Cast a Blue Shadow

by Gaus, P. L.

  “He’s nervous about the financial restructuring Favor had planned,” Branden said.

  “No need to worry now,” Robertson said.

  “That’s just Arne, Bruce.”

  Robertson looked at Armbruster.

  “Willhite said she was Sally Favor’s coach,” the deputy said.

  “Women’s basketball,” Branden said.

  “And Royce said he was a close friend of the family,” Armbruster finished.

  Robertson looked at Branden for an explanation.

  “He is, or was, Juliet Favor’s latest friend,” Branden said.

  “Sounds to me like you’d enjoy interviewing him,” Robertson said.

  “Give me Laughton, too,” Branden said.

  “Then I’ve got Willhite and Pomeroy,” Robertson said. “What’s Pomeroy do?”

  “Chairman of the chemistry department,” Armbruster said.

  “The Mad Scientist!” Robertson joked.

  “He’s pretty sharp,” Branden said. “We started together as assistant professors in the ’70s.”

  “Anyone who likes chemistry is already half a flake job, as far as I’m concerned,” Robertson said. “Why’s he out here?”

  Armbruster read from his notes. “He said he had a 9:00 appointment with Ms. Favor and Mr. DiSalvo.”

  “That makes him an hour early, if he didn’t know she was dead,” Robertson observed.

  “Says he didn’t know until he got out here,” Armbruster said.

  Robertson turned his eyes on Branden.

  Branden said, “That’s typical Pomeroy, angling to get in early. He probably brought a laptop in case Favor wouldn’t see him before 9:00.”

  “He did,” Armbruster said.

  Robertson turned for the door to the dining room and said, “You’re still on the back door, Stan.”

  BRANDEN followed the sheriff into the dining room. Laughton, Willhite, and Royce were standing beside a silver coffee urn, near the bay window. Branden saw Royce doctor his coffee from a pocket flask. Professor Pomeroy was seated at the far end of the oval table, punching the keys on a laptop. He glanced briefly at Branden and Robertson, and continued typing.

  Branden cut Laughton out of the group, whispering, “Arne, it’s horrible,” and led the president to the far side of the room. He put Laughton’s back to the others and saw Robertson sit at the table with Willhite and Royce. He heard Robertson speak affably, and knew both the coach and the art professor would underestimate the jovial lawman.

  “Arne, where does the college stand now?” Branden asked, turning to face Laughton.

  “Haven’t been able to talk with DiSalvo,” Laughton said.

  “Do you think they’ve already executed some of the reorganizations we heard about last night?” Branden asked.

  “Don’t know, Mike, although from what I heard, if they have gone ahead with it, we’re to be cut back about 30 percent overall.”

  “The history department and the museum were penciled in for 30 percent,” Branden said. “Did you get a chance to speak with her after dinner last night?”

  “I tried to, Mike, but no.”

  “Do you know if anyone from dinner stayed late?”

  “Maybe Royce. Do you know about them?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “He’s an embarrassment. A shameless philanderer.”

  “But you didn’t actually talk to Royce?”

  “Couldn’t find him, Mike.”

  “Arne, look. I’ve got to know if you stayed later than the others. The financial considerations are pretty minor compared to the fact that one of us is likely a murderer. Did you see anyone else who might have stayed later than you?”

  “No. There were still two cars left out back, though.”

  “One of them was yours?”

  “I parked in front.”

  Branden thought and waited.

  Laughton realized the problem. “I went to the back, Mike, to try to talk with Bliss.”

  Branden held silence.

  “I hunted him down, Mike, to ask if she’d see me. He was plowing again, in back. There were two cars there, snow covered. When I walked around front, that was plowed out, too, and my car was the only one left.”

  “So you did stay rather late.”

  “This place emptied out fast, Mike. I couldn’t have waited more than half an hour before I left, and then there were still two cars here. One was Royce’s. The other, I don’t know.”

  “How much had Bliss plowed?”

  “All of the front, I guess, plus some of the back, by the time I found him.”

  “What did he say, Arne?”

  “Said Favor had a headache.”

  “You let it go at that?”

  “Everyone knows she gets migraines.”

  “Those bottles?” Branden asked.

  “I guess. How’d you know about that?”

  “Dick Pomeroy told me about it once,” Branden said. “It’s DMSO. Helps with chronic headaches, the way he explained it to me. You’d know about it if you had been a hippie, Arne.”

  “Well, I wasn’t.”

  “They used to put LSD in it and trip.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Of course not, Arne. But it’s good for headaches. You can still get it at some pharmacies.”

  “And how did you learn this about Pomeroy?” Laughton asked. He looked over his shoulder at the typing chemist and turned back to Branden.

  “Dick likes to talk about his research,” Branden said. “And I’ve been happy to listen. It’s really quite fascinating. The college doesn’t give him enough credit.”

  “He gets plenty of money from outside sources,” Laughton said. “Favor owns a pharmaceutical company in Japan. He sends them samples for screening.”

  “Did you know,” Branden asked, “that one of his discoveries shows promise as an anti-tumor agent?”

  “So that’s the Peru angle?”

  “He gets his samples there,” Branden said.

  “I don’t think he’s spent a summer on campus for fifteen years,” Laughton said reproachfully. “Won’t serve on faculty committees, either.”

  “I’d call the latter a sign of high intelligence,” Branden laughed. “But, he publishes, Arne. That’s good for the college and for the students.”

  Laughton sighed. “He was just bragging about how many students he’s hired on grants over the years.”

  “How did you get on that topic?” Branden asked.

  “He started out saying that Sally Favor, no less, worked with him one summer in Peru, and then in his lab the next semester.”

  “He took a co-ed to Peru?”

  “One summer that I know of, Mike.”

  Branden encouraged comment by hinting scandal with his eyebrows.

  “Oh, no one has to worry about him and Sally Favor, Mike. She’s gay—president of the Lambda Society on campus. Becky Willhite is one of the advisers. Sally’s also one of her star basketball players.”

  Branden looked past the president to Robertson, Willhite, and Royce at the far end of the oval dining room table. He said, “I’ll bet Willhite took a cutback last night, too.”

  Coach Willhite, Director of Physical Education, women’s basketball coach, and co-adviser for the gay-lesbian Lambda Society, was married, with children, and straight. But her older brother had died of AIDS when she was nine, and she worked with the Lambda Society to honor his memory.

  “Why don’t you wait around and talk to the sheriff, Arne?” Branden suggested.

  “I’ll stay until I settle matters with DiSalvo.”

  “Look, Arne, forget the money for once!” Branden said forcefully.

  Laughton shook his head as if to clear his vision and said, “Right. I still can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Branden said. “I need to talk with Royce. Can you tell me anything about his reaction to Juliet’s murder?”

  “He’s been drinking already,” Laughton whispered.
<
br />   Branden checked his watch—9:15 A.M.

  Over Laughton’s shoulder, Branden saw Rebecca Willhite push away from the table where she and Royce had been sitting with Robertson. She looked angry and left quickly. For his part, Robertson looked over at Branden and shrugged. Phillips Royce sat back casually, apparently having enjoyed the exchange between the coach and the sheriff. Robertson got up and loudly said to Royce, “So nice to meet you, Professor,” and Branden watched the sheriff amble to the other end of the table to address the chemist Pomeroy, leaving Royce alone for the moment. Branden said goodbye to the president and moved quickly to sit with Royce.

  “SHERIFF say something to Coach Willhite?” Branden asked Royce.

  “He is rather a blunt fellow, wouldn’t you say?”

  “More than most. Not as bad as some,” Branden said. “I’ve known him since we were kids, and he has mellowed considerably in recent years.”

  “Do tell,” Royce said, playing with one end of his black mustache. “Look, Mike, this is all rather unnerving, to say the least. Juliet Favor and I were considerably more than friends.”

  Branden nodded. “You saw her last night?”

  “At dinner, like everyone else. But you were there and already know that.”

  Branden leaned over on his forearms, studied the wood grain in the dining room table, and asked, “I thought you might have come out earlier, or stayed late, Phillips,” he suggested.

  “I am quite certain that would not be any of your business, Mike, even if you are helping with the investigation of Juliet’s murder.”

  “I guess I’m a little bit involved,” Branden said.

  Royce tipped his head knowingly. “Did you get anything out of Arne about the cutbacks?”

  “We don’t know if she signed any papers,” Branden said.

  “She hadn’t,” Royce asserted. He took out a pipe with a curved stem and started packing it with tobacco from a leather zippered pouch. Royce lighted the pipe, took several deep puffs, and said, “I doubt the kids will mind a little smoke today.”

  “You’re taking this rather well, Phillips,” Branden said.

  “I offer no excuses. She was quite aware I didn’t love her,” Royce said and blew smoke toward the ceiling. “She rather preferred it that way. As for me, I liked proximity to power and money. The sex was agreeable, to be sure,” he added wistfully. “I’ll miss the finer things that money can buy.”

  “That’s rather cold, Phillips,” Branden chided.

  Royce leaned forward on the table, planted his elbows, pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Look, Mike,” he said. “Juliet Favor took pleasure in only two things. Money and power. And for her, the two were interchangeable commodities. Why do you think she was hounding Arne Laughton about being chairwoman of the board? I was just a diversion. Believe me, there have been others.”

  Branden took a deliberate pause. Royce sat back and puffed on his pipe.

  “Why are you sitting here, Phillips?” Branden eventually asked.

  “Morbid curiosity,” Royce replied. He stared steadily at Branden’s eyes, and then appeared to soften, as if his careful affectations of disinterest had failed him. Eyes lowered, he said, “Truth is, Mike, I can’t bring myself to leave.” Then, as if that brief moment of honesty were an embarrassment to him, Royce said, “I guess I’m here, like everyone else, for the money.”

  Branden let that comment hang between them for a moment and said, “I’d be surprised if you’re not in her will, Phillips.”

  Royce stalled, and managed to temper his expression, while tamping the tobacco deeper into the bowl of his pipe. He took the measure of Branden, took out his flask and drank a swig, and said, unapologetically, “It will augment my salary and endow a few fine arts scholarships. Everyone knows they pay us shabbily enough at the college. But, if you’ve got any suspicions, I’ll tell you flatly that my department and my professional work wouldn’t have suffered unduly, even if she had lived to implement her new programs. I had no reason to kill her.”

  “You’ll not be surprised to learn, then,” Branden said, “that all of the rest of us were slated to take a cutback of 30 percent or so.”

  “The history department?” Royce asked.

  “Also 30 percent. The museum, too.”

  Royce smiled. “So it wouldn’t constitute much of an exaggeration to speculate that you would have had as much a motive for murder as anyone.”

  “Quite,” Branden said. “Quite right. And I guess there’s the crux of it. With Favor’s dying before implementation of her new budgets, we all are indirect beneficiaries, and indebted to the one person who decided to do more than just talk about it.”

  “Including the children,” Royce added.

  “What do you know about them?”

  “Very little, actually. Sally I know enough to realize that she disapproves of me. And Sonny—I guess you’ll know as well as anyone that he is an insufferable brat.”

  “Phillips!”

  “You serve as his adviser,” Royce countered. “Tell me I am wrong.”

  “You are, to a point,” Branden said. “He’s—” Branden hesitated, “underdeveloped.”

  “That boy is mature enough to have wrecked the work of one of my most gifted students!”

  “Martha Lehman?”

  “The same, Professor. Since they have taken up together, her photographs, when she actually makes any, have been desultory.”

  “That bad?”

  “In the extreme.”

  “But I thought you considered Martha a natural behind the lens.”

  “And in the darkroom, Mike. But not anymore. She used to attack a subject like the lens could bare its soul. Profound insight, really. Composition. Point of view. Depth of field, and the technical matters, too. Her best color prints rival Frederic Joy’s.”

  “But not lately?”

  “Not by the proverbial mile. Last semester she constructed a studio strobe system for studying glass and crystal images. Shapes, color, and lighting. Remarkable, really. This semester, she hasn’t logged ten hours on the project. The equipment is dusty, Mike. The studio stays dark.”

  “And you blame Sonny?”

  “No, Professor, I blame you.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “You’re the one who introduced Sonny Favor to her.”

  “I’d hardly put it like that, Phillips. He’s just in our class, like anyone else.”

  “As you say, Mike. But not at all ‘like anyone else.’ You should have known that a girl with her background would have been overwhelmed by all the trappings of the Favor mystique.”

  “As far as I know, he only took her to a few Indians games.”

  “And his Lexus is just a car, Mike. Did you know that his mother bought season tickets for him as soon as he was admitted to our fair college?”

  “I don’t see that as a problem for anyone.”

  “Did you know that Sonny took her to New York City?”

  “No,” Branden answered, on guard.

  “She wanted to photograph Ground Zero.”

  “I knew that, but I didn’t know she had actually done it. Not with Sonny.”

  “He’s a profligate moron, Mike, and he’s ruined Martha Lehman as an artist. Ten hours in the studio, Mike. That’s all I’ve gotten from her this semester,” Royce said. He took off his thick black glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief, pipe hanging from his mouth. Folding the handkerchief ceremoniously, the art professor got out of his chair and pointed the stem of his pipe at his colleague. “I don’t care if she is one of your projects, Mike. I want her back in the darkroom and the studio, or she’s not going to pass my tutorial.”

  Branden nodded. Changed the subject. “Are you still pressing your motion at faculty meeting?”

  “Of course,” Royce said. “It is decidedly not fair that the sciences get all that money for lab courses. Other departments have expenses, too.”

  “I doubt the scientists are trying to get away
with anything, Phillips. They’ve got legitimate expenses.”

  “Then the science students have got to pay more tuition.”

  “That’s hardly the spirit of the liberal arts.”

  “Science is not a liberal art.”

  “It is very much so!” Branden exclaimed.

  “Then I will expect you to argue against me tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Count on it, Phillips.”

  “If Juliet were still alive, your vote wouldn’t count for anything on this issue.”

  “How so?”

  “You would have to ask Henry DiSalvo. But special budgets for the sciences were to be a thing of the past.”

  “How sad.”

  “That studio lighting system I told you about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Seem fair to you, Professor, that that equipment came out of my pocket?”

  “Not at all, but hurting one branch of the college isn’t the way to address the problem.”

  “When did you cross over to the other side, Mike?”

  “Science is the ally of art, Royce. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  “Well, it is not my ally. Not in the slightest. It hasn’t been, at Millersburg College, for years.”

  “And you think Juliet Favor had set out to correct that problem?”

  “Talk to DiSalvo,” Royce said confidently.

  “I will.”

  “Good. And I suggest you stay sharp tomorrow at faculty meeting. I’m not the only professor who feels this way. Not the only one at all.”

  16

  Saturday, November 2 9:35 A.M.

  AS THE SKIES cleared briefly, Caroline Branden gunned the engine in her Miata and slid sideways to a stop in the parking lot of Evelyn Carson’s building. She got out in deep snow, kicked angrily at the ice packs around her back tires, and then opened the trunk of the car. The bright sun seemed incongruous with the cold air and snow, since to Caroline, after nearly thirty years in northern Ohio, cold weather spoke mostly of cloudy skies.

  She popped the zipper of her coat up to the top and pulled her hood over her head. From the trunk of her car, she retrieved the things she had gathered from Martha’s room, and closed the lid. Sliding her boots through the snow, she followed the path made earlier to the side door of the Victorian house, and inside, she stomped her feet to knock off snow and ice.