“Er…I don’t know,” said Myron, thrown off by the question. “I could ask around.”
“Could you? That’d be great. I’d be interested if the price is right.”
And you might get it, once the forensic people are finished with it. After all, how many would want to sit in the driver’s seat previously occupied by a dead person? People were funny that way; apparently Merle was not…
“Will do,” he replied. “Now, I don’t want to compromise you in any way, so I won’t ask for all the details. I’m sure Corporal Osprey has got all those. I have just one important question. If you can answer that, I’d truly appreciate it.”
“Fire away,” he said.
***
Driving to the college, Myron digested what Merle had confirmed for him. If Merle indeed had told no one but Freta, and now himself (and there was no mention of it in the newspapers), then a certain person had some serious explaining to do. It was an intuitive feeling, a bit out there, but he believed he was on to something. He wondered if homicide detectives had similar feelings in their cases and the sudden rush of excitement that went with it. This was the equivalent of a smoking gun — circumstantial but concrete. Of course, he had no absolute proof other than a verbal exchange that could easily be denied or dismissed. But he had heard what he heard, which should focus the investigation in a particular direction.
First and foremost, he needed to talk to Freta and go over the official statement Merle gave to the RCMP. However, that would have to wait he realized as he parked the car, rushed into the college, and hustled up the stairs to his office. There were notes to read for his ten o’clock class.
The rest of the morning proved uneventful. The only awkward moment came in the corridor after class — not with the students, but with Sidney who did an abrupt about-face and walked the other way when Myron emerged from the classroom.
Childish but if that’s the way it’s going to be — so be it!
Back in his office, he closed the door and phoned Freta. Alas, the call went straight to a message machine, and he hung up, not wanting his voice recorded. He couldn’t say why exactly, but it seemed the prudent thing to do, and Freta had given him a heads-up that incoming calls were recorded. In any case, he would see her later that night at the Dworking tribute, and afterward, he hoped.
Ted wasn’t in, and there wasn’t anyone else in the office on the other side to distract him. Not that there normally was. The psychology instructor who had access to the space was rarely there, and when she was, she kept to herself, or at least her door was always closed. Dr. Brewdly didn’t seem to keep office hours — at least at times when Myron was around. She was a strange one. The few times that he did interact with her were somewhat disconcerting; she tended to hug walls and never made direct eye contact. A bit of an introvert, Myron surmised. He did overhear two students talking about her in the hall one day. They were intrigued by the fact that she had given a lecture, all the while stroking a lab rat presumably brought in for experimental purposes. The students did not elaborate. Different strokes for different folks, he supposed.
No excuses, then; Myron resolutely picked up an essay staring up at him from the pile and began to read. It proved the source of his only genuine levity that morning. The epistle, entitled “Fur Trade,” was less so about that than a rather imaginative story about the plight of the poor beaver. They were victims, this pupil insisted, victims of fur trappers and traders’ persecutions. Hunted by the coureurs des bois, Nor’Westers, and short, stumpy Hudson’s Bay company Scotsmen from the Orkney Islands, they were chased across the continent all the way to the Pacific, where in order to escape, the essay seemed to imply, they emigrated! Myron laughed and then sighed as he wrote a few pithy comments about an interesting thesis, but what was the kid smoking? Of course, he couldn’t put it quite in those terms…
Two more essays (not nearly as amusing) later, Ted showed up, a big binder under his arm with bits of paper sticking out. He was a little harried, explaining that he had given the tests back and was besieged by students unhappy about their marks. The discussions spilled over after class into the hall before he could extricate himself.
“Sheesh,” he exclaimed. “They were ready to draw and quarter me!”
“That tough, huh?”
“If they spent as much energy learning the tax cases that they were supposed to…” Ted trailed off, plopping down onto a chair with an exhausted sigh. “By the way, do you have ESP or something?”
“Why?”
“You asked me about Sheila and Charles yesterday.”
“Yeah?” Myron’s interest perked up.
“Saw Sheila in Charles’s office on my way up — a bit animated, or at least she was.”
“About what?”
“Saw — didn’t actually hear. The door was closed, but she was standing at his desk, as I said — animated. She looked tense — anxious. I don’t think she was there to congratulate him on his new appointment.”
“And you didn’t hear anything?”
“Other than the slam of the door when she left?”
***
As much as he was tempted, Myron couldn’t share with Ted his suspicions about Dworking’s death and who he thought was responsible. If he blabbed to Ted, it would be all over the college in a flash. He had to keep his own counsel — at least until he talked to Freta. The other, perhaps more difficult trick was to maintain his composure and an unassuming, straight face when speaking to the person he believed was the murderer.
Meanwhile, he continued to be intrigued by Sheila and Charles’s relationship, past and present. The troubled waters between them ran deep but had remained relatively still until now; suddenly, the current between them was roiling. He should stay out of it, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. He had this compulsive, illogical need to pry.
Sheila’s office, along with Charles’s, was on the second level, with a large general office separating them. Normally, Myron would have checked with Janet Fere, Sheila’s exceedingly friendly and competent executive secretary, before visiting, but he decided to make an exception. According to Ted, she had just met with Charles, and it was therefore unlikely there was anyone else in her office. Bypassing the main office, he lightly knocked on Sheila’s door.
There was a momentary pause before the door tentatively opened, with Sheila peering out looking dishevelled and red-eyed, as if she’d been crying.
She let him in, and he settled in a beige leather chair off to the right of her large and neat desk (a feat Myron found impossible to achieve). She wheeled her ergonomically correct chair from behind it closer to him as he glanced at the bookcase behind, stocked with what looked more like bound reports than academic tomes. They too seemed neatly arranged.
“We didn’t have a meeting scheduled, did we?” Sheila enquired in a perplexed tone.
“No…I thought that I’d take a chance and pop in — to commiserate.” Myron explained lamely, shrugging. “Sorry that it didn’t work out for you,” he added sincerely.
“Me too, but it was no big surprise; he had the inside track,” she said bitterly.
Myron didn’t know exactly how to take that comment. Certainly, Charles had cultivated members of the board, more so than Sheila, who could be somewhat austere and crisp in her language, but he didn’t think there was a conspiracy to elevate Charles to the presidency. When would there have been time? Still, given what he was discovering of Charles, he could forgive Sheila for being suspicious of an inside job — if her comment was to be taken literally. The cards did seem stacked against her.
“Charles will make life miserable for me,” she stated flatly. “And make sure that Oliver never sees the inside of this college again.”
“I suppose you would know Charles better than I do.” While aware of their past relationship, Myron didn’t want to sound too flippant or that he already knew, hoping that Sheila would volunteer further information.
She sighed. “I do, and no doubt you’ve heard
about our past, along with the nasty rumours.”
“Only that you and Charles were…” He searched for the proper word.
“An item?” she filled in. “Well, that part was true for a short while.”
“I don’t think it’s common knowledge. I only learned of this in the last couple of days.”
“We have stayed out of each other’s way — at least I stayed out of his. Now, that’ll be impossible. He’ll make sure of that!”
“Surely he’ll respect—”
Sheila cut him off brusquely before he could go on about professional boundaries and institutional policies. “Not Charles!” she emphatically stated. “You don’t know what he is capable of.”
Myron caught a measure of mounting fear and anger in her words. He could see it in her panicked, tear-reddened eyes and her fingers gripping ever tighter the side arms of her swivelling chair.
What was he capable of? The thought popped out involuntarily. However, Myron did not voice it. Instead, he nodded sympathetically and waited for Sheila to say more. And she did. A mini torment of loathing rushed out.
“It was a very corrosive and corrupting relationship…” She paused, thinking, her mouth twisted in distaste. “Charm — he could be charming, you know — and obsessive. I have no doubt he will try to destroy me, from the inside out, if I let him.” She gave Myron a sour smile. “Our relationship did not end well.”
An understatement, if ever there was one. “That I gather,” he said feebly. “I don’t totally understand how Charles could—”
“Ah…that was my naïveté, blind infatuation, or fatal attraction. Hard to know now, but I said things…private things that were best kept private. With institutional power behind him, he can undermine me. He’ll work at it methodically — first use persuasion, innuendo, tit for tat bribing — followed by humiliation, and finally, when my head is between my knees, dismissal.”
Myron frowned. Sheila was weaving a most disturbing scenario, which without a specific context was difficult to grasp. God! Sheila was describing a Stalin in the making — the quintessential pencil-pushing, paper-shuffling little bureaucrat who wielded ultimate power and killed millions! Enough with the ruthless dictator analogy. Save it for class!
It was clear that Sheila and Charles meant something to each other at one time, which somehow got twisted into dark and absolute antipathy — at least from Sheila’s perspective. But then love and hate were close soulmates, often inextricably connected, the flip side of the same coin. Myron could appreciate the angst, if not the apparent vitriol between Sheila and Charles, given his own ongoing drama with Nadia.
“I don’t pretend to understand, but surely Charles will act professionally in his new capacity and carry on in a responsible manner. What could he possibly have over you?” Might as well go fishing. Curiosity was getting the better of him.
Sheila didn’t bite, exactly. “Enough,” she answered cryptically. “He’ll do his best to take me down and those around me as collateral damage.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’ve found that what goes around has a way of coming around. His closet cannot be skeleton-free.”
“To be sure, the bastard that he is, but I did the talking and he — well, not only was he a tight ass, but tight-lipped as well.”
Myron nodded sombrely. He was dying to know what Leaper had on Penny other than the usual nasty breakup baggage that made her so angry and anxious, perhaps on the verge of a breakdown. There was something even deeper and more disturbing. She wasn’t volunteering, and he dropped it momentarily and tried a slightly different tack.
“Has…has Charles bothered you?”
Sheila visibly slumped into her chair, deflated. “You mean stalking, uninvited attention, unsolicited notes? No, he’s too smart for that. He has remained in the background, waiting, plotting, knowing that an opportunity would arise.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s the way Charles operates, and he told me so on numerous occasions in his own circumspect manner when I left him and ever since.”
“When did you leave him?”
“Over four years ago now. I suspect it’s been festering on his mind ever since. I have avoided him as much as possible; of course, it’s difficult in our current positions. Still, it’s been kept within limits.”
“Certainly well under the radar—”
“As I said, we’ve avoided each other, but I knew he wasn’t finished. Now he has his chance.”
“But you have been communicating more lately?” Myron asked, not mentioning that, courtesy of Ted, he knew that she had been in Charles’s office just prior to his visit.
Sheila gave Myron an odd, crooked smile. “He wants a quid pro quo.”
“Oh?”
“He’d forgive me if I dispense with Oliver. The implication was, although he didn’t quite say it, that he’d even take me back. I was stunned and told him that would never happen. He just smiled and said words to the effect that I’d brought this on myself and that he was providing a way out.”
“Charles sounds like a delusional tyrant,” Myron remarked, a bit shocked. The image of Stalin popped into his mind again.
“Well, he was giving me a proposition, and if I rejected it then my future would take its course, and it wouldn’t be good.”
“Surely he cannot control the narrative as iron-fisted as that?”
“Perhaps not — not if I take some decisive actions of my own,” she added mysteriously.
Myron was on the verge of asking point blank what event/incident gave Charles such a hold over her but pulled back. He didn’t want to push too hard or put Sheila in a more uncomfortable spot than she was already in. He vaguely wondered if she had told Oliver. Perhaps he’d talk to him, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it arose. That would have been stepping over the line, going behind Sheila’s back for confidential information. Sheila noted his hesitation and sensed the question he was struggling to ask.
“Please don’t ask. I’ve already said too much — the story of my life with Charles.” She laughed bitterly. “It is truly something buried in the past, where it belongs.”
Chapter Twenty
Myron went home shortly after his meeting with Sheila. He finally did his laundry and cleaned the place up a bit. While engaged in these happy homemaker activities, he tried to find a flaw in his logic regarding Dworking’s murder. He couldn’t. He was certain that he knew who did her in; proving it, however, was another matter. He would discuss it with Freta later that night, see what she thought of his sudden, insightful recall. Was it conclusive and convincing enough, or not?
A change of clothing was in order for the tribute. He discarded his paisley green shirt and well-worn tweed jacket and put on his last clean white dress shirt and blue blazer. Luckily, his grey trousers still retained their recently ironed shape. A little added panache to his appearance was in order, he decided; although somewhat on the large side now that he had reduced his waistline a couple of inches, the refreshed attire suited the occasion — not overly formal but not too shabby either. He’d let himself get a bit careless in his dress code in the last few weeks, he realized; maybe it was time to retailor and/or add new apparel to his wardrobe.
So, more spiffed up than he had been recently, Myron arrived about half an hour early for the Dworking tribute/wake/Leaper coronation. He was mildly surprised to find a good portion of the college community already there. The cafeteria was nicely decked out with white cloths on its round tables, where decorative candle lighting rested in crescent-shaped holders. Three long tables placed end to end, complete with a podium strategically plunked in the middle and an elaborate PA system located farther back, dominated the portable platform. Large bouquets were stationed atop the industrial-strength speaker boxes on either side of the platform. Caterers were just putting the finishing touches to the head table, which included a number of slender crystal vases with single long-stem red rose inserts.
Myron gave the setup a cu
rsory inspection and wandered off around a corner, side-stepping a large potted palm to the bar. It was open, and business was brisk. But it was not a direct route. Realizing that a ticket was needed, he zeroed in on the table off to the side where a respectable queue had formed.
“This may turn out to be one of the more successful functions of the last few years,” quipped Ted, suddenly appearing behind Myron in the lineup.
“Hi, Ted… Yeah, a gala event,” he retorted with a trace of sarcasm.
“Wonder what’s on the menu? I’m starved!”
“Roast beef, probably. Caterers tend to serve roast beef for these sorts of occasions, or, if we’re really unlucky, rubber chicken.”
“Or a ‘cordon bleu’ version of it.”
“That too,” Myron agreed. “Where are you sitting?”
“Haven’t decided — far side or near side? Where do you think they’ll start the food line?”
“I’ll bet they’ll start with the table on the near side,” replied Myron for no particular reason.
“Okay, then, we’ll stake out a table there — that one on the end.” Ted indicated with a nod of his head the one he had in mind.
“Martha didn’t come with you?” Ted’s pleasantly cherubic wife often attended college functions with her husband, but Myron hadn’t seen her.
“No, it’s her yoga class tonight…”
They bought their tickets and went to the bar to cash them in for beer. The place was beginning to fill up with milling people. Myron caught a glimpse of Sidney, who on seeing him quickly turned his back. Myron had no doubt he was the latest to be added to Sidney’s list of miscreants who were out to undermine him at the institution. That didn’t bother Myron; he was probably in good company.
“Come on,” said Ted. “Let’s claim our table before it’s taken.”
As they made their way across the floor, Myron saw Sheila threading her way toward the head table. Her face wore a tight, grim mask with no penetrating levity. This was not going to be a particularly enjoyable evening for her, he surmised.
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