The Grim Steeper

by Amanda Cooper

  Sophie was silent for a moment, processing everything that he had said as she stroked Pearl’s silky fur. It all tangled in her mind until she didn’t know what to think, but it meant a lot that he included their relationship in his concerns. “If you end up leaving Cruickshank, will it affect your PhD, too?”

  “I don’t think so. Hold on a sec; I’m getting another call.”

  He was silent for a moment, then came back. “That was Julia. She heard about the murder and wants us to meet her at SereniTea. Are you up for that?”

  “Sure. Right now?”

  “In one hour.”

  She had a shower, dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, pulled a hoodie on over top and left a note for Nana. It was still dark when she slipped out the side door once again, but a light gleamed through an upstairs window next door. Mrs. Earnshaw or Gilda must be awake. She could only imagine what the Belle Époque owner had told the detective about the previous evening. She and Nana had talked about Mrs. Earnshaw a lot over the years, but Sophie still didn’t understand her. The woman was more impetuous than a teenager; you never knew how she was going to react. She saw any exclusion as a slight, and would not listen to reason. That behavior, along with impulsiveness and a tendency to fume, had been constants in her life, from what Nana said, since she and Thelma were teenagers and friends.

  Hearing how Mrs. Earnshaw’s lack of self-awareness had caused her to never grow beyond her flaws had taught Sophie that if she wanted to cure her own youthful faults, it would take work. Therefore, she decided that when she talked to her mother, she would do her best to have a rational adult discussion. She emerged from the dark alley to the street. The detective was no longer there, but uniformed officers, including Wally Bowman, were still in abundance. She gave a brief wave, and he acknowledged her with a nod, then turned away.

  Sophie dug her hands into her hoodie pockets and strode up the dark street toward SereniTea, three houses up the street. A car engine thrummed from the other direction, coming closer. She paused at the street as Jason drove up in his aging Chevy, killed the engine and got out, slamming his car door shut, the sound echoing loudly in the quiet neighborhood. Sophie felt eyes peering at them from behind blinds and curtains. Residents on the street, awake since the sirens wailed, were watchful, waiting until dawn so they could scurry about and share notes on what had happened at Auntie Rose’s after the Fall Fling tea stroll.

  Jason strode over to her and took her in his arms. She leaned against his chest, then turned her face to look up at him. He surprised her with a kiss: warm, lovely, unexpected. Her heart was pounding and she melted. This was not how she had planned her first kiss from him in years, but it was so very lovely. Reassuring. He cared about her; she felt it now and didn’t need to ask.

  But there was no time to react. He took her arm and tugged her hurriedly toward SereniTea’s new entrance, through a redwood pergola. The door was unlocked and the place was cool and dark. He led her through the teahouse, actually several rooms constructed like individual Japanese tearooms and then one large open area that was used for yoga classes.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to Julia’s office. She had a space created for bookkeeping and staff. Her manager lives in the apartment upstairs.”

  “I heard about that,” Sophie said. They emerged from the teak and tile world of the tearoom to a more humble and Western-looking kitchen, and through that to what had been a sunroom at one time, off the back of the house. It was a long and broad space, broken up with two L-shaped desks opposite each other and along the back wall of the house, with the other three walls taken up by windows covered in Roman shades.

  Julia sat in an office chair staring at a computer screen. She looked up when they entered, and jumped to her feet. “You both came! I’m so glad.” She came around the desk and hugged Jason, and then Sophie. “Sit, sit!”

  Jason pulled two office chairs forward and offered one to Sophie, then took the other, sitting across the desk from Julia. “This is so awful,” he said, leaning back and scrubbing his face with both hands, then running his fingers though his longish hair. “I don’t know what to think. This is so not good for me. I don’t want to be selfish, but self will intrude.”

  “As Jane Austen would say,” Julia added with a fleeting smile. “I’m in shock,” she admitted, her voice shaking. She shut down her computer and leaned back in her chair, her hand resting on her small belly. “Do we know what happened yet? Sophie, did I hear right that you found the body?”

  She nodded, and told them what she saw. Both had already been questioned by the police, so she felt free to give them what she knew. She told them about the scrape on his neck, the bloody wound and copious blood on his white shirt, the bluish cast to his skin and even the drool and contorted hand. She finished with what the detective had said, about not being able to let her team eat or drink anything from the tearoom, and Sophie’s assumption that there was a fear that he had been poisoned.

  “Poison?” Julia said. “I never would have imagined that.”

  “But a bloody wound, too,” Jason added. “It doesn’t make any sense. Was there maybe more than one assailant?”

  Sophie frowned down at her fingers, interlaced on her lap. “I can’t see that. More than one attempt on his life in one night? That seems unlikely. You’ve known Dean Asquith longer than Jason,” Sophie said to the professor and tearoom entrepreneur. “What did you think of him?”

  “Me? I have thought for some time that if any man was asking to be murdered, it was Dale.”

  Chapter 11

  “What do you mean?” Jason and Sophie chimed in at once.

  At that moment a slim woman in a pink fluffy housecoat and bunny slippers, her springy hair up in a topknot, poked her head into the office. “Hey, Julia, tea?”

  “Thanks, Kirsten. For all of us?” she asked, catching both of their gazes. “Jason, do you drink tea?”

  “If I have to,” he said, with a quick smile.

  “Kirsten, this is Jason, a colleague, and Sophie, who helps her grandmother run Auntie Rose’s, down the street. This is Kirsten Frawling, who manages SereniTea for me.”

  “I’m mostly a yoga instructor, part-time tearoom operator,” she said and gave a self-deprecating shrug. “I’ve spoken to your godmother—I think she’s your godmother, Laverne Hodge?— in the grocery store a few times,” she said to Sophie. “I just had to talk to her; she has such an old soul. I felt her aura, and it was, like, kind of a deep blue, you know? Very warm and kind, compassionate. She’s so proud of you.”

  “Laverne is my godmother. She’s almost as much family to me as my grandmother.”

  Kirsten smiled and nodded. “I’ll make some oolong, unless anyone wants something else? And for you, little mama, mint tea!” she said pointedly to Julia.

  Jason frowned. “Little mama?”

  Julia flushed and nodded, touching her stomach. “Nuñez and I are finally having a baby.”

  Jason jumped up, circled the desk and hugged Julia. “I’m happy for you both. I know you’ve been wanting this for a while.”

  He sat back down next to Sophie and took her hand in his. She felt absurdly happy, even given the gravity of what was going on; Jason’s warmth toward Julia was friendship and nothing more.

  “What did you mean by what you said about the dean?” Sophie asked the professor.

  Julia glanced at the screen, clicked the mouse and turned off her monitor. She sat back and sighed wearily. “This is going to be such a mess,” she commented. She met Sophie’s open gaze, indecision in her eyes. “I guess I can’t say something like that and leave it, right? I’ve been at Cruickshank awhile, and known Dale longer. He was on the committee at Salisbury College when I was doing my doctorate, and helped me a lot. But it took a while before he got the hint that I was not interested in anything but the work.”

  “He hit on you?” Sop
hie said, as Jason squeezed her hand.

  “Hit on is too mild a phrase. He did everything he could, even bribed me to sleep with him.”

  “That’s disgusting!” Sophie said. She flicked a glance over at Jason; he was rigid, a shocked look on his lean face. “So the fact that he had a girlfriend on the side wasn’t odd.”

  “No, oh, no, not odd. He was never without a girlfriend. Lately I think he had moved on from Sherri—I could see the signs—but to whom?”

  Sophie nodded, thinking back to what she had observed and overheard at the tea convention. He had certainly seemed eager to get rid of Sherri, though she was sticking like glue. “But if he’s been doing this for a long time, he wouldn’t suddenly be murdered for it.”

  “His philandering wasn’t the only thing about him that caused havoc. He was the most narcissistic man I’ve ever met. It was all about image with him. That’s why he never would have divorced Jeanette. She is exquisitely the perfect example of a dean’s wife and willing to overlook his . . . dalliances.”

  “I know what you mean, about his narcissism,” Jason said. “He’s famous among the profs and instructors for his three-hundred-dollar haircuts and overly expensive suits. And for bragging about them.”

  “It’s more than his appearance, though,” Julia said. “He truly did believe he was mesmerizing, like a fabulous speaker, personally riveting, magnetic, all that crap. At a faculty meeting I attended, he informed Dr. Bolgan, Jason’s doctorate adviser, that she needed to feminize her appearance. He said that she looked like an old . . . well, it was an unpleasant word I won’t repeat. He said her appearance didn’t reflect well on the university.”

  Sophie was aghast. “That’s beyond narcissistic; that’s just rude!”

  “It is.”

  “If you knew Dr. Bolgan,” Jason said to Sophie, “you’d know how disgraceful that is, to listen to her speak, and then focus on her appearance. She’s amazing both as a professor and as a writer, something that Dean Asquith would not be able to appreciate even given a hundred years. She’s also kind. That’s rare in our circles. But she’s not so kind that she doesn’t tell me when I’m full of it, or writing nonsense. She’s the perfect doctoral adviser.”

  “What did she say back to the dean?”

  Julia smiled. “For a while I treasured the memory and brought it out whenever I was angry with Dale. Alice told him that because his ideal woman required paint, powder and a good designer, he would be blind to the great women going about their business all around him. But they, she said, would always recognize him for the ‘vast wasteland of intellect’ he was. She said he was ‘barren of emotion and understanding because he judged everyone by the standards of his own abject failure.’” She sighed. “I hate to go all fangirl, but it was awesome!”

  “Brava, Dr. Bolgan!” Jason said.

  Sophie shifted impatiently. “That’s all very good, guys, but people don’t get murdered because they’re rude.”

  “Sophie’s got a point,” Jason said. “What do you know about his relationship with his wife?”

  Sophie nodded eagerly. “Exactly. You know, on most of the true crime shows I watch, it’s the significant other who either did the murder or planned it.”

  “You want me to believe that elegant, perfectly poised Jeanette Asquith bopped her husband on the head, or gave him a cup of hemlock?” Julia said, her light brows raised in amusement.

  Sophie was stung by her derision and was silent.

  Jason glanced over at her and then at Julia, and spoke up. “Jean Harris was an elegant and refined lady, too, before she went to prison for shooting Dr. Tarnower dead.”

  “You’ve got a point.” Julia sat back in her chair as Kirsten brought in a tray with tea and some cookies.

  “Hey, guys, here’s the tea, and I made some quinoa honey cookies yesterday for the tea party. Try them!”

  Sophie took one, bit into it and chewed. And chewed. She took a long swig of tea to wash it down. Kirsten anxiously waited, watching Sophie.

  “I know you’re a chef,” the woman said finally. “Just tell me what you think.”

  “A little dry,” Sophie said honestly. “But the taste is good. It needs some kind of fat. Did you use . . .” She thought for a moment, eyeing the reed-thin woman. “I’ll bet you used applesauce instead of a fat component, right?”

  The woman nodded.

  “The trouble is, that doesn’t give it the right texture; it will always be crumbly and dry. You need to add a healthy oil, to give it a moister crumb. Maybe try coconut oil?”

  Kirsten nodded again. “They seemed too dry to me, too, but I didn’t want to add butter. I’m learning to cook Asian foods, and I’m not bad at that, but baking has always been a mystery to me.”

  “I always say cooking is art and baking is science.”

  “Kirsten, you met Jeanette and Dale Asquith last night, right?” Julia said.

  The woman nodded and rolled her eyes. “I don’t like to, you know, speak ill of the dead, but he was over-the-top pompous.” Her voice was light and high, with a burble of humor in it. “I had a prof like him at Smith. Thought he was God’s gift to women the world over. Dean Asquith managed to hit on me, even though his wife and members of the Board of Governors were right there in the room. Asked me if he could come back for a ‘private session,’ wink wink.” She shuddered.

  “Maybe that was one flirtation too many for Mrs. Asquith,” Sophie said, as Kirsten murmured something about having a shower and getting dressed, and drifted away.

  Julia took a long drink of her tea and planted her hands on the desk surface. “Look, let’s be blunt. The police are going to look at Jason as well as others.”

  “And our best bet is to be able to point them toward who might be guilty,” Sophie said. “I’m so glad you’re on board, Julia, because you know a lot about these folks.”

  “Who did you have in mind?” she asked, as Jason looked back and forth between the two women.

  “Well, there are other possibilities, but what about some of these people from Cruickshank? Like the registrar, who everyone says is the most likely person to have changed the grade. Was Dean Asquith maybe going to announce that Vince Nomuro was the guilty one? Or his assistant, Brenda Fletcher? I think it would be an even more serious matter for one of them than for Jason, right?”

  Julia nodded, her eyes thoughtful. “They would probably be fired. As a matter of fact . . . I don’t know if I should say this.” She paused, her brow wrinkled, and sipped her tea.

  “Come on, Julia, spill.” Jason was impatient and shifted in his seat, pushing aside his own tea.

  “Okay, all right. But this goes nowhere,” she said, glancing around. She leaned over the desk. “Dale pulled Vince aside here, in SereniTea. I had a moment of feeling nauseous, so I was behind a shoji screen catching my breath and overheard. Dale said he had been wondering about Vince’s home renovations, and how he could afford to take all those trips. He said, was there a little extra money coming in from students anxious for good grades? He said he knew there were problems in the registrar’s office, and he was going to dig into it until he had the truth.”

  “But he had already said that he was going to make an announcement this morning about who was guilty!” Jason blurted out. “So . . . he didn’t really know? What was he going to say?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he was just fishing, trying to see what Vince would say?”

  “What did Vince say?” Jason asked.

  Julia shrugged. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I heard. They moved away, and Kirsten came looking for me.”

  Sophie thought for a moment. “Did the dean say he had the guilty party in his sights and was going to announce it Monday to satisfy the college president?”

  Julia said, “That would be quite the risk to take unless he was sure.”

  “But that was so like Asquith, you
know that, Julia,” Jason said. “He had this overweening sense of invulnerability, that no one could touch him.”

  “True.” But she still seemed doubtful.

  “So maybe Vince is the one who changed the grade and killed Dean Asquith,” Jason said.

  Julia frowned and shook her head. “I wish this was over with. I wish Dale wasn’t murdered. I wish . . .” Her eyes teared up.

  It seemed an overly emotional response until Sophie considered that the woman was pregnant, at long last, and it was supposed to be the happiest time of her life. Instead, her tearoom wasn’t doing so well and the college was wracked with problems, both internally and image-wise. “We’ll get to the bottom of this all, Julia,” Sophie said, including Jason in her glance. “We’ve done it before and we can do it again.”

  The professor nodded and drank some more of her mint tea, taking a deep cleansing breath and letting it slowly out. “I saw someone else around last evening that surprised me. Paul.”

  “Paul Wechsler? I did see him hanging around, but I couldn’t figure out why,” Jason said.

  “You don’t pay attention to gossip, do you?” Julia said. “Paul is Jeanette’s boyfriend.”

  Jason looked stunned, and shook his head.

  “Okay, I’ve heard of him,” Sophie said, remembering Elizabeth Lemmon’s information about Paul and Jeanette. “But I’m not sure I completely understand his job.”

  Julia turned to her. “He’s the systems engineer responsible for all technical aspects at Cruickshank. There’s supposed to be a systems security manager, but the position has been open for almost a year now, with no qualified candidates, from what I understand. So Paul takes care of everything. He’s overburdened and underpaid, if you ask me. He takes care of pretty much the whole computer system except for an IT specialist, some data management clerks and a few other random employees.”

  “Is he dark haired? Medium height?” Sophie asked, and Julia nodded. “I saw him! He lingered on the periphery, but then he accosted the dean near the end. Why would he do that?”