Right to Die

flown the coop, I wonder if you could come see me about a complaint I’m composing for the Board of Registration of Private Investigators?”

    When I followed Walter Strock into his office, the blonde from the library debate was sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs. She wore a one-piece wool dress, robin’s-egg blue, with a sash.
    Strock said, “John Cuddy, this is Kimberly Weymond.” Weymond took about a minute getting to her feet. I was noticing her moist lipstick and heavy eye shadow before it struck me that her dress was a twin for the outfits Maisy Andrus wore.
    “Kimberly is my research assistant. She will stay as fair witness to what you and I discuss.”
    Weymond’s hand felt more manicured than callused. “Mr. Cuddy.” She smiled in a your-place-or-mine way.
    “It seems you misrepresented yourself to me on Monday, sir.”
    I turned from Kimberly to Strock, who was dropping into his big swivel chair. Weymond resumed her seat. I took the other captain’s chair, arranging it so I could watch both of them.
    “Tell me, Professor, just how fair a witness is your research assistant likely to make?”
    “I rather think I’m a better judge of that than you, sir. Now, more to the point, I believe that when you were here on Monday, the specific false pretenses you asserted consisted of—”
    “Why don’t we cut the shit and call the cops, Strock.” Weymond just aborted a laugh. Strock stared at me as though he were wondering what I could have said that would have sounded like “cut the shit and call the cops.”
    “I beg your—”
    “Try Area A. Ask for Detective William Neely. He’ll remember you, I think.”
    Whatever words were climbing up Strock’s throat lost their footing before reaching his mouth. I had the impression that he was desperately flicking through his data banks, trying to find the incident I was talking about.
    “Let me refresh your recollection, Professor. It was the time you got sick after that school party, and you had that difficulty on Beacon Hill . Down toward Cambridge Street ? An apartment, I think—”
    “Kimberly!”
    His voice was so shrill, she jumped a little.
    “Yes, Walter?”
    “You’re excused.”
    “But—”
    “Please.”
    Weymond looked from him to me just once. Standing again, her panty hose rustled. She left the room without another word, probably trying to play back and file away what I’d already said.
    When the door closed behind her, Strock said, “How dare you! I can have your license—”
    “Strock, I can have yours too.”
    He shuddered once, and suddenly the acerbic academic devolved into someone a lot older and grayer. “What do you mean?”
    “I know all about you and the student that called the cops. Now, you’re going to answer every question I ask, and politely. Otherwise, the student newspaper gets to play Washington Post to your Dick Nixon. We understand each other?”
    His lids lowered halfway. “Yes.”
    “How did you find out that I wasn’t straight with you on Monday?”
    “The girl that I didn’t pick as my research assistant.”
    “Nina Russo?”
    “Yes.”
    I started to get up. “Sorry, Strock.”
    “No! Wait, it’s true. She was pissed off royally that I picked Kimberly over her. The stupid cu—Russo should have been amazed that she was even in the running, with her looks. She—Russo—was in a bar near here, complaining about me. When Russo said you talked to her about it, one of the male students overheard and later told Kimberly.”
    That seemed reasonable. It didn’t take much to picture male students trying to play up to Kimberly.
    “How did you know about Maisy Andrus being away?”
    “The dean.”
    “Fill in the blanks, Strock.”
    A deep breath. “Maisy told him about some threats or whatever she’d been getting. Said she needed some time off. He told her he understood, even told her she could cancel her special session course. Then he became concerned as he always does about how that might play with the rest of the faculty. So he came to me for counsel.” Strock mustered a wan smile. “He may be weak, but he is politic.”
    “When did he come to you?”
    “When? Yesterday sometime. Yes, yesterday evening, just before my seven o’clock. I prefer my classes start on time, you see, and I recall being a bit testy that he was staying so long.”
    “What do you know about the threats?”
    “Only what he told me.”
    “Which was?”
    “Just that Maisy had received them. For God’s