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III
The First Thursday
Power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely,
knowledge constantly induces…power.
Michel Foucault
On his way to the bank Thursday morning Charlie picked up a copy of Kingsford's only daily, The Times-Standard. Sure enough, keen always to discover scandal at the university, the editor had devoted the entire front page to the "heinous murder" of Professor Barrett Wilson. There was a picture of Barrett's empty office, one of a couple of paramedics stowing a gurney in an ambulance, another of a couple of cops and a man he recognized as detective Bolster talking to Amanda, and one of Barrett in mortarboard and gown at a recent convocation. One story gave the known details, another compared the murder to an earlier homicide at a community college in a nearby city, a third speculated on the motive for the killing, laying heavy emphasis on the possibility that a disgruntled student might have taken an extreme step.
Meredith was the big frog that supported an otherwise dubiously viable small pond. Kingsford had no other significant employer, no industrial presence. Anything that happened at the university was news, and a murder was sensational news. Charlie thought he might have more trouble with persistent reporters than with Bolster and DeVries.
It was DeVries who waited for him at the bank. She stood just inside the door and had no doubt been there when the assistant manager unlocked it. Charlie muttered a good morning and asked where her partner was. She ignored his question and suggested they get things over with. Charlie went to the counter, asked to get into his box, and was led into the vault, followed by DeVries. He handed his key to the clerk and she pulled out the flat, narrow box and handed it to Charlie. He said that if she'd wait just a minute she could lock it up again. Charlie he handed the box to DeVries. She took it, hefted it, opened the top enough to see the sheaf of folded papers it contained, closed the box, and handed it back to Charlie. Both thanked the clerk, who replaced the box and handed Charlie his key.
Just outside DeVries thanked Charlie for his cooperation and surprised him by suggesting they get a cup of coffee. His curiosity made it impossible to say no and he followed DeVries to a coffee shop a half-block from the bank. She moved so decisively that Charlie was sure she'd checked out the shop before they'd met or maybe went there often.
There were only seven or eight people in the shop, four in a booth and the rest at the counter. DeVries led the way to a booth and Charlie was certain now that she'd been there before. This was confirmed when an acne-plagued teenager slouched over and asked what she'd like and called her what sounded like "ossifer." The teenager ignored Charlie but registered his asking for black coffee because she returned with a mug for him as well as one for DeVries and a plate holding a couple of doughnuts.
"Dr. Douglas, you may find this hard to believe, but I took an introductory course in philosophy as an undergraduate. We read Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Hume, but nothing contemporary, so I haven't any idea of what divided you and Dr. Wilson and I've only the fuzziest idea of the difference between analytic and continental philosophy. I read about Foucault, but in a literature course. I take it he's your main interest?"
"Yes; for the last decade or so I've worked on Foucault, but before that I was pretty much in the other camp. My dissertation was on D. M. Armstrong, if that name means anything to you, a hard-core analytic philosopher in his time. Later I got into Richard Rorty, you must have heard of him, and that led to Foucault. I met Rorty when I was on sabbatical at Princeton and did a book on him several years ago, but all my recent stuff has been on Foucault. How'd you go from philosophy to being a detective?"
"Oh, I always intended to go into law-enforcement. The philosophy course was one of my electives. My major was in communications. It offered courses of some relevance to what I wanted to do and more electives than other majors. Frankly, though, very little of what I studied has been of any use in my work."
"You might not think so, but the main value of a university education isn't supplying you with a lot of information; it's how it molds you to think in certain ways. I'm sure little of what you studied bears directly on what you're doing now, but it all contributed to who you are, and that determines how you approach problems."
"You're probably right, but what I'd like now is for you to give me some idea of what we're dealing with. I know you said you know little about Dr. Wilson, but perhaps you could just sketch for me where he fit in the grand scheme of things?"
Charlie fought not to lecture and to keep his remarks brief and to the point. He took a couple of sips of coffee and accepted a doughnut when DeVries pushed the plate toward him.
"Okay; a thumbnail sketch. Right now philosophy is under a kind of siege. Few administrators value it and enrolments are down. Unless they want to teach it, most students don't see the point of philosophy. A number of major publishing houses no longer do philosophy books. Barrett Wilson was in one of what I think of as three distinct camps. He and others have circled the wagons; they've redefined philosophy narrowly as technical logical and linguistic analysis, and reject everything else as confused. That's one camp. Another camp is applied philosophy. That's work in medical ethics, business ethics, cognitive science, and multicultural studies. People in that camp see what Barrett does - did - as a kind of in-house game. Then there's the third camp, and I guess I'm in it. These are people in the contemporary European or continental tradition. Guys like Barrett see the applied philosophers as sell-outs and people like me as having been taken in by postmodern relativism."
DeVries looked at him for what seemed too long and he thought he'd put her to sleep, but her next remark showed he hadn't.
"Okay, I understand about the applied stuff, but what about this big break between analytic and continental? How do you see it?"
"The break has an historical aspect. Rudolf Carnap - you've heard of him? - ignorantly characterized what was going on in philosophy in Germany and France as not rigorous because contaminated by politics. He was very influential in his time and American and British philosophers bought his story. There's also the canonical aspect, what philosophers read and think important: the works that they see as defining the discipline. Analytic philosophers read Plato and Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant. Continental philosophers also read Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Hume, but after Kant they read Hegel and Nietzsche and, of course, Heidegger. Analytic philosophers largely ignore Hegel and Nietzsche and think Heidegger was either self-deluded or a fraud. But I'm lecturing now; you can't have wanted this much."
"No, go on; is there another aspect?"
"Yes; it's got to do with method. Basically, analytic philosophers think in terms of particular problems, whether it's how knowledge and belief are related, or just what we mean by saying something is true. Unfortunately, that inclination has gotten out of hand. A recent big issue in the journals was about vague nouns: specifically, just what is a heap. You wouldn't believe the number of articles that issue generated. Anyway, on the other hand, continental philosophers think in terms of historical development and the big picture. That's why they can't avoid the political."
"And Dr. Wilson was an analytic philosopher?"
"Oh, yes. Adamantly so. He saw my stuff on Foucault as deplorable and an embarrassment to the department. J. D. Allen works on Nietzsche, and he was also a write-off as far as Barrett was concerned. And it wasn't just a matter of not coming to our papers or not talking to us. I know he bad-mouthed us to the students. Trouble was that usually backfired, because many of the students didn't like him."
"You weren't the only one who didn't get on with him, then?"
"No way; he didn't talk to J. D., as I said. He didn't talk to Theresa Bartolini because she does feminist and multicultural stuff. He didn't talk to Don Grahame, who's the medical ethicist. As far as Barrett was concerned, the department consisted of himself, Jack Shwayder - another staunchly analytic type - and of course Amanda Rankin, but he included her less b
ecause he respected her work than because he needed her on his side to get what he wanted."
"What did he want?"
"Mainly to be on the major committees and to give two-term courses in one term by doubling the hours so he could go off somewhere the other term."
"Just one more thing. Do you think it likely or even possible that a student might have shot Dr. Wilson? I guess what I'm asking is whether you know of any student who was very angry at him for some reason."
"I know a couple left the department because of problems with his supervision of their work, but I don't know of any student who might have had reason to want him dead."
"What sorts of problems?"
"Well, typically, an M.A. or Ph.D candidate puts a lot of effort into a thesis, but some supervisors are slow to review their work. Barrett was notorious for that. Also, sometimes supervisors push too hard to have their students agree with their own views, and I expect Barrett did that, too."
"Was Dr. Wilson a threat to you?"
"A threat? No, he wasn't. He irritated the hell out of me, but he wasn't a threat. I was senior to him and have a much better publication record as well as many more successfully supervised theses. The closest I came to a real confrontation with him was a department meeting when he ridiculed something I'd said and I responded that the trouble with contempt is that it doesn't work when it's mutual."
"Quite a nice dig. I suspect you enjoyed that more than putting a bullet in him."
"I still can't believe someone shot him."
"Yes; Dr. Wilson was shot, and it seems he was shot in his office while talking to whoever killed him. There's nothing to suggest a struggle, nothing like that. Our big problem right now is that we've not found the gun, but there's no need for you to mention that to anyone even if it isn't exactly a secret."
"Did you really expect to find the gun in my house? Or in the safe-deposit box?"
"Now, Dr. Douglas, that would be me blabbing and you turning this pleasant conversation into a fishing expedition."
"So it wasn't a grilling?"
"Not at all; what you said about philosophy was very interesting and it's useful to learn that Dr. Wilson and Dr. Shwayder shared a professional bond and were a little at odds with Drs. Allen, Bartolini, and Grahame. What about others in the department? If you could just give me a rough idea? Then I really have to go."
"I don't really know the three adjuncts. Two are post-docs, one working with Shwayder and one with Don Grahame. The third has been here for a couple of years, mostly handling one of the introductory courses. I've seldom spoken to any of them. Their offices are on another floor, so there's very little interaction. Marcela Reilly is cross-appointed; she's an M.D. and teaches in the medical school most of the time. What she does in the department is teach a course on medical ethics, rather like Don Grahame does, but hers is more practically oriented and includes rounds at the hospital. She didn't like Barrett any more than I did."
DeVries thanked Charlie again and hurried out of the coffee shop. He decided to get another coffee. Could Barrett have so pissed off a student to get himself shot? And again, what was Barrett doing talking to someone in his office over the holiday break? It was rare enough to see him in his office during the work week.
Charlie wished he knew the new crop of graduate students better, and especially those who had anything to do with Barrett. It wouldn't be any trick to get a list of Barrett's ongoing supervisions; he could also get a list of students who'd recently had orals involving Barrett. Maybe he'd failed one of them.
Could it have been an undergraduate? Charlie didn't think so. First of all, Barrett had little to do with undergraduates. He taught a large logic class, but that was it. Mostly he worked with grads that had an interest in his area of expertise. More important, Barrett would never drag himself down to the department to meet with an undergraduate during the Christmas break.
Charlie finished his second coffee, walked to where he had parked the night before, and drove to the university. The department felt crowded when he arrived. In the main office several people were talking to Jodie and Phoebe. Amanda was there, too, looking harassed.
Charlie was no sooner in his office than J. D. turned up in his doorway and asked,
"Whaddaya think? Did the cops question you?"
"Hi, J. D. Oh yes; they came to the house last night, then I had to meet one this morning, which is why I'm late. As to what I think, I just don't know. I've realized how little I knew about Barrett and that I haven't any basis on which to speculate about what happened. Did they question you? I assume they questioned everyone."
"They talked to everyone who was here Tuesday or Wednesday. They asked me if I knew him well. I told them the truth: I didn't like him and had as little to do with him as possible. I said I'd never spoken with him outside the department."
"Glad to hear that. I told them the same thing, so it's nice not to be the only one who disliked and avoided him."
After J.D. left Charlie booted his laptop and skimmed through his email. As usual most of it was spam but there was one he opened quickly. Marcela's heading was "Barrett."
"I couldn't believe it. I didn't like him, but shot??? Do you know anything that wasn't in the Times-Standard? Wish I could make lunch, but I've got rounds."
Charlie decided to answer his email after lunch. There was something a bit more pressing. He'd been coordinator of graduate studies for the department two years earlier and he'd recently found by accident that the passwords still hadn't been changed. One reason was that changing them was a complicated procedure and Theresa, who'd taken over, wasn't too keen on computers. He'd given her the passwords, expecting she'd change them immediately, but she hadn't. It was no trick, then, to print out a list of Barrett's supervisions as well as a list of the oral committees he served on as an examiner. He stashed the lists in his desk and went to lunch.
The club table, as he'd expected, was abuzz about the killing, and because Charlie was in the department, silence fell as he sat down. Everyone looked at him expectantly.
"No, I don't know anything that wasn't in the Times-Standard. I told some of you about the smell in the hall yesterday, but had no idea what it was."
"Wasn't Wilson the guy you had a lot of scenes with, Charlie?"
"Only a couple; we didn't like each other and I had very little to do with him. And yes, the cops gave me a grilling. They also searched our house and the car for a gun, if you can believe it."
When it was clear that Charlie had no more to offer, the conversation turned to how the administration would handle the matter. Nothing remotely as sensational had happened at Meredith since the suicide of a student more than two years earlier. The administration was all different now, with a new president having been appointed just the previous January. No one was optimistic, as the woman had so far displayed little leadership. No doubt her hope was that Barrett's killer was an intruder and had nothing to do with the university. Meredith then would look victimized rather than as harboring a killer.
When Charlie got home Kate told him that Bolster had called not five minutes before and would call again in a half hour. They decided to wait for the call before doing anything about dinner, though Charlie insisted on pouring them both a glass of wine.
Charlie and Kate were staring at one another when the phone finally rang. It was Bolster, sounding surprisingly pleasant.
"Thank you for showing your safe-deposit box to detective DeVries, Dr. Douglas, but I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. They don't have anything to do with you, personally."
"Okay, go ahead."
"Have you any idea whether Dr. Wilson was involved with anyone?"
"I thought he had a partner; surely Shwayder or perhaps Rankin could tell you that?"
"Apparently not; that is, Dr. Wilson was living alone, and no one we've talked to, including Dr. Shwayder who seems to have been his closest colleague, knows if he was in a relationship. Previously he lived with a woman named Janet Milford. Th
ey were apparently together for about three years till he recently bought a house and moved."
"Last I heard he was living in an apartment on the water. Someone said he had a great view."
"He did live downtown before, but then he bought a large house just outside the city limits. That complicated things a bit because we had to get the sheriff out there to let us into the house. But let me get back to my questions. This next one may surprise you, but have you heard anything about Dr. Wilson using drugs?"
"Barrett? I doubt it, but I really don't know. No one's ever mentioned that to me."
"One last question; to your knowledge, did any issues ever arise about Dr. Wilson's credentials?"
What was this all about? First drugs, now doubts about Barrett's credentials?
"Not that I know of; do you mean his degrees, or where he'd taught before?"
"Either; both."
"No, I don't recall anyone questioning his academic or employment background. I don't even know where Barrett taught before coming to Meredith. I was on sabbatical when he was hired and had nothing to do with the process. I do know he got his doctorate from Stanford. That was something he didn't let you forget."
Bolster thanked him and hung up and Charlie told Kate about Bolster's questions.
"Barrett doing drugs? I don't believe it."
"I don't either, but it might explain a lot."
They set about preparing dinner and Charlie opened a second bottle of shiraz. Later, before dropping off, he wondered whether Barrett dabbling in drugs made any real difference to figuring out who'd shot him. But Barrett hadn't struck Charlie as someone who'd use drugs. Barrett was very big on clarity of thought and control - or maybe he only talked like that because he couldn't meet his own standards.