Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar by Gray Cavender (classic literature list txt) 📕

described the results of her phone calls to the ASU students who Grace Wilson had mentioned. She told him that she’d arranged an interview with Andrew Paxton. After she recounted her call to Paxton AND his criminal record, Wes said, “Well, well.” He thought for a second or two, then nodded.

She’d already described the highlights of her interview of Professor Billy Gilroy to Wes, so after they were seated, it was his turn to go over his interview of Jonathan Keefer, the chair of English. After a three-minute overview, during which they also gave their drink orders, Wes concluded, “I guess I’d say that there were three takeaways from the interview. First,” he enumerated on the fingers of his left hand, “a lot of the other faculty in English were jealous of Professor Siemens, mainly because she made a lot more money than they did, and she refused to do anything—teaching or any departmental admin committee work—that wasn’t related to her Rand Center. She sounds like a real prima donna. Second, some were mad that her position was forced on them. She herself wasn’t forced on them, but her position was. And third, I got the impression that the Professor was not a warm, fuzzy type, so she wasn’t winning any popularity contests.”

“I had that same sense—that Professor Siemens was unpopular because she was arrogant—from my interview with Grace Wilson. Professor Gilroy said something like that, too.”

“Hmm hmm…” he moaned and shook his head. “Will the suspects please form a double line,” he said, and exhaled some air. Then he continued, “Now, Keefer tried to put a positive spin on the situation about her hiring…like he did in the hallway earlier. He said he thought the bad feelings had passed, that people were willing to forgive and forget, to let bygones be bygones…he actually said stuff like that. I mean, for an English professor, his language was basically banal. See, Jilly, I went to college, too,” he laughed. “Honestly, I guess I expected the guy to, I don’t know, quote Toni Morrison… Or at least Bobby Dylan now that he has a Nobel Prize in Literature.” He laughed again.

Their drinks arrived and Wes said, “To the Warne/Webb team. Together again.”

They clinked glasses. Wes took a sip of his beer and continued. “Anyway, maybe Keefer has to try to make nice since he’s the head of the English Department. It reminded me of the guy who was her chair over in Business…Seay. Maybe guys like that have to at least make it seem as if everything’s just fine.”

“To administrators making nice, and to Webb/Warne, the sequel,” Jillian toasted.

They clinked glasses again. “I had a similar take from Grace Wilson…Professor Siemens wasn’t very popular. Ms. Wilson was nice, by the way…I liked her. She doesn’t seem to be the sort of a person who gossips about people, but, once she got going, she was fairly outspoken. She said that Professor Siemens was arrogant, maybe even downright rude, especially with people who she thought beneath her: students, staff, many of the faculty, especially if they were people of color. With her superiors, though…’

“A racist and a brownnoser,” he finished her sentence. “I know the type. I guess they’re in every occupation, from police to professors.”

“Same in classes back when I was a student, I mean the brown-nosing, except we called it ‘grade grubbing.’ I think it was maybe even worse as a grad student.”

When Wes nodded, Jillian asked,” So what are you thinking on this?”

He took a sip of his wheat-colored beer, savored it, looked at the glass, and said, ”Well, from what we’re hearing about the Professor and about her situation over there,” he jutted his chin in the general direction of the ASU campus, “we have to at least consider jealousy…you know, love gone bad…or anger, maybe job-related…some sort of emotion. She was struck several times.”

“And after she was already down” Jillian added.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Course, any number of things could have generated that kind of emotion.”

They sipped their drinks quietly, then Wes said, “So, I’m guessing that there are some things that you don’t miss about leaving Tempe PD. Like working a murder.”

“I guess it’s obvious…it really does bother me to see someone who’s been murdered. And maybe from having been a college student for so long, knowing that it’s a professor who’s been murdered is harder still. On the other hand, murder makes me so mad…it makes me want to catch whoever did it, to make them pay, to…”

“Justice…simply put, Jilly Warne, you want justice…like I said earlier. I think that was the point of Mr. Sarsour’s story. What do you think…were you always like this or was it because you majored in Justice Studies…two times?”

She flashed on what Al had said earlier…that comment about a justice gene. “Maybe some of each…I mean, I always did like Nancy Drew,” she laughed. “And later, John Grisham. You know, if you think about the typical John Grisham novel, OK, maybe they are page turners, but there’s always such a strong sense of right and wrong in them. I guess majoring in Justice Studies just reinforced those feelings, or, who knows, maybe I chose Justice Studies because of those feelings.”

“Chicken and the egg, Jilly…chicken and the egg. One correction, though...you weren’t in college all that long even with a masters. Remind me again, how’d you do that?”

“OK, so ASU has what they call a ‘4+1 program.’ Some of my professors encouraged me to apply to enter the masters’ program during my senior year…and I was accepted. What that meant was that while I was still a senior, I could take grad courses that counted toward my BS degree. Then, after I’d graduated, they counted toward my MS degree, too, and that meant I’d already completed some of the required courses. So, you get your BS and your MS in five years…4+1.”

“And you also did an honors degree?”

She nodded. “In a way, that actually made it more efficient. I did my undergrad honors