Chapter 8
It wasn’t that Ivy didn’t like Dr. Ben Moorehead. It was more that there was a divide between them. Not intellectually, not professionally, and definitely not politically.
But he was the department head; she, a tenure-track professor. One might be inclined to think that this made them aligned. But a professor, tenure-track or not, is to the department head as a widget maker is to the CEO.
Different bottom lines.
Dr. Moorehead was bald with a liver-spotted head. Round glasses. Trendy, if unironic.
“Dr. Reeves, I wasn’t expecting you today. How are things?”
“Well, to be honest, I have a bit of a problem.”
Ivy produced the two tests, placed them on Dr. Moorehead’s desk.
Dr. Moorehead didn’t like problems. He liked grants, awards, prestige.
For someone with advanced alopecia, Dr. Moorehead had an impressive set of eyebrows. Spent a considerable amount of time mastering their movements, too.
They did a little dance.
Nope; the man did not like problems.
“What is it?”
“Remember the student I mentioned a few weeks back? Zeke Godfrey?”
“Yes.”
“I was concerned that he was cheating.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I have these tests here . . . the class as a whole did poorly, but two students did particularly well.”
Dr. Moorehead glanced at the tests over the top of his glasses. Made no move to pick them up or inspect them more closely.
“Did you get around to speaking to Zeke about the last time?”
Dr. Moorehead said nothing as he finally lowered his gaze and allowed his eyes to skip across the pages.
It wasn’t the department head’s job to deal with cheating—not unless things required escalation. And if it had been any other student, Ivy would have spoken to them directly. But Zeke wasn’t just “any other student.”
Even Ivy, as a lowly widget maker, knew this.
Dr. Moorehead’s eyebrows lowered. Bounced up, lowered again.
“What do you think? They both made the same mistake on questions seven and—”
“What do I think?”
Ivy frowned. She hated repeated questions. Nothing said “stall” more than repeating the words of the person you were speaking with back at them.
Where were you last night—the seventeenth of April, Mr. Criminal?
The seventeenth of April? Why, I was . . .
“I think that this is concerning,” Dr. Moorehead said after a pause.
Ivy also disliked noncommittal replies such as this one. Still, she rolled with it.
“I agree. And with the department’s—no, the university’s—zero tolerance policy on cheating . . . ”
‘Nuff said.
Or so Ivy thought.
“It’s concerning that two students are copying off each other.”
The wording was off, and Ivy didn’t care for the insinuation.
“Dr. Moorehead, Rebecca Quinn is one of my brighter—”
“If the two tests are mostly identical, as you say, then that’s a problem. But unless you actually saw Mr. Godfrey actively cheating off Ms. Quinn, then I’ll have to bring them both in for questioning.”
Ivy’s lips formed a thin line. She hadn’t actually witnessed the infraction.
She said nothing.
“Right.” Borderline smug, but not condescending. Ivy was, after all, Dr. Moorehead’s golden goose. Youngest professor in mathematics department history, Clay Fellowship winner, blah, blah, blah. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll pull Mr. Godfrey in for an informal meeting. How does that suit?”
You should have done that last time.
As usual, zero tolerance meant zero tolerance for some people.
Ivy still didn’t say anything, just stacked the two tests and prepared to leave.
“How’s your work going, Dr. Reeves? I got an email from the ACM conference. They’ve reserved a spot for you— not just a poster, but a talk. This is a big deal.”
A big deal for whom?
“To be honest, I’m not really at a point where I’m comfortable sharing my work just yet.”
If Dr. Moorehead can speak in a cipher, so can I.
Dr. Moorehead saw right through her words. But unlike Ivy, he had the authority to call her on it.
“I understand your desire to carve your own legacy, Dr. Reeves. Understandable—noble, even. But there is no shame in taking over your father’s work. There’s even something romantic about it, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
I do not.
“He was close, you know,” the man continued. “Gene kept most of his work a secret for obvious reasons. He and Dr. Neely both. But I know they were close to finding a solution. If you looked over what was left after the fire, you might—”
“Dr. Moorehead, I appreciate your advice.” How do you like being cut off, sir? “But I’m making progress. If you think that I should present at the ACM, then I’ll put something together.”
Even if you discarded romanticism, the problem with Dr. Moorehead’s suggestion was that only two people were smart enough to solve the Riemann hypothesis. And one of them wasn’t her.
Lord knows she’d tried.
How did the old Mark Twain saying go?
Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead?
That wasn’t exactly true.
Two people could keep a secret if one of them was dead and the other mute.
She stood, a sad smile crossing her lips.
“Please speak to Zeke. And thanks for your time.”
Asshole.