“It was a prestigious position with one of the leading scholars of East Asian history in the country.”
“We were told you filed a complaint against your dad with the Office for Conflict Resolution. What was that about?”
“That was about him treating me like dirt in my capacity as his assistant.”
“I’m getting the impression you didn’t get along with your dad,” Kovac said dryly. “Did you really think it would be any different working with him? In my personal experience, if people are assholes, they’re assholes all day long. Or did you think having the subject in common might soften him? Was that where your interest came from? You wanted something in common to share with him?”
Now her eyes filled with tears and her face went red from trying to hold them back. She sprang up from the couch and ran into the adjacent bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Kovac looked at Sato.
“Obviously Diana has a difficult relationship with her father. It’s a long story.”
Kovac sat back and spread his hands. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
The professor sighed, not happy to be put on the spot.
“Diana has issues.”
“Such as?”
He glanced at the bedroom door as if he thought she might be listening on the other side. The muffled sound of her sobs filled the silence.
“Diana was adopted when she was four or five. She has abandonment issues. She’s insecure. An insecure girl shouldn’t have Lucien Chamberlain for a father. Life revolves around him, his needs, his career. Children have to have their needs met, too.”
“She’s not a child anymore.”
“We’re all children with our parents, aren’t we?” Sato asked. “She went through a rebellious stage: drugs, drinking, dropped out of school, in and out of rehab. When she came out of that, she decided to start fresh, finish school, and try to mend her relationship with her father.
“She’s a very bright girl,” he continued. “Lucien could appreciate that when she applied herself within his rigid construct of how students should learn. But not every student responds to the traditional methods.”
“He rejected her?” Taylor asked.
“Nothing as simple as that. Rejection implies defeat. Lucien would rather make a student quit than admit he needed to change his methods.” Sato shrugged. “He was who he was, and she is who she is. The two of them working together was a train wreck waiting to happen.”
“He must have been angry when she filed the complaint against him,” Taylor said.
“He was livid. He believed she timed it to sabotage his bid for the promotion to head of East Asian studies.”
“Didn’t she?”
Sato looked again at the closed bedroom door. “Probably.”
“And what’s your role in this family drama?” Kovac asked. “Is she sleeping with you to piss off her old man? Or are you sleeping with her to piss off your colleague?”
“I’m just a friend, Detective,” he said, his expression carefully neutral. “I’m just a shoulder to cry on.”
“You’re not sleeping with her?”
“No,” he said, but he couldn’t quite hold eye contact as he said it.
Liar, liar.
“She seems very . . . comfortable with you,” Taylor said.
“I’ve known Diana for five years. I could see from the start the struggle she was having with her father, and I could understand it, too. My own father is controlling and manipulative. We have that in common. And I’ve had my own struggles with Lucien.”
“What kind of struggles?” Kovac asked.
“I’m from a more modern school of teaching. I believe in challenging old ways and old thoughts. Lucien found me threatening because I pull students out of his dull rut and let them open their eyes.”
“Were you a threat to him?”
“Not in the way you mean. Not physically.”
“But professionally and as a parental figure,” Taylor said.
“I wasn’t trying to steal Diana away from him—as a teacher or a father. I was trying to help her. We commiserate over how difficult her father is—was, and let her blow off some of the anger and frustration she feels,” Sato explained. “I appreciate Diana’s spirit. She needs someone to encourage her to reach her full potential, not criticize and belittle her, or try to make her live in a cage inside her own mind.”
“So you’ve become special friends with the troubled daughter of your biggest professional rival,” Kovac said. “How’d that go over with her father?”
“Lucien didn’t know. He would have misconstrued the relationship.”
“And gotten your ass fired?” Kovac asked. “I have to think the university frowns on professors and students being special friends.”
“I wouldn’t get fired,” Sato said with confidence, like he had someone on the inside greasing the wheels for him.
“But you wouldn’t get that promotion, either, would you?” Kovac asked. “If Lucien Chamberlain made some claim of impropriety against you, whether or not you were guilty, it wouldn’t look good, would it?”
Sato looked at him as the implication sank in, his dark eyes steady. “I wouldn’t kill for it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“When did you last see Professor Chamberlain?” Taylor asked.