“Dr. Gene,” I said, after he closed the door and escorted me into the living room. “I kind of came by on business.”
There was a picture of him and my father on the mantelpiece, an old black-and-white from the war; the two of them were wearing leather flying helmets and parachutes in front of a P-40.
He frowned at me and led me over to the couch, newspaper still in hand, and motioned for me to sit. He settled into his easy chair and fanned the paper out in front of him.
“I’ve been reading about your business, boy. I heard you lost your job at the paper, but I didn’t know you’d gone into private detecting.”
He made it sound like pimping. I was a long way from becoming a pimp; six or seven weeks, at least. I shrugged my shoulders. “Same old story. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“But now you’re not so sure.”
“Yes, sir. I’m not so sure. But I still want to stick with this, if only to make certain my own name stays clear.”
“Are you a suspect in this murder?” His eyeglasses slid a little farther down his nose as he asked.
“Not a strong one. But yes, sir, I’m sure the police are keeping an eye on me.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, then, why don’t you just back off and let the police do their jobs? You’re only going to get in more trouble if you interfere.”
I felt the blood pressure in my neck rising. Who was this guy? Just because he and my father fought, drank, and screwed their way across the European Theater of Operations nearly fifty years ago doesn’t give him the right to-
“I’m not going to interfere.” I interrupted my own train of thought. “But I am going to do some background checking. I can do some things the police can’t do, mainly because I’m not the police. I want to find out what happened to Dr. Fletcher, too. It’s important. It’s what I’m getting paid for.”
He snorted. “You think you can do a better job than the police.”
“No sir, only a different job.”
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in even before he spoke them. “Harry, you came from a good family. You’ve got a fine education, a crackerjack mind. You had a fascinating career, and for some reason or other, you’ve chosen to self-destruct. And now this … this … detecting business. I don’t like it.”
“I appreciate that, Dr. Hughes, but for the time being, it’s what I do. I’m a grown man, sir. I make my own way now.”
“And what a way,” he filmed. “Sneaking around some sleazy motel on Murfreesboro Road at night, taking pictures of adulterers and prostitutes.”
“Doc, there’s not much difference between those motels on Murfreesboro Road and the mansions in Belle Meade. Just a different class of John, that’s all.”
“You’ve become profoundly cynical, haven’t you?”
“No, sir, just a realist.”
“Does your father know about this mess?”
“Not yet. And I’d appreciate your not saying anything to him.”
He reached up and pulled his glasses off his nose and twirled them in one hand by the earpiece. “All right. But I want you to let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Your father and mother never appointed a godfather for you, so I sort of feel like the job’s mine by default.”
“I appreciate that, Dr. Hughes. And the one thing you could help me with now is by letting me talk to James.”
He stiffened. “What has James got to do with this?”
“Nothing, sir. I just want to find out what the medical students thought of Dr. Fletcher. I’m only looking for background.”
“I don’t want my son drawn into this.”
“He won’t be.”
I sat downstairs while the doc went up to get his son. I heard water running upstairs, so I figured James was in the shower. I wandered around the living room and made my way to the kitchen. The remains of an early dinner were heaped up on the counter. I glanced at my watch and realized it was nearly seven o’clock, and that I was getting a bit peckish myself.
James came downstairs, impressed khaki pants buttoned but still unbelted, no shirt, no shoes, rubbing a towel through his wet hair.
“Hey, Harry,” he greeted me. James was a decade younger than me, with a couple of years to spare on top of it. I remembered him as a child and realized I hadn’t seen him in several years. For the first time in my memory, he seemed an adult.
“Hey, James, what’s happening, man?”
“Same old, same old.” He took my hand and pumped it. He had his mother’s reddish-brown hair and his father’s deep brown eyes. He was a handsome young man, intelligent, with a bright future. I found myself envying him.
“How’s medical school?”
“Tough. I’m third year, though. So apparently I’m going to make it. A lot by now is just routine. You grind it out. Next year, I start jockeying for residencies.”
“Great. Hey, listen, where’d your dad go?”
James looked behind him. “He’s upstairs in his office, I guess. He just came up, said you wanted to talk to me. Seemed kind of tight.”
“It’s my fault,” I said, leaning against the counter and crossing my arms. “He doesn’t approve of my present career path.”
James winced. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. I hate when he does that. The old man seems to think he knows what’s best for everybody.”
I smiled at him. “He means well. I’ve just gotten myself in a mess over this Conrad Fletcher situation.”
James wrapped the towel around his head and gave it a good shake. “Yeah, it’s been all over the school. Not you, I mean. Just Fletcher getting murdered.”
“I wanted to get an insider’s point of view from you, James.”
James pulled the towel off his head and wrapped it around his shoulders. “I took classes from Fletcher. We had to. No way out of it. I’d have probably gotten him next year for surgery rotation. Whoever killed him had fabulous timing. Did us all a favor.”
“I got the feeling not many people were fond of him.”
“He was abrasive, abusive, probably a rageaholic. Popular? No, I’d have to say not.”
“Diplomat,” I commented. “Any idea who might have hated him enough to kill him?”
“God, Harry,” he sighed. “Who didn’t hate him enough to kill him?”
“James,” I said, pulling out my notebook and pen, “can you be a little more specific?”
“To begin with,” he said, pausing a long moment, “there was me.”
11
“What?” I asked, my notebook falling to the floor. I bent to pick it up.
James laid the towel across the back of his neck and pulled both ends tightly.
“When Dr. Fletcher decided he didn’t like you, you were on his list forever. And it was pretty easy to get on that list. Sometimes, you didn’t even know you’d done anything.”
“And you were on the list?”
He nodded his head. “Since first year. At the time, he taught an anatomy course. He hated it, doesn’t do it anymore.”
“Obviously,” I interrupted.
James smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. I forgot. Anyway, I was one of the herd, that’s all, and content to stay that way. Somehow, I got singled out. He used to drill us, more like law school than med school. Remember The Paper Chase?”
“Yeah.”
“He made Professor Kingsfield look like a den mother. He tore me apart one day in lecture, caught me in a weak moment. I was a target for the rest of the term. Dropped me a letter grade at the end of the semester, even though everything else I’d done was top-notch. When I went to his office to protest, he tore me apart again. Apparently, no one’d taken him on like that before. He threatened to have me thrown out of school.”
“Could he have done that?”
“I’ve seen him do it since. I think the only reason I survived is that my dad’s an alum. Still knows people. Political bullshit. That’s all it is.”