Hangman's root : a China Bayles mystery

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  I couldn't help feeling that Castle's question was an ungenerous response to a friend's last desperate act—if that's what it was. "You're afraid his suicide will reflect badly on the department?"

  "Naturally," he snapped, as if he were admonishing a freshman who had confused a tibia and a fibula. "Worse, it will nearly hamstring our research program. Dr. Harwick was the most promising member of the new animal research unit. His bone density project was just the beginning. He was developing an outstanding reputation and strong connections with the funding agencies. We had every expectation that over the next few years he would bring in grants on the order of a half-million dollars or more." Castle had slipped easily into an buzzword-studded style

  that sounded almost like a script. Perhaps it was the one he'd prepared for the regents' meeting. "In fact," he added, strengthening my suspicion, "it was the high probability of the department's success in creating a strong animal research unit that decided the regents to include the animal lab in the science complex that's about to be built."

  I blinked. An outstanding reputation? Most promising researcher? But Dottie claimed that Harwick's project was redundant, frivolous, and downright stupid. Who was right? Should I believe Dottie, who was clearly hungry to see Harwick discredited? Or should I buy the department chairman's version, even though he had both a personal and a professional stake in enhancing Harwick's success? I looked at Castle, carefully coiffed, nattily dressed, and thought once again about the mess downstairs. Why hadn't he taken the time to look in on the holding facility after Kevin told him about it? How could he tolerate—perhaps even cover up—the ill treatment of animals by one of his own faculty members?

  But I was distracted from these questions by another one. "The science complex is no longer on hold?"

  The lines around Castle's mouth relaxed. "Right. The chairman of the Board of Regents informed the dean last week that they'd decided to go ahead. It will be announced this afternoon." His voice failed him and he shook his head again. "So sad," he said thickly. "So very sad. I wish the decision hadn't been confidential. I wish the dean had let me tell Miles about it. Maybe it j| would have kept him from—" He didn't finish the sentence.

  I looked up at the figure. "Why do you think he did it?" It was ironic that a man would take his life just as his dream—presumably, the new animal lab was Harwick's dream—was about to be realized.

  Dumbly, Castle shook his head. "I suppose it was those ridiculous charges against his research. He refused to read the

  newspapers, but it was harder to avoid the calls and the hate mail—"

  "Hate mail?" I thought of the letter Dottie claimed to have received.

  "One of the activists' campaign tactics," Castle said distastefully. "Threatening letters, abusive phone calls at all hours of the day and night, even bomb threats."

  I stared at him. "I realized that the demonstrators were angry, but I didn't know they were violent."

  "We managed to keep it quiet," Castle said. "We had to evacuate the building twice, but told people that there was a problem with the ventilating system in one of the chemistry labs. We alerted Campus Security after every call, of course, and they searched the building. There isn't much more we can do." He looked back at Harwick's body. "I had to tell Miles about the threats, of course. He was terribly disturbed. He was also very upset about some sort of run-in he had this weekend with one of his colleagues."

  "Dr. Riddle?"

  "You know about that?" His mouth tightened imperceptibly. "There's been bad blood between them for quite a while. He thought she went out of her way to . . . antagonize him. Poor Miles. Lately he seems to have thought that everyone was against him." He fumbled for a handkerchief, turned away, and blew his nose.

  I felt a certain sympathy for Castle. He had lost both his friend and his star researcher, whose golden grants promised to pave the department's path to glory. But I could also feel sympathy for those who had won the battle and lost the war Harwick's experiment was ended and a hundred guinea pigs had been spared, but the state-of-the-art animal lab would be built after all. Scientists would use thousands of animals in their search for more knowledge, and demonstrators would continue to protest

  the sacrifices. Ruby, who studies Buddhism, has a term for it. Samsara. The endless cycle of birth and death, action and reaction. Karma.

  But there wasn't time to be think about Harwick's karma and his place in the endless circle that always comes round to dying. A uniformed campus cop appeared at the door and with courteous deference told Dr. Castle that the dean was waiting for him. I gave one last look at Harwick, hanging in silence, and followed Castle into the hall, closing the door behind me. Down at the end, in front of the departmental office, I saw a knot of people— faculty and staff, I guessed—talking to another cop. Then an administrator-type in a gray suit stepped forward and he and Castle disappeared into the biology office. I wondered if there was a special protocol for faculty suicides.

  I stood by Harwick's door for another three or four minutes until I saw McQuaid coming from the direction of the parking lot, matching his stride to that of a stunning young blonde in a tailored black suit and silky white blouse, a pager clipped to her black shoulder bag. They were talking as they walked, their shoulders close together.

  McQuaid did a double take when he saw me. "What 2iYtyou doing here?" he asked, surprised.

  "Waiting for Campus Security," I replied. The blonde's shoulder-length hair was sleek and shiny and her artfully natural makeup made me remember that I hadn't combed my hair since breakfast. "What are you doing here.^" I asked McQuaid. "It's spring break." What was she doing here? Who was she?

  McQuaid was wearing his cop look. "This is Sheila Dawson, CTSU's new chief of Campus Security. She just came on board this week. The dean asked me to give her a tour of the campus. We got as far as the library when Sheila's pager went off. Sheila, this is China Bayles."

  The blonde extended her hand—skin soft and smooth, nails

  nicely shaped, pink, and pearly. She was not as young as I had thought at first. But young enough. Mid-thirties, maybe. A year or two younger than McQuaid. We shook hands in a businesslike way.

  "Hello, China," she said. Her words were clipped, her tone authoritative. "Mike has told me about you." She glanced at the closed door. "In there?"

  I wanted to ask just what "Mike" had told her about me, but she didn't look as if she had time for chitchat just now. "Yes," I said. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my denim skirt. I dig every day in an alkaline soil that eats hands alive, and my nail polish looks like Black Pearl. "Harwick's office."

  "Did you find the body?" McQuaid asked.

  I shook my head. "Rose Tomkins, the departmental secretary, found him. I went in to secure the scene. Frank Castle came in, too. Neither of us touched anything." Except the hand. The dead, cold hand.

  "Please wait here." Sheila spoke with the quiet command that makes "no" utterly impossible. She nudged the door open with her elbow and turned to McQuaid. "Call the local authorities, Mike. We need to get them in on this right away." She went into the office.

  McQuaid went down the hall in the direction of the telephone. I was left standing beside the door, reflecting that the tone of Sheila's instruction to me had been entirely different than the one she used for McQuaid. Mike.

  I was still standing there when Bubba Harris arrived, accompanied by two PSPD officers. For the last decade Bubba has been in charge of law and order in Pecan Springs, and he's used to having things his way. He's a hard-fisted, heavy man, with graying hair, drooping jowls, and a belly that sags out over his belt as if his internal stuffing has shifted. He sucked in his breath when he saw me, almost sucking his unlit cigar with it. The cigar is a

  fixture. Fve rarely seen him without it, ahhough I've never seen it Ht. He narrowed his eyes under bristhng black brows.

  "What are^/ow doing here?" It was McQuaid's question, put with animosity rather than surprise, in the tone of a man who suspects the worst
and is disappointed if he doesn't get it. He likes his ladies sweet and southern style. He doesn't much like me.

  "I've been keeping out the hoi polloi."

  He scowled. "You find the body?"

  I was about to explain the sequence of events when Sheila Dawson opened the door. "You must be Chief Harris," she said, with precisely the right blend of sweetness and deference, southern style. "I'm so relieved to see you! I'm Sheila Dawson. I've just taken over Campus Security. We have an unfortunate situation here, and we need to keep it as quiet as possible."

  Bubba's scowl went away. "Yeah, sure," he said quickly. He turned to me. "Go down to the biology office and give your statement to Dominguez," he said, and stepped through the door, leaving me to reflect that Shiela Dawson was one smart cookie.

  Dominguez finished with me twenty minutes later. Dottie and I walked out onto the quad together, where clumps of people—demonstrators, faculty and staff, curiosity seekers—were still standing around, stunned.

  "I hated him," Dottie said wearily. "Probably everybody hated him, in one way or another. But what I hate more is the thought of him doing that to himself." Her face was gray and saggy. "I hate the thought of him hanging in that room since God knows when. Why did he do it? Was it because of all this?" She waved her arm in the direction of the A-frame. It was empty, but the sign was still there. "Hang Harwick Instead."

  "What do you think?" I asked. "Why did he do it?"

  "I don't know. I'm sure his reputation meant a lot to him, but I wouldn't have thought a little embarrassment would drive him to kill himself. Especially when he and Castle were so close to

  getting what they were after. The new science complex, I mean. The lab."

  So Dottie had heard the big news. "Maybe it was personal," I said. "Did Harwick live alone?"

  "Yeah. I don't think he had many friends. Occasionally Fd see a car parked in front of his house, but not often." She looked at me. "You were in the office. Was there a note?"

  "If there was, I didn't see it." I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "About that letter you showed me—"

  Her jaw tightened and she flushed red. "Let's forget about that, okay? The man's dead. He's no threat anymore. There's no point in bringing it up."

  "/ can forget it," I said. "I wonder about Cynthia Leeds."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You showed her the letter. If somebody comes up with the idea that this wasn't a suicide—"

  "But it was a suicide. Wasn't it?"

  I was saved from answering by Amy Roth, who appeared beside us still carrying her clipboard with the words STOP SENSELESS MURDERS! written on it in red. "Is it true?" she asked, breathless. "Did Harwick really hang himself?"

  "I have to go," Dottie said, already two steps away. "I'll call you, China."

  "Well, did he?" Amy demanded. She seemed almost exultant.

  "That's what it looks like," I said. What kind of woman was Ruby's daughter, to rejoice at someone's death?

  Her eyes widened. "Are you suggesting that maybe he didn't—"

  "Of course not. I just meant that ..." I sighed. "Look, I used to be a lawyer. Lawyers can't agree to anything without qualifying it all to hell. It looks like suicide."

  She shook her head. "What a cop-out. But that's like the guy. He could dish it out, but he couldn't take it."

  I looked at her. "Couldn't take what?"

  She seemed to recollect herself. "The criticism, I mean. Being in the newspaper, having people protest his research."

  "Well, you did say some pretty nasty things." I nodded in the direction of the A-frame. A boy was taking the sign down as several others stood silently and watched.

  Amy looked nettled. "That's what we're here for. To say nasty things. Things that make people think about the harm they're doing to defenseless animals." The nettled look became openly contemptuous. "But the guys we go after usually have more guts. This guy wasn't just a murderer, he was a coward."

  "Wait a minute," I said. "He hadn't started that research project yet, had he? How can you call him a murderer?"

  She made a vicious noise. "Have you seen those skeletons in his office? Those are animals he killed and stripped himself, for the fun of it. The man was a butcher, I tell you! A sadist!"

  I found myself thinking that even if this was my best friend's daughter, I didn't like her. As if she had read my thoughts, she said, in a much calmer voice, "You're going to be at that party at my . . . mother's house tomorrow night?"

  I frowned, surprised by her ability to turn her rage off and on so quickly. "Well..."

  "Going to hedge on that one, too?"

  "I'll be there."

  "I'm not sure I will." Her face took on a taut, wary look. "Why is she doing it? Asking all those relatives in to meet me, I mean."

  "Because she cares, I guess." I was uncomfortably aware that I wasn't too sure of Ruby's motives. "I've never been a mother. I don't know about these things."

  She wasn't going to let me off the hook that easily. "You're a daughter, aren't you? You've got a mother?"

  That made me even more uncomfortable. "She wants you to be part of the family," I said.

  "But what if I don't want to be a part of the family?" She

  turned her face away. "What if I'm happy with the family I've got?"

  "Then why did you look her up?"

  "Because I wanted—" She stopped. Her slender shoulders were hunched, heaving. "I had to know why."

  "She told you?"

  The word was flat, without inflection. "Yes."

  "And that's enough for you? Just knowing?"

  "Yes," just as flat. "It's enough."

  "It isn't for her," I said.

  She whirled, chin thrust forward. Ruby in the set of her mouth. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  I spoke more softly, trying to take the sting out of the words. "Sometimes when we start the ball rolling, it doesn't stop where we want it to. Did you expect to sashay in and say 'Hi, Mom. Why, Mom? 'Bye, Mom' and dance out again?"

  The anger was back, overlaid with sullenness. "I didn't expect to be overrun by a hoard of sisters and grandmas and aunts and family friends."

  I shrugged. "A couple of hours, big deal. Who knows? You might like us." Us} But I was, after all, the family friend.

  She snorted. "Give me a break," she said, and walked off.

  I

  I was ready when McQuaid showed up at the kitchen door that evening for our house-hunting expedition. I hadn't given any conscious thought to a certain stunning blond person, but I had spent a few extra minutes on myself, even going so far as to put on some makeup and dig out a pair of beige pants and an oversize blue sweater I hadn't worn in a while.

  "Hey, nice," McQuaid said. "I like the way youVe got your hair fixed, too."

  "Thanks." That's a man for you. Put on a little lipstick, and he likes your hair. Mine is straight and kind of dingy brownish-blond, and there's a wide gray swath down the left side. Short of coloring the gray and getting a perm, there isn't a lot I can do with it. Of course, I could always go blond. "How many houses are we going to see?"

  McQuaid's glance at me was uneasy. "I've been thinking about this, China. I really don't want to force you to do something you don't feel is right."

  I paused, my hand on the doorknob, wary "Are you getting cold feet?"

  He chuckled, an uncomfortable chuckle. "What makes you think that?"

  "Well, first you're all hot to get a place together and then you sound lukewarm. Feels like cold feet to me."

  ''You re the one who's been lukewarm."

  I opened the door and stood aside. "Look, McQuaid," I said. "Are we going to fight, or are we going to look for the circus?"

  He stepped through the door and I locked it behind us. "The circus?"

  "It's the only place I can think of big enough to hold us." We were silent out to the end of the walk. "By the way," I asked, as we got in the truck, "what happened this afternoon after the PSPD showed up?"

  "The usua
l," McQuaid said. "You know the routine." He frowned. "I have to say, though, that Bubba was pretty thorough. Something about the crime scene seemed to bother him."

  "Oh, yeah? What was it?"

  "It had to do with the pipe Harwick slung the rope over," McQuaid said. He turned the ignition key. "They took the body down and Bubba himself got up on the desk for a look." I was about to ask him what was so interesting about the pipe when he grinned. "Now that was something to see. Bubba Harris's belly at eye level. Up front and personal." It's okay for McQuaid to joke about Bubba, of course. McQuaid may be an ex-cop, but he's still a member of the fraternity, an old boy. I wondered what happened when girls joined the fraternity and how that changed the chemistry of the situation.

  "So Sheila Dawson is the new Security chief," I said casually, as if the thought had just occurred to me. "Where did she come from?"

  "University of Texas, Arlington campus. Academy training, strong street experience. Excellent overall background in law enforcement. Highly recommended."

  Yeah. Rave reviews, I'd bet. "What does she think about Harwick?"

  "I didn't get a chance to talk to her, actually," McQuaid said. He slid me a glance. "I hung around for a few minutes after you

  left, but I had to do a couple of errands." He raised both eyebrows. "Hey, you're not jealous, are you?"

  I hooted loudly. Too loudly. "Jealous of a stunning blonde who also happens to be one smart cookie?" I told him about Sheila s maneuver with Bubba and we both laughed. He laughed harder.

  "Seriously," he said, sobering. "Are you?"

  "We-e-11," I said.

  "Don't be." He put his arm around me and pulled me over against him so that we were sitting like a couple of teenagers on a date. "She's engaged."