“It’s all right. We’re interested in any information that might be relevant.”
Nell looked at Lieutenant Cabe again, and the realization hit her all of a sudden, a cold knife through the fog of her shock.
Oh.
Was that why she was there? Because the police were considering her father’s death suspicious?
She could hardly fathom it. This was academia, for crying out loud. Rivals wrote counterarguments and published rebuttal papers. They didn’t kill.
“Do you think there was foul play?” she asked.
Swann gasped. “You mean because of the angle of the questions?”
“And the mess,” she said.
“Is Dr. Young ordinarily very tidy?” Lieutenant Cabe asked, his gaze landing on each pile of papers with much more focus now.
“Yes,” Nell said, at the same time that Swann said, “No.”
“Which is it?” Lieutenant Cabe asked.
Swann sighed. “I’m sorry, my dear. I don’t mean to contradict you. He really was much tidier, back when you were here,” he said to her, and then looked at Lieutenant Cabe. “But these last few years, he became less and less so. He was working on something lately that took all of his time.” He turned to Nell again. “You remember how he used to get with his big projects. Distracted, secretive. Obsessive.”
“Consumed,” she replied, disdainful. At least that hadn’t changed about him, even if his organizational habits had.
“We think it’s unlikely there was foul play,” Lieutenant Cabe continued, apparently mollified. “He wasn’t that young, and other than the mess here, which it sounds like he may have created himself, there’s no suspicious evidence. And he was clearly alone last night. The guard said he was the only employee still in the building after eleven p.m. Everyone else had checked out, and the front doors were locked. We just have to cover every possibility, even if it’s a formality. Part of the job.”
“Dr. Young was outspoken,” Swann offered diplomatically. “He was very passionate about his work, and that sometimes got him into arguments with other researchers, or even the board. But these arguments, they were academic. Theory and dissection of sources, debates over paper types and ink composition and salt levels from various oceans. Reputation means a lot in this field, but I can’t imagine someone would actually hurt him over it.”
Nell couldn’t really either, even given what he’d done to her career. If anyone had a reason to murder him, it would have been her, and her father had still been blustering around the department and hogging the archives until just last night. The whole thing was unbelievable.
But then seeing his office like this, his things, even if Swann had said he’d become less tidy . . .
“Ma’am?”
“I just . . .” Nell sighed. Despite everything—the chasm between them, the damage they’d both done to each other—tears were threatening. She pinched the bridge of her nose to stop them from falling.
“Why don’t we give her a minute?” Swann asked Lieutenant Cabe, who said he’d go check with his partner and circle back. “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked once they were alone.
“Yes,” she said. She didn’t know.
Swann scooted closer to her, using his slim frame to block her view of the rest of the room, to give her a little privacy.
“I’m sorry, Swann,” she said, looking down. “It was wrong of me to avoid you for so long. And especially after everything you did to try to help, in the beginning.” She put a hand up to stop his protests. “I know about all the calls you made, the interviews you tried to get me at smaller branches, the old colleagues you begged—”