Murder Once Removed

by S. C. Perkins

“What gives?” I asked, smoothing down my sweater.

  He shrugged. “Kissing you was the best thing to do given the situation. It gave Kristi a graceful way to retreat from her unrequited—and never once encouraged—crush on me without either of us actually having to discuss it.”

  “I’m glad I could help you avoid a boiled bunny in your future,” I said, shooting him a couple of daggers. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  His Fed voice came back in force. “Then I think I could ask you the same thing, Ms. Lancaster.”

  “Yeah, no. You’re not going to turn the tables on me this time, Dr. Anders. You’d better start explaining or I’m going to the UT president’s office and the FBI.”

  “To tell them what, exactly?” he asked with the hint of a smile.

  “That you’re impersonating either an FBI agent or a professor with a Ph.D. Or both!”

  He worked his jaw, trying to hold back a smile. It was galling, and I thought steam was going to start coming out of my ears.

  From above us, we heard the door handle rattle and the rumble of voices.

  What, more groupies?

  “It’s the next class,” Agent Turner said, indicating we should start up the stairs. “We can talk on the way to my car.”

  I refused to budge. “Why can’t we talk in your office? Oh, wait. Is it maybe because you don’t actually have an office since you’re not really a professor?”

  “Let it go, Ms. Lancaster,” he said.

  Who does he think he is? Nevertheless, I shut my mouth. We made our way out as a throng of students entered the classroom, two of them saying, “Hi, Dr. Anders,” as we passed. He greeted them cordially and by name.

  Outside, we headed in a westward direction—in the opposite direction from the Hamilton Center, naturally. The frizzy-haired girl from Garrison Hall passed us, saying, “Good morning, Dr. Anders.” He smiled and replied, “Good morning, Odette.”

  “All right, I give,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Which one are you? A professor, an FBI agent, or an all-around impersonator?”

  “The first two,” he said, and I could see he was again trying to hold back his amusement. “I’m only the third when it’s open-mic night at the comedy club on Fifth Street.”

  I stopped short and turned to him, suddenly feeling tired. “Please don’t patronize me. Just explain already, will you?”

  He pulled out some sunglasses, but didn’t put them on. Then he stepped closer to me, which forced me to tilt my head back to look him in the eyes.

  “I’m an FBI agent who also happens to have a Ph.D. in history, Ms. Lancaster. I taught for two years at a small college on the East Coast before going into the white-collar division of the FBI nine years ago.”

  Okay, that’s not uninteresting. “How would a history degree help you in the FBI?”

  “It doesn’t all that much. I generally work on cases involving fraud. But occasionally my knowledge of history comes in handy in helping to flesh out motives. It’s also good in the rare instance when a case involving a school or university requires someone to go undercover as a teacher or professor.”

  “Who here knows of your double life, then?” I asked.

  He sighed as if continuing to answer my questions was akin to pulling out his fingernails. “Only a select few know that I’m a federal agent, so you need to watch what you say to people.”

  “Fine. But is something untoward going on at UT?”

  He glanced around again. “If there were, I wouldn’t be able to discuss it. But since you seem to enjoy allowing your imagination to run away with you, I can assure you that the reason I am here at this university has nothing to do with a case. Dr. Millerton is a friend and, when he needed a substitute professor for two classes that fell under my expertise, he recommended me. The FBI agreed to it since I teach two hours a week and, even with office hours, it doesn’t take up too much of my time. In fact, since I started, one has never interfered with the other, until recently.”

  He gave me a pointed look. I rolled my eyes and we started walking again.

  “Seriously?” I said, the doubt evident in my voice. “Will you really have me believe that you and Dr. Millerton are merely good buddies and he called you when he needed a sub?”

  “Really. FBI agents are allowed to have second jobs, you know. We hardly make a mint on the government paycheck.”

  He smiled as more students walked by. Then he shrugged as if surprising himself that he’d want to keep talking.

  “Look, Harvey and I met years ago when I came to UT for a summer and took a masters-level course on politics throughout history. I saw him out one night, we drank our weights in Caol Ila Eighteen, talked about LBJ’s contributions to the American presidency, and we stayed in touch afterward. He later mentored me when I became a professor, encouraged me when I decided to work for the Bureau, and since I’ve been in Austin, he and Linda have had me over to dinner once a month.” The sunglasses went on. “So, yes, we are buddies, and he called me when he needed a sub. Can we drop it now?”

  Darn it, I didn’t want to, but I believed him. Not because his eyes never left mine, or that he knew Dr. Millerton’s wife’s name. It was because he knew the name of Dr. M’s favorite scotch. I wasn’t quite ready to give in, though, so I changed the subject.

  “The name Anders…,” I said as we passed the geological sciences building. “Let me guess. Your middle name?” From the initials that spelled BAT, I thought.

  He nodded. “I go by Benjamin Anders when I’m teaching,” he said. “It keeps my lives separate and it’s easier all the way around.”

  “It shortens to Ben, too,” I said. “How convenient, because we wouldn’t want you to not answer when someone calls you by your cover name or anything.”

  He ignored my comment, but looked around to make sure no one had heard me.

  “Now it’s time for you to come clean, Ms. Lancaster,” he said. “I thought you said you had no interest in being an amateur detective. Yet here you are, even after all that’s happened this week, coming to ask me a question about well-known Texas families. I would expect, after finding your friend with her head bashed in and having your office broken into, that you would recognize you’re playing with fire. Since you can’t seem to understand that, though, I’m going to remind you again of the potential for danger.”

  He stopped and took off his sunglasses again to look me square in the eyes. “The person responsible for Dr. Dell’s death has not yet been apprehended and has been proven to be unstable and violent. It’s something you need to stay out of, starting immediately.”

  Feeling the elephant sitting on my chest again when he talked about Winnie, I looked away. Agent Turner’s voice didn’t soften, but he said, “Look, I know Dr. Dell was your friend, and we’re doing everything we can to figure this out. It’s actually been a boon I was already working here since it allows me to assist the police investigation by making some discreet inquiries on campus. And that’s all I can—and will—tell you.”

  That meant he was undercover! Kind of … but still!

  I tried to contain my curiosity. I really did. I even humbly said, “Thank you. I’m glad to know the FBI is working with the police to find Winnie’s killer,” but it was all for naught. The words burst out of me.

  “But figure what out, exactly?” I asked. “Are you trying to tell me—without being a nice person and actually telling me, of course—that the FBI is still involved because there’s a threat to Senator Applewhite’s life? Did they ask you to look into it because of your background?”

  “You’ve got to stop watching crime shows on television,” he said. “I told you, I’m just a white-collar agent.”

  “Really,” I shot back. “So you’re telling me your history background that could help flesh out motives and all, that’s only for discreet inquiries?”

  Agent Turner walked up to a silver current-model Ford Explorer and touched the door handle. I heard the soft thunk of the door unlocking via keyle
ss entry. I stood there as he dropped his laptop bag onto the passenger seat and removed his blazer, all without responding to me.

  “Fine. Then tell me one thing,” I said, nodding back in the direction of Waggener Hall, “Aren’t you worried that young Kristi back there will figure out you were lying about having a girlfriend?”

  “No. Because I wasn’t lying. I’ve been seeing someone for a few months now. She’s taller and has … different attributes than you.” I gave him a scowl and crossed my arms over my chest. “But she’s got long brown hair much like yours. The classroom was pretty dark and you never made eye contact with Kristi. If she ever comes across me with my girlfriend, the chances she’d be able to tell the two of you apart after such a quick encounter are slim.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Lancaster,” he replied as he started the Explorer.

  “It’s still morning, you know!” I called as he backed out. “So good morning to you, too!” I saw him smirk as he put the car in drive.

  I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone who drove me so nuts. I made myself turn away so he didn’t have the satisfaction of my watching him go. I had a ten-minute walk across campus to the Hamilton Center and I found I needed every step, plus a stern reminder to myself as to why there was a memorial for Winnie in the first place, before I simmered down.

  Grudgingly, I also realized Agent Turner-slash-Dr. Anders was right. Danger had stepped onto my doorstep and I would be wise to stay out of things.

  FOURTEEN

  The next morning found me being a non-troublemaker at the Archives building, scanning microfilm of the Texas County tax rolls in the L-shaped downstairs nook of the Texas Family Heritage Research Center—aka the genealogy department. I was attempting to sink myself back into normalcy by running a search for the ancestors of two separate clients, looking for proof that one client was a fifth-generation Texan and another was sixth-generation.

  Determining a Texan’s generational link to their home state was one of the smaller jobs I did with some frequency. Though twenty-one other states achieved statehood after Texas did in 1845, any native Texan who could claim their family had lived here since 1845 or earlier did so with pride. If their family had been in the region during the nine years between 1836 and 1845, when Texas was the country’s only independent republic—or even earlier when the territory was ruled by Mexico, Spain, or France—it made being a Texan from way back all that more interesting, if for no other reason than bragging rights. That potential for boasting was the main reason I had created my What Generation Texan Are You? introductory genealogical package on my website.

  I charged a simple flat fee for the service, so long as the research didn’t take me over a set number of hours. I would find as much proof as I could online, but I often had to visit the Texas State Library to go through the tax rolls to prove a family’s land ownership, and the length of time they had owned said land.

  It was often methodical searching—especially as some of the counties’ tax rolls were out of order or had been lost years ago due to a fire or some other disaster—but I enjoyed it. I would get immersed in the search for my client’s surname, and finding it was usually a moment of sweet satisfaction.

  But today I was fidgety and was having a hard time concentrating. My mind didn’t want to quit thinking about finding the connection that linked Seth Halloran, Cantwell Ayers, and/or Caleb Applewhite to both the past and the present.

  Then there was the occasional irritated thought when Agent Turner and his dismissiveness of my good intentions flitted through my brain, and I found myself routinely staring out the windows flanked by two framed copies of early Texas flags to the overcast day outside. That’s why it took me a while to clue in to the conversation two women were having a couple of microfilm machines over from me.

  They were both around sixty and nicely but casually dressed as they used the microfilm reader perpendicular to mine. They’d arrived before me and, if they’d noticed me at all when I’d sat down less than ten feet from them, they’d given no indication of it.

  I’d heard only snatches of their conversation thus far—they were apparently searching newspapers from the 1950s for holiday recipes to showcase at a theme party—but they’d kept their voices so quiet that it hadn’t interrupted my concentration. Until now.

  “He usually doesn’t come back into town from D.C. until Friday nights, but this week he arrived yesterday,” one woman said in a high-handed, disapproving tone that reminded me of British period films when the upstart stable hand attempted to speak to the lady of the manor.

  The woman had a short blond bob that looked to be freshly blown out, giving it enough volume to expose the large pearls she wore at her ears.

  “You must be joking. Whatever for?” asked the other woman, her own auburn hair perfectly coiffed as well.

  “Only Daniel could say, as usual,” the first woman said. “Beyond what I have to know about his politics for the cocktail parties and fund-raisers, I haven’t known my husband’s reasons for anything since the moment Lindley left for college fifteen years ago. That’s when Daniel and I realized we liked each other better when we saw each other less.”

  It was the mention of the name Daniel combined with the word “politics” that made my ears really perk up.

  Ten bucks the blonde is Senator Applewhite’s wife.

  All casual like, I ran an image search on my cell phone for a photo of the senator and wife. Sure enough, I was sitting a few feet from Lynn Carthage Applewhite.

  She murmured something I couldn’t hear, and the brunette asked, “Will he be working while he’s here?”

  “Oh, yes. His main office is undergoing a bit of renovation, so he’ll be holding court at the law firm all week. I hinted strongly that he should be sure his office hours start promptly at seven thirty A.M.”

  The other woman laughed.

  “Oh, look!” said Lynn Applewhite. “A recipe for lemon crumb squares from Helen Corbitt. That woman was a treasure, I tell you. She was the Julia Child of the South. This sounds perfect to round out the sweets platter, don’t you think?”

  Her friend read off some of the ingredients. “Fresh lemon juice … sweetened condensed milk … grated lemon peel … and a crumble bottom. The topping is basically oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, and butter. That makes them fattening and delicious—just my kind of dessert.”

  Their conversation then turned to finding an appetizer, and I quietly packed up my things and left. I knew where, and with whom, to start looking for more answers. Nothing dangerous or anything, of course. I was being good, remember?

  * * *

  For the third time in a week, I bypassed my scores of jeans, this time for a black gabardine shirtdress, gold jewelry, and heels in a black patent leather. As a final touch, I added a thin belt around my waist. Black patent, to match my heels.

  “Speaking of patent leather…” Reaching into my closet, I grabbed Serena’s Manolos and dropped them into my roomy tote bag that already held two file folders.

  I glanced at the clock. Almost seven; time for me to get going. There was a United States senator waiting to talk to me, even if he didn’t know it yet.

  The morning was pleasantly nippy, but promised to be warmer than yesterday, so I threw on a scarf, but didn’t bother with a coat. It was still dark and quiet as I locked my door, the only patches of illumination coming from the carriage lamps on the wall between each condo and the string of mushroom-shaped lights that lit the pathway between my building and the covered parking area.

  On the landing, I was heading toward the stairs when the carriage lamps suddenly went out, followed by the pathway lights, leaving me in nearly pitch-black conditions except for the lights coming through the blinds of various other neighbors.

  “I think Jackson programmed the light timers to go off too soon again,” I muttered to myself. “I’ve got to remind him daylight savings doesn’t end for another couple o
f days.”

  Pulling out my phone, I hit the flashlight app, illuminating the space on the landing with bright white light, even as a low, eerie-sounding growl came from the darkness.

  “Uh-oh,” I whispered. NPH had clearly seen his nemesis, Buster, and was setting the stage for a catfight.

  Buster was a handsome seal-point Siamese who lived at the apartment building on the other side of ours. While NPH was a big, muscular tabby with an easygoing nature who had the run of our complex as well as a comfy bed at Jackson’s, Buster was a spoiled and slinky indoor cat with visions of territorial grandeur. Every few days, Buster would escape his apartment to challenge NPH for both the bragging rights to the stretch of bushes that separated our complex from his and the affections of Precious, the pretty gray Scottish Fold owned by my neighbor, Krissy. Never once had Buster come out the victor.

  I went to the railing and spoke sotto voce, knowing both cats could hear me.

  “NPH, leave Buster alone. You outweigh him by ten pounds. And Buster, go home before you get your butt kicked for the umpteenth time. For pity’s sake, Precious and her owner are out of town anyway, so y’all cool it until next week, okay?”

  My admonishment was met with silence, which was a good sign.

  It’s like a kitty West Side Story once a week, I thought as I shone my phone’s flashlight down to the bushes below. Only Buster never ends up a Jet or a Shark. Thank goodness all three cats have owners smart enough to get them spayed and neutered.

  Not seeing any fur flying on the ground, I made for the stairs, using the flashlight app to help me navigate the stairs and uneven bricks of the pathway to my car.

  Halfway there, I was thinking about what I’d say to the senator and enjoying the feel of the cool morning air on my cheeks when a weirdly electric feeling stole over me, putting a hitch in my step.

  Immediately, I brushed it off, thinking it must be NPH again. I turned my flashlight into the bushes and whispered, “NPH, no sneak attacks today!”

  There was complete silence, somehow different than normal. I tried chiding myself, reminding my nerves that my condo complex had always been a safe place, but two steps later I was threading my keys through my fingers and speeding up the last few yards to my car.