Mind Change

by T'Gracie Reese

  Mind Change

  (A Nina Bannister Mystery)

  by

  T’Gracie and Joe Reese

  To the Adjunct Faculty Members of the Academic World

  Note: All of the research quoted in this novel comes from actual academic journals. All of the administrative offices cited actually exist.

  CHAPTER ONE: A DIFFICULTY IN READING

  It was a plain little house and Nina Bannister loved it. It was not, in all honesty, even a house at all. What was it? A bungalow? No. A cottage? That would be putting an optimistic spin on the thing. It was literally no more than an outbuilding, a something that would have passed for slave quarters if slaves had existed at the time of its construction. It contained only one large room, partitioned by half walls and dotted here and there by what passed for a tiny kitchen, a never-quite functional bathroom, a bed nook and, at her first glance, it was semi-coated by badly peeling grey paint seemingly bought as surplus from the German army.

  But she still loved it.

  Tucked away in this near forest, with a crumbling red-brick wall separating it from the lane, and a delightfully dilapidated off-green swinging gate allowing entrance to the yard-patch–– ––tucked away just far enough from the sight of those few university students who might be passing en route to the mile distant campus––

  ––it looked fine indeed!

  It was her Hobbit House and had been for three days now, ever since her Monday arrival on the Ellerton University campus.

  These were thoughts that occupied her as she returned to the place, having done a little shopping. She slipped her key into the lock, forced the door open (for it was true that nothing opened, locked, flushed, heated, slid, buzzed, whirred, ticked, cooled, or functioned in any cause and effect manner precisely as it should have in this shadowy, forgotten little efficiency of hers), and walked inside.

  Tea.

  She crossed the room, extricated herself from the computer-weighted backpack, entered the kitchen, and started the pot boiling.

  After a short time the tea was ready.

  Music.

  A three disc set of I Vespri Sicilliani––for lesser-known Verdi was another of her hidden vices––buzzed in furred 1951 tones through the room.

  And satisfying herself that Maria Callas was, in fact, singing just loud enough to avoid shrillness and capture genius, she sat before her small table, turned on the black, revolving fan, and opened her computer.

  Email.

  There it was, glowing white with black messages snaking their way across the screen.

  From Margot: “So excited about your new adventure. Have you met your classes yet? Write, write! Tell me everything!”

  From Alanna: “Everyone in Bay St. Lucy is excited about your honor. No one deserves it more. The real winners will be, of course, the students.”

  And a few more, from Macy and Paul (writing from Jackson), and from Tom and Penelope (writing from parenthood), and––

  ––the usual suspects.

  She answered them all, of course.

  Then she changed clothes and allowed herself to read a mystery.

  Which she had been doing, legs propped on one chair, tea beside her on the nightstand, for sixty or seventy pages. The murder had happened, body discovered, suspects introduced, proper flavor of British countryside added, a few paragraphs of obligatory imagery thrown in, followed by twenty-five pages of dialogue.

  She was on, to be perfectly accurate, page 67, when the first event took place to stop her from drifting into pre-sleep: a hard, mid-September rain began to fall, blown in by a breeze strong enough to shake the branches of the oak grove which lowered over her cottage—for it could only be called a cottage when she was reading about England—and releasing several thousand bushels of ripe, ready-to-fall acorns, which exploded like a young war upon the tin roof above her.

  Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam!

  Anzio Beachhead falls. Corregidor falls.

  And still the firing continues.

  Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam!

  Acorns to the right of us, acorns to the left of us.

  And the soft early fall rain intensifying, softening, pattering in the wind, washing the window just above the bed, fluttering the curtains and freshening the Earl Grey scented air around her.

  This on page 67;

  On page 69, a knock at her door.

  Acorns?

  Rap, rap, rap.

  No, this was a knock. From a human hand.

  The acorns were:

  BAM BAM BAM BAM

  This was:

  Rap, rap, rap.

  She looked up, putting down the book.

  The door’s window was curtained, too, and all she could see was a shadowy form moving slowly back and forth, obviously shifting weight from one leg to another.

  It had always bothered her that she could only identify someone knocking at her door by opening it.

  Which did not seem a particularly secure arrangement.

  But this was a university, she told herself, and apart from the occasional disgruntled undergraduate, unhappy with the results of a C+ on what had been a pure B-transcript—apart from this menace, none of the other harsh realities of the actual world existed to threaten its inhabitants.

  Still, rising, she found a note of nervousness in her voice as she asked the still wavering shadow beyond the doorway:

  “Who is it?”

  “This is Rick Barnes. I’m from the local paper. Sorry to bother you so late!”

  She got out of bed and made her way toward the door.

  The local paper?

  What was that all about?

  She opened the door and saw a tall unkempt figure standing before her. He was dressed in denim jeans and jacket. He had a Kris Kristofferson kind of beard, and, for that matter, Kris Kristofferson blue eyes.

  “Ms. Nina Bannister?”

  Kris Kristofferson deep voice.

  Good that she was a Kris Kristofferson fan.

  “Yes, I’m Nina Bannister.”

  “Once again, I’m sorry to bother you so late in the evening.”

  “Actually,” she said, taking a step back into the living room, “it isn’t that late. I was just reading a book and had dozed off. You did me a favor in keeping me from going to sleep. I would have waked up at three in the morning.”

  “I still have the feeling that I’m disturbing you.”

  He stepped into the living room, his wild mop of dark gray light gray completely silver blue-black hair explosively disheveled, and somehow giving the impression that it had been combed by an atom smasher.

  “Come on in. Will you have a cup of tea? I just made a pot an hour or so ago. You like Earl Gray?”

  “Love it.”

  “Good. Sit down.”

  He did, somehow folding his long body over a chair and partially under the kitchen table.

  She poured and served the tea, savoring it herself as it trickled down her throat.

  “You’re a newspaperman?”

  “I am. Have been for forty years.”

  “Always here?”

  “For the whole time. Ace reporter for The Gazette. People ask me why I don’t move away, and I hardly know what to tell them. I’m a small town guy, I guess.”

  “Well, this town isn’t that small. It’s hardly a mere village. And it has Ellerton University.”

  “Yes, that’s true. And that makes it home.”

  “You graduated from Ellerton?”

  “I did. Degree in journalism, then went straight to work for the paper. So I have ties to the university. And there’s always something going on, on campus. Concerts, sports events—I cover them all, as well as the occasional pot bust or fraternity beer brawl.”

  “The seedier and rougher s
ide of academia.”

  “Yes. Maybe not the streets of Manhattan, but not completely boring either.”

  He smiled as he sipped his tea, laugh wrinkles changing their angles and patterns as his expression altered.

  “And that,” he went on, “is what has brought me here.”

  “What, exactly?”

  “Well, you’re big news at the university.”

  “You’re kind to say that. I’m not sure I’m as important as all that. But I must say, I was honored to get President Herndon’s letter.”

  “When did you receive it?”

  “A month ago, in mid-August. I still have it, as a matter of fact.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “Could I see it?”

  “Of course, you could see it. It’s over here, in the desk drawer. I’m keeping it safely hidden away, just in case some actual professor approaches me and asks what I, a mere ex-high school teacher and principal, am doing on the campus of one of the state’s most prestigious research universities.”

  She opened a drawer of the desk, took out the carefully typed letter, and laid it open on the kitchen table so they could both read:

  Dear Ms. Nina Bannister:

  This is President Lucinda Herndon, writing from Ellerton University. I have the honor to inform you that you have been selected as winner of our first Golden Age Teaching Award. You have received this award because you have, for decades, inspired and informed your students, your community—and in short, your world.

  We here at Ellerton are proud to recognize you. But we do not wish our acquaintanceship to be that brief, or to consist merely in one speech or one awards event. Rather, we would like to invite you to be a part of our campus intellectual life for the entire fall semester, teaching at least one course in your area of expertise. You will be given free housing on campus and paid an honorarium of ten thousand dollars.

  We hope the funding will be useful to you, but it is we who will be the actual winners. Ellerton wishes to become in reality what many other institutions claim to be, but are actually not. We wish to be a true Teaching University, where every one of our undergraduate students has the opportunity, during each moment of classroom time, to hear and be around a master teacher, a classroom creator whose wit, humor, consideration, love of subject, respect for students—have been honed and developed over a lifetime of work and dedication.

  No, Ms. Bannister: we hope you will accept our monetary offer, but it is we who will be receiving the treasure.

  Again, it is with deep pleasure that I contact you.

  Please—do join us for the Golden Age Semester at Ellerton.

  We all look forward to learning from you.

  Lucinda Herndon

  President

  Ellerton University

  They both looked at the letter for a time, regarding it as something warm, glowing, golden, and sacred.

  “That,” said the man sitting beside her, “is quite a letter.”

  Nina nodded.

  “You can imagine how it made me feel.”

  “No, I really can’t. No one’s ever offered me a Golden Age Reporter Award.”

  “Well. Maybe when you get to be my age.”

  “I’m your age now, and the only thing on my horizon is forced retirement. Anyway, I guess it’s time to explain the interruption. I’ve got a feature coming out in a day or so, and it’s going to be about this Golden Age program. And about you.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “No, actually we are. Apparently—Lucinda shared this with me—everybody in Bay St. Lucy remembers you as the greatest teacher in the town’s history.”

  “I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

  “Not much of one, from what she tells me. And then there’s the Lissie movement. That was your idea, wasn’t it?”

  “It came from a lot of sources. Hopefully it did some good.”

  “Twenty-three women now serving in Congress who might not have been there without that movement.”

  Nina shook her head:

  “It’s a shame. We were shooting for forty.”

  “Give it time, give it time. But anyway, I know all about those things. Plus some other facts that Lucinda was able to give me. I could pretty much write a decent piece about you as it. One thing though I thought you might clarify.”

  “If I can.”

  “Lucinda told me that you two had known each other before.”

  “Yes. We were at Ole Miss together getting our teachers’ certificates. I was already married to Frank, but he had to stay in Bay St. Lucy because of his law practice. Lucinda had not yet met Thomas, the man she was to marry. We were in several classes together and sort of felt like kindred spirits. We became good friends, and have kept in contact. Our lives became quite different, of course. I went back to Bay St. Lucy and the public schools. Lucy met Thomas, whose career became meteoric. President of the great Ellerton University, pride of the state. And then when he died, of course, Lucinda succeeded him.”

  “Unanimous choice of the board. And a great choice. Lucinda Herndon—everyone will tell you this—is one of the most creative university presidents in the country. If she weren’t, then you wouldn’t be here. And there are, according to her, going to be many more like you in years to come. Hundreds of great public school teachers, most still in excellent health—living off teacher retirement, probably secretly glad not to do hall duty and eat tater tots anymore.”

  “Actually I never minded the tater tots.”

  “But the hall duty?”

  “I usually tried to find a football coach to do that for me.”

  Rick Barnes smiled and shook his head:

  “All of that talent being wasted. And most of those teachers never having had the chance to go into a classroom where the students weren’t throwing books at each other, and they didn’t have to worry about kids getting into fights in the halls. Great teachers, all gathered at a true university. What an idea.”

  “I don’t know. I had to think long and hard about whether I would try to do this.”

  “What made you hesitate?”

  “Well, I have a nice little life in my beach cottage. A nice circle of friends. Bay St. Lucy is comfortable for me, although some rather strange events have happened in the past two years—most of which you shouldn’t write about because your readers would never believe them. But Lucy was nice enough to call me personally a few days after the letter arrived. It was good to hear her voice. Somehow the years seemed to melt away. She told me about this little house, and how she could picture me in it for a semester. And the more she told me about my fears, the more she seemed to be able to allay them.”

  “Those fears being?”

  Nina shrugged.

  “Just not being, well, qualified to be here.”

  “Not qualified?”

  “I’m a high school teacher. The faculty here are brilliant people. World renowned. I can’t teach the things they teach. I can’t even understand the books they write.”

  “And what did Lucinda say to that?”

  “She just told me not to worry. That great teaching is great teaching. And that I would always be welcome at Ellerton.”

  “That,” said Barnes, getting to his feet, “is probably the line I’ll close the piece with.”

  Nina followed him to the door.

  “I hope it’s true.”

  Another smile back to her:

  “It’s true. And now I’ll let you get back to reading. You need to get some rest. You’ve got a busy semester in front of you.”

  “Thank you. I look forward to reading your article, Mr. Barnes.”

  “I hope you’ll enjoy it. And please call me Rick.”

  “All right, Rick. Take care and have a nice evening.”

  “I will, Nina. Listen, I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again.”

  “I look forward to that.”

  “Good night then.”

&nbs
p; “Good night.”

  She closed the door.

  Then she went back to bed and lay down.

  She picked up the book and began reading.

  She was four pages farther along in the story before she realized that she was thinking of Rick Barnes.

  CHAPTER TWO: PRESIDENT LUCINDA HERNDON

  The campus of Ellerton University was, to Nina’s way of thinking, what every campus should be, and looked like all campuses should look. It was a postcard. The president’s residence—part of the postcard—was, of course, a two-story, red brick mansion in the turn of the century style, with a circular carport on one side that always would have, she assumed, one or two black limousines parked in it.

  And this, she thought to herself as she approached the building—she had walked the half mile from her Hobbit House––was where her old friend Lucy had ultimately found herself.

  Was this a dream?

  Was she really going to teach at this university for an entire semester?

  Was it possible that she was imagining the whole thing, even down to the fact that President Herndon had called her Monday afternoon, just after her arrival on campus, to invite her this Thursday morning to breakfast?

  No, the Mississippi autumn air was too perfect, and the scents of the pine trees that dotted campus too fresh.

  It was all reality.

  And so, squaring her shoulders, she walked onto a kind of veranda, where there were double-glass doors. She rang the bell and waited. The doors were opened by a smartly-dressed young woman who looked as if she would have been a lab assistant of some sort if she hadn’t been serving as a greeter.

  “Ms. Bannister?”

  “Yes, I’m Nina Bannister.”

  “Please come with me; President Herndon is expecting you.”

  She was ushered to a wing of the house where a tea service had been set up, and Lucinda Herndon rose to meet her.

  “Nina! Dear Nina, it’s been so long!”

  The woman before her was dressed in a navy blue suit, which set off nicely her short but elegantly groomed shiny-as-a-new dime silver hair. Nina was struck by how youthful she looked. Her skin was radiant in the gray morning light that filtered through a wall of east-wing windows. Makeup subtly but expertly applied, a hint of lipstick, a hint of rouge, and the sum effect was of a woman who is used to leading and knows what she is about.