Chapter Fifteen
Oliver Bowles works for you?”
“That’s correct,” Franklin Hinckley said. “I chair the Environmental Sciences department here.” Brightly lit by a bank of overhead fluorescents, Hinckley’s office, from its gray speckled linoleum floor tiles to the visible edges of the bookcase, was virtually spotless. Posters and topographic maps covered two walls, and a bookcase, stuffed so full that some books lay sideways on top of the others, filled the third. The fourth was mostly window. Hinckley had stationed his desk in front of the window, facing the door, so that Buck sat in a visitor’s chair with Hinckley practically silhouetted in front of him. Made it hard to read the man’s face. Buck guessed that wasn’t accidental.
“And what exactly does he teach?”
“Environmental Sciences 103,” Hinckley said without looking it up. “Studies of Human Impact. Also, a class on the natural history of the San Pedro River, which is one of his specialties.”
“Two classes? That’s it?”
“He’s new,” Hinckley replied. “He wanted some time to himself so he could work on a paper, or I guess maybe a book, about the San Pedro. So yes, at this point he’s part-time faculty.”
Buck nodded, in case Hinckley wanted to elaborate further. He seemed like the kind of man who, if Buck could find the right button, might say more than he had intended. Hinckley clammed up, though, so Buck asked another question. “Is he good?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is he good at his job? He a good teacher? However you judge such things, I don’t know, through student reviews or test scores or whatever.”
Hinckley regarded Buck through the upper half of his bifocals, as if taking a second look at him. The department head was almost sixty, Buck figured, and heavy. He had a cannonball of a head, with short hair trimmed close. Gold-rimmed glasses. Skin the color of Buck’s French roast. A winning smile that came and went as suddenly as Sulphur Springs Valley winds. He had on a crisp blue Oxford shirt with a red-and-gold-striped tie and navy pants. The matching jacket dangled from a standing coatrack near the door. A whiff of Bay Rum transported Buck to his boyhood, when his father would put on his only suit and knot an unfamiliar tie around his neck for a dance in town or a veterans’ parade.
“As far as I can tell so far, yes, he is good,” Hinckley said. “He knows his material. He communicates it effectively, and he engages his students. We are a community college, not a university, and not to put too fine a point on it, many of our students barely escaped high school by the skin of their teeth. Dr. Bowles’s are not what are so affectionately termed dummy classes, and the material he presents could be challenging to some. Is challenging, in fact. Dr. Bowles seems capable of ensuring that they come out of the class understanding it. To my mind, that makes him a good teacher.”
“He’s a doctor?”
“He has a PhD, yes.”
Buck inspected the toe of his own boot. Playing hick cop in hopes that the college professor would underestimate him. It had been known to happen. “Students like him?”
“We haven’t had any complaints,” Hinckley said. “His reviews are generally favorable.”
“Any in particular who have a strong opinion one way or the other?”
“None that come to mind.”
“Could I have a look at his personnel records?”
“Absolutely not,” Hinckley said firmly. “Unless you have a subpoena, of course.”
“Any reason I should get one?”
“You’re trying to make me say something bad about one of my most recent hires,” Hinckley said. “I don’t care what has happened in his past, Dr. Bowles is a qualified person, knowledgeable about our region, and he has the ability to present science in such a way that students are excited about it.”
“It’s his future I’m concerned about,” Buck said. “But the way you bring up his past, it sounds like maybe there’s something there I should know about. Is there?”
Hinckley didn’t answer. He had folded his arms over his massive chest. Buck wished he could see the man’s eyes better.
“I’ll find out,” Buck said. “I’ll go to the last place he worked, and the one before that. It’ll take me more time, though, and time is the one thing I’m really short on right now, since a girl’s life may be on the line. One of those students you mentioned, in fact. So that’ll piss me off. I would never threaten you, but you wouldn’t want to have me around when I’m pissed off.”
“I’m inclined to believe that,” Hinckley said. “Since I don’t especially want you around now, and apparently you aren’t even pissed off yet.”
“Nope, not yet. You can keep it that way.”
“It’s not a state secret, I suppose,” Hinckley said. “Although I’m sure he would prefer it be treated like one.”
“If it’s not relevant to the case, I forget it the moment it hits my ears,” Buck promised. “But if it is … let’s not forget that a life might be at stake.”
Hinckley blew out a breath, looking at the surface of his desk as if inspecting it for wayward dust motes. “There was some … trouble, at his old school, San Diego State University. An affair with a student.”
“I take it that’s still considered a bad thing?”
“It happens more often than I’d like to think about. Consenting adults spending time together, intellectually stimulating conversation. Things happen. But you know, in today’s world, it’s all about the appearance of propriety. The MeToo movement, and all that. Every school has regular sexual harassment workshops for faculty and staff. And the teacher/student relationship can be a powerful thing, with most of the power resting in the hands of the teacher. It’s easy to see an affair as a powerful person subverting the will of a weaker one, making a consensual situation look like something else altogether.”
Buck had hit the button. If Hinckley hadn’t had an affair of his own, he’d at least been tempted.
“Do you know the details of Bowles’s case?”
“I can’t imagine why they’d be relevant. Anyway, all I know is that the young woman decided to end it, and she went public. Apparently, it was a bit of a scandal for a while. Dr. Bowles is married, of course, as well as being years older than the student. The university had no choice but to let Dr. Bowles go, and by doing so persuaded the young woman not to sue. The department chair at San Diego State is a longtime acquaintance of mine. He knew of Dr. Bowles’s interest in the San Pedro and general expertise in the southeastern Arizona region, and suggested he might be a good fit here. I interviewed Dr. Bowles and agreed.”
“And he hasn’t had any affairs with any students here.”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“If he did?”
“I would not tolerate it. He would be terminated immediately. He knows that and has agreed to—if you’ll excuse the vernacular—keep it in his pants.”
“No whispers? Rumors?”
“Nothing that I’ve—”
Buck cut Hinckley off. “Do you know who Lulu Lavender is?”
Hinckley cleared his throat, tapped into place an already military-neat stack of papers. “Is she the one you’re talking about?”
“Just answer the question, please.”
“She is one of his students. Apparently also a neighbor. She rides to and from school with Dr. Bowles from time to time.”
“And that’s okay? A young female student spending time alone with him in his car? How long is it to his place, thirty minutes?”
“I have no reason to think there’s any relationship there other than what I’ve already described,” Hinckley said firmly. “He drives her to school. He is her teacher. When they get home, her family is there, and his wife is at his house. She knows about the arrangement and approves of it.”
“But then, she stuck with him after the first affair.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“Just commenting. I try not to judge people.”
Hinckley laughed. “Isn’t that precisely your job?”
“I’m a cop, not a judge or jury. I’m just trying to make sure I know what the relationship is between Bowles and the girl.”
Even silhouetted against the window, when Hinckley tensed, Buck could see it. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “She’s the one. When you said someone’s life might be at stake …”
“Lulu Lavender’s family was slaughtered,” Buck told him. “She’s missing. Almost thirty hours at this point. The clock is running out for that girl, and I aim to find her.”
“You don’t think Oliver …”
“I don’t know. I can’t afford to disregard him, though. I’d appreciate it you don’t tell him we talked. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“I simply can’t believe he’s capable of anything like that,” Hinckley said. “He’s not that kind of person.”
“Thank you,” Buck said. “I’ll take that into consideration too. I’m not saying he’s guilty, or even a suspect, at this point. Just what we call a person of interest.”
“But more interest after what I’ve told you.”
“More interest,” Buck said, nodding. “That’s a fact.”