7 - Rogue: Ike Schwartz Mystery 7

by Frederick Ramsay

  He spent the remainder of the day alternately speaking to her, sitting silently, and negotiating—with God on the one hand and a hospital administrator wearing an expensive suit on the other. There were times when the tone in the conversation with the latter convinced him they might be one and the same. Ike wasn’t raised religious. His father was a nominal Jew, his mother an Episcopalian who decided to be Jewish for his sake, and ended as more Jewish than either Ike or his father. Today he wished he’d paid more attention. How does one pray to a God that seems so remote?

  His father dropped by in the evening with Dolly and insisted he step out for a meal. They dragged Eden along as well.

  “You aren’t looking well,” Dolly said to Ike as they left the building. “You need some food and rest. Are you getting enough exercise?” Dolly was one of those cheerful people who believed that diet and exercise were the panacea for all the ills known to mankind and many yet to be discovered. She believed, as a tenet of her Pollyanna faith, that if a regimen of proper exercise and diet could be achieved, emphasis on proper, all one’s problems, physical, emotional, perhaps even financial, would melt away. Indeed, peace would be restored to the Middle East, an end to global warming achieved, and the suffering of countless children in far off and unnamed countries would soon cease.

  “I’m fine, Dolly, just under a little pressure is all.”

  “Of course you are, dear. Now a good meal and eight hours of sleep and you’ll be good as new. Mrs. Saint Clare, you look as if you could use a little gasoline in your tank, too.”

  “Not gasoline in the tank, Dolly. What I need is antifreeze in my radiator. You and Abe need to get me somewhere, pronto, where I can have a stiff drink. Make that two…no, three. Then I will discuss other forms of sustenance with you.”

  “I got us reservations at Frank’s,” Abe said. He opened the car door for Dolly and then rushed around to do the same for Eden, but too late. She’s already slipped in next to Dolly in the back. Ike took the front passenger seat and they set off.

  “Since when does one need reservations for Frank’s? I’m amazed he’s still in business.”

  “Now Ike, don’t be hard on Frank. He tries hard. I always call for reservations. Makes him feel real good.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Abe,” Eden laughed. It was the first time she’d allowed herself to do so in days.

  “Besides,” Abe went on, ignoring all comments and laughter, “The Lion’s Club meets there tonight and I figured after you’re done eating or maybe before dessert, you could slip over to the banquet room and have a word with them, Ike.”

  “Yikes,” Eden sat up straight. “Abe Schwartz do you ever think of anything besides politics?”

  Abe thought a moment. “Once in a while.” He winked at Dolly in the rearview mirror.

  ***

  Agnes Ewalt had served as Ruth’s secretary for years. Ruth had brought her along when she’d accepted the position of president at Callend. She had witnessed, and not always approved of, the growing relationship between her boss and Ike. In the last year she had become Ike’s ally and campus news source, especially if it concerned Ruth in any negative way. The accident had caused her as much mental pain as Ruth must have experienced physically. She would do anything for her boss and regretted her decision to stay in Picketsville and hold down the secretary’s position for the acting president.

  She sat quietly by Ruth’s bed and only nodded a greeting when Ike arrived the next morning.

  “She looks so peaceful, doesn’t she?”

  “What are you doing here, Agnes? The ICU is supposed to be closed to visitors.”

  “Mrs. Saint Clare told the nurse to let me in.”

  “Good. Have you spoken to her?”

  “Gracious, no. Poor dear can’t hear. I just came to be with her.”

  “You hear that, Ruth? Agnes doesn’t think you can hear her. She’s looking very spiffy in a flowered gym suit and an antique cloche.”

  “Sheriff! I do not, I am not. What are you doing? Do you want to upset her?”

  “You just told me she can’t hear a thing. So, what’s the problem?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Agnes, you are talking like someone in a funeral parlor. Ruth is very much alive and quite possibly can hear every word you say. If that’s the case, she can’t respond, which I suspect is driving her crazy. That right, Sweetie?”

  “Ike, you can’t…you mean…?”

  “Exactly. If she’s awake in there, I intend to get her so riled up she will come out of that coma if only for a second and long enough to give me hell. Wouldn’t you like to see that?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but if she isn’t…you said awake in there. What if she isn’t?”

  “Then no harm, no foul.”

  “Oh.” Agnes let this set of possibilities sink in. “You asked for any suspicious e-mails that might have been sent to her at the college by mistake. I’m sorry, I only found one that qualified as a real threat. The rest were…well, none struck me as really suspicious or threatening. I brought the one and a few of the others anyway, but I really don’t know what you’re looking for or why, so it hasn’t been easy.”

  “Right. Ruth, you’re not going to like this…you either, Agnes, but it is now absolutely certain that you were deliberately forced into that skid and shoved into the pole. I aim to find out why. It would help a great deal if you’d wake up for a few minutes and tell me what you know or remember.”

  “It wasn’t an accident?” Agnes’ jaw dropped and her eyes popped a bit more than usual.

  “No, sorry to say. I asked for lists, mail, possible enemies, especially those with a problem with her work on the textbook committee, so I can sort through them and begin searching out the SOB that did it. Then—”

  “Ike,” Agnes interrupted, “I think her eyebrow moved.”

  “What?”

  “Her brow, there on the left side. I think when you said SOB, it moved. She must not like you cursing.”

  “Good Lord, Agnes, it’s hardly a curse and she’s heard worse. If it moved it’s because of something else I said, or it’s a random nervous event. Her good leg jumps every now and again, too. The doctor said that it happens sometimes to people in comas.”

  The two of them studied Ruth’s face for any other signs of cognition but saw none. Still, they preferred to believe that the slight movement was both real and intentional.

  And because he wanted it to be so, Ike tried to figure out exactly what he’d said that might have caused an eyebrow to twitch. He couldn’t.

  Chapter Eleven

  Agnes and Ike sat quietly with Ruth for another half hour. Occasionally Ike would say something to Ruth. He didn’t want to press his “shock therapy,” as Ruth’s mother had labeled it, too hard. While he believed it couldn’t hurt, might help, he did not have the heart to push hard. What he really wanted to do, but couldn’t, was to lie next to Ruth and hold her. Eden Saint Clare breezed into the room and declared she’d come to relieve them. Agnes glanced at her watch and rose, flustered.

  “Gracious, look at the time. I should be back at the office. Doctor Fiske will wonder what’s happened to me.”

  “How is your temporary boss, Agnes?”

  “Oh well, he’s fine. He sent me, you know.”

  “Sent you? You mean Scott Fiske asked you to come to the hospital?”

  “Yes. Well, his administrative aide said he wanted me to. I would have anyway, of course, but she said he was anxious to know how Ruth was getting along. He wanted me ‘to report back.’ That’s how she put it, anyway. It seemed a little out of character but I thought it was sweet of him. Don’t you?”

  Ike had met Scott Fiske once at a reception, didn’t like him, and said so. In spite of her own ambivalence about him, Ike had taken some measure of grief from
Ruth because of it at the time. He’d pretty much managed to avoid contact with Fiske since.

  “Very. Listen, Agnes. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and you can fill me in on the things you brought me.”

  “What, now?” Ike nodded and waived her through the door. “Well, I suppose that would be okay. I can’t stay long, though, maybe a cup of coffee. Doctor Fiske will be waiting to hear.”

  “Certainly.” Ike found the cafeteria and bought Agnes a coffee and, noticing the attention she paid to a cinnamon bun in the glass case, bought her that as well. “So, tell me about your job with the Acting. I gather from what you said in the room you are not so keen on Scott Fiske.”

  “I probably shouldn’t have said the things I did. He is a very nice man, I’m sure, in his own way, and to some…He’s very good-looking, you know.”

  “Agnes, that is the weakest endorsement of another human being I think I’ve ever heard. Well, no. My father once described a girlfriend as ‘having beautiful eyes.’ He was being nice. He is very good-looking, indeed, in a young Richard Chamberlain sort of way if I remember him correctly.”

  “Sort of a young who?”

  “TV and movie actor, very popular in the sixties and seventies.”

  “You’d know about that. You’re the movie buff, I hear. He’s sort of willowy, wouldn’t you say?”

  “How very antique of you, Agnes. Yes, he is. Now tell me. What’s the problem?”

  “Problem? There’s no problem, really, it’s just that…well you work for someone like Ruth Harris and anyone else seems pretty small potatoes, I guess.”

  “Come on, Agnes, we both are fond of Ruth and all that, but she is not perfect and Fiske can’t be that bad. Something about him irritates you. What is it?”

  “It’s nothing. Alright, he just rubs me the wrong way. You know, he came to the school with the merger of Carter-Union College. His administrative assistant came with him. I don’t think there’s anything going on between those two. Although the way she looks at him—honestly, she’s like a kid in a candy store. Well, a little hanky-panky isn’t all that unusual in situations where the boss is not married and the secretary isn’t either.”

  “It helps if she’s pretty, too.”

  “Not always, you’d be surprised at some of the…there I go again. Anyway, the story goes that the president of CU was planning to retire about the time the idea of the merger came up. Doctor Fiske assumed he would be elevated to the president’s job. Then when the talk of the merger got serious, Doctor Fiske endorsed it. He told everybody that he thought it was a great idea. The Carter-Union people all were for it, I hear. I guess he figured he’d just jump into the head of the newly merged schools. Everyone on that side believed Callend would be absorbed into CU but, of course, the opposite happened. Then their president did retire and Doctor Fiske missed his chance for the top job but stayed a vice president anyway. People said he was lucky to get that, even. I guess he didn’t have the supporters he thought he had. Sheila, that’s the AA I told you about, implied he was pretty bitter about it. She said if he’d been in charge of the negotiations, Callend would have been the one absorbed, and so on.”

  “You know that’s not likely. Once Armand Dillon was allowed to sit at the table, it could only go the way he said it would. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion would have changed that, and his candidate would be Ruth, so done deal.”

  “I suppose so. Was Mr. Dillon that involved? I knew he called Ruth and…well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” She blew her nose with a limp tissue and took a breath. “Where was I? Oh yes, before the merger, his AA said Doctor Fiske used to send his curriculum vitae around. He was applying for presidents’ jobs all over the place. Then he stopped. After the merger, he started all over again. Sheila, she gets big moony eyes whenever Doctor Fiske’s name is mentioned, she said he did it all the time, she said he deserved better.”

  “Very loyal of her, but is that usual? I’m no academician, but I thought positions at that level were filled by soliciting nominations from outside and then recruiting a candidate, not answering unsolicited queries.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know what he had in mind. He even asked Ruth for a recommendation letter.”

  “Did she give him one? I can’t imagine she did.”

  “No. She explained to him how the process usually worked and said he would need to ask for a different sort of letter, and at the moment, she couldn’t see her way clear to putting his name forward.”

  “How’d he take that?”

  “I don’t know. Not well, I guess. Shortly after that, Ruth got the call to Washington and the Board appointed him Acting President. He hasn’t sent any more résumés since. He’s reworked it a few times but not sent any that I know of. Something stopped him, I guess.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he? He’s in a position now to function at the level to which he aspires, to build a track record that will attract the notice he needs the correct way. That’s assuming he’s doing a good job. Is he?”

  “Is he doing a good job? Yes, I think so but I’m not the one to judge. I guess you’re right about the résumés.” Agnes frowned, gathered her purse, wiped the remains of her cinnamon bun away from her chin, and stood to leave. “The e-mails are pretty self-explanatory and none seem all that threatening. Most are old, you know, like, they came in the early part of her chairing that committee. Then I guess they found out her government e-mail address and sent them there after that.”

  “They’ll be useful, Agnes, anyway. I will try to match these early letters to later ones from the same people and see if there is a pattern of increasing anger or threats. Thank you for your trouble.”

  Agnes left and Ike stayed seated, nursing his coffee and sorting through the documents on the table before him. Agnes had handed him a job-lot of documents crammed into a folder apparently recycled from a wastebasket. The label had once read Dr. F., but that had been crossed out. In addition to the copies of Agnes’ take on negative e-mails, she’d included a few sheets that had nothing to do with Ruth. He guessed they had been in the discarded file and Agnes had not noticed them when she collected her papers. He only glanced at them long enough to see that at least one was a marked-up copy of the Acting President’s résumé, apparently revised and given to someone for retyping. Ike shoved it and the two or three other papers in the back of the folder, making a mental note to return them to Agnes when he had a chance. Then those papers, along with any thoughts he had about Scott Fiske, slid into that part of his brain where he habitually deposited things to think about later when he had nothing better to do.

  A young man in green scrubs sat down at the next table. Ike asked if it would be alright to use his phone in the cafeteria. He’d shut it down on the hospital floor, of course, but wanted to make a call. The young man smiled and said it would be okay as long as he used it only in the cafeteria, the lobby, or outside.

  Ike called Charlie. He needed another favor. He had to leave a message. Charlie, it seemed, was out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Before returning to his office for the first time in nearly a week, Ike stopped by the mayor’s office to fill him in on what he hoped to do over the next few days. The interview did not go well. That may have had something to do with the fact the mayor preferred the candidate running against Ike in the election. He’d decided early in Ike’s tenure as sheriff that Ike was too apolitical and therefore not easily controlled. He wouldn’t admit it, but his cronies reported the mayor wanted a more tractable top cop.

  He denied Ike’s request for a leave of absence. He said he expected Ike to be on duty twenty-four seven. Recently, the phrase “twenty-four seven,” had crept into and nearly taken over a substantial portion of the mayor’s vocabulary. It had replaced “give one hundred and ten percent,” which in itself was a small blessing. “Think outside the box” also lingered in the may
or’s speeches but, thankfully, seemed to have fallen slightly out of favor.

  Ike waved the refusal off and said that since he had leave time accumulated, he would use it. The mayor said he wouldn’t approve any leave. Ike said he would take it anyway. The mayor said he’d fire Ike. Ike reminded him he had been elected, not hired, and therefore, couldn’t be fired but only recalled. Since there was an election in less than a month, that did not seem to be a worthwhile undertaking. The mayor was not happy. He picked up the phone and, giving Ike a significant look, called the town’s attorney. Ike left.

  Essie Sutherlin saw Ike first and let out a whoop. Ike smiled an acknowledgement and headed to his office.

  “Yo, Essie, how’s Junior?”

  “Growing like a weeping willow on a river bank. How’s Miz H?”

  “Holding steady, thank you. Oh, and thanks to everybody for the flowers.”

  “Ike, the word around here is you don’t think Miz Harris’ accident was one. Is that true?”

  “Yes, I don’t consider it an accident. But it’s not simply a matter of what I think. There is clear evidence that says her car did not skid because of wet streets. Somebody rammed her and made sure she crashed into that pole.”

  “Who?”

  “No telling. I’m working on it. There’s no dearth of suspects.”

  “No dearth? That means a whole lot, right? I bet I know who did it.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Jack Burns, that’s who, your opponent in the sheriff’s race. He has a good reason to, doesn’t he?”

  “A reason to make Ruth crash? How do you figure that?”

  “Not Miz H, Ike, you.”

  “Me?” Essie, it seemed, shared Charlie’s concern that the perpetrator of this mess wanted to get at him through Ruth.

  “Well of course. It was your car that got sideswiped, wasn’t it?”