“It’s not on his phone, and no one testifies they saw him do it. Even you, Richard; what did you see? Nothing, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, a hunch isn’t enough.”
Something rises in Richard’s throat. Outrage, like some toxic gall. He knows in his gut that it’s Exley. It’s screaming at him. Why can’t this guy see it?
Why won’t he do something?
“This is just wrong,” Richard can’t help saying.
A sharp laugh escapes from Dean Hunt. “Which part?” he asks. “The fact that whoever has been bullying Jenny will get away with it, or the fact that your peers’ first instinct is to protect themselves?”
“All of it,” Richard says. “It sucks. The whole thing.”
Dean Hunt tilts back in his chair. His hands form this little triangle, the fingertips pressed together, as he regards Richard. “You know, I’m new to investigating sexual misconduct cases,” he begins. “For years I was handling honor code violations. Mostly cheating and plagiarism.
“Lately, I’ve been reminded of a plagiarism case against a young man. This was before your time; he’s long gone from MacCallum. A professor accused him of copying eight paragraphs from a well--known history textbook and including them, without attribution, in a term paper. The charge was solid: he had lifted them, like they were segments of pie, and distributed them throughout his paper. And thought no one would notice.” Dean Hunt’s eyes trail to the empty seat next to Richard. As if the young man in question were sitting there still.
“I’ll never forget what he said when he came in here. He was quite pleasant. While conceding that ‘mistakes were made,’ he insisted the professor was wrong. That it wasn’t plagiarism. ‘No?’ I said. ‘Then what is it?’
“‘It’s exhaustion,’ he explained. You see, when he used online sources, he created a document filled with notes, copied and pasted from various texts, which he could easily refer to later. He claimed he got so tired, he couldn’t keep straight which were the paragraphs he wrote, which were simply notes, and which required footnotes.
“‘Remind me next time,’ he joked, ‘to stay the hell away from the Adderall.’ ”
“Oh no. He didn’t,” Richard says.
“Oh yes. He did. Then he generously offered to accept a lower grade in exchange for ‘redoing’ the citations on his paper. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him MacCallum did not offer grades lower than F, and that ‘redoing’ implied something had been done in the first place. Which, I assured him, it had not.”
Dean Hunt takes off his little wire--framed glasses and carefully wipes the lenses with a cloth he produces from a desk drawer.
“Culpability was not part of this young man’s worldview. It never occurred to him that he did anything wrong. Or that he was even capable of doing something wrong. And when I got it through his head that he had most definitely screwed up, he was flabbergasted that there was no going back and fixing it. Stunned that there was no getting around the repercussions of his actions.”
“What happened to him?” Richard asks.
“He was suspended for a semester, but then decided to transfer,” Dean Hunt says. “He ultimately graduated from his father’s alma mater.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes. Richard doesn’t know if he’s expected to say anything. He’s not sure he gets the point of this story.
“I haven’t thought of that young man for a while,” Dean Hunt finally continues. “But the underlying problem in both cases is the same.” He looks at Richard, as if waiting to see how he’ll react. When Richard doesn’t comment, the dean sighs.
“I thank you, Richard, for coming in today. But you haven’t given me anything I can use.”
“Jordan had sex with Jenny,” he blurts out, surprising himself. He hadn’t planned to reveal this.
Dean Hunt’s eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“He told me,” Richard admits. “A few days after it happened. We were having beers and he was bragging about hooking up with some freshman at the Conundrum party.”
“Did anyone else hear this?”
“We were alone. But I think he also told Exley. His uncle said Jordan had blabbed to two people.”
Dean Hunt rises from his chair and walks over to the window. He stares out for a long minute, not speaking. When he turns, deep lines furrow his forehead. He doesn’t look happy.
“His uncle. You mean the lawyer who’s been accompanying him since you ‘resigned’ as his advisor?”
Richard is surprised again. He wasn’t aware that Uncle Bruce was still skulking around.
“Bruce Bockus is his uncle. Is that who you’re talking about?”
He hears Dean Hunt breathe heavily. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“You didn’t ask,” Richard replies. He can hear how lame this sounds.
But instead of looking angry, Dean Hunt seems taken aback.
“You’re right,” he concedes. “I didn’t.” He returns to his window, arms wrapped tightly across his chest. “Shame on me,” he says to the glass.
A long silence follows.