‘That makes it official too,’ Kate said. ‘I would have to tell them what was said . . . they would hear . . . it would go on record . . .’ She stopped. ‘I can’t do that. It would be like telling on myself.’
Liz took a deep breath and let it go slowly. ‘It’s aural rape and you shouldn’t have to put up with it. I still say tell Jack. He could find out who it is in a nickel-plated minute and keep it confidential, too. What is the point of being married to a cop if you can’t take advantage of the system?’
‘We’re not married.’
‘My point is the same,’ Liz said repressively. She found it difficult to understand Kate’s reluctance to marry Jack, but never openly criticized her friend on the matter. ‘Jack would understand.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘That doesn’t say much for your relationship, kiddo,’ Liz said. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Surely he’ll see that.’
‘He didn’t like the boy. He was irritated with me for taking him in. We had a bad fight about it. This would only bring it up all over again . . . I was stupid, Liz. Very stupid. But it’s my problem. I don’t want to make it his, too. I can look after myself.’
‘Balls,’ Liz contradicted uncompromisingly. ‘I believe you, why shouldn’t he?’
‘I don’t sleep with you,’ Kate pointed out. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘It isn’t, Kate. It really isn’t,’ Liz insisted.
‘OK, OK, let’s leave it,’ Kate said impatiently. She knew Liz was right, but the thought of Jack’s face, his disgust at her stupidity, his inevitable moment of wondering whether there was fire where there was smoke . . . she couldn’t bear it. ‘I need some ice cream to calm my nerves. Even talking about it upsets me.’
‘Sure it does,’ Liz said wryly. She knew her friend well enough to back off – for the moment. ‘And exactly how much ice cream will you require to assuage your raw nerve endings?’
‘Oh, about a gallon.’ Kate began to review the flavours on offer.
Liz sighed. ‘Then I guess I’d better join you. I am very empathetic, you see. I suffer when you suffer.’
‘Up to the point of chocolate sauce?’
‘Oh, way past that.’ Liz grinned. ‘Maybe even to the point of chopped nuts and whipped cream.’
Pinsky, caught up in putting out an APB for the missing husband of the dead lady professor and writing up his notes, kept reminding himself to call Ricky Sanchez. He had his cellphone number from Denise, but the time never seemed to be right. While he waited for the results of the Scene of Crime investigations, he made a list of people they should interview about the late Professor Mayhew and various other avenues they could pursue in the case. The husband looked the most likely suspect, of course, but there was no guarantee that it had been he who had been doing the shouting and the shooting – he could be away on business, some other man could have been in the house. The Koslewskis hadn’t actually seen anyone, just heard the shouting, the shot, and the car driving away. Neighbours on the other side were out of town. Across the wide suburban street nobody had heard anything, apparently. It was early in the investigation and it already looked like being a complicated situation. Nine times out of ten things were obvious, easy to assess, easy to solve. This was apparently going to be one of those other times. Pinsky was not happy.
Stryker and Tos were unhappy too. Stryker, because he was perplexed about the new case, and about Kate. In the past day or two she had been very snappy, very much on edge. In fact, she had been more moody than ever lately, but when he asked what was wrong she would just shrug and say she didn’t know what he was talking about. He supposed it would be easier if she were just some little housewife who would do his bidding, but he would have hated that. He was proud of her. He liked her being a strong woman, an individual. But sometimes it was a problem.
Tos was unhappy for more basic reasons. He was also perplexed and annoyed, because he wanted a big lunch and had to have a small one, due to calories. He hated calories. They loomed too large in his present existence, they ruled his every meal, the numbers haunted him and made him mad. Salads made him even sadder. ‘I am so sick of being healthy,’ he muttered as he gazed on to the plate before him.
‘Then you’ve certainly changed your tune.’ Stryker grinned. ‘Usually you’re yelling at me to eat better.’
‘Yeah, but that was when I could have a steak now and again. Or a doughnut. I haven’t had a doughnut in weeks.’
‘Thereby negating the common stereotype,’ Stryker said.
‘There you go again,’ Tos said. ‘Talking like a professor.’
‘Ain’t it the truth,’ Stryker agreed. ‘It’s Kate’s fault; she uses big words all the time, deafens me with grammar, drowns me in verbiage. I keep having to go to the dictionary when we have an argument, kind of slows down my side of the thing.’ He spoke with affection, however. As a once-aspiring lawyer, he, too, had a respect for proper language. It was just that working day to day with other cops, he tended to talk in their terse jargon and defend himself with their black humour in difficult situations. The terrible things they saw and heard were enough to send anyone nuts. They needed barriers to insanity. Swearing and joking helped. Almost.
‘The trouble is my mother doesn’t understand that I want to get in shape again,’ Tos complained. ‘She puts out the same big meals and sits there glaring at me until I clear my plate. If I don’t she sulks and says I don’t like her cooking.’
‘Leave home,’ Stryker said for the umpteenth time.
‘Easy to say,’ Tos snapped, also for the umpteenth time.
‘Shut up and eat your greens,’ Stryker advised.
‘It would help if you didn’t order stuff like that,’ Tos said, gesturing towards Stryker’s plate of cheeseburger and fries with a side order of macaroni salad.
‘I have the opposite problem from you.’ Stryker was talking around a mouthful. ‘Kate is into healthy eating too. I don’t think we’ve had butter in the house for months. I’m getting damn sick and tired of grilled skinless chicken breasts, believe me. And as for broccoli . . .’
‘My mother serves broccoli,’ Tos said. ‘With tomato sauce and a thick layer of melted cheese.’
‘I suggest we change partners,’ Stryker said. ‘T will eat at your house and you can eat at mine.’
‘Deal.’ Tos glumly began on his salad.
FIVE
The Anthropology Department of Grantham State University was located in one of the few old houses remaining on the campus. It looked very odd, wedged as it was between the science building and the new English and arts building, both of which were modern in design and loomed over the two-storey anachronism between them.
The cramped premises contained the combined studies of archaeology, palaeontology and anthropology. The department had been promised space in the new cultural sciences building that was currently in a state of becoming, but for the present made do with a warren of tiny offices and an insufficient number of bathrooms. This gave rise to much compromise, bringing about in equal measure conflict, constipation and exaggerated good manners. One of the instructors had observed that if their skeletal remains were dug up centuries hence, there would be many questions as to the wear and tear on molars due to the grinding of teeth. No doubt some future scientist would write a monograph on it, attributing the phenomenon to diet or religion, when really it was a result of workplace claustrophobia and the strain of being polite to one another.
Pinsky, Neilson and Muller found the old house rather intimidating, as it seemed to be full of people arguing – although the arguees would have called it brisk academic interchange. The walls were covered with oddities such as African masks and casts of dinosaur bones and, in one memorable display, sepia photographs of many naked-breasted women in native dress. Overburdened shelves were filled with books, pots, shards, bones, raffia structures of indeterminate origin and p
urpose, fearsome-looking weapons, leaning stacks of periodicals, and lots and lots of half-empty coffee mugs. Some of the latter contained mould that would no doubt interest the department of biology, were it offered to them.
The computers on all the desks in all the rooms seemed like alien invaders, humming to themselves, largely ignored and occasionally decorated with ethnic art of mixed origins along with cartoons clipped from magazines, some of which were so old they had yellowed and curled at the edges.
They finally located the man they wanted to talk to – a Professor Winchester. He was a large, balding man wearing a very loud Hawaiian print shirt and chinos, and he inhabited a corner office that actually had a brightly coloured Mexican rug in front of the desk, indicating true status. It was a very small rug, though, for the desk took up most of the space. Its owner was stretched out in a reclining office chair, glaring at the computer screen before him. As he glared he played with three polished stones of a brilliant blue, turning them over and over in his palm rather in the manner of Captain Queeg of Caine Mutiny fame.
‘What can I do for the local police?’ asked Dr Winchester with a beaming smile, when they had identified themselves. That is, Pinsky and Neilson flashed their ID. Muller, who was shadowing them, hung back and stayed quiet, watching, listening. ‘Not another student in jail for drunkenness?’ He seemed delighted to be distracted.
‘It concerns a member of your staff, sir, a Professor Mayhew.’
‘Associate professor,’ Winchester corrected them. ‘A very able young woman; I expect great things of her.’ His beam suddenly changed to a frown. ‘She is not in any difficulty, is she?’
‘Well, in a manner of speaking,’ Neilson said. While he couldn’t be said to enjoy being the bearer of bad news, he admitted to himself that he got kind of a kick out of the startled look on people’s faces when he laid it on them. He found that everybody reacted differently and so he considered his observations to be a study of humanity. Also, occasionally, they were funny. He told himself it was wrong to be amused, but he couldn’t help it sometimes. ‘She was found murdered at her home this morning,’ he announced.
‘Good God!’ Winchester said, straightening up so abruptly that his chair nearly went over. Neilson added that absurd wobble to his fund of observations, but managed to keep a straight face. Of course this ‘study’ of his only applied to people who were not emotionally involved with the victims. He was not a monster. He understood grief. It was shock that interested him, shock and the invariably revealing reactions to it. It exposed people, told things about them that might be useful to an investigation. In this case it told him that Winchester was the kind of person who loved drama.
‘You’re not serious!’ Winchester continued, rolling the polished pebbles ever more rapidly in his palm. His eyes were wide with astonishment and, sadly, the excitement that often accompanies such revelations. Here was a Moment in his otherwise dull life. Here was Something Out of the Ordinary. Terrible. And fascinating.
‘I’m afraid so, Dr Winchester,’ Pinsky said. ‘We believe the assailant escaped by car. There was no sign of robbery. The husband is missing.’
‘Good Lord.’ Winchester put down the stones and passed his now-empty hand across his balding pate. ‘I hardly know what to say.’
‘Could you tell us something about Professor Mayhew?’ Pinsky asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down. Neilson did the same. Winchester waved his hand as if giving them permission to do what they had already done. ‘Did she have any enemies? Did she have any particular friends on the staff? Was she popular with her students?’
There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ Winchester finally answered. ‘Give me a moment to take this in. I’ve never known anyone who was actually murdered before . . . I can’t seem to get my thoughts together.’
‘Take your time,’ said Pinsky patiently, as he got out his notebook. He glanced at Neilson, who was watching Winchester closely. Behind them, leaning against the door jamb, Muller also took out a notebook. He was trying to look official and almost succeeding.
Finally Winchester took a long deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘What a damned shame,’ he said. ‘She was good, you know, she was a very good teacher and getting better all the time. I liked her, we all liked her, although she was a bit serious for some. A bit intense, sometimes. But that’s not a bad thing in an academic. She was interested in physical anthropology, you see. Bones, mostly. That was her particular speciality and she was writing a brilliant book on it. Elise was not one to get out and mix with primitive tribes – there are far too many of us who are happy to do that and avoid having to teach in order to eat, which is what happens to most anthropologists. She was particularly interested in diseases of the bones – tracing patterns of disease in the bones that were found in mass graves. She didn’t like to dig herself, preferred lab work, but she put ideas and theories together brilliantly. What we call a synthesist. A born researcher. She was full of ideas . . . Damn!’ He struck the desk with a fist. ‘She was going to do good things.’ Glancing at them, he seemed to suddenly take in what they had said. ‘You say the husband is missing?’
‘Yes. We aren’t certain yet whether he is out of town or—’
‘Or whether he killed her himself,’ Winchester finished for him.
‘Yes,’ Pinsky agreed. ‘Until we locate him there’s no way of knowing. She could have been killed as a result of a domestic argument, or by some other person who broke in or was let into the house because she knew him. Or her, come to that.’
‘She was . . . what? Shot, you said?’
They hadn’t said. Muller leaned forward a little.
‘Horrible, horrible,’ Winchester continued. ‘She was right. Our society is becoming more primitive, not less, gentlemen. And guns are at the heart of it. No time to discuss, no time taken to use reason, oh no. Shoot first and win the argument, that’s the way it goes now, doesn’t it? I just can’t take this in. Her teaching schedule—’ He caught himself. ‘Sorry, sorry. So many things to consider. A terrible loss to us, you see. We are a small department, fighting for our very existence and certainly for our funding. She was going to do great things for us . . . we had hopes, we had definite hopes.’ He shook himself. ‘Never mind that, never mind. You came for my help. What can I do?’
‘Enemies,’ Pinsky said succinctly.
‘None,’ Winchester said firmly. ‘At least none in her work here. She was a pleasant woman, extremely competent, extremely encouraging of other people’s work – and that’s an important trait, believe me, the jealousy that can . . .’ He trailed off, brought himself back to the question. ‘No, no enemies here. As for her personal life, frankly, I knew little about it. I knew she was married, but we never met the husband, not at any faculty functions when he might have come along. He never did. We deduced he was either uninterested or possibly even resented her career. It does happen, you know, with women academics. I think his name is Donald Mayhew, if that’s any help, and he’s a salesman or something like that, not academic at all.’
‘You tend towards suspecting the husband, then?’ asked Pinsky innocently. They already had Donald Mayhew’s name and place of employment – an office supply company. They were attempting to work out where he might be if, in fact, he was on a sales trip and not running scared.
Winchester was not stupid. ‘How could I know?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know him or anything about him. From what you say, it might have been, or it might not have been. Surely there were clues, some indication . . . ?’
‘The gun was registered to Professor Mayhew herself,’ Neilson said. ‘So it wasn’t brought from outside. But she might have gone for it to defend herself and the assailant took it from her. We just have no clue, no actual clue, as to who fired the shot. One shot, to the face. It could have been an accident, a struggle for the gun. But the gun was wiped clean of fingermarks, so it wasn’t suicide.’
‘Suicide? Good
Lord, no. Never. Not Mayhew. Too curious. Too interested in life. Intense, yes, but never depressed. Never defeated. Buoyant, gentlemen. She was a buoyant person, loved her work.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps too much?’ he added slowly.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. You say she was working on a book?’
‘That’s correct. Working very hard and nearly finished, I believe. I have seen the work in progress. Not my particular field, you understand – I’m primarily a cultural anthropologist – but there was no doubt that it was original and insightful. She would have been published easily. Easily.’ He looked up at his own well-filled bookshelves.
‘So you know of no one who would want her dead, no competitor for position, no one jealous of her work, no emotional involvements with other members of the faculty, or with her students . . .’
Winchester was startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Pinsky began carefully. ‘People do have affairs. People who teach often are troubled by students who get crushes or become obsessive or even begin to hate because of poor marks, say, or—’
‘Good Lord, what an idea.’ Winchester reflected. ‘No affairs with the faculty, I’m afraid. I would have known about that, we are very close-packed in here, no secrets. Students – she never mentioned any problems. And she was not very . . . how can I say this . . . ?’ He thought a moment, then leaned forward. ‘She was not very sexy,’ he confided in a low, almost embarrassed voice. ‘She was all mind, you see, all analysis and deduction. Possibly even cold, to some degree, although affectionate towards her students, I understand. She had a lack of interest in her appearance, for example. I don’t mean she was slovenly, but she dressed for comfort, as they say, not style. One was rarely even aware that she was a woman, to be perfectly frank. It was the mind one engaged with, always the mind. Do you understand?’
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