Dark Mural

by Rick Homan

  I got off the stepladder and shone the flashlight on the underside of the top shelves, giving special attention to the two-by-four cross braces, which were about as long as my arm. Here too, all the lumber looked fresh and new.

  The result was the same when I inspected the top and underside of the middle shelf, which was a little above my waist. That left the bottom shelf, which was about six inches off the floor. I looked around for a drop cloth or some old towels or bedding to protect the blazer and slacks I wore for the classroom, but saw nothing.

  Footsteps sounded on the kitchen floor above. Jacob’s voice came from the top of the stairs. “Sheriff, please! I must insist.”

  I got down on my belly and turned my head on the side to look under the bottom shelf. There, on the cross brace in the center, was a brownish stain smaller than a dime. In the glare from the flashlight, I could see three or four hairs attached to it.

  I pushed up, got my knees under me, and held out the flashlight. “I think you’d better see this, Sheriff. It’s on the cross brace toward the back. It’s faint, but you can see it with the flashlight.”

  He took the flashlight from me and said, “Stand over there please.” He pointed to the workbench across the room.

  I backed away and watched as he grabbed the middle shelf with both hands, slid the entire set of shelving away from the wall, and tipped it back so he could look under it more easily. Crouching on one knee, he bent forward and shone his light on the underside of the bottom shelf.

  Jacob came halfway down the stairs and yelled, “What are you doing?”

  Adams ignored him.

  “Sheriff!” Jacob roared.

  Harding appeared above him on the stairs and said, “Let’s wait right here, Professor.”

  No one moved as Adams studied the shelving for several seconds before rising and announcing, “This is now an active crime scene. Professor, please wait upstairs with Deputy Harding. Dr. Noonan, please wait in the kitchen.”

  Chapter 38

  “What are you talking about? I demand an explanation,” yelled Jacob.

  Harding put a hand on his arm and urged him upstairs to the kitchen. I waited until they were out of sight before following them up. Adams remained on one knee in the basement, studying the cross brace and talking into his cell phone.

  I felt awkward standing around by myself in Jacob’s kitchen, wondering what would happen next. Jacob and Harding must have gone into the living room because they weren’t in the foyer. I couldn’t hear them speaking, but I could hear the sheriff’s voice from downstairs. The house was so quiet I became aware of my own footsteps and stopped pacing the kitchen floor.

  After about five minutes the sheriff came upstairs and nodded to me as he walked through into the foyer. I wasn’t sure what he was confirming, but I was glad to receive a yes rather than a no. I followed him into the foyer and stood by the archway as he went into the living room and sat on the sofa, facing the fireplace as he had before. Jacob sat as usual in the armchair with his back to the foyer, and Harding occupied the facing armchair where I had sat before. I made myself as inconspicuous as possible.

  Adams spoke in a business-like manner. “Professor, I have found what I believe to be traces of blood and hair on the underside of the wooden shelving in your basement. This is why I have declared your basement an active crime scene. I have ordered a team of forensic technicians to come here and process the scene. It will probably take more than an hour for them to arrive. I will remain here to meet them. In the meantime, what can you tell me about how blood and hair, if that’s what they are, came to be on your shelving?”

  I could see only the back of Jacob’s head. He seemed to sit absolutely still as he spoke. “I hired Huey Littleton to build that shelving. He delivered all the lumber over a month ago. For a while it just sat in the basement because he was busy with work elsewhere. He would come by for a few hours each weekend to work on the project. One evening this week he picked up the remaining lumber because he had finished building the shelves. He is supposed to come back next weekend and paint them. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

  Adams made a few notes before saying, “So you did not at any time inspect the lumber or handle it in any way?”

  Jacob shook his head. “I had no reason to. It was just lumber. I rarely go down to the basement. I recently decided to put some shelves down there because my study had become overcrowded. I boxed up some old papers and needed to put the boxes somewhere. I didn’t want to set them on the floor because of the dampness.”

  Again, Adams made some notes. “Professor, if I’m correct, and the technicians confirm that there are traces of blood and hair on one of the two-by-fours, we will compare the DNA evidence with test results from the remains of Kate Conrad to see if they match. If they do, there will be a strong presumption that a piece of lumber used to build shelves in your basement was used as the murder weapon.”

  Jacob’s head bent forward. “That’s a horrible thought. It makes me sick to think Huey could have done something like that. The idea that he would leave the actual piece of wood he used in my basement . . . I can’t even think about this.”

  “Professor, let me suggest the following. What you’ve just told me is information critical to our investigation. We need to get this in a signed statement while it is still fresh in your mind.

  “When the forensic team arrives, it’s going to get very noisy and very busy here for a while: floodlights set up, people going in and out. I think it would be best if you went with Deputy Harding to the Sheriff’s Department’s office so he can take down your statement. Of course, he will bring you back when that’s done.

  “ By then, the team should be finished here. I will be on hand to keep the place secure while they are here and until you return. Would you be willing to do that to help us in our investigation?”

  Jacob hesitated before saying, “If you think it will help.”

  Harding rose and came out to the foyer to wait by the front door. Jacob followed him and got his jacket from the closet. Harding walked out the door to the cruiser.

  As Jacob approached the door, he stepped close enough to me so that he could speak softly. His eyes were heavy lidded. “This is too bad. I had hope for you as a colleague.”

  I stared him down. “You are a failure as a teacher, as a scholar, and as a human being.”

  Without reacting, he turned and walked out into the night.

  I went into the living room and sat in the far chair to talk to the sheriff. “You can’t let him blame this on Huey Littleton. I heard Schumacher say, ‘That’s why I had to get rid of her.’”

  Without taking his eyes from his notebook, he said, “I’m aware of what you told me and of what Professor Schumacher said. I am continuing to investigate.”

  I leaned forward, and spoke louder. “Even if it turns out that Huey brought that piece of lumber into the house with the blood and hair on it, it’s still possible Jacob hired him to kill her, and he’d still be guilty as an accomplice or something, wouldn’t he?”

  Adams sat back and looked at me with patience and perhaps a note of amusement. “Dr. Noonan, this is not my first investigation.”

  I must have been blushing because my face felt hot. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t try to tell you how to do your job.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Adams, and he smiled.

  “Is it really going to get noisy and chaotic when the technicians arrive?”

  “I might have exaggerated a bit to get the professor to go to the office without having to arrest him.”

  So, Adams had something in the works. “May I stay and watch what the technicians do? I’ve never seen what happens at a crime scene.”

  “It’s time for you to go home, Dr. Noonan.”

  I felt a chill at the thought of returning to my Rabbit Hutch—walking back in the dark, the sparse furnishings, the loneliness.

  As if reading my thoughts, Adams said, “We have Huey Littleton locked up, and, just
between you and me, I don’t think Professor Schumacher will be returning to campus this evening.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff. That’s good to know.”

  Adams nodded. “I’ll call you this weekend to let you know what’s happening.”

  I thanked him, picked up my purse and Kate’s notebook, and left.

  The walk from Jacob’s house to my Hutch took less than ten minutes, but it felt like a four-hour hike. I hadn’t been home since going to Jacob’s house at three, and that seemed like a week ago.

  I dropped my purse and Kate’s notebook on the cafe table and went into the bedroom. When I saw myself in the long mirror, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. My blazer and slacks looked like they’d been used to sweep a floor, which is essentially what happened in Jacob’s basement. I took them off and put them into a plastic shopping bag to go to the dry cleaner in Blanton.

  I took a hot shower. I needed a bath to provide heat deep in my joints, but the Rabbit Hutches are equipped with a shower stall only. I put on boxers, a t-shirt, sweats, and slippers.

  I wandered from my bedroom to the living-dining-kitchen room, not knowing what I would do next. Kate’s notebook caught my eye. I picked it up from my cafe table, sat in one of my beach chairs, and opened it.

  Her handwriting was precise. She had skipped a line on the page whenever she wanted to separate one thought from another. She had indented a paragraph when she wanted to indicate she was paraphrasing rather than recording her own thoughts.

  I got a bit teary as I scanned her notes from the two weeks of art history class she had attended. I remembered saying the things she had summarized on the pages in front of me. These notes were a record of the precious few hours when we had been thinking the same thing at the same time.

  After a dozen pages, the notebook was blank. I flipped forward and found another series of pages on which she had taken notes directly from the textbook. I scanned them and saw she had been several chapters ahead of the syllabus. She was that rare and wonderful student who was driven by her own curiosity rather than a teacher’s instructions.

  Following another blank section, I found her notes on the mural. After a series of descriptive paragraphs, I saw notes on her discovery of the coffins in the treetop and the stabbed child. Her study ended with two pages of bibliographic citations. She had relentlessly stalked the meaning of that image, and had found it, not as I had by stumbling upon Dark Mirror, but through a series of articles in scholarly journals. She was a true scholar. She had a nose for finding the truth.

  I set her notebook aside and juggled competing feelings of gratitude and loss. I was grateful to have had such an intellectual soulmate even for a short time. I doubted I would have another one anytime soon.

  My meditation was interrupted by a more basic sensation. I’d barely eaten all day. I looked in the miniature fridge and found I didn’t even have enough for a good stir-fry.

  My phone rang. It was Abbie. I dropped into one of my beach chairs.

  “Looks like you’re home. How did it go?” she asked.

  “Do you have food?”

  “That’s what I like about you, Noonan. I never have to guess what’s on your mind. Let me see . . . hmm . . . I have eggs, cheese, yogurt . . .”

  “Oh my god! Breakfast! You’re lucky I’m too weak to lift myself out of this beach chair. Otherwise I would come over there and steal the contents of your refrigerator.”

  “All right: breakfast for dinner. I’ll be over in five minutes.”

  Chapter 39

  While waiting for Abbie to arrive with ingredients for a meal, I lapsed into a semi-conscious state in which I reviewed the events of the last several hours. Jacob and I had sat talking about the mural, Kate’s research, the Enlightenment, anti-Semitism, and how he wanted to explain that image of a murdered child in the context of the life and times of Felix Fuchs. He had said Kate wouldn’t listen to reason, and he’d had to stop her. Then he’d picked up that poker, and for a second it looked like getting tenure was the least of my worries.

  I heard a knock at my door, answered it, and there was Abbie with a grocery bag. “You look like something the cat dragged in,” she said.

  “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  She unloaded her bag on what passed for a kitchen counter, and I flopped back in my beach chair.

  “So, what happened after you left my place with the sheriff?” she asked.

  “We rode over to Jacob’s house, and I talked Adams into letting me come in with him.”

  “That was smart.”

  “Thanks. He asked Jacob how he knew Kate, and—I can hardly believe it even now—Jacob made up this alternate reality, starting with, ‘Oh, Nicole, you left your purse when you were here earlier.’ Also, according to him, I was supposed to pick up Kate’s notebook from him last week.”

  “Couldn’t you blow the whistle on any of this?”

  “Adams had me under a gag order.”

  Abbie brought a glass of beer over and set it on the table next to my beach chair. “Go easy with that. I don’t want you to pass out before the eggs are ready.”

  I took a sip. Beer never tasted better.

  I continued with my story. “What happened next really surprised me. He sent Jacob upstairs to get the notebook and asked me what I thought we should do. I said we should search the house for the murder weapon, we did, and we found it.”

  Abbie stopped mixing the eggs. “You found the murder weapon? What was it?”

  “A two-by-four.”

  “How do you know it was the murder weapon?”

  “It had blood and hair on it.”

  “And Jacob just left it lying around his house?”

  “Not exactly. Huey Littleton had used it to build some shelves in Jacob’s basement.”

  Abbie stared at me for a moment, shook her head, and said, “This is getting too weird.” She finished beating the eggs and poured them into the skillet.

  “I still don’t understand exactly what happened. I know Jacob killed her because I heard him say he had to stop her, but otherwise it would seem possible that Huey killed her and then hid the two-by-four by using it in Jacob’s shelving.”

  Abbie dished up two plates and put them on the cafe table along with a jar of marmalade for the toast. I brought my glass of beer to the table, sat down, and took a bite of the eggs, put some marmalade on the toast, took a bite of it, and took a swallow of beer.

  “So I guess it tastes okay?” Abbie gave me her best ironic smile.

  “I cannot begin to describe how good this tastes. You are saving my life.”

  Feeling no shame, I kept eating until I had finished the eggs.

  Sitting back with a piece of toast and half a glass of beer I said, “I think it’s just hitting me that he actually killed someone in order to stop her from writing about something he wanted to keep secret. I know that’s what happened, but I still can’t believe it. How could it be so important to him to control that information?”

  Abbie paused with a forkful of eggs. “It’s the reputation of his ancestors. It’s the history of the place where he lives and works. He has made it the subject of his research. It’s everything to him.”

  “True, and, judging by the way he coughs up blood every now and then, he doesn’t have long to finish his biography of Fuchs.”

  Abbie nodded. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. I heard he’s been going up to Ohio State for treatments. I don’t know what his outlook is.” She finished her beer. “Do you think he still might get away with it?”

  I was starting to feel a bit drowsy. “Adams told me he didn’t think Jacob would be returning to campus this weekend, so he must have something in the works, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t see how he can prove Jacob used that two-by-four. Also, I don’t see how Jacob could have met Kate at that spot where the path across the field meets the road.”

  She took the dishes to the sink and started washing. When I got up to help her, she said, “Sit down. Let m
e do this for you.” I was happy to oblige.

  Over the clatter of the dishes and the hiss of running water, she said, “Assuming Adams arrests him, Jacob will have to appear in court. The prosecution will try to persuade the court to deny bail. I’m not sure how all that works.”

  “I think I’d better stay in touch with Adams this weekend,” I replied. “Come to think of it, he said I would have to come to his office and sign a statement. Maybe I can go there tomorrow.”

  I tried to think how that might work if Lionel and I were going to have our dinner date tomorrow evening. I didn’t even know where the sheriff’s office was. If it was in the direction of Columbus, maybe we could stop on our way. Nothing says romance like cooperating with law enforcement.

  Abbie dried her hands and sat down opposite me. “I want to make sure you’ll be okay this weekend because I’m heading to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning.”

  Despite my grief and fatigue I had to smile at that. “Are you really? And will you be seeing a certain someone?”

  She nodded. “That’s the plan. In fact, I hope I’ll be doing a lot more than just seeing her. Anyway, I’m staying over tomorrow night and coming back Sunday evening.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “Lionel and I are having dinner. We’ll probably drive up to Columbus.”

  “Still taking it slow with him?”

  “I’m not sure where we’re headed.”

  “I hope that works out for you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Lionel was very accommodating about stopping at the sheriff’s office on our way to Columbus so I could sign a statement. He even joked about it, saying it would give him a chance to see if all the deputies would pull their weapons when a black man walked in the door. I failed to see the humor in that.

  Over dinner at a favorite place of Lionel’s in the Short North, I asked, “Have you heard anything from Northwestern?”