“I really don’t care what you tell him, Virginia. It’s not as if he’s proved himself to be any friend of mine.” Sarah turned and left the office, and Virginia, looking astounded because that sort of behavior wasn’t at all like Sarah Tolland, turned back to her computer.
Forty-three
* * *
Thursday, June 4, 9:15 A.M.
Leo dropped the newspaper in front of Elena. “You must be happy about your friend,” he remarked.
HHU PROF EXONERATED
My God, thought Elena, Beltran never said a word, and he must have known. She skimmed the article, deciding before she’d finished that she needed to talk to Sarah. A phone call would be easier, but she felt she owed Sarah Tolland a face-to-face apology. After all, the woman was a friend, or had been. Elena picked up her shoulder bag and told Leo that she was going to the Westside to see someone about the Margreaves case. “Investigate a possible suspect,” she said, thinking that she’d ask Sarah some questions about Karl Bonnard and pick up a picture of him from Personnel to show Hector Montes. Of course, Sarah would probably say, “Go chase yourself,” and Personnel would —
“You mean without me?” Leo asked.
“You want to apologize to Sarah Tolland too?”
Leo laughed. “You’re on your own, kid, but isn’t this a personal-time trip?”
“No, I’m following a lead on Bonnard too.”
Elena made one stop — at the campus police station — before she went to Sarah’s office. The station had round corners, windows framed in lavender tile, and a white tile plaque that announced, “Herbert Hobart University Police Station” in lavender. The desk officer checked records from the guard stations and showed her the names of people who had entered or left the campus in the time frame during which they thought Howard Margreaves had been killed. Karl Bonnard had signed out with the guard on a Sunday night. There was no record of his entering, but the desk officer said he wouldn’t have had to sign in during daylight hours since he had a parking sticker. Bingo! It was on Sunday night that a man in a delivery uniform had been seen wheeling two boxes into the faculty apartment house. Once she got Bonnard’s picture, she’d show it to the tenant who had seen the delivery man, as well as to Montes at Building and Grounds.
Fifteen minutes later she was saying to Virginia, “I wonder if you could give me a minute with Dr. Tolland? I realize I don’t have an appointment.”
Virginia looked at Elena as if she were a piece of lint on a dark suit. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Detective. Dr. Tolland just went rushing off to see a faculty wife.” Virginia slammed a drawer shut, her face set in lines of disapproval. “I don’t know what’s got into her. Dr. Tolland had an appointment with the vice-president; she had no business raring off to see Mary Ellen Bonnard.”
“Mrs. Bonnard’s at home?” Elena experienced a rush of anxiety.
“Yes.”
“Where’s Dr. Bonnard?”
“I don’t know.”
“Damn.” She thought a minute. “Give me the Bonnard address.”
“Look, we don’t give out — “
“Right now,” said Elena and rapped her knuckles sharply on the desk.
Virginia, looking astonished and offended at such peremptory treatment, wrote out the address.
“Call the Bonnard house,” Elena ordered.
A worried frown began to form on Virginia’s face, and she tapped out the number without protest. “Answering machine,” she said.
Elena nodded. She’d been calling there too and always got the answering machine. Karl had missed their date without a word of explanation. She’d sat there waiting for him, all dressed up, gun in her handbag, and he hadn’t shown up, so she’d gone to bed — while Frank and some Bonaventura thug were fighting in her yard. “You’re sure Mary Ellen Bonnard is at home?”
Now alarmed, Virginia nodded and even offered information. “She called this morning asking for Karl. That’s her husband.”
Elena knew who Karl was. A liar for sure, possibly a murderer. “And Sarah went over there?” At the confirming nod, she said, “Call Police Headquarters.” Elena gave the number. “Ask for Detective Leo Weizell in Crimes Against Persons and tell him to meet Detective Jarvis at the address you gave me.” Virginia agreed, pale by now as a result of Elena’s brusque manner.
Elena turned and left, wondering where the missing suspect had gone; Bonnard was definitely a suspect. He had the means to commit the murder and the know-how, if he was the one who had asked Montes about unslaked lime, and he had the motive — his wife’s infidelity. They might even be able to place him at the scene of the crime. Well, at least Mary Ellen Bonnard was alive. And so was Sarah. Yet Elena felt a sense of urgency, which she tried to quell by telling herself that the killer would probably turn out to be the Bonaventuras or Margreaves Senior. But in the meantime, she had a bad feeling.
Beltran would call it feminine intuition and tell her to ignore it if she wanted to be taken seriously as a policeman. He hadn’t yet admitted other terms to his vocabulary, not policewoman, not policeperson, not — oh God, why would Sarah be going to see Mary Ellen Bonnard in the middle of the work day? And why had Mary Ellen come home? She was supposed to be up in Cloudcroft praying, asking forgiveness for her sins, whatever.
Forty-four
* * *
Thursday, June 4, 10:05 A.M.
Sarah studied the house anxiously as she swung her legs out of the BMW. No one seemed to be at home. There were no cars in the driveway. Of course, if she’d been expecting to find Karl, his car wouldn’t be parked outside. He was the type who always garaged his, lest some errant hailstone dent its carefully polished surface or some wandering child leave a fingerprint. Karl’s Buick sedan was as carefully maintained as his person. Mary Ellen too would have put her car away, not out of any concern for it but to placate Karl.
There had been such a charming, fly-away quality to Mary Ellen when Sarah first met her. Then after a year or so the fly-away quality took on overtones of desperation. She joined that religious sect, talked about it for a few months, then fell silent. It was as if Mary Ellen weren’t really there at the faculty gatherings, the Wednesday afternoon prayer and cocktail parties, for instance. Mary Ellen attended, but she no longer drank, and although she might smile, she no longer bothered to say much, especially if Karl was in the same circle. Well, Sarah could understand that. Before Mary Ellen isolated herself behind a wall of religion, anything she said provoked an unkind response from her husband. Maybe that’s why it had been hard for Sarah to like him.
Sarah knocked at the door, thinking again that the warning she had come to issue was going to be embarrassing to both of them. Then the door opened, and her thoughts were thrown into disarray because she faced Karl, not Mary Ellen.
“I thought you’d left town,” she blurted out
He looked as surprised as she. “I just got back.”
“Where did you go?”
“Is this an official inquiry?” He opened the wrought-iron security door and took Sarah’s arm to usher her in, giving her a merry smile, as if his question were a little joke — except that Karl Bonnard seldom made jokes and wasn’t a merry person, any more than Sarah herself.
And he was touching her. She didn’t think Karl Bonnard had ever touched her, unless perhaps they had shaken hands on first meeting. “It’s not an official inquiry,” she responded nervously, “although you’ve upset Virginia by failing to leave word where you could be reached.”
“I never understood why that was necessary for me. Now, in your case — being chairwoman — “
His voice took on a nasty tone, and Sarah thought, He really does resent my being chair. “Well, I suppose in the event that some student wants to sue you, as that girl did, Radna. What do you make of that?” Ordinarily Sarah didn’t care what he made of anything. She had avoided him if she could and consulted him on departmental business only as a matter of professional courtesy. Now, however, she found herself making conve
rsation because she felt uneasy in his presence. How could she forget that the murderer had left clues pointing in her direction and that Bonnard had a motive to kill Gus, perhaps even resentment enough to frame her? He’d certainly jumped at the chance to claim the chairmanship. “Is Mary Ellen at home?” she asked.
“Mary Ellen?” He looked as if he couldn’t connect the name to a person. “You wanted to see Mary Ellen?” His glance sharpened, and Sarah realized that she had to account for this unusual morning visit.
“Yes, Virginia mentioned that Mary Ellen called, asking where you were. I thought I’d drop by before I started work to — ah — speak to her about the departmental picnic. I wanted to ask Mary Ellen if she’d handle it this year.”
“Mary Ellen’s out of town,” said Karl.
“But I understood from Virginia that Mary Ellen had called from home.”
“Did Virginia say my wife called from home?” Karl asked sharply, his tone almost threatening, reminding Sarah that she was dealing, possibly, with a murderer, and that Mary Ellen, who was supposed to be at home, evidently wasn’t available. Had he killed his wife — just this morning, perhaps minutes after Virginia talked to her? “Virginia must have misunderstood,” Sarah stammered.
“Mary Ellen’s at her mother’s. Or so the Reverend Mr. Ambruster told me at Cloudcroft when I went to see her.”
“How long does she plan to stay at her mother’s?”
“Mary Ellen and I are separated. Perhaps you didn’t realize that, Sarah.”
“No, I didn’t.” Sarah was not sure that Virginia had said where Mary Ellen called from. Maybe Virginia hadn’t known.
“Yes. I went up to the retreat to talk to her about a divorce, but it seems she left and went to her mother’s.”
“Well, in that case, I don’t suppose I can ask her to handle the departmental picnic.”
“No, it wouldn’t seem appropriate. And you do like to do the proper thing, don’t you, Sarah?”
“I suppose I do. Well, I guess I’ll be — “
“Which makes me wonder why you married Angus McGlenlevie.”
Sarah could feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
“Another thing. You don’t like lying, do you, Sarah? And I can see that you haven’t believed a word I’ve said.”
She admitted silently that she hated lies and that she found some of his statements questionable. “I don’t understand, Karl. Why wouldn’t I believe you?” She hoped the fear wasn’t audible in her voice.
“Maybe I’m lying to you; maybe you’re lying to me.” His hand closed around her arm once more, just as it had when he drew her into the house. “Maybe you’d like to tell me why you think I’m lying about my separation from Mary Ellen.”
“You misunderstand,” she said. He had a surprisingly strong grip for a man who, she was sure, didn’t lift weights or whatever people did to develop strong grips. He was walking her very forcefully from the entry hall into the living room.
“Sit down, Sarah.” He pushed her into a puce-colored chair whose down cushions seemed bottomless. “In what way did I misunderstand?”
Sarah clutched the brocaded arms, and the protective covers shifted beneath her fingers, increasing her sense of unease.
“Well, you seem to think that I think — “ She stopped because all the thinks sounded ridiculous.
“What, Sarah?” he prodded impatiently and leaned against the mantel of the fireplace, his hand only inches away from a heavy fire shovel in an ornate brass stand on the hearth.
Sarah stared, transfixed, as she remembered that the unfortunate Howard Margreaves had died from a blow to the head. “It’s not that I think you’re lying,” she assured him. “I was just surprised to find Mary Ellen away. Because I misunderstood Virginia, you see.”
“You seem nervous, Sarah.”
“This is a peculiar conversation, Karl. Are you feeling all right? I suppose the separation has been difficult for you.”
“Not at all,” said Karl. “I consider myself well rid of her. Would you want to be married to a person who espoused creation scientism?”
Since he seemed to be waiting for an answer, he obviously didn’t consider the question rhetorical. “I certainly find it a strange world view. However, our Constitution guarantees citizens freedom of religion.”
“How tolerant you are, but then you’re obviously not as particular about the views and habits of your mate as I am.”
Sarah stared at him. This was the second time he’d referred to Gus.
“McGlenlevie is hardly the proper sort of person for a woman like you, Sarah.”
“Yes. Well, Gus and I have been divorced, as you know, for some time.”
“Unfortunate, isn’t it, that the rest of us couldn’t divorce him?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your husband — when you divorced him, he didn’t leave the university.”
“He’s tenure-track, Karl, and Harley Stanley considers him one of the stars in our crown.” She managed a wry smile.
“If he knew anything about McGlenlevie, he wouldn’t tolerate him for a minute.”
“Perhaps not,” Sarah agreed.
“As you already know, having borne the brunt of Stanley’s disapproval for your husband’s indiscretions.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand — “
“Why, your arrest for his murder. Stanley was quite ready to throw you to the wolves. Didn’t you know that? It was the dean, not Stanley, who refused to put you on leave.”
Was Bonnard unaware that Gus hadn’t been killed?
“Unfortunately, after all you went through on his behalf, it turns out that McGlenlevie isn’t dead.”
So much for that idea, she thought.
“Surely you read about that in the paper. The case of the mistaken victim.”
“Yes, of course. Actually, it turns out that the victim was some fellow living in Gus’s apartment.”
“But you assume, do you not, that the intended victim was McGlenlevie?”
“I’ve no idea.” Sarah couldn’t take her eyes away from Karl’s hand — so near the heavy fire shovel. She didn’t know what the safest course would be — to keep him talking perhaps, but then he might admit that he’d killed Gus — or rather Margreaves. If so, he’d have to kill her too.
“Well, I have to get back to the department. I have a ten o’clock appointment with Harley. In fact, Karl,” she added in a moment of inspiration, “I wonder if you’d consider coming along. I could use some support in the matter of adding faculty. You know how popular computer science has become. We’ll find ourselves teaching three, maybe four courses each if we don’t add new faculty members.” I’m babbling, she thought miserably.
“Given our endowment, I doubt that you need support in getting anything you want, Sarah. In fact, Harley may be falling all over himself to accommodate you, having proved to be such a fair-weather friend when you were arrested. Now he’ll be forced to admit that you didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
“It’s very good of you to say so, Karl,” said Sarah, pushing herself partway out of the deep chair, determined to leave if she could.
“Sit down,” he snapped and moved toward her. She sank back. “It’s all your fault, you know.” He returned to his position by the fireplace. “If you hadn’t married him, none of this would have happened.”
Acid Bath Page 27