order, are Victorian—well, there is a particular order here, because that was Haycock’s field, and he’s the reason we’re talking about all this. I know you said most professors aren’t given to murder, but are English departments more given to murder than most?”
    â€œNot as far as I know,” Kate said. “The only act comparable to murder I know of personally was a suicide. A new assistant professor was found to have plagiarized his dissertation and his book; he killed himself before the matter went far, thus proclaiming his guilt, or so everyone thought. That’s about it. Do go on.”
    â€œWell, in addition to Victorian, we have American, Modern—I’m not sure what that is, exactly— Medieval, Renaissance, Romantics/Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, and something Comparative. Most of these have a full professor attached to them, lord of all he surveys, so to speak.”
    â€œThat’s a new and insightful way to put it,” Kate said. “Go on.”
    â€œThe leftover fields are covered by assistant professors. Sometimes one of these chaps, or an assistant professor, teaches the novel. There’s also a part-time person who teaches creative writing, which, I gathered, is there to bring in the money from people in the