Dan sat in a Danish-modern chair, while Dr. Gelkenshettle went around the desk to a spring-backed chair behind it. She was a short, stocky woman in her fifties. Her iron-gray hair was chopped without any sense of style, and although she had never been beautiful, her face was appealing and kind. She wore blue slacks and a man’s white shirt, with pocket flaps and epaulets; the sleeves were rolled up, and she even wore a man’s watch, a plain but dependable Timex on an expansion band. She radiated competence, efficiency, and intelligence.
Though Dan had just met her, he felt that he knew her well, for his own Aunt Kay — his adoptive mother’s sister, a career military officer in the WACs — was just like this woman. Dr. Gelkenshettle obviously chose her clothes for comfort, durability, and value. She didn’t scorn those who were concerned about being in fashion; it had simply never occurred to her that fashion might be a consideration when it was time to replenish her wardrobe. Just like Aunt Kay. He even knew why she wore a man’s watch. Aunt Kay had one too, because the face was larger than that on a woman’s watch, and the numerals were easier to read.
At first he had been taken aback by her. She hadn’t been his idea of the head of a major university psychology department. But then he had noticed that on one full shelf of the bookcase behind her desk were more than twenty volumes that bore her name on their spines.
‘Doctor Gelkenshettle—’
She held up a hand, interrupting him. ‘The name’s impossible. The only people who call me Doctor Gelkenshettle are students, those colleagues whom I loathe, my auto mechanic — because you’ve got to keep those guys at a distance or they’ll charge you a year’s salary for a tune-up — and strangers. We’re strangers, or the next thing to it, but we’re also professionals, so let’s drop the formalities. Call me Marge.’
‘Is that your middle name?’
‘Unfortunately, no. But Irmatrude’s as bad as Gelkenshettle, and my middle name’s Heidi. Do I look like a Heidi to you?’
He smiled. ‘I guess not.’
‘You’re damned right I don’t. My parents were sweet, and they loved me, but they had a blind spot about names.’
‘My name’s Dan.’
‘Much better. Simple. Sensible. Anyone can say Dan. Now, you wanted to talk about Dylan McCaffrey and Willy Hoffritz. It’s hard to believe they’re dead.’
‘Wouldn’t be so hard if you’d seen the bodies. Tell me about Dylan first. What did you think of him?’
‘I wasn’t head of the department when Dylan McCaffrey was here. I only moved into the top job a little more than four years ago.’
‘But you were teaching here then, doing your own research. You were on the faculty with him.’
‘Yes. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him well enough to know I didn’t want to know him any better.’
‘I understand he was very dedicated to his work. His wife — she’s a psychiatrist — called him a severe obsessive-compulsive.’
‘He was a nut,’ Marge said.
* * *
The two new Paladin agents walked away from the suspicious telephone-company van and came directly to Laura’s front door. Earl Benton let them in.
One was tall, the other short. The tall one was thin and gray-faced. The short man was slightly pudgy with freckles across the bridge of his nose and on both cheeks. They didn’t want to sit down or have coffee. Earl called the short one Flash, and Laura didn’t know if that was his surname or a nickname.
Flash did all the talking while the tall one stood beside him, his long face expressionless. ‘They’re steamed that we blew their cover,’ Flash said.
‘If they don’t want to be made, they should be more subtle,’ Earl said.
‘That’s what I told them,’ Flash said.
‘Who are they?’
‘They showed us FBI credentials.’
‘You wrote their names down?’
‘Names and ID numbers.’
‘Did the ID took real?’
‘Yeah,’ Flash said.
‘What about the men? They seem like Bureau types to you?’
‘Yeah,’ Flash said. ‘Sharply dressed. Very cool, soft-spoken, polite even when they were angry, but that underlying arrogance. You know how they are.’