Professor Barnes, clearly stressed out, a little disheveled, and a lot defensive, quickly started trying to explain. “Listen, I’m a libertarian. I hate Big Brother. But I suspected someone on the janitorial staff was—”
The chair interrupted. “Sheryl, you don’t have to explain yourself. Not to her.” The chair then handed me a photo, clearly a freeze-frame printout of an image caught on Sheryl Barnes’s office camera. It was grainy. The man in the photo was covered top to bottom in black sweats and a black ski mask. But even then, I could make out the musculature, the definition of the broad shoulders, the height, the stance. I knew exactly who this man was. And it then dawned on me why I was in a meeting with the dean and two history department professors, none of whom I had ever met before.
As I looked at the picture and concentrated on relaxing my face and body, not allowing myself to give anything away until I decided what I wanted to give away, the dean spoke about the gravity of this offense. Not only was it cheating, it was trespassing and breaking and entering.
I said, “I understand. But why am I here?”
The dean leaned back. Professor Barnes leaned forward. And squeaked out, “You’re here because the only man that fits this guy’s height and build that would benefit from seeing the Eurasian Encounters final before it was given is Roman Miller.”
Ah, I thought. These people were not so dumb. They were professors at Yale, after all. They too knew exactly who the guy in the video was. So why did they need me?
I hadn’t spoken to Roman in months. I had heard through the grapevine that he scored a 175 out of 180 on his LSAT. He had been accepted into Yale Law School, of course, and was well on his way to becoming exactly what he always wanted to become.
As I stared at the photo, unsure where else to safely look, I realized that now Roman’s whole future hung in the balance. His belief that information should be taken if available was not serving him so well in this instance. I was sure he would have done just fine taking the test the fair way, but I understood him. His desire not to waste time with blanks and maybes, his need for guaranteed success, when the correct answers were simply waiting in a desk drawer, took precedence over good judgment. And now breaking the rules was catching up with him. If he got expelled from Yale undergrad, he wouldn’t get his degree, his acceptance to law school would be overturned, his record would be forever compromised, and he would be nowhere.
I had learned in my many psychology classes that silence is often the thing that makes people most uncomfortable. The majority of us would rather be yelled at than ignored. So I decided to remain silent, and let one of the three adults around me break first and tell me more.
After a few awkward moments, Professor Barnes filled in the blanks. Roman had already been accused and brought in for questioning earlier that morning. He agreed the man on the video could have been him, but it wasn’t. He proposed that maybe another student who would be taking the final hired someone outside of Yale to break in? Someone who coincidentally had his same build? Or maybe it was a prank pulled by someone outside the history department altogether? Maybe a student knew there was a camera in there all along and did this to prove some sort of point about privacy on campus? Roman had a lot of theories. And all the professors had was circumstantial evidence. But I knew him well enough to know that beneath his bluster that I was hearing about, he was gravely worried that the video was compelling enough to destroy the future he so desperately wanted. So Roman created one last ruse that would irrevocably clear his name of this dastardly crime. He had an alibi.
It was then that the dean spoke up again. He looked right at me. Not taking his eyes off my eyes. Summoning his thirty-odd years of experience dealing with college students and their lies in order to suss out the truth of this matter. The dean said, “Roman Miller claims that he was with you last night. Something about an art project? Therefore he couldn’t possibly be the one on the video. And so, Ms. Simon, we’ve brought you in here to ask, is this true?”
And there it was. Roman had used me as his alibi. He was probably sequestered in some office, unable to warn me that when backed into a corner he chose to put his life in my hands. He believed that even though he had betrayed my trust by ratting me out to Melody, our bond was so strong that I would lie for him, to preserve his future. He picked me above any other friend because by lying for him I was putting my own future in jeopardy. And who else would even consider doing such a thing? Who else loved him that much?
He had a lot of nerve. He once said when we first met that I had balls, but he had balls. How dare he put me in this position? How dare he use me in this way? Especially after breaking my friendship heart.
The dean then said, “Well? Were you with him last night?”
This specific mentioning of an art project could only mean one thing. The dean had cleverly left it vague, but I knew Roman must have wanted me to tell the story of coming over and hanging out while he sat around naked to make sure he didn’t get an erection in preparation for him posing nude. A story so specific and preposterous it couldn’t be a lie. All I had to do was say this happened last night instead of two years ago. My stellar record at Yale plus this outlandish story would exonerate Roman. The dean, the chair, and Professor Barnes all waited for me to answer as I contemplated my two options. I could ruin Roman, or I could save him.
CHAPTER 14
CAT
There was a loud, quick knock on the interrogation room door. It startled me and I jerked a tiny bit, rattling my flimsy metal chair. This seemed to please Detective Jackson. “Come in,” he said toward the still-closed door. A stout twenty-something man with his arm in a sling popped his head in. He ignored me and only spoke to the detective. “There’s a call for you. He says it’s important.” I assumed this messenger was on some sort of desk duty because of his injury. Based on his build and his tan lines, I would guess he did not hurt himself in the line of duty but on a wakeboard. I was not in a position to ask him. Detective Jackson now seemed annoyed by the interruption.
“Well, who is it?”
“A Dr. Hamilton. He says you called him.”
Once the man said that name, I knew this was not an unplanned interruption. This was a clumsy attempt to put me even more on tilt. And it worked. Why did the detective know who my veterinarian was? Why was he talking to him? How much did he already know about my life?