by Amanda Cross
She had worked herself around to this last task, and was just beginning to open her accumulation of mail when she came upon an invitation to a meeting of the women faculty at the university. The notice had been sent some time before; the meeting was the next day, and Kate had not even opened the letter, let alone replied to it. But she would go. And as she wrote this into her calendar an idea began to take root in her mind that she determined to try out on Edna. She also hoped that Edna would have a few powerfully helpful suggestions.
When Kate, at the end of what seemed an unnaturally long day, finally collapsed in Edna’s office, Edna said, “I’ve been thinking about your task, and having a few ideas. I also rather thought you might like to talk with someone reliable, sympathetic, and aware of the prevailing conditions. Straight or with water?”
“The ideas or the scotch? I’ll take them both straight.”
“That kind of day, was it? Well, we have chosen a stimulating rather than a restful life, and I for one wouldn’t have it any other way. Even the thought of going quietly home to write a book doesn’t appeal anymore. I think I know too much now about everything to feel capable of writing about anything. Tell me about the Adams woman.”
“She despised him and was methodically separating him and his children from all his money. She had her eye on a bit more, though, and I think while she might very well have contemplated murder, she would have timed it differently. Also she was three thousand miles away, cultivating a not-impoverished uncle. Her fingernails are white, her hair is blond, and I have no doubt that before too long her face will be lifted, her breasts filled with silicone, the fat removed from her thighs, and if she goes the whole hog, she’ll have her bottom ribs removed to give her the illusion of a narrow waist.”
“Did she tell you all that?”
“Of course not; I am just foretelling based on an account of an aging woman I heard not too long ago. If you can’t pass for young no point in living, seems to be the message. I think it’s the message Cecelia Adams has received loud and clear. It certainly worked with Canny; that’s what she called her late husband because in her opinion he wasn’t.”
“Drink up,” Edna said. “I can feel your confidence in humanity oozing out of your toes. Was she very unpleasant?”
“Not in the least. Thoroughly pleasant woman. Said if I quoted her to anyone she would flatly deny it; she probably will. That puts her one up on her late husband, who lied without knowing it or warning you. Edna, I feel like an archaeologist who set out to unearth some ancient center of civilization and came up with Sodom. Or do I mean Gomorrah?”
“What you mean is that you’ve uncovered more unpleasantness without getting noticeably further in your task.”
“That does put it more clearly. Would you mind reminding me again why I’ve undertaken this ‘task’?”
“To keep the police from making dreadful mischief, to keep from stoking the fires of racism, which are already smoldering in this city and probably in this university, and to discover the truth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. And don’t tell me you don’t believe the truth is discoverable. Facts are discoverable; their interpretation varies. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
Kate said, “The whole point is how I’m to find facts, let alone interpret them. I’ve been one day on the job, have found someone with the almost perfect motive and the perfect alibi. Perhaps she’s lying about the virtues of waiting for the whole bundle. Maybe she just couldn’t stand him anymore and hired someone to shove him out the window. Heaven knows, she knew enough about him to manipulate him into anything short of jumping himself. I see ahead of me endless conversations with endless people who loathed Canny, as I shall henceforth inevitably think of him, and would have pushed him if they’d had the chance. And how much further along shall I be? And why do I give a damn anyway? And don’t talk to me about Humphrey Edgerton or his black pupils. If they didn’t do it we shall get them a good defense lawyer.”
“Being accused of a crime is horrible even if you’re not convicted of it. I’m not putting that well, but . . .”
“Of course I know what you mean,” Kate said. “Might we together, now, concoct a rational plan that I can undertake and, having undertaken, abandon when it fails, saying I tried?”
“My suggestion,” Edna said, putting her feet up on the desk, “is that we try to recruit people to help you. I don’t just mean people you can question, like Butler and the delectable widow; I mean a team of helpers.”
“Rant on,” Kate said. “We ask the president or one of the vice presidents to appoint a committee. If that’s your plan, why didn’t you suggest it in the first place before you involved me?”
Edna said, “There’s a meeting tomorrow of the women faculty at the university. I don’t suppose you noticed.”
“I did notice, just today, and planned to suggest to you, that is, to ask you about the possibility . . .”
“There you are then,” Edna said.
“Suppose they say no?”
“We can’t hope to get all of them; but a few, who will let you know privately, can ask questions or provide information in different departments; they can spread out and give you what I believe is known as wider coverage.”
“What about the departments with no tenured women?”
“We’re not just talking about tenured women,” Edna said. “There are too many departments without tenured women. But there are almost none these days without untenured women. And the younger women, when they’re not solely on the make, are often quite gutsy, or so I’ve found. What about you?”
“I have a definite sense that the administration will not be happy about this little maneuver,” Kate said, beginning to see its possibilities.
Edna said, “They chose you; they have to let you do what needs to be done. Anyway, try it tomorrow and see how the meeting goes.”
“Which means telling them what I’m doing; it’ll be all over the university.”
“It will be all over the university in any case. And as I said earlier, confidentiality—except in very special situations—was designed by the male power structure to defend its ranks. And if you quote me on that I’ll take a leaf from the widow and deny I ever said it. Let’s have another.”
Meetings of the women faculty at the university were, by the end of the eighties, an almost routine matter. After years of tense meetings to strengthen the presence of women faculty on the campus, the tone of women’s conversation with one another at meetings such as this had changed, becoming both more theoretical and more personal, certainly gayer. Those women professors who found it useful to talk to women colleagues in other departments and schools, who did not mind being identified as women faculty (as opposed to faculty, pure and simple and, apparently, neuter), met on an irregular but continuous basis. Not all the women professors came all the time. But those who liked the fact of the meetings wrote notes to explain why they had to miss this meeting or that, and tried to attend at least one or two a year. Those who did not like the fact of the meetings, though regularly invited, never responded and never came, except for a woman professor who once wrote an impassioned note pointing out that if women “made trouble” they would never endear themselves to the administration. The response—that women had made no trouble for centuries without endearing themselves professionally in any notable way—had no apparent effect. The most senior women, with rare exceptions, neither came to the meetings nor approved of them. Kate’s very favorite among these was a woman philosopher who, uniquely in that department’s history, had received tenure because the then chairman, an immensely famous philosopher, was living with her and threatened to leave the university if she was not granted tenure. There were several wonderful ironies to this situation: the first was that the woman was indeed brilliant and ought to have gotten tenure in her own right were that possible for a woman philosopher at that time; the second was that she totally disappr
oved of feminism in all its forms, and said often and emphatically that any woman with the proper talent could make it as she had. Not a single feminist in the university was ever able sufficiently to abandon her “gentlemanly” scruples long enough to face this aging philosophy professor with the essential anomaly of her situation.
The meetings were very informal; sherry was offered. Kate, who loathed sherry, always drank soda water and savored the conversation. After some general milling about, the woman who called the meetings and who was, uniquely in a university where everyone had too much on her plate to undertake organizing anything else, the spirit and mover behind the meetings, asked the group if they wished any subject for general discussion or if anyone had any matter she wished to bring up. Usually those with an agenda item in mind had called the day before to say so, as Kate had done after her meeting with Edna Hoskins. She now waited her turn, watching with great affection and admiration the woman who ran the meeting.
Miriam Rubin was in her early sixties and had allowed herself to age without changing her style in any way. She was a tiny woman—a number of people called her Dr. Ruth after an equally short doctor who gave sexual advice on television, and indeed it was not hard to picture Miriam doing the same thing. She was the most downright person Kate had ever known, with a wonderful indifference to what anybody thought of her, except the few she had decided to love. These included her husband, her children, a few old cronies (all male) from early days at the university, and the Jack Russell terriers she and her husband raised in their exurban home. Kate adored Miriam, who, lacking all discretion and political know-how, gave the gift of courage all unawares, and was equally unaware of how widely she was loved.
There was some discussion of previous matters that had, as Miriam said, come before the meeting; she then announced that she would give the floor to Kate, who had something of great moment to impart. Miriam was incapable, or at least unwilling, to use last names, her personal fight against the pomposity of male pedagogy.
Kate said, “You all know that Professor Canfield Adams died after a fall from his office window late at night. The police believe that he was pushed; in short, that he was murdered. The university administration is unhappy with what they believe to be the police’s conclusions, and with the altogether disturbing situation of the cause of death never being satisfactorily established. They have asked me to investigate the matter as best I can, and to let them know if I can discover any explanation of Adams’s death.” Here Kate paused and took a large breath.
“That’s as much of this speech as I have prepared,” she said, putting down the paper from which she had been reading. “I want to say several more things, but haven’t figured out the clearest way to say them. I want to ask you not to discuss this widely, since to do so can hardly benefit me or the chances, if any, of revealing the murderer. In almost total contradiction to this, I want to ask you to help me by learning and recalling anything that might help me in this difficult and unpleasant task. Anything you have heard about Adams, or about those who worked with him or had anything at all to do with him; any fact or gossip or anecdote, no matter how important or unimportant it may seem. There might have been incidents that strike you not only as regrettable, but as unimportant. I would still like to hear them. And I would like to hear any stories that you can evoke from your colleagues, students, the staff, and anyone else who may have known Adams or have had anything at all to do with him. Anything, however minor it may seem, may be helpful when put together with other bits of information. I assure you that I shall not reveal the source of any information I may use, and that I will not reveal anything if it serves no purpose in the solution of this murder.”
By now there was a good deal of stirring among the group, and Kate held up her hands: “Only a moment more. Let me say that I would not ask for this help if I didn’t need it, and that I am personally convinced, even while loathing this job, that there is great danger in doing nothing and letting the police and the D.A. proceed in the way they seem to be going. Innocent people will suffer, and regrettable incidents will occur. I badly need help, and I ask for it from a group of people whose ability to help one another I have long experience of as well as admiration for. Those of you, particularly the younger women from departments other than mine, who may wish to speak to me about helping without having any particular piece of information to offer, please do get in touch with me. I’ll try to answer your questions, but as you will soon see, my knowledge is almost nonexistent.”
“Did the administration ask you to do this?” someone called out.
“Yes,” Kate said. “I was hardly responsive to the request, but I have become convinced that they do wish to solve this crime, and that their motives are not unduly ulterior or hidden. Dean Edna Hoskins has been in on the administration consultations and has urged me to undertake this task. I do so, as she understands, with great reluctance.”
Miriam Rubin stood up. “Could you give us the facts that you do have?”
“Gladly,” Kate said, “But you probably know them all. They are few in number. Professor Adams’s body was found, by a member of the security force, lying on the walkway below Levy Hall early on the Sunday morning following Thanksgiving. Adams had fallen or been pushed from the window of his office on the seventh floor. There was no sign of any injury other than those caused by hitting the cement after such a fall, but some previous cause of death might have been concealed by those injuries, or might be difficult to trace. No one was seen entering the building with Adams, or leaving it, or at all. He might have jumped or become dizzy, opened the window for air, and fallen, but the outside sill is too wide to make either of those accidents probable; Adams is widely considered unlikely to have committed suicide. His widow and I are the only two members of the university or his family with unbreakable alibis: she was in California, and I was at an Arlo Guthrie concert during all the possible hours in which the fail could have taken place. My alibi, together with the fact that I have worked unofficially on one or two cases, made me a likely candidate as chief investigator, the first counting more heavily than the second.”
“How did Adams get into Levy Hall?” someone asked.
“Using his key card. He stopped at the security office to pick up the key and leave his ID. That is how it is known when he was last seen alive—except, as they say, by his murderer, or by someone else who has not come forward.”
Everyone sat in silence. Kate suggested that anyone wanting to talk to her call or write her either at home or in her office; she gave both addresses and numbers. She again promised confidentiality about anything she was told. Then she sat down wishing, not for the first time, that these meetings served something other than sherry or soda. She poured herself more soda water. Many of the women came up to her and promised to think about their relations with Adams or any stories they had heard. Others had never met him, but promised to ask around. One woman Kate did not know marched up to Kate and told her that the request was wholly immoral and unacceptable, and that she would have nothing to do with the investigation. Kate thanked her for her frankness. “Believe me, I wanted nothing to do with it either,” she added. But the woman looked unbelieving. And who is to blame her, Kate thought. It is what we do that speaks for us, not what we say.
She said as much to Reed on the telephone to Holland later that night. “Well,” he answered, “it’s a place to begin. I would also try to find out what Adams did on that Saturday.”
“He hardly knew it was the last day of his life. He probably stayed home working on his proofs, and went up to the office to look up a questionable footnote.”
“Probably. But someone met him there, or at least knew he was going there. It seems unlikely that anyone met him accidentally, accompanied him to his office, and pushed him out the window on an impulse. It’s possible, but unlikely. And it’s only possible if the person had a long-standing grudge, which ought to be discoverable.”
“Th
ere’s always the homicidal maniac. Not fair to the reader of a detective story, but they do turn up in life, don’t they?”
“Not in a murder like this, I don’t think. No, whoever did this knew the victim and hated him. That’s what’s going to make it possible to solve the crime. And that’s why the wider the net you throw, the more leads you will catch.”
Edna, when she telephoned to find out how the meeting had gone, said much the same thing. “Did you mention what an all-around SOB he was?” Edna asked.
“No, I didn’t. I figured they either knew it or would soon find it out, and I didn’t want to sound as though I were organizing a vendetta or something.”
“Wise woman. Something will come of it, you’ll see.”
“Meanwhile, Reed thinks I should find out what Adams was doing all day Saturday. He wasn’t in the library; it was closed.”
“Perhaps that’s why he had to go to his office.”
“Edna, suppose I put an ad in the student paper asking to hear from anyone who saw or met Adams on Saturday?”
“The student paper is just what we don’t want to encourage into writing about the case yet, or finding out you’re investigating it. That may be unavoidable after today’s meeting, but I don’t think putting an ad in their paper is just the thing at the moment. Wait a minute though. Suppose I put in an ad for anyone on the campus that weekend, Thursday to Sunday, for a study of possible causes of depression during holiday seasons. I’ll ask them to respond to the Psychology Department, where I have a friend who owes me one. That should give us a start. And I meant to tell you, I’ve thought of something else. I shall talk to my priceless secretary, and ask her to talk to the other priceless secretaries. They are all the sine qua non of the university, the ‘without which not.’ What they don’t know is hardly worth knowing. I’ll suggest that they might want to pass on any tidbits of note. And from me to you, my dear.”