“Yes,” said the voice through the unseen speakers set somewhere in the walls.
“Dr. Kinnard?” said Alred.
“Present.”
“I don’t mean to disturb you,” she said.
Peter pushed the pause button on the remote. “She is bothering him of course. We taped this conversation just after midnight this morning.”
Click. “Dr. Kinnard?”
“…I’m here.”
“I don’t know if you’ll remember me. Erma Alred. You spoke with me in a meeting with Dr. Masterson concerning my dissertation?”
Pause. “Hello Alred.” Cough. “Excuse me. You’re not calling about the change in dissertation dates, are you?”
“The fifth of May?” she said, “I heard about that-”
“-cause I have no-”
“I’ll deal with it. Dr. Kinnard, I need to ask you-”
“That bad?” he said.
She waited for a minute. “Sorry?”
Sigh. “I’d really like to assist you, Alred-”
“I’m not asking for assistance.”
Pause. “Masterson’s your supervising professor? You’ll have to go to him to get out of the project. Porter doesn’t have the same luxury.”
“Dr. Kinnard, I believe I have sufficient evidence to stand against Porter’s dissertation. I need to compose the data into a formal paper, but I’m not worried about the time shortage.”
Pause. “Porter’s going to love you.”
“On the fifth?” she said. “I’ll need armed protection to leave the building! Porter’s a fanatic. He finds supporting facts in everything he looks at.”
“He presents them well. And he is my friend, Alred.”
Silence. “Sorry if I offended you, sir. I don’t know quite where I stand on this project.”
“You didn’t want it in the first place,” he said.
She said nothing.
“I saw it in your eyes,” said Kinnard. “You’re a strong woman, Alred. Composed. You’ll make a fabulous professor someday, if that’s your goal. Masterson knew well to pit you against Porter. But I admit…I was against your involvement.”
Again, silence.
“Alred?”
“I’m here… This was Dr. Masterson’s idea?” she said.
But Kinnard didn’t answer.
After a moment of unspoken thought, Alred’s voice came again through the speaker. “There is a…problem.”
“What’s that,” said Kinnard.
“Forgive me for saying so, but…I’ve suspected for some time that Porter’s been holding out on me. Hiding something he found in the KM-2 codex.”
“KM-2?”
“That’s what he’s dubbed the manuscript.”
“Porter seeks brain fights,” said Kinnard. “He devises polemics just to get your attention. Then he reels you into his hooked net.”
“I’ve learned that,” she said.
“He doesn’t hold back information from the battle. He’s open about everything. Even lets you argue your side if you’ve devised a good thesis with impressive facts. The essence of his arguments lies in the many evidences he dumps at you. I think he overdoes it, but…keep something back? Last thing I’d expect.”
“I was supposed to pick up KM-2 per an agreement we made a few nights ago. I haven’t been able to find him. I figure he’s buried himself with the book and his notes where he can best be left alone. I know he needs all the time he can get. While I’m proving current archaeological suppositions he’s the one doing his all to say we’ve been wrong from the beginning.”
“Is that what he’s doing?” Kinnard said without surprise in his voice. Did he smile as he spoke?
“You’re not a Mormon, are you professor?” she asked.
“I’m not. Have you tried Bruno’s? Porter’s one of their best patrons.”
“Mmm. The old man hasn’t seen him. It’s as if Porter’s died or something.”
Kinnard said nothing for a time, and Alred’s voice also evaporated in thought.
“Anyway, I think he’s run off,” she said.
“He’ll be back,” said Kinnard.
“My dissertation, as a refutation to his paper, depends on it! I need KM-2, and he’s got it.”
Pause.
“Dr. Kinnard?”
“Yes,” said the exhausted professor.
“I understand you were friends with Christopher Ulman?”
Silence. “That is right.”
“You…haven’t heard from him…have you?”
Nothing.
“Dr…Kinnard?”
The tape clicked off.
With eyebrows high, but relaxed, Peter stood upright and said, “Gentlemen, this leaves us with a number of obvious questions.”
“I have only one,” said an old man with a voice that reverberated in falsetto off the walls. “Peter…did you have Dr. Wilkinson killed?”
“What does that have to do with Alred’s call,” Peter asked without flinching.
“Answer the question, Peter,” said a man from the other side of the long cherry-wood table.
Peter looked at their faces, all wrinkled stone, unmoving Halloween masks that they’d forgotten to remove. Their eyes were dry and deadly. He refused to let them break his peaceful facade. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Sure you would, and I think you did,” said the first gentleman. His face was as chilled as his voice. “It was sloppy. There were better operatives for the job. Even Polaski should have been smarter than to stake such a crude homicide. The authorities know he’s guilty.
“Has he left the states?” said Mr. Smith.
“We authorized nothing. I want to know who had the professor killed!”
Peter did not move.
“At any rate,” the old man told Peter, wiping a hand down his silk tie as he leaned back in the red leather seat, “the mess is now yours to clean up. You’ve done a poor job so far it seems.”
“Where is Porter now?” said Andrews across the table.
Peter swallowed, but kept it silent. “I was informed before I came in that Porter had been located. We are moving in. We’ll have him in moments.”
“Peter, the matter is yours. It results in your success or your death…do you understand?” said the gentleman at the far end.
“I have other measures that can be taken,” Peter said, unshaken outside, heart palpitations within.
“Sure.”
Porter’s leg was wet, which meant he still was bleeding.
The glass had done more damage than he had thought. For hours, he’d held the wound with his hands as he briskly walked through the night. In the parking lot he’d found someone waiting in black clothing not far from his car, which meant no ride home but a long walk instead. Only when he reached his apartment a couple of hours before dawn did he realize someone would be waiting there as well.
How did they know who he was? How did they know he was in the library? Who were they anyway?
No answers came that night, and the light brought no comfort.
He walked six blocks south of the campus and found a motel to sleep in. They wouldn’t give him the $29.00 room until after eleven o’clock that morning, and he suspected they were calling the owner to tell them about the beat-up college student who’d come for a room just after sunrise. Admittedly peculiar, but he had to hide out. He had to sleep. Even if it was only for a couple hours. Even if it cost him nearly thirty bucks.
But he couldn’t rest.
He washed the glass out of his palms and removed his slacks, thankful that the navy color had hidden the blood. The gash on his leg really was minor, but deep enough to require medical attention. It could have been much worse and ten times more painful. He showered before sitting on the bed. Under the covers, he found his head turning involuntarily to the rotary phone made of cream-colored plastic under the lamp on the nightstand.
He needed to call someone. The police? Yes. But what would he tell them? Who was after him? Why? It would only delay his work, and he had too much to do and less than thirteen days to finish it. A formal investigation would mean…Porter wouldn’t graduate.
He’d rather amputate his leg.
But he couldn’t stop looking at the phone.
Call Kinnard, he thought.
But what could Kinnard do? How would it help? What was Porter looking for, sympathy?
He couldn’t call his family…that would cause more stress to everyone.