Dark Mural

by Rick Homan

  “Yes, I recognized what a rare and excellent thing she had done, but by itself such an article might have created a lot of misunderstanding. I wanted to mention it first in the biography of Fuchs that I am close to completing.”

  “In other words, you wanted to treat it like your own discovery.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I would have acknowledged her discovery, and then I would have helped her to publish her work, but first there were questions to be answered. Who was the muralist? Was it his idea to put this image in the mural? Did Fuchs know about it? I wanted to present this discovery in the context of its times. It’s easy now to look back and brand someone an anti-Semite, but a hundred years before the Nazis what did this image mean?”

  I did my best to keep myself from yelling at him. “I imagine it meant the same thing as it means now.”

  “Nicole, try to see this from my point of view. Tree of Knowledge, my history of the Eden Independent School, was my first book. I followed it with Tree of Life, telling the history of the Eden Commune, which is ultimately the source of everything we have here. My biography of Fuchs, my third book, will tell not only how he and others founded the commune but also how he became the man he was. I’ve researched his family in Germany and his early years there. An understanding of who he was is critical to understanding the commune, the independent school, and this college.

  “This influence your student discovered is a tiny particle of that story. If it were published first, out of context, it would create prejudice about Fuchs. That would endanger the work I’ve dedicated my life to, just as I am about to complete it, and might jeopardize the future of the college.”

  “Jacob, you could have talked to me,” I said. “She was doing the work for my class after all. We would have respected your point of view and the work you were doing.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” He seemed to be tired of talking about it. “I’ll go upstairs and get that notebook for you.”

  He stood up from his chair and said, “In fact, there was nothing respectful in her attitude. When I told her she needed guidance regarding the meaning of the image, she insisted she was right and refused to listen to reason. She said she was going to write her paper for you just as she wanted, no matter what I said. That’s why I had to stop her.”

  He picked up the poker from among the fireplace tools, weighed it in both hands, and took a step toward me.

  Chapter 34

  My mind froze.

  Fortunately, my body was more in the moment. As soon as Jacob stepped forward, my hand went for that leather-bound book on the coffee table, and I gave it a side-arm toss in the direction of the glass case full of porcelain in the corner. He yelled, and there were thumps and bumps, but no sound of breaking glass, so I guess I didn’t hit it. I didn’t see what was happening because as soon as that book left my hand I was over the back of the love seat and sprinting toward the door.

  I lost a step on him because I had to pull the door open, but I made it onto the porch without being hit. It must have been close though because I heard a loud whack on the doorframe behind me.

  I leaped off the porch, and ran toward College Avenue, looking both ways for cars. There was one coming from the left and one from the right. Both were moving slowly, so I kept running until I crossed the street and started up the lawn in front of the Science Building.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder, saw no one, and stopped to look back. Jacob stood framed in the doorway of his Victorian house. As I watched, he backed into the house and closed the door.

  Neither of the cars stopped to see why a woman had just come running out of Dr. Schumacher’s house. There was no one walking along College Avenue. The campus seemed deserted, which was not unusual late on a Friday afternoon.

  I needed help. I had to report what Jacob had said and done and ask for protection.

  That’s when I noticed I didn’t have my purse. Of course: I left it on the loveseat when I made my escape.

  Freaking out would not help. I had to focus on finding solutions. I could roam the halls of one of the classroom buildings hoping to find a colleague still in his or her office, but at almost four o’clock on a Friday afternoon that was unlikely. The closest place I was sure to find someone who would let me use a phone was the circulation desk of the library. With a last glance at Jacob’s house, I turned and ran.

  The librarian at the circulation desk, a woman in her fifties with her hair permed, wearing expensive glasses and a hiking vest, put down her pen and looked up from the list of things she was checking. “May I help you?”

  I was glad to see her smile. “Yes,” I said, “I’ve just had a disturbing experience, and I need to call the campus police, but I seem to have run off without my purse, which has my cell phone and keys in it.”

  “Oh dear.” Her brow furrowed as she picked up the phone on the counter in front of her and punched a button. “Are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”

  “I’ll be fine, but I think I’ll just wait here to speak to them.”

  She nodded, listened for a moment, and spoke into the phone. “Could you send a security officer to the circulation desk at the library? A faculty member needs assistance.” She hung up and said, “They’ll be right over.”

  I thanked her and walked to the front doors to watch for the cruiser.

  What happened at Jacob’s house made no sense. It sounded as if he had confessed to killing Kate, but professors don’t murder students over intellectual differences. Coming at me with a poker sure looked like he wanted to kill me too, but he had no reason to do that . . . unless he didn’t want anyone ever to know about the stabbed child.

  The cruiser parked in the red zone at the end of the sidewalk leading to the library. No siren, but the lights were flashing. I was glad to see security taking this seriously. When the officer got out and walked toward the library, I recognized him by his premature baldness. He had come to my Rabbit Hutch the night Huey Littleton was on the loose and had shown me a lot of kindness and consideration.

  As he walked through the door, he looked to the circulation desk, and the librarian nodded toward me. He changed course, approached me, and asked, “Did you call for security?”

  “Yes, officer. Thank you for getting here so quickly. I’ve just come from Dr. Schumacher’s house on College Avenue.”

  He nodded.

  “We were discussing . . . well, it doesn’t matter. Things got a little heated, and . . . uh . . . I had to run out of house. He was very angry. He threatened me, and I was scared.”

  The officer’s eyes bored into me. “He threatened you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Jacob Schumacher?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you say he threatened you . . .”

  “He picked up the poker from the fireplace.”

  “And?”

  “He came toward me.”

  “Do you have any reason to think he was going to hurt you?”

  “Yes. He said he stopped my student from researching what she discovered in the mural in the chapel. He doesn’t want . . .”

  “Is it possible you’re overreacting just a bit?”

  “I saw the look in his eye. He was going to hit me.”

  The officer pulled out his cell phone. “Would you like me to call Dr. Schumacher and ask him what the problem is?”

  “Of course not. He’s not going to admit he was about to commit a crime.”

  “Well then I’m not sure what you expect me to do.”

  “I’m telling you he threatened me, and he practically admitted killing Kate Conrad.”

  “I see. I’m sure you understand campus security does not investigate major crimes. So, I’ll pass this along to the appropriate authorities. You have a nice evening.” He turned and walked back out to his cruiser.

  I turned back to the circulation desk, and saw the woman with the glasses and the vest was looking at the student newspaper, and another woman, this one tall and thin with light brown
hair and a long, straight nose, was pointing to something on the front page and whispering in her ear. As I approached, the first librarian glared at me.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “I need to reach Sheriff Mason Adams at the Edwards County Sheriff’s Department. I’m sorry I don’t have his phone number handy . . .”

  “We’re closing in about fifteen minutes, and we’re a little busy right now,” said the librarian with the glasses. Both of them turned and walked away.

  I felt like I’d been punched. Apparently, the article about Kate’s “lesbian affair” in the student newspaper was being fed into the campus gossip mill. It seemed people were turning against me, perhaps because the article called her my “favorite.”

  I walked out the front doors of the library. The late-afternoon light put a hard glare on everything. I felt more afraid than I ever had in my life. Where could I go? Jacob could be anywhere by now, waiting for me to show up.

  I needed help, and, since my first day on this campus, Abbie had been the person to help me. To get to her place, I would have to walk by Jacob’s house and turn on Ohio Avenue, which led back to Montgomery where the Rabbit Hutches were. That would be like inviting him to follow me to a semi-secluded location.

  But I could also get to her place by running out to the athletic fields and circling back through the grove of birches to the far end of Montgomery Avenue. Jacob would have no reason to expect me to do that, and, though he could follow me in his car to the gymnasium, he would have no way to follow me once I got to the footpath through the birches.

  I took off in that direction and found that the pumps I was wearing were lousy for running an extended distance. The one-inch heels, so comfortable for walking around campus, hammered my feet in a way I felt all the way up to my knees. As soon as I could, I got onto a lawn, took off my shoes, and carried one in each hand. I had to keep my eyes on the ground in front of me so I wouldn’t trip on a tree root or a low spot in the turf, but I made good progress.

  By the time I came within sight of the gymnasium, I felt good. My situation at the college may have morphed into a scene from a horror movie, but I felt at home when I was running. As long as I kept running, nothing could hurt me. Of course, that was not true, but it felt true, and that’s what I needed at that moment.

  When I got to the footpath that led through the birches to Montgomery Avenue, it occurred to me that Abbie might not be home. That didn’t matter. I had nowhere else to go. If I got there and found her gone, I would lurk behind her Hutch, climb up on the roof, break in, or whatever. At least I would be someplace where Jacob would not come looking for me—probably.

  When I came to the end of Montgomery Avenue, I saw her walk by the front window of her place. She was there. With a fresh burst of energy, I powered on until I stopped at her front door, out of breath.

  She opened her door, and I pushed past her without saying anything. She closed the door and stood with her arms crossed. “And hello to you too.”

  “I need to call Sheriff Adams,” I said, standing in the middle of her living-dining-kitchen room.

  She drew breath as if to ask me something but shook it off and went into her bedroom for a moment. When she returned, she handed me her cell phone, sat at her pedestal table and opened her laptop. After a momentary search, she said, “Sheriff Mason Adams,” and read out his phone number.

  I punched in the numbers and got his voicemail. “Sheriff Adams? This is Nicole Noonan. I need to speak to you right away. It’s urgent. Please call me at this number.” Prompted by Abbie, I recited her phone number and hung up.

  Chapter 35

  Abbie gave me a skeptical look. “I believe the expression is, ‘WTF?’”

  “Jacob killed Kate, and he tried to kill me,” I said, still out of breath.

  Abbie stared at me for a moment before asking, “Why do you think Jacob killed Kate?”

  I sat opposite her and put her phone on the table. “He said so.”

  “You were speaking with him? When? Where?”

  “I’ve just come from his house. Well, not directly. I went to the library first . . . but that doesn’t matter. I went to his house around three o’clock to talk about Kate’s research on the mural. She had found this image. It’s very small, way up in the corner, of a child with stab wounds. Historically, this image has been used to spread a lie about Jews murdering Christian children in a blood ritual. I told Jacob I knew he had tried to suppress her research, and he said, ‘That’s why I had to stop her.’”

  Abbie thought about that for a moment. “He had to stop her. Did he say how?”

  “He meant, ‘That’s why I killed her.’”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He picked up a poker from the fireplace and came at me with it.”

  “He tried to hit you with a poker?”

  “I didn’t give him a chance . . .”

  Abbie’s phone rang. She looked at it and handed it to me. I answered and heard a familiar baritone voice.

  “Dr. Noonan? This is Sheriff Adams. What is it that’s so urgent?”

  “I know who . . . I mean, I have information about who killed Kate Conrad.”

  “Is this new information?”

  “Yes. It just happened. I mean I just heard it.”

  “All right. If that’s true, I would like to talk to you about that, but I have to ask, have you been questioning people about this case? Because I’ve warned you before . . .”

  “No, Sheriff. This is nothing like that. I was pursuing my research, and something came up, and I had to run. I think I am in some danger. I have alerted the campus police, but I need to talk to you about this new evidence.”

  The sheriff was silent for a few seconds. “Would you like me to come to your office?”

  “I can’t . . . uh, no. I am at the home of another member of the faculty. We should speak here.” I gave him Abbie’s name and address.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. About twenty minutes.”

  We hung up, and I handed Abbie’s phone back to her. She stood up and said, “I’m going to make us some tea. You just sit right there.”

  While she was busy at the stove and sink, I leaned back, closed my eyes and tried to calm down though it was hard to sit still. Images of Jacob, the librarians, and the campus police officer flashed through my mind. I had to open my eyes and look out the front windows just to make sure Jacob wasn’t out there.

  “Milk? Sweetener?” Abbie asked.

  “Milk and sugar, if you have it.”

  She put two mugs of tea on the table and sat with me again. “You were saying he had a poker.”

  “Yes. Actually, first he said he told Kate to look into other possible meanings of this image, and she wouldn’t listen to reason, which doesn’t sound like Kate. Then he said, ‘That’s why I had to stop her.’ As he said that, he picked up the poker from the fireplace and took a step toward me. From the look in his eyes, there was no doubt what he intended to do.”

  “But he did not take another step toward you or try to hit you with the poker?”

  “When I saw him coming I picked up a book from the coffee table in front of me and threw it at that cabinet in the corner, the one with the glass front where he has the porcelain. While he was distracted, I ran out the front door.”

  “So it’s not clear what he would have done if you hadn’t distracted him?”

  “If I had waited for it to get any clearer, I’d be dead. My brains would be all over the floor of Jacob’s living room.” That came out louder than I wanted it to.

  “Nicole, I’m on your side. I’m just trying to anticipate what the sheriff might say. I suggest you think about how you want to put this to him.”

  “You’re right.” I sipped some tea and took deep breaths.

  “You don’t want this to sound like you had a disagreement with Jacob and got so upset you started throwing things. Let’s keep it simple. On the phone, you told the sheriff you have information about the murder.”

&
nbsp; “Yes. Jacob confessed to killing Kate.”

  “That might sound like you’re jumping to a conclusion. You were talking with him about Kate’s research, and he said . . . what?”

  “He said, ‘That’s why I had to stop her.’”

  Abbie frowned and stared out the window for a moment. “That’s a little vague. What if he said, ‘That’s why I got rid of her?’”

  “But he didn’t say that.”

  “But, maybe that’s what you heard.”

  “You’re suggesting I lie to the sheriff?”

  “Do you want him to question Jacob? If so, then give him a reason to do it. You’ve had a terrifying experience. You can’t be sure what you heard. That’s how you remember it.”

  “Okay. He said, ‘That’s why I got rid of her.’”

  “Hold on.” Abbie got up and went to the front window to look out at Montgomery Avenue. “The campus cop has arrived. He’s just sitting there in his cruiser.”

  “The sheriff probably called him.”

  Abbie sat again and looked me in the eye. “Are you okay? Just focus. Of course, you’re upset. It was a scary experience. Let him see that. Tell him why he should go and question Jacob.”

  I nodded. “I get it. Unfortunately, I also left my purse there. I was so terrified I ran out without thinking about it. That’s why I turned up here without calling first.”

  “Don’t worry about that now. Just focus on getting the sheriff to question Jacob about how he threatened you.”

  “Okay. Right.”

  Abbie went to the window again. “Okay. The sheriff’s here. He’s coming to the door. His deputy is out there chatting with the campus cop.”

  We heard a knock, and Abbie opened the door. “Good afternoon, Sheriff. Please come in.”

  Adams stepped over the threshold and glanced around. In the crowded room, he looked even bigger than usual.

  Abbie waved him toward a chair by the front window and said, “Nicole wants to talk to you. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the other room.” She went into the bedroom and closed the door.