Murder is Academic

by Lesley A. Diehl

  I put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb as a limb blew off a tree and hit the pavement behind me.

  “Wow! That was close,” I said. My windshield wipers were barely handling the deluge of water. Pieces of debris from trees and yards were blowing around us. Lightning struck one block over, and we could smell the ozone in the air. The wind increased and rocked my car from side to side as I picked my way down the street toward Annie’s apartment.

  “Maybe you should stay the night instead of trying to make it home,” Annie said.

  “I’ll be all right. I’ll take it nice and slow.”

  “You never drive nice, and I don’t think ‘slow’ is in your vocabulary. Come on in, at least until this blows over.”

  She was right. The storm was gaining in intensity, and I worried a power line might go down or a tree would hit my precious car. That would mean car payments, a bill I didn’t want to cope with yet. I figured the old jitney still had a few miles in her, so I decided not to chance endangering her life and mine.

  We were settling down to a nice cup of tea when the lights went out. Annie found a candle, and we settled in for a cozy chat, as cozy as one can feel with the wind ripping shingles off the roof and rattling window panes, and lightning flashing all around.

  I told Annie of my discussion with Bunny.

  “I think she’s telling some of the truth, but I also got the feeling that there was something more she was holding back. Maybe I need to have a little chat with Rudolf. Soon.” I stared into the depths of my teacup as if the answer to questions about Talbot and Stanford’s deaths resided in the tea leaves. Stymied once more. We were using teabags.

  “Oh, goodie. Can I come too?” Annie squirmed around in her chair like a kid waiting for permission to go out and play.

  “You know, Annie, you’re getting as bad as I am.”

  “No, I’m not. I just like to watch you bait him. You’re so good at it. But seriously, where is all of this leading? I can’t see we’re any nearer to putting the finger on him as Talbot’s murderer than we were before you spoke with Bunny.”

  “You’re right. I’m as puzzled as you are. Yet Rudolf’s our prime suspect. He certainly had access to the shovel whether he got the key to the shed out of Nancy’s office or used his own key, and I have no doubt he has his own key to the shed. He had a motive to kill Talbot if Talbot refused yet again to give the Biological Field Station to Rudolf. It’s certainly not beyond imagining that he could have been harassing Talbot about the station and lost his temper, killed Talbot, dumped the body and then announced what he wanted to hear, that Talbot had changed the leadership of the station to Rudolf. It fits so nicely.”

  Lightning struck a tree in the yard, showering the lawn with leaves and pieces of wood. A sign from a higher authority that I was right about Rudolf? Or perhaps a warning for me to butt out.

  “Rudolf admits to seeing Talbot earlier the day of Talbot’s murder, but the timing’s not right. He couldn’t have murdered Talbot then,” Annie said.

  “Rudolf could have gone to see Talbot later. Instead of losing his temper, Rudolf could have carefully planned out the murder. Premeditation. Not beyond the man.” Now I was really excited. All this made a lot of sense, and it satisfied an inner longing for Rudolf to get his. This time no lightning strike followed as a sign of either my brilliance or my stupidity in these matters.

  “So, time to see Der and let him in on our theory?” asked Annie.

  “Absolutely not. Time to see Pruitt for some baiting, but we need to plan what we’re going to ask him or tell him first.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like maybe a little lie or two about my conversation with Bunny. But for now, it’s time I got home for some sleep.” I picked up my purse and headed for the car.

  The rain and wind had stopped and the night air smelled clean, as it often did after a summer thunderstorm. I expected some branches to be down in the road, but I figured I’d drive home very carefully. I waved good-bye to Annie who stood on her porch, door open, her tiny figure backlit by the light coming from her living room.

  I encountered more branches in the road than I anticipated. The amount of debris from the storm forced me to make various detours down country roads to find my way back to the lake. It gave me some time to think. The scenario with Rudolf as the villain/murderer appealed to my sense of logic as well as to my knowledge that he was not a kind nor decent human being. There was a certain justice in this bad guy being a really bad guy. But Stanford’s suicide made some sense too. I certainly wouldn’t want to work as Pruitt’s lackey especially after having run the station for all the years Stanford had.

  I preferred the package with Pruitt as murderer of both men but I almost liked it too much. There were some loose ends that floated around in my brain and refused to be tied down. Exactly what they were escaped me, but I had a feeling I was missing some essential element associated with the murder or murders. I pulled into my driveway and almost hit the Gold Wing parked there.

  “What the…?”

  Guy was the last person I wanted to deal with tonight. His figure appeared in my kitchen doorway.

  “I ought to call the police and have you arrested for breaking and entering.” I stormed into the kitchen and confronted him.

  “Can’t.” He was calm and looked as good as ever. “The door was open. Besides I’m not exactly a stranger, and the police might find it odd that you chose to complain about a friend.”

  “A friend. I don’t think so.” I could be calm, too—just not for long. “You’re no friend of mine. I guess you forgot to tell me about your wife and kid or kids. Just how many are there?”

  “Five. Four girls and a boy. The boy had an accident with his bicycle. A car hit him. He broke his leg.”

  My agitation was building. I resisted the impulse to scream. I sat down at the table, placed my hands in my lap, and dug my nails into my leg. Ouch.

  “Sorry to hear about his accident.” And I was sorry, poor kid. I remembered when David broke his collar bone when he was taking riding lessons. Very scary for him and painful, too. Then my anger at Guy spilled over.

  “All you macho guys are alike. Poor wifey has to keep getting pregnant until she produces a male heir to the throne. A girl just won’t do for the majestic male ego.” I hoped I hadn’t begun frothing at the mouth.

  “Actually, the boy is the oldest.”

  Gulp. I was wrong. I changed direction.

  “How’s he doing? Is he out of the hospital?” I noticed a bottle of wine open on the table, went to the cupboard and got myself a glass. “By the way, when, if ever, were you going to tell me about your family?”

  “When, if ever, were you going to tell me about yours?”

  “You’ve got some nerve comparing our situations. In the first place, I’ve been divorced for years, so that’s all behind me. And how do you know about my family, anyway?”

  “Well, I settled down with this wine to wait for you, but about fifteen minutes after I got here, Der showed up, so I uncorked the bottle, and we shared a glass. We just kind of got to talking, and he mentioned your marriage, divorce and son in passing.”

  “I might have known. That weasel. Why can’t men keep their mouths shut? It was none of his business and none of your business, either.”

  “Laura, I think it was my business. It’s part of your life, or, at least, it was part of your life. I understand that your son and you rarely see each other.”

  I let out a sound that could have passed for a roar and headed for the phone. “I’m going to call that SOB and tell him what I think of him right now. He’s got some nerve blabbering about my life to you.”

  Guy planted himself between the phone and me. “You can settle with him later. Right now we need to talk. Sit down.”

  I surprised myself by doing just that. Guy poured us both some more wine. “Look, I think we got into this thing far faster and deeper than we planned, and I guess both of us are a little gun shy about
relationships. I know I am. We skipped over the getting to know you part and went right to the getting you into bed part. That’s not very smart especially since what I know of you I really like, a lot. And I think you like me too.”

  I shook my head no and tried to interrupt.

  “Shut up. Your turn to spill your guts will come soon enough. The last time we were together, you remember, at the house here, I didn’t stay the night. Well, I was getting scared. I thought we should slow down a bit. Clichéd stuff, I know, but I think we do need to slow it down some.”

  At this point I was practically jumping out of my chair. He gestured to me to keep silent a minute more.

  “I know what you’re trying to say, so I’ll save you the trouble. Yes, any man is a real horse’s ass if he begins an intimate relationship with a woman while he’s married. But I’m not. I mean I’m not a horse’s ass. I’m not married. I’m divorced, like you. The oldest boy and the oldest girl are mine. The other two girls are from my wife’s current marriage. I couldn’t resist exaggerating a little about the number of kids. I wondered if I knew enough about you to predict your reaction, and I was right on the money. You’ll have to forgive me for getting carried away.” He reached out his hand and lightly touched mine.

  “See, Laura. This is the stuff that should have been part of our time together and wasn’t. I’m sorry I couldn’t trust you more to have told you, but you weren’t telling me much about your life either, so I thought you weren’t interested in more than a summer fling. But I had a hard time believing that about you. You’re just too complicated a person to be that shallow about relationships or even sex. I’m sorry. I was wrong not to tell you about my family. The kids are very important to me. They’re part of my life. I hope you’re a part of my life, too. Okay, your turn. Oh, but first. Tell me you’re sorry too.”

  “What? What have I to be sorry about?” I was working myself up to another roar.

  “You’re sorry—even though you wouldn’t think of saying it, so I thought I’d help you out—you’re sorry because you were wrong not to tell me about your family. You’re sorry because you led me to believe that you wanted nothing more from me than a little sex.” He held up his hand to ward off my interruption.

  “You’re sorry because you didn’t trust me enough to open up about the important things in your life. I’m assuming here that your son, even though you don’t see him much, is important to you.” Guy smiled at me and took another sip of his wine.

  “God, you have some nerve.” Did he, when all he said was true? “And it wasn’t a little sex we had, it was a lot of sex.” I looked at him and smiled back. The fire went out of me and was being replaced by a warm glow located somewhere between my knees and my waist.

  “And it was damn good sex, too.” He reached out again for my hand. This time he lifted me out of the chair and pulled me into his arms.

  “Whoa. If we’re going to slow down, I suggest we begin here and now. You said it. We need to talk, so… Friends?” I pushed him away and held out my hand.

  “Friends.” He shook my hand until my teeth chattered in my head. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to be platonic friends. It just means we need to put the sex in perspective.”

  “Funny you should be saying all this. Annie told me the other day I built too many fences around myself where you were concerned. Somehow, despite those fences, you’ve found a way to sneak in.” I picked up my wineglass and began to leave the room.

  “Where are you going?” The look on his face told me it would take very little effort for me to lead him up to my bedroom.

  “Not where you think. If we’re going to talk. Let’s get comfortable on the deck. The storm is over, the moon is out and the night smells heavenly. Let’s not waste it cooped up in my kitchen.”

  He put his arm around me, and we headed for the deck. By the time we finished talking, the moon was high in the night sky. Guy yawned, stretched and got up.

  “Time for me to head home to my apartment. By the way, Der caught me up on Stanford’s death. Suicide, I guess?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not convinced.” We walked arm-in-arm out to his bike.

  “So I gather you’re doing some sleuthing? Der said you’d favor Pruitt for the murder. I think he does too.” Guy turned to me and pulled me into the circle of his arms. It was tempting to ask him to stay the night, but it wasn’t what we agreed to do. Not yet, anyway.

  “That bum. How did he know I’d pick Pruitt?”

  “He called him the logical suspect.”

  “Logical, yes. But there’s no proof. I intend to rattle his cage when I get the chance.”

  “Laura, be careful. If Pruitt is a murderer, he won’t take your meddling well.”

  “I don’t think he’ll consider me a threat. He doesn’t take me seriously. He just thinks of me as a real pain in the ass.”

  “Well, he’s right about some things.”

  I jabbed him in the shoulder. Not that I could hurt him much. All muscle. Oooooh.

  He put on his helmet, turned and kissed me goodnight. It was not a kiss for platonic friends, and it almost shattered my newly found balance. His too, I guessed, as he skidded out of my drive.

  Sleep was a long time coming.

  Chapter 14

  There was something awful happening to my ears the next morning, and I worried the infection had come back, but it was only the phone ringing at dawn.

  “Hi, it’s Der.”

  “Der who?”

  “I’m in your driveway on my cell phone. There’s no sign of Annie or anyone else here. Is there any coffee?”

  “I know you’re curious as hell to find out about Guy and me, so I’ll be down in a jiff to unlock the door.”

  I threw on my robe and headed for the stairs. By the time I reached the door he was standing there impatiently waiting for me to open it. He held a pastry box in his hands.

  “Actually, I knew Annie wouldn’t be here. She was, uhm, busy last night with Ron, and I thought you might want some breakfast, so I brought these.” He handed me the box.

  “You lie so bad. Your real motive for being here is to pry into my personal life. I know all about your conversation with Guy last night. You’ve got a lot of nerve telling him about my life.” I found it difficult to work up any steam over Der’s transgression. I was too happy Guy and I talked.

  I dropped my diatribe before I really got rolling and began to grind beans for the coffee. Der settled himself at the table and grabbed one of the jelly donuts.

  “Your life is your business, although, if you don’t mind my saying so, I’m confused, especially when it comes to you and men.” He ignored the warning look I shot him.

  “What do you want in a relationship? Never mind. I’ve said too much. Anyway, Guy was talking to me about his family, and the information about your divorce and your son just kind of fit in with what we were discussing. Sorry if I was out of line.”

  My God, he was apologizing, and there was a sheepish look on his face.

  “You can’t fool me with that humble and apologetic pose, Der Pasquis. What do you want? You’re here for a reason,” I knew him too well to ever expect an apology from him without strings attached.

  I set a cup of coffee in front of him and joined him at the table with my own cup. After giving the donuts some consideration, I shoved the box away from me. Just not in the mood for sugar.

  “So what’s up that you have to wake me at…” I looked at the kitchen clock, “seven o’clock in the morning?”

  “I stopped by Annie’s late last night to drop off Ron.” He caught my look of curiosity and added before I could ask, “That’s another story I’ll fill you in on later. And she mentioned your visit to Bunny and your suspicions about Rudolf Pruitt. I think you’ve got something there. I’m rechecking his alibi for later the afternoon Talbot was killed, but it seems pretty tight. His secretary Nancy indicated the two of them spent the late afternoon and early evening in the office working.”

 
; I snorted and coffee shot out of my mouth.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nancy would vouch for Rudolf even if he’d confessed to her he tortured small animals. She’s hardly a reliable alibi in my estimation.”

  “And would Nancy have helped him, do you think?”

  “I doubt that. She’s entirely too nervous for that kind of work, but she certainly would serve as an alibi for him.”

  Last night I thought I would pay Rudolf a visit sometime today to talk with him about my conversation with Bunny, but now I looked forward to seeing Nancy first. I thought I could easily push her into telling the truth about Rudolf’s whereabouts the day Talbot was killed.

  “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t,” Der said. “That’s my job. Try to stay away from our major suspects before you get yourself into trouble. That includes any follow-up visits to Bunny also.”

  “Do you suspect something is going on with Bunny? What? I couldn’t make any real sense out of her comments to Rudolf.”

  “Why don’t you repeat your conversation with her to me?”

  I went over my evening with Bunny, indicating to him that I thought she was telling me the truth. I didn’t share with him my suspicion that there was something about the condo situation that might prove interesting to explore with Rudolf. I was a little offended at his warning me off the case, especially when it was clear he needed me and he knew it.

  “That’s why you stopped by? To get my take on the conversation with Bunny?”

  “And to caution you about interviewing potential witnesses. That’s interfering with police business, and it could prove dangerous for you. We have an unsolved murder on our hands, you know.” He scowled at me. I heard a motorcycle turning into my drive.

  “My cue to leave.” He seemed about to say something else, but flapped his hand in the air as if to dismiss the thought.

  “Hey, just a minute. What’s going on with Annie and Ron? You dropped him off at Annie’s last night?”

  “Tell you what. You level with me about what you know and what you suspect about the Bunny involvement, you promise to stay away from my witnesses, and you notify me anytime a suspicion enters your head, and I’ll tell you about Annie and Ron. Otherwise, call her and find out yourself.”