Long Knives (33 page)

CHAPTER 73

Week 3—Tuesday

D
r. Wing called Monday evening and told us that the Charges
Committee usually met in a conference room in Murphy Hall, the administration building across from the law school. He also told us that in order to keep our hearing informal he was going to move it to a place much farther away from the law school and a lot harder for reporters or anyone else to find. He’d chosen a small conference room on the top floor of the multistory red-brick pile that was once the UCLA Hospital before it moved down the road to the palace called the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Oscar and I arrived at the conference room at 8:00
A.M.
The room had been hard to find, which I guess was the point.
Plain
is too fancy a word to describe it. It had no art on the walls—walls whose color I would describe as blah cream. There was a small conference table in the middle of the room, topped with blah-white plastic of some kind, badly scratched. In addition, there was a large gouge running down the middle. There were seven uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs placed around the table.

The three panel members were already present, seated in chairs that were clustered together at the head of the table. Dr. Wing sat in the middle chair of the three. He was decked out, in contrast to his oh-so-casual attire in his office, in a very nice herringbone suit, white shirt and deep red tie. His suit jacket breast pocket sported a handkerchief with his initials, RW, sewn in red thread.

It was the first time I had gotten a look at the other two panel members in person.

Samantha Healey, the philosopher, didn’t look to me at all as I thought a philosopher should, which is to say slightly unkempt and a bit plump, with a distracted air about her. Instead, she was about my height, slim and dressed in a blue knit dress that emphasized her figure. Her hair was blonde, clearly bleached and shellacked into a tight helmet. She was wearing black, three-inch heels. I’ve never been good at identifying brands, but they looked expensive. Her eyes were green and, far from presenting an air of distraction, seemed almost to bore into you when she caught you in her gaze. It was hard to picture her along the banks of the Orinoco with her arm around a feathered guy. Maybe the person in that Facebook picture was someone else.

Paul Trolder, by contrast, looked more like I expected an economist to look. He was of average height, with average brown hair and scuffed brown loafers. He was wearing an open-necked white shirt and—I’m not making this up—a plastic pocket protector that held several pens. He also looked a bit distracted, if failing to make eye contact with anyone in the room was a sign of distraction.

Professor Broontz arrived shortly after we did and seated herself on the table’s right side, just a few feet from the panel members. There was an empty chair next to her that I assumed would be used for witnesses.

When Dr. Wing had first provided us with the address of the conference room, I had asked if there was a coffeepot in it. Dr. Wing said no, but he’d see that one was installed. I glanced over at the small side table against the wall and spied a small coffeepot sitting there. It looked brand-new and still had a Target tag attached to it. I suspected Dr. Wing had probably bought it himself at the store nearby. Next to the pot was a bag of beans with a company logo I didn’t recognize. There were also two large carafes of water. Since there was no one else around to make coffee, I assumed I would become the first defendant/coffee girl in history.

Dr. Wing rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we have a few important things to take care of before we begin. And those things involve how we’re going to go about this hearing. Let’s go down the list.”

He removed an actual list from his briefcase and placed it on the table in front of him.

“First, we’re required to make a tape recording of this and all sessions. So…” He took a small digital recorder from the briefcase next to him, placed it on the table and pushed the start button. A red light glowed. “I suggest that if anyone wants their own copy, the most efficient way to obtain one is to make your own recording. This one, though”—he pointed to the recorder he had placed on the table—“is making the
official
copy.”

Oscar took out a recorder, placed it on the table and turned it on, as did Professor Broontz, who to that point hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. Now there were three red lights glowing.

“Anyone else?” Dr. Wing asked.

No one responded.

“Good, good,” he said. “Let’s move on to the next thing, then, which is procedure. Usually in this committee we listen to the faculty grievant explain his or her case to us. Then we listen to whoever is on the other side of that grievance—usually an administrator or, in rare cases, another faculty member—tell us their side of the story. If there are witnesses the parties think will be helpful, they invite them to join us, and we question those witnesses. We do that in private without the parties present.”

“I don’t think,” said Oscar, “that—”

“Hold your horses, Oscar,” Dr. Wing said. “There’s a
but
coming.” He paused for what he clearly regarded as the drama of it. “But this time my colleagues and I have decided to let the parties remain when the witnesses testify, unless the witness objects. Any problem with that?”

Professor Broontz spoke up for the first time. “I object. I think you get more honest testimony if people can speak in private.”

“What makes you think that, Greta?” Dr. Wing asked.

“Because they aren’t subject to retaliation.”

Professor Healey leaned forward—I noticed her helmet of hair seemed slightly delayed in moving forward along with her head—and said, “Surely, Greta, you don’t think people in a great university would retaliate against colleagues, do you?”

“I assume,” Greta replied, “that you’re being sarcastic, Samantha. As you and I both know, there are a lot of long knives on this campus, and quite a few people skilled in their use.”

Professor Healey sat back in her seat. Again her hair seemed delayed in following her head. “I see your point, sort of.”

Oscar raised his hand. “May I interject something here?”

“Of course, Oscar,” Dr. Wing said.

“My profession has had a thousand years of experience with this issue. While Professor Broontz’s argument has a certain amount of initial appeal, experience demonstrates that things done in secret tend, in the long run, not to hold up in the bright light of history. As my grandmother used to say, ‘If you can’t say it out loud, don’t say it.’”

Count me as dubious that Oscar’s grandmother had ever said any such thing. My cynical thoughts along those lines were interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Everyone’s head swung toward the sound.

CHAPTER 74

P
rofessor Trolder, who was apparently the appointed doorman, got up to answer the knock. He opened the door, peered at someone standing to the side—I, at least, couldn’t see who it was—said something inaudible to the person and closed the door. He walked back to the table, leaned over and whispered in Dr. Wing’s ear. Dr. Wing nodded his head in acknowledgment and then picked right up where he had left off.

“We were discussing whether the parties should stay to hear the witnesses. My co-panelists and I discussed this earlier and came to the conclusion that it’s better if the parties stay for the witnesses, particularly in something this fraught.” He looked to his left at Professor Trolder, then to the right at Professor Healey. “Has either of you changed your mind after hearing the discussion we’ve just had?” Both shook their heads in the negative.

“All right, then,” Dr. Wing said. “It’s settled. The parties will stay for the witnesses, long knives and all. Now, let’s see, what’s next?”

“I think what’s next,” I said, standing up, “is coffee. I’m happy to make it. Anyone else want any?”

There was a small silence.

“To put you all at ease,” I said, “someone else bought the beans.”

“Actually,” Professor Healey said, “I brought them. They’re grown by an Amazonian nonprofit that got its start with a microloan.”

“Oh, joy,” Professor Trolder said. “Those microloans don’t actually help to grow an economy.”

I stood there waiting for resolution of the budding economic dispute.

“Well,” Dr. Wing said, “I’m going to exercise the power of the chair to rule that coffee will be had without discussion of its economic roots. How many want coffee?” All hands went up except Professor Broontz’s.

“All right,” I said, “that’s five coffees. I’ll make a full pot and pour it”—I pointed to the stack of Styrofoam cups—“and then you can all come over and add cream or sugar if you want.” The truth is, I just wanted the excuse to stand up and move around, and I wanted to break up the formality of the room even more.

While I walked over to the table that held the coffeepot, Dr. Wing continued. “The next item on my list,” he said, “is the issue of who will question the witnesses. We conferred on that, too, and agreed that, to keep this informal, we’ll just ask the witnesses to tell us what they know. If there are questions to be asked, we’ll ask them. In the unlikely event there’s anything still to ask when we’re done, we’ll permit the parties to pose a
few
questions. We want to keep this friendly and professional.”

Oscar spoke up. “So cross-examination will be left to the end?”

“I don’t, Oscar, see it as cross-examination, just the parties asking a few questions. Call it a very gentle cross-examination.”

“That,” Oscar said, “is something of an oxymoron. Because, again, the learning of my profession is that if you press someone hard on their answers, you get better answers.”

“I kind of agree with him,” Professor Broontz said. “I want to be able to press people hard because I think a lot of hard lies are being told here.”

“You want to be able to use your long knives, Greta?” Professor Healey asked.

“That’s not the way I would put it, Samantha,” Professor Broontz replied.

“I think,” Dr. Wing said, “we’ll stick with the way we’ve agreed to do it. I can always cut off questions that I think don’t comply with our standards of professionalism and civility. And with that, I have only one item left on my list. Normally, we don’t apply the rules of evidence here. And in any case that would be difficult to do because I don’t know them.” He turned to Professor Trolder. “Paul, do you know them?” Trolder shook his head in the negative. He then turned to Professor Healey, on his other side. “Samantha, do you know the rules?”

“I do, actually,” she said, “but I have some fundamental complaints about them. They’re really an epistemological set that explores how we know what we know, and I think they’re misguided attempts to apply a medieval philosophical construct in the twenty-first century.”

Dr. Wing had remained looking at her while she spoke. He raised his eyebrows—I thought I also saw his lips twitch slightly—and said, “All well and good, Samantha. But the real question is, do you want to apply those rules here?”

“Certainly not.”

“Good, good. So we have that out of the way.”

Oscar raised his hand.

“Oscar, what pearl of wisdom do you have for us on this?”

“It’s okay with us if you don’t apply the formal rules of evidence here. But I’d like to remind the panel—and if this is a pearl, please accept it with my compliments—that the principles underlying those rules—such as being suspicious of speculation and suspicious of hearsay, to name only two of the many things the rules of evidence concern themselves with—are important principles to keep in mind.”

Professor Healey started to speak up. “Well, I don’t know that I agree that those principles—”

“Samantha,” Dr. Wing said, interrupting, “I think we’ll just consider ourselves reminded, okay?”

“All right, I suppose so.”

I listened to all of this with some trepidation. Professor Healey seemed to me someone who was going to be difficult for us. I wished that Oscar hadn’t spoken up and, clearly, irritated her. It was an unusual mistake for him, since he was usually so good at reading people.

“The coffee’s ready,” I said. “Please come help yourselves.”

As often happens when caffeine is available, everything stopped and everyone came over to the table to get some. I noticed that everyone took their coffee black except Professor Trolder, who put in enough milk to make his coffee almost white and then added two heaping teaspoons of sugar.

When everyone was again seated, Dr. Wing said, “All right, let’s get going. Greta, you’re the one who brought this insanity our way. Who’s your first witness?”

“My first witness,” she said, “is waiting in the hall.”

CHAPTER 75

P
rofessor Broontz got up, went to the door and opened it. In walked George Skillings, the UCLA security guy, who I hadn’t seen since the day Primo died. He looked around and stood waiting.

“Welcome, Mr. Skillings,” Dr. Wing said. “Please take a seat in that vacant chair there.” He pointed to the empty chair next to Professor Broontz.

After Skillings had taken his seat, Dr. Wing said, “Mr. Skillings, as I think you know, we’re here investigating—in a sort of indirect way—the death of Primo Giordano.”

“I understand.”

I noticed that Skillings had not made eye contact with me. Which worried me.

“Before we get started,” Dr. Wing continued, “I want to remind you that although we have no power to put anyone under oath, we do expect you to testify fully and truthfully.”

“That’s fine.”

“I understand you were with Professor James the morning that a student, Primo Giordano, took sick.”

“That’s right.”

“Can you tell us what you remember about that?”

I could feel my body wanting to jump up and object. In a courtroom I would have objected to the question as vague and calling for a narrative. Here no one seemed to care, and Skillings was busy answering.

“Pretty early, I think it was around 8:00
A.M.
, maybe a little before, I got a call from my supervisor saying that a law professor had locked herself out of her office. He gave me the office number and asked if I could take my master key and let her in. I wasn’t far away, so I said sure and went over to the law school. When I got there, Professor James was standing in front of her office. She said she had left the office to take a phone call and locked herself out.”

I looked over at Greta Broontz. She was looking down, taking copious notes. I knew she knew I was looking at her, but she didn’t look up.

Skillings was continuing. “When I let the professor in, there was a student sitting in the chair who was half-unconscious, breathing irregularly and drooling. We put him on the floor and I called the EMTs, who came pretty much right away and took him to the hospital. Professor James went with them. Oh, and one more thing: while we were waiting for them, I asked her how long the phone call had kept her out of her office. She claimed it was only six or seven minutes.”

I immediately noticed his use of the word
claimed
. It’s the kind of word witnesses use when they don’t believe someone. Had it been longer? I hadn’t thought to check my phone records to find out. Until that moment it had never occurred to me that it was important.

“What happened,” Dr. Wing asked, “after that?”

“I went back to my station and then a while later got a call from the police department asking me what had happened—the dispatches for the EMTs go to the police station—and I told them. They said they would send someone over and asked me, in the meantime, if I’d go back and secure the office. So I went back, opened it up and waited there awhile. At about the same time, Professor James came back. I told her I was suspicious the coffee might have caused the student’s medical problem. In fact, I told her that’s why I had come back. I didn’t mention the police request. She gave me a couple of plastic bags, and I bagged the student’s coffee cup, including the little splash of coffee that was left in it. I also took a sample from the sugar bowl.”

“Anything else, Mr. Skillings?”

“Not much. The professor left again, and I waited for a policeman to arrive and take over, then I left.”

“Did you do anything else, Mr. Skillings?” Dr. Wing asked.

“The only thing I can think of is that I bagged some of the coffee beans, too. Professor James had a bag of them there, still.”

Dr. Wing looked at first one, then the other of his two colleagues. “Do either of you have any questions?” They shook their heads in the negative.

“I have a question,” Professor Broontz said. “Do you know, Mr. Skillings, if Professor James drank any of that coffee herself?”

“Come to think of it, she said she didn’t.”

I can smell a planted question, and that one had a distinct aroma about it. Skillings was, for whatever reason, clearly cooperating with Greta Broontz.

“Well,” Professor Broontz asked, “didn’t that seem suspicious to you?”

“I object!” It was Oscar, back from the dead. “That’s an outrageous question. I mean, this man isn’t an expert on how people behave in particular situations. He has no idea why Professor James did or didn’t drink the coffee, assuming for the moment his recollection about that is even correct.”

Dr. Wing smiled down at him from his full height. “Well, Oscar, this is informal, remember? So I’m going to let him answer. Go ahead, Mr. Skillings.”

“Yeah,” he said, “it did seem kind of suspicious, especially because I’ve heard since that Professor James is kind of a coffee addict.”

As he said that, I realized, of course, that my having volunteered to make the coffee a few minutes earlier had cooked my own goose on that one.

“Any other questions, Greta?” Dr. Wing asked.

“No, I’m done.”

“Good,” Dr. Wing said. “Then we can move on to…”

“I have a question,” Oscar said. “Since we’re going to let people speculate, let’s try this one on. Mr. Skillings, if Professor James poisoned the student’s coffee, as I think Professor Broontz’s question was meant to imply, why do you think she was dumb enough to call you and ask you to open up her office, where the student was dying, before she had a chance to clean up the evidence?”

“Huh,” Skillings said, “that’s a good one. I really don’t know.”

I looked over at Greta Broontz, who was still taking notes. Then I looked at Dr. Wing, who had cocked his head, pursed his lips and was clearly cogitating about Oscar’s question. After a few seconds, he straightened up and asked, “Who’s your next witness, Greta?”

“It’s Detective Drady,” she said.