Stork Raving Mad: A Meg Langslow Mystery (A Meg Lanslow Mystery)

under the drama curriculum? If there is, I’d like to see it.”
    “The material is not just foreign,” Dr. Blanco put in. “It’s obscene!”
    Michael and Dr. Wright both glanced at him briefly and then resumed their argument as if his interruption hadn’t happened.
    “And why is the department taking this action now, at the worst possible moment for Mr. Soto?” Michael went on. “Has no one in the department been reviewing the paperwork Mr. Soto has filed, as well as the reports of our committee?”
    “There is some question of whether Mr. Soto has filed all his paperwork,” Dr. Wright said.
    “Then the department should have brought that to his attention and his committee’s attention earlier,” Michael said. “And I know damned well our committee has filed all its reports, because I’m the one who did it. What’s more—”
    “Michael,” I said. I could tell he didn’t like being interrupted, but I could also tell he’d lost his temper. This didn’t happen very often, but when it did, the results were scary. Not only did he look every bit of his six foot four and more, but he used his powerful, theatrically trained voice as a weapon. So far he was only in the first stage, speaking with icy precision and cold sarcasm, but I could tell that King Lear and Vesuvius weren’t far off.
    “Sorry,” he said. He flashed me a brief, grateful smile. “Am I too loud? Upsetting Bonnie and Clyde?”
    “I only wanted to suggest that perhaps this is something Mr. Soto’s whole doctoral committee should hear about. I could call Dr. Sass and Dr. Rudmann.”
    “An excellent idea,” Michael said. “I’m sure we can sort this all out with their help.”
    Abe Sass and Art Rudmann, in addition to being the balance of Ramon’s dissertation committee, were the two senior drama professors in the department and the only tenured ones. Both were somewhat elderly, since they’d been hired before the English department had begun what Michael referred to as its militant repression of the drama curriculum. And they were good friends and staunch allies of Michael’s.
    “I fail to see what there is to sort out,” Dr. Wright said. “The department’s decision on this is non-negotiable.”
    “But perhaps there is a value in explaining the issues involved to the entire committee at once,” Dr. Blanco said. “Let’s schedule something.”
    Clearly he was a man more comfortable with compromise than open conflict. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his PDA. After frowning slightly—a small crack in the façade of bureaucractic solidarity!—Dr. Wright began tapping again on hers.
    “As it happens, I was supposed to meet both of them this afternoon for a meeting on another subject,” Michael said. “Why don’t I call and suggest they come out here a little earlier, since you’re already here.”
    “And since we have heat,” I added. “We can find you a warm place to work in the meantime.”
    “I have a rather busy schedule today,” Blanco began.
    “But this is a rather important issue,” Wright said. Was there a note of deliberate sarcasm in the way she echoed the word rather? Perhaps another crack? “And we’d have finished this by now if you’d been on time.”
    Definitely a crack.
    “If you feel it’s essential,” Blanco murmured. His shoulders were hunched, making him look like a turtle trying to pull its head into its shell.
    “I’ll call right now,” Michael said. He pulled out his cell phone and stepped into the living room, presumably to make his calls in greater privacy.
    Wright and Blanco turned to me. Dr. Wright took a step closer to me, and I sneezed several times. Apparently she was the source of the perfume reek. Luckily my sneezing encouraged her to take a step back.
    “We’ll need someplace to work,” Dr. Wright announced. “I will require a place where I can use my laptop.”
    “I’d like a room where I can make some phone calls,” Blanco said. “Without disturbing Dr. Wright.”
    I got the impression that disturbing Dr. Wright was something he tried at avoid at all costs.
    “Most of our rooms are dormitories right now,” I said. “How about our library? It’s a bit messy—the students have been using it as a sort of common area. But I’ll keep them out for the time being. And Dr. Blanco, if you need a place to make calls where you won’t disturb Dr. Wright, you could either use the sunporch off the library or my office.”
    “Your office might be