"Poor Anne and Steven," Sinjin said. "I'm sure they didn't know what they were really telling you." He grinned and shook his head. "So, that story I gave Maggie got in the papers and now it's back to us."
"I suppose I'd better call Dad and let him sort the thing out. Maybe he can reason with Anne and Steven."
"Lindsay, I got a call today. There's a fire in California," Sinjin said.
"You have to go?"
"Not yet, but I may. I'm afraid to leave you, with everything up in the air like this."
"Sinjin, I've lived quite a while by myself. I'll be fine. I'm sure you've stayed longer than you intended, and I appreciate it."
"I know, but you've had a lot of close calls."
"Yes, I agree. I think you'll just have to give up your job and move in here with me. We can both look for jobs at the same institution so you can watch over me at work, too."
Sinjin grinned. "How about a little TV tonight? Get your mind off of everything?"
"I could use a relaxing evening."
Lindsay popped a couple of bags of popcorn into the microwave, and they settled in the living room in front of the television. Sinjin flipped through the channels with the remote.
"You know, there is a TV Guide around somewhere," she said.
"This way's much better." He grinned and settled on the movie Quest for Fire. "Have you seen this?" he asked.
"Yes, but I don't mind watching it again. I like it."
"You sure? What's it about?"
"It's kind of a primitive picaresque story about a tribe from about eighty thousand years ago. They have fire, but they have to keep it going, because they don't know how to make it. When it's put out in an attack, three members of the tribe set off to steal fire from a more advanced tribe. It's about the adventures they have hunting for fire. You know, they learn about life from their adventures, that kind of thing. I think you'll get a kick out of it."
"It sounds like your kind of movie," he said, returning with two bowls of popcorn.
Lindsay smiled, her legs crossed under her and her popcorn in her lap, and watched the movie. About halfway through the show, Lindsay looked at her brother.
"Sinjin, if you wanted to make someone burst into flames, how would you do it?"
"I thought we were going to forget about that for a while."
"The movie reminded me of it. You know: quest for fire. Aren't there chemicals besides napalm that would cause the same effect as the witnesses described?"
"Yes, there are, but if they're used, they leave traces of residue. Why don't you wait for the complete chemical analysis of the remains?"
"The Pryors are having another forensics expert analyze the bones. My reputation is being attacked from all sides. I need to do this."
"Why are they having someone else look at them?"
"They don't like some of my findings, I suppose."
"Surely a second opinion's not a big deal?"
"No. Another expert should find the same things I found."
"There are other things you can use," said Sinjin, "and some of them are pretty mean. But the problem is, you need something more than a kitchen to mix the chemicals."
"We have a university with labs all over campus," Lindsay said. "Do you always have to have an outside ignition source to set them off?"
"Pretty much, but the source can be subtle. Something organic."
"Really? People are organic, you know," Lindsay reminded him.
"But you'd still have to throw the substance on them. I don't know of anything that would work the way the witnesses said. They were mistaken. Now let's watch the movie."
They watched in silence a while, Lindsay forgetting about her problems.
"Was it really like that eighty thousand years ago?" Sinjin asked.
"Could've been. Shirley Foster wrote in an article that there was more color in ancient history than we portray. Of course, eighty thousand years ago was way before textiles."
"Jeez, Lindsay, give it a rest," he said.
"Yeah, you're right." They fell silent again and watched the movie.
"Does she go through the whole movie naked?" Sinjin asked, gesturing at a young woman on the screen.
"Pretty much." Lindsay grinned. An image flashed through her mind, from somewhere in the depth of her subconscious, she supposed, but didn't know exactly where. "Why was Hercules tearing off his clothes?" she asked.
"Hercules? Did I miss something?"
"You know, in the statue. Why was he tearing off his clothes?"
"What statue?"
"You know, it shows a bearded, muscular Hercules in a ragged tunic trying to get it off."
"I have no idea," Sinjin said. "Why are you asking?"
"Wasn't it poisoned or something?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Sinjin.
"I seem to remember something about Hercules' cloak being poisoned with, what was it, dragon's blood or something?"
"Where are we going with this?" Sinjin asked.
"Blood. Dragon's blood," Lindsay said almost to herself.
"Do I need to call a doctor?"
Lindsay threw a piece of popcorn at him. "In an article Shirley Foster wrote, she mentioned a dye named dragon's blood." She reached for the phone book on the end table, looked up a number, and dialed.
"Kenneth, this is Lindsay."
"What do you want?" he said.
"I have a question."
"Go to the library. Do you know how long I spent with the sheriff because of you?"
"Come on, Kenneth, you'll be getting rid of me soon enough. Indulge me."
"True," he said. Lindsay thought he sounded happy. "What's your question?"
"Do you know what dragon's blood is?"
"Are we talking about realgar?" Kerwin asked.
"I don't know, are we? Is it an ancient red dye?"
"Yes," he said.
"What is it, exactly?"
"It's a compound of arsenic."
"Arsenic?"
"Yes. Why do you want to know?"
"I was just reading about dyes."
"This isn't about Shirley Foster, is it? Is this some kind of trick?" Kerwin said, his voice full of suspicion.
Kenneth Kerwin's voice sounded sinister when he was wary. Lindsay imagined him grabbing Shirley and kissing her. She thought of the song Will Patterson said described Shirley. "She's frequently kind and suddenly cruel." Lindsay bet Shirley would have laughed at Kerwin rather than becoming angry. Did he follow her to the Foster farm, hide in the woods, and become infuriated when he saw what he thought to be an assignation with a much younger man? And then what? Take the napalm or whatever he just happened to have in his trunk and throw it on her? Or take gasoline and throw it on her, then somehow ignite it? But Lindsay could not see Kerwin lurking in the woods and doing all that. Also, this was a premeditated murder, not a spur of the moment one.
"No," Lindsay said, "It's not a trick. I just wanted to know. Was Hercules' cloak poisoned with dragon's blood?"
"No. The blood of a centaur, if memory serves. Now please call the library if you have any more questions."
She hung up the phone and turned to Sinjin. "Dragon's blood is an arsenic-based red dye used in prehistoric textiles," she said. "Shirley probably used it, because she was into re-creating old dyes and fabrics by original processes."
"And?"
"And the medical examiner said there was arsenic in her remains."
"At least now you're making some sense," Sinjin agreed, "but that only means she was wearing fabric she made. So, what does that have to do with anything?"
"Could Shirley's death have been an accident? Could the dye in her clothes have ignited somehow?"
"Arsenic doesn't have the properties that the witness described," he said. "I can see maybe the arsenic becoming absorbed through her skin and killing her eventually, if she wore the clothes all the time, but the arsenic wouldn't catch on fire."
"Maybe if it were mixed with something or..." Lin
dsay threw up her hands. "I don't know. I feel so close. Edward G. Robinson said I'm close and I should have it figured out by now."
Sinjin turned down the volume on the television. "Just when did he say this?"
"In a dream."
"Edward G. Robinson came to you in a dream and told you that you're close to solving the death of the Foster woman?"
"No, he didn't come to me in a dream. I dreamed about him, and he said that I have all the pieces and I should have solved it by now-or something like that."
"And you put some kind of faith in this?"
"Not in that. In the brain. It likes to organize facts. It puts like concepts together and often stores them in the same place. That's why sometimes when you go to bed with a problem, you find the solution in the morning. Anyway, while it's working on things, those things sometimes come out in dreams. It's simply the brain organizing things. At least my brain works that way, and I doubt if my brain is unique."
"Oh, I think your brain probably is very unique."
Lindsay stood. "I'm going to get a beer. You want one?"
"Sure."
She started toward the kitchen. "You know, maybe someone treated her clothes to make them so they would catch fire, or maybe she was trying out a new dye. I'll have to find out how Hercules was killed."
"I guess then you need to look for someone who knows mythology and is a chemist."
Lindsay walked into the kitchen and came back out almost immediately, staring at Sinjin wide-eyed.
"What?" he asked.
"Gloria Rankin, the girl hit by the bus, who was coming to see me the day she died, was a classicist and a chemist."
Chapter 25
"THAT'S SOME COINCIDENCE," Sinjin said after a moment.
Lindsay came back and sat down opposite him, leaned forward, and placed her hands on her knees. "That was where I saw the statue of Hercules tearing off his clothes. It was in Park Hall, where Gloria Rankin had an office. There were some journal articles with them, one of them authored by Gloria Rankin." Lindsay tried to remember the title. "I think it was a review of Trachiniae by Sophocles. Isn't that about Hercules?"
Sinjin shrugged. "Look, I agree it's interesting that she has a background in chemistry and mythology. But I'm not sure how this ties in with Shirley Foster's death. You think this Rankin girl was coming to confess?"
"Maybe. Or maybe she knew who did it."
"But why come to you so long after the death? Why didn't she go to the authorities when it happened?" Sinjin asked.
"Maybe she didn't know what she knew until the body was found and the newspaper reported that the body was partially burned. I don't know, something about the description must have clicked with her. This doesn't look good for Luke Ferris," Lindsay said. "He was driving the bus that hit Gloria. He was with Shirley when she died. Maybe he got the idea from Gloria's article of a way to start a spectacular fire. Maybe Gloria remembered his interest and was coming to tell me."
"Still, why you and not the authorities?" Sinjin asked.
"Maybe Gloria wasn't sure. Maybe Luke was a boyfriend and she didn't want to get him into trouble if it was nothing, and she decided to check it out with me first." Lindsay shook her head. "But he was on a regular route with the bus. I don't know how he could time it so that he arrived at the place she was crossing the street at just the right moment."
"You have another problem, too," Sinjin said. "I don't know of a process to treat fabric that would give the results reported by the witnesses to Shirley's death, and you still have the problem of how it could have been ignited. Neither Shirley Foster nor her clothing spontaneously combusted."
Lindsay stood up again. "I don't know. Maybe I could talk to her office mate again ..." She started into the kitchen again, then paused. "When I was in Gloria's office, I saw her thesis on the shelf. It had a very catchy title. Something like The Source of Medea's Sorcery."
"Isn't that the chick who killed her kids to get even with her husband? What does that have to do with this?"
"She did something else, too." She put her hand to her head as if she could massage the information out. "You know, I never really liked the classics all that much, and now I wish I'd paid more attention." Lindsay looked at Sinjin, half a smile on her lips. "She gave her rival a cloak that caught fire when she put it on."
Sinjin cocked an eyebrow. "Okay, I'll admit, that's interesting. It's more than interesting-but Medea and Hercules are just myths."
"Myths often have some basis in fact. The important thing here is the subject of Gloria Rankin's thesis, the source of Medea's sorcery. I think Gloria figured it out. Her master's was in chemistry, and she combined that with her interest in the classics." Lindsay folded her arms. "I'll bet there is some connection between Gloria's murder and Shirley's. I'll bet it was the same person. I need to find out what her thesis said." She looked at her watch. "Too late to get to the library. I'll go first thing tomorrow and check out her thesis. Wait, no. I'll have to go to Park Hall. As I recall her master's was from the University of Chicago. Our library won't have her thesis."
"There still has to be a way to ignite the clothes," Sinjin said. "You know, Lindsay, as nice as this all sounds, it seems like you're working your way to some elaborate murder weapon. Why not just shoot her-unless the goal was to watch the conflagration that resulted and her death was just the by-product? Luke Ferris was a firebug, and I still think he had something to do with it."
"Maybe. And maybe it was an accident. Maybe Shirley had been trying out new dyeing techniques and stumbled onto something deadly by accident." Sinjin was shaking his head as she spoke, but once Lindsay got her train of thought traveling at full steam, it had a lot of inertia behind it. "Maybe Shirley was trying to make Medea's cloak. That would be something a textile historian with an interest in the classics might like to experiment with. Maybe she just grabbed the wrong jacket that night." Lindsay hesitated a moment.
"You don't even know what the myth of Medea is," Sinjin pointed out. "You need to verify that before you start building a scenario around it."
"There's Luke's dream," she said.
"Not a dream again."
"I told you, sometimes dreams are just the brain organizing itself. Luke's been having a recurring dream about hitting Gloria with the bus. When he gets out to see about her, he is Hercules trying to lift the bus off her." Sinjin raised his eyebrows. "Yes," Lindsay said. "Another coincidence. His therapist believes he's trying to deal with the guilt of not being able to save her-which does make sense and may be part of it. Brains put like concepts together. Hercules is strong and could save her, but why him and not Batman or a Power Ranger?"
"Okay, why?" Sinjin asked. "'Cause Batman's the coolest."
Lindsay rolled her eyes. "The medical examiner said that Gloria didn't die immediately. Luke reached her first. What if she spoke to him and mentioned the name Hercules?"
"And that's why he dreams of Hercules and not Batman? Maybe, but this is getting to be a stretch."
Lindsay shook her head. "No, it isn't. In his dream Luke wore a red cape. `Red' again. Gloria may have mentioned something about red, too. Maybe the arsenic that makes the red color is part of the formula. Hercules had a poisoned cape. Suppose she knew that and it was on her mind?"
"That still doesn't help Luke."
"It might. Why would he tell about the dream? He would feel uneasy just mentioning the name Hercules if he had read Gloria's stuff and tried it out. Maybe Gloria was going to tell me she thought the whole thing was a tragic accident on Shirley's part. First, I have to establish whether Shirley knew Gloria. But that shouldn't be hard."
"You're looking for a coat that ignites, not one that poisons," Sinjin reminded her. "However, I would like to see Gloria Rankin's formula. I'll go with you tomorrow."
Lindsay felt good when she arrived at work-optimistic. So when she found the letter on her desk and ripped it open, she was unprepared for the contents.
"Dear Dr. Chamberlain," it read. "Unfortunately, we
have decided not to renew your contract for the coming year." Lindsay read no farther. She wadded up the paper and threw it across her office. She bit her lip, determined not to let the tears that were already starting to sting her eyes spill over. She would bite through her lower lip if necessary, but she wouldn't let anyone see her cry.
Sinjin stood leaning against the wall by the door, watching her. "What is it?"
"Pink slip," she managed to say.
"Oh, Lindsay," he said, starting to come to her. Lindsay stood up, her body stiff and her chin out. He stopped.
"Probably Einer's handiwork. I'm sure he's furious about my visit yesterday. I'll bet all the other untenured faculty got renewals today. Separating me out would be his style. I have to take some student records to the main office. When I come back, we'll go to Park Hall."
"You all right?"
Lindsay looked him in the eye. "I'm fine."
She scooped up a couple of folders from her desk and walked upstairs to the office. Most everyone must have known, because they all were reluctant to meet her eyes. Trey was there. He greeted her sheepishly, looking guilty. His contract must have been renewed, she thought. She gave the file folders to Edwina, who smiled sweetly at her. Lindsay smiled back and went into Frank's office.
"Lindsay, sit down," he said.
She closed the door behind her and sat in the chair by his desk.
"Einer called me this morning, gloating, so I knew what the letter said before it was brought over. I put it on your desk rather than in your box." Frank's blue eyes were kind. "I'm going to talk to the dean," he said.
"I don't think it will do any good, but I appreciate your willingness to try."
"Lindsay, if you hadn't ..." He didn't finish.
"Frank, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. I'm glad he acted out of spite. It makes things easier for me."
"What do you mean?" He looked wary.
"I hope you don't think I'm just going to go home and lick my wounds."
"No, Lindsay, I would never think that."
Dressed to Die: A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel Page 30