by Mary Angela
He shut the gate to Shakespeare’s Garden, leaving me open-mouthed. I stomped over to the bench. He didn’t have to be rude. Reed Williams was still in the garden. Why shut me out? The seat was cold, and I pulled my sweater under my rear. It wasn’t so bad. I had a good view of the scene and could see what was happening from here. I pulled out my phone and texted Lenny.
Could you meet me? I’m in Shakespeare’s Garden.
Is everything coming up roses? he texted.
No, I said. Coming up murder.
* * *
Lenny arrived ten minutes later. Dressed in a red sweatshirt with a university logo and jeans, he looked like a grad student. He also wore tennis shoes and was practically running toward the garden. I called out to him before he reached the gate, and he veered quickly in my direction.
He stood, catching his breath in front of me. “Who is it?”
“Tanner Sparks,” I said. “He’s dead.”
“Our Tanner Sparks?”
“The very same. Reed found him in the garden. I arrived just afterwards.”
“Was it really murder?” Lenny glanced toward the garden. Crime scene investigators were taking pictures. “They must think so.”
“We won’t know for sure until after the autopsy,” I said. “He was lying on the bench when Reed found him. A liquid was coming from his ear.”
Lenny turned back toward me. “Like in Hamlet?”
“Yes,” I said, surprised by how quickly he had put it together.
He sat down, embracing me with his warm arm. “You’re cold. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s the wind.” But I was upset. Though I didn’t have Tanner as a student, I did know him from the department. I couldn’t believe a young man so full of life could be dead. I took a deep breath and pointed at Beamer. “He wants to talk afterward.”
“I bet,” said Lenny. “It might be awhile, though.” Students were gathering around the garden. They were keeping a safe distance, but many had their phones out. Sophie Barnes, my former student and a detective on the Copper Bluff Police Force, was telling them to stay back, but it was no use. They were coming out of their dorms in droves now to investigate the commotion.
In the midst of the chaos, a girl broke through the crowd, her blonde bun bobbing back and forth. Heedless of Sophie’s warning, she was quickly nearing the garden as if intending to walk right in. An officer stopped her but not before she was near enough to see Tanner’s lifeless body.
“No, you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “That’s Tanner Sparks. He’s my boyfriend.”
Now I recognized her. Her name was Mia, and she lived with her friends in the white two-story house down the street from me. She must have been the one Tanner called “psycho.” I studied her more closely. She didn’t look psycho; she looked like any girl on campus, except less awake. Her clothes—a half-shirt and sweatpants—told me she must have received a call from one of her friends in the crowd surrounding the garden.
“I know her,” I told Lenny. “She and her friends live down the block from me. I heard Tanner call her psycho when he was leaving the house the other day.”
Lenny followed my gaze. “Maybe he meant it affectionately. She looks pretty upset to me.”
“How can you call someone psycho in an affectionate way?” I said. “Never mind. Here comes Giles.”
Giles, wearing his signature tan blazer with elbow patches, was walking and talking with Felix and Andy, the scholars visiting our campus. Engaged in conversation, he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss until he saw the police officers. Then he stopped in the middle of the quad and stared. Scratching his head, he turned to Felix. That’s when he saw Lenny and me. We stood to meet him.
“What’s going on?” Giles’s voice was measured. Even in a crisis, he remained calm. “Why are the police here? I didn’t get a campus alert.”
“It’s Tanner Sparks,” I said. “Reed found him on the park bench this morning. Dead.”
Giles blinked, not speaking. He was taking the news harder than I expected. Usually the one to comfort others, he stared silently into the garden.
“Don’t worry, there’s no active threat,” said Lenny. “Tanner must have died sometime last night.”
At Giles’s elbow, Felix and Andy were speaking in voices too low to hear. Felix was wearing a well-tailored suit and tie. Andy was wearing a Ralph Lauren sport coat that made his black hair look almost blue. Both were overdressed for a garden party, I thought, and looked out of place on our small college campus.
Felix raised his voice to include the rest of us. “Tanner Sparks. That’s the student who said Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare?” He sighed. “Poor fellow. Maybe he had too much to drink. A lot of alcohol poisoning on campuses these days.”
Andy shook his head. “I don’t think so. Tanner didn’t drink anything but Mountain Dew. Bottles of it.”
“You knew him?” I asked. He sure hadn’t acted like it when he criticized his presentation.
“We were undergrads together at Iowa,” said Andy. When nobody said anything, he added, “What? I grew up there.”
Lenny and I exchanged a look. Each of us always knew what the other was thinking. The well-dressed windbag was in his own backyard.
Chapter Seven
I wouldn’t have guessed Andy was from the Midwest, and from Lenny’s skeptical expression, he didn’t believe it either. People from the Midwest had a sensibility about them that Andy didn’t share. Maybe I was stereotyping, but coming from Michigan and now living in South Dakota, I had experience to draw from. People here were friendly and down-to-earth. Andy was neither.
A breeze blew through our makeshift circle. “I didn’t realize you knew Tanner,” I said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“We went to college together,” said Andy. “We weren’t friends.”
“Still, it must be a blow,” said Felix. He gave Andy a solid pat on the shoulder. Andy squinted in his direction. The sun was coming over Winsor Hall now, spotlighting the crime scene.
“He applied to Denver,” Andy said to Felix. “He didn’t get in. Maybe you heard of him.”
“No,” said Felix. “Not until yesterday. I would’ve remembered a student with a dissertation proposal refuting Shakespeare’s identity.”
Yes, he would have, so why didn’t he? I pondered the question while I watched Sophie Barnes close the garden gate. Maybe they were done questioning Reed.
Giles sighed. “I can hardly believe it.” He looked at me and Lenny. “You saw him yesterday. He was the picture of health—like any student on campus. Some … accident must have befallen him.”
“Perhaps,” I said to comfort him. His voice was laden with grief, and I knew what it was like to lose a student. As chair of the English Department, Giles had closer contact with Tanner than I over the years, as a teacher or mentor or both.
“Of course it was an accident, a terrible accident,” said Felix. “Come on, Jim. Let’s take a walk. Andy, you too.”
Giles turned to me as if asking permission.
“That’s okay,” I said. “You go. I’ll stay and talk to Sophie Barnes. It looks as if she’s finishing up.”
Lenny and I watched them walk away.
“I’m starting to really dislike him,” said Lenny.
“I assume you mean Andy,” I said. “Can you believe he’s from Iowa? He acted like Copper Bluff was in the middle of nowhere.”
“Coming from the Midwest is nothing to be ashamed of,” said Lenny. “The guy’s a jerk.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Do you think he had anything to do with Tanner’s death?”
“Here we go.”
“I observed his lifeless body in the garden,” I said. “Someone staged that scene on purpose, and you yourself said Tanner’s bombshell would impact a lot of academics. Maybe Andy felt as if his work was being threatened. He’s so dang proud of his New York publisher.”
“You have a point,” said Lenny. “He wouldn’t want to go
back to his hometown hanging his head in shame if his book tanked, or worse yet, was pulled from publication.”
“But who would kill someone over a book?”
Lenny motioned to the crowd in the quad. “About seventy-five percent of the people here.”
“Here comes Sophie,” I said. “I mean, Detective Barnes. Let’s see if she has any information.”
Detective Barnes was short, with brown hair always worn in a tidy updo, off her collar. Today she had it in a slick bun. She looked older and wiser than the student from my first year on campus. Back then, she’d had a fondness for literature and almost changed her major to English. Thankfully, she continued on her original course: a degree in criminal justice.
“Hello, Professor.”
She’d never heeded my plea not to call me professor. She claimed it was a habit she couldn’t break.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said. “Tanner Sparks was a student in the English Department. What happened?”
She glanced over her shoulder, then back at us. “Beamer sent me over here to get your statements, not relay news. Were you also first on the scene, Professor Jenkins?”
Lenny shook his head. “No, I just got here.”
“Then I’ll just need to speak to Professor Prather.”
“Sophie! Can’t you tell us anything?”
She lowered her voice. “Look, Beamer told me to mind the books on this one. He warned me about getting too ‘friendly’ with my old professors, and he meant you.”
“Oh,” I said. “I understand.” She had been my student. I wanted the best for her, even if that meant finding out the answers to my questions another way.
“I didn’t mean it like that. You know how much I look up to you.” Sophie took a step closer. “Between us, it appears Tanner died by some kind of poisoning, maybe even alcohol. There are no stab wounds or entry wounds of any kind. We won’t know for sure until the coroner examines him.”
“The liquid in his ear, right?” I said. “Did you see it?”
“Yes,” she said, almost in a whisper. “They swabbed it for testing.” Her voice returned to normal. “If you’ll excuse us, Professor Jenkins, I need to ask Professor Prather a few questions.”
“Sure,” said Lenny. “I’ll be right over here.” He walked to a nearby bike rack and leaned against it.
Sophie flipped open her notebook. “I like my notebook app, but Beamer prefers pencil and paper.”
“Technology fails. Pencils and paper rarely do.”
Sophie smiled, looking like the young student I remembered. “I forgot. You don’t like technology either. You never used it in your classes.”
“I use it more now,” I said, which was kind of true. We were required to keep grades updated online, at least for freshman and sophomore classes.
“What time did you arrive on campus this morning?” Her pencil was poised to record my answer.
“A little after eight,” I said. “On Fridays, I like to stop by St. Agnes, but the door was locked. I knew it was a bad omen. They never lock the church. In fact, I think there’s a rule. Maybe it’s illegal—not cop illegal but Catholic illegal.”
Sophie cleared her throat. “So you arrived a little after eight. What did you see?”
“I saw Professor Reed Williams in the garden. I also saw someone on the bench. I didn’t know it was Tanner until I came closer. At first, I thought a student had passed out.”
“And what was Professor Williams doing?”
I hated admitting Reed had his hands on Tanner. I worried he might be a suspect. “He was sort of … nudging Tanner to wake him up.”
“What did you do when you got closer? Did you attempt to wake him?”
“Heavens no,” I said. “I could see he was dead the moment I entered the garden. I called the police.”
“Why do you think Reed didn’t call the police?” asked Sophie with an undertone of suspicion. “As you said yourself, a dead body can hardly be mistaken for a live one.”
“I … maybe he didn’t have his cellphone with him. He was obviously in shock. He was the chair of Tanner’s dissertation committee. I don’t think he wanted to believe Tanner was dead.” I took a breath. “I still can’t believe it. Who would do such a thing?”
“We can’t be sure it wasn’t Tanner himself,” said Sophie. “So far, I’ve seen no evidence of foul play. Professor Williams said last night was opening night at the theater. Maybe he and the cast celebrated by drinking too much.”
I shook my head. “Talk to Andy Wells. He’s here for the Shakespeare conference. He was an undergraduate with Tanner at Iowa. According to him, Tanner didn’t drink.”
She wrote down the name. “I will, but people change. Graduate school is a lot more pressure, or so I’ve heard. One of my friends quit after a year.”
“Also talk to his girlfriend,” I said. “She lives down the street from me, and I heard him call her psycho.”
She shut the notebook. “Beamer warned me of this. He said you’d try to steer the investigation if I let you. He said I needed to be firm.”
“I’m just repeating what I heard.”
“I don’t mind,” said Sophie. “I like working with you. It’s like having our own Miss Marple in town.”
“Except younger and with better shoes.” I gave her a wink. “Do you still keep up with your reading?”
“How do you think I know about Miss Marple?” She tucked her notebook under her arm. “Thanks to you, I’m probably the only person under thirty who reads Agatha Christie.”
“Not true,” I said. “I’m teaching a new Crimes and Passions course now. We read Christie every semester.”
She chuckled. “Thanks, Professor. Don’t forget your flowers when you go.”
I turned back to the bench. I hadn’t brought any flowers with me. But there on the curved cement bench was a small pot of red flowers. “These aren’t mine …” I said, but Sophie was several steps away from me. I looked for Lenny. He was still by the bike rack, conversing with another English faculty member, Jane Lemort. Actually, Jane was talking, and he was glancing over Jane’s shoulder, probably trying to find a way out. She was our medieval scholar, and holding a conversation with her could be hard. If the talk didn’t have something to do with medieval times or her important committee work, she had nothing to say. Little did Lenny know, I was about to rescue him.
I reached for the plant. It was a begonia. Every spring I bought yellow begonias to match my house. I touched the dark red flower, drawn to it like Sleeping Beauty to the spinning wheel. It was lovely, so why did I have a sinking feeling in my stomach?
“Did you bring me this?” I asked Lenny. “Hi, Jane.”
“I certainly hope he didn’t,” said Jane. She wore a long A-line dress, black, adorned only with a string of black beads. The roots of her hair matched her dress, but the rest of her locks were blonde and pulled into a low ponytail.
“Why not?” I asked Jane.
Lenny answered at the same time. “I didn’t.”
“Every flower has a meaning, Emmeline, and this is a begonia.”
“So?” I said. “I love begonias.”
“Years ago—”
“Uh-oh,” said Lenny. “Here it comes, a medieval history lesson.”
“Ha ha, very funny,” she said, not amused. “People used to know the meanings of flowers. I cringe when I go to funerals and see yellow carnations. They were once employed to reject a suitor.”
“A hundred years ago, maybe,” said Lenny.
“Anyway, what do begonias mean?” I prodded.
Jane smiled, holding onto the nugget of information like a piece of gold. “I would think you’d have come across it in your Crimes and Passions course.”
“I haven’t,” I said through gritted teeth.
“They mean … beware.”
Chapter Eight
After imparting this grim bit of flower trivia, Jane turned and left. A fellow committee member called to her from the pathway, an
d she wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to socialize with genuine intelligentsia. Lenny and I were too young to be taken seriously. Then again, so was she, but her dour voice was more convincing. Plus, she was better than we were at inserting herself into academic life. She joined everything, organized everything, and championed everything that had anything to do with medieval times. I’d staked out a similar path for myself in graduate school—except in the field of French literature. I was a dedicated scholar who had little room for anything else other than books. Then I came to Copper Bluff, met Lenny, and got pulled into my first murder investigation. Plans fell by the wayside, and life took over, marching in another direction.
The surprise was I didn’t regret any of it. Though I’d planned to get a job at an Ivy League school, become chair of my department and then dean of my college, I’d also planned on dating a sommelier who recited poetry. Lenny wasn’t even close to that fantasy, but since we’d been dating, I was happier than I’d ever been, and my classes had benefited too. They had little to do with French literature, yet it had been my best year to date. I looked down at the begonia in my hand. Maybe that was about to change.
“Don’t let what Jane said bother you,” said Lenny, reading my mind. He was good at that. “You love begonias and had no idea of their meaning. Nobody does.”
“Jane does,” I said. “Maybe somebody else does too.”
“Maybe they’re not even meant for you. How about that?” Lenny took the pot and tossed it in the trash by the bike rack. “Now they’re nobody’s.”
As we walked toward Harriman Hall, I couldn’t shake the feeling they were intended for me. That somebody had left them there for me to find, as they had the poem, taunting or tricking me. But who would do that? A student on a bike whizzed by. Students were problematic. I’d given my fair share of failing grades to those who hadn’t shown up, not turned in work, or missed requirements. But would a struggling student go to the trouble of writing poems and sending flowers? Most of the time, they couldn’t be bothered to submit work. Why exert themselves now?
