Chapter 29
Noelle had an appointment with her OBGYN and Manny insisted on going, but they were still home when I came downstairs the next morning. She was leaning sideways against some pillows and Manny pressed on her back with his thumbs.
Noelle made an apologetic face at me. “My muscles and bones hurt and I didn’t sleep well.”
“Manny never rubs my back,” I said.
“Did you try snorting cocaine and seducing him?”
“Not yet,” I said.
I dropped Kix into a jogging stroller and attached GPA to the frame via leash and we ran the neighborhood. More leaves were falling and we crunched through drifts, but it wasn’t cold enough to burn the lungs.
We jogged by Oscar Hanson’s mansion. He and his sick wife had killed themselves last year after a podcast implied Oscar was a murderer. Death before dishonor. The stately house remained for sale, not many buyers in that price range.
Peachy Burns jogged by us, going the other direction.
She waved and called and blew kisses. She grew better looking as she aged and matured, less reliant on buoyant youth, and her YouTube and Instagram channels had taken off after the Rumors Around Roanoke viral sensation.
A minor celebrity now and she recognized I was partially responsible.
I’d made an ally for life, or for her fifteen minutes of fame.
Old grouchy Carmen Ortega didn’t wave from her lawn. She glowered as she winterized her flower beds.
Peter the podcaster’s home stood empty. Though he’d reaped a small fortune, his neighbors turned on him for illegally publishing footage of them for the listening world.
Even if he successfully parried the lawsuits leveled against him, the financial cost of defense was exorbitant.
Plus the criminal charges of invading privacy.
We paused at a playground and I pushed Kix in the swing, and we practiced chin-ups on the monkey bars, and we played tag until the dog clotheslined him, and we continued the run worse for wear.
I concluded the jog at Roxanne’s house, Kix’s sitter, and she welcomed him and we chatted about nothing, but an agreeable nothing, and I walked home, GPA straining to smell everything.
I had Dr. Rod Buchanan on my mind. The house was mine, a cushioned silence unlike the hard silence at Georgetown, so I took up residence on the couch instead of driving to the office. Dr. Buchanan’s professional history was an open book—I found it all after one google search.
He earned an undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins in Maryland, double majoring in Psych and History, graduating cum laude.
Next, a confusing but grand sounding graduate degree from Cambridge in the UK.
His PhD was from the University of Chicago, where he was named a Neubauer Distinguished Doctoral Fellow. Thus was his formal education completed.
His first teaching post was at NYU, a temporary position at the age of 29.
Photos. Speaking engagements. A picture of him and Mrs. Buchanan on their wedding day, her lovely and youthful.
Later, growing gray hair now, beaming with his newborn daughter.
The family smiling as she graduated high school, him wearing glasses, which he’d eventually ditched for contact lenses to look younger.
Links to his publications in The Journal of Economic History, Cliometrica, Comparative Studies in Society and History.
His second teaching post was at Emory in Atlanta. He’d lasted six years there.
Third teaching post was at the University of Pittsburgh, where he lasted five.
Now in his fifties, he’d finally made tenure, at the University of Lynchburg, a small but well-regarded private university, serving as the history program’s department head.
His education was as elite. Though none of the schools were considered Ivy League, they were notched only one step below.
Quite a CV. Then teaching positions at NYU, Emory, University of Pittsburgh, and Lynchburg, four respected higher learning institutions, but each represented a small successive step down in prestige.
Rather than working his way up, he was descending.
I called NYU’s history department and claimed I was working for Georgetown’s publishing house and needed to verify some facts about Dr. Rod Buchanan.
Over the course of an hour, I was shuffled from desk to desk, most of it spent on hold, me reclined and scratching the dog who’d fallen asleep on the rug beside the couch, but none of the professors or assistants or administration had worked with Dr. Buchanan. After all, he’d left twenty years ago.
Next I called Emory, and after my inquiry I was sent straight to the voicemail of the Associate Dean of Humanities. I left my name and number and didn’t get my hopes up.
Third try, the Department of History and the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Administrative Officer answered and he paused a moment when I mentioned the name Dr. Buchanan.
He said, “Sir, I’d like to transfer you to the Academic Operations Manager, if that’s okay. ” Without waiting, he did.
A guy answered and said, “Brian Burris, Academic Operations.”
“Mackenzie August, pursuer of verity.”
He made a noise like laughing through his nose. “Yes sir, how can I help?”
“I have questions about Dr. Rod Buchanan and why he left your institution.”
He took his time replying. I heard a squeak like maybe he’d leaned back in his swivel chair. “Why do you ask?”
“You know him,” I said.
“I knew him. We haven’t spoken since he left.”
“He’s teaching at the University of Lynchburg and I have concerns,” I said.
“What kind of concerns?”
“Personal. Not professional.”
“You’re not with U of L?”
“No.”
“Law enforcement?”
“No,” I said.
A blast of air into the phone, him exhaling. “I need to take a walk, Mr. August. I’ll call you at this number from my cell?”
We hung up.
He rang me five minutes later. The texture of the call had changed from subdued office to the breezy chaos of nature. Sounded like he was walking quickly.
“The more specific you can be with your concerns, Mr. August, the more help I may be able to provide,” he said.
“I’m fond of Mrs. Buchanan, and it came to my attention in a roundabout way that her husband might be running around on her. After an investigation, I found no signs of infidelity but I stumbled across financial sins.”
“You’re an investigator?” he said.
“Private investigator.”
“What will you do with this information?”
“If warranted, I’ll present it to his wife. If not, I’ll let sleeping dogs lie,” I said.
“What sort of financial sins? I hope you understand why I’m asking for confirmation. The stakes are higher on my end, as he might be able to sue the university if I say something, ahh, defamatory.”
“Dr. Buchanan appears to have a gambling addiction and he attempted extortion.”
“Damn,” said Brian Burris. “Extortion is new.”
“He handled it the way a gentleman would, polite, veiled, no direct threats. So far it’s been unsuccessful.”
“So. Hmm. This is tricky. I’m glad you called.
Dr. Buchanan is charming, isn’t he. He’s charismatic.
He’s loved by his students. He’s an excellent orator and instructor.
His classes are sought after, all seats taken, attendance high.
He’s a fair grader. No complaints from students or parents.
But. How do I put this.” He walked and thought.
“I wasn’t his boss or supervisor, I’m more like an admin for the instructors.
He and I got along. I moved there after him and he took me under his wing, so to speak.
We’d get lunch, chat curriculum and novels and education.
Shoot the breeze. We shared book recommendations.
We had a weekly poker game. Small stakes, nobody losing their shirt.
After a couple years, I noticed he was betting on sports.
Often. Soon it became constant. We’d be at dinner and he’d spy a television and need to make a phone call.
The Lakers were on, that kind of thing. Some days, he was flying high, in a great mood.
Other days, he looked gray and didn’t eat.
I remember one night, near the worst of it, he checked his phone and cursed and turned pale and mumbled something like, ‘Steph Curry will be the death of me.’”
“A sports gambling addiction.”
“Right. He was calling his bookie. Or bookies, probably. And losing. I don’t know much about that world, but apparently it’s not like the movies, they don’t break your leg if you’re late in payments.
They intimidate you. They threaten to embarrass you.
I worried about him, because that was happening to him. Clearly. They started coming here.”
“They?”
“I don’t know what to call them other than guys. Big guys. Outside Posvar Hall. In the parking lot. Once or twice a week. We’d all take notice. They weren’t students, that was obvious. Rumors started, Rod always the subject of them. The man was in debt to the mob.”
“Is there a mob in Pittsburgh?”
“I have no idea, sir. I read Westerns and World War II non-fiction. I don’t dabble in, ah, crime,” he said.
“What about romantic indiscretions?”
“None that I know of, but it wouldn’t shock me. Looking back on it, I see the layers of deceit. Lies on top of lies.”
“Was he let go because of it?” I said.
“Not at all. His work never suffered. As I said, the man was beloved. By the staff too. He was the straw that stirred the faculty drink.”
“What was his reason for moving?”
“He claimed he needed a change. But right on the cusp of tenure? It didn’t add up. Panicky for my friend, I did what you’re doing, I did some research. How could I help? I talked to a former colleague of his at Emory. Guess what he told me.”
On my couch, I shrugged. “I give up.”
“He said, Rod will have to sell his house soon. To pay off the bookies.”