Chương 11
“That was fast.”
“I was already on my way here.”
“Because of my notebook?”
“Because campus police informed us potentially confidential research materials had been removed from a student’s possession during an alleged domestic assault.”
Her phrasing was so exact it almost had physical edges.
Hale stepped aside.
Alvarez entered.
Patel remained near the door.
I showed Alvarez the suspension email.
She read it without comment.
Then she asked, “Did you request this?”
“No.”
“Did your adviser?”
“No,” Hale said.
“Your department chair?”
“No.”
“Research compliance?”
“Not that I know of.”
Alvarez took out her phone.
“I need ten minutes.”
She left the office.
Patel followed.
The silence after them felt unnatural.
I sat down.
Hale offered me a cracker from the packet she had abandoned.
“No.”
“You should eat.”
“I ate the muffin.”
“That was hours ago.”
“It was ninety minutes ago.”
“You’re arguing about ninety minutes.”
“It matters.”
She pushed the crackers toward me anyway.
I took one just to stop the conversation.
It tasted like cardboard dust.
My phone filled with messages while we waited.
Ben sent congratulations with four exclamation points.
A woman from my cohort wrote that she had heard there was “some weird security thing” and hoped I was okay.
The department administrator asked for my preferred mailing address for graduation paperwork.
Then came a message from Julian.
I did not open it.
Another arrived.
Then another.
The preview of the third said only, You have no idea what they will do to you.
My hand went cold.
I showed Hale.
“Don’t respond.”
“I know.”
I forwarded the messages to Patel.
A fourth came in.
Ask your adviser what happened in 2019.
Hale saw it over my shoulder.
Her face changed so slightly I might have missed it if I had not spent years watching her during committee meetings.
“What happened in 2019?”
“Plenty of things.”
“Hale.”
She looked away.
“Do not start.”
“He told me to ask you.”
“Julian says many things.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
She walked to the window and moved the blind aside with two fingers.
Outside, the courtyard had become crowded with students changing classes.
A man in a baseball cap was trying to balance a coffee on top of a stack of textbooks while answering his phone.
It fell.
He stared at the spreading coffee for several seconds as if personally betrayed by gravity.
Hale let the blind fall.
“There was an internal review.”
“Of what?”
“The partnership office.”
“Why?”
“Questions about contracting practices.”
“With the vendor?”
“One of several vendors.”
“Was Eleanor involved?”
“She had already retired.”
“In 2019?”
“Yes.”
“That matches the credential note.”
Hale said nothing.
“What happened in the review?”
“It never became public.”
“That doesn’t mean nothing happened.”
“No.”
“Did you testify?”
Her eyes came back to mine.
There it was.
A silence too deliberate to be accidental.
“You did.”
“I answered questions.”
“About what?”
“A grant.”
“What grant?”
“One involving vendor-supported infrastructure.”
“My lab?”
“No.”
“Your lab?”
“Yes.”
The answer rearranged my memory of old conversations.
Hale occasionally became strangely dismissive whenever administrative partnerships came up.
I had assumed she disliked bureaucracy.
Apparently bureaucracy had once reached back.
“What were they asking you?”
“Whether anyone pressured me to alter procurement language.”
“Who?”
“I was not told who they were investigating.”
“Did anyone pressure you?”
“Yes.”
The word landed quietly.
“Who?”
“Martin Voss.”
I stared at her.
Hale folded her arms.
“He wanted language that effectively locked the project into one vendor’s platform before the competitive process was complete.”
“Did you change it?”
“No.”
“And then?”
“My grant was delayed.”
“For how long?”
“Seven months.”
“That’s why you lost the funding cycle.”
Her mouth tightened.
I had heard the story before.
A major grant had been delayed by what Hale always called administrative stupidity, costing her a year and two postdoctoral hires.
She had never named anyone.
“Did Eleanor know?”
“I don’t know.”
“But she was procurement director.”
“Before that review.”
“Still.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever see E.M. attached to anything?”
“I don’t remember.”
I almost pushed harder.
Then I saw the way her thumb pressed into the side of her index finger.
A habit.
She did it when she was angry and trying not to show it.
“You’re scared this is connected.”
“I’m worried you are connecting it too quickly.”
“That’s different.”
“It needs to be.”
Alvarez returned before I could answer.
She did not sit.
“The access suspension is being reviewed.”
“Reviewed by whom?”
“My office and information security.”
“Can Voss suspend me?”
“He had authority to request a precautionary restriction on vendor-linked systems.”
“Then why am I locked out of laboratory storage?”
“He did not have authority to request that.”
Hale’s head lifted.
“Who added it?”
“We are determining that.”
“That sounds reassuring,” I said.
Alvarez ignored the sarcasm.
“Do you have research data stored outside university systems?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I hesitated.
Patel had returned behind her.
Alvarez noticed.
“You do not need to answer me right now if answering creates concerns about evidence or personal safety.”
“I have encrypted backups.”
“Do not alter them.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Do not upload anything else, rename anything, reorganize folders, or attempt to improve documentation.”
“That sounds absurd.”
“It will sound less absurd if someone later alleges you modified records after access was suspended.”
I stopped.
That had not occurred to me.
Alvarez continued.
“Preserve devices as they are.”
“My laptop too?”
“Yes.”
“I need it for dissertation revisions.”
“Make no changes until we clarify the scope.”
The irritation flashed out before I could stop it.
“So someone attacks me, destroys my drives, takes pages from my notebook, locks me out of my research, and now I’m the one who has to stop touching my own work.”
Alvarez did not flinch.
“Yes.”
The answer made me laugh once.
It was not funny.
“That is insane.”
“It is inconvenient and unfair.”
“Inconvenient.”
“I’m choosing words that won’t promise you outcomes I cannot guarantee.”
That shut me up.
May you like
She pulled a chair over.
“Dr. Mercer, your defense result is not under review.”
