A Body In My Office (The Charles Bentley Mysteries Book 1)

by Glen Ebisch

  Charles watched her go down the walk, and thought that happiness was probably too much to expect.

  Chapter Twelve

  Charles was up bright and early the next morning to go running with Greg. His legs were still a little stiff from yesterday’s run, so he touched his toes and did a couple of half-hearted deep knee bends to loosen up before going out the door to meet Greg. After exchanging a brief good morning, they began to run, and Charles was happy to find that he went six blocks further than yesterday before having to stop.

  “I didn’t think people ran every day. Don’t they take a day off in between?” he asked.

  “Depends on how serious they are,” Greg replied, running in place. “I take one day off a week. You can decide that for yourself once you’re able to run a mile. If you start taking days off before you reach a mile, you’re likely to quit. I’m just trying to get you over the hump.”

  “How much further is a mile than what I ran today?”

  “A little more than twice as far.”

  “How long before I can do that?”

  “Two or three more runs. You’re coming along fast.”

  Charles considered the matter. “Okay. We’ll do it your way.”

  “You’re not having a lot of major aches and pains, are you?”

  “No, just some minor ones.”

  “They’ll work themselves out.”

  Charles nodded and waited for Greg to resume his run, so he could head home. But Greg stayed there running in place.

  “Is there any more information on the Underwood killing?” he asked.

  “Not really. The police are still investigating.”

  “You know that Underwood was going to get one of the Opal College Chairs.”

  “That’s what the Dean told me.”

  Greg’s mouth set in a hard line. Charles might have let it go, but then he remembered his decision to look into the Underwood murder. He would never gather any data if he did didn’t ask questions.

  “Was there some kind of a problem with that?” he asked.

  “Well, the next one of those chairs was supposed to be given to someone in the sciences. I was in the running for it.”

  “I didn’t know about that. Will you get it now that Underwood is dead?”

  “Too soon to tell. The head of the science division has already protested to the Dean and Provost about the attempt to take it away from the sciences. I think we have a pretty good chance of getting it back. Whether I’ll be the one to get it is still uncertain.”

  Charles recalled his last conversation with the Dean where he mentioned that using the Opal Chair to get another English person might be a problem. Now he could see why.

  “But you have a good shot at it if the sciences get it back?”

  Greg nodded. “I think so. My scientific papers and teaching are better than the other candidates.”

  “I guess it would be a nice position to have.”

  “You bet. You get every fourth semester off from teaching to do research and a nice boost in salary. Plus there’s the honour of having an endowed chair.”

  Greg’s eyes lit up with more enthusiasm than Charles had ever seen. Ambition was apparently a larger component in his personality than Charles would ever have thought. He gave Greg a long look. He was tall, sinewy, and easily strong enough to kill someone with a blow to the head. Charles had always attributed Greg’s lack of emotion to being in the sciences, but what if he was a sociopath? Even Ruth had mentioned that he had a hard time relating to people. But it was quite a leap from being a bit distant with others to being a murderer. Charles also had trouble imagining Ruth being married to a killer and not realizing it. Maybe she did, and it didn’t bother her. Maybe she thought of it as just another of her husband’s charming eccentricities. Charles frowned. That was pretty hard to believe.

  “See you tomorrow morning,” Greg said. Abruptly he turned and ran off at twice the pace he kept with Charles.

  “He runs like an antelope,” Charles said to himself as he watched Greg disappear into the distance. “Although maybe I should come up with a more predatory animal, a lion or hyena perhaps.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Later that morning, Charles stepped into the English Department Office. It was his first foray there since being found a person of interest, and he was wondering what the reaction of his colleagues and the staff would be. But the only college employee was Sheila, the undergraduate who took over when the regular secretary was away, and she was currently staring fearfully at a pregnant woman standing in the centre of the office.

  “Where is Garrison Underwood? I want to see him now,” the woman said loudly and angrily.

  Looking like she was about to cry, Sheila gasped out, “He’s dead.”

  “Don’t give me that. I know he told you to say that, but I want the truth. Remember, I’m very pregnant and he’s the father, so there’s no telling what I might do. There’s no point in lying to me.”

  The woman advanced toward Sheila as if threatening to either hit her or give birth in the middle of the office. Sheila saw Charles standing in the doorway, and shot him a pleading look.

  “Tell her, Professor Bentley.”

  Charles walked further into the office and the woman turned toward him. She would have been quite attractive if her face weren’t mottled with patches of red and her mouth twisted into a sneer.

  “Hello, I’m Charles Bentley,” he said, putting out his hand.

  Clearly taken aback by his politeness, she took it. “I’m Nora Chapman.”

  “I’m afraid that Garrison Underwood is indeed dead. I saw the body. Apparently he was murdered.”

  “So the bitch finally killed him,” Nora announced.

  “Which bitch?” Charles asked automatically, then realized he probably shouldn’t have said that in front of a student.

  “That damned Sylvia. The one he married, that toffee-nosed bitch. He sure wasn’t getting much from her, that’s why he came to me. Couldn’t keep him off me with a stick.”

  “I see,” Charles replied neutrally. “But why would Sylvia kill him?”

  “For money, why else? She insisted that Garrison get a ton of life insurance as soon as they married. Plus she’s his literary executor and heir. His book Critical Theory and Literature is standard college reading. She’ll clean up on royalties alone.”

  Charles gave her a level stare but said nothing. Maybe Sylvia could kill Underwood out of excessive greed, but this woman could have killed him out of sheer hate.

  “Where is she staying?” the woman asked Sheila, who seemed fascinated by the conversation and only stared in response.

  “Wake up!” Nora shouted. “Do you know where Sylvia Underwood is staying?”

  Sheila glanced at Charles, as if asking for permission to give out the information, but Charles merely shrugged. Being retired meant he didn’t have to make such determinations anymore. Apparently arriving at a decision, Sheila snatched a piece of paper up from the desk and stared at it as if the words were unintelligible. Charles thought that to her addled mind they probably were.

  “She’s staying at the Northrup guest house.”

  “And just where might that be?” Nora asked.

  “On the north end of the campus,” Charles said, when Sheila stood mute. “It’s within walking distance if you can manage it.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, shooting him a fierce grin. “When it comes to Underwood I could walk across the Sahara pregnant with twins.” She gave Charles an appraising look. “Would you be willing to accompany me?”

  “Do you feel you might need help getting there?”

  “It might be safer to have someone with me when I do get there.”

  “Are you afraid Sylvia will attack you?”

  “No, just the opposite.”

  “Why do you want to see her?”

  “I want to talk about the disposition of Garrison’s estate. Don’t worry, I’ll try to keep it friendly.”

  Charle
s paused. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

  Five minutes later they were making their way across campus. Charles found he had to stride along to keep up with the woman whose rolling walk, like a sailor who had been at sea a long time, still managed to cover the distance swiftly.

  “On your right is Opal Memorial Library, the oldest building on campus,” he said, pointing to a stately structure with Doric columns. “And the cantilevered building on the left is the new fine arts centre. An interesting design, although some believe it doesn’t fit with the overall look of the campus. And right in front of us at the end of the quadrangle—

  “Enough. If I wanted the fifty cent tour, I would have paid for it,” Nora said, picking up the pace.

  Charles imagined that he could see the fetus marching along in front of her, anxious to confront the bitch who had killed its father. The its reminded Charles that he didn’t know the gender of the child.

  “Boy or girl?” he asked.

  Nora gave him an irritated glance. Sweat was beading on her forehead and her breathing was raspy.

  “What?” she asked in exasperation.

  “I was just wondering about the sex of your child.”

  “A girl, thank God. At least I’m not bringing another faithless, irresponsible man into the world.”

  “Good thing,” Charles muttered, not without irony.

  Charles kept silent for a while, and soon they had reached the end of the quadrangle.

  “I thought you said this was within walking distance. I should have hired a Sherpa.”

  “Right over there,” Charles said, pointing to a white house on the corner of the next street. It was the last in a line of small cottages where the college put up temporary guests. Not having much beyond minimal decor, they made Charles think of KGB safe houses.

  They finally turned up the walk to the front door. Charles was about to knock, but Nora turned the handle and marched right inside. I guess she wants the advantage of surprise, Charles thought.

  Nora went down a short hall. Charles hurried to keep up with her in case Sylvia was waiting around a corner ready to pounce on an intruder. Nora turned the corner into a room. She came to such an abrupt halt that Charles bumped into her, almost knocking her to her knees. She collapsed back into him. He caught her under her arms and barely managed, given her front-heavy condition, to pull her back to her feet. When he had her righted, he looked up and saw what had caused her to stop short.

  Sylvia Underwood was lying on her back in the centre of the room. Her arms were stretched out above her head as if she had toppled over backwards while leading a cheer. Most of her white blouse had turned red.

  Charles was about to suggest that Nora sit down on the sofa right inside the doorway, but then decided that the police might not appreciate their lounging around at the scene of a crime. Resting in direct view of the body also might not be very relaxing.

  “Let’s go back outside,” he suggested softly, gripping Nora firmly by the shoulder.

  Offering no resistance, she allowed herself to be led out to the front porch, where they sat down on two old side-by-side rockers. Nora appeared pale and confused. Charles wasn’t sure whether she was disturbed by the sight of a murder victim or by having been beaten to the punch. He pulled out his phone and gave the police the necessary information.

  When he was finished, he turned and studied Nora. Her blank stare had been replaced by a more calculating expression.

  “Maybe this isn’t so bad after all,” she said slowly.

  “In what way? Charles asked.

  She simply shook her head and gave him a complacent smile. Although he tried to engage her in conversation, thinking it might be a good distraction from the horror inside, she refused to say anything more until the police arrived.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lieutenant Thorndike put Charles and Nora in the back of her cruiser and took them to the police station. She had left a team of local officers and state forensics people combing through Northrup guesthouse. Charles wondered whether anyone would ever stay there again. Being given accommodations in a place where a person had died violently would clearly put off some folks. Others, however, might feel differently. It might become the go-to place for campus visitors. Perhaps a ghost legend would grow up around it, providing a new addition to campus lore. Charles found he rather relished the idea of being involved in a piece of unsavoury campus folklore. At least he wouldn’t be completely forgotten.

  When they arrived at the police station, the Lieutenant asked Charles to have a seat in the waiting room, and took Nora down the hall, probably, he surmised, to an interrogation room. He sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair and wished he had something to read, even one of the unsettling magazines about illness and disease that seemed so popular in doctor’s waiting rooms. He guessed that the police figured a person of interest didn’t need any distractions. Better to leave them alone to confront their guilty consciences.

  Not for the first time, Charles thought about what a large role reading played in his grasp of reality. Even when he was doing other things, such as eating or relaxing, he usually had some form of print in front of his eyes, and his mind was focused there rather than on what was around him. Did people who couldn’t read have a better handle on true reality because they weren’t always escaping into an imagined world? Could the being in the present moment so talked about by meditators be easily achieved if people were kept illiterate?

  Charles brooded on that for almost forty minutes, when Lieutenant Thorndike appeared in the doorway and told him to go down the hall to the first room on the right. He went into a small room with a table in the middle and four chairs. One wall had a large mirror and all four walls were painted pale green.

  “Is that a two-way mirror?” Charles asked.

  “Nope, that’s in the other room. This one’s here just so I can check how I look.”

  Charles gave her an inquiring glance, but she just smiled and motioned for him to sit down.

  “Can you tell me in your own words what happened from the time you met Nora Chapman to the time you discovered the body of Sylvia Underwood?”

  Charles presented the events, trying not to embellish.

  “Did Chapman seem to be surprised to see Sylvia Underwood lying dead on the floor?”

  Charles frowned. “Of course, she did. Who wouldn’t? Unless . . . oh, I see your point. What if Nora had killed Sylvia earlier and gone looking for an alibi, so she comes to the English Department office to get someone to accompany her back to the scene of the crime and establish her innocence?”

  “You’re pretty good at this, Charles. Maybe you should be occupying my seat.”

  “But is that scenario likely?”

  “It’s possible. No one in the neighbourhood of the guesthouse saw anything all morning. She could easily have left and come back with you as an audience for her surprised act.”

  Charles shook his head in disbelief. “Not unless she deserves to be in the running for an Academy Award. Nora seemed truly stunned at finding Sylvia dead.”

  “There was nothing suspicious about her behaviour?”

  “Well, she did seem to recover rather quickly, but she does seem to be a resourceful young woman. Her last words to me, however, were a bit strange,” Charles said, and he repeated them to the Lieutenant.

  “Not really that strange at all,” Thorndike said. “Think about it. Garrison Underwood had no surviving family other than Sylvia. With Sylvia gone, Nora can make a plausible claim that her child will be Underwood’s only surviving heir.”

  “And the estate should be sizeable,” Charles said, and he reported what Nora had told him about the insurance and royalties. “But would Nora have told me all that if she had this scheme in mind?”

  “That’s one flaw in the theory. A bigger one is that I’ve checked with the airlines, and Nora didn’t get into Boston until late yesterday. There’s no way she killed Garrison Underwood, and as I told you before, I find it hard to believe
that we have two separate murderers in Opalsville.”

  “Maybe we should reconsider. She could have had a boyfriend or a paid associate kill Underwood.”

  Thorndike shrugged, unconvinced. “We’re keeping her under surveillance, so if she meets up with anyone, we’ll know. So stay away from her. She could be dangerous.”

  “She’s not my type,” Charles said.

  “You mean pregnant.”

  “No, I mean scary.”

  Thorndike smiled.

  “How was Sylvia killed?” he asked. “All I could see was a lot of blood, but I had no idea what caused it.”

  “She was shot. According to preliminary reports, she was shot right through the heart. It was clean and quick.”

  “Not like the person who shot at me.”

  “Could be the same individual if he was just fooling around with you to lead us astray.”

  “But how would Nora or an associate have known about me at all? It’s got to be someone else.”

  The Lieutenant nodded. “Good point. Unless her associate was someone who knew the campus.”

  “And would the same person have killed Underwood by hitting him over the head have killed Sylvia with a gun? That seems like awfully inconsistent modus operandi.”

  “He’s a murderer, not a logician, Charles. He might use whatever seems to work at the time.”

  “A pragmatist?” Charles asked.

  “If you say so,” the Lieutenant replied.

  “It’s seems to me that if the same person killed both Underwood and Sylvia, he wasn’t sure about killing Underwood when he went to see him or he’d have brought his gun. But he was certain about the need to kill Sylvia. I wonder why the need to kill her?”

  “When we know that, we’ll be well on our way to solving the case.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Charles headed out to the soup kitchen the next day, he admitted to himself that he was in an uneasy state of mind. He’d spent much of the morning trying to read the paper, but frequently found his thoughts drifting off to the two murders. As much as he tried, he couldn’t picture Nora Chapman killing Sylvia with a gun. He could easily imagine her hitting Sylvia with the traditional blunt object in the rage of the moment, but calmly murdering her didn’t match his view of the woman. There was also the problem of where she could have gotten a gun so quickly in a strange country?