Harry laughed. “No. What she said was, ‘If you did that, the guy would be on TV. He’d be happy. He’d be famous. He was on TV.’ Being on fuckin’ TV. Being on the internet. She’s right. I know some of those kids.”

Virgil finished his beer, said, “On that cheerful note, I’m going to bed.”

“I’m here most every night,” Harry said. “Let me know how you’re doing. And Virgil—it’s a young person.”

* * *

—

Virgil spent the rest of the evening watching a ball game from the West Coast and went to bed at ten o’clock, like a farmer. At ten minutes after ten, his cell phone rang.

It was Trane. “You awake?” she asked.

“Yeah. Barely.”

“We need to go back to the Quill house,” Trane said. “I thought of a reason he might have been listening to ‘Home on the Range.’ I’ll meet you there at eight.”

“Well, tell me,” Virgil said.

She did, and Virgil said, “I believe that, Margaret. I mean, maybe you’re wrong, but I believe it right now.”

“Eight o’clock,” she said.

Virgil turned off the lights again, dropped his head back on the pillow. Was she right? Or was it a silly fantasy? Why hadn’t he thought of it when he was standing right there?

And then he worried a little about Harry.

CHAPTER

SIX

   Katherine Green was sitting in the coffee shop in the Coffman Memorial Union when she saw one of her students going through the line.

He’d gone to India with her on a summer research trip with six other students. He was older than the others, more her age, she thought. She’d been tempted at the time to give him a mild hit, to see what happened. He was nice-looking: square shoulders, square jaw, neatly trimmed hair, crisp shirt, carefully ironed chinos. He was quiet, soft-spoken, often with a touch of humor.

One of her better students, even though she sensed an underlying skepticism about Cultural Science.

When he finished the line, he looked around for a seat. He saw Green, and she pointed at the chair opposite her. He smiled and came over and sat down.

“Professor Green . . .”

“How’s the paper going?” she asked.

“Well enough, I guess. I’ve only taken the beginning course in stats. I need to do more, maybe go back and hit the algebra again. I’m struggling with the math.”

“No matter what you wind up doing, stats is critical,” she agreed. “You can look at something that seems so right, and a good analysis of the statistics will tell you there’s nothing there.”

“I’ve noticed that,” he said. “In the media.”

“Nobody should be allowed in the professional media without at least a year of statistics,” she said, sipping her coffee. “The bullshit you see on TV and in the newspapers is beyond stupid. The phony research . . .”

“Maybe they know better but go with the clickbait.”

They talked for a few minutes, mostly about the man’s research and statistics, then he asked, “Anything new on the Barth Quill front? More cops coming around?”

Green hunched her shoulders and leaned into the table. “No. They don’t seem to be getting anywhere, the police. They’re spinning their wheels. It’s awful.”

“It is bad,” the man said. “People have said the department . . . I mean, after the hassle at Quill’s lecture . . .”

Green nodded, now grim. “I know. It’s ridiculous. I’ve been reading about motives in violent crime ever since Quill got killed—murder never involves something like that. Quill was killed by somebody who hated him for personal reasons. Or by a crazy man. An academic feud isn’t enough . . .” She took a few more sips of coffee, then said, “Remember the reading I assigned on the causes of the Civil War? Did you get that?”

“Yeah, I read it,” he said. He then used her favorite word. “Interesting.”

“The authors make the point that there were serious economic stresses between the different sections of the country, but the spark that set it off was slavery. Without the emotional trigger of slavery, there would have been no war,” she said. “This murder is analogous—it takes a specific, dynamic, emotional spark to murder, even with crazy people. The anger between members of our department and his was on an entirely different level.”

“Suppose we have somebody in the department who’s a little crazy who has some kind of hidden emotional situation.”

“Like what?” Green demanded.

“Okay. This is hypothetical. Say they have an emotional attachment to you. They see you attacked, they see you called names that carry an emotional load—”

“Like ‘twat’?”

“Exactly. They decide to attack your attacker.”

“That’s nonsense,” she said. “There’s nobody that attached to me, I promise you. Not enough to kill. I would feel it.”

“We have at least two Ph.D. candidates who are close to getting their degrees. If something happened—”

“Oh, c’mon,” she said. “It could be a setback. But a reason for murder? No.”

“I’d disagree with you,” the man said, “except that I know the two people and they didn’t kill anybody.”

“Have you talked to them?”

“Chatting. You know, bull sessions.” He smiled. “As soon as I told them my alibi, they told me theirs. Theirs were better.”

“Alibis . . . If you were planning to kill Quill, you’d figure out an alibi. A good one, unless you were an idiot. If you weren’t planning to kill him and it was a random act, and the police didn’t catch you in the first few hours, and you didn’t leave behind specific kinds of incriminating evidence, then you won’t need an alibi because they’ll never identify you and won’t be asking for one. In fact, you could probably tell the police that you didn’t know where you were that night. Who remembers where they were on a Friday night two weeks ago? You could say you were at home, in bed, reading a book. How do they break that?”

“You don’t think they’ll get the guy?”

“I have my doubts. I even have my doubts about it being a guy.” She looked at him for a moment, then lowered her voice. “I don’t want you talking to anyone about this conversation.”

“I won’t. Scout’s Honor.” He held up the three fingers in the Boy Scout salute.