Page 86 of Skeletons in the Closet

“Yes.” He gazed over my shoulder.

“Then why are we here now?”

“We need to talk to people. Find out what they know. You’re… better at that. I only looked around. Wanted to get the lay of the land. I saw him with his wife. I saw him go to his office. I saw him get coffee and watched the students stare at him like he was an abomination.”

“Same guy we saw at the hotel?”

A clipped nod. Diem still wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He worked in his office for a while. Takes the bus when he comes and goes. I didn’t… I stuck with minor surveillance. I… knew you wanted to help, and…”

I considered. “How was he with his wife?”

“Angry. She’s bitter. Nasty accusations are circulating. I hardly blame her. She went to live with their daughter. I think it’s a daughter. She’s younger. They look alike. I don’t know. It could be a cousin. Baby sister? I didn’t look into it. Didn’t matter.”

I rattled my head, trying to align my thoughts. “Okay. That’s something.”

Diem shuffled his feet, met my gaze briefly, then looked away. “I tried not to do too much without you. You said… It was trivial. What I did. The surveillance. I wanted to be sure I had the right David Shore.”

“Thank you for including me.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. It was a big deal, but I didn’t think puffing my chest and showing excessive glee would be wise. “Lead the way.”

David Shore wasn’t in his office, so far as we could tell. It was dark beyond the frosted glass. He taught statistics, and the mathematics department where his office was located took up a better part of that particular north building. It included a minimal cafeteria and library on the first floor.

We wandered as I considered how to approach students to inquire after a sketchy professor. Diem obviously didn’t fit in with the college crowd, but I might pass as a student, considering my age.

Somehow, we landed amid an excited discussion in a stairwell as we descended from the third level after finding no one in David Shore’s office. A group of five people stood on the landing between the first and second floors, and the central focus of their discussion seemed to be our professor.

“Shore is so fucked, man. I heard they found something in his car.” A guy with a bushy unibrow, who wasn’t far out of his teens, said to his friends as Diem and I moved past them to head down the stairs.

“What’d they find?” asked a girl.

“How the hell do you know that?” another guy asked. This one was tall and skinny, tossing an apple like a softball, spinning it, and catching it before launching it higher.

“Because they must have. They impounded the clunker weeks ago. Man, his wife was so pissed. She called him every name in the book as they hauled him off earlier,” Bushy Eyebrow said, laughing.

“But what did they find?” Apple Guy asked.

“I don’t fucking know,” Eyebrow said. “Something. Obviously.”

I stalled and turned back, uncaring I was interrupting. “Are you talking about David Shore?”

Eyebrow blinked a few times, checked with Apple Tosser, then nodded. “Yeah. Why? You know something else?”

“Isn’t he the professor accused of having relations with his students?”

The girl beside Apple Tosser gave a haughty laugh. She wore a short skirt with a blouse, unbuttoned enough to show her bra and too much cleavage. “That’s old news.”

“Yeah, man,” squeaked a third guy with an acne-dotted forehead and greased-back hair that reminded me of a dated John Travolta movie. He of barely broken vocal cords grinned, showing off crooked teeth in desperate need of braces and Colgate. “They keep digging and digging, and they keep finding more and more dirt. Then boom.” Squeaky clapped his hands together for effect. “Fucked.”

“Boom what? What dirt?” I asked, knowing about the drug accusations but playing dumb. People liked to gossip, so I gave them plenty of room to share.

Diem had descended a few more steps. I wasn’t sure if it was intentional, but it made his size less imposing. It also removed him from the conversation, which likely helped.

Apple Tosser filled me in. “Well, initially, it was the girls, right. I mean, it’s not technically illegal, but it’s fucking gross because he’s not exactly good-looking, but they were of age. The school didn’t like it. Can’t have relations with students. Big no-no. Word got out, don’t know how, and someone made an anonymous call to the cops about him dealing. I mean, whoever did that is a fucking idiot. Everyone knew Shore was selling. He’s the go-to guy around here, especially if you want the goodstuff. He can get anything. Anyhow, the cops checked it out, and it’s been red-hot around here ever since. Lots of badges asking questions.”

Squeaky continued. “School suspended him, his wife left him high and dry, and then a couple of weeks ago, they confiscated his car. Right here on fucking campus, man. It was awesome. Dude, we watched them tow it away, laughing our asses off. No one knows why they took it.”

“Figured it was the drugs,” Apple Tosser said. “Then today, serious-looking dudes showed up. I mean, they weren’t your regular run-of-the-mill street cops. No way.”

“FBI.” Eyebrow nodded.

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