Her door was open. She was at her desk talking on the phone. When she saw me she waved us in and gestured at the chairs in front of her desk.
"All right, Judy," she said. "Seven o'clock. Yes. Bye-bye."
She hung up and leaned forward over her desk and smiled at us.
"Dr. Roth," I said. "This is my, ah, associate, Dr. Silverman."
Madelaine stood and leaned across the desk and put her hand out. Susan half rose to take it. They shook hands and both sat down. Professional courtesy.
Madelaine sat back in her chair and put her palms together, making a steeple out of her fingers, and touched her lips with her fingertips. She said, "What is it today, Mr. Spenser."
"I'm still looking into the matter of Dwayne's illiteracy," I said.
She nodded, patiently, this is my job, I have to put up with exasperating people.
"How'd he get this far?" I said.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Madelaine said. "I am his academic adviser, but he has never been a student in a class with me. What strategies he employed to conceal the truth from us . . ." She turned her palms up and shrugged.
"What were his SATs like?"
"I don't really recall," Madelaine said. "It is, of course, confidential information."
I looked at Susan. "Confidential," I said. "Isn't it always?"
I looked at the three degrees on the wall. B.A., Georgetown. M.A., Ph.D., Queens College, New York.
"Do you have Dwayne's class schedule for this year, and previous ones?" I said.
"Of course," Madelaine said.
"May I see the schedules?"
"What on earth for?"
"I am still looking for an answer. I am not getting anywhere with you. I thought I'd talk with his teachers."
"With his teachers?"
"Yeah."
"You can't do that," Madelaine said.
"Confidential?" Susan said.
"No, but, I mean you can't just walk around the University asking all Dwayne's teachers about why he can't read."
"Why not?" I said.
"Well, I mean, you'd have to make appointments, and, well, they wouldn't ... many of them wouldn't like it."
"Would they not wish to reach an understanding," Susan said, "as to how a young man who can neither read nor write could get a passing grade in their courses?"
"Do you teach, Dr. Silverman?"
"I give a course at Tufts. Primarily I am in private practice as a psychotherapist."
"Well, with a Ph.D. you've certainly been in an academic setting long enough to know, with your teaching experience at Tufts also, how prickly the academic world can be about any threat, real or imagined, to academic freedom," Madelaine said.
Susan smiled. "What greater threat is there to academic freedom than illiteracy? To any kind of freedom?"
"You will offend a great many people," Madelaine said.
Susan smiled more widely.
"My colleague will weather that, I think."
We all sat for a few moments.
Finally I said, "Do we get the schedules?"
Madelaine shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm just not comfortable giving them to you."
"Well," I said, "at least you have a good reason."
I stood. Dr. Silverman stood. Dr. Roth did not.
"Wasn't it Dr. Johnson," I said, "who called academic freedom the last refuge of scoundrels?"
Dr. Roth said nothing. Dr. Silverman and I left.
We walked down the corridor and back down the stairs.
"Dr. Johnson said 'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,' " Susan said.
"I know, but does Dr. Roth know?" I said.
"Unlikely," Susan said.
President Cort's office was in the other wing of the administration building.
"I warn you,'' I said to Susan, "this woman is infatuated with me. So be prepared to smother your jealousy."
Susan yawned. "I'll do what I can," she said. We went into the President's office and June Merriman at her desk looked at me passionately.
"Oh, God," she said.
"This will be hard," Dr. Silverman murmured.
"June," I said. "This is my friend Susan Silverman."
Ms. Merriman smiled with her lips only and made a small nod of her head.
"We'll need a list of Dwayne Woodcock's teachers, June."
"May I ask why?" June said.
"June," I said. "I know you want to string this out so you may spend more precious minutes with me. But Dr. Silverman here is my honeybunch and she's alert to even the most subtle of love ploys."
"Please do not be offensive," she said.
"Oh, June," I said. "How transparent."
"You won't leave without the list, will you," she said.
"No," I said.
"I can call the registrar and have Dwayne's schedule over the past four years Xeroxed. You'll have to make the list yourself."
She then made her phone call, prefacing the request with the phrase, "President Cort wonders if you would. . ."
In an hour we were having a spot of lunch at the Lancaster Tap. In a manila envelope on the table beside my water glass were copies of Dwayne's classes over the past four years.
"And what are you going to do with all those class schedules?" Susan said.
"I'm going to talk to all his teachers."
Susan shook her head. "You are a piece of work," she said.
"Says so," I said, "on ladies' room walls all over the country."
"No," Susan said. "It doesn't."
24
FOR the next week I interviewed professors. Susan came with me when she could on the assumption that she was more academic than I was and could add some insight. George Lyman Kittredge couldn't have added enough insight.
I was alone when I talked with J. Taylor Hack, Francis Calvert Dolbear Professor of American Civilization. Hack was tall and portly and well tailored except that his shoes weren't shined.
"Woodcock," he said. "No, I'm afraid I can't remember the boy."
"Took your course in The Frontier Hypothesis, last spring," I said.
Hack smiled graciously. "It's quite a popular course," he said. He dipped his head modestly. "I'm just not able to recall all of my students."
"Gee," I said. "That's too bad. I thought maybe because Dwayne is six feet nine inches tall and the best college basketball player in the world, you might have noticed him more than others."
"The best, really, how interesting. I don't pay much attention to basketball, I fear."
I was looking at my notes. "Dwayne got a B- in your course."
"Well, he did very well. It's rather a demanding course and for a, ah, basketball player to do that well, Dwayne must be an unusual young man."
"He can't read," I said.
"I beg your pardon."
"He can't read."
Hack was absolutely silent.
"Probably gotten an A," I said, "if he could read."
"It's not possible. Someone must have taken the exams for him," Hack said finally.
"Probably," I said. "And probably wrote his papers for him. You wouldn't have known if someone sat in for him during class?"
Hack paused a long time before he answered. Finally he said, "No, I wouldn't ... there are forty or fifty people in this class, I give it every semester. I have two other classes each year. There're papers, and my own research."
"Anyone ever ask you to give his grades any special attention?" I said.
"No. Good God, no. No one would intrude on the grading process like that."
"Of course not," I said. "And you never heard of Dwayne Woodcock?"
"No."
"Amazing," I said.
"I do not," Hack said, "spend my time poring over the sports pages."
"I know who Frederick Jackson Turner is," I said.
"I don't see the relevance."
"There's a surprise," I said.
Susan was with me when we talked to a young assistant professor named Mary Ann Hedrick. She had an office about the size of a confessional, in the humanities building.