Page 48 of Badlands

“Yeah. The punk.”

“What was the basis for that restraining order?”

“BecauseI came home from work one day and found him boning my wife. I did my best to crack his skull, but Molly got in the way and he took off. Fucker.”

“So you two had been having marital problems?” Corrie asked.

“That professor was the marital problem. He had thishippie-dippy charm, answered your questions with riddles of his own, all deep sounding and shit. Smelled like weed. Randy motherfucker, too—I wouldn’t be surprised if he was dipping his wick all over the damn place.”

Corrie looked down at her file. None of the trouble Curtis had gotten into after the divorce related to Molly—apparently, he’d left her alone. On the other hand, he had not been in prison five years ago when she walked into the desert. He had a motive as well for getting rid of Oskarbi.

“What was the state of your marriage before Dr. Oskarbi entered the picture?” she asked.

“She couldn’t get enough of me. I’m the kind of guy that attracts women—just like moths to a candle.”

Where they crackle and burn up, Corrie thought to herself.

“I figured once she finished her PhD, she’d start bringing in some serious dough. Even if she didn’t, her old lady was loaded.”

So Curtis was an easy rider on top of everything else. “You say you tried to break his skull,” she said. “Can you be more specific about what took place during the assault?”

Curtis thought for a moment—perhaps mentally computing the statute of limitations. “I got a couple of good ones in before Molly broke it up, gave the fucker some cracked ribs and a black eye.” He grinned.

Oskarbi had filed a restraining order—but he’d quickly dropped the assault charges. Why? As soon as she asked herself the question, Corrie knew the answer: he didn’t want word of his philandering to spread any farther than necessary.

“Did you ever see him again?” O’Hara asked, picking up on her line of thinking.

“No. Heard he went back to Mexico.” Curtis paused.

“You were not in jail when Molly died in the desert,” Corrie said slowly, looking at Curtis to gauge his reaction.

Curtis was silent for a moment. “Let me put it this way. I didn’t kill Molly. But if Ihad—well, you’d never have found her.” He eyed them each in turn. “Draw your own conclusions.”

And with that, he leaned back from the glass.

27

CORRIE ANDSHARPmade their way to the FO’s interrogation rooms. She had asked O’Hara to locate all of Oskarbi’s graduate students during the period before he went back to Mexico and then persuade the local ones to come in for questioning. It had to be voluntary, since Corrie didn’t have enough evidence to get subpoenas, but “voluntary” didn’t mean coercion might not be employed.

O’Hara turned out to be good at that. Of five who were local, he’d lined up three for questioning. Sharp had stayed out of that process, but once the witnesses were brought in, he became involved—pointing out to Corrie that she’d had very little experience handling interrogations, and that he was there to observe and only intervene if necessary.

Corrie had to admit she was green when it came to questioning witnesses—and, in these circumstances at least, was glad of having backup.

The interrogation rooms at the FO were on the first floor, bare and intimidating. Each had the usual one-way mirror, through which observers could watch and listen to the proceedings, andit was in one of these observation rooms that O’Hara, Corrie, and Sharp had gathered with their morning coffee to discuss the upcoming interrogations.

“So,” said Sharp, looking at Corrie and O’Hara with his sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes. “What is the goal here? What information do you want to solicit?”

Corrie had written down a list of questions. “Maybe it would be easiest if I explained the thought process that led me here. You see, I’d begun to wonder to myself if Oskarbi wasn’t at the center of some kind of cult.”

At this Sharp’s eyebrows shot up. “A cult?”

“Yes, sir. You have this charismatic professor, Oskarbi, celebrated author of a bestselling book about drugs and phony Native American spiritualism. He gathers around him a bunch of starry-eyed students, coerces the female ones into having sex with him, and his male students into a sort of cowed obedience.”

She paused.

“Go on,” said Sharp.

She glanced at O’Hara, who had a skeptical expression on his face.

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