In the Shadow of Gotham - By Stefanie Pintoff Page 0,44
though it was my job to do so.
He shook his head sadly. “She was young enough to be my daughter, and don’t I know it full well. But what a mind! The lass was brilliant, and the conversations we had utterly changed the way I approached my work. She was always coming up with new problems and methods for solving them. My last article—why, I couldn’t have written it without her.” He looked at us mournfully. “I know it sounds as though I’m talking of my work, but what I’m really saying to you is—that she became necessary to me. To be with her was as simple and natural as breathing. Our habits of mind were so at home with one another, it was as though our age difference were nothing.”
“But the academic world wouldn’t have seen it that way,” I gently reminded him. “Is that why you were so secretive?”
“Bunch of benighted hypocrites,” he said, his blue eyes glistening with restrained tears. “We kept our relationship secret at my insistence. If she wanted to make a reputation in her own right, she needed to do so before we married. The lass had enough problems being taken seriously; people would have said I’d given her my research and ideas. Absolutely preposterous. It was just a matter of time before she’d have outshone me.”
“And this did not bother you?” I asked. Now that I’d met him, I truly could not envision the Scottish professor having killed Sarah Wingate. But the question of motivation had to be asked.
“Bah,” he said. “I’m fifty-five and will turn fifty-six come January.” Drawing himself up proudly, he continued. “I am a professor emeritus at what is arguably the preeminent department of mathematics in the world. I’ve published more books and articles than I can keep count of.” He leaned forward. “What I’m saying to you is that my competitive days of needing to be the best and the brightest, the youngest man ever put up for tenure, are over. What I want . . .” He paused a moment and rephrased himself. “What I wanted was to be happy. Sarah made me happy. And seeing her do well made me proud.” His last comment was emphatic.
“What about the other rivalries that must have confronted Sarah?” I asked. “Was there anyone—within the mathematics field or otherwise—who struck you as having particular jealousy or animosity toward her?”
But his answer was similar to what we had heard before. There were many who resented her success and challenged her at every turn. But in his view, he recalled no resentment so remarkable as to lend a suspicion of murder.
I was asking all the conventional questions, but given that the vicious circumstances of her murder pointed to Michael Fromley, my mind kept returning to whether Sarah had ever crossed paths with him. Impulsively, I pulled the photograph out of my wallet and handed it to Angus. “Have you ever seen this man?”
He shook his head. “Never. Why? Did he know Sarah?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” I said, and promptly changed the subject. “How often did you see Sarah?”
“Usually twice a month,” he replied. “She came to me; it was easier, as there was nothing to explain to her family, and my mother, who lives with me, served as a chaperone.” His Scottish burr was evident with each r he pronounced.
“Why didn’t she tell her family?” Alistair asked. “We understand why you would keep it from your colleagues, but obviously your own family knew. Why not Sarah’s?”
“Further disapproval would be my guess,” he said. “In their view, it was bad enough she pursued graduate work at all. It would have been even worse to learn that while doing so, she became involved with me. You see, I’m an old man with no social standing. And they wanted her to marry a young man from a well-connected family. They had money, to be sure. But they didn’t have enough of the right friends or connections, as they saw it. Of course,” he added, “Sarah was interested in none of that.”
“Is there anything else we should discuss?” Alistair asked, and while the question ostensibly was for Angus, I suspected Alistair had implicitly directed it toward me. After Angus replied no, I answered as well.
“I keep trying to think of why and how Michael Fromley came to target Sarah. I simply cannot see it as a random whim. The murder was well planned and smoothly executed using knowledge of the Wingate family’s habits