Angel Food and Devil Dogs - A Maggie Gale Mystery

by Liz Bradbury

  “She could be. I think she may know something, but I don’t think the... killer... knows that she knows. Regardless, you have to promise me that you’ll not let anyone else from the College in the room with Georgia alone.” I was impressed that she’d picked up on the possibility that Georgia might be a target. “Georgia just mumbled ‘Carl’s macaroni’s can,’ to me, does that mean anything to you?”

  “No, it doesn’t mean anything to me. Do you know who the perpetrator is?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yet you feel I’m not a suspect? You must be going on instinct alone, because I’m sure you have not had time to check my alibi. Perhaps you should call Kathryn Anthony to confirm my story...”

  I just smiled at her.

  She smiled back and said, “I’ll not leave Georgia’s side.”

  “Good. I’m going to arrange with President Bouchet for a guard. I’ll call you here to tell you when the guard will arrive and how to identify him or her, OK?”

  “Yes, that will be fine.”

  Georgia Smith’s sons went home with Adam. I had assured them all that not only would Amanda Knightbridge stay, but that Georgia would feel secure with her there. The boys looked relieved, Adam looked worried. Whether they would get any rest, I couldn’t say.

  Chapter 18

  The President’s Mansion was lit up like a Christmas tree. Every window blazed. The house was obviously full of people. Miranda Juarez answered the door. She looked neat and efficient in a crisp gray suit and ivory blouse, but there was an undercurrent of stress in her voice and her hand shook slightly when she opened the door to a cozy room near the back of the house.

  I said, “You’re here late... have you been here all day?”

  “No, I was in my temporary office this morning working on reconstructing files that were damaged in the fire, then I had some errands to run for the President. Would you like coffee?”

  When I said no, she left to get Bouchet. I pulled my laptop out of my bag and made some notes. Less than a minute later, Max Bouchet came in and closed the door. His dark Armani suit was wrinkled and he’d loosened his red striped power tie.

  “Has something else happened?” he asked anxiously. Stress was running high. No wonder. People were falling off balconies, getting blown up, and being killed by flying paperweights. Things weren’t going well at Bouchet’s College.

  “No, nothing new, except information.” He visibly relaxed and sank into an armchair as I told him about seeing Georgia Smith. He readily OKed a round the clock guard for her, so I paused to make a quick call to a security company I often use, to set it up.

  “Max, Skylar Carvelle wanted to talk to me today, but when I got there it was too late. Had he said anything to you?”

  Bouchet sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Carvelle was always telling me things about the other faculty, sometimes petty things, sometimes serious.”

  “A tattletale?”

  “Exactly, but I hadn’t spoken to him for several days, and I can’t think of anything he’s said that might have to do with Carl’s death. I’m sorry I can’t be more help on this, I’ll try to remember if there was anything else.”

  I asked Bouchet for access to Carl Rasmus’s apartment.

  “He lived in Married Student Housing, right on campus. He wanted to be close to his office and he said he didn’t care what the place looked like. Security has passkeys. Some of the security people are here now.” He went out the door and was gone for a few minutes. He came back with four keys on a single ring. “These are pass keys to the whole college. They’ll open almost every door in the place. I have no idea how many people have these. That’s why I had Carl’s office padlocked,” he said shaking his head.

  “You have no idea who has pass keys to the college? So anyone could have had a key to Carl’s office or to the door to the fatal balcony? Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “I know, I know, I just found this out myself. The whole college has been on the same key system for at least twenty years. It’s a security nightmare,” he groaned with exasperation. “Skylar’s death wasn’t on Campus... and classes and exams are over. Most of the students have gone... and I’ve had undercover guards on campus since yesterday morning.”

  “Yeah, I saw them in the Administration Building.”

  “You did? But...” Bouchet was shocked I’d noticed his guys when they were supposed to be incognito.

  “It’s my job to notice, and it’s not as if they look like college students.”

  “Oh, yes, well,” he conceded.

  “Max, students may not be at risk, but faculty have certainly been targeted, do you think it’s wise to...”

  “Maggie, I know I may be making a mistake but if we close, we may never solve any of these crimes, and that could close the College forever.”

  It was my turn to groan, but I did it inwardly, then I asked, “Is there anyone here now, who could corroborate where you were today?” The sound of Kathryn Anthony’s voice saying, Trust no one, had just flitted through my brain again. I was pretty confident about Bouchet’s honesty, but I needed to be sure.

  “Um, yes,” Bouchet understood the implication but didn’t complain. He leaned out the door and called out, “Sam! Angus!”

  Two big guys from the College Security Squad came into the room and answered my questions. Bouchet had been in the President’s House from 9:00 AM until about 12:30 PM when he and the guys had gone to the College Tavern for lunch.

  When they’d gone Bouchet asked me, “Have you narrowed the suspects?”

  “Well, in a way.” I replied, “It’s pretty obvious Skylar didn’t kill himself. Georgia and Bart are out because they were in the hospital when Skylar was killed and Amanda Knightbridge seems to have an alibi for Skylar’s murder, too. Because I think the two deaths are related, Dan Cohen’s out because he was away during Carl’s death, as was Kathryn Anthony, but I’m adding someone to the original list. So barring the unknown factor, I have five suspects. I haven’t had much luck finding anyone with a clear motive and I need to check alibies for this morning. I already know that Jimmy Harmon doesn’t have one. I’m going to Carl’s apartment now, then the police station to make a statement. Anything new about that organization... Carl’s beneficiary?”

  “No, nothing so far.” Max Bouchet continued with genuine concern, “Maggie, the police told me Skylar’s killer shot at you today.”

  “Wild shot. Just to scare me. I don’t think the killer is much of a marksman.”

  “Nevertheless, be careful,” he rumbled sincerely.

  ************

  All the Irwin dorms are in the same part of the campus, so I stopped first at an undergrad dorm to speak to Mike Jacobsen, the student who’d been using the recording studio the day Carl was killed.

  Mike Jacobsen’s dorm door was open. His computer screen had just frozen on a music writing program and he was clicking the mouse repeatedly in frustration. “Shit,” he said resignedly poking the escape key and pushing long brown hair out of his eyes at the same time.

  “Mike? I’m investigating the death of Carl Rasmus. May I speak with you for a minute?”

  Jacobsen turned in his desk chair, “Investigating Dr. Rasmus? Like for insurance or something,” he asked focusing on my investigator license, I’d held out for him to read.

  “Something like that... I just need to know one thing. Jack Leavitt said he thought you might have heard a phone ringing over the mic when you were recording on the day Dr. Rasmus died. Did you?”

  “I don’t remember much, it was a bad day. Um... yeah, I heard ringing, I guess it was a phone. Probably Dr. Rasmus’s because it wasn’t from the phone in the booth or any of our cells. It didn’t ring for long.”

  “How many rings?”

  “One or two times. Kinda hard to tell, but the sound was there and it ruined that part of the take. It sucked because Caitlyn had sung awesome.”

  “What time were the rings? Do you know?”

  Mike th
ought for a minute. “Well, we had to stop the recording. I think I clocked the redub at 12:58 PM. It was just before 1:00 PM,” he replied with certainty.

  Chapter 19

  On my way out of the undergrad dorm, my cell phone rang. It was Lt. Ed O’Brien. He tried to be polite, but basically he said, “Get your ass down here, now!” So instead of going to Carl’s Apartment, I drove downtown and gave Ed my statement. On my way to the police station, I called the hospital and got through to Amanda Knightbridge on the particulars about the guard for Georgia.

  When Ed let me go it was 10:00 PM. I went to Carl’s apartment to see if maybe he kept clues in an old Spaghetti-Os can.

  Carl’s place in Married Student Housing was on the ground floor near the front door. I let myself in with one of the passkeys. Up until that point, all the Irwin buildings I’d visited had been works of architectural art, but Married Student Housing was just as grim and depressing as I’d remembered it. I’d been there a few years before to see a beautiful poetry professor, with whom I’d had a brief fling.

  Carl’s apartment in MSH had cement block walls painted institutional green, green indoor-outdoor carpeting, three particle board kitchen cabinets, a counter the size of a door mat, harsh overhead fluorescent lighting and low end industrially made furniture in dull colors that showed extensive wear. And these were its best features. This dorm was the ugliest building at Irwin with the ugliest interior decoration. It was an abomination. It was as though the college was punishing students for being in long-term relationships.

  Carl’s apartment had even less furniture than most. Probably to make it easier for him to get around. There was no art on the walls, no mirrors, no floor lamps and no printed books, although I found some Braille ones by his bed. I looked in every drawer and cabinet, and the one closet. I even turned up the mattress. I pulled out drawers and checked their undersides. I checked the undersurfaces of the chairs and the tiny kitchen table. Nothing.

  In the food cabinet there were two boxes of cereal, a can of tomato soup, and some condiments. There was a box of saltines that were stale and a box of Devil Dogs three-packs that weren’t. Hey, I hadn’t had dinner, OK? I didn’t think Carl would mind if I ate some more of his Devil Dogs. In fact, since I seemed to be the only one trying to find out who killed him, I figured Carl would have welcomed me a nosh.

  The small refrigerator offered a big bottle of diet Pepsi, some American cheese squares individually wrapped, a bag of brown slimy lettuce, some mushy apples, and cartons of milk and orange juice. The milk was bad; the OJ was on the edge. There were jars of mayonnaise and mustard, a squeeze bottle of ketchup and a six-pack of Sam Adams. I contemplated opening a bottle of ale but decided against it, it was unprofessional enough that I was eating a dead guy’s Devil Dogs. Taking up most of the space was a half eaten angel food cake that was covered with green mold. I stared at it for a long time. Moldy cake equals sad lonely feeling.

  Everything had Braille labels. It made the space seem more personal and human and much more heartbreaking. This was his food. These were his things. But Carl was never coming back to finish his cake. It made me think of Mickey Murphy all alone in jail. I wondered what was rotting in Mickey’s refrigerator.

  I sighed as I moved to the bathroom. I checked the medicine cabinet. It was neat. No prescriptions or weird over the counter stuff. Just standard medicine cabinet fare. I checked the drawers and cabinet under the sink; extra toilet paper rolls, a new bar of soap, some shampoo, etc. Nothing with a secret compartment or a hidden message. The cover of the toilet tank had nothing taped to the underside. The drain had nothing stuck in it. The light fixture had a light bulb and that was all.

  The only thing Carl had in the apartment of any interest was a huge sound system with hundreds and hundreds of CDs. The CD’s had Braille labels too. I even found the little electronic Braille label machine. He had every kind of music and sound recording anyone could ever imagine. I figured the group in his will, Rainbow Youth Symphony, would probably get his CDs too. Maybe he’d stored things with his family. I could ask them when I went to Hadesville tomorrow.

  Georgia had said, “Carl’s macaroni’s can,” but there were no empty macaroni cans here. There were no full cans of pasta either. There were no boxes of frozen macaroni or any kind of noodles. I even looked in the garbage to see if he’d thrown any away. Nothing.

  I decided to look at every CD. Maybe there was a recording that was related. I searched my brain for pasta related song titles. Yankee Doodle called his cap Macaroni, was the only thing I could come up with. I looked through the CDs for an hour. Nothing there either. I felt frustrated.

  “Carl,” I called softly, standing in the middle of the room, “give me a sign!”

  His phone rang... I jumped two feet barking, “Holy Shit!”

  I looked at my watch. It was almost midnight. Everybody knew Carl was dead. Who’d be calling now? I picked up the phone on the second ring, and said very softly, “Hello?”

  There was only breathing, then a hang up.

  I waited a minute, then hung up too. I star 89ed the phone and asked the operator to give me the number of the person who’d just called, but the caller had used a pay phone. That’s the only way to make a truly anonymous call these days. There’s no way to trace a pay phone call. You can’t even call the pay phone and just hope someone answers and ask them where the phone is any more, because most incoming pay phone calls are blocked to keep drug dealers from using them to avoid tapped lines. So what the hell? Had this been for me, or Carl, or was it just a wrong number?

  I realized there was an answering machine cord hooking the phone to a machine on a shelf under the phone stand. I pressed the replay button. Carl’s voice said, “Carl Rasmus... please leave a message at the beep and I’ll get back to you.” Huh, so that was what Carl sounded like. Nice voice. The machine’s mechanical voice then said there were six messages stored. I hit the play-back button.

  Call #1: Beep... “Carl, this is Kathryn Anthony, I have the rest of the information you need for your grant proposal. I’ll be back from Seattle tomorrow. I could give it to you then, or fax it to you now if you need it today. You can reach me on my cell. OK? Bye.”

  Call #2: Beep... “Carl? It’s Jim Harmon... we have to talk... um, soon, OK?...”

  Call #3: Beep... “Carl Rasmus?” a staccato voice said. “This is Rowlina Roth-Holtzmann. I dislike machines. I must speak with you. I must clear up this misunderstanding. I am concerned you have the wrong idea.”

  Call #4: Beep... “Dr. Rasmus, this is Miranda Juarez. I have several pieces of information of which the President would like you to become aware immediately. I also wish to confer with you about the matter we began to discuss yesterday regarding the grant money. Please call me at your earliest convenience. Thank you.”

  Call #5 Beep... “Hello... Dr. Rasmus? This is Connie Robinson,” said Connie in a nervous voice. “They told me at church I have to talk to you? OK? I’ll try you at your office.”

  Call #6: Beep... “Hey Carl, it’s Leo. Leo Getty. Hey, son, I need to talk to you about before, the grant stuff, OK... I’ll try you later, or maybe we can talk tomorrow?”

  I rewound the machine and listened to all the messages again. I’d just asked Carl for a sign. He’d sent me the answering machine full of cryptic messages from the group of people who’d had the best chance to kill him. Not to mention the odd little wrong number. Creepy. Carl’s machine was not set to indicate the time and date that calls came in. The people calling him all seemed to want to speak with him urgently. Except Kathryn. And they were calling him at home, which means they couldn’t get him in his office. Maybe he was ducking people.

  I unplugged the answering machine, wrapped the cord around it, and tucked it under my arm. It seemed too important to leave behind. I turned out the lights and locked up the apartment. I hadn’t found a macaroni can stuffed with clues, but I did find out that a bunch of people from the college wanted to talk to Carl not long before he died. Fur
thermore, whatever it was they wanted to talk about, they didn’t want to leave a message on the phone machine.

  *********

  It was late; nearly midnight and very dark. The hallway of Married Student Housing, with its unattractive glaring lights and prison-like cement walls, was very reminiscent of 1960s housing projects. Most of those 60s projects have been torn down or rebuilt.

  Max needs to bulldoze this building, I thought.

  Five minutes on the street in my van and I realized someone was following me. It was a compact sedan; American made, probably. I couldn’t see the model clearly. I certainly couldn’t see the plate number. Was it the person who’d just called Carl’s apartment? Hmmm, this was becoming interesting.

  In Fenchester, there’s a traffic light or stop sign at nearly every intersection. I stopped at a sign. The tail car stayed back in the shadows, allowing a SUV to get in between us. I turned right on 14th and sped up to Hamilton, turned left and went 4 blocks, then hung a quick left at 10th. I sped half way down the block, then squealed a left into an alley next to the Stonewall bar. Needless to say, it’s a gay bar. I sped behind the bar and came around the other side heading toward 10th. The little sedan hadn’t seen me turn.

  I switched off my lights and idled next to a gaggle of garbage cans. The sedan came slowly along 10th Street. I edged out, still with my lights off. To the left, I could see the sedan waiting for the light to change at 10th and Linden Street.

  Linden is one way going uptown, so the sedan could either go straight ahead on 10th, or go to the left. I figured the sedan would go to the left because it couldn’t see me straight ahead. I was correct. The sedan turned onto Linden, I followed. I was chasing my tail. It was fun. No wonder dogs do it.

  Just in case, I reached in my shoulder bag and took out my gun, placing it within reach on the passenger seat. The sedan picked up speed. As it passed under a bright streetlight, I got a better look. Maybe a Dodge Neon? Dark color; blue, gray or black. I couldn’t get close enough to read the plates without giving myself away and losing my chance to tail the tail.