A Little Class on Murder

by Carolyn G. Hart

  As Annie climbed in, Max said quietly, “But maybe she was very clever indeed.”

  The auburn-haired secretary stared at them superciliously over half-glasses. “You don’t have an appointment?”

  “No,” Max said agreeably. “But I think President Markham might like to talk with us. Will you give him my card, please, and tell him that Miss Dora Brevard, the trustee, has asked us to investigate the problems in the journalism department.”

  The secretary returned quite quickly. “If you’ll come this way, please.”

  Charles August Markham’s office was magnificent. The college buildings may not have been built until after World War II, but they were a reflection of the glory days of South Carolina. The doorways echoed the formal design of the three-quarter windows. Slender recessed columns with decorative acanthus capitals were set off by an architrave with iris and honeysuckle in relief. The iris-and-honeysuckle motif was repeated in the ceiling plasterwork. A shower of light from a glittering crystal teardrop chandelier illuminated the delicate cream-and-gold design of the Aubusson rug and the rich green of the floor-length silk damask curtains.

  Markham rose from his desk as they entered and came around to greet them, hand outstretched. “Mr. and Mrs. Darling.”

  His grip was firm and warm. He was tall enough to stoop a little in his greeting. White-haired and blue-eyed, Markham had the genial countenance of a gifted fund-raiser, the domed forehead of an intellectual, and the tweedy air of a scholar.

  This time they accepted coffee, and it came in a silver server on a silver tray and with china cups.

  It was almost as good as the coffee at Death on Demand. Annie began to feel cosseted and in perfect equilibrium with her surroundings. She studied Markham with fresh interest. Here he was, a college president with an unholy mess unexpectedly dumped in his lap, and he appeared completely relaxed and unruffled.

  After a ceremonial sip, he set down his cup and studied them. “I’ve always found Miss Dora, in her own original fashion, to be quite perceptive. She has supreme confidence in both of you.” He toyed with a bronze letter opener. “We have some very serious problems. A murder. Perhaps a second murder. If not, then an accidental death as a result of what I feel can rightfully be termed terrorism. And I have to wonder if the fault is mine.”

  They looked at him in surprise.

  He picked up the letter opener, tapped it against his palm. “An administrator is responsible for everything that occurs within his domain. Both successes and disasters. Why has a department chair been murdered? Why has the office of the student newspaper been attacked? Did my hiring of R.T. Burke result in these horrors?” He balanced the letter opener on upturned fingertips. His blue eyes gazed without seeing at a bewhiskered old gentleman in an oil painting over the Adam mantel with its classic figures in stucco relief. “I had no sense”—now he looked at them directly, his eyes ablaze—“of such a possibility when I made the appointment. I know my faculty members. Oh, not perhaps as well personally as I might like. But I know of them, their work, their temperaments, their strengths. And their weaknesses. And I had no sense at all that I was introducing an insupportable strain upon the infrastructure of that department.” A dry smile. “I knew, of course, what I was doing. And I intended it. That department was losing its support from the state newspapermen. There was a sense of too much cerebration, too little professionalism. We need a balance. An educational institution must have the scholar’s work as its lifeblood, but, in this very real world we inhabit, there must be due appreciation of practicalities, especially in professional programs. For example, it’s all well and good to examine the criminal justice system as a dynamic societal institution. It’s also quite necessary for budding police administrators to understand precisely what procedural rights prisoners have. There must be a balance between the theoretical and the practical. I felt R.T. was the perfect man to tip the balance in the journalism department once again toward the professional. He was, as you may know, a superior newsman. Intelligent. Perceptive. Honorable. Reasoned. Relentless. And a man with a passion for language. He had a love of writing when I knew him as a young man in the war and he never lost it.” The letter opener slipped from his fingers and thumped on the desktop. “I expected controversy. I expected a furious faculty, which, hopefully, would be galvanized into an expression of creativity. I never expected murder.”

  A sonorous, soft boom from the grandfather clock in the corner tolled the half hour.

  “R.T. Burke probably generated controversy all his life,” Annie suggested gently. “He came to my store—” she looked at Markham inquiringly and he nodded “—and asked me to teach this class on the mystery. I felt as if I’d been brushed by hurricane winds by the time he left.”

  “And when Annie and I saw him Thursday morning, he was hell-bent to find out who had leaked the information on the faculty to the student editor,” Max added.

  Markham nodded. “Yes, I talked to him on the phone early Thursday. He was determined and he had every intention, if he could, of filing charges against that person.”

  “Charges?” Annie asked.

  “Yes. Theft isn’t confined to objects,” Markham explained. “Information which is adjudged confidential can also be termed stolen, if taken by someone not authorized to have access to it.”

  “Oh yes, of course,” Max said, with rising interest. “Sure. People can go to jail for stealing information. But it gets pretty ticklish saying it was stolen if the person who released it learned of it in an official capacity.”

  Annie translated that. Burke would have a hell of a time convincing a prosecutor that the information was stolen if Kelly’s informant was a member of the personnel committee. Garrison, Moss, Norden, Tarrant, and Burke himself had every right to know the information. Could it be argued that releasing it without authorization constituted a form of theft? (She wasn’t sure this exposure to academia was doing much for Max’s ability to communicate.)

  “So if Burke discovered the informant’s identity and made it clear he was going to file charges, that could be reason enough for someone to kill him,” Annie figured.

  “That would also explain why the murder was apparently unpremeditated,” Max said.

  Markham raised his white eyebrows. “Why do you believe it was unpremeditated?”

  Annie beat Max to it. “Because of the weapon,” she explained briskly. “It looks like someone decided in an instant that Burke had to be killed and grabbed up that iron bar.”

  “Or, of course, perhaps the murder was premeditated and the decision made to use the bar because it was there and would indicate a lack of planning,” Max said.

  Annie almost spoke, hesitated, then charged ahead. “Dr. Markham, we’ve made a lot of assumptions. But it occurs to me that there is another possibility.”

  The college president looked at her attentively.

  “What if Burke fed that confidential material to Kelly? What if someone killed him because he leaked that information?” Even as Markham was shaking his head, she persisted. “Burke was a scrapper. He went all out in everything he did. Look at the awards he’d received as a journalist. And before that, in the war. He was a fighter. Maybe he was frustrated by the intractable opposition of the faculty. Maybe he decided to blow it wide open, let some public pressure build to Support him in his efforts to revamp the program.”

  Markham stopped shaking his head and stared at her soberly. “R.T. was a hell of a fighter. You’re right about that. And I know that the faculty was infuriating him, dragging their heels at any suggestions of course revision, trying to block changes in internal unit review procedures that would accord equal weight to professional attainments. But I would be astounded if he took such a backdoor approach.”

  “Someone leaked that stuff,” Max said reasonably. “If it wasn’t Burke, then the list of possibilities is pretty short: the members of the personnel committee or a faculty member with a master key.”

  “What about the young woman who died i
n the blast?” Markham asked. “She was the department secretary. Couldn’t she have obtained the material?”

  “She could have.” Annie shook away Max’s muttered objection. Obviously, Emily could have prowled in that file closet when Burke wasn’t there. It could have been done. “But why would she? She had nothing to gain by it. Besides …” She described Emily’s distress about the revelations and Mrs. Porter’s subsequent suicide. “According to her landlady, she was truly distraught. So, I can’t see Emily as Deep Throat. Why would she try to hurt a professor she admired?”

  “So that brings it back to the faculty,” the administrator said heavily. Markham sighed. He tapped a stack of folders. “I’ve been looking over their files this morning.” He picked up the first one. “Malcolm Moss. Wanted to be chair, of course. An able man with an enviable record of scholarly publications, considered an authority on consumer behavior in response to advertising campaigns. But he has no rapport with state editors. And if he chairs the department, it will be a triumph for the academic over the professional.” He closed the folder. “However, he is the senior member of the department and I asked him this morning to serve as interim chair.”

  “Did he accept?” Max asked.

  “Of course.”

  Annie leaned forward in her chair. “Would he kill to head the department?”

  “A week ago, six months ago, Mrs. Darling, I would have found that question absurd. But the fact remains, someone did kill R.T.” Markham’s silvery brows drew down in a frown. “Malcolm certainly does have an inordinate will to power. He must dominate every situation.” He picked up the next folder. “Victor Garrison. Clever. Quick. Complex.” A thoughtful pause. “A man who thinks well on his feet.” Another folder. “Sue Tarrant. Sue doesn’t have tenure. She serves at the pleasure of the chair.” He stroked his high-bridged nose pensively. “I heard her speak recently at a meeting of Women in Communications. She made what I considered a rather bitter presentation about the difficulty older women face in the marketplace. I have always felt that Sue has a rather angry nature beneath a charming exterior. She has often expressed the view that her undoubted professional competence hasn’t received the respect it should. Perhaps she lost patience with the pace of R.T.’s struggle with the faculty.” He went on to the next folder. “Kurt Diggs.” He tapped the cardboard reflectively. “I do not care for Professor Diggs. He is, in my considered opinion, self-indulgent, amoral, a sensualist. I believe he would always do whatever he felt was necessary to further his own interests.” A pause. “I regret intensely that he was awarded tenure.” A wry headshake at the next folder. “Professor Crandall. It’s fascinating, really, how unworldly some people can be.” His observant eyes challenged them. “Not a state restricted to academia. It’s rather easy really to judge Frank to be a weak person. But in this case, it might again be that familiar phenomenon, the cornered animal fighting with true ferocity.” He arranged the folders in a neat pile, picked up the last one. “Josh Norden. A fine man, a fine intellect. And a living example of the evils of alcohol. I do feel very strongly that Josh would never have done anything to cause distress to Charlotte Porter. They were old friends. Dear friends.” A troubled sigh. “But I cannot be at all certain what he might do if he discovered the person whom he considered responsible for Charlotte’s death …. ”

  “Like an opening night,” Annie yelled in Max’s ear. “Everybody’s here—if you care about that sort of thing.”

  Max twisted in his seat to look back over the auditorium. Every seat was taken.

  “Hell of a deal,” he shouted back. “I never dreamed there would be this kind of turnout.”

  Nor had Annie.

  Almost fifty news correspondents perched restlessly in the first five or so rows. Television crews and print photographers jockeyed for better positions. Students craned to see past them. Annie spotted all the journalism faculty members except for Moss.

  The best seat in the house was front row, center section, center seat. Miss Dora occupied it as to the manner born. She appeared oblivious to the restless audience, sitting ramrod straight, of course, black gloved hands atop her ebony cane. She was all in black this morning, even to the three feathers atop her hat. She had the wild and predatory air of a scavenging hawk.

  The sight of Miss Dora always produced sensations of discomfort in Annie, an uneasiness akin to setting out to cross a fun house, knowing full well that any resemblance to normality was deceptive.

  Max tugged on her arm. “Over there. By the fire exit. Is that Henny?”

  Untidy dark hair. A middle-aged woman in a shabby sweater, tweed skirt. A knitting bag with khaki, blue, and navy wool protruding. An air of insouciance.

  “Tuppence, of course. When she was older. During the war. Finding spies and things. I’ll bet Henny’s about to burn up in that outfit.”

  Their glances met.

  Henny gave a sporting, thumbs-up wave.

  So it came as no surprise when Annie spotted Laurel, except that Laurel could always be counted upon to provide distraction. She was entering the auditorium on the arm of Dr. Markham, who bent attentively to listen as she spoke.

  Annie would have loved to overhear that conversation! She leaned close to her spouse. “Bet she’ll have a date with him before the session is over.”

  Max looked at her reproachfully. But he didn’t say a word.

  The auditorium doors closed. The hum of expectant conversation intensified.

  A lectern stood at the center of the stage apron in front of the closed royal blue curtains. There was a ripple in the curtains and Malcolm Moss stepped out, followed by Brad Kelly. Camera shutters clicked.

  Moss’s half-smile never wavered as he strode to the speaker’s stand. His curly blond hair glistened in the harsh light. The jacket of his blue suit pulled across his massive chest, emphasizing his bulk. Kelly wore a navy blue blazer, soft blue cotton shirt, red-and-blue rep tie, and khaki slacks. He might have been the year’s outstanding graduate stepping forth to receive kudos except for the paleness of his face, a spatter of freckles distinct across his snub nose, and the tight set to his mouth. His eyes blinked rapidly. He clutched several pages of typewritten copy in shaking hands.

  Moss surveyed the auditorium. Gradually, the crowd quieted.

  “Good morning.” His voice was deep, assured, confident. “Chastain College and the Department of Journalism have suffered grievous losses: our chair, R.T. Burke, our colleague, Charlotte Porter, and our student and staff member, Emily Everett. The college will be closed in their honor on Monday, November fourteenth. Services will be held that day at ten A.M. in Emmanuel Baptist Church for Chairman Burke. A private memorial service for Professor Porter is scheduled at two P.M. Services will be at three P.M. at the Baptist Student Center for Miss Everett.”

  The scratch of pens, the whirr of cameras.

  “Chastain College has been shaken to its core by these tragedies. However, as interim chair of the journalism department, I wish to make clear the department’s goal and the goal of Chastain College. Both institutionally and on a personal level, we are committed to doing everything within our power to aid the authorities in their efforts to ascertain who murdered our chairman and who destroyed our newspaper offices, thereby causing the death of a student and staff member.

  “It is with these goals in mind that we are cooperating this morning in the appearance of the student editor, who will provide further information about problems which had occurred within the department in recent days. However, I wish to make it clear that the department is not responsible for views of or acts committed by the editor of The Crier. The student newspaper is, in accordance with bylaws promulgated by the Board of Trustees, independent of the journalism department, although, of course, it serves as a training ground for many of our students. On that basis, I present to you the editor of The Crier, Mr. Brad Kelly.”

  Moss stepped away from the lectern, nodding at Kelly.

  The young editor walked stiffly to the lectern, ca
refully placed his notes on it, and gripped the sides of the lectern. Annie knew he was holding on tightly to hide the tremor of his hands, and she felt a pang of sympathy.

  Kelly took a deep breath, lifted his head, and looked out into the flashing lights of the cameras and the sea of waving hands.

  “Mr. Kelly, who’s behind this exposé?”

  “Is somebody trying to kill you?”

  “What was Emily Everett doing in your office?”

  “Who made the bomb? Do you have any idea?”

  Kelly swallowed jerkily and spoke in a rush in a high, strained voice. “I wish to make a statement, then I will respond to questions.” He cleared his throat, and looked down at his sheets:

  “I am Brad Kelly, editor of The Crier. I was elected to the editorship by the student body for the winter and spring terms in an election held in late October.” He paused, took another deep breath. “So at that time it became common knowledge that I would be the new editor, beginning with the issue of November fourth.” He licked his lips. “On Tuesday, November first, I received a letter. It had no signature. It contained a message made up of letters which had been clipped from magazines and newspapers. The letters were of varying type styles and sizes. There were approximately five lines. As well as I can recall, this was the message: Come alone to Scarrett Pond gazebo two A.M. November three. Burke’s plans, faculty scandals revealed. Confidentiality essential. Go for the gold.”

  Pandemonium broke loose.

  “Is Scarrett Pond the one here on the campus?”

  “Who was there? What did you find out?”

  “Where’s this letter now?”

  “Is this for real? Sounds like a lousy spy novel.”

  “What faculty scandals?”

  Kelly swiped sweat away from his upper lip. He held up both hands. Slowly, the questions subsided.

  “Scarrett Pond is here on the campus. And, unfortunately, I didn’t keep the letter. I should at this time explain that I was aware, as most students were, of tensions in the journalism department. It was common knowledge that Chairman Burke was unhappy with the direction of the school and hoped to make substantial changes. As I understand it, he had a great deal of authority and could add or drop courses with the approval of the academic dean and without approval of the faculty. But I wasn’t aware of any scandals concerning faculty members. My first instinct was to ask Mr. Burke—and I’d like to state that I now regret very much that I didn’t do so. But I was afraid he would refuse to comment at all on personnel matters and that I would not be able to learn anything from him about any serious personal problems faculty members might have. And I thought I owed it to the readers to find out what was what. Personal matters affect the way people teach—and what they teach. So I decided to go to this meeting suggested in the unsigned letter.”