Murder is Academic

by Lesley A. Diehl

  I really hated it when he felt it necessary to lecture me on police procedure, as if I didn’t know he was investigating a potential arson connected with an earlier homicide. I was muttering some of this under my breath, when he interrupted me.

  “I know you know, but sometimes you need to be reminded.”

  We found Rudolf in his office. He looked unsurprised to see Detective Pasquis and annoyed at my presence.

  “What’s she doing here? Hasn’t she caused enough trouble, snooping into everyone’s business and cooking up devious plans to get what isn’t hers? I think she should be arrested. In fact, I insist on it.” Rudolf balled his hands into fists and glared at Der and me.

  I was about to say something, when Der put his arm on my shoulder. “I know Dr. Murphy is terribly sorry for all her meddling, but she’s here because she had her own scare last night. It may be connected in some way to the fire.”

  I gave Der a look that said I was not sorry I meddled, only that I got caught. Rudolf acted as if I had, in fact, apologized and, in a showy gesture, ushered us into his office, even asking Nancy to get us coffee. I opened my mouth again to refuse the coffee, but Der beat me to it by accepting Rudolf’s offer. The coffee turned out to be rather good, and I accepted a second cup. Rudolf’s willingness to behave in a generous manner toward us was too suspicious for my taste, but I decided to go along with the charade until I found out what he was after.

  Der asked Rudolf about the alleged meeting between Bunny and him the day before.

  “Bunny called me and caught me at home just sitting down to dinner. She told me she suspected you had cooked up a little plot to get those papers and how she had substituted blank ones for the real documents. Pretty clever, huh? Who’d have thought Bunny Talbot was that smart.”

  I rather thought the same thing, but was too embarrassed being outwitted by Bunny to voice my opinion at that point, so I sipped my coffee in silence.

  “Anyway, I convinced Bunny we ought to meet and she should bring the papers with her. She said she didn’t want to carry them on her in case you were waiting to steal them from her person.”

  I was offended Bunny would think me capable of theft, well, that kind of theft, anyway, but I kept my mouth shut, willing Rudolf to get on with the story.

  “Bunny and I met in my office, but the meeting was short.”

  “Why was that?” Der asked.

  “Someone was sneaking around my office, eavesdropping. I assumed it was Dr. Murphy. Bunny and I stopped talking and she told me she was heading to a friend’s house for an evening of bridge. That was about seven-thirty pm.”

  “And did she have the papers with her or not?” Der asked.

  “She did not. She again repeated her concern that someone could lift them off her. I told her that was foolish. I was pretty steamed at her for not bringing them with her, but she assured me they were at home in a safe place. We arranged to meet just before the condo board meeting. She promised to hand over the papers then.”

  “When she told you the papers were at home in a safe place, was that before or after you heard the eavesdropper outside your office?” Der asked.

  “Let’s see. That was before. When we heard someone there who then ran off down the darkened hallway, Bunny said it confirmed her suspicion someone was following her and wanted to rob her of the papers.”

  “So whoever was outside your office could have heard you and Bunny talking about the location of the papers?” Der leaned forward. “Did you get a look at the person running down the hallway?”

  “As I said it was dark. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. I guess I assumed along with Bunny that it was her.” Rudolf gestured toward me.

  “So you decided to wait until I got back home, then you picked up your phone and threatened me, right?” The words erupted from my mouth. I’d kept quiet too long.

  Der gave me one of his stay-out-of-this-Murphy looks and informed Rudolf I received a threatening phone call around that time. Rudolf insisted he knew nothing about it. I wasn’t certain I believed him. Unable to restrain myself any longer, I butted into the questions Der continued to pursue regarding the fire last night.

  “Doesn’t anybody want to know what those papers were about?”

  Der finally gave in. “Okay, Laura. You’ve been very patient until now. What were those papers all about?”

  Finally. Like turtles racing rabbits we proceeded to what I thought was the important stuff.

  Pruitt leaned forward and clasped his hands together on his desk. His gesture seemed to signal a surprising willingness to share information.

  “Well, some of them had to do with the early years of the condos, the construction phase, I believe. I don’t know the specifics but I wanted the papers to complete the history of the condos so that the state could come in and examine the condo board’s paperwork if it needed to for the environmental impact study. The rest of them were minutes from the first year of the condo board. I can’t understand why they’re so important to Dr. Murphy.”

  “I rather thought they were important to you, Rudolf, and to Bunny, since you tried so hard to keep me from knowing about them and from seeing their contents.”

  Der put out his hand as if to restrain me. “Those papers may have been valuable in the Talbot murder case. They certainly were a lead we were interesting in following. Are you certain you don’t know more about the papers?”

  Rudolf shook his head no and then stood, friendliness at an end. Der arose, thanked him for his cooperation and the coffee, and we prepared to leave Rudolf’s office.

  “Just a minute.” Rudolf stepped from behind the desk, looked out to see Nancy at her desk, and closed the door. He spoke in a low voice.

  “Like you, I think those papers must be important, and I’m really glad I don’t have them. I guess we’ll never know just what they contained since they burned up in the fire. I’m worried someone out there may think I know something about them. That fire could have been intentionally set to destroy the papers before they were made public. My life may be in danger. I need police protection.”

  Gee, I was impressed. I didn’t think Rudolf had it in him to put all this together and then to actually ask, or plead, for help from the authorities. I still didn’t like him, but there was a note of fear in his voice making him a bit more human. In keeping with his character, however, he ignored the even more likely possibility Bunny was the one needing protection, especially if she knew the contents of those papers.

  I looked at Der and realized he came to the same conclusion. Something deadly was going on, and Bunny appeared to be in the middle of it. I could tell Der was not convinced Rudolf was in imminent danger, but he assured him a patrol car would cruise the street when he was home. Der also would arrange for Campus Security to check on Rudolf on campus.

  “That’s all you can do for me?” Rudolf threw himself back down into his chair and slapped both palms on the desk.

  “That’s it. I’m sorry but I’m short of personnel.”

  Chapter 18

  “Bunny said she’d be staying here for a while.” Der parked in front of Bunny’s friend’s house. The friend answered the bell.

  “She’s finally resting.” She began to close the door.

  “We really need to see her now.” Der delivered his request with the clipped precision of a police officer but tempered the official tone with the softness of island breezes. Who could refuse him?

  The friend, Grace Witcher, left to fetch Bunny from an upstairs bedroom. When she arrived in the living room, Bunny looked even worse than she had earlier that morning. Her hair was in disarray, the two spit curls over each ear stood out at ninety degree angles, and her face was blotchy with tears. Her eyes seemed unable to find anything upon which to focus. Bunny was a mess.

  Der apologized for disturbing her, then explained the importance of the papers and asked her what she knew about their content. Bunny said she never read them.

  “They were really Thomas’s pa
pers, not mine, so I had no reason to examine them other than to note most of them had to do with the condos, minutes of meetings and official documents relating to the planning and construction phase of the project.”

  “Come on, Bunny. You were the one who sold those condos. Why would the papers be your husband’s and not yours?” I was perturbed Bunny thought she could play dumb by hiding behind her dead husband.

  Bunny’s whole person, already breaking into pieces, shattered. She put her hands over her face and groaned.

  “My serving as selling agent wasn’t the only conflict of interest going on. You may as well know. I’m certain it will come out sooner or later anyway.”

  “Know what?” I said.

  “Thomas and I were principal investors in the condo project. If the college board had known I was selling property Thomas owned to college employees, it would have fired him, I’m sure. So I simply retired my real estate license, and nobody suspected there was more to it than that.”

  “Is the property in both your names?” I asked.

  “Actually it was in Thomas’s name alone.”

  Der caught the significance of Bunny’s phrasing. “’Was’ in his name, not ‘is’ in his name?”

  “We, that is, Thomas, transferred the property to our daughter-in-law.”

  “When was that?” asked Der.

  “The day he was killed. He had our lawyer draw up the papers right after his morning golf game. He called me to say he would be a little late coming home that evening. He also warned me not to tell anyone about the transfer. I asked him why now, but he didn’t answer. He just told me to keep my mouth shut about the deal, and he would explain when he got home. But he never came home!” Bunny began to sob uncontrollably.

  I knelt by her chair and patted her shoulder. As an indication of how out of it she was, she seemed to accept this comforting from me. I handed her an almost new tissue from my pocket.

  “This is going to be a complicated piece of work to unravel now those papers have been incinerated in the fire,” Der said.

  Bunny looked up at him, startled. “Oh those papers weren’t burned in the fire.”

  “They weren’t? Then where are they? I thought you didn’t want them with you because you thought I was trying to steal them.” I tried to keep an offended tone out of my voice since I felt we were hot on the trail of something helpful.

  “I just wanted them out of my keeping, and I wasn’t altogether sure you and Rudolf weren’t somehow in cahoots to get those papers.” Now that was really offensive! I knew Bunny disliked me but I didn’t think she thought so little of me she believed I could join forces with someone like Rudolf Pruitt. I was sorry I gave my last tissue to her.

  “And you did what with them?” Der asked.

  “I sent them to my daughter-in-law in Canada. Since the property was now hers, I reasoned she was the likely person to hold the papers along with all the others.”

  Der and I looked at each other. We were no closer to discovering the contents of those papers now than we were earlier this morning. However, we could get them back from the daughter-in-law.

  Bunny said she had rushed home after her meeting with Rudolf, grabbed the papers and put them in the mail last night. They wouldn’t arrive before Monday.

  “We need to take a look at them,” said Der, “so I’d appreciate it if you’d call your daughter-in-law and tell her a member of my team will be at her home to pick up the package when it arrives.”

  Bunny left to use the phone in the kitchen. She seemed almost relieved to be free of the responsibility of the papers and of the secret she carried about Talbot’s ownership of the condos for all these years.

  It was a secret that gave us another avenue to pursue in looking for Talbot’s murderer. Someone found out about Talbot’s silent partnership in the condo project and killed him? Somehow that hardly seemed to work as a motive. It seemed more likely Talbot would have been a blackmail victim, not a murder victim. Der and I chewed on these possibilities while Bunny made her phone call.

  Bunny returned to the living room looking even more exhausted than she did earlier. “She’ll await your man on Monday.”

  She said good-bye and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. I yawned and decided it was time for me to return home to get some much needed sleep also.

  Der drove me to headquarters where I picked up my car and left for the lake. On the way home, I suddenly realized it was Saturday and already noon. David was to arrive at one this afternoon. No time for a nap now. I barely had time to get something together in the way of food.

  As I pulled into the drive, I groaned. A BMW was sitting there. It had to be David’s. I slammed on my brakes and hurled myself out of the car, calling his name.

  “We’re here, mother!” He and his companion were seated at the edge of the dock. They got up and moved toward me. He was tall and dark-haired like his father and was wearing designer sunglasses. The woman was blond, shorter than I. She moved ahead of him, holding out her hand to greet me.

  “I’m Sandy.” Her face was tanned and her eyes sparkled with humor. “I just love your place. It must be wonderful to hike and swim and explore the woods. You’re so lucky to have this hideaway. The summers are so oppressive in the city. I’m looking for a job upstate so that David and I can move out of the city. Besides the city isn’t a good place to raise children, do you think?”

  I was so surprised at this young woman, I hardly knew what to say.

  “I know, I know. I’m not at all what you expected. You thought David would go for someone more like him, someone tall, anorexic, yuppie-like?” She laughed and turned to David. “I’m helping him discover his inner self, huh, David?”

  David arched one eyebrow in doubt, but he looked back at her with genuine affection. I could not imagine two people more unalike. Sandy continued to prattle on about the house, the lake and the woods as we headed for the deck. David said little, but when Sandy stopped talking long enough to take a breath, he interrupted.

  “I thought by calling you in advance that you’d at least be home today, Mother.” His tone said he expected more of me and I’d failed him.

  “Sorry about that, but an emergency came up. I’ll tell you about it later.” I held open the kitchen door for them.

  “Well, that’s okay. You and Sandy have met now, so that’s out of the way. We’re just going to stay for a few minutes, so don’t bother with anything.”

  “It’s noon. I don’t suppose you two have had anything to eat. How about some iced tea and sandwiches?”

  David looked prepared to refuse, but Sandy interrupted him. “Great. I’m famished.” She began to open kitchen doors and drawers to locate plates, flatware, and napkins while I poured the tea and put together a deli plate and bread for a do-it-yourself sandwich lunch.

  “Can we take our food out to the deck to eat? It’s so nice out there, and the air smells good, piney like.” She quickly piled her plate full and made for the doors to the deck. “Hurry up, David. The view off the deck is absolutely wonderful.”

  I filled my plate while David chose a glass of tea and a few pieces of cheese off the deli platter. I could tell he was not happy with my choice of food for lunch and would have preferred we eat out at some fine, gourmet restaurant—not possible around here.

  We settled on the deck with our food, and David seemed to relax in the sunlight dappled with shade from the large ponderosa pines that covered my property.

  “So,” Sandy said with her mouth full of sandwich, “tell us about your emergency, Dr. Murphy.”

  “Please call me Laura.” I related the events of the past several weeks concluding with the fire last night at the Talbot’s, and Der and my discussions with Rudolf and Bunny this morning. I even managed to capture David’s attention, although Sandy was the one who broke in often with questions about the murder and the suicide.

  I gave them the abridged version, because I was curious to know more about Sandy, how they met and the upcoming wedding.
I was surprised and pleased David was so obviously enraptured with a gal who was funny, unpretentious and adventuresome, characteristics one could not apply to my son.

  I wiped a bit of sandwich from my lips. “Enough of murder, arson and suicide. I think it’s time we talked about the two of you.” That set Sandy off on a monologue about their meeting, courtship, engagement and wedding plans. I was surprised to learn that she, like David, was a tax accountant and was a recent hire in the firm for which David worked.

  “He was just such a stick-in-the-mud.” She poked him in the ribs affectionately. “It became a real challenge to me to get him to laugh. Finally I convinced him going out for a drink after work with me wouldn’t kill him.”

  David smiled at her verbal and physical ribbing. “Sandy showed me a side of life that’s a lot different from what I’ve been living. I moved into my own apartment on Seventy-second and Riverside.”

  I couldn’t help but interrupt him. “You have your own apartment? And it’s not on the East Side or overlooking the park?” I could hardly believe such common behavior in my yuppie son.

  “Well, it’s very nice, Mother.”

  “I’m sure it is. I was just surprised you would move out of your father’s condo.”

  “Mother, really. I’m over twenty-one, have a great job, and a life of my own. It was time I moved out. It got embarrassing telling everyone I still lived at home.”

  My mouth dropped open. Living at home didn’t appear to be embarrassing just a few months ago, but once Sandy came into the picture, things seemed to change for David.

  “We’re going to have our wedding this fall.” Sandy looked around the yard and her eyes strayed to the lake and back again to the dock sitting serenely on the placid water. “I’ll bet this place is really beautiful in the fall with the leaves changing color.”

  “It’s spectacular in September with the contrast between the deep green of the pines and the red and gold of the maples and yellow of the oaks. You should see it.” An idea hit me.

  “Why not have the ceremony here?” I suspected, changed though he might be, David would veto such a suggestion.