Holes in the Firmament

 Part III

 Andrea Borshinski

When Dr. Stantz came to me with his question, I was not entirely surprised.

I'm well aware of my reputation on campus, both among the faculty and the student body. The faculty for the most part consider me anything from a nosey gossip to an expert blackmailer. Some few have made mention of alleged Mafia connections that allow me to get my way more often than not, especially as regards to department funding. The students, especially those who tend not to do their assignments or otherwise choose to slack, prefer to think of me as a witch or mind reader, although I've heard the suggestion that I sold my soul and shop at Piggly Wiggly to feed my pet ghouls the finest in fresh lung.

As is usually the case, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Physically I'm on the short, thin, gangly side, with hair gone solid gray over the years, and a tic near my left eye that gets worse as I get tired. My family is from central Europe originally, so I have the typical gypsy coloring and features, with wide eyes that are dark brown but my father's beak of a nose instead of the tiny little pug my sisters got.

Yes, I have sisters, and I am the youngest, the seventh born of the seventh daughter. Since it's not a fact I want or need to hide, the family pictures spread throughout house and office show not only the size of my family, but the relative content if anybody is so inclined to note. No pun intended. Naturally somebody once asked, and the seventh of seven connection got added to the local legend.

To be perfectly truthful, my so called talent has less to do with mysticism and more to do with being related to half the administrative staff through blood and marriage, and a good eye for character.  Not that I hadn't had my share of blinding revelations, but no more so than the average person, I don't believe.

I've known Dr. Stantz since he was an underclassman, and had the pleasure of having him in several of my advanced math classes. I'd hoped he might choose my own discipline of higher mathematics when it came time to declare his major, but his fascination with turning the abstract into reality claimed him instead. I was one of the few on the faculty that didn't discourage his interests in mythology and the occult, instead making myself available to him for recounting family stories brought from the old country, and introducing him to some of the few Romney in the area who were mostly pure blooded and still followed the old ways.

Raymond Stantz has the rare gift for not only seeing the greatness inherent in all individuals, but the ability to call it forth without even realizing it. I had seen it happen with many of his students, including his protégé Zeddemore, and most especially with his wife, Janine Stantz. His friendship and openness with our own Dr. Spengler was, I believe, one of the most important facets of the physicist's life, and one of the main reasons he continued to teach advanced seminars at our college.

Shortly after Dr. Spengler was awarded his Nobel, I received a call from Raymond, asking me to have lunch with him. He wished my advice on a matter of some delicacy. Now since I knew Raymond to be devoted to his wife, and I had not been alerted to any designs on his job, I thought perhaps he was seeking answers to a question in his other field of the occult. I readily agreed to meet with him, but was surprised when he turned up at my office with a wide selection of Indian take out at the lunch hour.

To my surprise, it seemed that the relatively shy Dr. Stantz was trying to play matchmaker for his friend Egon Spengler, and had come prepared with several names for my review.  By the end of our conversation I had learned a great deal about the eminent scientist, even more about Dr. Stantz, and was quite convinced that he had overlooked several lines of inquiry in his haste.

When we parted, I told him I would think about the matter and get back to him with my own ideas in a week or so. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes, and hastened to show him the door before he could question me about what esoteric method I would use to find my answers.

Secure in the privacy of my office, I reviewed the discussion once more to check for other angles of investigation, and then picked up the phone to dial my own personal diva of divination when it came to personal matters.

After several rings, a firm voice advised that I had reached, "Administrative Offices, Records, this is Elena, may I help you?"

"Elena, it's Andrea. I need your help."

"Andrea! What's wrong?" The firmly neutral voice shaded back to that of my second oldest sister, married to the head of campus security for thirty odd years. Others of our clan came and went, but we two remained.

"Nothing bad, I need some information. Old information."

"Hmmm, I smell a rat. What information and what are you willing to pay?"

I snorted at the change in her voice from executive secretary to scheming sister. "How about three days warning on the next time Mom and Dad are coming to visit, and a cheesecake?"

"Oooohh cheesecake, you are desperate. Tell me what you want first."

"I need a copy of Egon Spengler's transcript. I might need some others as well, but I'm starting there."

"Spengler?" I could hear the suspicion creeping in. "Didn't he win an award or something recently? I remember that name. Hold on."

The phone clicked over to the interminable hold music the University used, but I attempted to maintain a stoic pose in the face of one of the Petrucci family's greatest traditions: matchmaking. We sisters could brave anything in the pursuit of somebody else's true love.  Pondering family oddities, I nearly missed it when Elena picked up the receiver again.

"You'll never guess."

"What?" I asked, taking the path of least resistance, which I knew would irritate her; Elena loved to tease.

"Spengler, Egon; he's the one that won the Nobel, right?"

"Yes, he also teaches some classes here in the physics department. You found it?"

"Yeah, but there could be a problem: Yeager over in physics checked your boy's records yesterday, and there's a good bit of animosity there."

"Hmm, I didn't know that. Dean Yeager has never seemed to have a problem with him before."

"Well you might want to keep an eye or two out for him, and I'm gonna start digging around from my end on him. You never know what might turn up."

 "Yes, well, do you show Dr. Spengler taking any advanced parapsychology classes, like 201 or 202?"

 "No-yes! Here in his first year in the Master's program; an advanced seminar in parapsychology, the instructor was Kirkwood over in Religions."

 "Excellent. Now one more thing?"

 "Get the class list from Kirkwood? This better be good, because it's going to be more work than even your cheesecake's worth."

 "And a three days heads up on Mom and Dad, don't forget that. But believe me, I have the feeling this will be one for The Book." I knew she heard the capital letter referring to the collection of family stories we all added to on a regular basis. Mom and Dad believed in making a mark on the world, no matter how small, and The Book was how we reported our successes and failures to each other. I was looking forward to adding this story to it.

It took me the better part of two weeks to put together all the information I needed to find Dr. Stantz' answer, and when it came it was the result of 88 percent perspiration, 10 percent inspiration and 2 percent dumb luck, in the form of a Wall Street Journal article.

Dr. Kirkwood was very strict about his record keeping, and while I have never in the past, and probably never will in the future see his office, I understand from Elena that it's a miracle of modern information processing technology, including one of the new desktop computers by IBM that can stand alone, as opposed to the networked ones used by the secretarial staff throughout the campus. Fortunately, there was currently a nephew preparing to enter the seminary and doing some work at Columbia who was fascinated by the things, and had no trouble convincing Dr. Kirkwood to show off his toy.

When David came to me later on and handed me the 200 pages of accidentally printed off attendance records, he just grinned and told me he was changing his major to computer science. Fortunately, the records I wanted were in there, or the world would have mourned the passing of another science nerd. I didn't tell him that some of the requisite courses were advanced math classes I would be teaching in the future.

Not surprisingly, two of the three possibilities that Raymond had mentioned were listed in the class, and while it was tempting to pursue his line of thought as they both taught classes on the campus I decided to continue with my own thoughts. Knowing Dr. Spengler's unusual sexual orientation I was able to eliminate approximately 70 percent of the class, leaving a list of 8 candidates.

Next I turned to the Alumni Association to track down those remaining. Of the original eight, one had died, three had moved to other states and disappeared, one had become a priest, two were on Dr. Stantz’ list, and the last was living in Manhattan in private practice as a clinical psychologist. Again, working on what Raymond had told me, I did not believe Dr. Spengler to be a religious man, nor to attempt to turn a man from his vows; thus I eliminated the priest.

Of the three remaining candidates, one was married and again, I did not believe Dr. Spengler the type to dangle after the unattainable, although I could be mistaken. Of the two remaining candidates, I could not begin to see where Dr. Spengler would encounter a clinical psychologist unless he was in treatment. The few times I had met him, Spengler had seemed a remarkably well-balanced individual, secure in his intelligence and accomplishments.  To be sure, a quick call to the Stantz household reassured me that the physicist was not in treatment.

This left me with the second man on Raymond's list, a mediocre specimen who taught classes in Romance Era Literature, and made most of his money writing mass market bodice rippers. I only knew Lanford by reputation, but that reputation was enough to repulse anybody with a modicum of intelligence. I thought for a moment of washing my hands of the whole thing, since anybody holding a long-term infatuation with that odiferous creature deserved it. Heaven forbid the conscious-less scum should live long enough to actually breed.

I couldn't believe it. It totally refuted everything I could conclude from what Raymond had told me, and the two times I had spoken with Dr. Spengler in passing. Granted, Dr. Stantz tended to see the best in everybody, and two brief conversations on the weather, parking conditions, and the continuing degeneration of the quality of the student body was hardly anything to base any kind of conclusion on.  But I had done so before, with less to work with and been proven right.

On the Friday of the second week of my investigation my broker called, interrupting my ruminations before they could return to their endless circle. Fortunately he's also one of the few people I know whose social skills are as minimal as mine, so after drawing my attention to an article in the Journal about the strength of the yen, he hung up. Which is, of course, when the two percent luck factor kicked in: Spengler Labs, which had recently made it's first public stock offering, was featured in a small article notifying the business world of the company's resident genius, and gave a list of which major stockholders had been present at the first meeting after the Nobel award was made.

Prominently listed was Dr. Peter Venkman of Manhattan.

I laughed at myself, and then reached for my phone book to call Dean Yeager.