Red Solaris Mystery Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Bourne Morris

  Weaponless, I shouted, “Stay away, Max. Stay away.”

  He lunged and then he was on me. I scratched his face. He grabbed my hands, pinned them behind my back and forced me to the floor. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and started to shake my head. “Promise me, Red, promise me.”

  This is the end, I thought. Max’s breath was foul and hot and his face was dark red with exertion. My head hurt from his grip on my hair. He stopped shaking me, straddled me and put his hands on my throat.

  I couldn’t speak. I raised my knee up to kick his groin but he caught my leg and slammed it to the floor. Then he pulled up. He was still straddling me as he raised his hand and struck hard. I felt blood in my mouth and pain on my cheek and jaw. I felt his hands around my throat again but I was too dizzied from the blow to defend.

  “You’re a shitty friend, Red. You know that? I was always on your side and now you’re trying to destroy me. It won’t happen. I won’t let you ruin me.”

  His grip tightened. I pushed against his arms but he was too strong for me. I started to lose consciousness.

  In my darkness I heard the distant sound of barking. Were thoughts of Charlie going to be my last?

  Darkness. Pain.

  Then, from miles away, a familiar growl.

  Less pressure on my throat.

  I opened my eyes.

  Charlie’s jaws were firmly clamped on Max’s arm and the growl was loud and low. Charlie wrestled with Max’s arm, pulling and tugging.

  Joe’s voice was near. “Charlie, let him go.”

  Joe pulled Charlie off Max and I saw his fist strike Max’s head. Max rolled off me and collapsed on the floor. Joe reached under my arms and lifted me to my feet.

  He stroked my hair, ran his fingers gently across my face and throat and then sat me down on the table. “Will you be all right here for a minute?” he asked.

  I nodded, my throat too painful for speech.

  Max was on the floor holding his arm and moaning. Charlie limped over to my side and sat licking my hand—the scar and the shaved part of his front leg still visible.

  Joe leaned down and handcuffed Max’s arms behind him. “Maxwell Worthington, you are under arrest for the murder of Henry Brooks.”

  What? Henry’s murder? Had Joe finally found evidence?

  “I didn’t kill Brooks.”

  “Your car was seen here the day Brooks died. And a man of your description was seen entering the building.”

  I was in shock. Was Joe bluffing or did he really have proof? I covered my bloody mouth with my hand. No way was I going to interrupt.

  Max struggled to get up and managed to get to his knees. “Okay, shithead, I was here. But I didn’t murder Henry.” What looked like foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. “I saw him, but I didn’t kill him.”

  Joe left me and took out his notebook. “Keep talking,” he said to Max. “What did you see Henry Brooks about?”

  “Henry was going to call my publisher and tell them I had plagiarized some text.” Max seemed out of breath but he stayed kneeling on the floor.

  Joe kept writing. He kept his eyes on Max, closing in on his target. “Details, Worthington,” Joe said.

  Max took another breath. His tone was defiant as he stared at Joe. “I don’t have to give you details, Morgan. I didn’t kill Henry Brooks and that’s all you need to know.”

  Joe squatted down so his face was even with Max’s. “That’s not all I need to know. I can also charge you with the rape of Celeste Cummings and the attempted murder of this woman. You got nowhere to go, Max, so tell me about Brooks.”

  “I wasn’t going to murder Red,” said Max.

  “Sure looked it.” Joe reached for a fistful of Max’s hair. He pulled hard. Max cried out. “Details, Max. Or I beat the living shit out of you right here.”

  More spittle came out of Max’s mouth. “Henry was an accident.”

  I gasped. Joe shot me a look that said not to interrupt.

  “Details,” Joe said.

  Max slumped down so he was sitting with his hands cuffed behind his back. He stared vacantly at the wall. Then he spoke. “Okay. That Sunday, Henry had telephoned me about two of my book chapters and demanded I come to his office and account for them. Demanded. Christ, he summoned me to his office like I was an errant schoolboy. I went.”

  Joe stared steadily at Max, notebook in hand.

  Max inhaled. “When I walked into his office, Henry waved pages from my manuscript in my face. He threatened to report me to the administration. He threatened to call my publisher. He told me I had to resign.”

  “What did you do?” said Joe, now standing and writing.

  “What did I do? For Christ’s sake, Henry was my friend. I begged him to overlook the text I had copied, to give me another chance, to let me square things with Alistair Shaw and my publishers. I told him I couldn’t resign.”

  “And how did Brooks react?”

  Max looked at the floor, as if talking to himself. “Henry was so fucking arrogant. He said I was an embarrassment to the school and to him.” Max gagged and stopped.

  “Go on,” said Joe.

  “Henry was determined to humiliate me, to make me suffer. I had been his friend for years. I had backed him up in arguments with other members of the faculty, but he didn’t care about that. He was so bloody self-righteous, so sure I needed to be punished.” Max swallowed hard. “We argued and argued. Finally, I could see there was no changing his mind so I told him if he didn’t drop the plagiarism charge, I would call Edwin Cartwell and tell him about the affair Henry was having with Edwin’s wife.”

  Max looked at me. I could see tears forming in his dulled eyes. “And I guess that got to him because he stopped being so smug and he started yelling and he came at me. He was in a rage. Don’t you dare tell Edwin anything, he screamed at me. Don’t you dare talk about Mary. So I said okay, do we have a deal? I don’t tell Edwin and you forget about Shaw’s text.”

  Max seemed to run out of steam. He was barely breathing.

  “So did you have a deal?”

  Max looked at Joe.

  His speech grew rapid. “At first I thought so. Henry was quiet for a moment. Then, he swung at me and I pushed him away. I was bigger and younger than Henry. I didn’t want to hit him. Then he swung again and hit my chest and then he grabbed my jacket. I pushed him away. I swear that’s all I did. I pushed him away and he fell back on his desk.”

  “And?”

  “He lay on the desk for a minute and then he sort of staggered to his feet. His face was gray. He staggered away from me.”

  Max looked at me again. “Red, I wanted to help him. Honestly. I could see he was in pain. I could see he was hurt or something was wrong. But, I just stood there watching while he kept backing away from me. Then he turned and stumbled into the hallway. I saw there was blood on the back of his shirt. He reached the stairwell, looked back at me, and then pitched forward and fell down the stairs.”

  Max looked back down at the floor, breathing in gulps.

  “What did you do then?”

  Tears streamed down Max’s face. “I didn’t do anything. I just walked to the stairwell and stood there looking down at him.”

  “Did you think to go down the stairs to help him?”

  Max sobbed. I thought he might pass out. “No, I stayed at the top of the stairs watching the blood pour out of his nose and mouth. Maybe I should have tried to help, but Henry wasn’t my friend anymore. He was my enemy.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I went back into his office and collected my personnel folder and my book pages from his desk. I saw blood on that glass award and figured Henry had fallen on it. So I wiped the thing off and put it in a box under his desk. Then I left and went down in the elevator.”

  All I could hear was the sound of my ow
n breathing. Max moaned and toppled over as two uniformed officers entered the studio.

  “Sorry I neglected you,” said Joe. “But I wanted to see if I could get him to talk.”

  “How did you find me?” My voice was raspy. Joe was examining my neck where Max’s hands had been. The uniformed policemen had pulled Max up from the floor and half-carried him out of the studio.

  Joe put his hands tenderly on the side of my head, avoiding my bruised cheek and jaw. He used his handkerchief to wipe the blood off my chin. He dabbed gently at my split lip. “I didn’t find you. Charlie found you,” he said. “When I came back to the house, you weren’t there. You didn’t answer your cell. I called the hospital and they said you had left. I took Charlie to the vet’s to have his bandage removed and his stitches checked. I kept calling your cell.” Joe kissed my forehead. “Now I’m taking you back to the hospital to have your neck checked over. That bastard almost killed you.”

  “But you said Charlie found me. How?”

  “By the time we had finished at the vet’s I was too worried to spend time taking him to your house so I brought him with me to look for you. I drove here and saw your car in the lot. I ran to the building—one of the doors was ajar. Charlie was right behind me. We started at your office, and then began to search all the other offices. Charlie sniffed every door in this building until he found you.”

  We drove to the hospital with me in the back seat, my arms around my dog. “Thank you, Charlie,” I said over and over again.

  The same Japanese doctor who had treated Celeste checked out my neck and face.

  “You’re going to feel sore for a while and you’ll have a black eye and these bruises for several days, but nothing seems broken,” she said. “You’ve had quite a morning haven’t you?”

  “How’s Celeste doing?” I asked.

  “Better. She’s with her parents now,” said the doctor. “Go home, put some ice on your cheek and get some rest.”

  On the way home, I sat in the front seat with Joe. Charlie took over the back seat. “Thank you, too,” I said, my voice a bit cleared.

  Joe squeezed my hand. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” He raised my hand to his lips. Then he glanced at my battered face and bloodied sweatshirt and let out a huge groan. He kissed my hand again and kept my hand on his mouth.

  I remembered I had a question. “When you arrested Max you said his car was seen on campus that Sunday. I didn’t know that.”

  Joe squeezed my hand and released it. “I didn’t know that either until I went to the station this morning. A rookie on the new team had been looking over a pile of automobile accident reports and came across it. It seems Max had a fender bender that Sunday. The roads were slippery and Max’s car skidded into a student’s car as they were both leaving campus. Max gave the student some money and never reported it. But the student’s parents made him call it in the next day.”

  “So that made you certain Max was the tall man who had been seen going into the school. That Max had been with Henry.”

  “I wasn’t certain until I saw him on top of you. Then I was certain.”

  “Were you bluffing when you said he was being arrested for Henry’s murder?”

  “Kind of.” We came to the stop sign before my house. Joe turned and leaned toward me. “But, at that point I had two choices. To arrest Max Worthington for murder or kill him with my bare hands.”

  Chapter 30

  Six weeks after Max was arrested and charged with the wrongful death of Henry Brooks and the rape of Celeste Cummings, a huge field of daffodils bloomed on the quad outside my window. Edwin Cartwell knocked on the door.

  “Hi, Edwin. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I wanted you to know I will not be able to teach any courses on the summer schedule this year.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m taking an extended trip to Venice.” He sat and spread his hands over his lap as if warming himself in the anticipated Italian sun.

  “That sounds wonderful, Edwin. I’m sure Mary is delighted.”

  “Mary will not accompany me,” he said, still smiling and still looking at his hands. “We’re getting a divorce.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I see.”

  “I suspect you do see, Meredith. Mary tells me you knew about her affair with Henry.”

  I must have looked uncomfortable because he got up and walked over to the window. “Daffodils are beautiful this year. Worthy of Wordsworth.”

  “Edwin, I hope...”

  He turned back to me. “I just wanted you to know why I’m away from this school for the summer.”

  “I understand.”

  “Yes, I am sure you do.” His expression was wistful. “Henry was not her first affair, but I knew he was a real threat to my marriage.” His eyes were bright. “And I knew what he was plotting. Did you know, Meredith, Henry actually recommended me for a chair at the University of Arkansas? Wily old Henry. He thought he could ship me off and then keep my wife for himself.”

  I knew, but couldn’t bear to say so.

  “I had my sources at Arkansas and I knew it, all right,” Edwin said, his voice rising. “The night I found Henry’s body face down in that stairwell, I almost danced a jig right there in his blood.”

  I must have looked shocked because he said, “Do I shock you, Meredith?”

  “I was shocked when I heard you on the phone that night singing Ding Dong, the wicked dean is dead,” I said.

  “Were you? I had no idea.”

  “Who was on the other end of the phone?”

  “Simon. I needed someone to help me celebrate.”

  “You hated Henry that much?”

  “I hated Henry with all my heart and soul.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “There’s one more thing, Meredith.” The brightness returned to his eyes. “When do you plan to start the search for the Henry Brooks Chair in Journalism?”

  “Don’t have the date yet. Why?”

  “I’m thinking of applying for it.”

  “That’s wonderful, Edwin.”

  “Thank you, Meredith,” he said and stood up. “How do you think Henry would have felt if I got the chair named in his honor?”

  I laughed. “I think he would have been furious.”

  Biggest smile I have ever seen on Edwin’s face. “Precisely,” he said and was gone.

  Edwin was turned, George was in retreat, and Max was in jail. But Simon was still out there. I shuddered to think of him. No one had heard from him, but Simon was tenured and knew he could come back at any time.

  Sadie was waiting at Gormley’s at our usual table. Her gentle smile reminded me that my world was coming back together. “How are things with you and Joe?” she said.

  “Better.”

  “Better? But not perfect?”

  “We’re working on perfect. It’s going to take some time.”

  “It’s worth working on. Now, have your mysteries all been solved?”

  “Not all, we still don’t know who wrote the notes.”

  She frowned.

  Sadie deplores untidiness. “It wasn’t Max?”

  “No. Max said he didn’t write them and Joe believed him.”

  “So, we still have George and Simon to worry about?”

  “I don’t think George wrote the notes. Right now he is nursing his wounds and feeling somewhat marginalized. And, of course, Edwin has become positively friendly. But Simon, I don’t know. He hasn’t been on campus this semester. I’m still scared of him.”

  Sadie put her hand on mine. “Be vigilant my dear. You know better than anyone that the woods are dark and deep and the groves of academe can be especially dangerous.”

  On the last day of the semester, and quite unexpectedly, Stoddard w
alked into my office. “How’s your dog doing?” He eased into the chair in front of my desk.

  “He’s fine now, all healed up. Thanks for asking.”

  “That’s good. Red, I’m hoping for a steady stream of positive news from journalism these days. What are your plans for the summer?” Stoddard seemed in good spirits.

  “I want permission to start the searches this summer,” I said.

  “Searches?”

  “For the Henry Brooks chair and for the permanent dean of journalism.”

  “Well, I guess you can get started on the search for the Henry Brooks Chair, but not the dean’s position.”

  “I thought I was going to lead the dean’s search committee.”

  “No,” said Stoddard. “I don’t think you should even be a member of that committee.”

  I raised my voice. “Why not?”

  “Relax, Red.” He cleared his throat. “It seems several of your faculty members have expressed strong desires to see you apply for the permanent dean’s position.”

  I could hardly breathe. “Several?”

  “Yes, several, although I don’t feel comfortable identifying them.”

  It took me a moment to recover. “Several journalism faculty members want me to apply for the permanent dean’s position?”

  A smile grew across the provost’s sizeable face. “Yes. And that means you not only cannot chair the dean’s search committee you can’t, in any way, be involved in their work. If you agree to apply, you will have to stay a mile away from that committee.” Stoddard paused.

  “Oh, my.”

  “Feel good about this, Red. Your faculty apparently admires what you’ve done over this past semester. So do I.” Stoddard stared at me for a moment and then winked.

  Winked. For Christ’s sake.

  I walked out of the journalism building buoyant and excited. A man was leaning against a car parked next to mine.