Free Fixer by Gene Doucette Page B

sour-looking woman whose desk was so clean it was fair to wonder whether she actually used the room.
    Beside her was a short man, slightly pudgy and balding, dressed in formal clothing that looked like it last fit him comfortably a decade ago.
    “Archibald Calvin?” Maggie asked, standing.
    “Yes,” he said, shuffling into the room. The administrator—Maggie thought her name might be Lacey, but she couldn’t be positive—shut the door behind him. 
    Professor Calvin extended his hand to shake Maggie’s over the desk, and as they shook he looked at her for apparently the first time. He looked confused.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, “Agent Trent, is it?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Have we met before?”
    Maggie took her hand back with a slight smile at what in a younger man would have definitely been a line, but in this older scholar sounded more like genuine befuddlement. “I don’t think we have, Professor. I’m sure I would have remembered.”
    “You weren’t at Michael’s service.”
    “I wasn’t, no.”
    “Oh yes; it wasn’t a question. I mean to say you weren’t there, period. Or I would have remembered you.”
    Maggie smiled in spite of herself. Maybe the old man was hitting on her. “I just had a few questions about Dr. Offey and the work he was doing here. How well did you know him?”
    “Oh, very well. For many years.”
    “And do you know what he was working on most recently?”
    Calvin smiled. “Agent . . . do I call you Agent? Or ma’am?”
    “Agent is fine.”
    “Agent, Michael was an experimental physicist of the highest caliber. He worked with the brightest minds in the world, and those minds are fertile and highly distinctive. It would be fair to say that Michael never worked on only one thing in his entire life. Now, if you’re asking whether any of those things could have gotten him killed, of course not. That’s absurd.”
    Maggie sighed. She’d heard a version of the same speech a dozen times. “Maybe you can tell me if you were working on anything in particular with him?” she asked.
    “I actually don’t think I can.”
    “Why not?” she snapped. “State secrets? I’ve been hearing this all day.”
    He smiled gently. “It’s not like that, Agent. You are facing two obstacles. One, everyone here believes they’re racing to prove something before someone else does, and so there is an active fear that an idea will be stolen and employed elsewhere. Two, these ideas are so ephemeral and specialized that unless you are personally schooled in advanced physics you would neither understand nor appreciate their significance. And to reiterate, these are not ideas that get people killed. May I ask you a question?”
    “Please.”
    “I’ve said twice now that Michael was killed, and you haven’t corrected me. As I understood it, a bookcase fell on him when he was alone in his study. Clearly, if the FBI is speaking to all of his associates, there’s more involved than simply an unfortunate display of gravity. But murder?”
    “There’s reason to believe his death was intended by someone,” she said delicately.
    “While alone in a locked office,” Calvin reiterated.
    Maggie shrugged. “At this point, Professor, I’m willing to entertain any theories up to and including ghosts.”
    He smiled. “Well, I can assure you I was not working on murderous apparitions with Michael, and I would be very surprised if anyone else here was.”
    “All right. Can I contact you again if I have more questions?” 
    “Of course,” he said, standing. “Although it would be best if you came to my home rather than meeting me here. I don’t actually keep an office on campus any longer. My health is not what it used to be.”
    They shook hands. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said genuinely. She decided she liked Professor Calvin. He was refreshingly candid compared to the rest and not half as condescending.
    “It’s old age, mostly,” he said. “But I speak without