Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

"Sure, didn't you know?"

Kresge laughed. "Well, no. You said you didn't recognize it."

"I thought you meant did I know what street it was. Of course it's Fitzberg. What do you think that building is in the background? Fireman's Indemnity Plaza. Where else you think they have a building like that?"

Earl said, "Fitzberg's got a Marshall Field. Best store in the Midwest."

Dean Catherine Larraby walked in a slow circle around the perimeter of an oriental rug that had been acquired in 1887 by the then chancellor of the school, whose first visitor to tread upon the new carpet happened to be William Dean Howells. The august writer was lecturing at Auden on the 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 one of 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, this useful knowledge.

"No," Barrett said, "I want to know how much money you want."

"It sounds like you're just asking me to name a figure."

Barrett lifted both eyebrows this time.

She stalled. "Well, what's the interest rate?"

"Prime plus two."

"You should know there's a collateral problem…"

"We're not interested in collateral. We're interested in you paying us back when you're supposed to."

"We'll do that. We're trimming expenses and we've already fired three hundred and twelve employees. We've hired a financial advisor and he's cutting -"

Barrett looked at his watch. "How much?"

The dean inhaled nervously. "Eight million."

"Done." Barrett smiled.

"That's it? You'd write a check to us just like that?"

Barrett snorted a laugh. "Not a check of course."

"Eight million dollars in cash ?" she whispered. He nodded. "Isn't that… risky?"

"It's riskier with checks, believe me."

"I guess we could put it directly in the bank."

"No," Barrett said cautiously, "that would be inappropriate." The big word stumbling under his urban drawl. When the dean looked at him quizzically he added, "What most of my clients do is keep it in their own safe and pay it out in small amounts. If you have to bank it make sure it's in different numbered accounts of less than ten thousand each."

"That's a rather strange requirement."

"Yeah, Washington comes up with some funny rules."

The dean's education was expanding exponentially. "Your business is headquartered in Chicago?"

Barrett said, "Among other places."

"And what line are you? Is it banking?"

"A number of lines."

Dean Larraby was nodding. "I don't suppose I should ask where this money comes from."

"Ask whatever you want."

"Where? -"

"Various business enterprises."

The dean was nodding. "This isn't illegal, is it?"

"Illegal?" Barrett smiled like an insulted maitre d'. "Well, let's look at the broad scenario. I'm lending you money at a fair, negotiated rate based on prime. You pay it back, principal and interest." His eyes swept up to a portrait of a sideburned former dean. "That doesn't sound illegal to me."

"I suppose not," she said. The dean looked out on the quadrangle then back to the William Dean Howells rug.

She wondered if she should ask directly if she had just committed her school to a major money laundering scheme but decided it might be insulting or incriminating and the risk of either was enough to put the kibosh on the question.

She looked out the windows and saw a lilac bush bending in a spring breeze. This reminded her of Whitman's poem about Lincoln's death, and free-associating she recalled that the last time she cried was in college on the wet afternoon of November 22,1963. She now felt her eyes fill with tears though this time they came from relief and, perhaps, joy.