The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6) Read Online Free PDF Page B

there?”
    Ryan was staring at his screen. “She drives fast.
Three citations in the last four years.” He was silent as he studied the screen
a little bit more. “And six misdemeanors: four disorderly conducts and two
failures to disperse.”
    “Really? What pushes her buttons?”
    “I’d say social justice. She was charged with
‘using obscene, threatening, or abusive language’ from the visitor’s gallery at
the state house during a debate on LGBT rights, and she joined a demonstration
that blocked the entrance to the parking lot during a session on migrant workers’
rights. She disrupted a hearing about leaseholder’s rights to stop certain
kinds of oil drilling on their property. She also didn’t like the law against
making secret videos about animal abuse on cattle ranches and dairy farms.”
    “And the failures to disperse?”
    “Apparently she’d handcuff herself to cars,
fences, cops, whatever.”
    “Pretty tame stuff.”
    “Not the kind of thing that’ll get you killed,”
Ryan said. “Even in Montana.”
    “Can you get her CV?”
    Ryan gave me a playful snort of derision and hit a
few keys. “Virginia Rinaldi was the Evelyn Cornay Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Central Montana State University, the
first named professor in the College of Social Sciences. Came here four years
ago. Her PhD was from Cal-Berkeley, fifteen years ago. Wow. Six books.
Feminism, social justice, immigrant rights. The Internet and the alienation of
Gen Y students. And about fifty articles.”
    “So what’d she doing out here on the frozen plains?”
    “I’d say the Distinguished Professorship has
something to do with it. Salary, research assistants, not that much teaching.” Ryan’s
father is a professor. He knows how to read professors’ CVs.
    “So she can afford all those hundred-dollar disorderlies ,” I said.
    “At least a thousand of them a year.”
    “You’re shittin ’ me. A
hundred K a year?”
    “More likely in the neighborhood of one-fifty,”
Ryan said.
    “Nice neighborhood.” I checked my watch: 8:16. “How
about this for a plan? Robin’s going out to the vic’s house. She’ll be there a couple of hours, at least. Maybe she can figure out
where Virginia’s son lives—and who the woman is. Meantime, we’ll head over to
campus, see what we can learn about Virginia Rinaldi.”
    “Let me set up the appointments on campus.”
    “I’ll be right back.” I headed back to the break
room to grab some calories. By the time I returned, Ryan was ready.
    “We’re going to meet with the provost, Audrey
Miller, in ten minutes. Next up is Daryl Sorenson, the chair of the sociology
department.”
    As I drove us over to campus under crisp,
cloudless skies, Ryan phoned Robin and asked her to bring in Virginia Rinaldi’s
laptop and explained what we wanted to know about her son and the woman. I
parked the Charger in a metered spot behind the Administration Building, which
housed the provost’s office.
    We approached the big glass doors with the names
of the president and the provost. “We worked with Audrey Miller before?”
    “Yep. On the Austin Sulenka case last year. The
grad student?”
    It came back to me. “She gave us the envelope with
the phony reference letters, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    “What was the professor’s name again?”
    “Suzannah Montgomery.”
    Turns out Suzannah Montgomery was screwing the
grad student but didn’t kill him. Audrey Miller used the investigation to fire
Suzannah Montgomery. It was a complicated and nasty case.
    The provost’s assistant escorted us back to Audrey
Miller’s office. The provost, a stocky sixty-something woman with a dark
complexion and liver spots ringing her eyes, stood there, her hands on her
hips, as if she didn’t want to invite us in, didn’t want this to be how she
started her day. Her expression grim, she nodded, turned, and walked into her
big office. It was filled by a massive walnut desk, a round table that