would tuck into her bag for later. Her phone pinged while she was filling her glass with soda. Six hundred dollars had been deposited in her bank account.
So Oddman had paid up. If a hump got square, Eitan would drop 5 percent in her account for a job well done. She should probably feel shitty about it, but saying no to the money wasn’t going to do anyone any good.
When she sat down, she could see Mercy’s eyes were red from crying and Lauren wasn’t looking great either. Neither of them had done more than pick at their food.
“You guys okay?” Alex asked, suddenly self-conscious about her tray full of food.
Mercy shook her head, and Lauren said, “I’m messed up.” “Same,”
Alex said because it seemed like she should be.
“I can’t imagine what his family is going through,” said Mercy. “His wife teaches here too, you know.”
“I didn’t,” Alex said. “What does she teach?”
Mercy blew her nose. “French literature. That’s how I got to know them.”
Vaguely Alex remembered that Mercy had won some big award for an essay on Rabelais. But she hadn’t realized Mercy really knew Dean Beekman.
“What was he like?” she asked.
Mercy’s eyes overflowed again. “Just … really kind. I was scared about going to a school so far from home and he put me in touch with other firstgen students. He and Mariah—Professor LeClerc, his wife—they just made room for you. I can’t explain it.” She shrugged helplessly. “He was like Puck and Prospero all wrapped up together. He made scholarship seem fun. Why would anyone want to hurt him? And for what? He wasn’t rich. He can’t have had anything worth … worth…” Her voice wobbled and broke.
Alex handed her a napkin. “I never met him. Did he have kids?”
Mercy nodded. “Two daughters. One was a cellist. Really good. Like I think she landed a seat in … I think it was in Boston or the New York Phil.”
“And the other?” Alex felt like a ghoul, but if she had a chance to suss out a little information on the victim, she wasn’t going to pass it up.
“A doctor, I think? A psychiatrist. I can’t remember if she was going into research or practicing.”
A psychiatrist. She might be connected to Marjorie Stephen, but Turner would figure that out easily enough.
“He was so popular,” Alex ventured carefully. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything negative about the guy.” “Why would they?”
Mercy asked.
“People get jealous,” Lauren said, dragging her fork through a puddle of ketchup. “I had a lecture right before one of his classes and his students would always show up early. Pissed off my professor.”
“But that’s about his students,” Alex said, “not him.”
Mercy folded her arms. “It’s just sour grapes. I had a professor warn me off choosing him as my faculty adviser.”
“Who?”
“Does it matter?”
Alex had promised to try not to lie, but she was already skirting the truth.
“Just curious. Like I said, I’ve never heard a bad word about him.”
“It was a group of them. From the English department. I show up for office hours to talk about a paper and three professors ambush me to insist I stay in the English major, telling me that Dean Beekman isn’t about serious scholarship. They called him a glad-hander.” She put her nose in the air and adopted a tone of disdain. “‘All sizzle, no steak.’”
Lauren shook her head in disbelief. “I’m barely passing econ, and you have faculty staging interventions to keep you in their departments.” “It’s nice to be friends with a genius,” Alex said.
Lauren scowled. “It’s depressing.”
“Not if some of it rubs off on us.”
“There are different kinds of smart,” Mercy said generously. “And it didn’t matter anyway. I told them I planned to major in American Studies.”
Was professional jealousy enough to get a man killed? And what could that possibly have to do with Marjorie Stephen?
“Who were these assholes, and how do I avoid them?” Alex asked, fishing for names.
“I don’t remember,” said Mercy. “I had Ruth Canejo in Directed Studies, but I didn’t know the other two. That’s part of why it annoyed me so much.
Like I was just a point they wanted to score.”
Lauren rose to clear her tray. “I’m the kind of smart that’s going to get a nap in before practice. We need to talk Halloween.”
“A man was killed on campus,” Mercy said. “You can’t seriously think we’re going to throw a party.”
“It will be good for us. And if I don’t have something to look forward to I’m not going to make it.”
When Lauren was gone, Mercy said, “Why all the questions?”
Alex stirred her coffee slowly. She’d told Mercy she wouldn’t lie, but she had to tread carefully here. “Do you know a professor in the psych department? Marjorie Stephen?”
