Gideon Marshall Mystery Series Boxed Set

By John Janovy, Jr

Dr. Gideon Marshall is a geology prof at an obscenely wealthy liberal arts college in Iowa, and he gets called as an expert witness for trials where crime scene dirt is critical evidence. The series can be thought of as a five-book essay on scientific literacy, or maybe the lack thereof, given what some of the characters would like to do with a murder victim’s theoretical research, namely convert fracking technology into a weapon of mass destruction by making earthquakes happen on purpose at chosen locations around the world. Marshall, and his wife Mykala, are thrown into a mess involving murder of a geologist faculty member at Cavanaugh College where Marshall teaches, a multi-billionaire oil baron alum from Texas, the oil baron’s high-maintenance daughter who’s a student in Marshall’s department and carrying on an affair with a faculty member, campus security, multiple law enforcement personnel and agencies in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas, and eventually the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This whole mess is built on the oil baron’s determination to build an earthquake machine using fracking technology and the equations from that murder victim’s research. The series can be thought of as an extended examination of what can happen when powerful men believe they can achieve ultimate power by building ultimate weapons, all without necessarily understanding that what science seems to promise cannot always be delivered regardless of a person’s desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Janovy, Jr
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005033880

John Janovy, Jr

About the author:John Janovy, Jr. (PhD, University of Oklahoma, 1965) is the author of seventeen books and over ninety scientific papers and book chapters. These books range from textbooks to science fiction to essays on athletics. He is now retired, but when an active faculty member held the Paula and D. B. Varner Distinguished Professorship in Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research interest is parasitology. He has been Director of UNL’s Cedar Point Biological Station, Interim Director of the University of Nebraska State Museum, Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences, and secretary-treasurer of the American Society of Parasitologists.His teaching experiences include large-enrollment freshman biology courses, Field Parasitology at the Cedar Point Biological Station, Invertebrate Zoology, Parasitology, Organismic Biology, and numerous honors seminars. He has supervised thirty-two graduate students, and approximately 50 undergraduate researchers, including ten Howard Hughes scholars.His honors include the University of Nebraska Distinguished Teaching Award, University Honors Program Master Lecturer, American Health Magazine book award (for Fields of Friendly Strife), State of Nebraska Pioneer Award, University of Nebraska Outstanding Research and Creativity Award, The Nature Conservancy Hero recognition, Nebraska Library Association Mari Sandoz Award, UNL Library Friend’s Hartley Burr Alexander Award, and the American Society of Parasitologists Clark P. Read Mentorship Award.

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THE GIDEON MARSHALL MYSTERY SERIES BOXED SET

Copyright © 2022, John Janovy, Jr

Smashwords Edition

The Gideon Marshall Mystery Series Boxed Set is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Any use of material from this book must be accompanied by a statement of credit and permission. Thank you for respecting the author’s copyrighted work. For any additional information and permissions, contact the author at [e-mail].

All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual individuals, living or dead, or actual events recorded anywhere, is completely coincidental, and that disclaimer includes documents you may recover as a result of the Freedom of Information Act (www.fbi.gov/foia/). Some names have been changed anyway, however, just to protect a few innocent people.

This series started as a National Novel Writing Month project back in 2012. Dr. Gideon Marshall is a geology prof at an obscenely wealthy liberal arts college in Iowa. His specialty is micropaleontology, which means he gets called as a consultant on murder cases in which a body has been moved and there is evidence from surrounding soil. The series also can be thought of as a five-book essay on scientific literacy, or maybe the lack thereof, given what some of the characters would like to do with a murder victim’s theoretical research on earthquakes, namely make them happen on purpose at chosen locations. The genre is literary mystery.

ISBN: 9781005033880

Set Contents (and descriptions):

Be Careful, Dr. Renner!

Dr. Clyde Renner, professor of geology, chair of the department, world renowned expert on volcanoes and earthquakes, and intellectual giant, is dead, apparently of a heart attack, alone in his insect-infested house. Leonard Branch, campus cop at Renner’s small liberal arts college in Iowa, is convinced there’s more to Renner’s demise than appears on the death certificate. Gideon Marshall, paleontologist, now acting chair, plays host to a parade of characters, including Renner’s bullied secretary and accountant, a belligerent female prof, an untenured young scientist and his hot-headed coed paramour, her wealthy helicopter parent, Renner’s estranged gay son and his computer geek husband, and the college president. All are involved in various ways with Clyde Renner’s distinguished career and all have a stake in the autopsy results. In the end, Marshall accepts the fact that he’s probably discovered not only the perfect murder, but also ideal weapons of mass destruction.

The Stitcher File

With another death at his small, Forbes-listed, liberal arts college in Iowa, Gideon Marshall, unwilling and temporary chair of the Geology Department, gets dumped into even a bigger and more complex mess than he experienced as a result of the first one a year earlier. Instead of the simple heart attack and stroke that felled his predecessor, which was the perfect murder of a despised faculty bully, Marshall now deals with the brutal execution-style shooting of a geology prof, this one a female whose personality has earned her the nickname Becky Bitcher. Marshall is put under house arrest because of a note found in the deceased’s hands. The victim is found on an ice-covered railroad crossing by the Geology Department accountant. Law enforcement descends on the site, and Marshall ends up with an ankle monitor. Many of the same players that plagued Gideon Marshall in BE CAREFUL, DR. RENNER! re-appear in new roles, along with new characters from various law enforcement agencies. Renner, it turns out, was a victim of a perfect murder scheme. Stitcher is a different matter.

The Earthquake Lady

The brutal murder at Gideon Marshall’s upscale liberal arts college in Iowa remains unsolved. A Department of Criminal Investigation detective and the Polk County medical examiner show up in Marshall’s office on a bleak Friday afternoon with the victim’s autopsy report, a box of plastic bags, and a request to determine the origin of dirt samples. Paleontologist Marshall is about to become a crucial prosecution witness because of his ability to identify materials in those bags. The DCI request sends Marshall and his wife Mykala on an adventure that begins with concealed carry training and weapons purchase, continues on a trek through Oklahoma oil fields posing as inspectors, and ends with an arrest that is certain to bring Marshall into direct confrontation with Big Oil, Big Money, and the Department of Defense. The Gideon Marshall stories center around the potential danger of scientific discoveries and the eccentric lives of people who make them. Marshall is dragged into efforts by various people to control the discoveries of a genius-level scientist, a former faculty member in his department, this unhappy woman—Rebecca Stitcher—who was the murder victim. Stitcher’s theoretical research in geology could empower a nation to produce ideal weapons of mass destruction, namely large volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis occurring at times and places chosen on purpose. Needless to say, there are many people interested in this possibility, and all of them eventually descend on Gideon Marshall’s small liberal arts college in Iowa. As Marshall’s perceptive wife Mykala says to him: Gideon, it’s just beginning.

The Weatherford Trial

Dr. Charles Weatherford, dashing young geology prof at Cavanaugh College in Iowa, is arrested for the murder of a colleague, Rebecca Stitcher, reputed to have solved the problem of making major earthquakes occur on purpose, using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) techniques developed by the petroleum industry. Connecticut Connie Bergen, a civil attorney for Stevens Oil, Inc., the company supporting Weatherford for proprietary access to research results, gets on a company jet bound for Des Moines, sent by owner Delmar Stevens himself to defend Weatherford. This is Bergen’s first assignment in a criminal case, and he’s met at the airport by Amber Buchanan, a mysterious woman with various roles in Stevens Oil, Inc., including Stevens’s daughter Annabelle’s bodyguard, whose job evidently is to guide him through the legal labyrinth surrounding this murder. It’s not obvious that anyone, even Weatherford, cares whether he’s convicted or acquitted. THE WEATHERFORD TRIAL leads us through the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation witness protection efforts, Bergen’s handling of forensic geology, competing expert witnesses, and Bergen’s education at the hands of Amber, until the jury adjourns to arrive at a verdict. As with the first three books, this one brings out the deadly potential of seemingly arcane ideas, the phenomenon of scientific illiteracy in high places, and the power of belief regardless of truth.

Delmar’s Oil

Delmar Stevens, obscenely rich oil baron with rigs and drilling platforms throughout the world, is obsessed with theoretical research by an obscure, and now dead, woman scientist at a small college in Iowa, research he believes will give him the power to generate massive earthquakes, or set off equally massive volcanoes, at selected places on Earth. Caught up in this obsession with a potential weapon of mass destruction are a suite of characters, including scientists, detectives from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, an oil field inspector working for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and a young geologist who holds the key to success, or failure, of Stevens’ obsession. Belief in the validity of scientific discoveries drives Stevens’ actions, namely an effort to build a weapon of mass destruction disguised as a natural disaster. He dreams of the power at his command if he can use his company’s massive inventory of equipment and those Einstein-level equations to prove that his ideas work. The first big experiments are underway in Oklahoma. The results are not what anyone, except maybe Gideon Marshall himself, expected.

About the Author

Books by John Janovy, Jr.

BE CAREFUL, DR. RENNER!

Smashwords Edition

Original single book copyright © 2013 John Janovy, Jr.

Be Careful, Dr. Renner is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Any use of material from this book must be accompanied by a statement of credit and permission. Thank you for respecting the author’s copyrighted work. For any additional information and permissions, contact the author at [e-mail].

All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual individuals, living or dead, or actual events recorded anywhere, is completely coincidental, and that disclaimer includes documents you may recover as a result of the Freedom of Information Act (www.fbi.gov/foia/). Some names have been changed anyway, however, just to protect a few innocent people.

Designed by John Janovy, Jr.

**********

Sticks and stones may break my bones,

but words will never hurt me.

—My mother, when I was a kid

That’s total bullshit!

—Me, age 60

**********

Renner Contents:

1. Detective Branch

2. Clyde Renner

3. Annabelle Stevens

4. Elizabeth Bennett

5. Delmar Stevens

6. Lulu

7. Andrew Renner

8. Bruce Kendall

9. Mykala Marshall

10. Robert Westbrook

11. Rebecca Stitcher

12. Aparajita Chatterjee

13. 409 Cherry Lane

14. Charles Weatherford

15. Gideon Marshall

16. Mary Duling

**********

Return to Renner Contents

Return to Set Contents

1. Detective Branch

Clyde Renner is dead and I’m his replacement—a temporary one, I hope, but I suspect otherwise. Let’s assume for the moment that Renner did not die because of his job and that I’m not in much danger because I’m now sitting at his desk. Let’s assume there’s nothing really toxic about this chair, this office, but even now, my second day on the job, I’m questioning that assumption. That’s what scientists do; they question unusual situations, rather like the police, right?

Maybe I should back up a little bit and introduce myself. My name is Gideon Marshall; make that Dr. Gideon Marshall, PhD. I’m a science prof at a small college hidden away, almost like a well-kept secret, in semi-rural Iowa. You don’t need to know the name of this place for a variety of reasons, the most important one being that I’m not at all interested in going to prison.

My specialty is geology, paleontology to be exact, although not all the fossils in my life are embedded in rocks; a few of them end up in front of freshman classes, even at this surprisingly upscale institution. Once in a while paleontologists find themselves in the national news, for example when you read that some terrifying monster dinosaur actually cared for its babies. The newspapers never say much about how these beasts and their offspring died a hundred million years ago, which is probably okay because, like Clyde Renner, it’s not always clear from the evidence what led to their demise. Curiosity about cause of death, however, is very much a paleontologist’s trait. That’s one characteristic we share with campus cops.

Speaking of cops, I had a visit today, the second day on my new job as interim chairman of the Geology Department, from detective Leonard Branch, who is not really a detective in the CSI sense, but rather the senior citizen over in Campus Security. Detective Branch and I arrived here, in idyllic, semi-rural, exceedingly agricultural, Iowa about the same time, more than three decades ago, although our first ever face-to-face conversation took place in my hopefully temporary office at 8:15AM this morning. It went something like this:

Good morning, Dr. Marshall. I’m Leonard Branch from Campus Security.

The hand he extended held a badge. He was not in uniform. I nodded. He sat down and continued.

We’re just doing some follow-up on Clyde Renner, you know, making sure the materials in his office are handled properly now that he’s gone. This is pretty routine in these kinds of cases. We’re checking out any special items he may have borrowed from inventory and taken home or purchased with state funds that maybe didn’t get an inventory number on it.

He’s lying but doing it well and in character. Nothing in my three decades worth of experience suggests campus police are the least bit involved with inventory and there have been no outright thefts of any big-ticket items in the time I have been on the faculty. Insofar as I know, there are no big-ticket items on campus except for some of the people, including the former Clyde Renner. Branch looked around at the empty shelves. No inventory here. Whatever items my deceased predecessor had on display in this office were packed away, well out of sight and out of mind, within an hour after I’d moved in late yesterday afternoon.

We’re taking a look at all the records, and we’ll let you know if we find anything unusual, I assured him. I didn’t know whether his family might want some of his mementos, so they’re locked up safely until we hear from them.

I smiled a funeral home director’s smile. At the time I thought: we are not going to hear from any of Clyde’s surviving relatives. He was not exactly the kind of man you’d envision having relatives or caring about them if he did. The mementos were mainly igneous rocks, meteorite fragments, shards of obsidian, graphic granite, and award plaques, all souvenirs from Clyde’s numerous travels around the world, and all displayed in a way that reminded you of his importance, manifested in his invitations to speak at various conferences. At the time of Branch’s visit, it never occurred to me to ask him how many times before some representative from Campus Security had actually visited departmental offices after a faculty member died. I suspect that number is zero. Geology was very likely the first, and only, such visit, and Renner was obviously the reason.

Well, let us know if we can help. By this time Branch had taken out a small notebook and was jotting down something. He looked up then asked a question that took me completely by surprise. Did he have a favorite vet?

‘Favorite vet’? Why would he need a vet?

There are two vets in this community, and only one of those deals with companion animals. The other one is a large animal specialist. This is Iowa, after all, and even though we’re a college town, technically speaking, five miles off campus and you’re in the middle of a pasture. Somebody has to deal with cattle, horses, and hogs.

You obviously didn’t know about his dog.

No, I said; it’s my turn to lie. Clyde never said much about his dog. What I could have said, truthfully, is that the instant Renner started in on his pet I found an excuse to leave.

That’s funny, Dr. Marshall. Some of the other folks we’ve talked to knew all about his dog. So who else might Leonard Branch have talked to about Clyde Renner before his visit with me this morning? I considered asking him but decided against it; when cops show up in your office it’s best not to egg them on, even if they’re only campus cops, none of whom carry a gun.

Well, there was a picture on his desk of an Irish setter. I suppose that was the dog?

I knew damned good and well that was the dog. Clyde Renner could not shut up about this stupid creature.

Right, he said; an Irish setter. Beautiful animal.

I’ve heard the breed is a little bit independent. Independent is a euphemism for uncontrollable. Rather like Renner himself, right?

I’ve heard that, too, replied detective Branch. But this one needs a vet, bad.

Health problem? I tried hard to sound sympathetic. Obviously, the dog, unlike its master, was still alive.

Fleas, Dr. Marshall. Branch cocked his head slightly, studying me. So damn many fleas they took all his blood.

If they’d taken all his blood, I reasoned, the dog would be resting in peace along with his owner. Make that its former owner, who’s probably at this moment morphing into a zombie down at the morgue.

We’ll check back with you later, Branch assured me, taking another look around the room.

After he left, I watched him from the east window, walking across campus toward the parking lot. For some reason, Leonard Branch in an academic building seemed to sully the Ivory Tower, hinting that maybe we didn’t really measure up to the hype, the reputation, and ideals of a small, liberal arts, college, especially in Iowa. He got in his cruiser, a 2001 Dodge Charger with our emblem on the side and a light bar across the top. I wondered whether he’d ever had a reason to actually flip the switch on those red and blue strobes, or whether they even worked. When you read our college name in promotional literature, you don’t think of emergency vehicles. Or of faculty deaths that someone believes merits investigation.

Should you send your child to this well-respected institution, an intellectual haven for people like me, maybe hoping that he or she will, after graduation, get admitted to a fine professional school? Probably, if you can afford it. Chances are your daughter will be safe, at least physically, before she ends up at some place like the University of Chicago Medical Center on her way to a lucrative career as a radiologist. Nor will your son’s mind get too polluted by Marxist philosophers until he moves on to Harvard Law and an eventual seat on the Supreme Court. We’ve earned our reputation as a small, very high quality, liberal arts school, with a long list of distinguished alumni, to quote Forbes Magazine’s issue on the value of American colleges and universities. But like the ivy on Old Main, that writer from Forbes obviously didn’t get too far inside any of our buildings, and certainly never peeked inside department files, especially our department’s.

I suspect that Forbes value story could have been written from our web site, from New York, by someone deep in the intestines of a high rise far more stylish and up-to-date than our science building—Halliburton Hall—and who’s certainly never sat in a faculty meeting chaired by Clyde Renner, our department chair. Make that our former chair. By virtue of seniority, and Clyde’s recent demise, I am now acting chairperson of the Department of Geology. This position gives me access to keys, and files, including correspondence files, that my colleagues don’t even know exist. Secret files are a cliché; I know that. If this were a real mystery, then those files would be important in some crucial way. Instead, from having looked at mine, I have this queasy feeling that they were simply entertainment for Clyde Renner.

How young they are, those people we’ve hired in the last decade, coming straight out of some high-powered research program, wearing their credentials and publications in esteemed journals on their sleeves. Most of these kids end up here in Iowa for one reason, and one reason only: they have a spouse and children, along with debts, and need a regular paycheck. Eventually that latter reality comes up against the Berkeley dream, and reality wins. Then they find themselves in some small liberal arts college, and in a department run by the likes of Clyde Renner, the former Clyde Renner, that is, with whose life—and death—the campus police and I are now involved.

This involvement is, in my case, involuntary, of course, but the cops are here day and night out of necessity. Maybe I should re-phrase that last statement: the cop is here day and night. Yes, one cop—self-styled detective Leonard Branch—a third of our college security force. In a strange sort of way, detective Branch seems excessively excited, indeed almost happy, about the whole affair. Why should he be so pumped up? Well, like our young guns, it didn’t take long for him to discover that our campus and the small town surrounding it are not exactly action hotbeds.

Unlike our young guns, however, Branch made this discovery thirty-five years ago. So Clyde Renner’s death is a real break in his never-ending cycle of boredom, decaffeinated coffee, Dunkin’ Donuts, broken parking meters, stolen bikes, and an occasional he-said-she-said assault. In my opinion, detective Branch, like many of our young faculty members facing two hundred freshmen in GEOL 101, is in way over his head. He, however, thinks he’s Columbo. So what I’m calling a heart attack, and what my department colleagues would probably call a fortunate and welcome heart attack, Branch is calling a case.

Back to Clyde Renner, who hired our three newest, therefore untenured, faculty members, two of them over the objection of older profs, including me. This current generation of scholars may also, as children, have heard that crap about sticks and stones breaking their bones, and words being harmless, and because their mothers were saying it to them, believed it, just like I did at the age of ten or twelve. Welcome to the Ivory Tower, my naïve neophytes who calculate sedimentation dynamics from particle-size distribution in a sample of beach sand but can’t figure out how to say good morning when you meet one another in the hallways. Maybe you all should go have coffee and check parking meters with officer Branch. He’ll at least teach you how to speak to grounds keepers and old retired folks sitting around on campus benches feeding the pigeons. Maybe, just maybe, after a walk with Leonard Branch, your more senior colleagues won’t seem quite so threatening. And one of those park bench jockeys just might have seen something unusual that evening Clyde Renner walked home that last time.

Enough of my sermon. It’s now late afternoon, with a beautiful half-amber light filtering through the truly elegant fall foliage. I’m sitting in my interim chairperson office, formerly Clyde’s office, reading through his correspondence, and wondering how in the living hell a grown man with a doctorate in one of the sciences could be so damned stupid as to put some of this stuff in print. It’s a real temptation to shred it, and I would, except that I’ve watched too many cop shows on TV and I know what happens to people who destroy documents. So far, however, the only evidence I’ve found seems to reveal a combination of genius and hubris that defies description. While reading Clyde’s words, I keep thinking about something else I read years ago, in a small book that I now assign to all my classes, a paperback entitled Outwitting College Professors.

If you know about this subversive little volume, and remember that section entitled Dangerous types, be alert and beware then you can recognize my former boss immediately. He’s found under the subhead: The Terminally Insecure. To quote from Outwitting:

This person is dangerous but probably does not realize it at all because he or she is often delusional to boot. Typically, these folks are manipulative spoiled brats, always having to be right and always having to stand in judgment of those over whom they have power. . .You may be dealing with real bullies here. . . The key to recognizing a terminal insecure type is to study very carefully what happens the first time a fellow student asks a question. If the prof’s response is highly authoritative then be alert. If he or she smiles, or otherwise seems to get some kind of almost sensual satisfaction out of his or her own answer at the end of the response then really be alert. If he or she seems to be talking around the student’s question and still seems to be getting personal satisfaction out of his or her answer, that’s a serious red flag. And if you have an uneasy feeling that this person is getting almost sensual pleasure out of answering the question (rubbing up against the podium, rubbing his or her hands together, hands in pockets, etc.), but still is not saying much that you personally feel is of value, the fire alarms should be going off.

That quote describes Dr. Clyde Renner, expert in igneous rocks, exactly, including, if not especially, the sensual pleasure of rubbing up against a podium. Never noticed that behavior? Never watched a televised debate between two candidates for public office? Trust me on this one: the first time you recognize what’s happening and are able to associate this caressing of a wooden microphone stand with a speaker’s self-admiration your interactions with that person will never be the same. Suddenly some of your colleagues are no longer just eccentrics; instead, they are wackos who have absolutely no business whatsoever being responsible for other people’s grades; or lives. They probably should not be entrusted with pets, either, unless it’s a cat that needs only food, water, and litter box, and considers its owner’s affection to be an affront.

In retrospect I find myself wondering how a bunch of the best-educated men and women in our nation—all with doctorates—can have so little insight into human nature that they’d let someone like this be chair of their academic department, decide upon their duties for the semester, and award, or most commonly not award, their annual salary increases. What’s even more of a mystery is why they’d want this to happen. But the ultimate mystery, if you believe detective Branch, is the demise of Dr. Clyde Renner.

Why is an apparent heart attack, alone at night after walking home from school, such a mystery? Again, if you’ve watched much TV, you know the answer: because there was a palpable sigh of relief when we got the announcement. If we had been in a faculty meeting when the news broke, there could easily have been applause. Thus, we have the wondrous transformation of campus policeman Leonard Branch into sleuth, also known as pain in the ass to those of us now on his persons of interest list.

Nothing in my education, no experiences in my background, prepared me for a place of honor on such a list. I’ve never had an occasion to deal with the legal profession except when my wife and I made out our wills and did some estate planning on the advice of our tax lady. The attorney who handled our business, and sent us a hefty bill, was a nice gentleman who seemed to know what he was doing. I could never envision him in a criminal proceeding. Yet here I sit, staring out my interim office window, admiring the ginkgo tree north of Halliburton Hall, now shamelessly golden in mid-October, and wondering when, indeed whether, it would be appropriate to give this attorney a call.

The office staff has gone home for the day. Mary Duling, our receptionist, with an annual salary of $27,500, has worked for the Department of Geology for 23 years; Elizabeth Bennett, our accountant, at $29,250, has handled all paperwork relating to budget, purchasing, and personnel for 17 years. Recently, both had been looking for employment elsewhere, although since last Thursday’s discoveries, I don’t know whether that’s still the case. Clyde had singled both of them out for criticism, announcing in his first faculty meeting as chair that he’d reviewed their work, found it lacking in certain ways, and put them on probation. During their efforts to find another job, no potential employer ever asked anyone other than Renner about their performance for the 19 and 13 years respectively prior to his appointment, although both had put the previous chair down as their main reference.

Columbo, sorry, detective Branch, sincerely believes that Mary and Elizabeth had something to do with Clyde Renner’s demise, either directly or indirectly. Some of us might have agreed that they had a reason. He also believes they had help. This is why my name is on his list, and why, bright and early tomorrow morning, Leonard Branch will once again show up in my office for some discussion of Clyde Renner’s final days in Halliburton Hall. My question to myself, of course, after the dog conversation, is how much lying is acceptable in this situation. My answer to myself, of course, is quite a bit.

**********

Return to Renner Contents

2. Clyde Renner

I’m a micro-paleontologist, specializing in the study of extinct microscopic organisms—think oceanic amebas with shells. Over millions of years, continents drift, thus carrying fossils around to various areas of the Earth’s surface. But when the Earth’s crustal plates collide, as they regularly do, the result is sort of like a tail-ender in which your front bumper slides under the rear bumper of the car in front. When that happens, not surprisingly, there is a lot of smashing and fire—think earthquakes and volcanoes—that end up destroying fossils. Rocks containing fossils get melted and so evidence for what the past was like disappears, not unlike an erased file on your hard drive, or a piece of incriminating, but now shredded, correspondence. Clyde Renner’s specialty was plate tectonics, or the drifting of continents. Thus, his work involved processes in which the materials I use in my work are destroyed. If you understand the metaphor, you can see immediately where this quasi-academic discussion is heading.

Clyde joined our faculty about six years after I had arrived, doctorate from the University of Texas in hand, but full of disappointment at not having landed a position at some Ivy League institution. Nevertheless, I was grateful for a paycheck and determined to make this situation work for my family. In that regard I was exactly like the youngest members of our faculty, including those two I voted against, and the one I spoke strongly against—a man named Charles Weatherford—in the meetings that followed their job interviews. And like them, I anticipated being here for three or four years then leaving for a larger, more prestigious, institution.

Obviously that scenario did not come to pass. The years went by; our children did well in school; my wife Mykala took a part-time job in the library; and, after our trips back to visit my parents, in Philadelphia, or hers in Denver, we always returned home understanding our good fortune. I received tenure, served on committees, won a teaching award, and actually published a couple of nice papers. Life was good. Then we hired Clyde Renner.

I remember the occasion well. The dean came to one of our department faculty meetings to tell us the news.

The college has recently received a large donation to support an endowed chair in plate tectonics, he said.

At the time I wondered: why in the hell would anyone do something so stupid as to give five million dollars to a small liberal arts college in semi-rural Iowa for the express purpose of endowing a chair in plate tectonics? That may have been the first time I truly wondered why exceedingly wealthy people did some of the things they did, but it was certainly not the last. Back then I knew nothing about Delmar Stevens, owner of Stevens Oil, his political views, his family history, his subsequent annual million-dollar donations to our college, or his as-yet unborn daughter Annabelle, who is now, nineteen years after that initial donation, currently attending class two floors below where I sat yesterday afternoon doing my first act as interim chairman, namely, reading through Clyde’s file on me.

These days, of course, because of recent national political campaigns, and the massive contributions from companies posing as people, we all know about Delmar Stevens, originally from Phoenix, one of our alums, father of Annabelle, and owner-CEO of Stevens Oil. Speaking of Annabelle, we attract upscale students from all over the country, in fact from all over the world. My present class in Micropaleontology has fourteen really bright kids, including one from Singapore, another from Hong Kong, a third from Zurich, and fourth from Buenos Aires. Our student parking lots are filled with Mercedes, Lexus, and BMWs. Collectively, their parents could probably buy the place. These children get sent here because of our reputation, and I suppose, because their parents read about us in Forbes Magazine. Delmar Stevens was one of these types; his father had made a fortune in real estate. Delmar graduated cum laude from our department, actually with a double major in geology and business before he moved to Dallas to work for one of the oil companies owned by his future father-in-law.

This story is a familiar one to those who manage foundations associated with small, high quality, liberal arts colleges. Delmar came from money; he married into more money; and, with his combination of resources, including his brains, he ended up making a whole lot more money. His daughter Annabelle drives a BMW convertible. Her flip-flops look like they were purchased at Neiman Marcus. Periodically her father visits. When that happens, department business shuts down while the dignitaries are on tour and everybody gets regaled about the good old days and shown where, in labs, Delmar sat so many years ago.

Annabelle’s mother is a rather elegant blond, also from Neiman Marcus. She’s an alumnus, too, but seems rather bored by the whole business of being courted by people who want her money and led around to Delmar’s old haunts. Delmar Stevens and Clyde Renner got along like a couple of old army buddies; Delmar was mighty proud of what he’d bought for his alma mater; Clyde was equally proud to be the merchandise. The rest of us always heaved a big sigh of relief whenever these dog and pony shows ended, although Clyde usually stayed puffed up for a couple of weeks afterward.

In that department meeting so many years ago, the dean continued; we have a chance to add a very distinguished scholar to our faculty, a person who we believe can be charmed away from the West Coast with enough money and a chance for a much calmer life. Negotiations have just started, but we’ll keep you informed.

We all smiled, congratulated him on the coup, and immediately started wondering what to do with this windfall, how it might affect our daily lives, and, as you might suspect, who this academic star, this person who we believe can be charmed away would turn out to be. As you now know, he turned out to be Clyde Renner, the deceased. Furthermore, part of the package was that he was to eventually be made chairman of the Department of Geology, but that didn’t come to pass—sorry about the Biblical phraseology—until 2008, when one of two things happened: either Annabelle Stevens decided to come up here to college, or somebody decided for her. We now understand completely that with Annabelle on campus, and her decision to major in geology and business, just like her father had, the chairman position was almost as important to Clyde as the money, and the money was considerable.

So Clyde Renner and Delmar Stevens both got exactly what they wanted, or at least thought they wanted. The former chair at the time, a mild, responsible, and decidedly hands-off administrator named Gustav Schmidt, taking his turn at this onerous job according to our college bylaws, gladly acquiesced and went back to his crystallography lab, never to be seen in the department office again except to pick up his mail.

When Clyde Renner came to interview us, he was escorted to his appointments personally by the dean himself. I’d never liked this particular dean. There was always something oily about him, something that made you careful about what you said in his presence, although after receiving tenure, you were pretty safe from administrative capriciousness. I say pretty, meaning reasonably, or fairly, but not completely safe. In an environment where the only currency is what people say about you behind your back, you can be stripped of all your reputational riches in an instant, or in a faculty meeting, or even down at a local bar, depending on who’s slinging the words, what they are saying, and often, how they are saying it.

Now, in only my third day as an administrator—make that an interim administrator—after dabbling in personnel files, including my own, I understand why none of us are totally safe from capricious behavior of those in power. For example, detective Leonard Branch, in his self-appointed role as Columbo, intent on finding a conspiracy behind Clyde’s massive heart attack and obsessing over a stupid Irish setter with serious fleas, encounters a brand new department chair who claims he never heard Renner prattle on endlessly about his damned mutt. So, something just doesn’t seem right to detective Branch, and he can’t really tell whether that something is only in his mind or is a real piece of evidence, although evidence for what, he still does not know regardless of what might be running through his imagination.

Branch is once again in the Geology Department office at 8:00 AM this morning. He sits waiting, talking to Mary, our receptionist, and, I suppose, trying to make a mental inventory of his surroundings, like he’d done in my—make that Clyde’s former—office. When I arrive about 8:30, Mary resembles the proverbial deer in the headlights. Elizabeth Bennett, our accountant, is hiding, her door closed.

Good morning, Dr. Marshall. Branch is trying to be polite.

Detective Branch said he had an appointment, offers Mary; but it’s not on the books. She seems to be speaking faster, and her voice has a certain tone, a higher pitch, than usual.

Coffee on? I act as if I belong in this room, with this set of responsibilities for which I’ve never been trained.

Detective Branch asked if it was decaf.

Mary’s voice takes on yet another strange quality; she cannot believe a police officer would drink decaf. It was not to be the last time Leonard Branch would do something, or say something, out of character, or at least out of the kind of character you’d see on TV. Mary and I are both coffee snobs, and we’ve known this about one another for years; dark Italian or Mexican fuels the department; decaf could just as easily be strychnine as far as we’re concerned. In Mary’s mind, with his one question Leonard Branch has disqualified himself from whatever task he’s chosen to relieve the boredom of parking meters and stolen bicycles. That task, of course, is Clyde Renner’s heart attack, but it Branch’s mind, the term is in quotes—heart attack—otherwise known as a case.

I tried to get the family to request an autopsy, he says, when once again we are in my interim office behind closed doors.

And?

It was not easy to find his family.

That doesn’t surprise me. When Clyde failed to show up in the building last Wednesday morning, we all started to wonder whether something was wrong. He never missed a class; make that: he never missed an opportunity to be commander and chief of a 20’ x 40’ room filled with a bunch of old chairs, a chalk board, and eager young faces, most of them on coeds, clinging to his every word. You could hear his voice halfway down the hall. Evidently a couple of students wandered up to the department office and asked about him when he was still not there ten or fifteen minutes after the hour. Mary, in her inimitable way, had said to the students

Well, maybe he died.

Which, of course, he had. And the fact that Mary said it before any of us knew it, regardless of what we might have been wishing, is one of the reasons Leonard Branch has suddenly become interested in our department, heretofore notorious for its lack of notoriety. The rumor, flashed globally on Facebook and Twitter within a few minutes after Mary’s comment, did nothing but stir up detective Branch’s curiosity all the more. In case you don’t know, our three campus police officers spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter. In all fairness, they probably end up knowing more about what’s going on in town than they would if they were out driving around checking parking meters.

Our once-a-month department faculty meetings occur on Thursday mornings at 9:00 AM, and when Clyde did not show up for that meeting, Mary first called the dean’s office; at their suggestion, she called Campus Security. Because the house was off campus, our cops had to contact the city police to gain access to the property. Except for the one last Thursday, Renner never missed a faculty meeting, which, of course, he chaired. As far as any of us could tell, he either knew nothing about Roberts Rules of Order, or cared nothing about them. Clyde Renner, chairman of the Department of Geology, would be in control of this monthly gathering, period. We would hear a great deal about what Clyde Renner had done for us in the previous month, but we rarely accomplished anything else, which was really not a problem because there was hardly ever any significant business that actually required a group action. In the past decade, those three new hires—Clyde’s decisions, two of which were made over faculty objections, and one, a Dr. Charles Weatherford over strong objections—were the only things of importance that we did, or tried to do, as a faculty.

I know he had three grown children, I say, once we’re in my office with the door closed; I believe they were all sons. His wife must have had some relatives. They were all from California, and I think the family is still back there. I pause, acting reflective. Wait a minute. One of the boys is on the East Coast.

Well, says Branch, we were able to locate two of them. They both asked about a will and whether they’d have to be involved in a funeral.

Was there a will? I’m actually rather curious. And will there be a memorial service of some kind? If I had to guess, there would not be one; you don’t want people smiling at some event as supposedly somber as a Celebration of Life service.

Right now the body is down at the funeral home, answers Branch; we’re still waiting on the permission.

Why would you want an autopsy? I ask, mainly to see detective Branch’s response.

Ever seen a bedbug, Dr. Marshall? The question is quite unexpected.

No. I answer truthfully. I’ve never seen a bedbug, and hope to never see one, although we did have a problem with them in the dorms not long ago.

His place was crawling with bedbugs, Dr. Marshall. Leonard Branch is staring at me, almost as if I were a bedbug myself. We looked on Google. They suck your blood. We’re suspicious that Dr. Renner might have died from some disease. He’s serious, still staring at me. There’s always the possibility of an epidemic on campus.

Now that would be a problem, wouldn’t it? I’m sympathetic, sort of. Maybe instead of Google, later today I’ll check the real scientific literature on bedbugs, just to see if there’s any evidence that they transmit dread diseases—HIV, Ebola virus, or something else that will turn your insides into a hemorrhaging pulp.

Did anyone ever say anything to him about bedbugs? Another strange question from detective Branch.

Why would anyone in a geology department say anything to anyone about bedbugs? I pause, looking straight at Branch. "In fact, why would anyone in a geology department even know anything about bedbugs?"

I don’t know, replies Branch; I really don’t know. But someone must have said something to him. It’s his turn to pause. You can get bedbugs anywhere. We found that out on Google.

Really? Why do you think somebody might have talked to him about bedbugs? An image flashes through my mind: three officers over in Campus Security, between rounds looking for expired parking meters, hunched over their computers, deeply engaged in Facebook, Twitter, and Google, supposedly learning about bedbugs but actually learning whatever somebody somewhere in the world wants to put up on the Internet about bedbugs, disease, deadly viruses, blood pouring out of all your bodily orifices, or anything else that the average person believes might be creepy.

Because we found this in his house. Branch reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a thick file. I notice dark splotches on the paper, splotches I now know are dried bedbug feces containing blood. Had I known that at the time, I would never have handled it. But I laid the file on my desk and opened it. Page after page of information on bedbugs. Renner had been doing research, if you can call it that, on bedbugs, ostensibly in an effort to get rid of them without anyone knowing his place was infested.

What happens when you find bedbugs in your house? Now I’m actually curious. One never knows when something embarrassing will show up, such as head lice and pinworms, both of which came home from day care with our children years ago.

You call the exterminators, says Branch, but they contact County Extension. Evidently it’s important to know where bedbugs occur. And it would have been exceedingly important to Clyde Renner that nobody know he had bedbugs in his house.

Really? Why? Can’t they just spray or something? My solution to insect problems is to spray.

I learned a lot about these nasty little critters, replies detective Branch. He must have spent a lot of time on the Internet, his source of all wisdom. There’s a global epidemic. There’s resistance to chemicals. They get in your luggage, and they survive in an airplane cargo compartment. He looks through his notes, flipping a couple of pages on a little spiral-bound notebook. The ones from Africa are especially bad.

Clyde must have picked them up on some of his travels. I offer a scientific explanation for Renner’s bedbug problem. Make that former bedbug problem.

Just like the fleas, maybe. Leonard Branch is still flipping through his notebook. He gets to a certain page, stops, looks up at me. Notice anything unusual about Dr. Renner’s behavior in the past few weeks, Dr. Marshall?

No, I lie; he seemed like the same old plate tectonics expert.

No sign of stress? Nothing like that?

Nothing, I lie again. My department chair had, over the past couple of months, just as the semester was about to start, made some really stupid and uncharacteristic decisions, especially about teaching assignments. A couple of older faculty members suddenly found themselves in front of those large freshman classes, a situation they’d not been in for at least twenty-five years. Committee assignments were changed, and the new membership seemed inappropriate for the tasks ahead, given what we all knew about each other. We interpreted that behavior as little more than Clyde showing us he had power, more of his bullying just to demonstrate who he was; we responded appropriately in our Friday afternoon beer-guzzling sessions.

Is there anything in the department files that would help us?

For some reason, legal procedures as revealed by television dramas came to mind; the phrase search warrant zips through my thoughts.

For example? I’m being somewhat evasive, mainly because I’ve not looked through very many of these files myself, being pre-occupied these first couple of days with the one labeled Gideon Marshall. Out of curiosity, now with that key and my interim appointment, I’ve started Mary’s and Elizabeth’s in addition to mine; it’s important for a chairman to know something about his staff. Clyde’s file on himself is next on my list, although to be completely honest, I’m a little hesitant to get into it; one never knows what might be found in a file some egomaniac keeps on himself.

His wife’s family? Their current address? Anything about an attorney?

Surely there was something in his house that might be of use to you.

Wasn’t much in his house, says Leonard Branch, except fleas, bedbugs, that dog, some stale food, and couple of empty vodka bottles. But I didn’t get to look around very much before the city cops sealed the place off. He was not in very good shape, Dr. Marshall. Surely someone around here noticed.

We tend to focus on our work, detective; Dr. Renner ran the department and we stayed out of his way. Another partial truth for Leonard Branch from Campus Security.

I’d appreciate it if you’d look through his file and see if there’s anyone’s address in there, maybe some in-laws, that other son we couldn’t locate.

How soon do you need this information? I’m not interested in looking through Clyde Renner’s personal files, or his personnel file, either, at least this morning. Maybe later, but now it’s time to turn the page on the Renner era. We all have work to do, lives to lead until the end. Leonard Branch’s answer indicates that we are not quite ready to turn that page.

Now, he says.

Right now?

I’ll wait, he replies.

I go over to the door, open it, and ask Mary if she’ll come in. For some reason, it seems like a third person, hearing this discussion, might be a good idea.

Detective Branch would like to look through Dr. Renner’s personnel file, I explain. She pales somewhat, obvious only to someone who knows her reasonably well. Maybe you can help us interpret some of the items if we need it.

Mary also doubled as the chairman’s administrative assistant, a job she’d taken over a few years ago when the previous assistant had retired, and we lost that staff position in one of the many budget cuts. She returns to her desk, retrieves a key from the top drawer, comes back into the chairman’s office, and unlocks a file cabinet. I didn’t know, until that happened, that there was a second key. She flips through the second drawer and extracts a thick file, which she lays on the desk.

I’ll be outside if you need me, she says.

Why don’t you stay, I respond, motioning toward a chair. Mary sits down, crosses her hands on her lap, and tries to relax.

May I? asks Branch, pointing to the file.

Is it legal? I wonder, not really knowing the rules about revealing information in personnel files but suspicious that they were fairly strict.

For the police, replies detective Branch, it is legal. I know now that he needed a warrant, especially when fishing for a conspiracy or a perpetrator.

We spend the next hour unveiling Clyde Renner’s personal life, as revealed by various items—memos, letters, drafts of letters never sent, pay stubs, scraps of paper with out-of-state telephone numbers, that kind of stuff. Branch takes notes. Mary fidgets. I excuse myself to get coffee. After an hour, Branch closes the personnel file and pushed it back across the desk to me.

Nothing about bedbugs or fleas?

Nothing.

No in-law address?

No.

Branch picks up the bedbug file he’d brought, the one covered with dried dark feces, and puts it back into his briefcase.

We’ll keep in touch, he says, standing up, stretching a little bit.

Mary nods, forces a smile.

I walk with him to the door. When I return, Mary is in Elizabeth’s office. She’s wiping tears; Elizabeth is glaring at her.

**********

Return to Renner Contents

3. Annabelle Stevens

Mary Duling, whose job involves writing up all the formal documents required for a grade appeal, copying them, and distributing them to the appropriate committee, came into my office late on Thursday morning, my third full day as interim chair, and sat down.

Dr. Marshall, she began.

Yes?

Have you read through the grade appeals committee report?

She’s referring to the report about this student named Annabelle Stevens and an appeal of her grade in our required historical geology course, taught by Rebecca Stitcher, our least loved colleague now that Renner is gone.

No, Mary; I’m not on that committee.

But you are now the department chairman, so you have to read it.

Why should I read this document?

By now I was far more interested in fleas, bedbugs, and the contents of my personnel file than some committee report, especially one involving Rebecca Stitcher.

Because you have to change Dr. Renner’s decision.

I do? Why?

Because Annabelle’s father is Delmar Stevens.

Oh. In all honesty, I had not thought much about this aspect of department business.

And furthermore, Mr. Stevens will be here tomorrow, she said, with his attorney.

Attorney?

Detective Branch has talked to Annabelle Stevens and asked her some questions about Dr. Renner.

That’s interesting. How do you know?

Because detective Branch called today, wanting to talk to you, but you weren’t in yet. He told me. He learned about her grade appeal on Facebook.

Leonard Branch actually told a department secretary that he had interviewed one of our students about a faculty member’s fatal heart attack? I knew by now that Branch, as well as his two buddies over in Campus Security, spent a lot of time on the Internet, checking student blogs, Twitter and Facebook postings.

I was reaching back through all my experience to date, trying to understand what was happening in this so-called investigation, but not having much luck. Clyde Renner died of a heart attack, period. That’s what it said in the newspapers. If I’d been inclined to psychoanalyze my fellow employees, I might have concluded that it was detective Branch who had the obsession problem, possibly brought on by thirty-five years of checking parking meters and trying to retrieve stolen bikes.

So far, to my knowledge, nobody in the department, or even at the college, had been visited by any of the city police officers, of which there were six, although they were the ones who actually entered Clyde’s modest bungalow, found him on the living room floor, and subsequently sealed the property until relatives could arrive and deal with personal belongings. The Irish setter was lying in the kitchen, his water and food bowls empty, and his face covered with fleas. That’s when Campus Security got the call, and Leonard Branch got in his 2001 Dodge Charger patrol car and drove out to Renner’s place. I wonder if he turned on the light bar at the time. Regardless of what Branch told me, nobody knows what else, in addition to the dog that he might have observed or picked up from the house. City police called Animal Control, and they took the dog to the Humane Society shelter. Everyone—city cops, Leonard Branch, guy from Animal Control, paramedics who pronounced Renner gone—went home with fleas and flea bites. In retrospect, some, if not all, probably took home bedbugs, too.

My official title is ‘receptionist,’ Dr. Marshall, not ‘department secretary’. She paused. And tomorrow he’s coming to talk to Elizabeth. He wants to examine our books.

Detective Branch wants to look at our financial records?

That’s what he said.

Does he know how to read ledgers? That question came out of the blue, based on my own feeble attempt to decipher the various entries and codes the first morning on my new job. Elizabeth had tried to walk me through the spreadsheets on Tuesday morning, but I threw up my hands at unrealized income and gave them back to her, promising to be a more responsible administrator after I got my feet on the ground. I could tell that Elizabeth was not impressed, although by the end of that first day I think she’d acquired a little more patience.

I don’t know what detective Branch is able to do, or what he knows, replied Mary, with a touch of sarcasm. She could easily have finished the sentence by saying besides hassling us with his stupid conspiracy theories but she didn’t. Nevertheless, in my mind I heard her say it.

I’ll check with Elizabeth and find some time this afternoon to review those records. I acted as if I knew exactly how to go about this task. So let me get this straight: tomorrow, Branch is coming to do his version of an audit, and Mr. Stevens, along with his attorney, is also showing up to do God knows what about his daughter’s grade appeal. Right?

That’s correct, Dr. Marshall. She tried to smile but the attempt was not very successful.

Is there a chance they will be here at the same time? A worst-case scenario passed through my mind briefly, left, returned, lingered, and like a ghost, developed into something more elaborate.

I don’t know, Dr. Marshall. The expression on her face indicated she was being truthful. Over the past week, I’d learned to translate Mary Duling’s body, and facial, language in a way I’d never noticed in her previous 23 years as our department receptionist and general assistant to the chairman. Aside from our shared appreciation for good dark roast coffee, we didn’t have much in common, or have a reason to engage in social conversation. But if you have Clyde Renner’s files at your disposal, and have read at least a few of them, Mary’s posture, facial expression, and tone of voice tell you a lot more than you could discover from either the files, or conversation, alone. What is my conclusion from all this amateur psychology? Mary Duling hated Clyde Renner enough to kill him, but had no experience as a hit-lady, and no real weapons at her disposal—at least to my knowledge.

There is something else you’ll want to read, Dr. Marshall.

Some secret file, I presume? My feeble effort to lighten up the conversation.

Yes.

An answer I did not expect. Mary walked to a file cabinet, opened up the bottom drawer, pulled out a file, and laid it in front of me. The tab read A. Stevens. Clyde Renner kept a file on at least one coed and was stupid enough to keep it in his office. As I opened it, I half expected to see pictures of some babe without any clothes on. Instead, there were letters from her father, copies of her grade reports, and a scathing memo from Rebecca Stitcher demanding that Charles Weatherford be fired for violation of our policies regarding sexual relationships between students and faculty members. In Clyde’s easily recognizable scrawl, he’d written across the memo: TOTAL BULLSHIT.

Clyde Renner probably would not have been easy to kill. He was a large man, about 6’2" in his brown leather shoes, with an ample belly over which stretched wide suspenders, red ones once or twice a year on special occasions, but the same pair of soiled black ones every other day. Clyde was balding and had a coarse gray beard which he obviously trimmed carefully. The geologist’s loop hung around his neck by a long, white shoestring, also properly soiled. Once in a while, during a discussion at faculty meeting, he’d take that little lens out of his shirt pocket, retrieve a meteorite fragment from his bag, and study the thing carefully, clearly a signal that whatever was in his hand at the time was of far more interest to him than the proceedings.

He did this quite a bit before he became chairman, but it happened also even after he was appointed and was supposed to be in charge of the meeting. That stone-study was his signature way of telling one of the rest of us that he had absolutely no interest in whatever we were contributing to department business at the time. He’d been married but was now a widower; evidently his three estranged children, all sons, lived on the coasts, as far from Iowa as they could get and still remain residents of the United States.

When Clyde spoke, it was with complete assurance, in an authoritative, almost commanding, voice. Most of what he said was complete bullshit, unless it was about plate tectonics, and then he was obscure on purpose, sort of like he was demonstrating how ignorant you were by parading all the insider information available only to someone of his intellectual ability. But if you didn’t actually know the