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"It is. I can see that the bureau needs to get its act together and coordinate better with other police agencies. I can't begin to tell you how embarrassed I am."

"Yes, isn't that how 9/11 happened? Poor coordination between agencies? I mean, I'm not blaming you."

"Well, we all share responsibility to some degree."

She ate some of her bun, and I had a chunk of mine.

She said, "In any case, there was certainly no misuse of our assemblyman's name in that regard. Mr. Louderbush personally called Mitch Darnell, our president, and endorsed Greg Stiver's faculty appointment. Not that any favoritism was involved. Faculty appointments are of course above politics. But we had a sudden opening for an associate professor of history and economics when one of our faculty resigned unexpectedly after her husband was transferred to Florida by his company. Mitch knew that Kenyon had this bright young man he'd previously mentioned to us. And all things being equal, Gregory Stiver filled the bill as well as anyone. We were all shocked and disappointed when Mr.

Stiver died. And of course here at the college we were back to square one."

"Assemblyman Louderbush had no other candidate to offer?"

"Well, no. I don't think it was as if he had a cupboard full of young economists or anything."

"I'm reassured to hear this. It doesn't help our investigation particularly. But it certainly confirms my understanding that Mr. Louderbush's interest in Greg Stiver was genuine."

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"I'm sure it was. Mitch said that when Mr. Louderbush personally called to inform him of Greg's suicide, the assemblyman was terribly distraught. He broke down, Mitch said, and was unable to complete the call. Suicide is so mysterious. It just goes against everything we believe about human existence when we get up in the morning. Do you have any idea why Greg killed himself? We never learned any more about him."

"That's outside the purview of the FBI. But I suppose Assemblyman Louderbush knows something about what happened. You might ask him the next time you see him."

* * * *

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Chapter Twenty

The flight to Burlington took over four hours in our tricycle with a surfboard across it, and my breakfast cinnamon bun was restless in the bumpy air. I asked Walt to wait at the airport; I had tracked Randy Spong down at home with a cell number Bud Giannopolous had come up with, and Spong had agreed to see me if I promised to leave his apartment by four forty-five. I had told him I was investigating the circumstances surrounding Greg Stiver's suicide, including Kenyon Louderbush's possible involvement. This honesty seemed like the approach that would work best with him, and also I wasn't sure I could come up with any more appalling bald-faced lies that day—though in a pinch, for a higher cause, I of course could have.

Spong lived not far from the UVM campus in an apartment on the second floor of the carriage house behind a pretty old Victorian mansion that seemed to have gone either gay or Mexican: a yellow exterior with lavender trim. Either way, it was a beauty.

I climbed the outside wooden steps to the apartment, and I saw right away why Spong wanted me out of there by a quarter to five. The elfin young man was bruised and swollen, and five o'clock was probably when his abusive boyfriend came home from work. Spong was stringily muscular, but all his strength was in his arms. His eyes showed no durability at all. He was barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt that said I HEART

TRANSYLVANIA. He had an angular face with a Roman nose 173

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and big brown eyes that would have been sexy if they hadn't been black and blue.

I said, "Thanks for talking to me about Greg. It looks as if you and he had something in common."

"You mean we were both economists?"

"Not just that."

He smiled weakly. "You're so perceptive."

He shoved some books and papers aside on the couch and sat down, and I sat in one of the old easy chairs in the room, though not the one that directly faced the TV set, which gave off a distinct aura of territoriality. The bookshelves on one wall were stuffed to overflowing, and the art posters on the walls were Franz Kline, Escher, and Lucy and Charlie and the football.

I said, "But you're not going to end up like Greg, I hope."

He shrugged. "Not really. If I really hated my life as much as you must think I do, I wouldn't end it. I would change it.

And eventually I think I will. Just not yet."

"So you get some kind of satisfaction out of being abused by your boyfriend?"

"I wouldn't use the word satisfaction. It's more complicated than that. And I like complicated emotions. But, no, I'm not completely detached from reality. I know this is basically unhealthy. For me and for Serge."

"Serge. What is he, some kind of Russian bear? You could really get hurt, you know."

Another little smile. "Serge isn't Russian. He's Swiss. He's older than I am, and he's not much bigger than I am. I could 174

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strangle him if I needed to. But strangling Serge is not what I need. What I need is what you see."

"How do you explain it at work? The bruising and so on."

"I don't. People can think what they want to think. I'm very good in the classroom, so my position is secure.

Occasionally a well-meaning colleague tiptoes up to the elephant in the room and asks me if they can help or if they can direct me to someone. I just say no thank you."

"I take it that in your personal history this all goes way back."

"Of course."

"You don't want to be free of that?"

"No, not yet."

I checked my watch. We had another hour.

I said, "Suppose Serge came back while I was here? How would he react?"

"Well, we're not going to test that supposition. But it wouldn't be pretty."

"Is he jealous?"

"You could put it that way. The other person in any of those situations is safe, however. You wouldn't have to be carrying a revolver in that bag you brought in in order to protect yourself. I would be the one who bore the brunt after you left."

"And that's what you want."

"I do need to take a day off sometimes. I've learned how to pace myself and stay out of the ERs. We don't want that."

"Did Kenyon Louderbush beat you?"

"Of course."

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"He was your abusive lover?"

"For a year. Then Greg came along."

"So Louderbush trolled for boyfriends in SUNY econ classes? That's where you met him?"

"Kenyon never came to class, no. He was never that subtle. He cruised the men's room in the Performing Arts Center every week or so. I suppose that's where he met Greg, too."

"Did you resent Greg's replacing you in Louderbush's...is affections the word I want?"

"For a while. But it was time for me to move on anyway.