by Amanda Cross
“Thank you. I’ll try to take that compliment properly. But you know, were I asked for suggestions of people to be president, I’d suggest you. You’d be perfect, Grace.”
“I agree with you, actually. And unlike you, I accept compliments with the greatest self-satisfaction and not the shade of a blush. But people these days want their college presidents young. To be frank, I can’t imagine why. It seems to me that college presidents, like popes, ought to be old when appointed: they can then afford to take risks, and they can’t live on too long and get set in their ways. That, however, is not the American way. They did ask me to serve pro tem, but I refused. All the headaches, and no power. Don’t try to answer now. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let this come up, with all this other problem hanging over your head—but I thought I’d give you another bone to gnaw on.”
“Many thanks. Are you suggesting I marry in order to qualify for the job?”
“I’m suggesting nothing. Only trying to hint at the problems. But before you turn it down, Kate, remember, it’s a position of power, and power is one of the most remarkable experiences there is.”
“I’ve never wanted power.”
“I know that. Exactly why you should take it, rather than someone who has always wanted it. Good night, Professor Fansler.”
Chapter Eleven
The Sisters
Kate had written, the day of the murder, to Sam Lingerwell’s daughter, informing her of the catastrophe and asking as many questions as she could think of. Kate was not clear really whether she was apologizing or howling for help, but after writing the letter over four times—few letter-writing manuals include models for informing someone of murder—she finally sent the fifth version off without even bothering to reread it. Sister Veronica had answered by return:
Dear Kate:
I was saddened by your letter, with its frightful news, and your kindness in underestimating the enormous burden to yourself. I have taken the liberty of mentioning the matter to the Mother Superior, and she has agreed that all the sisters shall say a special prayer for you. I trust we will not offend you with our prayers: I know that my father did not care for them. Poor Mr. Lenehan, who must bear the dreadful burden of having fired the gun, is most constantly in our prayers as in our hearts.
I feel myself enormously to blame. I ought not to have asked you to undertake so great a responsibility. If there is any way now in which I can proffer practical help, do please let me know of it. You will, I am certain, understand how impossible it was for me to cope with my father’s papers, particularly since, to judge from the offers being urged on me at every turn, they could be the source of a good deal of scholarly work. But perhaps by now the greater work is finished, or will you merely smile that I should so underestimate the magnitude of the job? [Kate smiled.]
To answer your question, I am not certain why my father bought a house precisely where he did. In fact, I asked him that question the last time I saw him. It seems that some partner in his publishing firm, from which he had, as you know, more or less retired, had been used to visit a Mr. Mulligan in that part of the country. He was informed by Mr. Mulligan, and subsequently informed my father, of the house which was for sale, and which my father found attractive and subsequently bought. I am not certain, however, but I rather doubt, that Mr. Mulligan knew my father.
[Here followed some points about Kate’s actual “renting” of the house.]
The other sisters here join me in my prayers for you. There is no way to thank you. But should you be enabled to stand up under this trial, it can but increase the gratitude I, as my father before me, must always feel toward you.
Dominus vobiscum
“So Mulligan knew Lingerwell was coming here,” Reed said, when Kate had shown him the letter.
“She doesn’t say that exactly. Sam Lingerwell did get here through Mr. Mulligan, but only indirectly.”
“Interesting, just the same, that there was a connection.”
“Interesting in more ways than one. Did it ever occur to you, Reed, to wonder how Mr. Mulligan manages to afford that house, and Mrs. Pasquale, and all, even on his income from his books and his salary as a professor—full, admittedly, but still, a professor?”
“In the first place he’s a bachelor, and in the second place most teachers of literature have incomes additional to their salaries, or so you often tell me.”
“True enough. But Mr. Mulligan happens to have mentioned to Lina, who told me, that he started as a very poor boy, and is still supporting his parents. So much for his bachelor freedom and his inherited income. He drives a Jaguar, has a swimming pool, together with all the filter machinery thereto, and it is no cheap matter to entertain houseguests, as I know to my cost, and Mr. Mulligan does it constantly.”
“Kate, if you are trying to cast Mr. Mulligan in the role of first murderer, I positively forbid it. At least, cast away, but don’t do anything about it. He may have the morals of a billy goat and the literary qualifications of General Eisenhower, but there is no reason . . .”
“Reed. Did you read The Novel: Tension and Technique before presenting it to me with all the airs of a man serving mangoes in January?”
“Naturally I didn’t read it. Do I expect you to read the Harvard Law Review? Talk sense.”
“Very well. Let me tell you then that Mr. Mulligan has contented himself with collecting a lot of tired clichés, if a cliché may ever be said to be without fatigue, and has simply written them all down in a most inept manner.”
“You mean he can’t write?”
“On the contrary, he writes with a certain felicity. He can’t think.”
“The man in the bookstore in Pittsfield said, as I’m sure I told you but you probably weren’t listening, that they are very popular with students.”
“For purposes of cramming, or, likelier still, plagiarizing papers. They sound undergraduate enough to be genuine, don’t you get the point? Grace Knole found the same with the book she was reading.”
“Look, Kate, I know you consider book publishing a profession second only in purity of soul to the Little Sisters of Charity, but surely they are as happy to make money as anybody else. If the books sell, there’s your answer.”
“They sell only in cheap paperbacks, and then to college students. Furthermore, they sell in paperbacks not published by the Calypso Press.”
“What’s your point?”
“That it’s really extraordinary that Calypso ever published these books in the first place, and in hard cover into the bargain. They have a college list that has the respect of every faculty and is the envy of every other college department in the publishing field. What’s Mulligan doing on it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Don’t you think perhaps you’re exaggerating the ineptitude of the books? After all, you don’t read everything that’s being published today.”
“Heaven forfend.”
“Well, there you are.”
“Reed, I think I’ll take a day or two off and drive down to New York, maybe have a talk with the people at Calypso. Being in charge of the Lingerwell papers should provide an excuse. Anyway, I can’t stay around here very much longer without a small interlude, and this looks as good a chance as any. Will you lend me your Volkswagen?”
“What’s the matter with your car, or rather your brother’s? It’s bigger and safer.”
“Now don’t come all over the protective male. I have to leave my car here for William or Emmet to drive and fetch Mrs. Monzoni, among other things. Of course, if you’re feeling possessive about your beastly little bug, I’ll rent a car, or have Emmet drive me to the tram.”
“Why not let me come with you?”
“Thank you, Reed, but would you rally round here and keep things afloat?”
“Meaning, as you always mean when you start talking like an ad agency, that you want to be alone to think, or some such
nefarious activity.”
“What an understanding man you are.”
“I am not in the least understanding, I simply lack forcefulness and manly overbearance. Besides, if I go back to New York, the office will certainly develop a crisis, and I’ll have to cut my vacation short.”
“I’m sorry it hasn’t been a better vacation.”
“It has had its moments. When are you leaving?”
“This evening, I think, after dinner. Do you want to walk down to the vegetable garden with me? I want to ask Mr. Pasquale to take some zucchini over to Mrs. Pasquale to cook for supper for Mr. Mulligan.”
“You may suspect him of murder, but you send around vegetables?”
“Naturally; one must be neighborly.”
“Why not take them yourself and be really neighborly?”
“Because if I ask Mr. Pasquale to take them to Mrs, Pasquale, he will take enough for them to eat at home.”
“Ah, you’re catching on, I see, to rural life.”
“There is no life, my dear Reed,” Kate said in ponderous tones, “least of all the rural, without its mysterious rites and rituals. I will also send some corn and cucumbers.”
Chapter Twelve
After the Race
In point of fact, Kate greatly enjoyed driving the beastly little bug, as she had called it. True, one bounced about as though on a motorcycle, and the protection to be afforded, in a crash, by its beetle body, was certainly minimal; yet driving it, she felt that she and the car were working together, whereas with the huge automobile lent her by her brother, she seemed to be steering on gracious sufferance from the car itself.
Feeling, not without guilt, lighthearted, she turned onto the main route leading to the Taconic Parkway. She had decided to eschew the shortcuts in the interest of saving time: it would certainly be preferable to reach New York in time to call Ed Farrell, the present editor-in-chief at Calypso, and possibly even see him tonight. She had been unable to reach him on the phone before leaving Araby; the hope was that he would have returned, by eleven, should he have been out, as he so often was, at dinner with an author. Kate smiled in anticipation as she began to mount Smith Hill. The natives claimed this was a hill so high the wagons had to be emptied, in the old days, before the horses could pull them to the top, and it was the test of any old car to see if it could make the hill in third. A signal light was at the top of the hill, and Kate found an idiotic (and secret) delight in racing the car to see if she could get through the light before it changed to red. She began now to race. I ought not to speed in cars, she sternly told herself since, like Alice, she was in the habit of talking to herself with a certain severity. But the race against the light, which she barely sneaked through, exhilarated her. I expect I’ll be driving a motorcycle next, she said, but not even this frightful thought could dampen her spirits. She remembered that Mr. Mulligan, who had stopped by late in the afternoon to thank her for the vegetables (nominally; in fact, he was on the lookout for tasty bits of news, or perhaps the chance to take a walk with Lina), had remarked that he always tried not to stop at the light at the top of Smith Hill, because if you got through that, and didn’t meet up with an accident or the need for gas, you could make it all the way to the Saw Mill River without stopping, and on one glorious occasion he had made both lights on the Saw Mill and had got to the Henry Hudson Bridge without falling below thirty-five, except for tolls.
The country was more beautiful than ever in the evening light. The farms seemed set out on the hills, neatly plowed fields contrasting in shades of green with their adjoining meadows. Kate felt certain that the good life might somehow be possible here, yet knew this to be only a dream. A short time after the race for the light, she turned on the car’s lights, seeing that many of the vehicles coming toward her had already done so. Night was approaching. The little bug trundled along in high. There was very little traffic on the Taconic Parkway. She had a feeling that she would be able to tell Mr. Mulligan she had matched his record. Suddenly a car shot out of a side road. Kate slammed on her brakes, and her car jerked to a halt. Cursing, Kate heard the car stall. She turned the starter. Silence. The motor was not turning over. The battery was dead. Damn, hell and corruption.
A car soon stopped, offering help. Kate asked only to be pushed to the side of the road, which the man rather gingerly did, the bumper of his large car not really meeting the bumper of the Volkswagen. “Sorry I can’t be more help lady,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about cars, particularly those little foreign ones. I’m the sort who calls a repairman if the television set becomes unplugged. You know.”
“To be frank,” Kate said, “I have frequently doubted whether anyone understands the internal combustion engine. Perhaps you would be kind enough to call for help, however, when you pass a phone?”
“Gladly,” the man said. “Maybe you got a flat tire?”
“I don’t think that would affect the battery, do you?”
“No, I guess not. Noticed your lights are very dim. You seem to know a lot about cars.”
“Only what I learned from leaving the ignition on one long, sad night. But surely the battery ought to have been recharging all this time.” The man waved an amiable hand and departed. Kate sat down on the roadside to wait. She was joined, before very long, by the state police.
“Anything wrong, lady?” they asked in tones which, if not discourteous, were certainly not brimming with graciousness either. Kate restrained an impulse to say she had given way to a desire to sit on the roadside and meditate.
“My battery appears to have gone dead,” she said. “The motor won’t turn over.”
They greeted this analysis of the situation with all the skepticism due any woman who calls by name any of a car’s inner accouterment.
They lifted the hood (I wonder if it’s called a hood, Kate thought) at the back of the car, and gazed meaningfully into the engine. “Water in the fuel line?” one said. The other reached into the back seat and lifted the rear seat out. “Plenty of water in the battery,” he said. “What about the gas filter?”
“That would scarcely affect the battery,” Kate said, for the second time that evening. It was by now quite dark. The state troopers did not appear to appreciate her contributions to the discussion.
“Let’s see your license and registration,” one of them said. At that moment a repair truck, apparently summoned by the man who had pushed her to the side of the road, appeared.
“Hey, Mac,” the trooper said. “See if you can figure out what’s the matter here.”
The repairman turned on the ignition and tried to start the car. Nothing happened. “Battery’s dead,” he said.
“My battery,” Kate said, feeling more and more like someone who has been given only one line in a play and must keep repeating it in rehearsal after rehearsal, “should have recharged while I was driving.”
“Your generator’s probably gone,” the repairman said. He extracted a long wire, with clips on either end, and began placing the tips mysteriously. “The minute you put on your lights you drew all your juice out of the battery. In most cars, there’s an indicator on the dash to tell you. Not these babies.”
“I wouldn’t have noticed it anyway,” Kate said.
“Your brushes are probably gone. Have to tow you in.”
“My brushes?” Kate said.
“I’ve been patrolling this road a year now,” the state trooper said. “No one ever had trouble with brushes.”
“It’s unusual to have the generator go in these cars. Particularly”—the repairman flashed a light at the speedometer—“in one that’s gone only nine thousand miles. Very strange. These cars don’t break down much. Have to tow you in.”
“Just a minute,” the state trooper said. “Your license and registration.”
“Have I done anything wrong?” Kate asked. The state trooper, with his companion,
waited stolidly, not deigning to answer. Kate reached into the car for her purse, into the purse for her wallet, into her wallet for her driver’s license. It wasn’t there.
“It must be,” she said. “A New York State driver’s license, quite up to date, with no convictions on it.” From her wallet she carefully removed her faculty identification card, her university bookstore card, her faculty club card, her social security card, her Blue Cross card, a small calendar and three five-cent stamps. “It’s always there,” she said.
“It’s an offense to drive without an operator’s license. Let’s see the registration.”
Kate remembered Reed’s voice: “The registration’s here, in a plastic folder, in the map compartment. I keep it underneath. You’ll have to show it,” he had added with a frivolity which now seemed prophetic, “when they pick you up for reckless driving.” She slid into the car and looked in the map compartment. The plastic folder was there, but no registration form was inside it.
“No registration,” one state trooper told the other. Kate wondered, not for the first time, why all state policemen either are or appear eight feet tall and devoid of all human feelings. Probably their boots, she thought. And goggles.
“You’ll have to come with us,” they said.
“Do you mean in your police car?” She was ignored. The trooper turned to the repairman. “Can you haul that in?”
“Right. I could recharge the battery,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “and she might get started, but with the lights on, she wouldn’t go far.” He handed Kate a card.
“Get in,” the trooper said. Kate got into the back of the police car, and one of the troopers got in the back with her, apparently to make certain she did not try to throttle the driver. “Is it a very bad offense to drive without a license?” she asked the trooper next to her. He did not answer. Evidently it was not his custom to converse with criminals.