"Such a naughty subject. Who knew he had it in him, eh?"
Mary Portman was the head of the psychology department at Princeton. Her office was startlingly cold. Laura felt icicles forming on the back of her neck as the tiny old lady burrowed through a file cabinet.
"How would you describe Sebastian?" Laura said.
"He was a good professor," Portman said. "Very intelligent, well respected. It's so strange that his book has been caught up in one of those viral things. Outbreaks? Waves? Here we go." She took a folder out of the cabinet, tottered back to her desk and settled into her chair, pulling her sweater more tightly around her shoulders.
"So at the time, you weren't aware of what he was working on?" Laura said.
"No, not at all. But that's not unusual, everybody has their personal projects that I don't always know about. If I had known about it—well, personally I would have been fine with it, but we'd probably have to make sure nobody else found out, we can't let the school get dragged through this mess. Thankfully we've managed to distance ourselves from Sebastian and his work and have avoided any bad publicity so far. But I think his research was successful, I greatly enjoyed his book."
Karl said, "Did you know Sebastian very well?"
"Not that well," Portman said. "He was a bit reserved. I knew he had a passion for psychology. A little surprising where his particular passions truly were, yes? But sometimes diving into the mind, you end up in a peculiar corner." An impish expression came over her as a she looked at Laura and Karl each in turn. "A reporter and a psychologist, a sister and brother team, investigating a controversy about incest. How did this happen? Do newspapers normally have such a sense of humor?"
"I like to think that their lack of sense of humor made them unaware of the humor of the situation," Karl said.
Laura sensed that the 'brother-sister team-up' topic of discussion was going to be a popular one. They managed to avoid talking about it on the drive down, along with anything else about Sebastian and his weird book. If people were going to keep bringing it up, she really needed to come up with a good response.
"It is funny, isn't it?" she said lamely. "So is there anybody still at the university that worked with Sebastian and would be willing to talk to us?"
Portman gave a chirpy little laugh as she looked through her folder. She also typed a bit on her keyboard. "I think I can give you a few names. Former colleagues in the department. Yes, they would be the place to start, I think. They might know more than I do. Whether or not they'll open up to you, I can't be certain."
"I totally appreciate any help you can give us," Laura said.
The professor printed out the names and handed the paper to Karl, only to pull it back as he reached for it. "Now, Karl, when are you coming to another conference?" she said. "Everybody misses you."
"I wasn't kidding when I said the last one nearly killed me."
"You really have to learn how to pace yourself. You have to take breaks between the drinking and the fucking. Next time stick with me, I'll show you how it's done."
Portman handed over the paper and hugged Karl goodbye. Laura gave him a long look as they walked out of the office and down the hall.
"What?" Karl said. "You should realize that psychologists can get pretty crazy sometimes."
"I don't know anything about Sebastian and his work, and I have a family, I have kids, I can't be associated with this, even remotely."
That was the typical response. Laura thought it was a reasonable position. As they meandered through the campus, bouncing from one closed door to another, she wished she had a list of names of his former students, especially ones who might have helped him with his research. But even if she had that list, and even if she could track them all down, how many would talk to her? She supposed they had plenty of secrets they'd rather keep.
She couldn't really count on anyone coming forward and opening up about Sebastian. She wondered if she could just punt this assignment and still keep her job. But it was a little early to think that way. She had a week to dig around, maybe she'll stumble onto something. Who knows, maybe she'll crack this story wide open and it will turn into her big break. Yeah, keep dreaming.
So Princeton was a long shot, as she expected. What surprised her was how well Karl was doing—not only was he at ease talking to people, he also let her take the lead, sitting back and listening and rarely interrupting. Maybe their partnership would work out after all.
"I think going back to New York is the next step," Laura told him over dinner that night. They were in the motel restaurant, a poorly lit and crowded place. "That was his base of operations after Princeton. If other therapists were referring certain cases to him, like he says, we can poke around, see if someone will talk to us."
"Maybe," Karl said. "I have to say, I'm not optimistic. We're going to bump into a lot of confidentiality issues. Also, there's really no reason why anyone would want to talk to us about this."
"We need just one person to open up. A single break. One lead. Talk to enough people and it will happen."
"All right. I'll defer to you on that."
So neither of them were that hopeful about finding someone talkative about Sebastian's past, Laura thought as she picked at her dinner. But they still had a job to do. "What do you think of the assignment so far?" she said.
Karl shrugged. "A little more boring than I thought it would be."
"What you were expecting? No, don't answer that."
"Would you like to hear my preliminary thoughts on Sebastian?"
"Sure," Laura said. "Is it a profile? Are you profiling him?"
