Murder is Academic

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “Ah, no, wait.” His tone of voice was suddenly placating. “I really wanted to talk to you about those papers of Bunny’s. Have you seen them? What did you find in them?” Rudolf seemed too curious, which got me more curious.

  “If you want to know what was in those papers, you’ll need to talk with Detective Pasquis. I’m not at liberty to release any information.” That sounded official enough to stop Rudolf from trying to wheedle information out of me, but I wanted to pursue Rudolf’s interest in the papers. “I might put a good word in for you, however, if you let me know why you’re so interested in them.”

  “Well, as the new chair of the condo board, I’ll have to see those papers sooner or later. Why not just let me know now what they’re all about. It’s really official business, my seeing them, you know.” Rudolf’s tone was positively toadying.

  “Oh, cut the crap and fess up.”

  He seemed to hesitate, then crumpled into his desk chair. “Okay, Okay. I was hoping the papers didn’t mention my name.”

  “Why would they?” I knew the papers didn’t include information on Pruitt, but why let him know that?

  “Well, you see, Thomas Talbot and I were two of several original investors in that project. I knew he was an investor, and he knew I was. I had a little money from an inheritance, so I… Anyway it was something we wanted to keep secret. I didn’t want it to get out at that time, and I don’t care for it to come out right now with my divorce and all.”

  “You mean your wife doesn’t know you had money in the project and, since the project has been successful all these years, you’d rather she didn’t find out because she could lay claim to part of it in divorce court, right?” I was disgusted at Rudolf’s duplicity in his personal dealings with his wife. I was also beginning to wonder whether his secret investment in the project was a motive for blackmail and/or murder.

  I was in a big hurry to get out of his office to share my suspicions with Der. But first, I decided I should do a little additional fishing.

  “Did you ever meet the hydrologist who did the work for the condominiums?”

  “No, never.”

  “Did you ever hear his name?”

  “No, Talbot took care of all that, hired the guy for the project and passed his report on to the development firm.”

  “Why would Talbot hire the guy? Why not someone in the development firm?”

  “I don’t know except I do recall Talbot saying he knew someone who was really good, had great credentials, and would do the work. You know how Talbot was. He had lots of contacts. You’ve got to keep this under your hat. I don’t want to be the one who blows the whistle on Talbot’s little secret, and I certainly don’t think it necessary anyone know of my involvement. It’s water under the bridge.” Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.

  “I’m not going to tell a soul,” I said. Rudolf smiled at me. “But you are.”

  “What?”

  “Pick up the phone and call Detective Pasquis. Tell him what you just told me. Sooner or later this will all become public, and your wife will know. I suggest you be a mensch and tell her before it hits the newspapers.” I turned on my heel and left Rudolf’s office.

  What a slimy, creepy, loathsome, putrid, disgusting creature he was. I didn’t think I could ever be in his presence again without becoming physically ill. Just in case Rudolf decided to add cowardly to his list of despicable characteristics, I called Der on my cell. He told me Rudolf didn’t call him, so I hung up and called Rudolf’s office.

  “The detective is expecting your call. Now.” I disconnected.

  I yearned for the days of the old phones. It wasn’t quite as dramatic to end a call as it was to slam down a receiver.

  I located my car in the faculty parking lot and started home. I Rudolph found the money to make the investment, I gave renewed consideration to Stanford’s role as an investor also. From what Rudolf told me, I was beginning to feel I was the only one at the college who wasn’t in on the deal. I knew that was foolish, of course, but it appeared too many people had their fingers into something they wanted to keep secret. That thought made me pull my car into the county building and locate the land office once again.

  I left little than an hour later much enlightened about who owned what. Although I could find little information about the original investors (funny how papers come up missing), the present owners of condo units read like a who’s who list of faculty and administrators at the college. And the agent doing the selling? Bunny was quite the little real estate salesperson around the college in her day.

  I decided I needed a swim in the lake to clear my head and take the kinks out of a body that had experienced too much tension for one day. The hell with my ear infection. I threw caution to the wind and was floating on my back with my eyes closed when I heard Guy’s bike pull into the drive. He called my name, but I was too tired to reply. Since my car was in the drive I felt certain he would find me sooner or later. He jumped in beside me ending the tranquility of my float.

  “I hope you remembered to put on swim trunks.” The huge waves he created bumped me up and down on the water’s surface.

  “Do you hope that because of the neighbors or have I lost my appeal to you?”

  “Neither.” I grabbed his trunks in back and gave them a jerk upward. “You can’t give a naked guy a wedgie.” I dove underwater and popped up far enough from him that he couldn’t return the gesture. I felt better.

  “Tough day?” he asked.

  “Uhm,” I wrapped my legs and arms around him. “Let’s eat peanut butter sandwiches and go to bed early.”

  We did. I adore making love to a man with peanut butter on his breath.

  *

  The next several days passed without incident. Mornings Annie and I paddled while Frank coached us by yelling insults at our skill. I actually made progress on my manuscript. Guy and I played house. Some days I cooked, and some days he did. Annie stopped by for breakfast every morning, and she and Ron had Guy and me for dinner one night.

  Der occasionally called with nothing to report. He wasn’t surprised Rudolf was also an original investor in the condo project. I was beginning to think he was getting as jaded in his opinion of college personnel as I was. I worried about him. He was hot after the identity of the hydrologist and trying to make some sense out of the discrepancy between the numbers of condo units in the two documents from the hydrologist.

  At the end of the week, Beth called me and asked if she could drop by. She sounded worried.

  When she arrived I could tell she was more than worried; she looked to be on the verge of hysterical, a state I believed to be totally unfamiliar to her.

  “There’s something very wrong at the BFS. The water samples we’ve been collecting look as if they came from an entirely different body of water than those collected by Will and Donald. I’m not saying we’re dealing with severe pollution here, but there are elevated levels of e. coli in the recent samples as well as amounts of nitrates and phosphates not previously reported in this lake. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I can hazard a guess.” She paused to take a breath. “I think the water quality has been in question for a while, and he didn’t report it. Something is going wrong on the lake. My suspicion is that it has to do with the condominiums.”

  Suddenly everything began to fall into place—the discrepancy in the hydrologist’s reports, Talbot’s falsification of papers claiming Stanford to be an investor in the project and Talbot’s murder. I hated for Beth’s sake to be thinking what I was thinking, but it now looked as if Stanford had a great motive for killing Talbot. I gently urged Beth to sit down for a minute.

  “Beth, I think we need to get Der over here to hear your findings and your suspicions. I think he may have some ideas about how this ties in with recent events.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Talbot’s murder and your husband’s suicide.”

  “You think they’re linked, don’t you?” There was fear in her vo
ice.

  “Yes, I do, but let’s leave that until we have some input from him.” I didn’t want to continue these speculations until Der could be here to reinforce what I feared was Stanford’s involvement in Talbot’s death.

  By the look on Beth’s face, she was only a half-step behind me. Her life in the past month was a roller coaster ride. Only her appointment as director had lifted her spirits, now dashed once again by the discovery of something amiss with the lake water testing results. She certainly didn’t need to hear that her husband had reason to murder President Talbot. But I couldn’t see how I could avoid confronting her with this unpleasant speculation.

  I dialed Der’s number and found that he was on the road. I was about to contact him via his cell phone when I heard a car pull into my drive. It was Der.

  I met him at the kitchen door. “I was just trying to get in touch with you.”

  “Good. I just stopped by to do some talking about this case, but I won’t bother you. I see you have company.” He nodded to Beth and turned to leave.

  “Actually, Beth has some information which may prove to be important to the case. Sit down, and I’ll get you a lemonade while she tells you what’s up at the BFS.”

  I left the two of them alone, and Beth began to relate to him what she just told me. When I returned, she was finishing her story, and Der was sitting silently in one of the deck chairs, his hands clasped in front of him.

  He looked at me. “What do you think?”

  I knew he was thinking what I was thinking but unwilling to break the bad news to Beth. I hoped he would lay out the case for us rather than having me do it. I could see that wasn’t going to happen.

  “I think we now know what the discrepancies in those hydrologist’s documents mean.”

  Beth looked at me curiously, having not heard of the documents in question. I explained there were two sets of documents, one testifying to adequate treatment of the effluent from the condos for twice as many condominium units as the other document listed. Beth still looked puzzled.

  “The way I put it together is Talbot paid off a hydrologist to falsify findings on the water treatment system being installed by the condominium complex. The system was only adequate to handle half the number of units actually constructed. I suspect most of the developers knew about the pay off, but since it saved the project money, no one made a fuss. That’s where the problems with your water samples are coming from.”

  “But the problem with treatment of water from the condominiums must have been going on for a long time. Will would notice it. Why didn’t it show up until now?”

  I could see Beth struggling with what she didn’t want to admit to herself.

  “I think Will did notice it, but, in true Talbot manner, he was paid off to look the other way,” Der said.

  “Will couldn’t be bought with money,” Beth insisted.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “He was paid off by favors, perks, privileges, equipment, money to travel to conferences, all the stuff that academics hunger for in a time of limited resources. Will got them, and others didn’t.”

  The truth of such an arrangement hit home with Beth. “So he took water samples, but phonied their make-up. But this couldn’t last forever. Someday, someone would find out.”

  “Exactly. Remember who Talbot played golf with the day of his death?” Der asked me.

  “Some officials from the state, right?”

  “Right, and they talked about the boat launch study and the need for state and federal monitoring of the water samples. Will wouldn’t be alone in his examination of those samples. Talbot knew the jig was up.”

  “I’m not sure where all of this is leading.” Beth’s voice was quavery as if on some level she did know but wanted to deny it.

  “The meeting Talbot had that afternoon with an unknown faculty member was with Will,” I told Beth. “Talbot falsified a set of papers claiming Will to be an investor in the condominium project. Talbot signed over his ownership of the project to his daughter-in-law in Canada. He knew the phony water sample reports would be discovered sooner or later, and he wanted to deny all knowledge of them. Talbot would say Will was solely responsible for making up data that looked good because Will wanted to cover up his role as a condominium investor who knew the truth about the inadequate nature of the water treatment system.”

  “But that’s absurd,” Beth said. “No one would believe Will had that kind of money to invest. I didn’t and neither did you, Laura. Talbot couldn’t get away with that story for long.”

  “Talbot just needed the story for a short time, maybe a year or so. I think many people would have believed the story, especially those at the college. They weren’t happy with all the privileges Will had at the station, so I would guess they’d like to believe the worst of him. In a year or so, when the dust settled around the condominium issue and with Talbot’s hands free of any involvement in the project, Talbot would have been ready for retirement. He could have left the college with a clean record and parlayed his way onto some very lucrative state and federal boards as a retired college president.”

  It would have worked, too, had Talbot remained alive long enough to play it out as he had planned.

  Beth slumped down in the deck chair as the truth finally hit her.

  “So Talbot met with Will and told him he was being sold out, told him about the papers claiming Will to be an investor in the project, and let him know he would be reporting to Rudolf Pruitt from then on in, at least until the truth about the water reports came out, and Will was fired. Will couldn’t let that happen, could he? So he killed Talbot, hit him over the head with that shovel.” Beth dropped her head into her hands. It was one thing to believe your husband capable of infidelity and quite another to find he was a murderer.

  “Then he took his own life. Now it all fits. Will wasn’t enthusiastic about my doing research at the station because he knew I’d find out what he was doing with the water samples.”

  I put my arm around Beth’s shoulder and hugged her to me.

  “There are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up,” Der said.

  Beth’s attention seemed drawn by the waters of the lake which shimmered crystal clear from this vantage point. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was contemplating the same irony as I was—a lake that appeared pristine but held deadly bacteria and other contaminants her husband helped hide from the college and the public.

  Finally Beth turned her gaze from the lake to Der and me.

  “If ever I had a reason for leaving this place before, this certainly finalizes it. I think I need to look elsewhere for my dissertation location.”

  “I know this is hard, but you’ll only be adding to your grief if you leave here. You’ll set yourself back weeks and maybe months in your research. Besides, you need to remember what happened was Will’s doing, not yours. You didn’t know anything about it so you bear no part of the responsibility.” I reached out and tapped her hand. “You can’t turn tail and run. You’re not made like that.”

  “No, Laura. You’re not made like that. My given name is Bethany, remember. I’m a really nice girl from a really nice family. The only rebellious thing I ever did was to marry Will.”

  “You told me you preferred being called Beth. And, don’t forget, the other rebellious thing you did.”

  “What?”

  “You went on to graduate school, something totally out of keeping with your parents’ expectations of you. I think that took courage. Now all you have to do is hang in there for a while longer. Besides, Dewar and his crowd expect you to give up, remember?”

  Beth looked at me with doubt in her eyes, but the mention of Dewar’s name seemed to put steel in her backbone.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Chapter 23

  I was insistent Beth stay the night with me, but she was equally adamant she needed and wanted time alone. Despite her temporary doubt about being a strong and courageous young woman, both Der and I were impressed
with her fortitude in weathering the shock of her husband’s death as well as this most recent disclosure. While I was never one of Will’s fans, I too was surprised he was capable of murder.

  “Just one question bothering me before you leave, Beth,” Der said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you and Donald Hall discuss the water samples? Surely he must have participated in falsifying the data. Your husband couldn’t have kept that from him.”

  He was right, and his comment took me by surprise. Why hadn’t I figured that out?

  “No. Will’s falsifying those samples seemed too bizarre to mention to anyone but you two. I’m going back to the station now. What do you want me to say to him?”

  “I’ll need to talk with Donald as soon as possible. Is he there now?” Der asked.

  “He was when I left. I assume he’s still around.”

  “I’ll be right behind you in my car then.”

  “And so will I,” I said, “as soon as I jot a note to Guy letting him know where I’ve gone.” I ran into the house to gather my purse and keys and left a hasty note to Guy explaining my absence.

  By the time I arrived, Beth and Der were in the lab. I entered as Donald was explaining to Beth his discovery the worst recent samples from the lake were taken from the area near the condominiums.

  “It’s over with,” said Der, “and we know you played a part in doctoring the data from those water samples to make it look as if the lake was experiencing no problems with the waste water from the condominiums. I think it’s time you told us your role in this scene.”

  Donald’s face turned ashen gray, and he slumped back onto the lab stool.

  “So?” Der prodded him.

  “Of course I helped falsify the data. I would have lost my job if I hadn’t. I was hired here by President Talbot to help Dr. Stanford. Once I settled into the job, both Dr. Stanford and President Talbot explained to me I had to cooperate in making it look as if the condominiums posed no threat to the lake waters. I couldn’t walk away from this job. It would look bad to leave so soon, and Dr. Stanford told me he wouldn’t give me a decent recommendation either. So I did what I had to do. I was trapped here. This whole thing has been a nightmare.”