"I suppose you've guessed by now that Jen isn't a Bailey Howard devotee."
"Because of the honors board thing. Yeah, Bailey brought me up to speed about that."
"Well, Jen might not be one of my favorite people, but I can't blame her for feeling the way she does."
It was my turn to be surprised. "You don't think she should have been called on the carpet for cheating?"
"I'm not talking about the cheating allegations. If she did cheat, she deserved the punishment she got. I'm talking about the other issue."
Right. The other issue. "What other issue?"
She spent all of a nanosecond wrestling with the principles of ethics and confidentiality before filling me in. "This is Jen's take on the matter, not mine, okay? But according to Jen, Dori had something that Bailey wanted. Unfortunately, Bailey didn't have the patience to wait to come by it honestly, so she facilitated a way to acquire it more quickly. In the end, Bailey wins the ultimate prize, and Dori -- Poor Dori gets a one-way ticket to the great beyond."
I gave myself a mental V-8 Juice smack on the forehead. Oh, my God! Was she talking about the journal? Had Bailey wanted Griffin Ring's journal? "But...but...Bailey needed Professor Smoker to sign off on her dissertation. Why would she jeopardize all those years of study by killing him before she had her degree in hand? I mean, for all she knew, the journal could have been worthless. And then what's she left with? Absolutely nothing!"
Shelly frowned. "Journal? I'm not talking about a journal."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"She wanted his job!" Shelly looked shocked that I hadn't figured it out for myself. "She wanted to be at his desk, in his office, at that university. It was her main goal in life, or weren't you around her long enough to pick up on it?"
Why was this growing more confusing? I shook my head. "How can an unofficial Ph.D. who's completely green behind the ears expect to end up in the chair vacated by the world's leading expert on Captain James Cook? Come on. Talk about unrealistic expectations. That doesn't happen."
"Oh, doesn't it?" She flashed a smug smile. "Budget cuts. The administration would have to hire an assistant professor to replace Dori, because with all the belt-tightening that's going on, they wouldn't have the funds to hire a full professor. And Bailey has made quite the name for herself on the Captain Cook front, so she'd probably be a shoo-in, especially with her degree so near completion. The campus paper called her the 'best and the brightest' graduate student in the history department. The adjective they failed to include was 'most ambitious.'"
As the faint whir of rotor blades echoed in the distance, Shelly looked up and gestured toward a dark speck in the sky. "Our rescue copter. 'Bout time."
As the chopper approached and circled overhead, I had a numbing thought.
If what Shelly implied was true, I might have sent my little group off today in the company of a cold-blooded killer.
Chapter 10
"Say 'ah,' " the emergency room doctor instructed, tongue depressor in hand. He looked pure Hawaiian and could have been the poster child for Coppertone tans, BioSilk hair care products, and Rembrandt tooth-whitening systems. Back home the doctors were walking advertisements for Rogaine, Dentu-Grip, and Dr. Scholl's Gel Insoles. They weren't so easy on the eyes, but their lack of movie star looks was a whole lot less intimidating.
"There's nothing wrong with my throat," I objected impatiently, my legs dangling over the edge of the examining table. "Look, my cruise ship leaves port in less than an hour, and if I'm not on it, I'll have to find my own way to Maui. They make that very clear in our travel documents. It's our responsibility to return to the ship on time, and if we're not aboard when the gangplank goes up, it's adios muchachos."
"Aloha malihini," Dr. Akita corrected. "When in Rome." He waggled his tongue depressor again, unmoved by my appeal. I finally gave in and opened wide.
"Ahhhh."
He clicked on his Penlite. "You're right. There's nothing wrong with your throat." He pitched the wooden depressor and returned his Penlite to the pocket of his lab coat.
"My being here is a waste of your valuable time," I pressed on.
"Your helicopter crashed. It's protocol."
"It didn't crash, it was more like a hard landing. My traveling companion didn't even break a nail."
"Have you seen the edema over your eye?"
"Old injury. I did that yesterday."
He went through the mandatory