Click.
It was 8:00 am. He ought to be attending to a couple of theses and students. They’d come to his office, find it locked, and loiter around the place. Ted Cooper, that rat — no, Ted is worse than a rat, he thought— would stalk the floors of the facility to see if Peter made it through the night, and if he did, whether he was functional enough to attend to his students.
Ted would find adrift students around his office. He will be elated. He had won.
Peter swallowed the last ounce of beer and dropped the bottle. His eyelids felt like pins and sand were under them. He belched. The phone started ringing again. Peter made no effort to rise from his couch.
It stopped ringing; the recording followed.
“Hey Professor, this is Olivia Newton, you know, the journalist from Miami Daily. I called last night. How did your conference go? I hope we are going to get the funding. Are you drinking? Hahaha, just messing with you. Call me. Please.”
Peter raised his head up and closed his eyes.
Of all the people on Earth, God had to put Ted Cooper in his life. That scum. And old mistakes never stay gone, they always had a way of sneaking up on you from behind. Dating his students had been a mistake. But people like Ted Cooper had to remind you of that every time.
Peter managed to drag himself into the bathroom.
He ran hot water into the tub and sank into it up to his neck.
The shrill sound of the phone ringing interrupted the quietness again.
Olivia paced Tom’s office.
“Calm down, Olivia,” Tom Garcia said.
But Tom was enjoying this new Olivia. It was one he had always known, who brought her energy to everything she does. But it was also an Olivia Newton he had never seen before. This was an Olivia that had been through a tough time, was recovering, and getting back to routine.
He had never seen Olivia getting back to work before. It was interesting to behold.
“The professor probably had a late night—”
Olivia glanced at him sharply.
“Come on, you know what I mean. Don’t those guys have all those books they have to read all the time, and research?” Tom explained.
Olivia dropped into the chair opposite Tom. The sheriff tapped his fingers on the table.
“I’m gonna call him again,” said Olivia, “then I’m gonna go over to his office.”
“Maybe they are not going to give him the funding…” Tom shrugged. “I mean, who knows, he feels so bad about it and doesn’t know how to tell you.”
Olivia pouted.
“Think about it—”
Olivia’s cellphone started ringing in her bag. She looked at Tom. She started rummaging in her bag.
“Hello.”
“Olivia, it is me, Peter.”
“Yeah, I called last night. Are you alright? How did it go?”
“Let's meet,” Peter said and hung up.
Olivia looked at Tom.
“This is not good.”
The name of the diner was Dina’s Diner. Peter picked it because somehow the alliterative name quelled the turmoil inside of him. And there were plants in the windows.
It wasn’t crowded either.
He bought two coffees. Olivia had rolls with hers.
Peter was even more depressed about the afternoon when he went by his office. There was a letter waiting for him. It had been left with his secretary. Funding was being denied, it said simply.
Nothing more.
Peter pushed the letter across the table towards her. Olivia read it twice.
“It doesn’t say why,” she said.
“Usually, it doesn’t. And it doesn’t have to.”
Peter was looking out the glass into the street. It had quickly turned into a sunshiny day. The world flowed out there like he didn’t exist.
“What happened?” Olivia asked, some earnestness in her voice.
“I guess not many people share your convictions.”
“My convictions? I thought you—”
“No, Olivia. That’s not what I’m saying. I really believe this could work, don’t get me wrong, okay. But we are talking about a lot of money and manpower. There’s just not enough traction with the committee, I guess.”
Olivia sipped her coffee. She eyed the professor suspiciously.
“You don’t have enough traction with the committee,” she said. “They have something on you.”
It was a statement, not a question.
Peter gazed at her across the table. After a moment he said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” She finished her coffee and her rolls. She wiped her mouth with a white napkin. “What do we do now?”
“I could try again next session.”
“Next session? You are kidding, right? We may not have a next session. The people who killed Harald are out there. They stole the copies of the documents from your office. They could be anyone, could be anywhere, even people in your university, who knows?”
Peter sighed. Red, prickly eyes stared at Olivia. He didn’t exactly like this journalist. Her kind put him in a bad light in the past. Yet, he wanted to come clean. At least, to tell someone the truth.
“I blew it.”
Olivia was preparing to leave. “What?”
“Last night was my fault,” he explained. “Ted Cooper, he pushed me, and I said some things…”
“What things?”
“Unsavory things.”
“Oh.”
Olivia ordered more coffee. And rolls. They continued in the diner for more minutes, but in silence, each with their own introspection. Lingering apprehension caused Olivia to watch the door every time it opened, making a thin noise on its hinges. She would practically jump, check the face — especially if it was male. She wondered if the man who killed Harald Kruger was watching her now, if he was in this diner. But most of the people here wore suits and ties, briefcases extended from their hands, and they drank coffee and ate rolls.
Didn’t assassins eat bolts and pins for breakfast?
A tall man in a red checkered long-sleeved shirt walked in. He looked around and his eyes landed directly on Olivia’s face. He had very dark hair and a dough-like face. He was either Mexican or Spanish. He ordered steaming rolls. He pulled his sleeves up and ate. He joked with the girl who waited on him.
No, he couldn’t be the man on the tape.
Peter caught the wary stare on her face and turned around to see.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m just thinking, this is what they want. They’d like to keep this a secret. I’m afraid Harald Kruger died for nothing.”
Peter turned around again. “Do you think we are being followed?” he whispered.
Olivia nodded, eyes on the double doors. Peter said they have the documents now, and they probably know about his failure to get funding for an expedition. Then he began to reason that he couldn’t trust his people in the faculty too.
Olivia packed her bag.
“I have to go now, Peter.”
The professor rose too, half his coffee untouched.
“You’ll let me know if something comes up, won’t you?”
“You can count on it.”
They parted on the street. Peter got in his car and drove off. Olivia hailed a cab, after.
There was a disheveled looking man across the street under a sign that said Oslo Car Wash. The sign was painted red and yellow, the letterings being yellow, the background red.
The man wore a red jumpsuit. He carried a toolbox and he looked in place. He blended well, and he knew he would. It was why he chose that spot in the street. He was a professional. The man he worked for required the skill of a chameleon.
There was a manhole with its cover up where he stood, hence passersby could glance at him, notice the manhole but not his pitted face, and then go on their jolly way.