Medieval Murders

by Aaron Stander

  When he awakened next, it was with a sense of urgency. He had overslept. It was long past 7:00. He started the coffee, took a quick shower, retrieved the paper, and popped two pieces of whole wheat bread into the toaster.

  He carried the paper out to the deck and made a second trip with a tray containing the pot of coffee, a cup, the toast and a container of margarine. He sorted through the paper, first scanning the national, then the international news.

  Ray had moved to the sports section, perusing a long article on the NCAA’s investigation of Division I football programs when the Chesterton’s terrier came crashing through the paper onto his lap. As he scratched the dog’s ears, Banquo rolled his head nonchalantly toward the table and picked the remaining piece of toast off the plate. He hopped off Ray’s lap and carried his prize to the edge of the patio, tore it in smaller pieces, wolfed down the chunks, wandered off to the edge of the deck, and looked back over his shoulder at Ray before scampering off to sniff under the deck.

  Ray was almost through the article when the phone rang. It was Char Pascoe.

  “Elkins, you’d better get over here. I’m at University Gardens. We have an apparent suicide. Are you ready for this?” She didn’t wait for a response. “The woman, Constance Dalton, is a member of the English department, and there is a suicide note.”

  “Who found her?”

  “A friend, they had planned to go to breakfast. When Dalton didn’t answer her door, her friend opened the garage to see if the back door was unlocked. She found Dalton behind the wheel, motor still running.”

  “Get whatever help you need, get full photos, and have the place sealed off. Don’t move the body until I look things over. Where are you in University Gardens?”

  “It’s the last unit on the left on Stadium Court.”

  “I’ll be over in about twenty minutes.”

  “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “Char, have you thought about becoming a pathologist?”

  “Pathologist, no. Why?”

  “You’re getting that kind of a sense of humor.”

  He switched off the phone and returned to complete the article. He stacked the sections of the paper and carried them into the kitchen.

  Banquo watched Elkins go into the house. The terrier climbed back onto the porch and inspected the area around Elkins’s chair. Then he jumped up and walked around on the table. There were no additional scraps of toast to be had.

  23

  By the time Elkins arrived, three police cars, an EMS unit, and an ambulance were parked at the end of Stadium Court. Two police cadets defended the yellow plastic ribbon from a cluster of onlookers, mostly adolescent boys sitting on their bikes and swapping lies in the warm, humid morning. Elkins paused, looked at the boys, and thought about when he was that age camping with friends, Jim and Butch, on an inland lake up in Michigan. That special memory vanished as he ducked under the plastic tape and walked toward the garage.

  He paused for a few seconds and made a mental snapshot of the scene. The garage door was open. A late model Chrysler, steel blue, was in the center of a space big enough for two cars. The back wall of the garage near the house was covered with drywall, taped and painted; the side-walls were uncovered, studs and wiring exposed. On the right side of the garage a bicycle— black, dusty, English style, with a weathered wicker basket and flat tires—leaned against the wall. Behind it, a golf bag slouched into the corner. At the opposite corner of the garage was a door that he assumed opened into the townhouse. A plastic garbage can on wheels stood near the door.

  The car door was also open. Char Pascoe, head and shoulders drooping forward as she explained something to an evidence technician, looked up and saw Ray approaching. When he reached her side, she said. “Dan’s taken the usual series. I made sure he was extra thorough. Tell him if there is anything else that you want.”

  Elkins looked in at the body slumped against the gray leather upholstery. He stood for a long moment taking in the scene, suddenly realizing that he was holding his breath. He turned and walked out into the sunshine with Pascoe following him. “I trust your judgment,” he said, meeting her eyes.

  “I just talked with Dr. Gutiérrez. She’s coming over to examine the body,” said Pascoe. “I knew you’d want to get a fairly accurate time of death.”

  “And the suicide note?”

  “It’s next to the body. Didn’t you see it?”

  Elkins shook his head rather sheepishly.

  “I read it leaning over from the back seat. I wanted to get the scene photographed before I moved anything.”“What does it say?”

  “Let me get it.”

  Pascoe went back into the garage. Ray waited, looking away from the townhouse at the fields of ripening corn turning gold under the hot morning sun.

  Pascoe returned in a few minutes carrying an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper in a clear plastic bag. She handed it to Elkins. He read the short note.

  O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,

  Which have no correspondence with true sight;

  Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,

  That censures falsely what they see aright?

  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

  What means the world to say it is not so?

  If it be not, then love doth well denote

  Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: no,

  How can it? O! how can Love’s eye be true,

  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?

  No marvel then, though I mistake my view;

  The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

  O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind,

  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

  “What does it mean?” asked Pascoe.

  “It’s a sonnet, probably Shakespeare.”

  “I’m impressed. How did you know that?”

  “I had an intro to Shakespeare when I was a sophomore or junior, the instructor did her dissertation on something to do with the sonnets. We spent most of the semester on the sonnets, hardly got around to the plays.” Ray paused for a minute and carefully perused the text. “What does it mean? Just read it a couple of times, and you’ll have it. The person who found the body, where is she?”

  “The medical center. She was close to hysterical when I talked to her. I had Sergeant Jackson take her over. He’s instructed to stay with her until he hears from me.”

  “Has anyone been in the house?”

  “Just that friend, name’s Mary Caswell. She’s a librarian in the graduate library. She told me that after she discovered the body, she went in to use the phone. She said she knew from television that she shouldn’t touch anything, so she came out right after making the call. And Jackson told me Caswell was in her car waiting when he got here.”

  Elkins looked west, his eyes moving along the horizon as if he was expecting to find something. Finally he said, “Right from the beginning this didn’t feel right. Three deaths, all women, all in the English department. This is statistically improbable.” He paused again, not pulling his focus from the distant horizon. “You know the dance, dust the house and car. See whose prints are there besides Dalton’s and Caswell’s. Look for anything suspicious. We need to check her voicemail, e-mail, talk to neighbors, friends, colleagues. And when that’s completed, it’s essential that we do that for the other two. I want to know everything and anything we can find out about these three women and what connections existed between them.”

  Pascoe nodded her agreement, “Our focus has changed.”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Let’s do a quick walk through, then I want you to process the place.”

  Elkins followed Pascoe through the door from the garage into the kitchen of the condo. The room was devoid of color—walls, floor, and appliances all in white—and with the exception of an empty bottle of Stolichnaya and a tumbler standing in the sink, all the surface areas in the kitchen—countertops and a small dining table—wer
e empty, not an envelope or a spoon or the hint of crumbs or any normal activity.

  “After you dust the bottle and glass, I want you to check the contents of the trap,” said Ray. “I want to know if someone poured vodka down the sink.” He pointed toward the bottle. “Is that just a prop, part of the set, something designed to pull us away from the real facts of this death?“Look at this place,” he said. “It’s like she’s never really moved in. There’s nothing personal here. No art, no photographs, magazines, knickknacks. Nothing.”

  “It’s a bit oppressive,” Pascoe agreed. “Motel rooms have more personality.” She stopped and looked at Ray. “You appear to be in a panic to get out of here.”

  He thought about her comment, and then responded, “I’m upset. Things are totally out of control. These people are dying, and we’re clueless as to why.” Their eyes met. “I’ll run over to the medical center and see if I can learn anything from this Caswell woman.”

  Sergeant Jackson was waiting for Elkins near the admitting desk in the emergency room.

  “How’s the patient?” asked Ray.

  “She was having difficulty breathing. They’ve admitted her. She’s been sedated, but I think you can still talk to her.”

  Jackson led Elkins through the corridors, crowded with visitors, to a second story ward in the new south wing. They stepped off the elevator and walked to the nursing station. Elkins introduced himself to the nurse behind the counter and asked if he could have a brief conversation with Mary Caswell.

  “You mean 27B,” came the response from the nurse, fiftyish, with a wide jaw, a pronounced under bite, and several additional chins that gave her a bulldog appearance.

  Elkins rephrased the request. “If 27B is Mary Caswell, would it be possible to ask her a few questions?”

  “Do you have some identification?” she pressed.

  Elkins had no police identification. He hadn’t needed anything but his university ID and had never bothered to ask for any. With great pomp he pulled out his wallet and flashed a faculty library card with his picture in one corner. She nodded without focusing on it. The nurse came around from behind the desk. “She’s just been given a strong sedative and may be asleep. You can only stay a few minutes. The patient has a history of heart trouble and has really worked herself into a state.”

  “We’ll be brief, I promise,” offered Elkins.

  She held the door for them and then stood by the bed, her manner, menacing, to make sure they didn’t upset the patient. She leaned over the bed and said, “Ms. Caswell, these two police officers want to ask you a few questions. I’ve told them they can only stay a few minutes.”

  The woman in the bed gazed at them glassy-eyedd. She seemed to have difficulty pulling them into focus.

  “Ms. Caswell, I’m Ray Elkins with the university police. Sorry we have to bother you at this time, We’re trying to complete our investigation. Would you tell me what happened this morning?”

  Caswell continued to gaze at them. After a long moment, in a halting fashion she started. “I went to pick her up. I was a few minutes early. There was no answer at the door. I tried the bell first, and then I knocked several times. I tried the door; it was locked. I became concerned. Constance is absolutely reliable. I just knew something was wrong, so I opened the garage door—we used to joke that we had the same code: 1-2-3-4. I was going to see if the door fromt the garage into the kitchen was open. When the door opened I could hear her car running. I looked in.” She stopped. Elkins leaned forward. “The door was unlocked, so I went into the house, and I dialed 911. Then I went back outside to wait. That’s all I know.”

  She looked at Elkins like she was trying to pull him into focus, then she drifted away. Her eyes closed.

  The nurse exhaled heavily to indicate the interview was over. “She needs to sleep now, gentlemen. I’m sure she’ll be in much better shape in the morning.”

  She herded them out of the room.

  24

  Elkins parked in his driveway and cut across the yard to the Chestertons’ house. Stephanie, in denim shorts and a T-shirt, was on her hands and knees planting mums in a flower bed on the perimeter of their back deck. So as not to startle her, Elkins cleared his throat as he passed near her.

  She looked up. “I was wondering when we would see you. We heard a couple of hours ago. Isn’t it awful?”

  “Where’s Chesterton?” Elkins asked not responding to her question.

  “He’s in his study. Go on in. I think he’s expecting you.”

  Elkins mounted the stairs, crossed the deck, and opened one of the French doors at the back of the kitchen. The house was cool and dark. He took off his sunglasses, slid them in his shirt pocket, and walked through the house to the study. The double doors were open and Chesterton was at his desk, books piled on either side, writing on a sheet of lined paper with a large fountain pen. He looked up as Elkins entered the room and rose, extending a hand across the massive desk.

  “I thought you might be by to pick me up.”

  “Didn’t want to put you through that again, Clifford.”

  “No problem, Ray. In fact, as strange as it sounds, these trips to the morgue have brought back some important memories.”

  “How’s that?”

  “When I was a lad I would often accompany my father to the hospital on weekends and school holidays. Those were the only times I really had him alone. He was too busy with his work and his teaching for us to do the usual kinds of excursions that boys and their fathers do. He would let me watch as he did an autopsy, explaining as he went. He was a born teacher and a good scientist.”

  “Did you ever consider medicine?”

  “I arrived in New Haven convinced that I would go in that direction, but by the end of my freshman year I knew that wasn’t my destiny. So much for family history, I expect you want me to tell you all I know about Constance Dalton.”

  Elkins nodded in the affirmative. Chesterton offered him one of two large, overstuffed leather chairs positioned on each side of a floor-to-ceiling gothic window.

  “Can I offer you a drink?” Chesterton asked as he opened the doors on a large walnut bar.

  “I would love one, but I have to take a pass.”

  “Yes, I understand. Duty and all that,” responded Chesterton as he poured cognac from an etched glass decanter into a snifter. He planted himself in the chair across from Elkins.

  “We have over sixty full-time members in the department, about half of them are not tenured,” he began. “In addition, we have at least that many adjuncts and several dozen TAs. There are a lot of faculty members I don’t really know. I mean, I know them by sight, and I know their specialty, but I don’t know them. I’ve never spent any time with them. Never sat and chatted over a drink or a cup of coffee. Constance Dalton was someone I didn’t know personally.”

  “Tell me as much as you do know.”

  Chesterton swirled the cognac. After a few moments he looked up at Ray and said, “She is, rather, she was starting her sixth year. Her specialty was medieval literature.” He stopped and looked across at Elkins aware of the connections that Elkins was making. “Yes, medieval literature, just like Bensen and Hendrickson. I never would have thought that was a particularly hazardous occupation.”

  “How many medievalists are there?”

  “We had five. Miller, that’s Oscar Miller, he’s close to retirement. I think he’s spent his entire career here. Not a very pleasant fellow, looks a bit like a weasel, has a personality to match. Then we hired Bensen, followed by Hendrickson and Dalton. Finally, we have Jane Arden. It was all so incredibly silly. I think I’ve already explained this to you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Keith Beckner and his grand scheme to make this department an international center for graduate study in Medieval and Renaissance English literature in the American heartland. And as I mentioned, Keith moved up the administrative ladder, the graduate students never came, and we entered a period of rapidly declining enrollments in th
e humanities. Beckner’s plan has turned out to be a total disaster for everyone involved.”

  “So what do these people teach?”

  “Mostly intro to lit courses and freshman comp. Once a year they may be able to teach a survey course in English lit. Miller has an Old English course and the graduate seminar. The rest are not happy that they can’t teach their specialty, and with the dreadful job market in English they don’t have the opportunity to go anywhere else. They all know that their chances for tenure here are very limited. The same thing is true of the Renaissance lit people. Fortunately, none of them are dying.”

  “Dalton, would you tell me everything you know about her, what she looked like, her personality, friends, whatever?”

  “You saw her?”

  “I saw her body in the car, but I didn’t get a good sense of her physically.”

  “She was very petite, almost frail, plain, but not unattractive. She seemed to be well liked, both by students and her colleagues. I know she was quite professional. And she was getting a lot of publication in her specialty.

  “She came here with a husband. He was in physics or chemistry, one of the sciences. He got a tenure-track position in California several years back.”

  “Children?”

  “That’s what I was trying to remember. They had a son. I think when they separated the lad decided he wanted to live with his dad. There were rumors.”

  “Like?”

  “I’m not quite sure. I try not to listen. I think the gist of things had to do with appearances. When people separate, the children usually stay with the mother.”

  “Any talk of another love interest?” Elkins asked.

  “I don’t know. I try to administer by focusing on professional issues, and I make a studied effort to stay as far away from the rumor mill as possible. English departments are just filled with whispers, backbiting, slurs, and insults. You know the old saw that’s attributed to Wallace Sayre, ‘Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.’” He paused, a smile spreading across his face. “I wish I could tell you more, but that’s about all I know.”