Read The Clinic for Free Online Page B

bell rang.
    I went to the front, looked through the peephole, saw Milo’s big face, and opened the door. His unmarked was parked crookedly behind Robin’s pickup. From the rear came the buzz of a power saw, then Spike’shelp-I’m-choking bark.
    “Yo, pooch.” He looked at his Timex. “How’s that for time? Five minutes from campus.”
    “You really should set a better example.”
    Grinning, he wiped his feet on the mat and stomped in. The new Persian rug was soft, with a silky sheen, and I supposed I liked it just fine. None of my art had come through the fire and the walls were bare as fresh notepaper.
    Old house or new, the kitchen remained Milo’s magnet. As he continued toward it, light shot in from above and bleached him. Giant snowman.
    By the time I got there, he had the sandwich out with a carton of milk and was sitting at the table.
    He ate it in three bites.
    “Want another?”
    “No thanks—yeah, why not.” Raising the carton to his lips, he drained it, then patted his gut.
    This month he was cutting back on alcohol and his weight had dropped a bit, maybe to 240.
    Most of it saddled his middle and swelled his face. The long legs that stretched him to six-three weren’t particularly thin, but the contrast made them seem that way.
    He wore a pale green blazer over a white shirt and black tie, brown pants and tan suede desert boots. He’d shaved closely except for a small gray patch behind his left ear, and the lumps on his face stood out like unfinished clay modeling. Static made his hair dance.
    As I prepared a second sandwich he began pulling papers out of his briefcase.
    “Spoils of the hunt: potential enemies list.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Nixon had nothing over Professor Devane.”
    I brought him the food.
    “Delicious,” he said, chomping. “Where do you get the meat?”
    “At the supermarket.”
    “You do the shopping, now? Hey, you can run for president. Or do you and the little lady take turns?”
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    “The little lady,” I said. “Care to call her that to her face?”
    He laughed. “Actually, this case has gotten me thinking. Used to consider myself excluded from the whole gender-bender thing but the truth is, all of us with Y chromosomes were brought up as little savages, weren’t we? Anyway, the dean turned out to be fun. Nice and squirrelly when I finally got in to see him. Which wasn’t easy til I started flashing the badge and talking media exposure of the conduct committee. Then all of a sudden I’m ushered into the sanctum sanctorum and he’s offering me coffee, shaking my hand. Telling me there’s no reason to bring up the committee, it was“inconsequential.’ Not to mention“provisional’ and“of short duration.’
    The whole thing was disbanded because of “constitutional and free-speech concerns.’ ”
    He pulled a folder out of his briefcase. “Luckily, he’s assuming I know more than I did. So I bluff, say I’ve heard differently around campus. He says no way, it’s a dead issue. I say Professor Devane’s dead, too. Why don’t you just start from the beginning, sir. Which he does.”
    He shook the carton. “Any more milk?”
    I got him some and he gulped and wiped his lip.
    “You were right about it being a sexual-harassment thing. But not between students and faculty.
    Between students and students. Professor Devane’s idea. They heard three cases, all girls who’d taken her class on sex-roles and complained to her. Devane didn’t go through official channels, just winged it. Notifying the complainants and the accused, setting up a little tribunal.”
    “The students had no idea it was unofficial?”
    “No, says the dean. Really ethical, huh?”
    “Oh boy,” I said. “Constitutional and free-speech concerns—more like financial concerns, as in lawsuit.”
    “He wouldn’t admit that, but that’s the picture I got. Then he tells me the committee couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder but when I