“Thanks very much for your help,” she said finally. Now I was watching her hazel eyes and they told me she was about to spring it. “Well, I guess you’ve been very involved with the murder.”
“I’m afraid so,” I acknowledged. “There was a St. Benignus connection.” Talking without saying anything is a real art, and I’m pretty good at it. I watch Meet the Press for pointers.
She cleared her throat. You’d think that a politician would be better at what she was about to pull. “Yes, and that’s so unfortunate. How lamentable that Dr. Pendergast chose to bring Thurston Calder to campus.”
It was coming into focus now. Apparently the rumors that Professor Saylor-Mackie would like to add another title in front of her name - Provost - were on the money. She was trying to undercut the current occupant of that post by tying him to the Calder murder.
“You mean unfortunate because he got himself killed? That’s hardly Ralph’s fault.” Wait a minute! Is that really me I hear defending Ralph?
“Of course not,” Her Honor said dismissively. “But he should have known about the scandal following Calder. It seems that young women were not safe around that man. Due diligence would have turned that up.”
“How did you happen to know about Ralph’s involvement and Calder’s amorous adventures, if you don’t mind my asking? Art isn’t your department.” It hadn’t bothered me quite so much that O’Neill knew this and I didn’t, but I was put out that the stately Lesley Saylor-Mackie was up on the gossip that had eluded me.
She smiled. “Let’s just say I have friends.”
The way she said it made me want to be sure that I was one of them. This was not a woman I wanted to be on the outs with.
VII
It was time to compare notes with Mac. On the way over to his crowded office at Herbert Hall, I mentally prepared myself for the possibility that he already knew that Ralph had pushed for Calder and that Calder had been a cad with young ladies. Why shouldn’t I be the last to know everything? I’m only the public relations director.
The dragon at the gate - that would be Mac’s officious administrative assistant, Heidi Guildenstern - was nowhere in sight, so I just walked in on him.
He was sitting behind his desk, which was piled high with papers as usual, smoking a cigar and reading a book called How to Read Lips for Fun and Profit. The air was thick with illegal smoke from his Fuente Fuente Opus X. Without wasting my precious (and threatened) breath on a health lecture, I opened a window.
“I’ve been hard at work on this case, talking to witnesses all morning, and you’re sitting on your rear end cozied up with a book on lip reading?” I suppose Mac might have called my tone accusatory.
He looked up. “I am increasing my skill set. When I found this book in an antiques store in New Albany, Indiana, I was immediately persuaded by the back cover that reading lips could come in handy for eavesdropping at a distance.”
With a sigh, he closed the book, took off his reading glasses, and gave me his full attention. “However, your implication that I have been otherwise idle is quite unfounded, I assure you. I interviewed Justin at length, and I am convinced that he saw nothing. The simplest explanation, and therefore the most likely, is that he was absent from the scene when the corkscrew was taken. Or else he was simply too absorbed in the task of pouring wine to notice. Obviously, the killer would have taken pains to be sure that the corkscrew was not under observation when he or she stole it. I also spoke with Lenore Gamble on the off chance that her perch playing the harp in the corner might have afforded her a view of Calder stepping into the alcove with someone. Unfortunately, she was absorbed in her music making and not looking in that direction. As a musician myself, I completely understand.”
“You’re not a musician,” I snapped. “You play the bloody bagpipes.” The tarantula-like instrument in question lay flopped over a file cabinet. “So the bottom line here is that you didn’t come up with anything. I sure hope Oscar is doing better with Scrappy.”
“It is true that my inquiries were not productive except in a negative sense. What have you learned?”
“For one thing, I found out that our mayor has talons that I’ve never seen unsheathed before. I guess Ralph brings out the worst in everybody. But let me give it to you in chronological order.”
I did so, starting with my unsuccessful attempt to ply Popcorn for details about her date with Oscar. Mac couldn’t complain later that I’d left anything out.
“Well, this is interesting indeed,” Mac said at the end of my report. He smoked meditatively, exhaling the pungent smoke. I stuck my head out the window and breathed deeply in silent protest. “Ralph’s involvement certainly adds a level of irony if nothing else,” Mac went on, ignoring me. I knew what he meant. Ralph always acted as if we were constantly creating situations in which people got killed and St. Benignus was involved so that negative publicity followed. Well, actually, we did do that. But this time Ralph was the one who had had a major hand in bringing the victim to campus. “You need to confront him and find out what was behind his sudden interest in the art department. It is quite out of character for Ralph.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” I said. “Remember, I once ran into him at Beans & Books on jazz night and he was really into the music. Who knows what he thinks about the fine arts? He might surprise you.”
Ralph disdained the popular culture department, which Mac headed, considering it not sufficiently serious and academic. But I’d never heard him hold forth on the arts one way or the other. For all I knew, he could be the world’s greatest fan of paintings by 1970s terrorists.
“And why do I need to confront him?” I added. “He hates me.”
“He hates me more.”
You win! “Okay, I’ll see if I can get an appointment today. But please don’t tell me this is the best lead we’ve got.” I kept hoping that Mac would pull a rabbit out of his hat, solve the murder, and get this story off the front page of the Observer & News-Ledger quickly.
“I would not be so pessimistic as to say that.” Mac sat back and regarded his cigar thoughtfully. “Perhaps Oscar’s interview with Scrappy will turn up something interesting. And yet ... I have a nagging feeling that we have already been pointed in the right direction and somehow missed the arrow.”
VIII
Going to Ralph’s office in the Gamble Building was a surreal experience. I’d never made that trip before. He’d always come to my office or called me on the phone, and it had never been a social call or a good experience. Ralph had long labored under the much mistaken notion that I had personal influence over every news story published or broadcast about St. Benignus. Therefore, any such report that was less than positive - and he was a tough grader on that - had to be my fault. He thought this even before I married Lynda and even before she became editorial director of Grier Ohio NewsGroup.
Now that I thought about it, it was kind of odd that Ralph wasn’t already on my back about the Calder murder in his usual charming fashion.
“Yes, what is it, Cody? I have another appointment in fifteen minutes.” He turned away from his computer, a look of only mild annoyance crossing his face. With his slicked-back dark hair and rimless glasses, Ralph looks a bit like Dennis the Menace’s father - never mind that he has a personality more like the grumpy neighbor, Mr. Wilson.
But I wasn’t looking at him. I was gaping at his digs. In an era of budget cuts for which he was the chief advocate, Ralph had equipped his office handsomely with walnut bookshelves, hardwood floors covered with thick rugs, and a handsome wood desk approximately the size of an aircraft carrier. It made the modest office of “Father Joe” Pirelli, the legendary and much-loved president of St. Benignus, look like a tarpaper shack.
With great effort, I pulled myself back to the subject that had brought me there. “I think we may have a problem.”
Ralph emit
ted the sigh of the long-suffering servant. “We usually do when you and McCabe are involved. I presume this is about the murder of Professor Calder. Well, I must say I’m glad you’re on it.”
Did I hear that right? And if so, was it sarcasm?
“It’s not the murder, Ralph.” He hates it when Mac and I call him Ralph. I sat down, invading his space. “I mean, the murder didn’t happen on campus, Calder wasn’t yet employed by the college, and there’s no reason at this point to believe that St. Benignus was involved in his death at all. What I’m worried about is that some enterprising reporter working on a profile of the victim might find out that he left the Warhol Institute under the cloud of scandal.”
“Oh, I see.” Ralph blanched. “I didn’t know about that until it was too late. By the time Dr. O’Neill called that unfortunate situation to my attention, Dr. Calder had already been short-listed. We had to go through with the interview, but I assure you that he was no longer a serious candidate.”
“That may be, but the problem is that he was ever a candidate at all.”
“I told you I didn’t know!”
“Why not? It was reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education.” As if you ever read it. “And that means it would turn up in a half-way competent Internet search, the kind some reporter is going to do.” Ben Silverstein, a good newshound, had already written that quick Monday morning profile of Calder without touching on the scandal. But if he or another journalist decided to probe deeper, they would strike gold. I shuddered to think what Sylvester Link, the aggressive reporter for our student newspaper, The Spectator, could do with it.
Like a politician in a debate, Ralph ignored my point and went on the counter-attack. “Surely that distasteful business at Warhol can’t have anything to do with Calder’s murder!”
The way his voice rose in pitch and loudness almost made me feel an unfamiliar twinge of sympathy for the provost. But I shook my head. “Actually, we don’t know that at all, Ralph. He could have been killed by a former lover, an angry parent, who knows. But that’s beside the point. The fact that our proudly Catholic college was even considering a man of his rep for a position, well, it just doesn’t look good.”
Ralph stared at a set of fountain pens on his desk before he said, “I know we’ve had our differences, Cody” - like Cain and Abel had a spot of sibling rivalry - “but I hope you can put that aside for the good of the college and do what you can to prevent the media from playing up this angle.”
I felt like throwing something. Why could I never make him understand how it works? “There’s no way to control something like this, Ralph. The best I can do is try to get ahead of it - be prepared to react or maybe even take a pre-emptive strike against bad news. And if I’m going to have any chance of that, I have to have all the information. So level with me, why were you so hell-bent on Thurston Calder making the cut for the art department headship?”
“I wasn’t.” He paused, as if considering how much to tell me. “A good friend of St. Benignus felt strongly that he deserved serious consideration.”
“Are you going to tell me who, or are you going to make me guess?”
For a minute he looked like he was going to resist, then gave it up. “Oh, very well. It was Mrs. Hawthorne.”
Actually, I could have guessed. Rosalie Hawthorne knew Calder and she’d invited him to her gallery opening. I didn’t even need Ralph to remind me that her father, Josiah Gamble, was on the St. Benignus board of trustees and that the building in which we were sitting had been named after her great-grandfather. She was in the top tier of the local gentry and the St. Benignus alumni - the folks that Ralph had been cultivating ever since the trustees had hired him. “In that case, I’m sure you realize I’ll have to talk to her again.”
The protest I was expecting didn’t happen.
“You can do that right here,” Ralph said. “She’s my next appointment. I believe she has some other thoughts on the search process.”
Come into my parlor...
At first I was surprised at this generous gesture of accommodation. But then I saw what Ralph was up to. If I interviewed Rosalie in front of him, he could stay in the loop and possibly head off any embarrassing statements she might be inclined to make. So it was a bit of a devil’s bargain I was being offered, but I decided to take it. There was something in it for me, too: This way, I got to talk to her before Ralph briefed her on our conversation. Forewarned is forearmed and all that. “Thanks. I’ll try to keep it brief.”
Ralph grunted.
The next few moments were awkward. I was out of questions for Ralph and he’d been out of small talk since the day he was born. But Rosalie was on time, wearing round sunglasses with white frames on her head and a smaller, rectangular pair of regular glasses on her nose. She’d dressed up a bit for her trip to campus, wearing khaki slacks and black pumps. Her auburn hair was pulled back and tied with a red bow.
“Jeff! What a surprise!” From her body language, it didn’t seem to be an unpleasant one. I was her friend Kate’s brother, never mind that she’d last seen me when Mac, Oscar, and I were asking her questions on the night of the recent unpleasantness.
“We were just talking about Thurston Calder,” I explained.
“Poor Thurston. Such a tragedy! What else is there to say?”
I’m glad you asked. “A car accident is a tragedy,” I said. “This was murder. On the surface it looks like a crime of opportunity, a spur-of-the-moment thing, but maybe it wasn’t.” That was something I’d been thinking about. “Maybe the killer planned the murder in advance, but used the corkscrew to make it seem unplanned. Who else knew that Calder was coming that night?”
“Whoever he told, I guess, and whoever they told. I only mentioned it to the artists, but it wasn’t a secret. I suppose dozens of people might have known.”
So, no help there. I moved on. “I gather from Dr. Pendergast that you were really interested in seeing Calder become head of the art department here.”
“I sure was!” She sat down with ease, as if she were used to pulling up a chair and shooting the breeze with old Ralph. “Thurston was fab. He wouldn’t have been popular, but he would have brought some attention to the department.”
Oh, I’m sure of that - on both counts.
“Did you know that he was terminated at Warhol for an unethical relationship with a student?”
She waved her hands airily. “Oh, well, artistic temperament, you know. One must make allowances. Look at van Gogh.”
I’d rather not, thanks.
“As for him not being popular,” I plowed on, “have you thought of anybody who might want to kill Calder?”
She chuckled. “Probably just about everybody whose art he ever reviewed. He was a tough critic with a sharp tongue. But nobody would murder a person for that, would they?”
Thinking of Dante Peter O’Neill, I sure hoped not.
How much of this should I share with Lynda? That was a dilemma. When she was a working journalist, there’d always been a tension between her job and mine. That’s one reason - though not the only one - that we’d dated for about four years, didn’t date for four weeks (her idea), and semi-dated for about five months before we got engaged (her idea again). I know why Facebook has a relationship category called “It’s Complicated.” Eventually we worked it out that some things crossing my desk stayed at my desk, with no offense taken by my beloved newshound, and some things I told her on an “off the record at this time” basis.
Now, as editorial director of Grier Ohio NewsGroup, Lynda acts like a kind of circuit rider consulting on writing and reporting with all the Grier newspapers and television stations in the state. But she still has her office at The Erin Observer & News-Ledger, and it would be against the natural order of the journalist species for her not to pass on news tips to Frank Woodford and/or his troops. I didn’t want her
to do that with Thurston Calder’s rascally reputation, but I was finding it harder not to share things with her now that we were married. Plus, maybe she would have some thoughts on where to go from here. Mac hadn’t given me any new marching orders when I’d reported back to him.
“Can we go off the record?” I said as we carved a pumpkin for Halloween that evening at our tiny kitchen table.
She looked up from the pumpkin, curiosity on her oval face. Her fingernails were painted yellow, orange, and white to look like candy corn. “What did you find out?”
“Off the record?” I persisted.
“Yeah, yeah, the usual arrangement. The Observer gets the story first when you’re ready to give it.”
“That would be never, but your ace reporter might get this on her own if she does a little digging.” I was thinking of Maggie Barton, the pink-haired septuagenarian on the St. Benignus beat. “It’s about the reason Calder was forced to leave the Warhol Art Institute, and it had nothing to do with his book. There’s some juicy St. Benignus campus politics involved, too.”
I gave it to her more or less chronologically, taking her through my day with Dante Peter O’Neill, Lesley Saylor-Mackie, and Rosalie Hawthorne, just as I had earlier with Mac. She immediately saw the embarrassment to St. Benignus in Calder’s background - and especially to Ralph - but she was more interested in the implications for the murder.
“So maybe Calder tried to put the moves on some young babe at the gallery,” Lynda said. “She stabbed him in self-defense, and then panicked and ran when she realized she’d killed him.”
“And she just happened to have stolen the corkscrew and had it on her when he got aggressive?”
Rogues Gallery Page 4