The Letter Killeth

by Ralph McInerny

  “He was one of the kindest men I ever knew.” His eyes flashed as he said this, lest the reporter dare to contradict hm.

  “What did his colleagues think of him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was a maverick, wasn’t he?”

  “We are all mavericks here.”

  He was shut up after that. Wack had lodged a protest that the departmental secretary should presume to act as spokesman for them all.

  “Would you like to?” McCerb, the chair, asked.

  “Ha ha.”

  “Of course, there would be a conflict of interest in your case.”

  What did that mean? What had that catty Hector said? He consulted Lucy Goessen about it.

  “I suppose they mean you’ll be called as a witness. I imagine I will be, too.”

  “But I don’t know anything!”

  “I wouldn’t make it that sweeping.” But she smiled and patted his arm when she said it. Oscar purred. He was again certain that he and Lucy could become good friends. Not colleagues, friends.

  * * *

  Larry Douglas’s status was unclear. He was still being held for questioning, and his lawyer, a furtive fellow named Furlong, made a lengthy harangue about civil liberties, a phrase or two of which appeared in the newspaper accounts. On television, he was allowed to talk, but muted, while a voice-over explained what Furlong apparently wished to say. And then the scarf was found in Larry’s loft.

  It must have been five feet long, gaudy, striped. It was immediately recognized as Izquierdo’s. It seemed twisted. It was rushed to the lab; results were collated with the coroner’s report. It seemed that the murder weapon had been found.

  * * *

  “What did Larry say when you told him?” Roger asked. Jimmy Stewart and Phil were discussing this latest event in the Knight apartment. Father Carmody had been invited, but the continuing arctic weather had prevented it.

  “The kid is almost catatonic.”

  Fauxhall, an assistant prosecutor, was trying to get Jimmy to sign on to a scenario. It is known that Larry was able to enter Izquierdo’s office at will, thanks to the master key filched from campus security. Having established this, he bides his time. One night, while Izquierdo is still in his office, Larry enters. Imagine how surprised the professor must have been. But Larry would have been wearing his uniform. Some specious excuse must have been given. The scarf, with the professor’s other wraps, is hung on a stand in the corner behind the desk. Did Larry marvel at the scarf of many colors, want to examine it more closely? Now he is behind the desk, he has the scarf, he loops it over the head of the still unsuspecting professor and begins to twist. There are signs of the struggle Izquierdo put up, kicking like crazy against the dying of the light. The desk itself is moved in the struggle. And then resistance ends. Larry removes the scarf, pushes the desk back approximately to where it had been, and leaves.

  “Conveniently keeping the scarf in his loft so it could be found.”

  “I needn’t tell you of the inconsistency of the criminal mind.” Fauxhall might have already been addressing a jury. “Well, what do you think?”

  “Even Furlong could make mincemeat out of that.”

  But it was Mrs. Izquierdo who did. She telephoned Jimmy.

  “That is not Raul’s scarf.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s here, hanging in the hall closet.”

  Jimmy went out to the house and looked at the scarf, identical to the one that had been found in Larry’s loft.

  “It’s been here all along?”

  “Of course it has.”

  “Where did he buy it?”

  “I bought it for him.”

  From Whistler’s, a men’s store in the mall. The salesman took Jimmy to Whistler’s office. When he learned the purpose of the visit, he wasn’t sure he wanted his establishment mixed up in this.

  “It already is.”

  “I am not responsible for what happens to items I sell.”

  “Of course you’re not. Let’s talk about this scarf.” Jimmy had with him the scarf Pauline Izquierdo had given him. Whistler reached for it, then withdrew his hand.

  “How many of these do you suppose you’ve sold?”

  “I’m surprised I sold any.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  Whistler kept records, of course, and he found proof of Mrs. Izquierdo’s purchase, but of no other. There had been three such scarves in his inventory. The scarf found in Larry’s loft had Whistler’s tag in it. The explanation seemed to be that it had been on a discount table with dozens of other items that had not sold well. No record would have been kept of such a purchase, only a generic “special sale” designation.

  “So who is trying to frame Larry Douglas?”

  “When we know that, we will know who strangled Izquierdo.”

  Roger sat humming and shaking his head. “If I killed someone, I would want to get rid of the murder instrument rather than plant it somewhere.”

  “I needn’t tell you of the inconsistency of the criminal mind.” Jimmy crossed his fingers when he said it.

  “And what of the plastic bag containing pages of Via Media, scissors, glue?”

  Jimmy shrugged. No prints, but the pages had been compared with uncut pages of the paper, and it seemed pretty certain that the contents of the bag explained the threatening letters that had caused such interest some weeks before.

  “None of those threats were actually carried out, were they?”

  Phil suggested that, since they had been a spoof, they could have been sent by Izquierdo. Particularly since one of the addressees was the colleague he loathed.

  “Oscar Wack.” What interested Roger was Wack’s assumption that Larry had not been alone the night he had surprised him in Izquierdo’s office.

  “That woman insists she was with him,” Jimmy said.

  “But waiting outside.”

  “So she says.”

  “Wack says he saw three people riding away in a golf cart.”

  “The third man.”

  Phil began to give an impression of the theme song of that old movie.

  “I’d talk with Laura again if I were you,” Roger said.

  * * *

  But first Jimmy talked to Larry. He had been released when Mrs. Izquierdo produced her husband’s scarf. It had been assumed that the scarf found in Larry’s loft had been the murder weapon, but the lab told the deflated Fauxhall that it could have been the other scarf. The marks made on the throat of Izquierdo pointed to such a scarf, but there was nothing on either scarf to enable them to decide which had been the murder weapon. And what else did they have?

  “I’m still on leave,” Larry complained. “Crenshaw let Laura come back to work, but I am still on indefinite leave.”

  Furlong, Larry’s lawyer, had transferred his energies to combating the injustice with which campus security was treating his client. Furlong was a Democrat and thus despised the present occupant of the White House, but he argued passionately that providing security for a community often required unusual means. Larry was a zealous young man, his actions had been unusual, but his motives were clear. Furlong himself wasn’t clear on what those motives were, but no matter. He had been given lengthy coverage in campus newspapers, editors being delighted to criticize the administration through a third party.

  “Who was with you the night you entered Izquierdo’s office?”

  “Laura.”

  “Who was the third person?”

  “What third person?”

  “Professor Wack says he saw three people ride away in the golf cart.”

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “He must be a great friend of yours.”

  “Who?”

  “The third man who didn’t come forward in your defense.”

  Larry just stared at him. Laura was no more help, but again Jimmy felt he was not getting the full story. So he began to keep tabs on the young coupl
e. It turned out that Kimberley who worked in the coroner’s office knew Larry. Feeley remembered that his assistant had gone out with the young man. So Jimmy talked with her.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “We went out a few times. We shared an interest in poetry.”

  “Ah.”

  “But that’s all it was.”

  It turned out that she was now going with someone else in campus security, Henry Grabowski. Not that she volunteered this, but following her around for a few days brought this to the surface. Was Henry the third man?

  Crenshaw began to shake his head as soon as Jimmy brought up the subject.

  “You know I can’t give out information like that.”

  “You don’t have to, of course. It must be a pain in the neck having someone like Furlong on your case. I’d hate to get a court order and multiply your problems.”

  “A court order!”

  “We’ve got a murder on your campus, Crenshaw. An unsolved case. I need to pursue what leads I get. Why are you covering up for Henry Grabowski?”

  “Covering up? He works here. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that.”

  Finally Crenshaw let Jimmy see Henry’s application. Among the letters of recommendation was one from a teacher at St. Joe High School, Masterson, who happened to be Jimmy’s brother-in-law. They had more or less avoided one another since Hazel left him, but that was only because they were no longer comfortable together. Jimmy called him up and invited him for a beer at Leaky’s near the courthouse.

  “Bat, how are you? Take a pew.”

  Masterson smiled and slid into the booth across from Jimmy. “You’re the only one who calls me that.”

  “What do your students call you?”

  “Sir.”

  “Remember a kid named Henry Grabowski?”

  “Of course I do. Why do you ask?”

  “He’s been taken on by Notre Dame security.”

  Bat’s beer had come, and he made a face before drinking. “What a waste.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Bat told him about Henry’s record as a student, something Jimmy already knew, thanks to Crenshaw.

  “He couldn’t afford college?”

  “He was a shoo-in for a fellowship, and there are loans. But it was Notre Dame or nothing. He wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Did he apply?”

  “And was turned down. I told him thousands of applicants are turned down every year by Notre Dame. Tens of thousands. I suggested the route through Holy Cross College.”

  “Was he bitter or what?”

  “All his life he had dreamt of going to Notre Dame.”

  “Well, he ended up there.”

  Bat shook his head and said again, “What a waste.”

  * * *

  Professor Wack looked at the photograph Jimmy gave him. “Is he the man who was with Larry Douglas the night you surprised them in Izquierdo’s office?”

  “I didn’t see him. I told you that. But I know this fellow. He and Izquierdo were thick as thieves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was up here a lot. I think Izquierdo was trying to tutor him. Raul wasn’t all bad, you know.”

  Lucy Goessen also remembered seeing Henry when he came to see Izquierdo. “Raul said he was smarter than most of his students.”

  6

  Kimberley was reluctant to show him around the morgue, but Henry kept after her. What was a girl like that doing working in a place like this? Feeley, the coroner, was another surprise.

  “How did you end up here?” Henry asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m listening.”

  It seemed almost noble that Feeley had abandoned all his dreams in order to keep his father on the local political payroll. It made them seem kindred spirits, in a way. “Did you ever read ‘Winter Dreams’ by Fitzgerald?”

  Feeley just looked at him. But Kimberley knew the story.

  Stealing Kimberley away from Larry Douglas had not been much of a triumph. Henry soon tired of her sentimental response to what she read.

  “You should read Nietzsche.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  She tried Zarathustra but didn’t like it. So he told her what Jeeves had said to Bertie Wooster. “You would not like Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.” Kimberley began to remind Henry of one of Bertie’s girlfriends.

  “I think Wodehouse is silly.”

  “Of course he is.”

  “So why read him?”

  “For the silliness.”

  “Now you’re being silly.”

  “That’s because you think I think what I say is true.”

  But there was no point in trying out Izquierdo’s nihilism on her. A limited mind. Pretty as a picture, of course, there was no doubt of that. Henry’s trouble was that the future had ceased to interest him. Once his whole life had been aimed at becoming a student at Notre Dame. That would have put him on the one track he wanted. Meeting with Izquierdo was a poor substitute, but then it led nowhere, so that became its attraction. If he had been a real student, getting a high grade would have entered into it, but all he got from Izquierdo was the endorsement of his sense of superiority, and that only added to the bitterness of his disappointment. Putting the torch to Izquierdo’s Corvette was an instance of what Izquierdo called an acte gratuite. Motiveless. Done in order to do it. And to get a rise out of Izquierdo. Raul’s reaction was a disappointment. So one night he went to Decio and put the plastic bag with the cuttings and scissors and glue he had used in fashioning those threatening letters in a drawer in Izquierdo’s desk.

  When he heard someone outside the door, he quickly turned off the office light and sat as still as he could in Izquierdo’s chair. A key in the lock. He prepared himself to greet Izquierdo, searching desperately for an explanation he might give of being here, and then he was looking into the terrified face of Larry Douglas.

  For days now he had been mystified by Larry’s silence about that night when they took him in for questioning. Henry had thought of going downtown and asking to see Larry, he had thought of quizzing Laura about it, but he didn’t do the first, and Laura was suspended along with Larry.

  Henry tried various explanations. Larry had told them that he had found Henry already in Izquierdo’s office and they were keeping it quiet. Maybe he was under surveillance. The best response to that was to put Detective Stewart under surveillance. He called in sick, asking for Crenshaw.

  “I’ve got the flu.”

  “Everybody’s got the flu.”

  “I can’t come to work.”

  “You better not. I don’t want to catch it.”

  So Henry followed Stewart around. He watched him enter Whistler’s and knew the reason. But who would remember buying a scarf from a table of discounted items? When Henry had seen the duplicate of Izquierdo’s scarf—actually there were two on the table—he asked his mom to buy it for him. She did, but she thought it was ridiculous.

  Nothing happened after Stewart’s trip to the mall. Henry feared that his mother would be questioned about the scarf, but nothing happened. Henry breathed a little easier. When Stewart spent an evening at the Knights’ apartment, Henry decided that the time had come for him to get a new faculty mentor. He found out where Roger Knight’s class was held and asked if he could sit in. Knight just assumed he was a student.

  “So what did you think?” Roger Knight asked him afterward. He had been surrounded by students after the class, but Henry had waited for him by his golf cart.

  “F. Marion Crawford?”

  “Have you ever read him?”

  “On my list, he comes right after Winston Churchill. The other one.”

  * * *

  Roger’s popularity was a mystery to Henry. He could understand that women students would feel motherly toward a man that helpless, shaped like a balloon, getting around a real effort. But his mind was too elusive for Henry, and allusive. He realized that Izquierdo had flattered him even whi
le being condescending. Roger with his big blue-eyed baby stare could have talked rings around Izquierdo. What hadn’t the guy read? But it was the simplicity of his religious faith that marked him. After Izquierdo, this was a real switch. Then Roger surprised him by saying he had heard Henry was a protégé of the campus atheist.

  “Protégé?”

  “I’m told you often visited his office.”

  “Only in daytime hours,” Henry said, then wished he hadn’t. For the matter of that, he wished he hadn’t looked up Roger Knight. Of course Roger would know everything his brother knew and his brother everything that Stewart did. Henry felt a sudden impulse to talk to Roger, to ask his help, but he fought it.

  Someone was playing him for a fool, and he just couldn’t believe it was Larry Douglas. Why was he keeping quiet? The discovery of that scarf in Larry’s loft should have turned him into a babbling cooperative witness, but even then, nothing.

  It had to do with Kimberley, that must be it. He was too proud to point a finger at the guy who had walked off with his girl.

  At home he went up to his room, telling his mom he would be right down for supper, but he had to check something first. He opened his dresser drawer, pushed aside the neat pile of Hanes shorts, and pulled out the many-colored scarf. It was still here. It had always been here. So who had tossed an identical scarf into Larry’s loft? How many of them were there?

  7

  When young Father Conway was asked to speak to the widow of Professor Izquierdo, he welcomed this opportunity for pastoral work. He hadn’t endured all those years of study in order to occupy an office in the Main Building. Not that he thought this would be easy.

  First, he made sure he had all the information about the late professor, and of course he was briefed by the university lawyer. That was when it dawned on Tim Conway that, for some, the main concern was that the widow would sue the university. So in some ways, he was engaged in making a preemptive strike. In his own mind, he was calling on her in his capacity as a priest. His lips moved in prayer as he drove. Please grant me the grace to say the right, the healing thing.