Familiar Friend

by Cristina Sumners

  “Carlos is the scruffy-looking one, sitting at the table with Jamie Newman. The one in the faded blue sweatshirt.”

  “Valerie Powers.”

  “The blonde next to Jamie.” Holder looked, and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, exactly,” Kathryn said. “Do me a huge favor, won’t you, and pin the crime on her?”

  “Not very charitable, Reverend.”

  “I’ve got reason. Sometimes I think I could slit her throat and play in the blood. Don’t bother to give me that look. I assure you, I have long talks with my confessor about it.”

  “Yeah, I believe you would. Stephen Stanworth?”

  “Stephen? He’s not here and I don’t imagine he’ll come. He’s probably home crying. Why do you want him? Stephen’s the only person in the whole wretched department who actually liked Mason Blaine.”

  “This isn’t a list of suspects, it’s just all the people who were in that group outside the library last night, talking to Blaine before he started walking home.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “Why good? I thought you wanted to see the blonde get nailed.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t cry if I found out Valerie was the guilty one, but Carlos is a different matter.”

  “Friend?”

  “No, I don’t really know him very well. But I—I guess I never noticed it before, but I kinda like him. Carlos is so vulnerable, under all that aggression.”

  “Well, I don’t care if anybody’s vulnerable or aggressive or what. I just wanna know where they were last night from nine-thirty to ten-twenty. And right now I want to know who was absolutely the last person to see Blaine. And the exact time they saw him. I need Barreda, Powers, Stanworth, Jamie Newman again just to check it over, and José—ah…”

  Kathryn chuckled. “Espronceda y Montalbán! Marvelous, isn’t it? And he’s got about five more names in there that he doesn’t use. He’s the beautiful one, sitting over there next to the guy with the frizzy hair. C’mon, I’ll introduce you. I just hope it doesn’t cost me any friends.”

  “I’ll be as nice as I know how to be,” vowed Tom meekly. He was rewarded with a wink.

  She led him and his companion over to the expectant group in the alcove, and performed introductions, unwittingly impressing Sergeant Pursley by remembering his name and introducing him as though he mattered.

  Chief Holder began to explain to Carlos, José, Valerie, and Jamie that he needed to talk to all of them, but separately, that he would start with Jamie, that he would take him up to the Spanish Department, and would the others please come along in twenty-minute intervals. While he was speaking, Kathryn returned to her table, sat down, and turned her chair to listen to Holder’s speech. Just as she turned, however, she caught sight of an elegant young man moving carefully through the crowded tables, like a duchess picking her way through garbage. The newcomer did not look pleased with his surroundings, but neither did he look particularly unhappy. Kathryn clutched Patrick’s wrist and said, in an urgent undertone, “Is it at all possible that Stephen doesn’t know yet?”

  Patrick, following the direction of her look, saw Stephen stop to exchange greetings with a friend and laugh at something the boy said. “My God. It must be possible. Come to think of it, what is this, Friday? Sure, he sleeps late on Fridays because he doesn’t take MacDonald’s seminar. Nobody ever sees him before lunch.”

  “Patrick, we can’t just let him walk into this.”

  Patrick shrugged his shoulders. “What choice do we have?”

  Kathryn gave him an impatient look, shot a glance at Tom, whose attention was on the small group he was talking to, then rose and moved decisively to intercept Stephen.

  The elegant Mr. Stanworth was wearing (on a weekday, for Heaven’s sake) the three-piece white suit that had earned him his departmental nickname, Colonel Sanders. He had been wearing it the first time Kathryn had met him, at a party in the Newmans’ cramped apartment the previous fall, when his reaction to her had determined once and for all her opinion of him.

  “Stephen!” Jamie had cried with enthusiasm. “You must meet Kathryn. Kathryn, this is Stephen Malcolm Havering Stanworth, of the Atlanta Stanworths, my dear! Stephen, the Reverend Kathryn Koerney!”

  Stephen struggled for a moment between a desire to cast modest protestations across the social prestige he’d just been credited with and sudden curiosity. Curiosity won.

  “The Reverend?” he asked, with lifted brows.

  “Yes, I’m an Episcopal priest.”

  The brows lifted further. “But haven’t I seen you at Wednesday Mass at the University Chapel?”

  In fact the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics at Harton University did a lot of intercommunicating and their chaplains turned a blind eye; the ecumenical movement was alive and well in Harton.

  Kathryn, always one to favor the direct response, replied to Stephen, “Yes. Does that offend you?”

  Instantly the Colonel was all deference; both hands were flung up and the fingers were made to flutter gracefully. “Oh, no! Not at all!” He favored her with a smile as wide as it was insincere. “No, no offense taken. If you wish to communicate with us,” here he spread his arms wide and made a condescending little bow, “The Church is happy to welcome you!”

  Kathryn resolutely thrust this episode to the back of her mind as she approached him in the Student Center.

  “Why, it’s the lovely and delightful and Reverend Miss Koerney!” Stephen exclaimed in a magnolia-laden drawl. “And how are you this splendid day?”

  Kathryn hardly broke stride. Taking his arm, she turned him around and began to walk him back toward the entrance, telling him in exaggerated tones that she was so glad to see him, he was just the person she needed, and it was most urgent that she talk to him immediately, and it would only take a minute. He protested, and tried to slow their progress toward the door, but Kathryn hit on the happy notion of saying that she was sure she could count on his chivalry to come to her rescue. He went like a lamb. He would do whatever was in his poor power to assist her, but what ever was the problem? Kathryn, murmuring that they needed to be private, steered him out of the Student Center and across to the chapel.

  They entered the lofty dimness of the nave, walked up the aisle until they were out of earshot of the guide sitting by the door, and sat down in one of the pews. Stephen started to ask again what the problem was, but the woman next to him was no longer acting like a flustered damsel in distress, and he stopped, puzzled.

  “Stephen,” Kathryn said quietly, “I apologize for kidnapping you like that under false pretenses, but I felt I had to get you out of that mob, in case you hadn’t—Stephen, you haven’t heard about last night, have you?”

  “Last night? What about last night?”

  “Mason Blaine was killed.”

  He stared at her, openmouthed. Slowly the astonishment in his face turned to distress, and his lips moved in a silent No. He began to shake his head, and this time it wasn’t silent: “No!”

  “I’m sorry, Stephen. I know you cared for him.”

  He turned from her, and sat rigidly in the pew, gazing at the front of the chapel as though the deep blues of the east window might offer some soft escape. Finally he said, without turning to look at her, and in a voice barely audible, “How did it happen?”

  Kathryn took a long, slow breath, and let it out again.

  “He was murdered.”

  Stephen whirled and stared at her. “He was what?”

  “He was murdered. Hit over the head, and stabbed. On his way home last night from the library. It happened shortly after you were talking to him at nine-thirty. Tracy Newman found his body in the driveway of St. Margaret’s Church just before ten-thirty. Stephen: It was quick. If he was hit from behind, he wouldn’t even have had time to be frightened, much less to feel pain.”

  Stephen gaped at her, mute for a few moments. Then he leaned forward slowly, clutching his sides; he bowed his head, and began to moan. Kathryn wrapped her arms around him i
n a firm embrace and laid her head across his shoulders, holding him so closely that she found herself breathing gently into his dark curly hair.

  José had gone at his appointed time to speak with Chief Holder; the rest of the Spanish Department was beginning to trickle out, headed back to the library or to class. Patrick sat alone at his table, and Tracy moved to join him.

  “Lingering over lunch? Not your style.”

  “Lingering over Kathryn’s lunch,” he corrected, with a wave of his hand in the direction of Kathryn’s half-eaten salad. “Stephen came waltzing in here, obviously not having heard the news, so Kathryn headed him off before he reached this den of Blaine haters, and took him off somewhere to break it to him gently. I thought I’d better stick around and guard her food from the cleanup crew, in case she comes looking for it.”

  Tracy smiled at him. “Breaking your one-hour lunch rule, aren’t you?”

  “It won’t kill me, as long as I don’t make a habit of it. As long as you’re here, how would you like to tell me about how you found the body?”

  Tracy clutched her head, made noises in the back of her throat, and looked around for something suitable to throw at him.

  “No, love, do not chuck Kathryn’s salad in my face. You wouldn’t want her to have to go pay for another one.”

  “She could pay for the whole Student Center without noticing it. But O.K., I won’t throw it at you. I think I remember hearing that salad throwing is frowned upon in polite circles.”

  “Really? How long has it been since you saw a polite circle? I’ve about forgotten what they look like, living around this place. How much sleep did you get last night?”

  “Oh. Uh. Not a lot. I was more or less tied in a knot.”

  “You should have had Jamie fetch you a glass of hot milk and give you a back rub.”

  “Hardly. I think hot milk would make me throw up, and Jamie doesn’t give back rubs. I give them to him.”

  “Selfish bastard.” He gave her a puckish smile. “Next time you could use a back rub, come over to my place. I’ll give you one.”

  “Sure!” she laughed. Then she fell silent, and he watched the suffering gather in her eyes. When Tracy was in spirits, she bubbled like champagne; Patrick had long ago assigned to her, in his mind, the adjective “taking.” People who had known her for a while tended to forget she was plain. But there was no forgetting it now. The light gone from her eyes, they became unremarkable; unsmiling, her mouth was too small for her face. Tracy looked tired, and five years older than she was.

  “Patrick,” she said, “do you think I’m—I mean—Oh, damn it, Patrick, am I that unattractive?”

  “You are forty times more attractive than that platinum-headed slut, and if Jamie had the brains God gave a louse, he would know it.”

  “Stupid flattery’s no good. I’ve got a mirror.”

  “I didn’t say you were prettier than she is. You’re not. I said you were more attractive. You’ve got wit and originality and intelligence.”

  “She’s not precisely dumb. Dumb people don’t get into this place.”

  “So she can read a novel and write a good paper on it. She’s still got a stunted mind. And the soul of a streetwalker. You, on the other hand…” He stopped.

  “I on the other hand what?”

  Patrick adjusted the position of Kathryn’s salad plate, found it dissatisfactory, and adjusted it again. “You have the soul of something like a saint. God knows you’ve got the patience of one. I don’t know how you put up with it.”

  “I’ve got no choice. I can’t leave.”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  “And I can’t get him to—to change. I’ve tried.”

  “I know you have.”

  They were silent for a bit. Then Patrick warned, “Heads up. Company’s coming.”

  Tracy looked, and saw Kathryn coming toward them.

  “I didn’t know if you’d still be here,” she said.

  “We wanted to save your lunch,” Patrick replied, pushing a chair out for her with his foot. “How’d he take it?”

  “Thank you. Badly. He quite literally doubled over in pain.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The only thing you can do in a situation like that: I held him. Just held him. As tight as I could, for as long as he needed to be held.”

  “Did you take him up to the Department to talk to the police?”

  “No, I didn’t even tell him they wanted him. I sent him home; Tom Holder will find him if he needs him.”

  Patrick looked at Kathryn’s impassive face. “You don’t like Stephen,” he said. It was an implied question.

  She shrugged. “He needed help. I was the only one around to give it to him. Pass the salt, please?”

  Tracy gave her the salt, and in doing so showed her more of her face than she intended to. Kathryn took a bite of tomato, frowned, announced that she had lost her appetite and needed to get home anyway, and left them.

  They were silent, Patrick looking at Tracy, and Tracy looking at the floor.

  “You really ought to go home and take a nap, if you didn’t sleep well last night,” he said.

  “I haven’t got time. I ought to go to the grocery store, and there’s some housework needs doing.”

  “Will you stop punishing yourself?”

  Tracy lifted her head, and looked at him. Finally she sighed, nodded, and stood up.

  He walked her home, poured her a glass of wine, and insisted that she drink it.

  “Thank you, Daddy!” she said.

  He put a hand on her head and tousled her hair almost as if she were a dog. “Now get some rest,” he ordered.

  Patrick left, and Tracy crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kathryn had called him “the beautiful one.” Tom Holder, to whom “beautiful” suggested “homosexual” when applied to a man, disagreed with her. The boy wasn’t beautiful. Nothing pretty or prissy about him. Just a good-looking boy with a nice friendly smile. (There were twenty-eight female students at the University who had something perilously approaching palpitations at the sight of that smile.) He dressed decently, too, which was more than you could say for the rest of these kids. (José’s hand-knit pullover was Irish, and had cost his mother one hundred and thirty pounds on her last trip to London—not that she had looked at the price tag.) Polite, too. As though he had nothing better to do than talk with the cops about a homicide he probably knew nothing about. Or might have committed, Holder reminded himself sternly. Just because the guy didn’t look like your average murder suspect, that was no reason to assume things. The thought flickered briefly across the Chief’s mind that he had no idea what the average murder suspect would look like. Or the average murderer, for that matter.

  “So it’s just a matter of routine, that’s all,” Tom explained as José settled into the leather chair Professor Witherspoon kindly provided for the students who came to see him. Witherspoon was on sabbatical, and Holder was using his office to conduct interviews.

  “Oh, yes, of course! I do not mind. I will answer your questions as well as I can.” The smile flashed, and spread to include Sergeant Pursley, sitting correctly in the corner with his notebook on his knee. “You must do your work, and I must help, if I can.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Ezpro—” Holder frowned at his notebook, and José laughed.

  “It is easier if you call me José, no?”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it. Now, if you’ll just tell me whatever you can about last night, beginning when the class adjourned.”

  “Yes. The seminar, it goes from eight to nine-thirty, and when it is over we all go upstairs together. Last night—”

  “Hang on. You all go upstairs?”

  “Yes, the seminar, it is in one of the downstairs rooms of the library, next to where are all the study carrels of the graduate students. So we go upstairs together when the seminar is over at nine-thirty.”

  “Excuse me. I take it you mea
n the seminar usually ends at nine-thirty. Do you know the exact time it ended last night?”

  “Oh, yes, of course! Even without a watch I would know that! This Professor Blaine, he does not like the night classes. He does not believe that he—the chairman, you know!—should have to teach a seminar at night. So always, always we are finished at nine-thirty exactly, because Professor Blaine will not stay one minute more.”

  “But he might leave a little early?”

  “Oh, no, he would not. You see, he hates the night classes, but he has his duty. He believes only a bad teacher will leave a class early. He says it. He tells the younger faculty members.”

  “He prided himself on being a good teacher?”

  For the first time José hesitated. Then he spread his hands and smiled apologetically. “You know they say, ‘Of the dead speak nothing but good.’ But perhaps at a time like this that is not wise, no?”

  “At a time like this it might even be pretty stupid.”

  Again the smile. “Yes, I think you are right. Well, then, I try to tell you the truth. But it is necessary for you to remember that me, I do not like Professor Blaine. So maybe I say things, well, maybe if I say a bad thing because I think it is true, who knows? Maybe it is not so bad, truly, with Blaine; maybe I think only it is so bad because I do not like him. You understand?”

  “You mean you’re warning me that you may be prejudiced.”

  “Ah, yes! Exactly. So. You ask me, he is proud because he is a good teacher? I say, no. He is proud—oh, for many reasons. He is proud because he has a family that is old and important. I think you say in this country, ‘First Families of Virginia’? Well, Professor Blaine is one of those. And he is proud because he has money, more money than a teacher is paid. And he is proud because he is a man who can, how do you say, a man who has women if he wants them. For these reasons he is proud. But he is not a good teacher. He was. Many years ago. But not now, now he drinks, he goes on vacations, he is lazy. The work he did twenty years ago, it was important. It was great. That work, that made him chairman here. He is very famous, you know that? People came from everywhere to this university to study the Siglo de Oro with the great Mason Blaine. Pardon. The Golden Age, it means. The great time of the literature of Spain. Even from Spain they come—as you see! But no. It is a disappointment. Now Professor Blaine is not great. He is a lazy old man, who gives orders: here, do this! do that! Like we are servants. I forget that he is dead, and I still talk in the present. He was a lazy old man. But I talk too much. This you do not need to know. You want to know what happened last night.”