The Book of Kills

by Ralph McInerny

  “Is it true?”

  “I told you to stay away from him.”

  “Are you out of the graduate program?”

  He struck her, with his open gloved hand, and her head snapped back. She felt the taste of blood in her mouth. He looked ferociously at her, as if he wanted to kill her, to silence her, to get rid of her questions. Marcia leapt to her feet and ran diagonally across the grass toward the bus stop. She did not even pause when she got to the road but went on to the parking lot, oblivious of the horns that blared at her. She did not care if she was run over. She didn’t care about anything. Her lip had begun to swell as if she had been given novocaine, and the taste of blood persisted.

  When she unlocked the front door she had little memory of how she had gotten there. She was sobbing and her face felt misshapen. Inside, she bolted the door and fell weeping on the living room couch, not even bothering to take off her coat. What Scott had told her meant nothing now. Orion had struck her, in public, had hustled her out of the library as if she were an intruder, and then had hit her there when anyone might have seen. She shriveled under the remembered humiliation. She made herself as small as possible and tried to think of nothing at all.

  How much later the pounding on the front door began she could not have said. She sat up immediately, terrified. If he would hit her in public, what would he do to her here? She was on her feet, thinking of escaping out the back way. As she crept past the front door, she heard a voice. She stopped. Scott? She rushed to the door and opened it, then fell back. Orion came in and looked at her strangely. “What’s wrong with you?”

  She moved away from him, cowering. Something almost like tenderness came into his face. He took her trembling and half hysterical in his arms.

  “You hit me!”

  He held her close, nodding his head. After a time, when she was calm, he eased her away and looked at her face. Slowly he lowered his lips to her swollen mouth.

  21

  TORSION, FROM THE NOTRE Dame Foundation, the department of the administration responsible for amassing the giant endowment that had put the university far out in front of other Catholic institutions and among the top handful of all universities, was not a man inclined to rest on his laurels. Or at the moment on his backside. He paced the waiting room outside the chancellor’s office as if to emphasize the importance of this unscheduled appointment. The call he had received from Tulsa allowed for no delay. And then the chancellor was standing in the door of his office, breathing through his mouth, looking warily at Torsion.

  “What is it, Xavier?”

  Torsion lifted a finger to his lips to stop the chancellor from saying anything and together they went into his office. Torsion pulled the door shut.

  “I have just received a call from Schippers. Tulsa,” he added quickly, lest the chancellor not remember. “Oil. Schippers Hall. A half-million-dollar pledge in the current drive to be doubled as our goal is neared to a maximum of five million dollars.”

  “Of course I know who Schippers is.”

  “He wishes to see you this afternoon.”

  “But you said he called from Tulsa.”

  “On the way to the airport to board his jet. He has business in Chicago and then will come on here.”

  The chancellor remembered Schippers’s remark that the university really should have its own Lear jet. If only he had acted on that before the Hong Kong trip. A glint came into the chancellor’s eye. He would mention a university Lear when the kidnapping came up, as it surely must.

  “I hope you assured him I was unharmed.”

  Torsion looked at the nominal chief officer of the university in all its many divisions and departments and far-flung enterprises, its property in all the foreign cities where Notre Dame students spent a year abroad, its television and filming activities, the ever-growing marketing of apparel with the university’s logo. Notre Dame was a big business as well as a university, and the chancellor was in charge of it all. Up to a point. What CEO can know every detail of his organization? True, true, but Torsion considered the Notre Dame Foundation as the sine qua non of everything else. Without the generosity of donors . . . He did not want to think of it.

  “He wants to talk about Indians.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “I took the liberty of telling him you would see him at three.”

  The chancellor called in Miss Trafficant, the unflappable. Of course she could fit in a man who had given an aggregate of fifty million dollars to the university.

  “What had been scheduled at three?”

  “The dean of the arts school.”

  “No problem. No problem at all.”

  “Father,” Torsion said, “I would like to be here when you talk to Schippers. Of course I will bring him from the airport.”

  “Take Johnny.”

  “Please,” added Miss Trafficant, but only Torsion seemed to hear.

  And so it was arranged. The dean of arts and letters, who had been preparing for weeks to lay before the chancellor the absolute necessity of a budget increase for his college, would be rescheduled.

  Schippers, when he came, wore an expression that combined a smile and a frown. He advanced toward the chancellor and his hand shot out so abruptly that the chancellor jumped back.

  “What’s the matter, Father?”

  “I am still shaken from . . . have you heard?”

  “I have been hearing all sorts of things.”

  “I was kidnapped.”

  The words tumbled from Father Bloom’s mouth as he told of being taken into custody when he arrived at the airport after a long trip that had taken him first across the Pacific and then on to Chicago and South Bend. “I was held captive.”

  “But they let you go.”

  “I didn’t know they would at the time.”

  “Indians,” Schippers said. “What’s all this about Indians?”

  “I think they may have been behind my kidnapping.”

  “But what’s behind all these pranks?”

  “I did not consider being kidnapped a prank.”

  “No, it’s a federal offense. Ever since the Lindbergh baby. I saw the incident at halftime.”

  Schippers was then told of the desecrations in Cedar Grove, of the disruption of a wedding at the log chapel, Father Burnside held captive within.

  “Another kidnapping, in effect. What are you doing about it?”

  “Private detectives have been hired.”

  “Good, good.”

  “Philip Knight.”

  “Very good. I’ve met him. This is rotten publicity, Father. It must be taken care of at once. I suppose it’s students.”

  The chancellor rang Miss Trafficant and asked her to have Ballast come to his office at once. Ballast came. He reported more to Schippers than the chancellor.

  “We suspect a graduate student, a former graduate student. He was recently dropped from the graduate school.”

  “Has he been arrested?”

  “There may be an indirect way of handling this. Quid pro quo. The incidents stop or we insist on prosecution.”

  “Do you think that should be a matter of choice?”

  “We don’t want to prolong the problem.”

  “Is there anything to the charge that the university does not have clear title to its land?”

  Ballast made a noise before speaking. “Nonsense. Complete nonsense.”

  Schippers looked from the chancellor to Ballast and back again. He did not seem reassured. Miss Trafficant entered with a newspaper. She passed it wordlessly to the chancellor. He glanced at it, then began to read, sitting forward in his chair, a stricken expression.

  “What is it?”

  The chancellor ignored him, continuing to read. “My God.”

  It was a story of the early days of the university, of the mysterious deaths of a dozen Indians over the space of a year. Each had been strangled, then scalped. The university was mentioned in every other sentence, though there was nothing more than the locale
to warrant this. Most of the bodies had been found along the Saint Joseph River. Sources had told the reporter that there was evidence the murderer had been one Jacques Cruelle, one of the original families. He was buried in Cedar Grove, not far from the grave of Pokagon that had recently been desecrated. Links were suggested rather than asserted. The story ended with a narration of all the recent episodes that seemed part of a campaign to draw attention to the questionable manner in which Father Sorin had gained possession of the land on which Notre Dame stood.

  “Maudit,” said Ballast, squinting in thought. “A former student. He wrote for the Observer.”

  Schippers sent his eyes over the story with the speed reading that made underlings stand in awe of him.

  “I think it is time for some arrests.”

  “Ballast,” the chancellor said with sudden resolution, “call the police.”

  “That could be a mistake.”

  “Call them.”

  Back in the outer office, Anita Trafficant was surprised not to find Harold there. He had been with her when Cedrics of PR had come in with the newspaper account, telling her the chancellor must know of this at once. Of course she read it first, aloud, with Harold listening. Now he had gone. He had listened with a stony expression when she read the story and she had been sure he would want to discuss it. Anita felt let down. It was difficult to enjoy the chancellor’s pile-up of problems if she had no one to discuss them with.

  22

  IT WAS THE LONG-ESTABLISHED policy of the South Bend Police department to cooperate with the university in every way. The mayor had asked Chief Kocinski after the kidnapping of the chancellor what he intended to do about it.

  “They want us to lay off.”

  Mayor Lessing expressed surprise. “Lay off a kidnapping?”

  “I suppose they think it’s students.”

  “Cedar Grove Cemetery is arguably within our jurisdiction. There is no doubt about the airport. We will be blamed, Boleslaw, whatever we do, but I would rather be blamed for doing something.”

  “What?”

  “Until you investigate, that’s hard to say.”

  “They hired Philip Knight to investigate.”

  “That would not exonerate us.”

  “You know how they can be out there.”

  Lessing was a graduate of Purdue and harbored an animus against Notre Dame that dated from his student days. It had been suppressed when, after his election, he was accorded royal treatment by the university. But he had an electorate to answer to. With the flight of industry, Notre Dame had become the area’s largest employer, and that meant a city full of employees with the usual grudges.

  Kocinski’s phone rang and he ignored it until the mayor suggested he answer. It was Ballast. He listened, grunting. “Okay. Will do.” He hung up. “That was the university counsel. They want us to commence an investigation.”

  Lessing was relieved. Duty and diplomacy had converged. He left as if he were leading in the returns and the votes from the west side had not yet been reported. Kocinski prepared to drive to the campus, taking Lieutenant Stewart with him. Stewart, whose name was Francis, was called Jimmy and he headed the detective division. He was a lanky man with a cadaverous face who chain-smoked, having taken up the habit again when a clownish attorney general had provided reason to doubt all the warnings about tobacco. Kocinksi put him in the picture on the drive.

  “Sounds like a matter for student affairs.”

  “They’ve asked us to investigate.”

  “They got any ideas?”

  “Ballast thinks they know who’s behind it all.”

  At Ballast’s office they were given an excited report of what the Knight investigation had turned up. A student named Orion Plant was the ring leader.

  “A former student.”

  “Is he still around?”

  “This is his address.”

  “Good,” Kocinski said, when he took the slip of paper. “He lives off campus.”

  The address lay east of the campus in a once unfashionable area that had been known as Dog Patch, but which had become upscale with the building of the new golf course and the movement of graduate student housing along Bulla Road. The house was an old one. As they approached, Kocinski kept an eye out for dogs. He hated dogs. Dogs seemed to smell the fear he felt and went for him in preference. His leg tingled in anticipation of canine canines nipping at him. But they arrived at the door without event. Jimmy pulled open the storm door and pounded on the inner door.

  “See if there’s a back exit,” he advised, but Kocinski stayed beside him on the steps. There could be a pack of dogs behind the house, straining at leashes that would give way easily. Jimmy pounded again, then started down the steps. “I’ll go in back.” But the front door opened then, after a turn of the key, a slipping of bolts, and the rattle of chains. A frightened woman looked out at them.

  “Orion Plant,” Jimmy said without preamble.

  “He isn’t here.”

  Jimmy ignored this and pushed inside. Kocinski followed, pulling the door shut after him. And then the thought of a dog in the house stopped him.

  “You Mrs. Plant?” Jimmy asked.

  “I told you, he isn’t here.”

  “Then you won’t mind if we look around.”

  Kocinski kept close to Jimmy as he looked into the first-floor rooms. At the stairway, he asked if there was a basement.

  “You won’t find him here.”

  “Check the basement, Chief.”

  “Let’s stick together.”

  “He could get away while we’re upstairs.”

  “I’ll go up there.” Who would keep a dog on the second floor?

  There were three bedrooms, one with an unmade bed, and a bathroom that looked a mess. He joined Jimmy downstairs. The head of detectives lounged in a chair.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “He didn’t come home last night?”

  “He was here but he went out again.”

  Silence. Drama lurked behind every door. The police were constantly called to scenes of domestic trouble. Mrs. Plant wore the defiant look of a cowed wife.

  “What do you want him for?”

  “Maybe you could tell us that.”

  “Who told you?”

  “I’d like it in your words,” Jimmy said smoothly.

  There followed a fairly incoherent story. Her husband was seeing another woman, someone he went with before they married. Yesterday he had grabbed his wife and run her out of the library. Outside, where anyone might see, he had hit her. Her face was swollen, Kocinski noticed.

  “You think he might be with this other woman.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Laverne. Her father is a professor. They live on Angela Boulevard.”

  Good. Another off-campus address.

  A bulky woman answered the door on Angela, her eyes skeptical, her hand gripping the door as if ready to bar their way if they tried to sell her anything. It had taken three long pushes on the doorbell to bring her and she seemed sure she had made a mistake until she saw Kocinski’s uniform. It had been a resolution he made when he was named chief, to stay in uniform as a gesture of solidarity with the department. The door swung open and they were urged inside. She seated them graciously and waited for instructions.

  “Is your daughter at home?”

  “My daughter!”

  “Laverne?”

  “Why on earth . . .” She stopped. The uniform of officialdom, doubts she seemed to have about her daughter, sowed sudden apprehension.

  “I wish Otto was here.”

  “The professor?” Kocinski asked.

  Jimmy said, “We need to speak to your daughter.”

  “But she isn’t here.”

  “Was she here last night?”

  “Of course!” Mrs. Ranke was angered by this im
pertinence. Whatever her doubts about her daughter, they obviously had limitations.

  “Do you know Orion Plant?”

  “Oh my God!”

  She rose, she went to phone, she dialed. “Otto, come home at once. The police are here.” She hung up.

  For fifteen minutes the three sat silently in the room. A clock on the mantel got progressively more audible. The furnace went on and off. Joists creaked, wind worried the windows. Mrs. Ranke looked straight ahead, into the fireplace as it happened, her mouth firmly closed.

  When Professor Ranke arrived, he brought the smell of the outside air as well as a whiff of untended perspiration. The line on his forehead when he removed his beret was damp with sweat. Kocinski had not expected him to be this old, pushing seventy at least.

  “You’re still teaching?” Kocinski asked cheerfully when they had identified themselves.

  “What’s this about Laverne?”

  “We are looking for Orion Plant.”

  “What has he to do with Laverne?”

  “His wife sent us here.”

  The Rankes exchanged a look. He gave her the coat and beret. “Tea,” he said, and she left.

  “Orion Plant was a graduate student in my department. History. He has been terminated, he is out of the program. What did his wife say about Laverne?”

  “When did you last see Plant?”

  He made an impatient gesture. “I must know what has been said about my daughter.”

  “Plant was locked out of his house by his wife last night.”

  “This concerns Laverne?”

  “Could it?”

  The expression of a man about to lie makes the performance pointless. But Professor Ranke had second thoughts. “My daughter slept in her bed last night.” He paused, then added angrily, “Alone.”

  “Has she been seeing Plant?”

  “Once he came here often. Then he married. He has been here infrequently since. My daughter is foolish, she is a female, but she is not an adulteress.”

  Well, that got it all onto the table. Jimmy got back to the point. “Tell us about Orion Plant.”

  He might have been dictating an equivocal letter of recommendation. Orion Plant had talent, he had done his course work, passed his candidacy exams, and was ostensibly working on his dissertation.