close friends in that class, although that hadn’t struck me as unusual at the time. With more than three hundred students in each class year, and almost a thousand in the school overall, there are often students in my classes who have never before had a class with most of the others.
I let a moment pass and then said, “Well, it’s a sad thing and we’re going to miss him. But I don’t know what else to say at this point. I should also mention that if you feel the need for counseling, contact the office of the associate dean for Student Affairs, and they’ll arrange for you to see someone.”
I waited a few seconds to see if anyone else wanted to speak, then reached down and touched a button on the console. The screen behind me lit up with a black-and-white picture of a mammoth Great Lakes iron ore freighter. “Today I want to discuss the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald —the ship, not the Gordon Lightfoot song.” There was a short burst of laughter, which is what I had hoped for. Teaching is, after all, a performance art, and I wanted my opening to take us away from Primo.
I looked toward the back row. “Crawford, that ship, which sank in Lake Superior during a huge storm in 1975, is in only 580 feet of water. Its exact location is well known, and it’s easily within reach of modern salvage robots. If we thought there was something valuable in the purser’s safe, could we go and get it?”
“No, we couldn’t,” Crawford said. “It’s in Canadian waters and the Canadian Underwater Cultural Heritage Act precludes it from being salvaged.”
Julie raised her hand. “Not exactly,” she said. “We could request a permit from the Canadian government to salvage it.”
“Good luck with that!” one of the other students said. The comment triggered another burst of laughter, and we were off and running in a class that explored, as I had intended, the increasing conflict between treasure hunters and the marine archaeologists who want to keep the world’s hundreds of thousands of shipwrecks as their personal scientific playgrounds. Or at least that’s how I think of it.
When the class ended over an hour later without further mention of Primo, I breathed a sigh of relief and went off to see if Aldous had returned to his office.
CHAPTER 20
T he light was on under Aldous’s door. As I raised my hand to knock, a voice behind me said, “So I heard some poor student died in your office.”
I knew who it was without looking. I would have recognized the deep, raspy voice of Professor Greta Broontz anywhere. Greta is one of the other civil procedure professors, and she hates me.
I considered opening Aldous’s door without knocking and going inside without even acknowledging her, but it seemed the wrong thing to do. I sighed and turned around. And there she was: about my height but butt ugly, with stringy red hair cut in a pageboy, one brown eye and one blue, a squashed nose and deep acne scars. The students called her the Pineapple.
“Greta, he didn’t die in my office. He died at the UCLA Medical Center. Of as yet unknown causes.”
“Well, I heard he was poisoned by your coffee.”
“And where did you hear that absurd story?”
“A little bird told me.”
“What was the bird’s name?”
“I’m sorry, I was told in confidence, and unlike some people, I do keep my confidences.”
I knew she was referring to her suspicion that I was the one who, during my first year at the law school, had leaked to the UCLA student newspaper, the Daily Bruin , that she was moonlighting more or less full-time with a downtown law firm, pulling in at least two times her law-school salary. She had apparently assumed I was the paper’s source because I had just arrived from a downtown law firm, albeit a different one.
“Greta, I didn’t poison anyone.”
“I didn’t say you did, dear. I said he was poisoned by your coffee. Passive voice. Guilty conscience?” She grinned, exposing brilliant white
I let a moment pass and then said, “Well, it’s a sad thing and we’re going to miss him. But I don’t know what else to say at this point. I should also mention that if you feel the need for counseling, contact the office of the associate dean for Student Affairs, and they’ll arrange for you to see someone.”
I waited a few seconds to see if anyone else wanted to speak, then reached down and touched a button on the console. The screen behind me lit up with a black-and-white picture of a mammoth Great Lakes iron ore freighter. “Today I want to discuss the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald —the ship, not the Gordon Lightfoot song.” There was a short burst of laughter, which is what I had hoped for. Teaching is, after all, a performance art, and I wanted my opening to take us away from Primo.
I looked toward the back row. “Crawford, that ship, which sank in Lake Superior during a huge storm in 1975, is in only 580 feet of water. Its exact location is well known, and it’s easily within reach of modern salvage robots. If we thought there was something valuable in the purser’s safe, could we go and get it?”
“No, we couldn’t,” Crawford said. “It’s in Canadian waters and the Canadian Underwater Cultural Heritage Act precludes it from being salvaged.”
Julie raised her hand. “Not exactly,” she said. “We could request a permit from the Canadian government to salvage it.”
“Good luck with that!” one of the other students said. The comment triggered another burst of laughter, and we were off and running in a class that explored, as I had intended, the increasing conflict between treasure hunters and the marine archaeologists who want to keep the world’s hundreds of thousands of shipwrecks as their personal scientific playgrounds. Or at least that’s how I think of it.
When the class ended over an hour later without further mention of Primo, I breathed a sigh of relief and went off to see if Aldous had returned to his office.
CHAPTER 20
T he light was on under Aldous’s door. As I raised my hand to knock, a voice behind me said, “So I heard some poor student died in your office.”
I knew who it was without looking. I would have recognized the deep, raspy voice of Professor Greta Broontz anywhere. Greta is one of the other civil procedure professors, and she hates me.
I considered opening Aldous’s door without knocking and going inside without even acknowledging her, but it seemed the wrong thing to do. I sighed and turned around. And there she was: about my height but butt ugly, with stringy red hair cut in a pageboy, one brown eye and one blue, a squashed nose and deep acne scars. The students called her the Pineapple.
“Greta, he didn’t die in my office. He died at the UCLA Medical Center. Of as yet unknown causes.”
“Well, I heard he was poisoned by your coffee.”
“And where did you hear that absurd story?”
“A little bird told me.”
“What was the bird’s name?”
“I’m sorry, I was told in confidence, and unlike some people, I do keep my confidences.”
I knew she was referring to her suspicion that I was the one who, during my first year at the law school, had leaked to the UCLA student newspaper, the Daily Bruin , that she was moonlighting more or less full-time with a downtown law firm, pulling in at least two times her law-school salary. She had apparently assumed I was the paper’s source because I had just arrived from a downtown law firm, albeit a different one.
“Greta, I didn’t poison anyone.”
“I didn’t say you did, dear. I said he was poisoned by your coffee. Passive voice. Guilty conscience?” She grinned, exposing brilliant white
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