by Leona Fox
“Could you tell me what he’s like?” Sadie asked. “I’ve never met him.” That at least was true.
“A distinguished scholar,” said a little round woman with short curly hair. “This means he is a pain in the arse, and he thinks he knows better than everyone else.” She tilted her head just once to the left and back, and Sadie wondered if she had a tick.
“He is one of the finest men I ever knew,” a lanky man with almost no hair said. “I could not ask for a better friend.” He glared at the others as if to challenge them to contradict him.
“He may be a friend to you, Girard,” said another man with curly hair and glasses, “but he has used me for any advantage he can get. He’s a self-serving old bastard.” He thumped his mug on the table.
“Now, Alex,” said a woman with white hair and stunning eyes. “He wasn’t any worse than most of us here. Everyone wants to do the best they can for themselves.”
Sadie thought that people either really liked, or really disliked, Victor Rumsfeld. That was interesting.
“Well I can’t tolerate him.” This woman only had a little gray in her hair. “He doesn’t like dogs.” She gestured to Mr. B. “There’s something odd about a person who doesn’t like dogs.”
There was a general murmur of assent, and Sadie was inclined to agree. Mr. Bradshaw sniffed the woman’s hand and had his head patted.
“Remember Alice’s funeral?” The beauty was speaking again. “He went completely off his rocker.” She turned to Sadie. “Alice was his wife. He turned on the mortician and accused him of making Alice look like a whore. There was a huge scene. Very undignified.”
“It’s just like him not to be here,” a very large man in a leather-elbowed blazer said. “It’s his turn to buy coffee and I ended up with the bill.”
“How do you decide which one of you pays?” Sadie asked.
“It’s on a rotation,” said the woman with the stunning eyes. “And some of us are on limited incomes. We have to plan for our day, and if the person whose day it is doesn’t show it throws us all off. Then someone like Gerry, with deep pockets, has to step up.”
“That’s me.” Gerry opened his wallet and displayed its empty interior. “Deep pockets. Too bad they’re always empty.”
“Oh come on, Gerry,” Alex said. “You know you are doing okay. Your retirement is three times Millie’s.”
“But not as much as yours,” Gerry said. “And I happen to know those smutty novels you’ve been writing are bringing in a bundle.”
Sadie excused herself and led Mr. B back toward the car. Once out of earshot she called the chief. It would be another week before this group was together again. If he could get out here in time it would be a golden opportunity. He could learn a lot about Rumsfeld from his former colleagues, and if he broke the news now, before anyone knew he was dead, he’d have the benefit of watching their faces when he broke the news.
Chapter Three
Sadie waited on tender hooks, worried the gaggle of professors would break up before the chief got there. She’d planted herself on a bench out of the line of sight, but where she could see if they exited the outdoor eating area. Mr. Bradshaw was sniffing around, relaxed and content as far as Sadie could see, but she was anxious that this opportunity would be missed. When he finally showed she was contemplating going back and breaking the news herself.
When she walked back to the table with the chief of police, they all looked at her in surprise. At least most of them did. Alex, who had admitted to holding a grudge against Rumsfeld, did not looked surprised at all. There was grim satisfaction on his face. And that was before the chief told them why he was there.
“Excuse me for interrupting,” he said. “But when Sadie informed me a group of Victor Rumsfeld’s associates was meeting for coffee, I felt the need to take advantage of the situation.”
He paused for a moment, and Sadie thought he was reading the mood around the table, perhaps looking for someone who was suddenly guarding their expression.
“If you are going to tell us that Rumsfeld is dead, you’re too late. I already know,” Alex said, and everyone at the table turned to look at him.
“What?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” There was a swell of outrage from the others. They turned on Alex, accusation in their eyes. He laughed, and Sadie thought he looked as though he was enjoying the attention.
The chief stood at parade rest and watched. His eyes flicked over the faces, many filled with anger, tears on the cheeks of others. Sadie decided she didn’t like Alex. Not one bit. The woman with white hair and beautiful eyes was sobbing quietly into her napkin.
Sadie slipped quietly into the cafeteria and gathered a handful of napkins, which she took out to the patio and set on the table in front of the sobbing woman. She wished she knew the woman’s name. She might be able to comfort her.
One of the men was standing, shaking his finger in Alex’s face. Girard, she thought, not to be confused with Gerry, who had his arm around the plump, mousey-haired woman. Girard’s voice was getting louder and the veins were popping out on his neck. It was a good thing the other diners on the patio had left. The table of emeriti professors was causing quite a scene.
The chief cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said. “Sir, you need to sit down. Can I have some quiet please.” Nothing changed. Girard went on shaking his finger, his voice getting shriller and shriller. Alex was grinning like a maniac. People cried, complained and muttered. The chief sighed.
“Do you want me to arrest you?” he said loudly.
They all turned to him, silent now, mouths hanging open.
“But we haven’t done anything illegal,” the round-faced woman said. “You can’t arrest us.”
“Obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties. Obstructing an ongoing investigation. Loud and disorderly behavior in a public place.” The chief raised an eyebrow at her. “Would you like me to go on?”
Her eyes got wide and she shook her head without saying a word.
“Thank you,” the chief said. “Now”—he looked pointedly at Alex—“you need to tell me how you know Victor Rumsfeld is dead.”
Alex blanched. He grin slid from his face. “I have a police scanner, and a friend in the coroner’s office.”
When the chief raised an eyebrow, Alex started to stutter.
“I heard the call on the scanner,” he said. “And I called my friend who told me that it was Victor the cops found murdered.”
There was a collective gasp from the group and the word “murder” escaped from several mouths. The attention shifted from Alex to the chief, which is where Sadie thought it should have been from the beginning.
The chief had his notebook out. “I’ll need the name of your contact at the coroner’s office,” he said.
The color drained from Alex’s face. “He’ll lose his job,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“And that would serve him right for leaking information during an active investigation,” the chief said. “You can either give me his name here, or I can take you down to the station and your lawyer can advise you to give me his name. You do realize that by refusing to give me the name you are implicating yourself in the murder?”
“Oliver Olander,” Alex said, the words coming out in a rush. “I didn’t kill Victor, I swear. I may not care that he’s dead, but I’m not a murderer.”
“We’ll see,” the chief said. He looked around the table. “I take it no one else here knew of Victor’s death until a few minutes ago?” There was a general shaking of heads. “I apologize for the way you learned the news. I would have told you in a more civilized manner than your friend here.” He waved his hand at Alex, who was looking studiously at the table. “I would like each of your names and contact information in case we need more information about Victor.”
Girard pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase and wrote his contact information. Then he passed it to Gerry. While the list made its way around the table, the chief pas
sed out business cards.
“If you think of anything that might help us in our investigation,” he said, “please contact me.”
There was agreement at the table, but Sadie noticed that neither Alex nor Girard joined the group of nodding heads.
“I will send an officer to speak with each of you,” the chief said. “If you have out-of-town plans, please contact my office before you go. Again, I’m sorry for your loss and for the manner in which you learned about it.” He looked pointedly at Alex, who had the decency to blush.
The chief walked Sadie and Mr. B back to her car.
“Where are you headed now?” he asked.
“I thought maybe I’d go see the town mortician now. I want to ask him about the altercation he had with Victor. You never know, it might shed some light on his death.”
“I hope he tells you more than he told my officers. He was pretty tight-lipped with them. But then everyone tells you more than my officers.” He leaned in through the window and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Take care of yourself.”
Sadie watched the chief walk away. She was finding it harder and harder to tell the difference between when she should call him the chief and when she should call him Zack. The chief wasn’t supposed to kiss her, only Zack did that, and yet, he did. It was a self-imposed rule, but that only made it harder when she couldn’t follow it. She needed consistency, damn it.
She was about to start the car when she saw the professor named Millie walking up the path from the cafeteria. She was still crying and Sadie couldn’t bring herself to leave her. She told Mr. B to stay and got out of the car.
“Millie,” she asked as she approached, “are you all right?”
Millie hurriedly dashed the tears from her face with the back of her hand and pulled out a tissue to wipe her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”
“Don’t apologize,” Sadie said. “What does it matter if someone sees you cry? You’ve lost a companion today.”
“I know,” Millie sniffed. “And the others are arguing over it like it’s something that can be debated. He wasn’t as bad as some of them say.” She paused a moment, rubbing her hands in worry. “I mean, yes, he was full of himself. But he deserved to be. He was incredibly intelligent and so knowledgeable on his subject. He loved to share his knowledge.”
“And couldn’t people see that?” Sadie asked.
“His colleagues could if his students couldn’t. But they couldn’t get past what they saw as bad manners. They couldn’t see that he was obnoxious because he had to deal with mere mortals all day long. And students that hated history but were there because it was required. I don’t know that he ever met a person who had his ability to concentrate. He just got worn out from it. We all get crabby when we are worn out. He was exceptional and now he’s gone.”
Tears spilled over her lashes and ran down her face.
Sadie took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said and squeezed Millie’s hand. “This is an awful thing to ask, but could one of your group have killed Victor? Did anyone hate him enough?”
“We are academics,” Millie said. “We debate people, we don’t kill them. We use our intellect to humiliate them. That is far more satisfying that killing them. Dead is dead, but you can’t beat seeing your opponent realize that you are right, or that you’ve out argued them.”
She shrugged and wiped at her face again. “Of course with Victor, he almost always won. It was a rare day when someone got the upper hand on him.”
“I can see why he was unpopular,” Sadie said. “Everybody wants to win once in a while.”
“Just because you want to win doesn’t mean you deserve to,” Millie said. “Wins against Victor are—were rare. That made them all the more sweet when they happened.”
Sadie thought about Lucy and what it would be like to constantly be trying to one-up her. What a sad friendship that would be. She was glad she didn’t hang out with people who were that competitive. It would be miserable to be constantly trying to win. No amount of prestige was worth the stress and hard feelings.
“I hope you find some peace,” she said to Millie. “And for your sake I hope you are able to let the competition go. Life doesn’t need to be that fraught.”
She parted ways with Millie and walked back to the car where Mr. B was waiting for her. He scrambled into her lap and gave her a slobbery kiss on the cheek. “Good dog, Mr. Bradshaw,” she said and started the car.
Lance Brownside hurried out of his office as Sadie entered the Seagrove Funeral Home.
“Sadie, what brings you in? I hope there hasn’t been a death?” He reached out and took her hand.
“Oh, no. No one has died.” She squeezed his hand and let it go. “I have some questions about what happened between you and Victor Rumsfeld.”
His face fell into a frown. “Victor Rumsfeld.” He practically spat the name. “I wouldn’t take him as a client if he begged me. I was glad when he told me he was going to use the Hyattsville Funeral Home. The scene he made at his wife’s funeral! It was a disgrace.”
“What happened?” Sadie asked. This was the easiest line of questioning she’d ever pursued. He was practically answering before she asked.
“You weren’t there?” he asked. “It felt to me as if the entire town was in the room.”
“No,” Sadie said. “I didn’t know the Rumsfelds.”
“He was late,” Lance said. “Normally you expect the family will be the first people to arrive, but the room was already full when he got there. He makes a big show of limping up to the casket, putting all his weight on his cane, moving slow as dirt and his head low. Then he looks in and everything changes. His head snaps up and you could feel the electricity in the air. All the conversations in the room faded and all eyes were on Victor.”
“Then what happened?” Sadie asked.
“He exploded. He ran at me, his face a livid red. I was afraid he was going to hit me, and I even took a couple of steps backward. He shouted right in my face how I’d made his wife look like a whore and a clown. How I was a disgrace and he’d see that I’d never work again. One of his sons pulled him away and out the door.”
“That must have been very traumatic,” Sadie said.
“I didn’t sleep for weeks. I was appalled, angry, embarrassed and afraid the business would fail. But people came by to tell me that Victor was wrong. That I’d done a good job, and many people still brought their dead to me. I’m fine. He did me no damage. He’s dead, I’m alive. I think I win.” He smiled a sickly smile that made him look unhinged.
Sadie felt suddenly cold, but the moment passed and Lance’s face returned to normal.
“Are you okay, Sadie?” he asked. “You looked green for a moment there.” He had a look of genuine concern on his face.
“I’m fine. Just had a dizzy spell is all,” she said. Mr. Bradshaw was scratching at his collar. Sadie watched him for a moment, but he didn’t seem at all concerned. She must have imagined Lance’s strangeness because Mr. B would have picked up on it. He always did.
Sadie and Mr. B headed home. She needed to make lists for Spain: packing lists, shopping lists and what I should see lists. Plus, she needed to write emails to other junkers who had been there in the last year or so and find out where they found their best stuff. Her network was integral to junking trips. You could miss all the best places without a little guidance.
Betty was talking to a customer when she walked in, so she settled herself in her office with a pad of paper and a cup of coffee she’d picked up next door. Mr. Bradshaw curled up in his bed under her desk. It had been an active morning for him and rodent patrol would have to wait.
Sadie found her travel file and pulled out the packing list from her last trip. She’d been in Ireland, which was colder than Spain, and she’d been hiking, which she wouldn’t have time for this trip. She hand copied the list leaving off the heavy sweaters and the hiking boots. She didn’t keep these lists on the computer on pur
pose. The act of writing triggered memories and ideas, and besides, she was much more likely not to leave off something important if she was rewriting the entire list rather than using the word processor.
She was deep into her ‘what I should see in Spain’ list when there was a quiet tap at the door. She turned to see Justin Ives standing there, looking pale.
“Professor Ives,” she said. “Won’t you come in and sit down?”
He dropped heavily into a chair and sagged, looking like the world was about to come crashing down on him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
