Togo was not thinking of saving face. He was not thinking of his anger. Not now.
He was thinking about the blond woman coming out of Justin Westwood's house late at night.
Ling wished she could stay in this Long Island town and see what happened to the policeman and the blond woman. They looked as if they would be very entertaining. But Togo had claimed them for himself. She and Togo were going to separate, that's what he'd told her after they left the man's office in the glass building. They needed to be apart so they could do their work more efficiently and more quickly.
Li Ling took a last look through Justin Westwood's window.
She did not want this to end too quickly. She was in no rush for this to end at all. And she decided she would not obey the old, chiseled man, not totally. Not one hundred percent.
This has been a very fun game, Ling thought. And getting to be more fun all the time.
22
Nowhere more than academia did people look upon cops with suspicion and distrust. It was because, Justin thought, there was a type of so-called intellectual who could not deal with the black-and-white world that cops often had to live in. Academicians lived in a far grayer world, where actions often had no consequences, where theory did not have to relate to reality. Reality was not something this type of person particularly cared about. Reality was too physical, too harsh; so it was best to separate from it. In the real world, one's mind could take one only so far before strength often took over. It was like being in the jungle and coming face-to-face with a lion. You might be a lot smarter than the lion, but the lion had far sharper teeth. And was probably hungry.
Quentin Quintel, the dean of Melman Preparatory Academy, fell most definitely into this category, Justin decided. He was a man frightened of bumping into sharp teeth. He fell into another category, too: superobnoxious, asshole snob.
Justin sat in the head of the school's book-lined office, listening and doing his best to smile pleasantly as Dean Quintel lectured about Melman's high academic standards and spotless reputation and then began rattling off the list of illustrious alumni who had attended over the ninety-eight years it had been sheltering and educating the best and the brightest the world had to offer. As the bow-tied man in the tweed jacket spoke, Justin let his eyes shift toward the window and take in the rolling Connecticut grounds and ivy-covered stone walls and all the accoutrements that helped keep the place so spotless. When he decided he'd let the dean pontificate enough to satisfy even his own outsized ego, Justin said, "It's a very impressive place, all right."
Dean Q beamed. "Thank you."
"How long have you worked here?"
"It's a funny thing. People always ask me that question and almost always ask it the same way. But I don't even consider what I do to be work. I consider it a privilege."
"Okay," Justin said, "how long has it been your privilege to oversee the lives and curriculum of those also privileged to attend?"
Dean Quintel's eyes narrowed, both in surprise at Justin's ability to articulate the question with a reasonable degree of sophistication as well as in suspicion that the question was not entirely sincere. But he couldn't find a flaw in the phrasing and he was not secure enough to argue with the tone, so he just said, "I've been dean for three years now. I was the youngest dean in Melman's history."
"Congratulations. I'm looking for information a little before your time, then."
"What exactly are you looking for?"
"I need some information about the period when Evan Harmon was privileged enough to attend."
"Evan Harmon?" The dean immediately looked uncomfortable. "Wasn't he… I mean, wasn't he…"
"Murdered. Yes."
"That's why you're here?"
"That's right."
"But-but he was at Melman so long ago. In the eighties."
"I know."
"Then I don't see how I can possibly help you."
"I assume you have records of all the students who've been here."
"Of course."
"Academic records as well as anything that might have been notable-extracurricular activities, suspensions, anything out of the norm that might have required staff awareness."
"Yes."
"I'd like to see Evan Harmon's records."
Dean Quintel shifted uneasily in his seat. "I-I don't think I can do that."
"Then maybe there's someone else who knows how to access the files."
Quintel couldn't help himself. He gave Justin the kind of pitying look he'd give a dumb puppy. "I know how to access the files. I meant that the information in those files is privileged."
"Like you."
"I'm sorry you feel the need to deride my attachment to Melman. And I'm afraid we can't let anyone simply come in and rummage through our students' histories."
"First of all, I'm not anyone. I'm a member of the Providence, Rhode Island, police department and I'm working directly with the FBI on this case."
"I don't see how that changes anything."
"Then allow me to explain it to you." Justin leaned a little bit closer to the dean, putting his hands on top of the dean's dark mahogany desk. "I kind of know a lot about this sort of place." He told the dean where he'd gone to prep school in New Hampshire-a school that had a superior reputation to Melman, with even higher academic standards. Quintel didn't do much of a job hiding his shock at hearing Justin's academic credentials. "I know, it's surprising that the old alma mater would produce a cop. Actually, it produced two, although I guess you'd have to say the other one isn't just a regular cop, he's the number two guy at the CIA. But I digress. The point is, I know how things work here. So if you don't show me the records, I'll get a court order, which I can do very quickly. And it won't be to just look at Evan Harmon's history. I'll demand the phone numbers of every single parent of every single boy who's currently attending this place. And I'll call every single one of those parents and talk to them about what we're afraid is going on in the dormitories. And as someone who lived in very similar dormitories, I know that things aren't quite as pure and spotless as all the bullshit you've been spouting, so I can pretty much assure you I'll be talking about drinking and drugs and fairly serious homosexual activity. All the stuff they know about but don't really want to think about. Or discuss with federal agents. And since it's summer and a lot of your students are home right now, I'll bet a pretty decent percentage of them won't be coming back after I have these conversations."
Justin smiled even more politely and watched as Dean Quintel used his intercom to signal his secretary. When he answered, the dean leaned toward the phone and said, "Will you please make a copy of the complete file for Evan Harmon, please, Robby. Everything we have on record. He was one of our students, attended in the early to mid-eighties."
The dean leaned back in his chair, not smiling back at Justin, and several minutes later his door opened and a thin, athletic-looking young man came in carrying a manila folder. He started to hand it to the dean, but Quintel nodded his head in Justin's direction, and the assistant quickly swiveled to hand him the folder.
Justin riffled through the school records, stopped, and frowned.
"There's material missing."
"I doubt that," Dean Quintel said.
"Evan Harmon left here when he was a junior. He spent his last year and a half at Madden Prep."
"So?"
"There's no mention of why he left. There are two pages missing, the page numbers are off sequence. Then there's a handwritten notation that he transferred out. This isn't the page with the original information."
"If that's what's there, that's all we've got."
"There are no records at all of his last six months here."
"It's an old file. I suppose they just weren't as diligent then as we are now."
"Or the file's been tampered with."
Dean Quintel didn't answer, nor did he seem concerned by the accusation.