That Sleep of Death

by Richard King

  “Wow,” Barbara said. “That must have been some letter. ‘Face the consequences, live a lie, not happy.’”

  “It seems,” I said meditatively, “that the stories we heard may be true. This could mean that he was trying to get her back and using some sort of blackmail. She was telling him that she wasn’t going along with it and she didn’t care what the consequences were. She was not going to be bullied into living a lie that would make her unhappy. I don’t know. It certainly seems to say that.”

  “Sam,” Gaston cautioned me. Meaning that he thought that I was jumping to conclusions.

  “But what do you think Hilliard was going to do?” I continued, ignoring Gaston’s warning. I was thinking about the blackmail aspect of the thing. “From what we’ve heard about his character, I’m beginning to think he may have had a very nasty obsessive side. Doesn’t it seem to you that he was trying to coerce Jane into coming back to him? And that she preferred to remain with her husband?”

  “Yes, but what was he using to try to coerce her? What hold did he have over her?” Gaston asked.

  His questions brought me down to earth. I had no idea what Hilliard could possibly use to make Professor Miller-More do something she didn’t want to do. Especially a major life-change such as leaving her husband.

  “I think …” Dr. Young spoke slowly and regretfully, as if she really didn’t want to tell us what she thought. “This is really an old rumour and I didn’t believe it at the time and I’m not sure I believe it now. But it would give Hal something to hold over Jane — if it’s true, that is.”

  “Perhaps if you told me what it is that you are thinking I can find a way to verify its truth,” Gaston said.

  “Well, OK. But please remember that so far as I know it’s just a rumour. And also you have to remember that I haven’t heard these stories for about two years. Anyway, there were rumours that she had plagiarized her doctoral dissertation.”

  “We heard the same story from Miss Ford when we first questioned her,” I added.

  “True enough,” Gaston agreed. “But we never got any confirmation that the stories were anything but malicious rumours.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” Dr. Young said. “They’re probably not true. That is, I could never see any reason to believe them, until now.”

  “And now you do?” Gaston inquired.

  “No, I don’t. I’m expressing myself badly. Let me explain. In an academic environment there are times, for example when jobs are hard to come by, when some people will do almost anything to discredit those they perceive to be their competition. The absolute worst thing you can accuse some one of in a university is plagiarism. It’s worse than infidelity; it’s almost worse than murder. So naturally, it’s one of the main things that people start rumours about. I’ve heard whispers of plagiarism about more of the staff than you’d think, not just Jane. In most cases, 99.9 percent of cases, it’s a false vindictive accusation made worse in that it’s almost impossible to prove or disprove. But because these things are never in the open, no evidence is ever produced and without evidence the charge can’t be refuted. It can be very insidious. If the victim protests their innocence it looks like a case of protesting too much.”

  “Hamlet, the play within the play: ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much …’” I muttered.

  “Sam,” said Gaston warningly. To Barbara, he continued, “But you said you think you might believe it now?”

  “No. What I meant was that I now believe that there is something in her past that someone, apparently Hilliard, was using to get poor Jane to do something against her will and she thought that — whatever dark secret was going to be exposed — it wasn’t as bad as living a lie for the rest of her life. She appeared, from her letter, to be saying she was ready to pay the price to get out from under the threat. You’ve met her. She’s a bright, sweet person. I can’t imagine what she could have done to be used as blackmail so I naturally thought of the old rumours. That’s all. I still don’t believe them but it is clear that there is something from her past that is haunting her.”

  “You said that these rumours of plagiarism were in the air about two years ago, is that right?” Gaston asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Young answered.

  “About the time she left Hilliard for More, yes?”

  “That’s right. I guess the shock of her leaving Hal and then taking up with Fred and marrying him kind of drove the other gossip out of people’s minds.”

  “Or she stood up to the person who was spreading the rumours and they, he, stopped.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” Barbara Young agreed.

  “And maybe she had to stand up to him again,” Gaston continued. “This time more forcefully.”

  “But if it was only a false rumour,” I interjected, “it would not be something that she could be blackmailed with and the parts of her letter that we saw indicates that she was under some kind of real threat. Remember she talked about consequences and facing them.”

  I noticed that Steve Mandopolous was fascinated by all of this but he wasn’t saying much. I guess he didn’t want to call attention to himself and be asked to leave. But it was clear that he was following every word that we said. I wondered if he had an opinion. He’d known these people a lot longer than we had.

  “I agree,” Gaston said. “But the scenario is the same if the stories were true. At a certain point she called the bluff of the storyteller and got on with her life. Now it seems that the original blackmailer, if I can use the term, is taking a second try at her and this time she had reason to believe that he was more serious than the first time and tried to call his bluff again. But maybe it didn’t work this time. Maybe this time she had to take direct action which resulted in murder.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Dr. Young said angrily. “Just look at the difference in size. Hal was a big guy and Jane is as slim as a wire.” Barbara Young waved a computer cable in our faces to make her point.

  “But you forget,” Gaston explained, “the murderer had some help from Hegel. She was seen around the history department by two or three people that morning. From what we have heard so far this appears to be a possible scenario: Hilliard was angry when she left him two years ago, and in his rage threatened to expose Jane’s secret, which she had unwisely confided to him. But she stood up to him. She married Dean More. Hilliard didn’t intend to give up. He waited for a while and then took another crack at blackmailing her. How did he get the information he needed? Maybe she told him, but maybe he found out on his own. Don’t forget, he was the one who pushed to have her hired, so he was the one most familiar with her work. He may have been the only person other than her thesis adviser to have read her dissertation. So maybe he found something to be suspicious about. When she stood up to him he decided to follow his suspicions to see if they had basis in fact. We know that they were spending time together recently and Hilliard’s current amour was pushed aside. That may have been to make room for Jane Miller in his life again. But she had no plans to leave her husband and she told him so.

  “From what I have seen of Professor Miller-More I wouldn’t rule her out as a person capable of murder. I think she is a person with very strong but very controlled emotions, and not likely to be accepting of anyone trying to push her around. She goes to his office to have it out with him once and for all and things get heated and in the heat of the moment she whacks him with Hegel. She realizes what she’s done but also that her last message to him is probably still on his computer so she grabs it and runs. When she realizes that she can’t get into the computer she dumps it. She passes by the Mclntyre building in her way to meet her husband and she ducks in and takes the opportunity to throw the computer in the elevator shaft. She hopes it will never see the light of day and also that if it is found, whoever finds it will be unable to access the programs. Doesn’t that seem like a possible scenario?”

  “And the fact that Hilliard had a book order form clutched in his dead hand, an or
der Jane made and for a book we found in her office is more evidence: Hilliard may have been trying to indicate that she is the murderer,” I added.

  Steve chose this moment to add his voice to our speculations. “No way!” he exclaimed. “Dr. Miller-More a murderer? No way!”

  “You have to admit that this scenario makes sense, though,” I said.

  “Yeah, it makes sense except for one thing,” Steve said. “It didn’t happen. Professor Miller-More is a really nice lady, a real sweetheart. Maybe she wanted to kill him, but believe me she couldn’t have done it. Not the type.”

  “From what I hear, murderers come in every type. What makes you so sure?” I was ruffled by the dogmatic way he spoke. How did he know?

  “I’ll tell you how I know it. I come from a very tough neighbourhood. People there did grow up to be killers, some of them anyway. They’d get into fights and they’d lose control and one person ends up dead and the other in jail. This is what I learned: Some people can’t kill no matter what and some can’t stop themselves from killing when they lose control of themselves. The victims are the first kind. Jane is like that. She doesn’t have the spark of a killer. In a situation where people got angry enough to commit murder she would be the victim not the killer, believe me.”

  “Arguing about it isn’t going to get us any where. Why don’t we go and talk to Professor Miller-More and see what she has to say?” I proposed.

  “Of course,” Gaston agreed. “But we all have to walk over to her office together.” He turned to Dr. Young and looked her in the eyes and said sincerely, “Please don’t take this the wrong way but you obviously care for Jane Miller-More and I can’t risk leaving you here to call her and warn her that we’re on our way and what we’re thinking. I mean no offense. I have to do my job the best way I can and I think it would be best if you accompanied us to her office. You don’t have to stay with me when I talk to her; in fact it would be best that you don’t. But I would really appreciate it if you understood my procedures and walked over to her office with us.”

  “I don’t have Mr. Mandopolous’s experience with the seamier side of things so I can’t be certain that she didn’t do it. But it does seem unlikely. Still, you’re the cop and I have to believe that you know what you’re doing. Anyway, I want to make sure that Jane’s not in any trouble and that you don’t plan to railroad her into any. I’ll walk over with you.”

  “Thank you. I make the same request of you, Mr. Mandopolous, for the same reasons.”

  “I’m coming because I’m sure she’s innocent,” Steve stated unequivocally.

  “We shall see,” Gaston said getting in the last word.

  He led us out of Dr. Young’s office. As we walked out Dr. Young turned off the lights and locked the door.

  chapter twenty

  It was a couple of hours before dusk as we emerged from the administration building. It was going to be another beautiful warm autumn evening. The campus was crowded with students walking to or from somewhere. Young men and women walked arm in arm and gave the impression that it didn’t matter where they were going so long as they were going there together. The air was soft and a bit moist. The earth was arcing away from the sun, which gave a lovely warm golden light to everything. The red and yellow leaves on the trees on campus added to the fiery glow of the late afternoon. I inhaled deeply and let the fall air fill my lungs. I could smell the leaves and the grass and I thought that it would be a lovely afternoon to play touch football or to stroll the autumnal streets of Montreal and experience the city as it enjoyed the last gasp of street life before everything moved indoors for the winter.

  We walked silently to the Elwitt Building, lost in our own thoughts, an autumnal reverie of murder and justice. As if by agreement we stopped at the entrance to the building and took a last sentimental look at the campus full of fall colours and happy, playful young people. Then Gaston seemed to shake off his meditative mood, and took the steps three at a time. Turning at the top, he said, “Thank you for all your help. I want to see Professor Miller-More alone now.”

  Barbara, Steve, and I were right at this heels. The two of them looked disappointed. They both started to speak but Barbara’s tone silenced Steve. “No way,” she exclaimed. “I’m not leaving Jane alone to face you. You think she killed Harold. God knows what you plan to do to her.”

  “I plan to question her,” Gaston replied coolly. “And I’ll decide what to do after that.”

  “But what about her rights?” Dr. Young asked angrily. “Doesn’t she have the right to have a lawyer or someone to look out for her while you question her?”

  “You act as if I’m about to question her with a rubber hose.” Gaston was not being very diplomatic with Barbara Young. I could see that he was running out of his not very large fund of patience. I was trying to make myself invisible and to think of some way of not being dismissed along with Barbara and Steve. “That’s not the way I do things,” Gaston continued. “Anyway, she would only need a lawyer if she’s charged with a crime and you’re not a lawyer. So far as I know no one has the legal right to have a computer specialist present while being questioned by the police. So, thank you both very much for all that you have done to help. I promise you that if I need your help again I’ll call on you. But for now I’ll be handling things myself.”

  Steve, shrugging his shoulders, turned and walked away, but Barbara grabbed Gaston’s arm and continued to argue forcefully for her right to go with him. I realized that approach would get her nowhere. Leaving them confronting each other, I slipped away without a word.

  I walked down the hall to Miller-More’s office, and knocked on her door.

  When she yelled “Come in,” I entered and immediately realized that I hadn’t done enough forward planning. I stood there looking like a fool and wondering what to do.

  “What on earth do you want?” she asked me.

  What excuse could I offer? Why was I barging into her office? To accuse her of murder? Something told me that would be unwise. I blurted out the first thing that popped into my mind. “It’s about the book you ordered.” I sat down in the same chair I had occupied on my previous visit. “I’m really sorry that it’s taking so long to get here. You know how it is. Publishers get lots of orders and they can’t always fill them quickly so sometimes things are slow. I’m really sorry about that.”

  I was talking really fast and not making much sense. She looked at me as if I was deranged, not dangerous but certainly not in full control of myself.

  “I’m sure you’re doing your best and the book will get here soon enough. There’s no rush, really, is there?” She said in a soothing tone of voice. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  I was about to start babbling something about customer service when a knock came at the door. Gaston, I hoped. She sighed, took her eyes off me and said, “Come in.”

  Gaston walked in. “Professor Miller-More, I have some questions I’d like …” At this point he noticed me sitting there. He half laughed, half grimaced at me and said, “I might have known.”

  “He came to talk to me about the book I ordered. He was just leaving. Now what do you want?”

  “I have some more questions,” Gaston explained.

  “But I’ve told you everything I know.”

  “Since speaking with you I’ve interviewed your husband. My investigators have also found Professor Hilliard’s computer and I’ve read his e-mail,” Gaston said sternly

  “Oh,” she said softly.

  “Oh, indeed,” Gaston echoed.

  “This sounds serious, really serious,” Jane said in a kind of distracted way. As if she was stalling so that she could do some fast thinking.

  “Murder usually is, Professor,” Gaston responded.

  “Murder?” She asked in that same distracted tone of voice. She was silent for a while as if lost in thought. She rocked back in her chair, her gaze fixed on some point on the wall above Gaston’s head. After a moment or two she sat up, leaned forward with her elbo
ws on her desk and asked in a controlled, calm voice, “You think I murdered Harold?”

  I couldn’t help but admiring Gaston’s technique. It seemed he was going to get a confession without even having to question her. Amazing.

  “I’m not ready to make a formal charge,” Gaston said. “But I do have some questions about the e-mail I found on Professor Hilliard’s computer. From the looks of things it appears that Hilliard discovered that you were guilty of some form of plagiarism and that he was trying to blackmail you into returning to him and that you were resisting. I want to hear what you have to say.”

  She stared at him. “But… if you really found one of my letters to Harold on his computer you would have found out that …” she paused, then, taking a deep breath, she continued, “… that I loved him and we were planning to get back together. He wasn’t blackmailing me, he was helping me. That’s the truth.”

  Gaston looked back at her with a steely stare. “The truth? Then what you told me before was lies?”

  “No. I didn’t tell you anything, really. I didn’t think it was any of your business. The fact that Hal and I loved each other had nothing to do with his death. He was obviously killed by some crazy person or thief who was looking for something he could sell. Maybe he had picked up the bust of Hegel, thinking it was valuable, and Harold walked in on him. That’s what I think happened. Why would I kill him? He was everything to me.”

  “In fact, we only found a portion of your letter. Something was wrong with the transmission — parts of the text were erased. Perhaps if I could see a complete copy of the letter it would help convince me of what you are saying.”

  “That’s not a problem. There’ll be a copy on my computer.” We all turned to look at the table where Gaston and I had seen her laptop on the day of our first interview with her. It was not there now: the tabletop was bare, except for a computer-shaped line in the faint dust on its surface.