by Donn Taylor
Then he seemed to notice my half-shaved face for the first time, and he went back to the reason for his search. “Someone broke into Laila Sloan’s house. Early Saturday morning, one of the neighbors saw two guys come out of the alley behind it. One of them fits your description. Do you own a black jogging suit?”
I shrugged. “If I do, your storm troopers will find it.” Though I feigned indifference, something like an icicle stabbed at my heart. I’d forgotten where I put the jogging suit.
“Have your fun,” I said, and turned into the bathroom to finish shaving. My lather had gone dry, so I washed it off and started over. I never had a worse shave, for I remembered that I’d thrown the jogging suit into the washing machine to get rid of the mothball smell. I didn’t see how they could miss it.
The icicle kept jabbing my heart and the now-familiar hot brick resumed its residence in my stomach. You’d think the two would neutralize each other, but instead they formed an alliance and tortured me in tandem.
For about forty minutes, the cops searched and I sweated. When they cleared my bedroom closet, I carried my blue suit and accessories into the bathroom and changed. (Tuesday and Thursday were my blue-suit days that week.) A few minutes later I emerged from the bathroom to find Staggart and his men huddled in the front hall.
“We didn’t find a jogging suit,” one uniformed policeman said, “but we did find this toolbox. It has screwdrivers and chisels in it.”
“Give him a receipt and send it to the lab,” Staggart said. “The tools may match the marks of the break-in.”
My cardiac icicle gave me an extra prod, and my abdominal hot brick did a back flip. I’d carried a screwdriver, chisel, and pliers from that toolbox to jimmy Laila’s back door. Thanks to the burglar who got there first, I didn’t have to use them. An honest lab test would prove the tools hadn’t been used recently. But could I hope for an honest test?
Staggart left with his usual warning to keep my nose clean, and I followed with my usual response that he should know I always did. I didn’t feel confident about that. I’d traveled a long way on the wrong side of the Rubicon, and I couldn’t believe Staggart’s crew hadn’t searched the washing machine.
However, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the eye, or whatever that expression is. So I poked around to see if they’d taken anything besides the tools. They hadn’t, but while I was looking I found an old box of mothballs. That gave me an idea, so I put three into a Ziploc bag, used a rolling pin to grind them into powder, double-bagged the result, and slipped it into my coat pocket.
Afterward, I cleaned my trifocals and headed up the hill to my nine o’clock class. It was Western Civ, and that day I made my usual diversion into cultural history to talk about love traditions. I began with the ancient world, where love was at best deep loyalty and producing heirs or, at worst, lust and madness. I mentioned the physicality and promiscuity of the Ovidian tradition. In the twelfth century came the invention of romantic (courtly) love, popularized by Eleanor of Aquitaine and Chrétien de Troyes. And of course there was the purely intellectual love championed by the Renaissance Neoplatonists.
Then in the 1590s, Edmund Spenser struck a compromise between Ovidian physicality and Platonic idealism, added the romance of courtly love, and synthesized it all within the holy sacrament of Christian marriage. I pointed out that Spenser’s synthesis reigned as the ideal of Western civilization for more than three centuries until, in the early twentieth century, it broke up under the influence of Freudian psychology and naturalistic philosophy.
For once, I had the students’ full attention for the entire period. That brought me out of class on another emotional high while my internal musicians collaborated on a cute little march by Edwin Franko Goldman, with plenty of brass and oom-pah.
I figured that was as good a time as any to talk to Brenda Kirsch so, with Goldman bouncing around in my head, I marched myself beyond the campus circle to her office in the new gymnasium. That wing of the gym featured a hallway with offices on either side. Beyond it, from the basketball court, the slap-slap-slap of bouncing balls penetrated faintly.
I didn’t know Brenda well, and I hadn’t decided how to handle the interview. So I was almost relieved when no one answered my knock at her door. I was about to go back to my own territory when the door to the basketball court opened and Brenda came striding down the hall to her office. I’d never much noticed her before, so I remedied that deficiency as she approached.
She was a tall woman, only an inch shorter than my five foot ten. She wore a warm-up suit of emerald-green velour that emphasized her slender figure and long legs. Her movements combined the strength of an athlete with the grace of a ballerina. She wore a nice perfume that seemed more graceful than muscular.
“Hello, Professor Barclay,” she said with a cordial smile. “We don’t see you often on this side of the campus.”
“I decided to go exploring,” I said, hoping my answering smile didn’t look as silly as it felt. “Actually, Professor Kirsch, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Come in, then.” She opened the door and motioned me to a chair—a much newer, more comfortable chair than we had in the liberal arts center or the science center, another indication of the administration’s priorities.
Brenda glided around the desk and sat behind it, her elbows resting on it and her chin resting on her clasped hands. She fixed her gaze on me and asked, “What did you want to talk about?”
As I say, I’d never much noticed her before. She had unusually wide cheeks that tapered down to an almost pointed chin, and these features joined with the widow’s peak on her forehead to suggest the shape of a heart. Her dark brown hair, short and fluffy, formed an attractive frame for the face, but her most prominent feature was a pair of narrow, bright black eyes that seemed to glitter when she looked at you.
“I want to talk about Laila Sloan,” I said, making a point of adjusting my trifocals and trying to look like a distraught bookworm. “I’m writing a memorial of her for the yearbook, so I’m talking to people who knew her.”
Brenda quirked an eyebrow. “So why ask me? I wasn’t at all close to her.”
I tried to look self-conscious, which in truth was how I felt. “The campus rumor mill says she got her job here because you recommended her. I thought maybe you could help me build a picture of her as a real person.”
She smiled like she’d remembered a secret joke. “Right now I have to get back to my gym class, but I’ll be happy to talk with you later. Why don’t you come by my house for a cup of tea?”
Something about the invitation rang false, but I couldn’t very well refuse. “That sounds good,” I said.
She stood up. “Three thirty, then.”
“Three thirty,” I said, and preceded her to the door.
She checked the spring lock, closed the door, and glided away toward the ball court, trailing a faint aura of perfume.
Returning to my office, I decided the invitation was a good thing. While Brenda and I were having tea, Mara could search her office. I would suggest that to Mara after the memorial service.
A surprise awaited me at my office. That was Penelope Nichols, a tall, angular student who was as awkward as Brenda Kirsch was graceful. Penelope had sharp features, a beaklike nose, and a figure that would lose a beauty contest with the average stork. A senior now, she had not talked with me since her first freshman semester.
She was one of those smart kids who’ve played through their senior year of high school and try to play through their freshman year in college. Some of them wise up in time to salvage their semester grades, but Penelope Nichols was not one of those.
She’d breezed into college with an attitude that stood out like a crow in a covey of sparrows. She barged into my Western Civ class wearing short shorts on her spindly legs and opened with an outrageous pun: “I’m Penny Nichols, to coin a phrase.”
“I can believe the corn,” I’d said, “and we’ll hope you’re just going through the phase.”
Those were undoubtedly the worst puns I ever made. They were so hideous that I’m still ashamed of them. But bad or not, they served their purpose. Penny wasn’t used to being outpunned, so she quieted down in my class.
But not outside. She put on a show everywhere on campus, especially as one of the bare-midriff cheerleaders Faith used to refer to as the “navel cadets.” Finally, in November of that year, Penny decided it was time to play the game of shock-the-professor.
The ostensible reason she visited my office was some inane question about a research paper. But she dressed for the occasion: short shorts again despite a subfreezing day. She matched them with a ridiculously low-necked sleeveless blouse that revealed the tattoo of a serpent’s head.
Needless to say, I stayed seated behind my desk, maintained eye contact, and refrained from adjusting my trifocals while I answered her elementary questions.
As she was leaving, though, she stood facing me and said, “Dr. Barclay, would you like to see the tail of my serpent?”
“No, Penny,” I said, “and, frankly, I would have preferred not to see the head.”
She looked disappointed and turned toward the door. But my temper was up by then, so I broke one of my cardinal rules and ventured a personal comment.
“Penny,” I asked, “do you ever plan to get married?”
She paused in the door and said, “Well . . . uh . . . I suppose I will . . . eventually.”
“Good,” I said. “Then you ought to save something for your husband that you haven’t shown to everyone else.”
Her eyes blazed and she left without a word. She never took another of my classes and she avoided me on campus, so I wondered what brought her here today.
Now, as a senior, she remained as sharp-featured and angular as ever, but she’d obviously matured. This time she wore slacks and a high-necked blouse with long sleeves.
“I need some advice, Dr. Barclay,” she said.
I motioned her into the office and indicated a chair. But for prudence’ sake, I again kept my desk between us.
“I . . . I’ve been receiving money from Laila Sloan,” she said, her eyes searching mine for any sign of disapproval. “For two years now, she’s paid me twenty dollars a month to keep a post office box and receive mail for her.”
“Nothing wrong with that on the face of it,” I said. “What else was involved?”
“I checked the box once a week and gave her any mail that came in—maybe one package a week and one or two letters a month. All I had to do was take them to her.”
“These were addressed to you in your name?”
“Yes.”
“But you gave them to her without opening them?”
“Yes. I get my own mail at the campus mail office.”
“What size were the packages?”
She made motions similar to those Luther Pappas had made, indicating a shape about a foot or two square and several inches deep.
“Do you know what she did with the packages?”
“No. She never told me and I never asked.”
“And you don’t know what was in them?”
“Not until today.” She looked at the floor. “One came in today and . . . and I opened it. It was a notebook computer. That’s why I need your advice. I don’t know if I should keep it or not.”
“That’s something the police will have to decide. Penny, Laila Sloan was murdered and no one knows why. Your information may help the police find the killer.”
Fear crept into her face. “I don’t know if I want to go to the police.”
I kept my voice soft. “We don’t have a choice, Penny. If you don’t go, I’ll have to. Withholding pertinent information is pretty serious.”
“All right,” she said. But she still looked frightened.
I looked up the number for police nonemergency and wrote it on a card.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” I said. “Call this number and ask for Sergeant Spencer. Tell him I sent you. He’s a former student. He’ll treat you right and get your information to the proper people.”
“Okay,” she said, but her tone sounded doubtful.
I added reinforcement. “I’ll be seeing Spencer tomorrow. I’ll ask if you contacted him.” I made a mental note to call Spencer so as not to make a liar of myself again.
Penny nodded and rose to leave. As she had on that other visit, she paused in the doorway.
“Dr. Barclay,” she said, a bit teary-eyed, “I . . . I want to thank you for your advice on my last visit. I did take it to heart.” She raised her left hand to show a moderate-sized engagement ring. “I’m glad I did.”
I smiled. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”
“That serpent,” she said. “It wasn’t a real tattoo. It was just painted on.”
“I’m glad of that, too,” I said. “I never did like snakes.”
She left then, leaving me with a warm glow inside. Penny had matured a lot in four years. Once in a long, long while, a professor is actually able to help a student toward that kind of maturity. It’s a good feeling when it happens.
I knew Penny’s information would throw light on Laila’s package mailings, but I had no time to think about it. I had a memorial service and faculty meeting to attend, and a full afternoon after that.
CHAPTER 20
When I left the liberal arts center for Laila’s memorial service, I saw Dean-Dean heading across the campus circle toward the auditorium. As always, my internal bassoon adorned his progress with an awkward tune. I used the opportunity to visit the executive center, where I managed to drop the mothball powder from my sandwich bag into Mrs. Dunwiddie’s wastebasket without her noticing. I could not define this as scholarly activity, but at least it would give Dean-Dean something besides me to think about.
The memorial service for Laila was quite solemn. All the faculty were there, though student attendance seemed largely limited to the nursing program. After a musical prelude, Dathan Hormah of the department of religious studies opened with a nonsectarian prayer. It was so nonsectarian that he could have said “may the Force be with you” and accomplished the same result. Then President Cantwell eulogized Laila as a Highly Valued Member of the Overton Community until This Terrible Tragedy came to Rip Her Untimely From Our Midst.
If the English faculty recognized the words he’d cribbed from Macbeth, they were too kind to let on.
It struck me then that we’d heard nothing from or about Laila’s next of kin. Nor was one listed in her personnel record. So now I had another weird question to answer.
After the service, the students left and Dean-Dean convened the faculty to vote on the education department’s proposed mission statement. President Cantwell began his exit up the aisle beside me, but on an impulse I intercepted him.
“Sir,” I said, “I think you ought to stay and hear the speeches. This isn’t a routine vote for one department. Whatever we do today will affect our entire academic program.” It occurred to me that I was beginning to talk like an administrator.
President Cantwell looked surprised, muttered that he’d think about it, and continued up the aisle. Dean-Dean glowered at me, so I sat down and tried to look nonexistent. In my case, that isn’t very difficult.
The education department presented, again, its proposed new mission statement. If it passed, department certification for public school teaching would require students’ signed commitment to promote social justice, work to stop global warming, and combat institutional racism, sexism, and homophobia as well as a list of other social ills.
The usual faculty catfight ensued. One of the science faculty asked for a precise definition of each ill that had been named. The definitions given in response only muddled the issue further. A sociologist questioned the education faculty’s qualifications to practice what was, in effect, social science rather than teacher training. The male English teacher I’d had lunch with said no expertise was needed because any fool would recognize and combat those ills. So if “any
fool would combat those ills,” one of the coaches asked, why should prospective teachers have to say so in writing? Did that mean the teacher candidates were dumber than fools? Several more faculty expressed shock that anyone could object to any program to correct social problems.
Gifford Jessel made an eloquent speech quoting Socrates’ definition of justice as “citizens . . . doing each his own business” and not trying to do someone else’s. We should practice our own disciplines, he said, and not arrogate ourselves as arbiters of society. Naturally, one of the younger faculty denounced Socrates as a Dead White Male and therefore not worth considering. We should be guided, she said, by modern intellects on the Cutting Edge.
That cliché inspired one of the nursing faculty to suggest providing tourniquets for scholars on the Cutting Edge, but Dean-Dean ruled her out of order. He then tried to argue in favor of the education department’s motion, but one of the older faculty called him on a point of order: under Robert’s Rules, the moderator of a meeting could not speak to the question.
I lost track of the meeting then, for my internal musicians overwhelmed me by launching with full orchestra into the background music from a classic movie. All I remember about the movie itself is that John Wayne and Susan Hayward drowned. Faith didn’t care for the story, either, but she loved the music score by Victor Young. What she loved most was the wonderful melody linked to Susan Hayward’s doomed romance. It began soft and low, built to a climax of impassioned longing, receded unfulfilled, then climbed again to an even greater height, only to subside once more, still incomplete and yearning.
Faith often played the videotape, but we never watched the movie. We would grade papers or read books, and she would signal me in delight whenever the Susan Hayward theme returned. She loved Victor Young’s varied orchestrations of it, particularly in the underwater scenes. So it was no wonder that, taken unaware and plunged suddenly into a flood of poignant memory, I was transported far from the world of faculty squabbles. I would have stayed in that other world, but the music stopped as suddenly as it began.