“You seem civil enough to each other,” Maggie said.
“Yes, but there’s always that undercurrent. As though he thinks I’m going to assault him.”
“And that’s why you think he stole your gun?”
“Not just for that, of course.” Nora looked straight at Maggie. “Mostly because I saw him take it.”
“You saw him?” Anne asked eagerly, and looked at Maggie with doubt for the first time. Had she believed in Charlie’s innocence all this time because of the unsupported word of that woman? A woman who had been poor murdered Jackie Edwards’s roommate?
“I saw him,” Nora said positively. “Wednesday morning he opened the drawer, took something out.”
“That’s interesting,” Maggie said. She was lounging back in the black chair, long legs extended, ankles crossed under the edge of the coffee table. “You were in the room?”
“Yes. His excuse was that he wanted to borrow a ruler. I was shelving books so I told him to get it himself. It was in the same drawer. And then when Tal—when it happened—I looked for the gun, and it was gone!”
“Did you see it in his hand?”
“I—no, I didn’t.”
“Did you see the ruler?”
“Yes, but he had no reason to hide that! He probably slipped the gun into his pocket so I wouldn’t see it.”
“Did you look for the gun in your drawer right after he left?”
“No. It never occurred to me anyone would do something like that! I didn’t look until late Thursday.”
“Did you usually leave your drawer unlocked?”
“When I was in the room, yes. I’d unlock it in the morning.”
“Did you lock it when you went to lunch?”
“Yes. Well, usually. I’d lock the office door.”
“But not always.”
Nora unclenched her hands and gestured helplessly. “How could I know he’d have such a plan in mind?”
“You couldn’t, of course. Did you lock it when you left your office for a few minutes? To go to the ladies’ room, or to pick up your mail?”
“I usually locked the office door, not the desk,” Nora sighed. “All right, it’s true I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. But it’s also true that Charlie was rooting around in that drawer the day before the gun was used!”
Anne didn’t know what to think. Had she been right to believe Maggie? But even Nora admitted that other people might have been in her office.
And of course, Nora herself could have taken the gun at any time.
Maggie said, “Anne and I have been thinking that Tal was a very curious person. He’d learned my family connections just in the five minutes we talked. And we thought he might have been killed because he’d figured out someone’s secret. Something he wasn’t meant to know.”
“Secret?” Nora’s hands clamped together again.
“Can you think of anyone who has a secret? Someone who’d kill to keep it quiet?”
“I—no, I don’t know anyone’s secrets. Maybe Charlie’s got a secret. But why can’t it just be rivalry? If Charlie felt threatened by my movie-star impersonation, why wouldn’t he feel threatened by research that contradicted him?”
“Okay.” Maggie swooped forward suddenly and placed something on the coffee table where Anne and Nora could see it. It was a silver-framed snapshot of a young woman and a boy of about ten. After a moment Anne realized that the young woman was Nora, her hair long and unkempt in a mid-sixties style. Maggie asked, “Is that your little brother?”
“That? Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dick. Richard.”
Maggie nodded as though pleased. “Tell me about Dick.”
“For God’s sake, why? He’s my little brother, I keep a photo of him. What else is there to say?”
Anne wasn’t sure what Maggie was driving at, but she said, “You told me you’d had to raise your brother almost by yourself.”
“Well, yes. My mother got very ill when he was nine, and I had to take over.”
“How’s he doing now?” Maggie asked.
“Fine. He’s doing fine.”
“He’s twenty-two, you said.”
“I did?”
“In Plato’s, while we were waiting for Tal. Bart asked you how your brother was doing. He said that with drugs and everything it was hard to raise kids these days. You told him Dick was twenty-two and was doing fine.”
“Well, I guess I did. It’s true.”
“Where does your brother work?”
“Look, what does this have to do with anything?”
Maggie leaned back in her chair again. “You evaded Bart’s question then. You’re evading mine now. Is your brother in trouble?”
“I don’t see how this is getting us anywhere.” Nora was on her feet. “Anne, I’m not trying to be rude, but this is a waste of everyone’s time. Maybe you’d better—”
“Okay, okay, sorry!” Maggie raised her palms in a gesture of appeasement. “I promise not to ask any more questions about Dick Peterson.” When Nora looked down at her suspiciously, she repeated, “Honest. It’s a promise.”
“Well….” Nora sat down again. “I still don’t see what else we have to say to each other.”
“You must have some questions for us,” Maggie said.
“Well, Anne, I don’t want to be rude,” Nora said.
“Go right ahead,” Anne told her. “We’ve certainly asked you some rude questions. It’s your turn.”
“I wondered if you’d really told the police about the extent of the rivalry between Charlie and Tal.”
So she still thought it was Charlie. Anne said, “Yes. I told them. But my impression was that it was just another in a long series of academic controversies that Tal engaged in. He loved it.”
“I’m sure from Tal’s side that was all it was. If he’d known how seriously Charlie took it—”
“Did he take it that seriously?”
“Well, he must have.”
“More seriously than Tal, I’m sure,” Anne reflected. “He is young still. But he had a lot of studies going. It didn’t look to me as though he’d be ruined if Tal won on one point.”
“Maybe not,” Nora agreed. “And I’m sure Tal had no reason to think anything else. He certainly wasn’t out to ruin Charlie, and couldn’t believe anyone would be out to ruin him.”
“About your gun,” Maggie broke in. “Charlie told me you bought it last year, after someone threatened you in your office.”
“Yes.” Nora had stiffened again.
“Tal saw him too, didn’t he?”
Anne nodded. “He and Charlie went in when they heard the shouting. The student left immediately, Tal said, but you were nervous enough to go ahead and buy the gun.”
“That’s right,” said Nora.
“Just for the office?” Maggie asked.
“No, there’s another one I keep in my purse. But I generally put that away while I’m in the office.”
“So you had two guns,” Maggie said. “What were these threats? Why?”
“Just a grade problem.”
“It’s more than that, Nora. You don’t buy guns because a student is angry. You buy them if you fear serious criminals. Like enforcers.”
Nora winced. Anne realized that Maggie had scored a hit, but where had her question come from? She asked, “He was a serious criminal?”
Nora shook her head. “No, no, he wasn’t a criminal!”
“Not a criminal,” said Maggie. “Okay. So you helped him get the Campus Security job. You talked to Walensky.”
“Damn him! He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone!” Nora was on her feet again, striding toward the telephone.
“Wait, wait!” Maggie flew after her and laid a hand on her arm. “Nobody told me anything! I’m just putting things together.”
“What? What are you putting together?” Nora wheeled to face her.
“All the disturbing things that have happened in the last year
to a hardworking professor of child development. Breaking up, buying guns, getting visits from a fellow who dresses first like an angry student and later like a campus cop. But the cop wasn’t named Dick Peterson.”
Anne understood suddenly. “He was named Pete Dixon,” she said.
Nora sagged a little.
Maggie said, “It didn’t make much sense at first, all those facts. There was a hollow at the center. But when I realized how evasive you’d become about a brother you were close to, one you’d raised, one you used to tell Tal and Bart about—well, if he was in serious trouble the rest of it made more sense.”
“Please don’t tell anyone!” Nora begged. “It’s life and death!”
“There really are criminals after him, then?”
“He had some drug problems in New York. Ran up a debt. Yes, they’re after him.” Her eyes were hollow with anxiety. Anne’s heart went out to her.
“So you got him to change his name and signed him up with Walensky?” Maggie gestured toward the sofa and Nora let herself be led back to her seat.
“Yes,” she said. “It took some work. He wanted money when he came last year, when Tal and Charlie saw him. But I couldn’t pay off drug debts. I just couldn’t! I realized that’s where the other money I’d sent him had gone. So I sent him to a rehabilitation program. He was finally scared enough to take it seriously, I think. We changed his name for protection, and when he got out Walensky took him on.”
“You picked Campus Security so he could be armed and so he’d have buddies around?”
“Yes, it seemed safe. And he’d been a security guard off and on in New York City, he said, so I thought he could manage the work. So far he’s been fine. Please, don’t tell anyone!”
“No need to tell anyone if Walensky already knows all this. Does he?” Anne asked.
“Yes. He was very helpful.”
“Well, then he’ll tell Hines whatever’s necessary.”
“Theoretically, he will,” Maggie said. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and began scribbling on it. “Got an envelope, Nora?”
“Sure. Plain letter size?” Nora started for the desk against the wall.
“Yes.” Maggie jumped up and accompanied her. She accepted the envelope, helped herself to a stamp from Nora’s desk, and pasted it on. “Here, Anne. Please take this out and mail it. I’ll meet you at the car in just a minute. I have to explain all this to Nora.”
Anne was on the verge of protesting, but something in Maggie’s tone caused her to take the letter meekly. “I’ll see you later, Nora. Thanks for helping,” she said and went out, wondering. The mailbox was at the end of the widened parking area. She lit a Gauloise and then walked across to mail the letter. It was marked “Personal,” she saw, and addressed to M.M. Ryan at Ryan and Reade in New York City. By the time she was back at the car Maggie was emerging from the apartment too. “Okay, what was all that about?” Anne asked.
“Maybe unnecessary. But there were a lot of guns in that family,” Maggie said, opening the door. “I thought Nora and her brother should be aware that my personal mail won’t be opened unless I turn up dead.”
“Dead! You think she would—merde!” Anne drew a deep lungful of smoke and stubbed out the cigarette in the Camaro’s ashtray. “So you mailed this story to yourself, just in case. Surely Nora wouldn’t— But if that was her brother in her office last year, he’s got a temper.”
“He’s got a temper, he’s got easy access to his sister’s gun, and if Tal recognized him as the angry student and started asking questions, he’d have motive too.” Maggie turned onto the highway and headed for the Cortland Road before adding grimly, “But what worries me most is Nora. She’s not overly fond of Charlie, but those accusations aren’t grounded in hatred. They’re grounded in terror. She’s scared to death that little Dicky did it.”
15
The Cortland Road led into the hills through farms where the land rolled gently, woods where steeper slopes made agriculture difficult. Outside the Laconia city limits, the road was lined with small houses on lots snipped from the farms behind. Cindy Phelps lived in a one-story bungalow of white-painted asphalt shingles. It was a drab little house, livened only by a pretty front porch with a swing and a long hedge of spectacular pink peonies along the gravel drive. Maggie pulled over to the edge of the driveway a short distance behind Cindy’s Toyota. Anne climbed out and paused to touch one of the massive peony blooms.
“It’s gorgeous out here,” Maggie said.
Anne followed her gaze and nodded. The hills here rolled down to the lake, sapphire blue on this June day. The scruffiness of the cottages along the road didn’t matter because the eye was drawn to the lake, the hazy hills, the white clouds that drifted across the expanse of sky. Anne could see the university towers tiny on a far hill. Behind it her own section of town seemed nothing but trees, and beyond that the cemetery blended into the landscape. She was glad it was on a hill too. Tal liked hills. From a hill, the grandeur of the universe soothed.
She turned and followed Maggie up the cement walk to the porch.
“Well! What brings you two here?” Cindy answered the bell wearing jeans and a Western-style pink-checked shirt. A pink headband held back her tousled curls.
“Got some questions about the department,” Anne explained.
“I’d think you two knew everything already,” Cindy said. A child peered out the door behind her. She shooed him back in and called, “Back in a minute, Mark.” Then she stepped out onto the porch and closed the door firmly behind her. Her sneakers were pink too.
“Everything we learn about it seems to bring up new questions,” Maggie said.
“I’ve noticed that too.” Cindy walked to the end of the porch, looked out at the lake, then turned her back on it to sit on the porch railing. “The hell of it is, I can’t think why anyone would want to kill Tal.”
“I can think of a lot of possible reasons.” Maggie was pacing along the length of the porch. “But most of them involve Tal knowing somebody’s unpleasant secret.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Cindy. “What secret could he know? And what difference would it make if he did know?”
Anne leaned against the house wall and lit a cigarette. “Thought you might have some ideas.”
“Why me? Talk to Bernie.”
Maggie’s trajectory had brought her to Cindy’s end of the porch. “Come off it, Cindy,” she said. “You know more about that department than Bernie. You’ve been there longer and you keep the records. And I notice that you aren’t saying people don’t have secrets.”
“Well, sure. I’ve been in this mean old world for a while. I know people have things to hide sometimes. Doesn’t mean I know what they are.” Her rigid shoulders belied her light tone.
Anne tried to ease the tension. “Just thought you might be willing to make some guesses, Cindy. We know that nobody knows for sure.”
“Look, Anne, you and I understand each other pretty well. You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Tal.” Cindy’s light eyes under the blackened lashes were earnest.
Anne nodded. “I know.”
“But I don’t know anything that could help. Honestly. And I’m no dummy. I can see where this one’s leading.” She gave a curt nod at Maggie. “If I say anything about anybody, the next step is to claim I was blackmailing them and Tal found out. So anything I know makes me a suspect too!”
“For God’s sake, Cindy!” Anne stamped across the porch to tap ash into the bushes. “You know I don’t believe that!”
“Hey, not so fast. I might believe it,” said Maggie. Still facing Cindy, she had propped a foot on the railing nearby, effectively fencing her in. “I even brought up the possibility to Anne. Right?”
“That’s why we’re here!” Anne told Cindy. “I wanted to show her that you weren’t involved!”
“And how the hell do you expect me to prove that?” Cindy sat tall in her corner, her eyes flicking from Anne to Maggie and back.
“How the hell can any of us prove it?” Anne retorted. “Hines is after me too, Cindy. Looked over all my insurance, talked to all my neighbors.”
“I know, I’m sorry, Anne.”
“Hines is even checking on Charlie and me,” Maggie put in. “And we alibi each other.”
“Not all that well,” snapped Cindy. “What about that letter you mailed? You and Charlie claim it only took a few minutes out of each other’s sight. But add a few more minutes and you’re as likely as anyone.”
“True. You like Charlie for it, then?” asked Maggie.
Cindy froze for an instant before she said, “What difference does it make if you were really with him?”
“I know it wasn’t Charlie. But you and he have a feud going. I’m interested in why.”
“So. We’re back to dumping on Cindy!” She shifted restlessly on the railing.
“We’re not trying to do that!” Anne broke in impatiently. “Maggie, don’t play games. Tell her we don’t think she did it!”
Maggie took her foot from the railing and turned to face Anne. “I’m telling her the truth, Anne. If you two know something that clears her, you sure haven’t told me. Besides, there’s a question that bothers me about Cindy.”
“What’s that?” asked Anne.
“Yesterday she got back from lunch around twelve-thirty. You met her coming in, right?”
“Yes.” Anne blew out a puff of smoke. “Unlocking the office door.”
“What’s this leading up to?” Cindy demanded.
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