by Donn Taylor
Inside, Dr. Sheldon wheeled himself up to the same table Mara and I had occupied. We wouldn’t have to worry about privacy. At the nearest table, four male students gesticulated and shouted back and forth, but the speaker system’s recorded mayhem kept me from catching any words.
“. . . tired of reading, and there’s nothing worth watching on TV.” Dr. Sheldon picked up where he’d left off on the phone.
“You could watch the news channels,” I suggested.
“What?” He glowered at me. “And hear gossip read from a teleprompter by some bright-eyed popsy with neon teeth?”
“They don’t have neon teeth,” I said. “Neon is red unless it’s mixed with something else. Fluorescent teeth would be more like it.”
“All right, fluorescent,” he grumbled. “Press, you talk like a nitpicking history professor.”
“My mentor taught me the virtue of accuracy.” He was my mentor, so he knew exactly what he’d taught.
The server rescued us from that discussion. I settled for a grilled cheese sandwich and Coke. Dr. Sheldon continued his rebellion by ordering a quarter-pound hamburger, french-fried onion rings, and a Heineken beer. So much for his anti-stroke diet.
Dr. Sheldon seemed to have gotten something out of his system, for he didn’t pursue our previous conversation. He didn’t even flinch when the server commanded us to enjoy our meal. We simply sat there and let the ambience of Dolt’s beat on us. If it had beat any harder, I’d have needed an eardrum transplant. I wondered if the college’s health insurance would cover that.
Dr. Sheldon assaulted his food like a starved mastiff turned loose in a meat market. I nibbled at mine, timing it so we finished together. With a benevolent smile, he settled back to enjoy his beer at leisure, glancing casually at his surroundings. I matched his style in sipping my Coke.
“What’s new with the campus murder?” he asked. “The newspapers don’t have much to say.”
“According to Dean-Dean, the police have six suspects, including Professor Thorn and me.” I named the others.
“And what are you doing about that?”
I could tell he had something up his sleeve, but I didn’t know what. “What can I do? It’s a matter for the police.”
He leaned forward and tapped the table with a forefinger. “That’s not what Professor Thorn told me. She visited me earlier today.”
I must have reacted visibly, for he laughed and continued. “She felt me out subtly on how far she could trust you, but before she left I’d wormed the full truth out of her. You and she are the prime suspects, and Captain Staggart is the man you had trouble with in the Army. So you and she are turning detective.” He showed a satisfied grin. “This is the most interesting thing I’ve heard since my legs quit on me.”
“I surrender,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
“Your plan of attack. What you want to find out and how.”
I grimaced. “I wish I knew. Find out all I can about the other suspects and hope to get lucky before Staggart hangs something on me.”
He squinted, dark eyes sparkling beneath iron-gray hair. “You can find out a lot with computers.”
“The police have taken my computer. I don’t know when I’ll get it back.”
He tapped the table again. “When you get it back, you won’t dare use it because it’ll be bugged. They’ll either log your keystrokes or the college network will log what you do. But I have a notebook computer and a broadband connection.”
“I’ll appreciate any information you develop.” That was putting it mildly. He was a tenacious researcher, and it would be great to have the benefit of his wisdom.
He beamed like a kid about to open a birthday present. “I’ll see what I can find out about your suspects.”
He swallowed the last of his Heineken and I downed the last of my Coke.
“Don’t turn around,” he said, “but a couple of characters over in the corner have their eyes on us.” His own gaze never left mine, and he gestured as if making casual conversation. “They don’t look like students or police. Matter of fact, they look kind of tough. Watch your step.”
He wheeled back from the table and headed for the door. I picked up the check and followed without looking back. But I did glance at the corner table as I paid the check. Two men sat there. Both had shaggy hair, one black and one dirty blond. The blond one had an overdose of hair gel. The other one’s hair flopped around like a wet mop used to swab out coal bins. Both men were big, with well-muscled shoulders showing beneath open-collared shirts.
Dr. Sheldon was right. They were too old for students, and they didn’t look like police. But they did look like trouble.
I hoped that, for once, it would be trouble for somebody else.
CHAPTER 13
Sunday morning broke cold and clear, with a sharp north wind off the plains and a steely sun that accented the elm trees’ silvery bark. I shaved, showered, and breakfasted on a ham sandwich while my personal musicians played a lively polka. If they were paid union wages, I’d have the richest brain in Christendom.
After breakfast, I risked calling Mara. Our phones might be monitored, but I had to know her part of the plan was on track.
“This is your friendly wake-up call,” I said.
“I’m already awake.” She put an admirable amount of irritation into her voice. “I have things to do this morning. I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Okay, then.” I tried to sound disappointed.
Our conversation was prearranged, partly due to the possible bugging and partly because we couldn’t afford to approach the campus together.
My running suit still reeked of mothballs, but I put it on anyway and made sure its pockets still held my surgical gloves. I climbed to the campus via the walkway Faith and I had used so many times together. But this time I didn’t enter the campus circle. After spotting Mara’s car at its far end, I passed behind the buildings and approached the executive center from the rear.
Dean-Dean’s passkey opened the rear door, and I walked boldly up a set of creaking wooden stairs to the first level. I wasn’t out-of-bounds yet, for I could always say I saw the rear door open and came in to check. Once I’d made sure the building was empty, I entered Mrs. Dunwiddie’s office, where the personnel records were kept. If I got caught there, I was out of a job and into jail.
The file cabinets were locked, of course, but I’d seen Mrs. Dunwiddie put the keys in her desk drawer often enough to know where to find them. A moment of panic struck at the thought they might not be there. But they were. With those in hand, I felt my blood pressure sink back toward normal.
The first file cabinet held correspondence, but the second contained the personnel records of faculty and staff alike. I started with Laila’s, squinting in the dim light and ignoring the throbbing pulse in my temples, searching for essential facts among the proliferation of trivia.
Laila came from Alfalfa Heights, a small farming community on the sparsely populated western edge of the state. She was indeed the forty years of age I’d guessed. The records held no high school transcript, of course, but the chronology suggested that she’d gone directly from high school to the community college in Insburg, a medium-sized city about a hundred miles east of her home and a couple of hundred west of Overton City. She’d earned a two-year associate’s degree at Insburg, then worked four years as a secretary for Insburg Tool and Trucking, Inc.
After that, she’d gone back to school at the state university, graduating two years later with a B.S. degree in home economics. Home economics! The words exploded in my head like a thunderclap. With that major, what was she doing teaching college chemistry?
Had she minored in chemistry? No, the transcript showed minors in secondary education and physical education.
Yet she’d been hired directly from graduation to teach high school chemistry, again in the western fringe of the state. The school was named Bi-County Consolidated, located near a town called Bullerton.
Laila ha
d taught there for eight years before her advent at Overton University. Her file held two glowing recommendations on letterhead stationery, one from Morris Wimberly, M.S., principal of Bi-County Consolidated, and the other from William Murphy, president of Insburg Tool and Trucking, Inc. I thought the second one a bit strange, coming from more than eight years back. I would have expected a more current letter from her department chair at Bi-County Consolidated.
The file held only one other item of interest: a letter signed by President J. Cleveland Cantwell, stating that two nursing students had complained that Laila used her hands in a too-familiar way. The letter warned with characteristic vagueness that any further complaints would be “taken very seriously.” Trust President Cantwell to leave his options open.
I made a few quick notes and closed the file. As I returned it to the cabinet, I heard a car engine approach. It stopped outside. A car door slammed and voices sounded, though I couldn’t make out the words.
A glance out the window revealed Dean-Dean talking to Sergeant Spencer. Fear surged through me, bringing the familiar pounding of blood in my temples. And my anger blazed, unreasonably—anger at Dean-Dean for coming here at this hour on Sunday when he should have been at home reading his Bible and preparing for Sunday school.
So should you, my conscience shouted at me.
But I didn’t have time to argue with my conscience. Spencer pointed toward the opposite side of the circle, and Dean-Dean pointed toward this building. Then each went in the direction he’d pointed. I heard Dean-Dean fiddling with the building’s front door.
It suddenly hit me that I hadn’t planned a place to hide, so my eyes frantically searched Mrs. Dunwiddie’s office to find one. A closet! I didn’t know what was in it, but it would have to do. The passkey opened it. I squeezed in among a profusion of clerical supplies and closed the door behind me. Forcing myself to breathe slowly and silently, I tried my best to look nonexistent. At that moment I would have preferred to be nonexistent.
It then occurred to me that I was clutching Mrs. Dunwiddie’s file cabinet keys in my hand. And I had closed the file cabinets but not locked them. If Dean-Dean noticed either aberration, my goose was not merely cooked. It was charred to the point of disintegration. But all I could do now was wait.
True to form, my internal orchestra featured a bassoon solo as Dean-Dean approached. A door opened as he entered Mrs. Dunwiddie’s office, and I could hear him poking through desk drawers. He must have been pleased with the world, for he whistled as he searched. My internal bassoon neatly modulated into the key of his whistling, and just as neatly modulated again when he wandered off pitch.
He must have found what he was looking for, because the whistling stopped. I sweated. Would he notice the missing keys and the unlocked file cabinets? The office grew deadly silent except for the cavorting of my antic bassoon. I must be the world’s worst burglar, I told myself, and waited for the fatal sound of a hand on the closet doorknob.
What would I do if he did find me? The only thing I could think of was to pretend sleepwalking: If he opened the door I could blink my eyes and demand, “What are you doing in my bedroom?” Somehow, I didn’t think that tactic would work, not even with Dean-Dean.
Now I was sweating profusely. My trifocals were sliding down my nose, but in this confined space I didn’t have room to adjust them.
I held my breath and continued sweating, but the dreaded hand on the doorknob did not come. Instead, I heard the sound of something light dropped onto a solid surface. The whistling began again, a drawer closed, and footsteps retreated from the office. I didn’t move until I heard Dean-Dean’s car engine start, rev, and fade in the distance. A glance out the window showed no one near, but across the circle on the steps of the science center, Mara sat chatting with two men. Her hands drew eloquent diagrams in the air, and the men bobbed heads and bodies in response. I had to hand it to her. She provided good cover for my skullduggery.
My heartbeat kept up its drumfire as I turned back to work. Desperately, while every tick of the clock sounded a siren alarm, I reviewed the personnel files of Bob Harkins, Gifford Jessel, Brenda Kirsch, and Luther Pappas. Harkins and Kirsch came from different towns in the western part of the state, while Jessel came from Insburg. One of Jessel’s years at Insburg Community College coincided with Laila’s stay there, but, with that possible exception, the records showed no logical connection with her. I’d heard Brenda had been married, but the records made no mention of it. Pappas’s records did not point to any connection: They listed him as an immigrant from Greece, but told little else about him except that he was married. No children were listed. Employed at the university for ten years, he had previously driven a delivery truck in Overton City.
That wasn’t a lot of information for all the risks I was taking.
After another glance out the window, I pulled Mara’s file. My conscience protested this invasion of her privacy while she was covering for me, but burglars can’t afford much of a conscience. And I have to admit that Mara had by far the most interesting file.
Its most intriguing part was the name change she had hinted at earlier. Her maiden name in her hometown in rural Kentucky had been Alice Thornton. The records did not list a married name or the date of her divorce. They showed that she was thirty-five years old now, so she’d been about twenty when she had her name legally changed to Mara Thorn. Her curriculum vitae showed a four-year enlistment in the Army that I hadn’t heard about before. The educational benefits from that helped explain the financing of her undergraduate study, and she’d earned some credits from extension courses while she was in service. Afterward, her college studies spread over seven years, with a few gaps when she apparently had to earn money to continue.
She’d begun at a two-year college, but graduated summa cum laude from a state university. That apparently won her a full scholarship to an eastern seminary, where she earned her doctorate in three years. I didn’t take time to read her letters of recommendation. Given her academic record, they had to be good.
I stood in awe of that record. She’d come from Nowheresville and fought her way up to a terminal degree and a position on a university faculty. I could count on one hand the people I’ve known who had that kind of determination, much less that ability. From what I’d seen of her, though, the only question was how much of her total self she’d stunted while doing it.
But the ticking clock in the executive center continued its siren warning. My time and luck were running out, and I had to get out of there now.
As I put the file cabinet keys back in Mrs. Dunwiddie’s desk, I saw that Dean-Dean had left two notes on her desk. The one on top instructed her to tell the “custodial associate” to stop using cleaning supplies that smelled like mothballs. The one beneath it was a memo to all staff and faculty. It complained that three passkeys had been stolen from his office since the beginning of the semester, and that the culprit or culprits would receive severe disciplinary action when apprehended.
When I read that, the familiar hot brick made a sudden reappearance in my stomach. Partly for fear of being caught, of course. But mostly because two other unauthorized people now had passkeys. That explained how the book had escaped from my office so Staggart could find it in Laila’s. Similarly, Laila’s house had been forcibly entered—no passkey used in that—before Mara and I got there. And who had any reason for those actions except the murderer?
These facts showed we were not dealing with someone who’d killed once in the heat of passion and afterward resumed a normal life. The keys stolen in September expanded the applicable time frame well beyond the four days since Laila’s murder. We were dealing, then, with a cunning person whose planned crimes spanned several months. That meant one person on this campus was greatly to be feared.
One person? If the number of stolen keys was any indication, there might be two.
CHAPTER 14
Another glance out the window showed the male members of Mara’s threesome departing in differ
ent directions. That meant my cover was gone. I hurried out the back door of the executive center and locked it behind me. Then I retraced my route behind buildings and reentered the campus circle via the walkway up from my house. My watch said seven forty-five. I’d been in that office almost an hour.
Mara was waiting on the steps of the science center, her blonde hair a sunny contrast to her dark blue running suit, a slight frown her only symptom of worry.
“About time you got here,” she said. “I held them as long as I could.”
“Long enough,” I said. “How did you do it?”
She gave a sad laugh. “Elmo Koontz is a lonely old man who thinks no one appreciates his work as a security guard. I brought him donuts and coffee, added a few compliments, and he was pleased to sit and talk for a while. It’s a shame to take advantage of him like that. How did you make out?”
I ignored her question and asked, “What did Sergeant Spencer want?”
A smile brightened her face. “We talked about his wife and children.” Her smile died suddenly, and the light tone with it. “Now, tell me how you made out.”
“Only so-so.” I still resented her reference to a fifty-year-old as a “lonely old man” but decided not to make an issue of it. Instead, I surveyed the deserted campus. “I’ll brief you later. Where did Elmo go?”
“He went to check the liberal arts center. Said he’d already finished this building.”
“And Sergeant Spencer?”
“Said he was meeting someone at the gym.”
“Good. So let’s have a look at Laila’s office.” I remembered Mara’s pique at being left out the day before.
Surprise and apprehension battled for control on her face. “Shouldn’t one of us stand lookout?”