Familiar Friend

by Cristina Sumners

  “No, no, that’s O.K. I need to know all I can about Blaine, not just about last night, but about what he was like. All that’s very helpful. You, ah, you say he was a man that women found attractive?”

  “Yes, you are surprised. He is—he was—what, sixty years old? And yet he was like fifty, maybe forty-five. And a face like Cardinal Newman, you have seen pictures of him? All that white hair, the nose like this, the chin square and proud. And he was careful with himself. I mean, he did exercise a lot. He was strong like a young man.”

  Holder waited, but José merely looked at him politely, and Holder saw that he would have to ask for it. “Can you tell me what women found him attractive?”

  “Oh, many women. I think, almost all who knew him, except, I think, the women who are students. He was so bad as a teacher, so—so unpleasant.”

  Holder became pointed. “I mean, in particular, which women. Name them, José. What women that you know liked Blaine especially? Flirted with him? Had affairs with him?”

  José became vague. He was most terribly sorry, he would very much like to help, but you know, he was only a student, and he would not know if Blaine had a date, or if a woman came to his house, or such things. Tom pressed him: Hadn’t he heard rumors in the Department? Oh, but one did not listen to things like that, they were so foolish, one of course forgot what one heard.

  There was no getting any more out of him, at least not without getting unpleasantly persistent about it. And Holder found he did not want to be unpleasant to this thoroughly pleasant boy. He sighed, and went back to the events of the previous evening.

  Yes, the seminar had adjourned at 9:30 precisely. Some people had left the seminar room and gone to their carrels. A few people had stayed in the room, talking—some first-year students: Savenor, Pritchart, Haskell, a redheaded girl whose name José could never remember. Some of the second-year students went up the stairs with Blaine, and walked with him across the lobby and out the main door. There the professor had left them, heading off-campus toward Prosper Street. Professor Blaine always walked home after the seminar, except when the weather was very bad. He had seemed perfectly at ease, just the same as usual. He had mentioned nothing about planning to meet anybody. Blaine had taken exactly the same route he always took, at least as far as they could see him: a minute after leaving them he was blocked from their view by the wall of the chapel. José could not imagine how he came to be at St. Margaret’s Church, clear on the other side of the campus. He certainly had said nothing about going there.

  Holder could have enlightened him, but didn’t. The group that had walked out with Blaine? Jamie Newman, Carlos Barreda, Valerie Powers, Stephen Stanworth, and himself, José. What had they done then? They’d talked a bit. Stephen Stanworth had suggested they all go over to the Student Center for a beer. Valerie Powers said that was a good idea, and Jamie Newman agreed. Carlos Barreda had seemed undecided. José had not yet made up his mind whether to join them or not, when a man came up and asked Valerie where Cletus Hall was. Valerie said she would show him, and the two had walked off together. Jamie said he was tired and didn’t want a beer and left. José had not wanted to sit between Stephen and Carlos (“They are very different, you see, and I do not think they like each other much”), so he started to walk back to the Graduate College. He left Stephen and Carlos standing and talking, halfway between the library and the Student Center. He did not know if they went to the Student Center or not.

  If the class had adjourned at 9:30, they would have reached the library door at about 9:35. Mason Blaine had left them right away; he always did. José guessed that Valerie had left them at about 9:45, and Jamie almost at the same time. He himself had left only a minute or so later. No, he hadn’t caught up with Jamie or Valerie. Wasn’t that strange? No, because Jamie had gone home to his apartment by way of Main Street, whereas Valerie had gone out of her way to show that man to Cletus Hall. José had gone by the shortest route, the one everyone took—straight through the campus, over to Alexander Street, down the road by the Seminary and up the hill to the Graduate College. He hadn’t seen Valerie. Of course, she’d gone out of her way, toward Cletus Hall, and might have taken a different route.

  Holder thanked José for all his help, and asked him to go by the Department lounge on his way out and send in Miss Powers.

  As the door closed behind him, Holder sighed and turned a defeated gaze on his Sergeant. “Apart from people agreeing on the victim’s nasty personality and the time he left the library, we’re getting nowhere fast.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pursley agreeably.

  “Don’t sound so damn cheerful about it.”

  “No, sir.”

  Holder grunted. “It’s bound to be a woman. He was plenty rich, but the money goes to the sister in Virginia, who was at home answering the phone when we called her at eleven, so it’s a cinch she wasn’t in central Jersey spreading a corpse across a church driveway at ten. Gotta be a woman. The trouble is, what woman? What a bunch of clams these people are. MacDonald says Blaine is a bit of a ladies’ man, then chokes when I ask him which ladies. Ask Drew if Blaine is a ladies’ man, he just looks embarrassed. Ask the Caldwell woman, and she pooh-poohs the idea. Not that attractive, she says. Something about that woman. She was sitting on something, you could tell. Anyway. Jamie Newman says oh, yes, Blaine was a womanizer, everybody says so, but ask him the big question and he comes out with jokes about Angelina Jolie. Same as our Spanish friend, here, but kinda defensive about it, didn’t you think?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure, sir. Uh, sir?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh, couldn’t it be something else? I mean, women and money aren’t the only things.”

  “No, but hell, they’re the only reasonable things in this case. Look at the alternatives. Vengeance, for instance? Maybe he cut some kid’s scholarship off last year and the kid killed him for it? Sure. What else is there? He’s not the type for a blackmailer. More like the kind of person who gets blackmailed himself. Ladies’ man. That’s got to be it. You don’t look convinced.”

  “Well, sir, I’m sure you’re right, and maybe it’s a stupid idea, but money isn’t the only thing that goes to somebody else when somebody gets killed.” Under the skeptical look of his superior, the Sergeant hesitated, then offered, in a small voice, “I mean, there’s the job, isn’t there?”

  “You mean John MacDonald killed Mason Blaine because he wanted to be chairman of the Spanish Department?”

  “Well,” the Sergeant faltered, “it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  Holder was about to ask Pursley, in a blighting tone, if that little pudding MacDonald looked like the sort who’d stab somebody to get a job not so much different from the one he already had. He got no farther than opening his mouth, however, before it came to him that none of the people he had seen in connection with the murder of Mason Blaine looked like the sort who’d kill anybody for any reason. They were all so damn civilized, these University people. Well, not so civilized that they were above suspicion. Blaine had been killed by somebody who knew him, of that Tom was certain.

  He just wished he were certain about something else. Why the hell had the body been moved, for one thing? It didn’t make sense. And the way it was found…Tom wondered how long it would have taken to perform that maneuver.

  “Pursley.”

  “Sir?”

  “Get Colczhic and Halliday and Rossi. Tell them to find a stopwatch. I want them to walk, one at a time, not together, from the front doors of Goodrich Library down the various routes we figured Blaine might have walked home last night. I want them to walk right up to the place we found the briefcase, at full stride, then stop dead. I want it timed to the second. Whatever else they’re doing, pull them off it. One at a time, at least a half hour apart. I don’t want the whole damn police force strolling down Prosper Street within five minutes of each other. Taxpayers wouldn’t like it. Here, take my phone but go somewhere else to make the calls. I’ve got to do some figuring.”


  “Uh, yes, sir, but isn’t that girl supposed to be coming?”

  “Yes, by God, she is!” Holder looked at his watch. “And where the hell is she? It’s been five minutes and she was supposed to be out there waiting. The hell with it. Go make phone calls; if she comes before you get back, we’ll just let her wait a bit.”

  Pursley obediently left, and Tom began to scribble on a piece of paper in front of him. It was probably pointless—there was no reason to suspect any of the students, what motive could they have?—but he might as well have the satisfaction of eliminating somebody. If he could. Let’s see. Blaine set off from Goodrich at 9:35. Valerie Powers and Jamie Newman had parted from the group, in opposite directions, at 9:45. Jamie had gone home to an empty apartment. No alibi there. As for the Powers girl—how long did it take to show somebody to Cletus Hall? José was without alibi from 9:46 or so. Stanworth and Barreda might be eliminated right off the bat, if they had in fact gone into the Student Center for a beer. That would take them half an hour at least, and by that time Mason Blaine was dead. Come to think of it, you could probably write off the others in that group, too; no matter what time they went off alone, Blaine had a good head start on them; they’d have had to catch up with him, even get ahead of him from the looks of things, clonk him on the head as he passed that big cypress, load his body into the car—there would have to be a car—drive over to St. Margaret’s Church, unload the body in the driveway, and get lost, all before 10:15 when Tracy Newman found the body. Actually, getting the body over there in time wouldn’t have been the hard part; Blaine was almost certainly dead by about ten o’clock, and that left fifteen minutes—he would know more exactly when the results of his three-man walkathon came in. No, the problem would be getting over to Patterson Road ahead of Blaine to set up the ambush. He had a five- or ten-minute head start on every one of those kids, at least—No! Holder struck the desk with his open palm and swore at his own stupidity. Five- or ten-minute head start, hell. It didn’t make any difference. Not if the car had been parked close to the library, and the kid had driven over to Patterson. Easy to catch up to a guy who’s walking, if you’re driving! Damn. He couldn’t even eliminate one of those stupid students, unless Barreda and Stanworth had kept each other company. Or maybe if the Powers girl had run into somebody she knew.

  And where was that girl?

  There was a soft knock, and the door opened a couple of inches. A voice softer than the knock said, “Chief Holder?”

  “Come in, Miss Powers.”

  The door came open. Valerie entered, in no hurry, shut the door behind her, and leaned against it. “I’m so sorry I kept you waiting. I lost track of the time.”

  The voice was like whipped cream.

  CHAPTER 8

  Holder found himself saying it was quite all right, then kicking himself for being such a pushover. He had fully intended to be stern, but while there might be men in the world—somewhere—who could be stern in the gaze of those wide hazel eyes, Tom Holder was discovering, to his intense irritation, that he wasn’t one of them. Trying for a businesslike tone, he told Valerie Powers to sit down.

  The apologetic look changed instantly to one of appreciation, and although the “thank you” was not effusive, something in the small smile that accompanied it suggested that Holder had done her a signal favor, and she would always love him for it. She sat down, crossed a magnificent pair of legs, and looked inquiringly at him.

  “Ah, we can’t really begin yet, Miss Powers, because my Sergeant has to be here taking notes, and he’s out making a phone call. He’ll be back in a minute.”

  “How intimidating,” she murmured, “to have somebody taking notes on what you say.” It was clear that she planned to be very brave in the face of this ordeal, and it would be a shame if she weren’t handled with all the gentleness that chivalry could muster.

  “Oh, it’s just a matter of routine, you know, get as many facts as possible from as many people as possible, then try to sort them all out.” Tom grinned at her, told himself he was an idiot, and thanked God for the sudden appearance of Sergeant Pursley.

  Pursley closed the door, nodded to his Chief and said, “All set,” and took his chair. The Sergeant found that Valerie had turned to give him a welcoming smile, and he returned it before he knew what he was doing. He shot a hasty glance at Holder, reddened, and fixed his attention on his notebook.

  Holder cleared his throat. “Now, then, Miss Powers. First we’d like to get straight just how things happened last night, from the time the seminar adjourned, until you left your friends outside. A couple of people have been pretty definite about when that seminar ended. How about you?”

  She gave a tiny chuckle. “Oh, yes, it’s one of the standing jokes of the Department. Mason had a thing about it. Nine-thirty exactly, not one minute sooner, not one minute later. You could set your watch by it. In fact some people do, to emphasize the joke.”

  Holder had sat up a little straighter in his chair, but he tried to keep his voice casual. “Did you know Professor Blaine very well? I mean, on a personal basis, not just as a student?”

  “No, not really, Of course I spoke to him when I saw him on campus, and he had departmental parties at his house sometimes, and we all went, and naturally I talked to him at those. But I don’t suppose I knew him better than any other student.”

  “You just called him Mason.”

  “Oh, that!” Another chuckle. “We all did that, behind his back. When we weren’t calling him Evey.”

  “Evey?”

  “For all those pretentious initials. E. V. Mason Blaine, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Chairman by the Grace of God of the Spanish Department.”

  “You didn’t like Mason Blaine?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t mean to imply I didn’t like Mason. We all make fun of the peculiarities of the teachers here. It’s part of the game. And Evey, poor thing, was a bit of a snob.”

  “You say, ‘poor thing.’ You don’t think he was a bit of a—well, a bossy old man? Unpleasant to students?”

  “People keep saying that, everyone says it. But he was never unpleasant to me. Sort of charming. A bit Old World, you know?” Her look implied that Holder did indeed know, that in fact he knew everything about her, and she didn’t mind at all.

  Holder gave himself a mental shake and got back to the original topic. “What happened after the seminar let out?”

  Her account tallied in all respects with those of José and Jamie, although she couldn’t remember the names of the first-year students who had stayed in the seminar room, and she couldn’t be quite sure who had gone off to their carrels. There was nothing new; Holder made only one major discovery, and it had nothing to do with the events of the previous night.

  At one point Valerie slewed around in her chair, exposing another six inches of leg to Holder’s bemused gaze, and confided in a near-whisper to Sergeant Pursley that she bet he wanted all those names for the record, and she felt so stupid, but she was very bad with names. The Sergeant stammered that that was O.K., they could get them from somewhere else, and was rewarded with a devastating smile.

  And the scales fell from Holder’s eyes. I’ll be damned, he thought; she’s doing it on purpose. When she had first come in, he had stared hard at that pale, brilliant hair and had concluded, in some awe, that it was natural. And she wore no makeup, and her sweater was no tighter than any other woman’s these days. Her appearance, however stunning, was unaffected. But her manners were all for effect. The way she moved, the way she talked, that confiding smile—dammit all, Valerie Powers was sitting there deliberately trying to seduce both of them.

  Holder had been angry at himself for being distracted by a pretty girl, but now his anger turned and focused on that shining head.

  Valerie, dimly aware that she had lost him, tried to get him back. She leaned forward in her chair each time he asked a question, and wrinkled her flawless brow in earnest concentration before she produced an answer. Holder began to be amused.

&n
bsp; “I was going to join them,” she was saying, “but as soon as I said it I regretted it, because Jamie and José are nice guys, but Stephen is kind of a bore, and Carlos, whenever he has two beers, always starts talking about the blood of the common people on the soil of Spain that cries for revenge.”

  The word “blood” flicked a switch in Holder’s mind; suddenly he heard again a cold voice: “I could slit her throat and play in the blood.” He had forgotten that, somehow, in the intervening time, and he hadn’t remembered it when Valerie walked into the room and smiled at him. But he remembered it now, and his amusement faded. It had shocked him, that statement. Of course, Kathryn tended to talk in wild exaggeration; she had once told him that hyperbole was her native tongue, and after he had gone home and looked up “hyperbole” he had been forced to agree. When Kathryn was with people she liked, she expressed herself with unhesitating candor. She had told him once that the head of the Altar Guild drove her up the wall screaming, and he had been present when she had called one of her Presbyterian professors at the Seminary—to the man’s face—an impenitent heretic. But there was neither malice nor contempt in either of those remarks; she was unfailingly polite to the head of the Altar Guild, and the professor had merely laughed and said he’d rather be an impenitent heretic than a crypto-papist (another one Holder had looked up when he got home). Tom had never heard her say anything that sounded like hate. But the remark about Valerie Powers had sounded like hate. And it had been said without flourish and without humor. Holder was roused to an urgent curiosity; more than anything else about this bothersomely beautiful girl, he wanted to know why Kathryn Koerney hated her.