Familiar Friend

by Cristina Sumners

  But Jamie’s imagination was off and running. “O.K., then, let’s look at murder with a capital M, by which I take it we mean the deliberate killing of a particular individual. You wouldn’t do that under the noses of the police either, would you?”

  Kathryn considered this rebuttal for a couple more stitches, then looked up at Jamie with a mischievous smile. “Depending on the individual, it might be the best place to do it.”

  “Oh, I hate it when you go clever on me,” Jamie complained.

  “Let’s say, for instance, somebody wanted, God forbid, to kill Tracy. If they were intimately acquainted with her schedule, they would know she walks from Augustine Institute back to this house shortly after ten P.M. every Thursday night, taking the shortcut through the St. Margaret’s driveway. All they’d have to do is hide in the dark there with a suitable weapon. It wouldn’t matter that the police station is across the street because the police aren’t in the church driveway. Speaking of police.”

  The sound of a car was heard pulling up outside the house, and as the car door opened they heard the unintelligible rasp of a police radio. They looked out the front window to see Tracy getting out of a patrol car.

  “I hope that’s just a courtesy,” Kathryn said. “I’d hate to think she was so done in that she needed to be given a ride the length of two blocks.”

  Jamie rushed down the stairs to greet Tracy with husbandly solicitude, while Kathryn went to the kitchen to gather ice, vodka, and Kahlua. She emerged from the kitchen as Jamie was leading Tracy to the sofa.

  “Poor baby! Was it awful? Now you just sit right here and calm down, and we’ll get you something to—Oh.”

  Tracy extended a hand to take the black Russian Kathryn was offering, and thanked her. To Jamie’s fluttering she held up a hand and said, “I’m all right.”

  “Then tell us about it. We’ve been arguing about whether it was a plain old mugging or not. Kathryn says not. She thinks it’s a real live murder.”

  “Well, she’s right. No question of mugging. His wallet was still on him, with lots of money in it. Would you like to know the victim’s name? I can tell you now.”

  “I guess so,” said Jamie, “but you said it wasn’t anybody you recognized.”

  “I said it wasn’t anybody from St. Margaret’s. If I said it was somebody we knew, but couldn’t tell you who, you’d be worried for fear it would be somebody we’d care about.”

  “Oh,” said Kathryn, “all right, I’ll bite. Who is the gentleman with the knife in his back, whom we know, but whom, I gather, we do not care about?”

  Tracy announced, giving appropriate weight to every name, “Everett Vergil Mason Blaine.”

  “Tracy!” Kathryn gasped.

  “Jesus!” Jamie exploded.

  They both began to talk at once. How did she know? Was she sure? Did the police know who he was—or what he was?

  Tracy assured them that she was quite sure, and that the police knew.

  There was a deep, stunned silence.

  Kathryn muttered something unintelligible and crossed herself.

  Jamie murmured in a hollow voice, “My God. I was talking to him an hour ago. He’s dead?”

  “Very,” said Tracy. “Exceedingly. Most carefully dead. Twice dead.”

  “Twice dead?” her audience chorused, in perfect unison.

  “Yes. I told you he had a knife in his back. Well, he also has a cracked skull.”

  Again she was besieged with a garble of questions, but Kathryn flung up a hand and commanded, “Wait! Quiet! We are getting nowhere. Tracy, just tell us what happened, the whole thing; begin at the beginning, and tell us every blessed detail, and we will try to be quiet.”

  Tracy groaned. “I should have made a recording.” She took a long swallow on her drink, and began, with dull patience, to recite: “I left Father Edwards at ten-ten. I know, because I looked at my watch as I left, to be sure I wasn’t going to be later than usual getting home. I left the grounds of Augustine by the end of the driveway that lets out onto Stocker Street. I began to walk up Stocker toward the church. There was very little traffic. I didn’t notice anyone else on the sidewalk. I turned into the St. Margaret’s driveway to take the shortcut to Merton Street. It looked the same as it always does: dark. There was a breeze, and so the trees were shifting around a bit making for a lot of moving shadows. As I came to the bend in the drive, about in the middle of the church property, where it’s particularly dark because it’s farthest from the streetlights at both ends, and there are all those heavy evergreens, I thought I saw something in the driveway ahead of me. I got closer and saw that it was a man stretched out on the ground. I stopped. I was frightened. I didn’t know if he was dead or sick or what. I thought it might be someone who’d had too much to drink, and I might find myself in a difficult situation if I woke him. But the longer I looked, the less he looked like a man asleep, and even drunks don’t usually pass out in the middle of an asphalt driveway when there’s grass handy. So I walked up to him, very quietly, and when I got about five feet away I saw”—she took an audible breath—“I saw that there was the handle of a knife sticking up out of his back. I dropped my purse, turned around, and ran like mad. By the time I got back to the street, I had figured out that the thing to do was keep running, right across the street to the police station. I went tearing in there like a banshee and I’m sure the guy at the desk thought I was crazy. I said, ‘There’s a dead man on the grounds of St. Margaret’s Church, at least I think he’s dead,’ and the cop said, ‘What makes you think he’s dead, it’s probably a drunk,’ and I said, ‘He’s got a knife in his back.’ The cop started yelling and pushing buttons. A couple of other policemen came from somewhere, and they asked me to show them where. I went back across the street with them and showed them. They started looking around, shining flashlights around. One of them asked me to tell him how I found him. I think the other one felt his pulse or something to see if he was dead. Then the cop who was talking to me asked if I knew who the dead man was, and I said no, I hadn’t even looked at him, because it never occurred to me it was somebody I knew and besides, I couldn’t see in that light. And he held up his flashlight and said would I mind, and I said no, though I wasn’t real turned on by the idea, so we went over to the body and he shone the light on the face, and even though he was lying on his face, the head was turned a little in our direction, and it was easy to see that it was Mason Blaine. Of course I couldn’t believe it, so I stood there, staring, and finally knelt on the pavement to get closer, but there was no mistake, and I think I just said, ‘Good God,’ or some such thing. And the policeman said did I know him, and I said, ‘This man is the Chairman of the Spanish Department at the University,’ and the cop whistled, and said was I sure, and I said I was. Then I got up and went over and sat on the grass and just watched. Lots of people started coming. One of the first, thank God, was Tom Holder. I must say it’s nice, when you discover a body, to have the Chief of Police be a member of your church. Anyway, there was an ambulance and photographers and things. Somebody collected me and took me back across the street to the station, where they offered me a chair and a cup of coffee and my purse, which I’d entirely forgotten about, and which one of the police had picked up. Then I told Tom and thirty-two other people about how I found the body, until I was sick and tired of telling it, especially since there’s not that much to tell——I mean, what can you say? ‘I was walking down the driveway and I saw him lying on the ground.’ Period.”

  “But what about the cracked skull?”

  “Oh, right. I overheard that in the police station. The doctor—whatever you call him, medical examiner—said that the knife didn’t kill him, that he’d been hit on the head with something first, and that killed him, and by the time the knife was put in him he’d already been dead several minutes. At least.”

  “Sounds like somebody wanted to make very sure he was dead.” Kathryn looked thoughtful.

  Jamie disagreed. “I think it sounds like someb
ody hated him so much, he had to kill him twice because once wasn’t enough.”

  “Granted, given the character of Mason Blaine, that’s not at all unlikely, but doesn’t it seem to you that if somebody was just indulging in an orgy of hatred, he would have beaten his skull to a pulp with whatever he hit him with in the first place, rather than hit him on the head, and then stab him in the back?”

  “Maybe he did beat his skull in, and then stabbed him. Tracy?”

  “No, it didn’t look like that, and I’m not sure I want to discuss it.”

  Kathryn allowed as how that was understandable. “What I’d like to know is, what was Mason Blaine doing on the grounds of St. Margaret’s Church at this time of night?”

  “Yeah, what about your neat theory about somebody walking through there at a regular time every Thursday night, the way Tracy does?” Jamie demanded. “It’s a sure thing Mason Blaine didn’t do that.”

  “That’s right, you said you were talking to him an hour ago. Where? Where is Mason Blaine on Thursday nights?”

  “Goodrich Library, teaching a seminar. I oughta know. I’m in it.”

  “No, really? And you were there tonight?”

  “I certainly was, and so was he, alive and healthy. My God!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It just hit me. Tracy, you found him at ten-ten?”

  “I left Augustine at ten-ten. I must have found him about ten-fifteen.”

  “The seminar adjourns at nine-thirty, and a few of us were talking with him afterwards out in front of the library. Then we said good night, and he walked off in the direction of Prosper Street, and we all went over toward the Student Center.”

  “Jamie,” Kathryn said, “you were probably the last people to see him alive. I think you’d better call the police.”

  Jamie, clearly delighted, fairly leapt at the telephone. Tracy sighed. “I thought I was going to get to go to bed.”

  Jamie was already explaining to the police who he was, and that he’d been talking to the murder victim a half hour before he was found dead, and that furthermore he was well acquainted with the victim, and might be able to tell them lots about who the deceased knew and what he did and so on. When he hung up he looked gratified. “They’re sending somebody right over,” he announced. He saw Tracy’s grimace, and added, “Oh, that’s O.K., honey, they’ve already talked to you. You can go on in to bed, and we’ll keep it quiet out here. I think I’ll go put on some coffee.”

  Jamie bustled out to the kitchen, and Tracy smiled ruefully at Kathryn. “You seem to have done a good job,” she said quietly. “I’m not getting reamed out about anything, so he must be in a good mood.”

  “It was touch and go there for a while, but I mended the jacket for him.”

  “Oh, ye gods, I entirely forgot about that. Thanks. You probably saved my hide.”

  “I gave him the opportunity to say how astonishing it was that I could sew, considering I had a fancy housekeeper to do menial tasks for me.”

  Tracy winced. “I don’t know how you put up with that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t have to live under the same roof with it. How you put up with it is the bigger wonder. I think I’ll shove off now. Try to get some sleep, won’t you?”

  Kathryn reached the sidewalk at precisely the moment a police car decanted two plainclothesmen and a uniform in front of her. The most senior of the three hailed her with some surprise.

  “Kathryn! You’re out late.”

  “Hi, Tom. Tracy asked me to come baby-sit her husband while you kept her at the station.” She extended a hand to him. Had they been meeting at church, the handshake would have been accompanied by an affectionate but perfectly proper kiss on the cheek; under the circumstances, however, Kathryn was signaling to Tom with her stiffly extended arm that she wasn’t going to approach him with inappropriate gestures. Recognizing what she was doing, he returned the handshake with equal distance and a tiny smile. Kathryn continued, “I hope you don’t need her anymore tonight. She’s bushed.”

  “No,” Tom replied. “We’ve got her story. But we need to talk to her husband. Bit of luck, getting right on to that so soon. We’ll have to see the whole group of people Blaine was with, but the rest can wait till tomorrow. You know this guy, Jamie Newman. Tell me about him.”

  Kathryn wrinkled her nose in eloquent distaste.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Yes, but not for your purposes. You want a witness. O.K., you’ve got an intelligent, articulate man who’s anxious to talk to you and as far as I know has absolutely nothing to hide. Go to it.” She made a sweeping gesture toward the house.

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “His wife is one of my best friends and I strongly suspect he’s not very nice to her.”

  Tom asked, “So that’s why you were baby-sitting? So he’d be in a better mood when she got home.”

  “Got it in one.”

  “Any chance we can pin the murder on him?”

  Kathryn smiled sourly. “I only wish. But I can’t think of any reason he’d want Mason Blaine dead. But come to think of it, he’s about the only person who knows Mason Blaine who wouldn’t have a reason to want him dead.”

  “Not a popular man?”

  “You might say so. You’re going to have fun with this one. Mason Blaine was a murder looking for a place to happen. But let Jamie tell you about it. I’m going home.”

  Tom watched her walk away with mixed feelings. He was always glad to see her. Too glad. Much too glad. It was all right at church, when he was expecting it, he was used to it, he could control it. But he was working now, he hadn’t expected it, and he couldn’t afford the distraction. Unaware that he was doing so, he shook his head as if to clear his mind of her. Then he glanced at his Sergeant and said, “Well, you heard the lady. Let’s let Jamie tell us about it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Absolutely,” said Jamie Newman. “It’s a standing joke in the department. Mason thinks it’s beneath his dignity as department chairman to have to teach a seminar at night, and he resents the hell out of the fact that the schedulers this semester broke the sacred rules and scheduled his Golden Age seminar at eight P.M. So, it’s supposed to end at nine-thirty, and by God it ends at nine-thirty. On the dot. You can set your watch by it. Mason even makes sure that nobody else is talking or asking a question after nine-twenty-five so that he can wrap it up on time. At precisely nine-thirty he stops talking, closes his notebook, puts his books in his briefcase, and stands up, and that takes him about ten seconds, I promise you. Then he heads for the door of the seminar room, and woe betide the student who stands in his way. You can ask him questions if you tag along beside him on the way to the elevator, and he’ll answer on his way through the bowels of the library, but once he hits the main entrance and the open air, he finishes his sentence and then he’s off. That’s it, he’s gone. He marches home. So about a half a dozen of us saw him set off from the front entrance of Goodrich Library at nine-thirty-five at the absolute latest.”

  “You say he was going east from Goodrich?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, yes, he always walks home by Prosper Street.”

  “Was he carrying his briefcase?”

  Jamie hesitated. “He must have been. He always does.”

  Tom thought a minute.

  “Do you have a map? Of the town, I mean? Mine’s in the car.”

  “Sure, somewhere in my desk, just a second—”

  Tom studied the map a minute, then asked Jamie for another cup of coffee. As Newman left the room Tom whipped out his cell phone, punched a number, and muttered, “Flannery? Listen, tell Colczhic to leave four people at the church and hold it tight and I mean tight, I don’t want Trenton chewing my ass. Get everybody else over to Blaine’s house, 315 Patterson Road. Tell them to start on foot in the street, stay off the sidewalk, moving back along Patterson toward Lovell. Then if you haven’t found anything, split up.” Tom outlined the three possible routes Blaine could have walk
ed from Goodrich Library to his house if he had started on Prosper Street. “What you’re looking for is Mason Blaine’s briefcase. If you find it, for God’s sake don’t come within ten feet of it. And don’t let anybody else either.”

  Jamie came back with the coffee and Tom thanked him for it. Then he asked Jamie if he could remember all the students who had been in the group who had seen Mason Blaine walk away from the library that night. With a little hemming and hawing, Jamie managed to come up with all the names, and Sergeant Pursley wrote them down. Did Jamie know their addresses? Sure, they all lived at the Graduate College. And they would all be at the Spanish Department at 9:00 A.M. the next morning for various classes. Tom remarked silently to himself that certain aspects of this case, at least, seemed to be arranging themselves conveniently.

  Then he began to ask more general questions. What kind of person had Blaine been? Did he have any enemies?

  “Well! Enemies. That’s a very strong word. I wouldn’t know about enemies, precisely. But as for what kind of person he was, well. I suppose this is not the time to get all polite and not speak ill of the dead, right?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d just tell me the truth.”

  “Well, the truth is that Mason Blaine is an arrogant bastard. Was an arrogant bastard. He was the world’s greatest expert on the Golden Age of Spanish Literature, and he’s the main reason some people came to study here, but nobody liked him, least of all his own graduate students, the ones he directly supervised, because he treated them like dogs.”

  “In what way?”

  “Made them fetch and carry, made them Xerox stuff, do secretarial work that wasn’t properly their work to do. And all the time acting like they ought to consider it an honor, and not even thanking them for it.”

  Tom scratched his head. “Doesn’t sound like much of a motive for murder.”

  “Oh, God, no!” Jamie exclaimed, horrified. “I wasn’t suggesting it was. I was just telling you what sort of person he was. You did ask.”