The Lesson of Her Death

contemporary novel. Dean Larraby mentioned this fact as she paced, her eyes on the frayed carpet.
    Her visitor this morning wasn’t as well known as Howells, at least not among literary circles, though the dean treated him more reverentially than if he had been the ghost of the eminent literatus himself.
    She was speaking of Howells, of Dickens, of the school’s tradition of academic excellence, of the number of Harvard graduates on the Auden faculty and vice versa, when Fred Barrett, a thick-faced, slick-haired businessman from Chicago, stopped her cold by asking, “What’s with these murders?”
    Dean Larraby, heiress to great administrators and greater scholars, overseer of this bastion of Midwest letters,smelled defeat. She stopped pacing, sighed and returned to her chair.
    Here he was, another wealthy businessman, able to loan enough money for her to conceal from the Department of Education auditors the bum loans she and Randy Sayles had made, here he sat, a godsend, and yet she would now have to confess that yes a professor had killed a student, and yes that student’s lesbian lover killed herself.
    And that the professor had then murdered a colleague.
    And that yes enrollment had fallen fourteen percent because of the whole damn mess.
    He would then gather his London Fog coat and place his jaunty hat on his head and walk away with his five million dollars. And her job and the viability of Auden University would depart with him. The DOE auditors were due in three days. Barrett had been her last chance.
    She sighed and said, “I’m afraid we
have
had some tragedies on the campus this spring. It’s unfortunate. But you see why we need the money so desperately. Once we get this all behind us—”
    Barrett asked, “This Professor Sayles is the one who called me. I come all the way from Cicero down here and I find he’s dead.” He had an accent that she couldn’t place.
    “I’m sorry if you wasted your time, Mr. Barrett.”
    He shook his head. “Not a waste yet. Let’s talk about lending some money.”
    Hope glinted. She considered tactics for a moment then said, “You’re familiar with Auden University?”
    “Not really. It’s like a college?”
    The dean thought he might have been joking but she didn’t dare risk a smile. She looked around the room for a moment, intuitively grasped that there was no irony in his question and readjusted her sales pitch. “I think it will be helpful to put the loan in context. Auden is oneof the nation’s premiere institutions of higher learning—”
    “I’m sure it’s a great place. How much do you want?”
    Don’t mince words in Chicago, do you?
The dean sought refuge in the high-rise of papers on her desk. “I know it sounds like a lot. But I can’t tell you how important it is to the school that we get this money.”
    Barrett cocked an eyebrow, which emphatically repeated his question.
    Dean Larraby said softly, “Five million.”
    He shook his head.
    “I know it’s a great deal,” she pleaded. The nakedness of her voice shocked her and she spoke more slowly. “But the school is in desperate straits. You have to understand that. Without—”
    “It’s too
little
. Gotta be ten million minimum or we don’t even talk to you.”
    Dean Larraby believed she misheard the man. She ran through various permutations of his words. “You don’t loan anything under
ten
million?”
    “Not worth our while.”
    “But—”
    “Not worth our while.”
    This was a predicament she had not counted on. “You couldn’t make an exception?”
    “I could maybe talk my associates down to eight.”
    She wondered if she was being naive when she asked, “Well, if we were to do business with you, would it be possible to borrow the eight and repay some of it early?”
    “Sure. You can borrow it Monday and repay it Tuesday. A lot of my clients do that.”
    “They do?” Dean Larraby could find no logical reason for this practice and dropped it from her mind. She regained her stride. She lifted the school’s financial statements from her desk and handed one to Barrett. He took it and flipped through the document as if it were printed in Chinese. He handed it back. He shook his head.“That does me no good. Just tell me, you want the money or no?”
    “Don’t you want to know about the fiscal strength of the school? Our debt ratio? Our overhead?” Dean Larraby, a liberal arts workhorse from the U of K, was proud of this financial knowledge she’d learned,