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

dissertations?” I asked. “Would Ramon’s proposal be on file there after it was signed, sealed, and approved?”
    Michael’s smile disappeared.
    “If he turned it in. He told me he did, but maybe I shouldn’t have taken his word for it. From now on—”
    “From now on, you don’t trust your students on anything. They’re drama students, not bureaucrats. And frankly, that kind of nitpicking isn’t your forte, either, so why don’t you get someone who is good at organization to come up with a system to do it for all the drama students and professors?”
    “Kathy Borgstrom,” he said. “She loves doing stuff like that, thank God.”
    And Dr. Wright didn’t seem to like Kathy. Was that really because Kathy had no official position, or had Kathy managed to turn in papers the prunes would rather have seen lost?
    “That’s good,” I said, scribbling a couple of items in my notebook. “But right now, we’ve got to find Ramon’s paperwork.Maybe it’s in the files and maybe it’s somewhere in his frozen room.”
    “And maybe it’s in a landfill somewhere.” Michael sounded discouraged.
    “Think positively,” I said. “I assume we can consider Kathy an ally?”
    “Absolutely,” he said. “She’s militantly in the camp that thinks drama should be a separate department.”
    “Let’s get her to see if the paperwork’s on file in the English department.”
    “Excellent idea,” Michael said. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and began pushing numbers. “Kathy? Michael Waterston. We’ve got a problem here.”
    While Michael explained what was going on, I scribbled a few more notes.
    “Make sure she doesn’t let the prunes know what she’s up to,” I called over to Michael. “Or anyone else on the English department side of the rift.”
    “She already said the same thing,” Michael said. “And she says she’s worried that they may already have gotten to the files.”
    “You mean she thinks they might deliberately destroy Ramon’s paperwork if they got hold of it?”
    “Kathy wouldn’t put it past them.”
    “Trolls,” I muttered. “Can I talk to Kathy a sec?”
    Michael handed the cell phone over.
    “Hey, how are the babies?” she asked.
    “As eager as I am to protect their daddy’s student,” I said.“Not to mention their daddy’s hopes of tenure. They start kicking the second they see the prunes. I mean, Dr. Blanco and Dr. Wright.”
    “Prunes is better,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
    I peered down at my notebook, and Michael shifted his position so he could see over my shoulder. I pushed the speaker button so he could hear too.
    “Is there someplace outside the English department where the paperwork on dissertations would be kept?” I asked.
    “Someplace the prunes can’t get at? Not until the department approves them.”
    “So if someone doesn’t make the grade, only the English department has that person’s files?”
    “Well, I have my files,” she said. “But no one considers them official. There’s no official record outside the department until after they’re approved.”
    I heard Michael mutter a couple of words I hoped he’d stop using once the twins arrived.
    “But the college has some central record of people who get doctorates?” I asked.
    “Yes, that would be on file in the registrar’s office and the alumni office, and the dissertations are kept in the college library.”
    “For the whole college? Great!” I said. “Can you get someone reliable down to the library and the registrar’s office to do some research?”
    “What do you want?”
    She sounded puzzled. For that matter, Michael lookedpuzzled. Maybe having a father who read detective novels by the bagful was rubbing off on me, just a little.
    “It might be useful to have someone look at a whole lot of doctoral dissertations to establish that there’s a precedent for using foreign language material in dissertations. Especially in the English department, but precedents in history, philosophy, art, and so forth might help.”
    “Gotcha.”
    Michael nodded his agreement.
    “And is there some way we could compile statistics on the percentage of drama department grad students who complete their master’s and doctoral degrees compared with other departments?”
    “The attrition rate.” Michael said, leaning over my shoulder so Kathy could hear him.
    Silence on the other end.
    “Is that not something we can get?” I asked.
    “You need to talk to Abe,”