Page 33 of So Sinister
Dr.Wilkerson was the dean of the Arlington Veterinary College, the school where Dr.Fenniman worked prior to his death.
“We can start with that,” he said.“Why do you think he was barely here?”
Abigail sighed, realizing she couldn’t end this conversation before it began.“He had other work.”
“And do you have any idea what that other work was?”
“It was a research project that involved direct work with canine subjects,” she replied.
David waited, and when it became clear she wasn’t going to expand on that, he asked, “Do you know what sort of project?”
“No.He and I weren’t close.Richard wasn’t close with anyone.He was reclusive, even before he started splitting his time.”
“But do you have any idea at all?Clearly it was important since it took so much of his time.”
Abigail lifted her hands just off the surface of her expensive mahogany desk and let them fall again.“I don’t know how to say this any more clearly.I have no idea what he was working on.I know that he was barely here, and when he was here, he did little more than grade research papers and occupy a chair during meetings.Frankly, if he didn’t have tenure, the board would have let him go.”
“What was the nature of his research here?”
Abigail glared at him.“That’s public information.”
“Was he working on anything thatwasn’tpublic information?”
Abigail’s eyes narrowed.“Who did you say you were again?”
“Dr.Gabriel Allen,” he replied smoothly.It was becoming so easy for him to lie.
“And you’re working for who?”
He shifted uncomfortably.He hadn’t thought that part through.Way to go, expert liar.
“Let’s just say I have a personal interest in the case.”
“A personal interest.”
“Yes.”
Abigail stared hard at him.David met her eyes, still wearing his aw, shucks grin and trying to calm the pounding in his chest.
After over a minute, she sighed.“Richard was researching the impact of dog ownership on human psychology.It was his lifelong crusade up until about three years ago.”
David knew about Richard’s research already.What he was trying to get to was everything that happened after that.“What happened three years ago?”
“He stopped crusading.Started phoning in his work.Contributed the minimum to joint papers and projects, stopped seeing patients, barely taught his class… Burned out.It happens a lot to academics.We pour all of our passion into something, and when it fails to yield the results or the satisfaction we want, we stop caring.It’s a defense mechanism.It allows us to keep existing in a world that doesn’t value the knowledge we have or doesn’t work the way we thought it did, or…” She flipped her hand.“Well, anyway, the point is that he just shut down.I thought he was sick, to be honest.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was losing weight,” Abigail said.“Not a lot of weight, but enough that it looked unnatural.His eyes were bloodshot a lot, and he started losing his hair.We thought he might have come down with cancer.”
“Who’s we?”
“The staff at the Veterinary College.”
“And no one thought to ask if he was actually sick?”
Abigail’s face flushed.She scoffed and looked down at her desk.Her hands came together, and when she found no convenient stack of papers to shuffle, she interlaced her fingers instead.“I… believed, as I’m sure everyone did, that he preferred to keep his private life private.”
David felt heat creep up his spine.“This man was a colleague of yours for eight years—”
