It was getting harder and harder for me to repress the cheers bubbling inside me, but I somehow managed. This was fun; this was really fun.
Ralph, on the other hand, was not amused. He pursed his thin lips. Shrewd fellow that he was, he was choosing his words carefully. “I very much regret, Father Pirelli, that you seem inclined to follow the suggested course laid out by the student newspaper in the editorial today.”
Bad move. Implying that the president had caved in to pressure, hoping that he would shift course to prove that he wasn’t, was a non-starter. Father Joe was too comfortable in his own skin to fall for a ham-handed ploy like that. I would love to play a game of chess with Ralph sometime because I don’t think he’d be very good at it.
Father Joe thumped the top of his desk with a violence that seemed wholly out of character. “I intend to do, as I always have, what I am convinced is right for St. Benignus College. If I please anybody in the process, that is purely coincidental. And I will be intimidated neither by the campus press nor by my provost and academic vice president.”
“If I am correctly reading between the lines, Father Pirelli, you seem to have made up your mind on the future of the popular culture program before the evaluation process has even begun.”
Mac snorted. “Are we expected to believe that you have not, Ralph?”
“I await the report of the committee,” Ralph said. “That is the proper procedure. However, it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I am unaware of, or do not share, the grave doubts of many on the committee concerning the appropriateness of this course of study.”
“That’s where we are, then,” Father Joe said. “The evaluation committee is likely to recommend that the popular culture program be eliminated. It will, no doubt, issue a report presenting an impressive and persuasive case for that point of view. But I have to warn you, Ralph, that I doubt I will be persuaded.”
“I see,” Ralph said. “The next step, then, would be the board of trustees. You can overrule the committee and the academic vice president, but the board can overrule you. By the time we get that far, months will have elapsed. If you will permit me, Father Pirelli, I respectfully suggest we forgo those time-consuming intermediate stages and simply present our respective points of view to the board as soon as possible.”
Father Joe leaned forward even further, aggressive body language if I ever saw it. “That’s not like you to circumvent the established channels for doing things. Give me a peek inside your head, Ralph. Do you really think you have the clout on that board to kill a program that’s won national recognition for this little college?”
“Cloud is hardly the issue.” How sanctimonious you sound, Ralph. “The facts speak for themselves. I hardly think the recognition that program has brought to St. Benignus is something to put forward as a positive. Surely no member of the board of trustees is ignorant of the two murders and their connection to the program, not to mention what happened last spring.” He looked at Mac. “Just as surely, none will have failed to have seen or heard about the unfavorable publicity regarding the scurrilous blog written by the head of the program.”
“Scurrilous, eh? Now you are getting personal,” Mac said. “Please desist.”
“There will be no desisting until the board has finished with this matter,” his nemesis retorted.
“You may expect to find your attitude mirrored in my own,” Father Joe told Ralph. “The next regular board meeting is only a week away. Can you be prepared to argue your case by then?”
“I am prepared now.”
“Next week will be soon enough. I’ll make sure you’re on the agenda. Until then, goodbye, Ralph.”
Ralph Pendergast didn’t need to have a building fall on his head; he knew he was being dismissed. He rose and shook hands stiffly all around with the politeness of a Japanese businessman, but without the smiles. I gave him my hand because it was expected, but I didn’t like it.
“The thing that makes me sick,” Father Joe said when the door had closed behind Ralph, “is that he’s so good at what he does. He works long hours and I’m sure he does have the college’s best interests at heart.”
“He has a heart?” I asked.
“Joseph, I’m sorry you have to go through this trial on my account,” Mac said.
“Sorry?” Father Joe’s eyes sparkled. “Sebastian, I feel fifteen years younger. That’s about how long it’s been since I’ve had a good fight. A royal rumpus wouldn’t be a bad way to end a career, if it comes to that.”
“It won’t come to that,” I said.
“Don’t be too sure, Jeff. Ralph has powerful friends on the board - friends who helped put him where he is in the first place. This battle is going to be a tough one. And the outcome is by no means assured.”
Fitzwater
Mac and I drove to the Winfield about one o’clock and waited in the lobby of the handsome old stone and brick building. Howard Fitzwater was supposed to show up around two o’clock, but we had a feeling that a take-charge kind of guy might arrive early. Sure enough, it was just past one-thirty when he strode in, matching Quandra’s word portrait to a T.
At forty-two, he was less of a raging bull in appearance than an energetic ape. He stood about five-nine and must have weighed over two hundred pounds, but a lot of the heft was in the powerful upper half of his body. His head was large and squat, with small brown eyes and dark hair riding low over his eyebrows in a series of waves. He was wearing a camel-colored suit about one size two small in the shoulders. It looked expensive, but not elegant. Beneath the jacket he had on an open-collared white shirt with small blue pinstripes. It looked like it had been washed too often. When Fitzwater moved and the suit coat yielded you could see he was wearing suspenders.
Howard Fitzwater didn’t look like anybody’s idea of the man most likely to win a Nobel Prize for astrophysics, if there is one. But I’d made up my mind four chapters back not to underestimate anybody. That seemed like a good game plan for staying alive in the proximity of a multiple killer, identity unknown.
Fitzwater was no lumberer. As he moved toward the registration desk with surprising alacrity, Mac called out, “Mr. Fitzwater!”
He turned around. “Yeah? Am I supposed to know you?” Nice to meet you, too, Fitz!
“No, but Quandra Hall does,” I said.
“I’m on my way meet her.”
“In that you will be disappointed,” Mac said. “We are here to tell you that she is not in her room at present.”
“Then where the hell is she? She knew I was coming to town.”
“And she told us.”
It probably wouldn’t be accurate to say that Fitzwater was losing his patience; that would imply he had some to lose. “What kind of con job is this? Who the hell are you characters?”
Mac bowed slightly. “Sebastian McCabe, head of the popular culture program and Lorenzo Smythe Professor of English Literature at St. Benignus College.”
“Jeff Cody, writer.” That was a quick compromise between “flack” and “valet.” His attitude had not put me in a mood to schmooze.
“You found Peter’s body.” So he was well briefed, probably from a through reading of TMZ and watching Access Hollywood.
“Unfortunately so,” Mac acknowledged. “We have a few questions -”
“You’re the ones who have questions to answer, pal. What have you done with Quandra?”
“Not a damned thing, pal,” I sad, miffed at his bullying. “She just made herself scarce for a while because she didn’t feel like talking to the cops. Listen, Fitzwater, that tough guy talk doesn’t impress us, so you might as well stop acting like some bit player in a Quentin Tarantino movie.” Max Cutter returns.
He regarded me, seemingly semi-impressed. “How tall are you?”
“Six-one. Why?”
“I thought so, bu
t I couldn’t believe they piled shit that high.” He turned to Mac. “If Quandra’s not around, pal, I’m going to the police. I have a few questions for them, too, about how they’re handling this case.”
This was really turning out to be a terrible birthday.
“Isn’t that presumptuous?” Mac asked. “You have no standing in the matter.”
“I represent Alice Gerard, who is incapacitated and unable to be here. Besides, the dead man was my partner. Who has more standing?”
I said, “When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it.” I wasn’t agreeing with Fitzwater; I was just quoting that Sam Spade line in The Maltese Falcon. But the prose poetry, and the aptness of it, didn’t even slow Mac down.
“Peter was, however a partner with whom we understand you had a quarrel, a difference of opinion, about what sort of film to make next,” he said.
“Been talking to Quandra, huh?” Fitzwater shook her head. “What a pain in the ass. She stayed over at my place one night and got mad the next day when I turned her down for a raise. She’s been trying to lay a guilt trip on me for a year and it irks her that I won’t cooperate by feeling guilty.”
“Are you trying to tell us that she made up your falling out with Gerard just to make you look bad?” I asked.
“Listen, a-hole, I don’t intend to tell you anything. I’m going to talk to the local cops.”
“As you wish,” Mac said. “Follow my car or come with us. We will take you to the police station and introduce you to the chief.” Now that would be an interesting encounter: Immovable object meets irresistible force.
“That’s more like it,” Fitzwater said.
He opted to join us in Mac’s Chevy for the short trip. At City Hall, Fitzwater followed us down the concrete steps to the police station in the basement.
Oscar Hummel, buried in paperwork at his army green desk, looked up with a sour expression. “Oh, it’s you two. Who’s dead this time?”
Answering such a weak attempt at a witticism was beneath my dignity. Besides, my mouth was only half open before Fitzwater broke ranks and got within spitting distance of the chief.
“I’m Howard Fitzwater,” he announced. “If you’re the top cop in this burg, I demand to know what you’re doing to solve the murder of Peter Gerard.”
“I’ll do the demanding around here,” Oscar fired back. I was proud of him. “Have a seat. You too, Mac, Jeff.” Mac and I sat in a couple of the chairs on wheels scattered around the office. Fitzwater looked about, smoldered a bit, and finally sat down, too. Oscar, meanwhile, reached for the pot behind him and poured himself a cup of coffee - high-test, no doubt. “Java, anybody?”
“This is hardly the time for tea and crumpets,” Fitzwater growled.
“I realize you’re upset about the death of your partner,” Oscar said, “and that’s one reason I haven’t kicked your ass out of this office. The other is that I want to know where you were on Saturday night.”
“You mean when Peter was killed? What a crock!”
Oscar sipped his coffee. “Not an answer.”
“Okay, okay. I was at my wife’s house in Bel Air, and so was she. We were together all weekend. I flew in to the Cincinnati airport this morning. That’s easy to check. This is ridiculous. Why would I want to kill Peter?”
“Life insurance comes to mind,” Mac said, “as does the fact that you had so-called artistic differences and there were rumors of a business break-up.”
“Oh, balls,” Fitzwater said, in an earthy Hoosier way. “So we argued a little. Peter didn’t want to do Return to Bourbon Street and I wanted to keep a good thing going. You think I killed the poor son-of-a-bitch over that? The guy whose name on the marquee guaranteed a hit? That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, does it?”
“Maybe you wanted to see your own name in lights for a change,” Oscar said. “Maybe you were jealous. You’re the producer but almost nobody knows your name.”
Fitzwater shook his head in apparent disgust. “If brains were energy, pal, you wouldn’t have enough to power the dynamo in a gnat’s ass. I’m no Alfred Hitchcock. I’m not the famous one in this partnership and I never will be. Who cares? That little old lady in Peoria isn’t going to fork over eight, nine bucks to see a movie because it has my name on it. Without Peter, I’m out a fortune.” Even as he said it, the full impact seemed to hit him for the first time. “My God, a fortune!”
“The gravy train may be derailed, but you had Peter’s life insured for ten million bucks,” I said, trying to make the fact sound as accusatory as possible.
“Peanuts,” Fitzwater said with a groan. “That’s a fraction of what I could make out of our partnership in one good year. And it could have gone on for another thirty years or more like that.” He shook his head. “It’s a standard business practice to insure your partner, but I didn’t really take it seriously - Peter wasn’t even forty years old. So I did the insurance on the cheap. Shitfire, was I ever stupid!”
“That is a plausible objection to the financial motive,” Mac allowed. “There remains, however, romance. By your own admission, you were intimate with Quandra Hall, who appears to have harbored an unrequited love for Peter.”
“Yeah, so?” Fitzwater didn’t seem to make the connection between the two halves of Mac’s sentence. Was he just playing dumb or was he the genuine article?
“Jealousy,” I said, spelling it out.
“Jeal - oh, give me a break, guys. We had a little fling, Quandra and me, a one-night thing, and I’ve regretted her ever since. It’s not like that put me in a select category, by the way. She’s a very friendly lass, and most guys appreciate her friendliness. I think that was why she was so stuck on Peter - he was one man she couldn’t have just by crooking her finger. That must have been a big blow to her ego - maybe even big enough to do something about it. Did you think of that?”
“I’ve had one of my men calling Ms. Hall’s hotel room since yesterday,” Oscar said. “And her home back in Bloomington, too. But she hasn’t answered. I find that curious. Where else would she be?”
“Try somebody else’s hotel room,” Fitzwater said. “Hey, wait a minute. These guys told me she’s laying low somewhere because she doesn’t want to talk to the cops.”
Uh-oh.
“We were merely being flip,” Mac lied smoothly. “Do you seriously suspect Ms. Hall, Oscar?”
“I’m getting a lot more suspicious with every hour we don’t find her. But mostly I just want to ask her a few questions - like what Peter Gerard knew.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Just a little idea I’ve been noodling around with. The natural assumption is that Peter Gerard’s murder proves he was the intended victim all along. It’s so obvious, in fact, that I’m none too eager to swallow it.”
“So what is your alternative scenario?” Mac said.
“It goes like this: Peter Gerard told you two he was investigating the Stonecipher murder. That’s what he was up to the night he died. Maybe - just maybe - he stumbled on to something. Or the murderer thought he did. And that’s why Peter Gerard died, not because he was the marked man from the beginning. So if I can find out what Gerard knew, it might point me right to the murderer. Quandra Hall is the one person who might know what kind of leads he was pursuing.”
Double Takes - that’s what Quandra could tell Oscar. Then Oscar would pay a visit to Lem Carpenter and in about sixty seconds flat find out who’d hired Rodney Stonecipher to impersonate Gerard. He would also learn that Detective Cody already knew all of this.
With my heart in my throat, I said, “Hold it, Oscar. Here’s another idea for you: Geoffrey Kenlake. Maybe that goofball public performance on Thursday was just a smokescreen, a bit of misdirection designed to establish him as a clown that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Mac found out
that he’s a firearms enthusiast. You should see if he has an alibi for Saturday evening.”
Oscar sat back with a look of satisfaction on his broad face. “Already did.”
“And?” Mac prodded.
“He was kind of busy that night, with lots of witnesses. Kentucky’s concealed carry law is very much like Ohio’s: To get a license to carry, you have to take a course in firearms usage and safety. That’s where Kenlake was on Saturday evening. The class ran from six to eight and he got there early. We know the murder happened around five, and Lexington is at least and an hour and half’s drive away.”
“You mean that nutcase was taking a concealed carry class?” I asked, incredulous.
Oscar shook his head. “No, he was teaching it.” Oh, great. “So I figure Ms. Hall can help us a lot more than he can.”
Damn. That meant we had to find her before Oscar’s men did, and then we had to tuck her away someplace safe - Mac’s house, maybe.
I wanted to get out of there pronto, but Mac kept talking.
“Certainly the building in which Peter died would seem likely to yield a clue,” Mac said. “Who owned it?”
“A Mrs. Crandall,” Oscar said. “Seventy-five-year-old widow. Lives across the street from the murder house, which her late husband bought as an investment in 1973. Gibbons had to revive her with smelling salts after he told her what happened in her building.”
“What about the woman who lived in the apartment?”
“Susan Gramke,” Oscar said. “She looks clean, too. A junior at St. Benignus with no connection to Stonecipher that we can find. She was out of town over the weekend, visiting her folks in eastern Kentucky. Her father has pancreatic cancer.”
“What about the postal worker’s uniform?” Will you never run out of questions, Mac? Let’s get out of here!
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