The Hanging

by Wendy Hornsby

“I have a feeling it was the same person who did both,” I said, looking up at him. “Do you have any idea about who it might be?”

  He shook his head, reached into the first-aid kit, took out the last packets of gauze and gave them to me to open. Then he pressed again on my shoulder with both hands, one atop the other.

  As I handed the new wad up to him, I asked, “How many people on campus know about your mother?”

  “Everybody by now. I was telling Lew about her, about you going to visit her. There were lots of people working in the gallery. Bunch of big mouths, including me.”

  He added, “I’m not ashamed of her. I don’t even know her.”

  Roger came in at a run with Kate on his heels. He saw blood and stopped at the door, as I expected he would, but Kate walked straight to me.

  “Holy Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she swore, lifting a corner of the mess under Sly’s hands for a look underneath. “Margot Eugenie Duchamps MacGowen, what the hell have you gotten into this time?”

  “Don’t yell at me,” I said. “It’s not my fault. And you forgot Flint.”

  She looked up at me, puzzled.

  “Margot Eugenie Duchamps MacGowen Flint.”

  Roger chuckled. “She’s okay, Katie. You’re doing a good job there, Sly.”

  He left the room and I heard him shortly afterward talking with Lew, heard the big gallery doors open and the voices trail off.

  “Kate, I’ll need something to wear.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “I’m giving an interview to the network this afternoon.” I picked at the bloody shirt. “I can’t go on camera like this.”

  “Are you sure?” She had a tooth-sucking smile. “It would make a dramatic statement.”

  “Yes, of the wrong kind. And it would certainly send all those newsies straight over here to film that graffiti. Let’s do our best to keep them away.”

  Sly said, “Thank you, Maggie.”

  “All right,” Kate said, giving Sly a pat on the back. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  Sid Bishop, the fire captain I had met Friday night, and Gus, one of the same paramedics, came in and took over for Sly. Gus took away the compress and felt the wound. He pressed against one side of it and something fell out of the hole in my flesh and rolled across the floor. Bishop retrieved it and held it on his latex-gloved palm for me to see.

  “Pellet gun,” he said.

  “It didn’t penetrate very far,” Gus said. “It hit you right over the bone, and my guess is the bone stopped it. But anytime you break skin over bone, it bleeds like a sonofabitch. Getting the pellet out will help.”

  He cleaned the site with antiseptic wipes, waited to see if it was still bleeding.

  Sly hovered.

  “You did a good job with the compress, kid,” Gus said as he taped a bandage over the wound.

  As he cleaned the gash on my chin, Gus asked, “When did you have your last tetanus booster?”

  “Last spring.”

  “You’re probably good to go, then. You should see your own doctor and have the shoulder looked at. He’ll probably put you on antibiotics as a precaution. But if you keep it clean, I don’t think you’ll have any problem unless you got clothing fibers in the wound.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Sorry to bring you out on such a miserable day.”

  Gus looked at Bishop and they both chuckled.

  “Our pleasure,” Bishop said, glancing at the wall clock. “Later this afternoon we’ll be busy with fender benders on the freeway—doesn’t anyone in California know how to drive in the rain?—so if you could hold off on finding bodies and getting shot at until after rush hour, we’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  When they were gone, Sly and I agreed that we would keep the gorier details to ourselves. When Kate came back with a very nice black cardigan she found somewhere, Sly excused himself, and she helped me clean myself and button up the sweater.

  “You should go home, Mags, put your feet up.”

  “I’ll do that, but after I get this interview out of the way. And I told Guido I’d meet him at the studio for a bit. Oh yeah, Mom asked me to take her to the grocery store and I promised to take her to dinner. So, after that.”

  She started to dissuade me, then stopped. “Just be careful, Mags.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I doubt I was the planned target.”

  “I saw the gallery doors,” she said. “Do you think someone is after Sly?”

  “Looks like sour grapes,” I said. “In a week, Sly’s beautiful piece will be hung. And there is a brass bowling pin that will be consigned to oblivion.”

  “Franz von Wilde?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt for someone to go talk to him.”

  “For instance, someone who is not officially investigating a murder?”

  I patted her cheek. “You always were the smartest one in class.”

  Ida called for the second time—the first time I was with the paramedic—and informed me they were waiting for me in front of the administration building.

  Roger came into the lounge and stuffed my torn and bloody clothes into a brown paper evidence bag.

  Chapter 18

  “You look pale, honey,” Ida said. “And what’s that on your chin?”

  “Grazed by a bullet,” I said.

  “Yeah, sure. Makeup, please.”

  A young man came out from among the equipment cases and dabbed pancake on my chin; it burned.

  “Give her some color will you? And do something with the hair,” Ida ordered him. To me she said. “You should get some sun.”

  Hiram Chin and a third-string reporter named Kelly Lopez were standing with the administration building behind them, mic’d and lit and ready for the camera.

  Chin wore the usual well-cut suit and tie, appropriately dark for the occasion. Kelly Lopez wore a tight lime green knit shirt that showed a canyon of cleavage that not so long ago proper ladies wouldn’t have exposed until after dark. Along with overdone hair and too much makeup she presented quite a package, especially for a taping on a college campus where women generally dressed down lest they be mistaken for airheads.

  I didn’t remember ever meeting her before, but when young news hens were as tarted up as she was they all looked about the same to me. I tried not to judge her, remembering that I had truncated the distinctive nose I inherited from my dad in order to get a job very similar to hers.

  A phalanx of administrators and staff from the public relations office and a few students created a sort of peanut gallery off to one side. Ida held up her hand and ordered them to silence. When the last cough had been stifled, she put her hand down and signaled for the taping to begin.

  Hiram read a prepared statement.

  “The faculty, staff and students of Anacapa College are profoundly saddened by the untimely passing of our president, Dr. Park Holloway. Dr. Holloway was a man of great vision who, during his five-year tenure here, led our campus through unprecedented infrastructure growth. The building projects he spearheaded will stand as monuments to the man for many years to come.

  “All of us here extend heartfelt sympathy and our prayers to Dr. Holloway’s family during their bereavement. The college invites the community to join us on campus at noon tomorrow as we remember our colleague, friend, and father. Thank you very much.”

  Then he folded his notes, nodded to Kelly Lopez, who was poised to ask him questions, and began to remove his mic.

  “Dr. Chin,” Kelly said, putting a hand on his arm to stay him. “May I ask you, sir—”

  “If you’ll please excuse me,” he said. “I’ve been informed that there is a medical emergency involving one of our faculty. I need to tend to it.”

  He handed Kelly his clip-on mic and walked away. As he passed me, the faculty member with the erstwhile medical emergency, I longed for a camera to capture the horror that crossed his face.

  “Maggie,” was all he said.

  “All’s well h
ere, Hiram. You might have a word with Chief Tejeda in the gallery.”

  Ida walked up to me as I watched Hiram’s retreating back.

  “Bastard,” she said. “Hardly worth the trip out to hear that B.S. He coulda sent a memo.”

  “What? You didn’t get one?”

  “Must have missed it,” she said. “We’re putting you and Kelly on chairs over here, get the campus behind you. Too bad about the rain, though, I’d like to catch some students in the background.”

  I looked around, saw Preston Nguyen and Sly and a couple of the other youths from the gallery lurking off to the side and gave them a quick wave.

  “When we finish out here,” Ida told me, “you’re taking Kelly on a walk through the crime scene.”

  “Who dresses her, Ida?”

  “Cleavage is in with this new batch, Maggie. She may still be a bit undercooked, but don’t let her looks deceive you; she’s no dummy.”

  Ida introduced us. Kelly and I walked together to the covered portico that ran along the side of the building, away from the elements but still with a good shot of the campus as a backdrop, where our conversation would be taped.

  “What you said to Ida,” Kelly said, gesturing toward my chin. “Was that true? Did someone shoot at you?”

  “At me? Hard to say,” I said. “But Kelly, you might not want to get too close.”

  The two of us were perched on canvas director’s chairs, mic’d and hit with a last dab of pancake on nose, chin and forehead to keep down shine. The technical director ran light and sound checks and gave instructions to the cameramen. My neighbor, Early Drummond, was behind camera one. I knew I could trust him to make me look as good as the circumstances allowed, but I was more concerned about what I might say. I had no energy and no enthusiasm for what we were doing, so who knew what might come flying out? Kate had been right: it was time to lie down somewhere.

  Sitting next to Kelly, wearing my borrowed sweater, a quick application of stage makeup, and with my hair more blown and sprayed than I usually wore it, I felt the way a brown wren might next to a peacock.

  Ida called for silence. The red light came on over the lens of Early’s camera. The tape editor called, “We have speed.” Then Ida, who was producer and technical director on this shoot, began to count, “We are taping in five, four, three....”

  Kelly leaned close to me, exposing even more of her makeup-enhanced cleavage to me, and began.

  “Oh, Maggie, it must have been so horrible for you.”

  Kelly’s exposed physical assets were less an issue for me than the breathless, sensationalized tone of her questions. Yes, finding a dead man had been horrible, but I refused to gasp and cry and go all girly, even though that would have made our bosses happy.

  “Horrible for Dr. Holloway, certainly,” I said, answering her question, but sounding stiff, cold.

  “What did you do, Maggie?”

  “I called 911, and the paramedics and police responded quickly.” Very matter-of-fact in tone. “My involvement was, fortunately, very brief.”

  “And now you’re making a film about the late Dr. Park Holloway.” She lowered her chin and looked at me the way funeral directors do when they mention the name of the dear departed. “Maggie, you must feel some link to Dr. Holloway, finding him the way you did. Is that what inspired you to...”

  Kelly just seemed to freeze mid-sentence, staring at me. Was it the expression on my face that stopped her? I could have been more helpful to her, responded more generously. But I just didn’t have the mojo to do it.

  After a moment, Kelly let out a long breath, turned toward Ida and gestured for her to cut.

  “Give me a minute, will you, Ida?” she said.

  Ida said, “You okay, Kelly?”

  “Yeah, sure. Just give us a minute, okay?”

  “Take five,” Ida answered. Early asked me where he could find coffee and I pointed him toward the cafeteria. He led two others off with him. Ida called after them, “Bring me one, too, guys. Black, two sugars.”

  Looking down, Kelly tugged the top of her shirt up to cover a good part of her chest and relaxed her shoulders. As she turned toward me, she ran her fingers through her hair, freeing it from its lacquer shell.

  “What’s up?” I asked her.

  “Did you ever see the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” she asked.

  “Sure, Bob Hoskins and a bunch of animated characters.” Odd thing to ask in that situation, I thought, but waited for her to work through whatever was going on.

  “Remember the character, Jessica Rabbit? She’s drawn like a blonde bombshell. When she vamps by, men’s eyes pop out of their heads and steam comes out of their ears. Well, she has this line where she says, ‘I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.’”

  “Good line,” I said.

  “Maggie, this is the way they draw me.” There was mist in her eyes. “I always wanted to be like you and Linda Ellerbee and Christine Amanpour. But...”

  She dropped her chin, sighed.

  “Hey Kelly,” I said. “It’s a tough business, and it’s getting tougher. We all do what we have to do to stay afloat, right?”

  She cocked her head to look at me.

  “But they can only draw you the way you’ll let them. And it isn’t so much how you look as what you have to say.”

  “All right, ladies.” Ida’s voice brought everyone back to their stations. “Enough with the coffee klatch, huh? Let’s get this in the can.”

  Kelly took a deep breath, patted her hair, squared her shoulders, folded her hands in her lap, smiled at me and asked, “Ready?”

  I smiled back. “When you are.”

  The red light came back on atop the lens of camera one; the tape editor said, “We have speed.” And Ida began to count, “We are taping in five, four, three....”

  Kelly took a breath, and turned to me.

  “Maggie MacGowen, welcome back to the network. Congratulations for signing on for a new project.” She was sitting upright, sounded friendly but forthright. “Being with us again must feel like déjà vu.”

  “It does a bit, yes,” I said, thinking, What now? “It’s nice to be back working with old friends.”

  “You have reported news events from all over the world, sending your observations over the airwaves from war zones and natural disasters to the viewing public. But last week, you were, yourself, at the center of an important breaking-news story.”

  I was thinking, Good for you, girl, trying not to smile because she was about to ask me about finding a dead man. The cupcake was suddenly sounding more like a steak sandwich, so I did my best to help her out. We got the essentials of what happened Friday evening taken care of without gory details. I thought she did a good job of framing the crime within the context of the community where it occurred: the college campus, where murder is rare.

  Skillfully, she segued from the crime to a brief conversation about Park Holloway’s background—from Congress to campus—and on to the reason I was back at the network. She was frank about my series cancellation, and from there to my teaching gig, which brought us full circle to the origins of the film topic. She gave me a good opening to promote my film. And then left her audience with a cliff-hanger.

  “Is it possible,” she asked, “that the murderer is someone you see on campus every day?”

  “Entirely possible,” I said.

  “We are all eager to see your film, Maggie.” She leaned slightly toward me. “But you be careful out there.”

  She gave her face to camera one, and closed.

  We turned to each other and pretended to chat while Ida counted to ten. At ten, Ida said, “And we’re out. Thank you very much, boys and girls.”

  Ida came over to us. “Great job, Kelly. Great job. Maggie, thank you very much. Good luck with the project, and try to stay out from underfoot, will you?”

  “No promises, Ida,” I said.

  As Kelly and I unclipped our microphones and handed them to a crewman, she glanced at me.
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br />   “Well done, Kelly,” I said. “Excellent interview structure.”

  “It’s easier when you help,” she said, smiling.

  “It’s easier when you cover up your chest.”

  She chuckled. “Why do the guys get to wear neckties?”

  “Because that’s what turns women on,” I said.

  Offering her hand, she said, “It will be interesting having you around.”

  “Don’t blink,” I said, giving her hand a quick squeeze.

  Before we taped the crime scene, I gave Early and Ida the sequence of events, and on camera, led Kelly through the scene. Someone from campus public relations trailed along behind Ida, though I wasn’t sure why. Curious? The appointed censor? Good luck if he decided we needed to clear out for some reason, I thought. Ida had signed releases from the college and a house full of corporate lawyers behind her who were always eager for fresh carrion.

  The walk-around took only a few minutes. I managed a few quiet, private words with Early and then headed for the parking lot. Guido Patrini, my film partner, was already at the network studio, waiting for me—he had called several times. I told him I would only be able to make a drive-by, but I was on my way.

  Guido was waiting for me in Lana’s top floor office. The little lift of his eyebrows asked me how the interview went, my little shrug answered that it went okay. Guido and I had worked together, off and on, since my stint in Kansas City, so there were a lot of words that didn’t need to get spoken between us anymore.

  “Ida’s happy,” Lana said, hanging up her desk phone. “She said you put Kelly Lopez through the traces.”

  “That one has possibilities,” I said.

  “Maggie, someone else has moved into our old fun zone,” Guido said, referring to our former production office. “Lana’s negotiated some new real estate for us.”

  “Guido has given me his usual extravagant wish list,” Lana said, coming to sit on the sofa beside him. “I divided what he asked for by ten, and found a good space for you on the fourth floor, near Studio Eight.”

  “You’ll move out the mops and brooms first, though, won’t you?” Guido asked.

  “Guido, Guido,” she said, patting his chiseled jaw. “If you weren’t so damn good-looking I’d drop-kick you right out that window onto Alameda Avenue.”