Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar by Gray Cavender (red scrolls of magic TXT) 📗

called him…myself, and talked with him about you. He gave you a glowing recommendation, Jillian.”

“Brother,” was all she could manage, her first words since Sarah had begun these comments. She gave another, longer sigh. Then, “OK, I think you’d better tell me more about the grievance process in this case…were you handling the grievance?”

“No, one of my colleagues, Kathleen Jermyn, caught this one…she handles the lion’s share of the grievances that come to us. She mentioned it to me, but only in passing…you know, ‘here’s an interesting one’…something like that. Then, when the news came down about Professor Siemens being…well, murdered…this is still hard to wrap my head around…anyway, Kathleen thought this incident might be important. She knew that you and I are friends, so she and I talked…and we also discussed the situation with our supervisor, and everyone agreed that I needed to get this information to you…ASAP. So, here it is,” she said, and pushed the pages across the table.

Even as she tried to clear her mind, Jillian flashed on the scheduled interview tomorrow with Professor Naremore. She didn’t mention this, though. Instead, after mentally shaking her head clear, she said, “Two things jump out at me, Sarah. You said Professor Siemens wasn’t on the committee’s agenda that day…she was there specifically to oppose Professor Naremore’s certificate. And, second, you said she appeared to have read his proposal in advance. How are those things possible?”

Sarah thought for a few second, then said, “Well, as for point one, the committee’s agenda isn’t secret, it’s public information because it’s a public meeting. The second point is harder…getting Professor Naremore’s proposal in advance…I don’t know how she managed that…it’s just that she seems to have read it. But as for how…I don’t know.”

Jillian nodded. “So, who chairs the University Curriculum Committee?”

Sarah reached across for the pages, turned them sideways, and said, “OK, the committee Chair is Steve Sylvester…he a professor in…Accounting. But, my sense about these university-level committees is that staff people play a major role in managing the agenda and most of the actual business. In this case that would be…Louisa Disis.

Sarah punched several buttons on her cell phone, and in less than 30 seconds, texted Jillian ASU phone numbers for Professor Sylvester and Ms. Disis. After her cell swooshed that the texts had been sent, she said, “So, Kathleen had started her work-up on the grievance.”

“That’s great. What was she finding?”

“She’d contacted Professor Sylvester, who said that the other professor, the one who convinced Professor Naremore to leave the meeting, was a music professor named…” Sarah again looked at one of the sideways pages she’d given Jillian. ”Jeff LeJohns. He was at the meeting advocating for his own graduate certificate…something in music, of course,” she smiled.

“Professor Sylvester told Kathleen that he thought that LeJohns and Naremore knew one another, which helped in getting Professor Naremore to leave the meeting. Kathleen then contacted Professor LeJohns, and he confirmed that, yes, the incident did happen. This was only a preliminary call, and she hasn’t followed-up with him. And, she hadn’t contacted Ms. Disis, yet…the staff person. We stopped everything till we could get all this information to you.” She scrolled on her cell phone and texted Jillian Professor LeJohns’ ASU phone number.

“We did the right thing, didn’t we, getting this information to you?”

“Absolutely, Sarah…thank you.”

Sarah asked, “I mean, it seems relevant, right?”

“Oh yes. At the risk of saying too much, it goes to motive. It was in Professor Naremore’s interest that Professor Siemens not complete the formal grievance, so…” She sighed again.

“I guess this job can wear on you…too many victims, huh?”

Jillian nodded and said, “That’s for sure…and definitely too many criminals…bad people doing bad things. And worse, good people doing bad things. Sometimes I wonder if this was a good career choice. You know?”

Their teas came, the server said their food would be ‘up’ soon, and left.

Sarah said, “Do you remember during your job interview when I asked you a question about being a police detective? You said, and this is either a quote or close to it…you said that what you wanted was to ‘do the right thing’ and take problematic people off the street. You didn’t say ‘the bad guys’ like TV detectives…you said ’problematic people.’ And that impressed me.”

Before Jillian could respond, Sarah continued, “You also said that you worried about what happened to people after you arrested them. Problematic people off the street, yes, but you worried about our prison system. Which you described as ‘broken,’ especially with people of color.”

“Good memory, but did I actually say all that?”

“Yes, you did, and it really impressed me. You seemed determined to do the right thing, and you were thoughtful about it. After you got the job, I decided that I’d like a friend who thought like you think. I’ve never had a friend who’s a detective…well, actually I have a cousin who is a police officer.”

“And?”

“Oh, he’s a jerk. So OK, not a good example.”

They laughed, and Sarah continued, “But his being a jerk is unrelated to being a cop. He was a jerk when we were kids. And he’s a jerk now that he’s a cop. He’d be a jerk if he was a lawyer. Actually, he’d probably be an even bigger jerk.”

They laughed again, and it lightened the mood at the table.

Their food arrived, they used some extra plates to share bites, and both asked for tea refills.

Jillian said, “I guess in some ways maybe being a lawyer also generates reflections. Did you leave private practice because you had to defend clients who you didn’t like?”

So, I didn’t handle any criminal defense work. Actually, Bentley and Waffard—my former firm—does virtually no criminal defense work. But you are right about one thing…a lawyer, especially one who’s just starting out, doesn’t get to choose her clients. I worked for clients in business-related cases where, to be honest, the only reason that I cared about winning was that they were my client…and it was my job.

She thought as