Rhapsody in Red

by Donn Taylor

  By arrangement, Mara was waiting on a bench outside the grill. She wore a gray pantsuit and looked very professional. Later, she’d probably let me know, pointedly, how long she’d waited in that chilly wind, but I couldn’t help that. I nodded to her in passing and let her see the cell phone in my hand. Hers hung halfway out of her coat pocket. So we were set for our next operation.

  I stopped by the campus post office adjacent to the grill and checked my mail. As expected, it was all junk and ended up in the voluminous post office wastebasket. On the bulletin board, some phantom grammarian had posted Dean-Dean’s memo with the errors in punctuation and pronoun reference circled in red.

  In the grill, I bought coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich—the alternate food group to my recent diet of ham—and found a corner table with a view of the entire room. Mara’s targets were the offices of Bob Harkins and Gifford Jessel, but neither man was in the grill.

  The male and female English faculty who’d shared my table on Friday came and joined me. The female was laughing about a student-written sentence: “Looking in through the window, the sofa can be seen.” In case I couldn’t figure it out, she explained that the sofa could not be simultaneously inside the house and outside looking in. The male argued that the truth of her thesis depended upon one’s assumptions about ontology and the possible bifurcation of time. Another typical faculty lunch.

  Then Gifford Jessel entered the grill. He carried his order to a table, avoiding mine but trying not to make a point of it. I picked up my cell phone and dialed Mara’s number. I let it ring twice, then broke the connection. That signaled her that Giff was eating lunch, so she was safe to use the passkey for a search of his office. She and I were still casting a broad net and hoping something significant—anything—would get caught in it.

  The female English teacher raised an eyebrow. “Press, you’re notorious for saying you didn’t need a cell phone unless you were in jail. I’m glad you’ve finally joined the twenty-first century.”

  “Not with that phone he hasn’t,” said the male, pointing to my six-inch-long monstrosity. “All he can do with that is open an antique shop.”

  “We have to change with the times,” I said. There’s nothing like an original statement to liven up a conversation.

  “With that phone, you’re ten years behind time,” the male said.

  I tried to look chastened. “That’s why I’m a historian instead of a journalist.”

  The banter went on from there while I dawdled over coffee and watched for Bob Harkins to come in or Gifford Jessel to leave. Bob never showed, but after awhile Giff headed for the door. I hit Redial on my phone and let it ring twice to alert Mara. I hoped she’d remembered to set her phone to vibrate. No use in broadcasting her presence to the whole science center.

  Three minutes after Giff left the grill, while the composition specialists argued about coordinate and cumulative adjectives, I excused myself and departed. I hung around outside, looking across the campus circle once in a while to be sure Mara came out all right.

  I saw no sign of her. Giff had made it about three-quarters of the way to the science center. Then Bob Harkins drove up in front of the building, parked, and went inside. Still no Mara. I couldn’t warn her about Bob because our prearranged signals assumed he’d eat lunch in the grill, as he always did.

  I waited while the cold wind cut a few slices out of my neck and ears. Giff entered the science center. Still no Mara. I was beginning to feel conspicuous, so I walked slowly toward the liberal arts center. I had only five minutes before my one o’clock section of Western Civ.

  Then Mara emerged from the science center, accompanied by Brenda Kirsch. What was Brenda doing there? She had her office in the new gymnasium complex on the back side of the campus. We rarely saw her on this side.

  I paused at the door of the liberal arts center and looked again. Mara and Brenda were just parting, with Brenda heading toward the gym. Mara looked once in my direction and made a tiny wave with her cell phone. That would have to do until we could talk.

  My section of Western Civ went well because students are always interested in the culture of medieval knighthood. They’re surprised to learn that, by the twelfth century, knights were expected to sing and write poetry as well as bash heads. Knights were expected to be adept at romance, too, but I don’t put much emphasis on that. If I did, it would be all the students remembered. At any rate, we had a good class, and my internal musicians joined in with thundering timpani and blazing trumpets.

  All day, though, I felt the tension between pursuing our murder investigation and plodding through academic routine. An air of unreality hung over everything, and I felt a new premonition that something was about to happen. Something unpleasant.

  Or maybe I was just afraid of getting caught.

  Richmond Seagrave arrived at my office in late afternoon. He was another six-footer with broad shoulders, copper-colored hair, and brown eyes hard as hazelnuts. Since I’d last seen him, he’d added a copper-colored goatee.

  For fear of bugging, I took him outside to talk.

  “I don’t have to ask how bad Staggart wants you,” he said, “but how much evidence does he have?”

  “Not enough to arrest me. Not yet.” I told him about the coerced false statement from Pappas and the stolen book and bogus love note Staggart had found.

  Seagrave nodded. “That’s about what I’d expect. Well, let’s see if he’s played tricks with the computers. I have to get back tonight.”

  One call on the cell phone set him up to check Mara’s office and computer. He came back in about forty minutes.

  “No problem with her place,” he reported and proceeded to check my phone and office for bugs. This last was not easy, for all offices and classrooms in the older campus buildings—the liberal arts center, science center, and executive center, among others—were given false ceilings when central heating and air-conditioning were installed maybe thirty years ago. The new ceilings were built with Styrofoam ceiling tiles resting on a metal framework. Seagrave had brought a ladder, and he wasn’t satisfied until he’d lifted every tile and surveyed the space between it and the old high ceiling above it.

  A silent nod from him told me those spaces were clear. Afterward, he spent thirty minutes with my computer while I did a quick first reading of early bird research papers.

  “Everything looks okay, “Seagrave reported. “No bugs, no keyloggers, or anything like that. I added some anti-keylogger software just in case. I installed it on your friend’s computer, too.” He stroked his goatee and worked his copper eyebrows up and down. “Say, she’s quite a dish.”

  I found his metaphor not only hopelessly archaic but personally offensive.

  “I’d never thought of her in terms of tableware,” I said.

  Seagrave looked like he wanted to pursue the subject further, but I preempted. “I really appreciate your coming, Rich. It’s a relief to know everything’s okay.”

  He squinted. “I did find one odd thing on your computer. Have you ever used a wipe program—one that overwrites sensitive documents so they can’t be recovered?”

  “You’re over my head with that,” I said. “I have no sensitive documents. When I’m through with something I just hit Delete.”

  “Delete only breaks up the path to the document,” he explained. “It leaves the document itself in place. It can be recovered, even if it’s been overwritten several times.”

  “So everything I’ve ever deleted on this computer might still be there if somebody wanted to dig it up?”

  He nodded. “If it hasn’t been overwritten too many times. That’s what the wipe programs do: they write over things repeatedly till there’s no hope of recovery. You’ve never used one on this computer?”

  “I didn’t know things like that existed. And this computer was new when they assigned it to me. So why are you telling me this? What does it mean?”

  Seagrave squinted again. “I don’t know what it means, Press, but one sm
all section of your hard drive has been wiped so thoroughly that no one will ever know what was on it.”

  As if to emphasize that fact, the computer clicked three times.

  CHAPTER 18

  The three blind mice reconvened in Dr. Sheldon’s rooms that evening while my musical accompaniment labored through something dissonant and atonal—by Schoenberg, I think.

  I described my interviews with Professors Harkins and Jessel, adding that in my judgment they produced no useful information. I repeated their warnings against continuing the investigation, commenting that I didn’t know if they intended these as subtle threats or simple descriptions of reality.

  From the moment our meeting began, Mara had radiated impatience. She let us know why in a preface to her report. “I’m in more danger of catching pneumonia than I am from our campus murderer.”

  She directed her ocular acetylene torch at me as she said this, but by now I’d developed an immunity.

  “I finished with Jessel as soon as I could,” I said. “You could have worn a heavier coat.”

  “Let me remind you, children, that quarreling is not permitted,” said Dr. Sheldon.

  Mara’s chin lifted and she continued. “I did manage to search Dr. Jessel’s office in spite of my frozen body, though I didn’t have time to shake out all the books. No one saw me go up there, and no one interrupted the search.”

  She looked from Dr. Sheldon to me and then back to him. “Most of what I found was class notes, student papers, and the like. The only thing worth mentioning is that Professor Jessel keeps a pistol in his desk drawer.”

  Her bombshell had its intended effect. The campus was a designated “weapons-free zone,” with a list of prohibited items ranging from firearms and knives down to ordinary box cutters. Rumor had it that Dean-Dean wanted to ban scissors but got overruled by President Cantwell.

  “What kind of pistol?” I asked.

  Mara met my gaze. “A Colt .32-caliber automatic with a full clip of ammunition.”

  Dr. Sheldon’s face filled with wonder. “Child, where did you learn about such things?”

  Mara favored him with a smile. “Country girls from Kentucky know all sorts of things.”

  They might know squirrel guns and horse pistols, but not cute little hand weapons like a Colt .32. Mara would have learned that in her Army training, for the .32 is a little brother of the old .45 that used to be Army standard. Dr. Sheldon let her explanation pass, and I couldn’t mention her Army service without admitting I’d peeked at her personnel record.

  “Jessel’s keeping the gun there makes a kind of sense,” I said. “He knew our offices had been searched. He seemed to think our homes will be searched, too. So if he didn’t want the police to find that pistol in his home, the logical place to hide it was a place that had already been searched.” Another thought hit me. “Could that pistol be the blunt instrument that knocked Laila unconscious?”

  “Probably not,” Mara said. “It had no signs of blood, flesh, or hair on either the barrel or hand grip. I looked.”

  “Good work!” Dr. Sheldon turned to me, beaming. “This child has real presence of mind, Press. She’ll solve this case before you and I even get started.”

  My respect for Mara was growing. There was a lot more to her than the fearful ingénue she’d seemed when she came to my office.

  “The news isn’t all good,” she said, suddenly grim. “Professor Harkins saw me coming down from the third floor. He came up to the second just when I was coming down to it. He gave me a hard look but didn’t say anything.”

  “You can always say you wanted to check a point of philosophy with Jessel before you covered it in class,” I said. I could have kicked myself for assuming Bob would follow his habit of eating lunch in the grill.

  Mara gave me a skeptical look. “The murderer won’t wait for reasonable explanations.”

  Dr. Sheldon intervened. “That’s taking a rather dark view of an ordinary event, Mara. You seem to assume that Bob Harkins either is the murderer or will tell the murderer about your visit.”

  “I’d expect him to tell Professor Jessel,” she said. “But that’s not the worst of it. Brenda Kirsch was on the second floor—near Laila’s office, I think. She also saw me come down from the third, and she also drew a hard look from Professor Harkins.”

  “That at least diverts some of the suspicion from you,” Dr. Sheldon said.

  “What was Brenda doing on the second floor of the chem building?” I asked. “She’s almost never seen on this side of the campus.”

  “Science center,” Mara corrected. “Brenda was terribly nervous, terribly embarrassed, or something. I scarcely know her, but she greeted me like a long-lost sister. Then she chattered nonstop while we walked downstairs. I couldn’t get a word in to ask about anything.”

  I remembered Pappas seeing Brenda in Laila’s office, and Laila stepping between him and something on her desk, the apparent subject of her meeting with Brenda. But I didn’t get a chance to mention it.

  “Worse yet,” Mara said, “we ran into Professor Jessel before we reached the ground floor. That got us another hard look. And the janitor—Pappas—came up from the basement and saw us, too.” She sighed. “If you’d been there, Professor Barclay, I’d have been seen by every one of the suspects.”

  So now she’d distanced me from “Press” to “Professor Barclay.” I gathered that meant I was in the doghouse—whether for poor planning or letting her wait in the cold, I couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered: a doghouse is a doghouse in any case.

  “This is very interesting, children,” Dr. Sheldon said, “but I have yet to make my report. As you may imagine, I have been casting a wide net with my little electronic notebook, and I have netted at least one significant fish.”

  He obviously enjoyed building suspense and making us wait, so I didn’t spoil his fun by asking a question. Mara seemed to read him the same way, for she merely looked at him in expectation—whether real or feigned, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’ve still had no luck with Brenda Kirsch,” he said, “not that I discovered anything we didn’t already know about Bob Harkins or Gifford Jessel.” He licked his lips and rubbed his palms together. “But I’ve learned that Luther Pappas served two years in state prison for assault. He broke someone’s jaw in a barroom brawl.”

  “His personnel record doesn’t mention it,” I said. “That’s probably what Staggart threatened him with that made him say he saw me in the science center before Laila was killed.”

  Dr. Sheldon grinned. “It also means Staggart won’t dare put him under oath where he can be cross-examined.”

  “We’ll hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said. “But what else do you have up your sleeve? You look like the canary that swallowed the cat.”

  His grin broadened. “Our dear, sweet, deceased Laila also has a record. In the year she graduated from high school, Dee L. Sloan was convicted of burglary. As a first offender, she got off with two years probation.”

  Mara appeared stunned. I certainly was. My mind echoed with Bob Harkins’s description of his affair with Laila: It happened in spring semester. We ran pretty much wild the rest of the year. When I’d asked if the affair was the extent of his involvement, he’d said, That was all of it.

  But his eyes had flickered, as they had the first time he lied to me.

  CHAPTER 19

  Tuesday morning began with a bang. It was delivered by a fist to my front door while I shaved. With the first bang, I nicked myself with the razor. Fortunately, I use a safety razor, so the wound was less than life-threatening. The door-pounding continued, but I stanched the bleeding before I answered. Why reward rudeness with courtesy?

  My house has a front door of solid hardwood, with an outer storm door of tempered glass. Half shaved and half lathered, I opened the hardwood door. Beyond the storm door stood Capt. Clyde Staggart, accompanied by two uniformed cops and, as usual, by Dogface. I didn’t have to guess what they wanted.

  “There’
s a new electronic invention you should learn about,” I said, pointing to the appropriate place beside the door. “It’s called a doorbell.”

  Staggart did not take the bait, but held up a sheet of paper. “I have a warrant to search your house. Open up.”

  I slipped my trifocals on and, through the storm door, read enough of the paper to make sure it was a search warrant. Then I unlatched the door and stood aside as Staggart and his troops forged past.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Your computer,” Staggart yelled back over his shoulder. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t own a computer,” I said.

  “You what?”

  “I said I don’t own a computer. The one at the university does everything I need.”

  Staggart snickered. “Press, boy, wake up and join the twenty-first century.”

  “You could use a technological update, yourself,” I said. “They had doorbells in the last century.”

  As we bickered, Staggart’s men spread out through the house.

  There was no way I could keep up with all of them, so I again asked Staggart, “What are you trying to find?”

  “Where were you at daybreak Saturday morning?” He gave me a withering glance.

  I declined to be withered. “I’m not sure. I was probably still asleep, but in my widowed state I have no witnesses to prove it.”

  That wasn’t a lie. Not quite. Actually, I don’t remember my exact location in Laila’s house at the precise moment of daybreak. And the word “probably” has saved many a felon from perjuring himself.

  Staggart’s eyes had been giving my living room the once-over, and now his gaze fixed on the piano. “Oh-h-h-h,” he said, his tone mocking. “A Steinway. If you can afford that, you’re hardly the impoverished professor.”

  “My wife’s father gave it to her as a graduation present,” I said. I could have told him her father gave her the house, too, but he didn’t need to know that.