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With her arm hair bristling a bit, she listened, heard nothing. She kicked off her flip-flops and walked barefoot through the kitchen, down a hallway to a stairway going up. Standing quietly, she could hear, from the second floor, the sounds of a couple making love.
In the light from the lamp in a corner, she saw a green leather purse sitting on a couch near the bottom of the stairs. She tiptoed over to it, picked it up, carried it into the kitchen. With the illumination from her telephone, she dug a wallet out of the purse, and extracted a California driver’s license and a Caltech student ID.
She put both on the kitchen counter and made two photos with her phone. That done, she put the cards back in the wallet, the wallet back in the purse, and the purse back on the couch. Upstairs, the lovemaking was getting noisier. She tiptoed back through the kitchen, out the door, and put on her flip-flops.
Letty walked aroundthe house, moving slowly in the dark, and then out to the street. Baxter had proven himself to be reliable with communications, and when she called, he picked her up from where she waited behind a thick-trunked coast live oak.
“Do any good?” he asked.
“Depends on your moral position,” Letty said.
“Moral position on what?”
“Blackmail,” Letty said. “I’ll have to go online and check Caltech’s attitude on professors having sex with students.”
“Uh-oh. Really? He’s banging a student?” Baxter asked.
“Not so much banging as making love to, which is why I might feel a little guilty about using it. Her driver’s license says she’s twenty-one, so she’s an adult. She should get to pick who she... you know.”
“Bangs.”
“Has sex with,” Letty said. “On the other hand, you have to consider the lopsided power equation...”
“Only if she’s a student of his. If she’s not a student of his, she’s bangable. In my opinion,” Baxter said. “I’m not a Title IX fanatic.”
“I’d suspected that,” Letty said. “We’ll have to see what Caltech says. Most universities ban that kind of thing. I’m saying, we go talk to him...”
“And he freaks out, pulls a gun and kills us.”
“You, maybe, not me,” Letty said. “After you’re dead, he and I discuss what he knows about Ordinary People and I get him to cough up some names. Or, I tell him, I’ll call Caltech’s HR department, and turn him in.”
“Brutal,” Baxter said. “If I were naturally mean, I’d tell you I like it. But I’m not that mean.”
“You don’t have to worry about it, because in this particular scenario, you’re dead,” Letty said.
On the way backto the La Rouchefort, Letty plugged their iPad into the truck’s swivel clip, and Googled “Caltech Sexual Conduct Guidelines.” A document popped up immediately and she read down to section 17.3.
17.3 Prohibition on Relationships between Employees and Undergraduates
This policy prohibits sexual or romantic relationships between an undergraduate student and a faculty member, postdoctoral scholar, or staff member. Any Responsible Employee who becomes aware of such a relationship is expected toreport it immediately to the Title IX Coordinator. The non-undergraduate party in the relationship will be held responsible for prohibited conduct violating this policy, regardless of whether a complaint is filed.
“We got him if we want him,” Letty said, shutting down the iPad.
“Makes me a little queasy, but if we’re really going to do this, he’d be the place to start,” Baxter said. “Better than hanging around in student bars, hoping for the best.”
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Letty said. “I want to keep you out of sight until we’ve got a better grip on what we’re doing.”
“Good with me. Say, isn’t blackmail against the law?” Baxter asked.
“You got Google,” Letty said. “Look it up.”
The La Rouchefortdidn’t have bedbugs, Letty thought, only because they’d been eaten by the cockroaches, one of which scuttled into the kitchen sink cabinet when they turned on the lights. The room stank of tobacco and alcohol and cleaning liquid, but did have two beds with clean sheets, along with a compact refrigerator, a coffeepot, and a small sink. An ice bucket sat next to the TV, with a Holiday Inn logo on the lid.
Baxter looked at it, then at Letty: “They steal their fuckin’ ice buckets?”
“Trying for a more classy presentation,” Letty said.
The wi-fi was acceptable, the bathtub wasn’t; the shower was merely annoying, providing a sprinkle rather than a torrent.
