Passport to Murder

by Mary Angela

  Copper Bluff Food and Stuff was a little grocery store situated on Birch Street, which was the second main road into and out of town. The next city, if you could call it that, was ten miles away and had a population of fifty. Copper Bluff Food and Stuff not only sold groceries, it also sold toiletries. Chances were if you didn’t find what you were looking for downtown, you would find it here.

  Sometime during the eighties, the store had added on a small café. Light wood paneling marked off the addition from the rest of the store as did the lacy-curtained windows. The counter, which seated four diners max, always had a few people standing around it, talking with the cook, the waitress, or a friend. Some ogled the three-tier glass case, choosing a morning donut or an afternoon piece of pie. It didn’t take long for the goodies to disappear, especially with the wonderful smell of cake wafting through the entire store, and I was relieved to see a variety of donuts remained this morning. Although it was just nine o’clock, many customers grabbed a sweet confection on their way to work.

  I spotted Kat and Amanda right away; they were seated at one of the five tables in the tiny addition. I sat down next to Amanda, and giving her shoulders a half-embrace, asked how she was doing. Not that I needed to ask. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and the dark circles under her eyes told me she hadn’t slept well.

  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” she said, wiping her nose on a napkin. “First Professor Jaspers, now Nick.”

  I reached for the tissue pack inside my purse and handed it to her. “I’m surprised too. He was distraught last night, but I never imagined he would take his own life.”

  A waitress approached the table, and I ordered coffee. I asked the girls if they wanted anything, but they said they weren’t hungry. I ordered three homemade donuts anyway. Copper Bluff Food and Stuff’s cake-like confections were too tempting to pass up.

  “He did not commit suicide,” Amanda said when the waitress left.

  I looked at Amanda and then Kat.

  “See, Amanda has an idea about Nick’s sui—death…” Kat began.

  Amanda interrupted, pulling her sweatshirt sleeves down over her fingers. “Nick and I were going to the bank today to set up a fund for Dr. Jaspers. Why would he kill himself? We had other plans… plans for the future. It doesn’t make sense.”

  I couldn’t say that I disagreed, yet in her current state of mind, I didn’t want to encourage her. “But last night at the visitation…. Maybe he was more broken up about Molly’s death than you realized. Maybe they were… closer than you knew.”

  Amanda shook her head. “No, I know what you’re saying, and it’s not true. Nick admired her, but so did I. They were not seeing each other romantically.”

  The waitress returned, placing the plate of donuts in the middle of the table and the mug of coffee in front of me. I thanked her and then continued, “Do you know for certain they weren’t seeing each other?”

  “Yeah, I’m one hundred percent certain.” She looked at Kat, who nodded. “Nick and I were dating. It was getting serious.”

  I reached for the large donut with chocolate icing and nuts.

  “Oh, I know the stereotype—young student falls in love with hip professor—but that wasn’t the case. He had never experienced anything like this, and neither had I. It was true love.”

  I wanted to dismiss the idea as a first love but couldn’t. I had read enough romance novels in grad school to know that what she was saying was possible. Despite what others might think, I believed love could happen in the most unexpected places. “I don’t buy into stereotypes. I believe you,” I said.

  Amanda let out a breath of relief, and Kat broke into a smile.

  “I told you she would understand,” Kat said, reaching for a maple-glazed donut.

  Amanda took a drink of water. “I haven’t told anyone, except Kat. I’ve kept it a secret because I feel… embarrassed.”

  I tried to put her at ease. “You’ve never attended one of my classes, have you, Amanda? I’ve had some of my most embarrassing moments in front of a class of twenty-three.”

  Kat laughed. “A couple weeks ago, a cat toy fell out of her bag and she screamed like a little girl.”

  “It was a very lifelike mouse,” I explained. “And I hardly think you can describe my small exclamation as a scream.”

  Amanda’s lips turned up ever so slightly. Our joking lightened the mood. She relaxed.

  “The point is, you don’t have to worry about being embarrassed. Not in front of me. Now tell me, why don’t you think it was suicide?” I asked.

  “Last night I talked to him on the phone after he left the visitation. He said someone was watching him from the window.”

  I put down my donut. “A man or a woman?”

  “I don’t know. I told him he was being paranoid and to shut the curtain,” said Amanda.

  I silently cursed Amanda’s pragmatism. We could have used a little more description. “What else did he say?”

  She leaned closer. “Professor Prather, he sounded crazy. Like I’d never heard him. Like he was on drugs or drunk. I told him I was coming to the hotel, but he said not to come near him.”

  “Did you go?”

  She shook her head. “Honestly, I was so mad about the way he was acting that I hung up on him. I was grieving, too, and I thought he was being selfish. I had no idea….” Fresh tears formed in her eyes.

  I patted her hand. “It wasn’t your fault. You need to know that. Promise me you’ll talk to someone at the Student Counseling Center?”

  She nodded.

  “What else can we do?” Kat asked me.

  “Have you talked to the police? Have you told them about the person outside the window?”

  “No,” said Amanda. “After what happened with Dr. Jaspers, I don’t want to say anything about… a murder. First my professor, next my boyfriend. I know how that would look for me.”

  I agreed. If Nick were murdered, she would certainly become a person of interest, not only for the reasons she stated but also for the reasons she didn’t. Just yesterday morning in my creative writing class, Kat had admitted to Amanda’s acting erratically. It was possible that others had noticed her odd behavior and would be willing to testify to it. And Amanda was smart, smart enough to get away with murder. I had a hard time believing she would kill her true love, especially with Molly Jaspers dead. Still, the police needed to know what she had just told me. The question was how to tell them.

  Kat grabbed my arm across the table. “It’s just like what we were talking about in class. The murderer always messes up… or leaves something behind or… or….”

  In her excitement, she became tongue-tied, but I had no trouble finishing her sentence. “Or murders again.”

  After paying for breakfast, I left the café with the idea of talking to Sophie Barnes, a previous student of mine who had been hired to the Criminal Investigations Division on the Copper Bluff Police Force. Sophie loved stories, especially dramas, and had been an excellent student in literature class; she would do an all-star job analyzing cases. She hadn’t been a detective long, just since last fall, so I needed to make certain my stopping by would cause her no difficulties. I would make my visit brief and to the point, relaying the information from Amanda about the person outside Nick’s window.

  The Public Safety Building was attached to the old county courthouse and housed not only the police department but also the jail. It was a brick building with ivory trim, and upon entering, I noticed how different it was from the Minneapolis Police Department. In Minneapolis, the building was buzzing with noise and activity. Here it was quiet, even friendly. The officer at the front desk was pleasant and inquired about my purple sweater. She said just looking at it reminded her it was spring and if I could stay a moment, she would grab Sophie Barnes.

  I waited in the lobby, and Sophie came out minutes later. She was a pretty girl with a headful of chestnut hair, which few people would realize because she kept it tied back for
work. I put down the newspaper I had picked up and stood to give her a hug. She was taller than I was, but not tall, with wide shoulders and hips, the latter accentuated by a gun belt.

  “Professor Prather! It’s good to see you again,” Sophie said.

  “You don’t have to call me ‘professor’ anymore, you know,” I said with a laugh.

  “I know. It’s a hard habit to break.” She motioned past the front desk. “Do you want to come back? I have an office now.”

  “This shouldn’t take long, and I know you’re busy, but it is confidential. Is sitting here okay? Or would you rather go to your office?”

  She took a seat next to mine. “There’s no one here. What’s up?”

  I sat back down. “It’s about the man who killed himself last night, Nick Dramsdor. I knew him. We had just been on spring break together with several other faculty and students; our trip was cut short by Molly Jaspers’ sudden death. He was in town for the visitation.”

  “I heard about that,” she said, nodding. “Jack Wood from the Minneapolis Police Department talked to Lieutenant Beamer last week. We are collaborating with them on the investigation. I guess I didn’t remember right off that Nick was part of that group.”

  “As you know, Minneapolis was pursuing charges, and I worry foul play might be a factor here, too. Are you sure Nick’s death was a suicide?”

  Sophie’s head bobbed up and down as she spoke. “Nick Dramsdor killed himself. There’s no doubt about it. There was gun residue on his fingers, and the gun found at the hotel was registered to him.”

  I thought over this new information.

  “Do you have reason to believe it wasn’t suicide?” Sophie asked.

  I leaned in closer. “Last night I was at Molly’s visitation with Nick and several other faculty members and students. He seemed okay at first. Then, all of a sudden he became… unhinged. I don’t know how else to put it. He was not acting like himself. He left abruptly.”

  “It sounds like he was grief-stricken.” Hand over her heart, she added, “The poor soul!”

  “But afterwards,” I said, “his girlfriend said she talked to him on the phone in his hotel. She said not only was he acting erratically, he also claimed someone was watching him from the window.”

  Sophie took out her cellphone and opened up a notebook app. “What’s the girlfriend’s name? I don’t know if we have it.”

  “No, probably not. Their relationship, for obvious reasons, was a secret, but I trust your good judgment.” I gave her Amanda’s full name. “She was hesitant to confide in me, so please use as much discretion as possible when contacting her. The girl is a student at the university. She doesn’t want it to get out that she and Nick were dating.”

  “I get it,” said Sophie. “Dating your professor is a definite no-no. I will question her after the initial results of the autopsy come back. And I will be as discreet as possible.”

  “Well, he wasn’t her professor, but it was still a student-professor relationship. Anyway, I’m glad to hear an autopsy is being performed.”

  “It’s mandatory in suicide cases like these,” said Sophie, putting away her phone. “We’ll get a preliminary report of what was in his blood and urine this afternoon from the assistant at the morgue.”

  “When you hear, would it be too much trouble to contact me as well?” I stood.

  She grabbed for her phone again. “Actually, I think I have your number,” she said, smiling. “You know, Professor, you might have made a pretty good cop.”

  “Really?” I said. I tucked my purple scarf into my coat.

  She nodded. “Really.”

  “Well, if I don’t finish my book soon, I’ll remember you said that. I might need a new profession.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Later that afternoon, I walked to campus to talk to the registrar. Since spring break, I had been thinking about Olivia and her course with Molly Jaspers. Now another professor was dead, and although I didn’t think Olivia knew Nick personally, my first instinct was to take a closer look at the students on the trip. She was the only other one who had a private connection to Molly: she had failed Molly’s class last spring and been subsequently kicked out of her sorority. If anyone had a reason to seek revenge on her professor, it was Olivia Christenson.

  Registrars hold important positions at universities: they are the guardians of grades and academic records. Fortunately for me, our registrar was a revolving-door position; the university could never keep anyone in the job longer than a year, which meant the person would know that much less about the rules. Not that it was difficult for a professor to find out a student’s grade. There were awards, inductions, ceremonies—all sorts of things that required us to know a student’s GPA or grade-point average. Still, Olivia had never been one of my students, and I knew little about her. What reason did I have for inquiring about her GPA? If there was anything I was good at, though, it was making up a story.

  The registrar’s office was in the basement of Pender, the hall where the beautiful Pender Auditorium was located. Walking down the narrow steps, I took my first right, pausing briefly as I passed a vending machine. I checked my pockets but had no loose change; my afternoon chocolate craving would have to wait. I kept moving toward the office with the glass door marked OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR.

  “Hello,” I said to the girl at the front desk. She wore a ridiculous bang bun and sported our campus color: red. I tried to remember her face from the student newspaper but couldn’t. She played either softball or volleyball or maybe both. I wasn’t good at keeping up with the sports teams.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Is Vicki, the registrar, in? I need to talk to her about a student who… well, I just need to talk to her.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Do you want me to check?”

  “No, no,” I said. “I know where her office is. I’ll just go back and take a peek.”

  The area was small, so I didn’t have far to go. Vicki’s door was open, but I knocked anyway. She dropped her pencil.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said.

  “No, come in. Are you Maxwell?”

  Do I look like a Maxwell? I wanted to say. “No, I’m Emmeline Prather. I teach English?”

  “Oh my god, what was I thinking?” She rubbed her forehead. “Of course you’re not. I’ve been doing audits on seniors all day. It’s been crazy.”

  And it showed. Her eyeliner on one eye had disappeared completely, and her hair was twisted back with a pencil. The ends frayed out in all directions, making her face look like the center of a sunburst.

  I smiled. “I understand completely. It’s midterms, and that means a hefty amount of work for you. I’ll only take a moment of your time.”

  “Hefty. That’s the word. But you know, they told me that when I signed on. I just nodded and scribbled my name on the dotted line.” As she spoke, she was digging through the drawer for something. “Anyway, what can I help you with?”

  “Olivia Christenson. I need to know about her grades last year—Molly Jaspers’ class specifically. It was something in History.” I tried to think back to the conversation at the restaurant. “Western Civ.”

  She pulled out a pack of mints from the drawer and held it out. Never one to pass up candy, I took one.

  “Is that with an ‘e’ or ‘o’?”

  “ ‘O,’ I think.”

  “Why do you need to know?” she asked as she typed in the name.

  “For her sorority. Sorority purposes.”

  She looked up at me. “I didn’t know you worked with the Greek houses in town.”

  “I’ve dealt with them a time or two,” I said, not completely lying. “As a… liaison.” I liked the word and had always wanted to use it.

  “Well, it doesn’t look like she’ll be in the sorority for long, not with a 2.8 GPA. I think most houses require at least a 3.0. Last spring she failed Jaspers’ class, another class, and withdrew from a third. Luckily she added Photograp
hy and did well in that.”

  So it had been a difficult time for Olivia all around, which meant she didn’t have a reason to retaliate against Molly Jaspers specifically. My suspect pool narrowed. Out of curiosity, I asked, “What was the other class she failed, besides Molly’s?”

  “Music Appreciation.”

  Tough semester indeed.

  After I left Pender, I stopped at the stone bench in the quad just to take a breath. The day hadn’t warmed much, but the wind was slight, especially in the quadrangle, which was surrounded by the pillars of the campus: Stanton Hall, Winsor, and Pender. I enjoyed a few minutes of reflective silence, trying to make sense of the information I had gathered on Molly’s death. It was half past the hour, and everyone was in class, teachers and students alike. Had I never been part of campus life, I wouldn’t believe that in forty-five minutes, the quad would burst into a bustle of bodies and bikes.

  Spring semester was halfway over, and next fall’s schedule was in the planning stages. Molly’s death was sure to impact André’s future university trips abroad and ergo, mine. The university was going through the busywork of filing insurance claims and refunding faculty and students’ travel fees, and if Human Resources never saw the word “Paris” again, I was sure it would be too soon. I wanted to believe a French major was still possible, but even for a dreamer like me, it was impossible to think that the fiasco of spring break would soon be forgotten, especially with the death of Nick Dramsdor. Besides, fall semester had proven to be a disappointment on so many levels. Two students had failed their introductory French course and would not be progressing anytime soon. Without French majors, there would be no need for advanced French courses, such as the French literature course I was to teach. Fall enrollment would begin soon, and perhaps André could encourage parents and students to consider a foreign language during their exploratory visits to campus. But even André’s charm had its limits. If mothers heard the words “criminal charges” in the same sentence as “French professor,” it would mean curtains for André. I was imagining him taking a great stage bow of farewell when suddenly he appeared before me. I looked around to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep. With my constant insomnia, it was always a possibility.