Murder Is Pathological

by P. M. Carlson

  Maggie, emerging from the pink house clutching a brown lunch bag, was sober and excited all at once. She climbed into the passenger seat, gave Zelle an enthusiastic pat on the head, and settled down to think, quiet only on the surface.

  Nick squinted at her a moment. “You’ve been granted absolution.”

  Surprised confirmation in her eyes; then the blue gaze was pulled away from him again. She said primly, “Nick, it’s rude of you to tell people how they feel before they know it themselves.”

  “O’Connor’s Instant Insight. Just add water. What happened?” He headed the car up the hill.

  “She was really glad to see me. Furious at the police for saying he was drunk. Norman’s been a member of AA for forty years. She said he’d been worried recently, but didn’t want to bother Dr. Weisen. So this weekend he was going to show me a couple of things. This”—she indicated the lunch bag—“is a rat from the slaughter. He didn’t incinerate it, thought something should be saved, so he took it home and froze it. He had some papers too. But he wouldn’t tell her what it was all about. Just told her to keep quiet. But she wanted to tell me because he was going to.”

  “What kind of papers?”

  “There were five or six papers, she said. One sloppy one he recopied. She doesn’t know what happened to the clean ones, but we scrounged through the wastebasket and found the original sloppy one.”

  “And? What does it say?”

  “Beats me.”

  He pulled over abruptly to the curb, to the consternation of the motorists behind him. “Okay. Show-and-tell.”

  She unfolded a rumpled, stained sheet of lined notepaper. It had been ruled hastily into clumsy rectangles, twenty along the length of the paper, eight the other direction. Each rectangle contained two numbers, except for several in the lower-right corner that were completely empty. They both frowned at the page for several minutes. “Do you see any pattern in it?” he asked at last.

  “Not much. Numbers range from one to eleven. The two numbers in each box are close, the difference is never more than three.”

  “Right. And the first number is usually greater than the second.”

  “Greater than or equal to,” she said. “Also, the smallest and the largest numbers are more likely to equal each other exactly.”

  “Yes, I see. Odd.”

  “It isn’t much, is it?”

  “Well, the implications are important. He wanted to show you something about the lab. Before he could, he was killed. Has his sister told the police?”

  “No. She said he was very mysterious but told her that no one was to know about it except me. She thought it was another joke we were planning. Now she’s frightened, glad to get the responsibility off her shoulders. Made me promise not to bring her into it. Nick, what the hell does this paper mean?”

  “Could it be some kind of code?”

  “One to eleven? Possible. Never heard of one like that.”

  “And they’re all in squares. Maybe there’s some particular pattern you’re supposed to follow through the squares. Hopscotch. Tic-tac-toe.”

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t put that past Norman.”

  They thought some more. Finally he said, “Nothing occurs to me. Guess I’ll let it simmer in my subconscious awhile.”

  “Not a bad idea. Listen, I should get back to those statistics exams before too long.”

  “Okay.” He pulled back into the traffic. “I’ll drop you at your building and then go check into my room. Meet you for dinner when? Six-thirty?”

  “Yes. That’ll be good. I hope I can finish and get off campus by then. The alumni are going to be overrunning the place in a few hours. Barbecues and cocktails for the reunions. Sometimes it’s a pain to be across the street from the administration building.”

  After that she sat quietly, holding Norman’s crumpled paper and glancing at it occasionally. The shadow was gone, abolished by this proof of Norman’s trust. Proof that he had known something that he was hiding from the others at the lab, but that he had been ready to share with her. Pain, sorrow, suspicion she could deal with; but the thought that she might have hurt a friend had lacerated her to the depths. Nick thought, we are so alike, and wished that Carmen could somehow absolve him.

  He parked in the same lot. There were a few cars now, and the paling sky shone in the puddles on the asphalt. As they started across toward the psychology building lobby, a young woman struggled from the flower-flanked door of the administration building, dragging a folded card table, big sheets of cardboard, and heavy wire structures that shifted and jammed against the door. Nick hurried to her and freed them. “Let me carry that for you,” he offered. Sir Walter O’Connor.

  “Oh, thanks. Gosh, I’m in such a mess!” She was an unlikely shade of blonde, carefully made up, in a pink suit. “Just set up the table by the curb, okay? I’m so far behind! That meeting just went on and on, and we’re supposed to have these signs up to direct the alumni. And it’ll take me fifteen minutes to get over to Duplicating to pick up the handouts for them. Dean Hughes is going to have my head!”

  Maggie said, “We’ve got a minute. Can we set things up?”

  “Oh, could you? The signs should point at the door here, one on each side of the street so they can see them as they drive into the parking lot. And if anyone asks, just tell them Dean Hughes and I will be here real soon.” She was running back toward the entrance, her heels clopping on the cement. “Oh, and if they want they can make out name tags. Everything is in that white bag. I’ll be back real soon!” She disappeared.

  Amused but faintly irritated at being drafted, Nick looked over at Maggie, who was erecting one of the signs in a planting plot near the curb. It was of the type used by realtors. A square frame of heavy black wire with legs that pushed into the ground, and a pair of cardboard signs sewn together like a pillowcase to slip over the frame. The legend consisted of the inevitable WELCOME BACK ALUMNI and large arrows pointing toward the door of the administration building.

  Except that Maggie, when the cardboard case was halfway on, pulled it off again thoughtfully, turned it around, glanced at Nick with impish challenge in her eyes, and slid it deliberately onto the frame the wrong way. The arrows now pointed unmistakably to the psychology building entrance.

  A couple of cars had pulled into the lot and several older people, laughing, were sauntering toward them. Hastily, Nick carried the table and the second sign across the street to the soggy grass plot in front of the psychology building, and pointed the second arrow at the lobby door. Maggie followed, laid out the name tags and felt-tip markers on the table, then advanced to meet the alumni with her best administrative-assistant smile. Nick hurriedly wrote himself a name tag.

  “Hi, how are you?” Maggie was saying brightly. “Are you here for the reunion?”

  “Sure are,” said one of the men.

  “Well, great! We don’t have our handouts here yet, but they should be arriving any minute. You early birds caught us unawares! Here, why don’t you just make yourselves some name tags? My name is, um, Zelda.” She had to struggle to keep a straight face as she focused on Nick, who had adjusted his tie and put on his most pompous smirk and his most dean-like paunch along with his name tag. But her voice remained bright and unflustered as she read it off. “And this is our assistant dean. Dean Connery.”

  “Very glad to meet you!” boomed Nick heartily, urged on by her delight in this escalation. “Welcome back! What class are you? Just write that on your name tags too, that’s good, then we’ll all know each other! Did you have a good trip?”

  “Not bad, except that it was raining when we left. Looks like you’ve had some here too, Dean Connery,” said the man. Elwood Simpson, Class of ‘29.

  “Oh, a tremendous storm, Mr. Simpson!” He saw that Maggie was going forward to greet a new group of alumni. Nick began to ease Mr. Simpson and his group toward the psychology building door. “Now, we’re starting our reunions in the lobby here. Do you know the building?”

&
nbsp; “Only the outside. It was built since my time, but of course I’ve been back several times since.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful! Glad to hear that! Hello, there!” Nick turned to the next group. “Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright! So glad you could come! Class of ‘39, I see. Have you met the Simpsons? Wonderful folks! You folks can go on into the lobby there, I’ll join you in a moment. Hello, Mr. Thiel! Mrs. Sanders! Class of ‘39,1 see!”

  Smoothly, as though they’d practiced for months, Dean Connery and his administrative assistant Zelda wove their fable, steered the swelling procession of alumni into the shabby lobby. After a few moments Nick went in himself, beaming, shaking their hands all over again. The ceiling still dripped sullenly into the cans and puddles on the floor.

  “Isn’t this an unusual location for the reunion?” Mr. Simpson asked him uneasily.

  “Oh, we’ll be moving on! We just wanted everyone to get a look at the campus, from the inside, so to speak!”

  “But this is disgusting!” Mr. Cartwright was not so reticent.

  “Oh, only when it’s raining, I assure you.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Excuse me, Dean Connery.”

  “Yes, Zelda?”

  “I’d like you to meet Mr. Frank Carruthers. Gave us the new wing on the library.”

  “Yes, of course, of course! I’m honored, Mr. Carruthers.” Nick pumped the wealthy benefactor’s hand enthusiastically.

  “Connery? Don’t remember you.” Mr. Carruthers had shrewd eyes, bristly gray eyebrows, a brisk manner.

  “Oh, I’m quite new,” Nick assured him.

  “Thought so. What’s the idea, Connery? Why’d you put us in this hole? That must be the same coat of paint it had when I was here.” Class of ‘39.

  “No, I assure you, it—”

  “You’re new here. You wouldn’t know. What are you trying to tell us with this show? Are a lot of campus buildings in this shape?”

  “Well, quite a few, actually. It’s better when it hasn’t been raining.”

  “Why the hell haven’t you shown us this before?” Carruthers didn’t wait for an answer, but turned away to hail a portly man with gray hair and a dark suit who was pressing apologetically through the crowd at the lobby door. At the same moment Nick became aware that Maggie was melting unobtrusively through the doors to the stairwell. He moved toward the doors too, quietly, as Carruthers’s gravelly dominating voice rang through the lobby. “Dean Hughes! Charlie!”

  All eyes turned to the portly newcomer, who looked as though he’d been punched in the stomach. “Frank! I’m so—”

  “Charlie, I want you to arrange a tour of the buildings while we’re here. My God, what kind of administrators are you to let buildings get into this shape? Is this what you’re going to do with the Carruthers Wing? This was one of the best buildings on campus when I was here!”

  Someone’s collapsible umbrella had been left leaning against the wall. Nick scooped it up as, elated, he went through the stairway doors under cover of Carruthers’s raspy tirade. He jammed the umbrella through the brass handles of the two doors, an impromptu lock, before turning to where Maggie leaned giddily against the wall. The delighted gaze that met his was intimate with shared hilarity. The natural thing to do was to give her an exuberant triumphal hug, to kiss the merry smile, to exult in the hungry responding warmth.

  Until, after just an instant, she shoved him away, turning her face from him, saying, “Nick, no.”

  He did not release her hand. “Yes.”

  “Nick, please! I can’t. Please, you’d better leave.”

  “Not this time, Maggie. Let’s stop pretending.”

  “I’m not pretending! We have fun, Nick. But I don’t want this. Don’t make us both miserable. Please go away.”

  “No, Maggie. We’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.”

  Something flared in the blue eyes, anger or desperation, and was repressed. “Stay away from me, Nick!” Her voice was cold. The strong fingers of her left hand seized his little finger where it curled around her right and bent it backward, sharply and painfully. He had to let go.

  She vanished up the stairs.

  Nick stood for a moment, sucking at his damaged knuckle ruefully. She didn’t fight fair. Never had. It was part of what charmed him, that swift unsqueamish choice of the most direct path to her goals. Worthwhile goals, generally, except for this one. And it wouldn’t be easy to slip past her guard again.

  But it was right, damn it. And she knew it too.

  He pulled off his coat and tie, roughed up his thin hair, developed a slight stoop and a protruding lower lip, and limped unrecognized past the crowd still massed around Carruthers and the unhappy Dean Hughes in the lobby. Nick decided that a slight adjustment in his vacation plans was called for.

  First, a suntan. He headed for the drugstore to get a bottle of bronzer.

  IV

  D-832 moved calmly around his half of Professor Moore’s double-chambered training box. Then the light went on. Instantly, purposively, D-832 whirled and inspected the two newly revealed doors leading to the second chamber: one with vertical stripes, one with horizontal. Horizontal had been correct until three trials ago, but now he was being trained to reverse preference. He hesitated, then rushed at the horizontal stripes. The door didn’t budge. The barrier descended again, and electricity pulsed through the grid of the floor. D-832 squealed and scrambled and defecated; the brief current ended and he settled down again.

  Monica recorded the result and set up the last trial. Again, the light went on; again, D-832 hesitated, nervous, but this time he chose the vertical stripes. He escaped into the second chamber before the grid was activated. “Smart cookie,” said Monica, and put him back into his home cage.

  So much for the live ones. She scrubbed and went into the microscope room. Bright tile and steel counters, lined with the instruments of her work—microscopes, racks of slides, cryostat, a big steel door that led to the refrigerator. No one else here yet this afternoon. She sighed as she pulled out Professor Moore’s rack of slides. She was weary from too much work, too much tension, too much uncertainty. Things were not happy at the lab these days. The shock of the destruction of Dr. Weisen’s test animals, the horror of Norman’s death, the carefully hidden suspicions that each of them had for the others, all made the heavy work load hard to bear. And driving to the lab today, past wet meadows, wet vineyards, wet forest and pastures, a timid glimmer of sun had happened to hit a black-and-white holstein not far from the highway. Monica’s mind had shifted suddenly to a summer day long ago, to that first time. His fraternity picnic, held by a lake, about this time of year. After lunch he had said, “Come on! I found something yesterday you should see.” And Monica, that other, immeasurably younger Monica, had taken his freckled hand and followed him across the hilly pastureland and along a fence row. He tried to walk on the top split rail, exclaiming, “Look, Ma, no hands!” Then he suddenly lost his balance and jumped down, arms flailing.

  “Look, Ma, no sense,” said Monica acidly. He laughed and led her up the rocky meadow.

  “There, see?” he said as they reached the crest.

  “A cow? We came all this way for a cow?” And then, “Oh, I see!” Suddenly enraptured, Monica moved slowly down into the grassy depression, toward the tiny spotted calf that was teetering on spindly legs near its mother. She paid homage to the mother first, letting the big nostrils whuffle at her and rubbing the coarse black-and-white head until the cow went back to her cud, satisfied. Then Monica leaned over to stroke the calf. It had a sweet surprised face, knobby too-long legs, little switching tail. She told the mother what a perfect calf she had, then, remembering, ran back to him. “It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed in gratitude.

  “I thought you’d like it.” He was very serious. His eyes searched hers and he said clumsily, “Monica, you just shine somehow. You just shine!”

  It was not the first time he had kissed her. They had nuzzled cautiously at fraternity parties and a mov
ie already. But that day was different. It was the joy of seeing new life, and gratitude, and soft new grass, and his lean freckled body, and his obscure but deeply felt murmur, “You just shine!” She was awash with love, with lust. Incurious but kindly, the cow, chewing rhythmically, gave benediction to their enthusiastic amateurish union.

  Anger. Hell, thought Monica. It’s over. Forget it. Goddamn cow. Moore’s study, that’s what she should be thinking about. That’s what she had to work on today. Two more rat brains to prepare, and then all of the tissue sections to inspect and code onto data sheets. She placed the first brain carefully into the cryostat and waited to be sure it was frozen. Then she opened the atlas to the appropriate page and adjusted the instrument carefully. Les came in and she murmured a response to his greeting, but she was already absorbed in the exacting work. Get the angle exact. Slice the frozen tissue. Mount the delicate little sheets of brain tissue on slides. Stain them for the microscope.

  Goddamn cow.

  She blinked the blurriness from her eyes, focused again on the cryostat. Frozen brain. Frozen world. Her life had become polar. Bleak, chaste, icy. Her work, her knowledge and growing skill, protected her like sealskin from complete despair, but sheltering inside it she was still cold.

  “You look like I feel,” said Les gently. He was at the nearest microscope, where he had been examining slides of heart tissue for Dr. Weisen’s experiments, but now he was looking at her. Kind, his rusty hair showing warm highlights even in the frosty fluorescent glare.