1 Picking Lemons

by J. T. Toman

  Ten percent off at Macy’s.

  “Not exciting. Every day is sale day at Macy’s”

  Shoe sale at Bergdorf’s.

  “Oh, now that’s interesting. A pair of fall boots would lift the spirits.”

  Mary Beth was planning her shopping trip to New York when she clicked open C.J.’s email. Why would C.J. send her an email about a seminar? She was, like, totally not interested in economics. “Oh!” cried Mary Beth, to no one in particular. “C.J. knows who the murderer is!”

  *****

  Stephen sat at his desk. Not that it was going to be his desk for much longer. He had emailed the Dean his letter of resignation that morning. He had no intention of dragging out his time at Eaton University, like an aging football star past his prime. This way, Stephen thought, he could at least leave quickly and not suffer through the surreptitious glances, the veiled questions about his “plans,” and the humiliation of sitting through job market seminars for his job.

  Stephen knew he was done with academia. One arrest, however false, would besmirch a reputation forever. No. Stephen Choi was going to turn his life upside down. Live where he wanted. Do what he wanted. In fact, do something he dreamed of doing as a child. Expectations be damned.

  He googled “Fireman Training Hawaii.” His search returned “Honolulu Community College.”

  “What exactly is a community college?” wondered Stephen. Such institutions were mentioned frequently in State of the Union addresses when presidents were trying to bolster faltering education policies, but Stephen could never remember meeting anyone who attended one. He searched around the website of Honolulu Community College. Small class sizes. Specialized curriculum.

  Hmmm, thought Stephen. It sounds rather elite. I hope I get in. As Stephen started working up an elaborate, pre-application letter, he noticed he had new mail in his inbox.

  *****

  “Is it true?” Betsy asked breathlessly, as she arrived at Wallaby’s coffee shop. She had clearly been walking faster than was comfortable––her face was flushed red and her chest was heaving.

  “Betsy!” exclaimed C.J. “Please, you need to take a seat.”

  Betsy lowered her bulk into a seat but wasn’t to be distracted. “Is it true?” she asked again, her tone more urgent.

  “Is what true?” asked C.J., rather cruelly, as she knew exactly what Betsy was referring to.

  “I just read your email. Do you know who the murderer is?”

  “I do,” said C.J., enjoying the feeling of stringing out her friend. “I finally worked it out last night.”

  “Well, don’t just sit there. Tell me! Who is it?”

  C.J. placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I thought the email was clear. I am going to explain it to everyone at the start of Peter’s seminar at two o’clock today.”

  Betsy groaned. “You are the most infuriating woman, you know that? You aren’t Hercule Poirot, waiting for the great unveiling. Just spill it.”

  “Actually,” said C.J. “I do feel a bit like Hercule. Though not as stylish or foreign. But now I understand why he called everyone together and told his story so dramatically. He didn’t want to have to keep repeating himself, and neither do I. Two o’clock.”

  Betsy looked crushed. Then she asked quietly, “Is it someone we know?”

  “Betsy!” reprimanded C.J. “You can’t get the information that way. But, yes. It is someone you know.”

  “I knew it!” cried Betsy excitedly. She waited for a moment. “Is it an economist?”

  “Betsy,” C.J.’s voice held a strong tone of warning. Then, after a few seconds she said, “Yes.”

  “Hah!” Betsy was triumphant. The large woman was quiet for a long time, thinking how to formulate her next question. “Is the murderer a male?”

  C.J. looked at her friend in surprise. “Betsy, if you are trying to ask if I, the lone tenured female on staff, killed Edmund and Jefferson, the answer is no. So thus, yes, the killer is a male.”

  Betsy looked sheepish. “Sorry. Just had to check.”

  The pair was quiet again. C.J. was enjoying her coffee. Betsy was deep in thought.

  Suddenly, Betsy looked up. “Oh my God. It’s Walter, isn’t it. Walter is the killer. I have always thought there was something off about that man. There’s just something a little...odd about him. It is, isn’t it? You can tell me. It’s Walter...isn’t it?”

  C.J. finished her coffee, gathered her purse and looked Betsy straight in the face. “I hope you can come to seminar at two. Because I will reveal who is responsible for the murders then.”

  “But, but...what if the killer murders you in the meantime? To stop you from talking. Shouldn’t you tell someone as an insurance policy?”

  C.J. smiled. “I’m from Texas. I can look after myself just fine.”

  *****

  For once, there were no stragglers into the seminar room. On this Monday, at least, research into people’s preferences for blue cars over red cars or the optimal number of Starbuck stores in New York City had not been deemed too urgent to prevent the faculty from attending the seminar. The room was full to the point of overflowing. Most of the graduate students, including Annika and Jose, were wedged into the back of the room. The faculty from 41 and 43 Knollwood had crossed the road for the event, and the esteemed colleagues from 40 and 42 Knollwood were on time, with their laptops closed.

  Walter, having finally condescended to read his email after the morning graduate class, was pacing up and down in front of the room. That Texan…hussy. She didn’t have the right to call a faculty meeting or muscle in on a seminar. By Article Seven of the by-laws, only the Chair of the department could do that. He was going to tell her what he thought of her high-handed ways. Maybe this was a sufficient violation to get her tenure revoked.

  But, Walter thought grimly, that was highly unlikely. Affirmative action and women’s rights and all that.

  Regardless, he wasn’t going to stand for this. He, Walter, controlled this department.

  Charles was sitting at the front, hearing aids turned up high. No doubt about it. This was going to be a humdinger of a show. Mildred, God bless her, was waiting at home with the G&T’s on ice, ready to hear all about it.

  Stephen was skulking at the back of the room, hidden amongst the graduate students. He didn’t get a Ph.D. for nothing. He understood that a fair number of his colleagues thought he had killed both men, even though he was out of the state when Jefferson had died. Did C.J. really know who the killer was? He sure hoped so.

  Betsy had snared a seat towards the middle of the room, having cancelled her afternoon class. As an adjunct she knew that she was expected to sit at the back of the room for a seminar, but she didn’t care. Betsy had been following this drama since the day it started and wanted to be able to see all the major players. The ruffled egos would have to cope.

  Mary Beth, overcome with curiosity, had thought she would slip in and watch the proceedings. However, Walter spied her as she came into the room. Unable to control C.J., he wasn’t going to let this transgression of rank go unnoticed. “Do you want something Mary Beth?” he asked acidly.

  “Uh, no?” she answered, uncertain of what to say. She wanted a seat, but she was pretty sure Professor Scovill wasn’t offering her one. He was using his mean voice.

  “Were you planning on sharing your astute and erudite comments on Professor Johannson’s seminar?” Walter asked snidely.

  “Um, well, I’m not sure...” Mary Beth faltered. She didn’t know what “astute” or “erudite” meant, so it was hard to say.

  “Then I suggest you get back to your photocopy machine where you belong.”

  The rest of the faculty was waiting impatiently. The atmosphere in the room was tense, quiet and edgy. Throats were cleared. Legs were crossed and uncrossed. Smart phones were unattended, like unloved children abandoned in a parking lot. The department had lived under the cloud of a killer for too long. They were more than ready for it to end.

  C
.J. strode in at three minutes after two, dressed much as she had been the first day she came to work after receiving tenure. Pink cowboy boots, turquoise skirt, and, today, she had finished the ensemble with an orange-spangled cowgirl shirt.

  “Well, a full house and it’s only a few minutes after two. I feel flattered, gentlemen.” C.J. turned to Walter, who was still pacing at the front of the room. “You see, you can get them to arrive on time. You just have to kill a few of them off first.”

  Walter closed his eyes. Babies. All women left work to have babies.

  “Walt,” said C.J. in a friendly tone, “go rest your patootie. This is going to take some time.”

  Walter remained standing, glared, and finally, reluctantly, took the only seat available, a folding chair at the back of the room vacated for him by a graduate student. He would deal with this outrage later.

  C.J. turned to Peter, whose seminar she had hijacked. “Thanks for the loan of the seminar.”

  Peter nervously ran his hand over his scalp and then nodded his head in acknowledgement. He couldn’t actually remember being given the opportunity to turn her down.

  C.J. then turned to address the room. “We all know why we are here today. Two of our own have been killed, and we want to know who is responsible. That person may be sitting right here amongst us now.”

  People glanced around surreptitiously at their neighbors.

  “Oh please, don’t try and be subtle. We’ve thought of nothing else since this started. Which one of us is the killer? For a bunch of supposedly bright Ph.D.’s, we should be able to work it out. It’s just a case of being able to pick the lemon.”

  Charles cleared his throat. “Young lady, what are you talking about? What lemon? Why are we talking about fruit?”

  “Charles, have you ever bought a used car?”

  Charles nodded. “Oh yes. A fine 1965 Ford Mustang. Picked that baby up for just over a grand. What a car.” Charles sighed at the memory.

  C.J. smiled. “So, it was a good car?”

  “A good car?” Charles sounded almost affronted at this faint praise. “It was a dream on four wheels.”

  “That’s great to hear. How did you know it was a good car when you bought it?”

  “What do you mean, how did I know? I know about cars. I looked under the hood and test drove it. It was, obviously, a great car.”

  Betsy followed this exchange with interest. What was C.J. doing? Why was she trapping Charles into her lemon theory? Was she proving that Charles was a murderer after all?

  C.J. was still focused on Charles. “Charles, have you ever bought a second-hand car that turned out to be a dog?”

  Charles squirmed in his seat. “Well, I guess. It happens.”

  “Of course it happens,” C.J. enthused. “It’s happened to us all. What happened in your case?”

  “It was a 1970 Plymouth Fury. Cherry red. Must’a been in an accident or something before I bought it. Because that thing just never drove right.”

  “Thank you, Charles, for illustrating my point. Your Plymouth Fury was a lemon, but it was hard to know that because the seller didn’t tell you all the information. Our challenge here today is that we have a bunch of good people in this room, and we want to pick the lemon––the murderer.”

  Charles nodded his head in understanding, as did many of the other faculty. It had been many years since they had thought about any economic problem other than their own research agenda. It was good to get a refresher course.

  “Now, this is an easy model to solve in theoretical economics land, where everyone is rational and behaves as they should.” Here C.J. cast a disparaging glance over towards Walter. “But you folks are astonishingly irrational, highly emotional, and, I have to say, very secretive. You may not be murderers, but you have a lot of other crap going on that you don’t want people to know about. Which means you behave like a lemon, even if you didn’t kill anyone at all.”

  Stephen decided he didn’t need to put himself through this and started to ease himself to the door.

  C.J. snapped her fingers at him and pointed him back into the room. “So, if you are all ready, let’s start at the beginning, and sort this mess out.

  “This all started with the death of Edmund DeBeyer, a man strangled in his office by his own Ph.D. hood. An office located in the fourteenth most violent city in America. Was this fact important? No. The violence of Elm Grove is gun violence and drive-by shootings. Edmund died a very personal, un-premeditated death. It was clear he knew his killer. This ruled out the students, as Edmund would never have a personal relationship with a student. Too demeaning. His ego demanded glamorous relationships, like that with his young, beautiful and successful wife, Lisa. Besides, we all would have heard if Edmund was sleeping with a student. The Eaton University rumor mill would have taken care of that.”

  C.J. cast a meaningful glance in Walter’s direction. Did he really think they all didn’t know about his assignations with the blonde, ponytail club?

  “A stranger would have arrived armed with a motive to rob or terrorize the professor in some way. But this, this did not happen. Professor DeBeyer was strangled with a weapon of opportunity. So we have our first pieces of key information. The killer must have been one of us or his wife.”

  Again, the faculty began looking around, evaluating each other as potential killers.

  “It was easy to rule out Lisa DeBeyer. She was at her gallery in New York all day, seen by many clients and staff. She could not have driven up to Elm Grove, killed Edmund and driven back. She would have been missed for that amount of time. Similarly, many of the faculty were also accounted for in the hour before Edmund’s death. They were teaching, like Peter here, or in Maui or some other idyllic location.” C.J. raised an eyebrow in the direction of her vacationing colleagues.

  “But not all. We could not account for Stephen Choi, Walter Scovill, Jefferson Daniels, Charles Covington III, and, of course, myself.”

  Stephen shrank back even further into his seat. Charles looked intensely interested in where C.J. was taking this line of reasoning. Walter began to object vociferously. “Hey. What are you playing at? I did not kill the man. And I will not have any suggestion made that I did.”

  The rest of the faculty looked much more cheerful now. Clearly, they were off the hook. It was either Stephen, Walter or Charles and, frankly, given his age, unlikely to be Charles. So that left Stephen or Walter. Given the last outburst, odds were clearly in favor of it being Walter.

  “Mary Beth provided us with one further piece of the puzzle,” continued C.J., ignoring Walter. “We were initially told Edmund died within an hour of our finding him at just after two o’clock. However, Mary Beth overheard an argument occurring in Edmund’s office at approximately one-fifteen. This argument could have been over the phone or in person, but it was indicative that the murder may have taken place at approximately that time.

  “At first, we all looked at Stephen as the suspect. The police arrested him the day after the murder. We all know there is no smoke without a fire. What evidence did they have? What had he done?”

  Stephen, at the back of the room, was making himself as small as possible.

  C.J. noticed this. “Stephen honey, don’t hide back there. Come on down.”

  Stephen didn’t move.

  “He’s just like a cat I once had,” C.J. observed. “So shy, but lovely once you got to know him. Anyway, we all knew Stephen hated Edmund. Blamed him for not getting tenure, though, Stephen darling, if we are being honest, you were never getting tenure. Your publication rate was well below par. And all those trips home to Asia. There is a time and place to see Mom, and it is not while you are a junior professor.”

  Murmurs of agreement went around the room. C.J. was gutsy and had said what others did not want to say to Stephen.

  “But, the strange thing was that on the day of the murder, Stephen said he was in his office in the hours before the seminar. But he wasn’t. He was away from the building. Mary Beth
saw him going downtown at about one o’clock and getting back after two. In his office, he could have ducked out and killed Edmund. Away from the building, in downtown Elm Grove, he had a perfect alibi. So why hide it?”

  C.J. left the question hanging. “Tell me Stephen, on your trips to Asia, did you even go to Korea to see your mother, or did you go straight to Macau?”

  Stephen just shook his head, unwilling to answer.

  “Stephen isn’t a killer, he’s a recovering gambler. That explains the trips to Macau. The lack of time devoted to his research. The erratic swings in temper… sometimes very confident after a win, sometimes down and depressed. A little statistics knowledge and a great intelligence can be a dangerous combination. On Monday, between one and two, there is a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in town. Out of respect to the code of anonymity which Stephen tried so hard to follow, I won’t say where.”

  Stephen finally spoke. “It’s true. I have a gambling problem. I was so angry at Edmund for not getting tenure, I felt I could have killed him, but I just started going to GA meetings and am learning to accept that the responsibility is mine. It, um, doesn’t happen at once.” He laughed ruefully. “I came back that afternoon and started to write a letter of apology to everyone in the department. I am really sorry I didn’t give you all my full commitment and effort while I was here. It was a great privilege to work with you all.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled on the room. Most of the faculty had been so sure the young man had been a killer. Yet all this time, he had needed their help.

  Charles asked, “What are you going to do now, son?”

  “Well, that is the question, isn’t it? Everyone said that I was so smart I could have everything…well, I tried for everything, and now, I have nothing. So maybe, I need to think in a different dimension. I’ve applied to a program in Hawaii. To learn to be a fireman,” he ended with a self-conscious laugh.

  If Stephen hadn’t been studying his shoes so intently, he would have noticed some of the faculty looked rather envious. Betsy teared up with pride and smiled in his direction. If only people realized how important it was to do what they enjoyed doing. Forty years was a long time to fulfill someone else’s expectations.