by Donn Taylor
“Now help me understand,” I said.
Giff tented his fingers. “I was a very young and naive freshman at Insburg Community College. I felt flattered when a sophomore like Laila—she still called herself Dee then—paid any attention to me. Like a fool, I thought it was me she loved. It turned out someone had convinced her I must be independently wealthy or I couldn’t afford to study a noncommercial field like philosophy. It never occurred to her that I came up dirt-poor and never learned to need money.”
He sighed. “After we were married, we had a couple of wild months together before she found out she’d been wrong. She stayed with me for a while—room and board, you know—but she took jobs on the side and kept the money for herself. She said she was working as a waitress.” He gave a sad laugh. “In a way, she was. But she worked in one of those . . . gentlemen’s bars.” His tone gave a sarcastic emphasis to the word gentlemen’s.
He waited and I said, “That wasn’t good.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
He continued, his face expressionless. “When I found out, I filed for divorce. She moved out, and I never saw or heard from her until she showed up here. Then we had one brief conversation: she wouldn’t tell about our marriage if I wouldn’t tell about her former employment. That was it, except for a passing hello or two.”
“Do you know any reason someone would want to kill her?”
“Dozens.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Considering her character, there were probably hundreds. I considered it myself before I divorced her.” He sighed again. “No, I don’t know of any reason since she came to Overton.”
So I had dead-ended again. I stood and said, “Thanks for talking to me, Giff. You’ll let me know if you think of anything helpful?”
His eyes became gray ice. “No, I’ll let Staggart know. He’s trained to deal with murderers, but professors aren’t. Remember what Socrates said about not trying to do someone else’s job.”
“I remember,” I said, and made the long trek back down the stairs. Socrates was right, I thought with chagrin. If Staggart would do his job, Mara and I wouldn’t need to do it for him.
Mara and I had both been depressed when we left Dolt’s, and my interview with Giff didn’t help. My depression hit bottom as I entered my darkened house with its silent piano. I’d had only coffee at Dolt’s, so I made a quick sandwich. Ham with cheese this time, just for variety. I was finishing with a cup of instant coffee when the phone rang.
Cindy’s voice came soft and sweet, as it always did. “Are you still all right, Daddy? I’ve been worried about you with the trouble at the college.”
“I’m fine, Cindy,” I said. “Kind of tired after a full day, but basically fine.”
“I’m glad, ’cause I’ve been praying for you.” Her tone changed. “Is it still okay for me to spend Thanksgiving with Heather?”
“Of course, dear.” My parental caution went on orange alert. “Why? Has something changed?”
“Oh, Daddy,” she said, her tone eloquent with her opinion of over-protective parents. “It’s the same way we talked about. Just Heather and me. The boys are staying somewhere else.”
“All right, sweet one.” I tried to sound enthusiastic. “Have a good time and take care of my girl.”
“You know I will, Daddy.”
For the second time I could almost see her squirm.
She rang off, and I dropped onto the bed as I had the last time she called. Cindy’s voice, so much like Faith’s, reminded me that Faith had died on that same bed, and I surrendered once again to the memory of her final hours.
We’d brought her home because she wanted to die among the things she treasured. She wanted music, so I put on the CDs of her choice. In her last two days we worked through much of her library, each sonata or symphony more poignant because she would never hear it again. The sounds of those final minutes burned into my being with unquenchable fire.
Faith knew the time, somehow, and saved her two favorites until last. One was Jascha Heifetz playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto—exquisite melody, controlled power and passion in the first movement, then the lyric slow movement flowing without pause into the joyful abandon of the finale.
The music’s emotions became mine as I sat at Faith’s bedside and held her hand. She lay with eyes closed, smiling at passages that pleased her especially, occasionally squeezing my hand to lead me into sharing her pleasure.
Last came the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no. 2, which she had performed magnificently with the state symphony orchestra. Her eyes remained closed through the solemnity of the opening chords, but her fingers moved on my hand. I knew that in her mind she experienced every note as if she were playing it herself. At times she emphasized accented notes with a faint squeeze. At others, her hand lay limp in mine, the smile eclipsed from her lips.
She stirred again as a flute introduced the slow movement’s plaintive melody over quiet broken chords from the piano. I know no movement more filled with passionate longing, and Faith’s smile came again as the music’s emotion deepened. At long last the violins returned with the fullest, most intense development of the theme. And at that moment of singing violins Faith’s spirit slipped away from her body, which yet lay with a smile on its face, its lifeless hand in mine.
I think it was also that moment when the music passed from Faith’s soul into mine, where it still resides.
Out of respect for the music she loved, I remained by her side until the concerto’s final chords sounded and the home we had made together lapsed into the silence that yet prevails.
Already in despair from the futility of my investigation, I relived those darkest moments of my life in the depths of a grief that never ends.
At some point in my despair, mercifully I fell unknowing into the velvet blanket of redeeming sleep.
CHAPTER 23
I woke Wednesday morning determined to give up the investigation. In pursuing it I’d committed felonies that could send me to prison, and I’d led Mara to do the same. If she was being stalked, I’d also led her into physical danger. All I’d accomplished was to revive forgotten scandals that could destroy the happiness of my friends. And I was no closer to finding the murderer now than I was when I started.
I tried to phone Mara to tell her my decision, but she didn’t answer either her land line or her cell phone. I left no message and hoped to catch her later between classes.
Something about making a decision, even a tough one, tends to restore the spirit. So I felt reasonably positive by the time I entered my office.
But not for long. On the center of my desk lay a sheet of paper that shouted a message in bold type:
LAY
OFF
OR
ELSE
It was computer-printed, of course, and I later measured the type as 72-point.
My initial shock gave way to a sense of being violated, which then erupted in a blaze of fury. If the violator had been there, I’d have tried my best to smash him. But he wasn’t there, so my anger gradually sank into frustration. I could do nothing until I knew who left the warning.
Hurried footsteps sounded in the hall. Then Mara stood in my doorway, anxiety in her face and a sheet of paper in her hand. Without looking, I knew what it contained.
She spoke in an unsteady voice. “I found this in the middle of my desk.”
“I have one just like it,” I said. “Dean-Dean says two passkeys are missing besides the one I stole. It looks like somebody used one of them.”
Mara bit her lip and grimaced. “I came to the campus early to tell you I was quitting our investigation. We weren’t accomplishing anything, so I thought it was time to stop.”
“And now?”
Her chin raised that expressive fraction of an inch. “We have to continue. We must be getting close.”
“Are you still being stalked?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him this morning.”
“And you still want to go on?”
She
speared me with a glance. “Are you going to back out?”
I found myself adjusting my trifocals. “I tried to call you earlier to say I was quitting. But not now. You must be right about our getting close.” Something popped into place in my mind. “These messages are a challenge as well as a warning. I couldn’t quit now if I wanted to.”
“Good.” She rewarded me with a smile. “What now? Do we take these to the police?”
“How can we?” I’d already puzzled over that. “The first thing they’ll ask is, ‘Lay off of what?’ We say, ‘Our investigation.’ They ask, ‘What have you done?’ Then we either have to lie or confess to several felonies.”
Her smile faded into tightened lips. “So we’ve painted ourselves into a corner.”
“Only about this warning. Your being stalked is different. A stalking report from any good-looking female is always credible on its own merits.”
For a second time, she blushed. But she only said, “I’ll have to think on that. If it keeps up, that is.” She looked at her watch. “I have to teach my class. Call me later and we’ll decide what to do.”
When I agreed, she jogged away down the hall—no small feat for someone wearing a pantsuit and pumps. I remembered how genuine her smile had been, and it occurred to me how rarely she smiled.
I barely made it on time to my nine o’clock class, in which today’s topic was one of my unfavorites. We studied historians who say the American Revolution was motivated by the founding fathers’ promoting their own economic interests. You can find plenty of cases when they did, of course, but you can also find plenty when they acted directly against their own interests. I have trouble covering this topic objectively because I believe in the motivating power of ideas. Materialistic interpretations always fall short.
Nevertheless, I got through it okay. After class, a student met me at the door and said President Cantwell wanted to see me.
What have I done now? I wondered. But since wondering would do no good, I headed across campus to the executive center. When I reached Mrs. Dunwiddie’s office, I found Dean-Dean standing by her desk. He looked up with an irritated expression.
“I can’t see you now, Professor Barclay,” he said. “I’m busy with a priority project.”
“That’s all right, sir,” I said. “Some other time, then.”
He stretched himself up to his full five feet eight and retreated into his office before my internal bassoon could toot more than twice.
Mrs. Dunwiddie looked concerned. “Did you want to see the dean?”
“No,” I said, “but I didn’t want to disillusion him by saying I didn’t.”
She suppressed a middle-aged giggle, resumed her officious voice, and said, “President Cantwell is waiting.”
The J. Cleveland Cantwell who greeted me was quite different from the one I’d known before. He pointed me to a chair, then came around his desk and sat facing me, a frown creasing his brow.
“Two churches have dropped us from their annual budgets,” he said. “Neither would explain why. The cause may have been Laila Sloan’s death. It may have been something else.”
No wonder he looked worried. He’d always bragged we were on the budgets of more than a hundred churches.
He rubbed his fingers together. “Other things aren’t going well, either. Two of our athletes had a fight in the gym last weekend. One required six stitches in his head.”
“I hadn’t heard about that,” I said, still wondering why he’d sent for me. It didn’t help that my head echoed with a weird duet between a bass violin and an oboe.
“In any case, Press,” he said, “you were right yesterday. I did need to hear that debate.”
He’d never used my given name before, and this was the first time I’d heard him speak in a conversational tone instead of his formal pontifical mode.
When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “Yesterday, I found some of the speeches profoundly shocking. I hadn’t realized people would actually use their classes for . . . well, for indoctrination . . . or that they would coerce students into signing ideological statements.”
“It’s been going on,” I said. I didn’t ask him where he’d been for the past thirty years.
He wiped his brow. “I hadn’t realized how far from its roots this college has traveled.”
Again, I said nothing. I particularly didn’t remind him that we were a university rather than a college. After all, he was the one who’d renamed it.
He sighed. “I want to stop the drift before it goes too far, but I don’t know where to start. I thought maybe you and some of the older faculty would have some ideas.” He looked up hopefully.
“I don’t know anything about administration,” I said. “I just teach history. I guess my main suggestion would be to talk with Dr. Sheldon out at the assisted-living center. He’s retired, so he has no turf to protect. He’ll talk straight with you.”
That last was the understatement of the year. Dr. Sheldon would probably talk straight through him. But Cantwell would find that out soon enough.
He again rubbed his fingers together. “Perhaps we’ve been too lax in hiring faculty. I wonder about that Wiccan woman. . . . There’s notelling what she’s palming off on her students. . . .”
“I’d keep her,” I said, trying to sound thoughtful despite the alarm rising in my throat. I was glad I’d made a few discreet inquiries about her. “Her students say she stays objective and never proselytizes. One asked what she thought about some point in Christian theology, and she said, ‘Why do you care what I think? You do your own thinking.’ Then she outlined the major interpretations and gave him references for further study. That’s the kind of faculty I’d keep.”
He nodded. “I see what you mean.”
I wasn’t going to let that one go. “Her students will tell you the same thing I did.”
He nodded again. “I was wondering about some of the . . . the ideologues who spoke yesterday. . . .”
Talking about other people’s jobs made my flesh crawl. “Traditionally, academic freedom says they can speak openly without fear of penalty,” I said, walking on eggshells. “I think I’d look more to the hiring process.”
A smile flickered briefly across his face. “I shouldn’t have asked you that.”
He stood and extended his hand. Like an actor putting on makeup, he turned on his normal rhetorical mode. “Thank You for Coming By, Professor Barclay. Please Be Assured that I will give your comments Full Consideration.”
I shook the extended hand. “Thank you for asking me, sir. I do recommend talking to Dr. Sheldon. You might also try prayer.”
He made no response and, feeling like the hypocrite I was, I showed myself out. In my spiritual numbness, I hadn’t prayed in a long time. Who was I to tell him to pray?
Physician, heal thyself.
Mrs. Dunwiddie questioned me with her eyebrows as I passed through her office. I answered with a smile and a shrug, which ought to inspire a week’s speculation in the campus gossip circles.
The door to Dean-Dean’s office stood open, and the executive center’s custodial associate stood before him. The custodian was a red-faced man who wore jeans and a blue denim work shirt, with a red bandanna hanging out of his hip pocket. He spoke in outraged innocence.
“No, sir, Mr. Billig, I have not never put no mothballs in no part of this building at no time.”
I admired his Chaucerian grammar, but thought it politic not to linger for more.
The interview with President Cantwell left me feeling like a juggler with too many plates in the air. I already had to worry about my classes, investigating the murder, losing friends because of it, Staggart’s trying to pin the murder on me, the murderer’s—or someone’s—threat to “lay off,” and Dean-Dean’s accusing me of falsifying my personnel file. Now Cantwell had made me feel partly responsible for the direction of the college. Then I had to top it all by adding the question of prayer. That gave me at least two more plates than I could handle.
So I went to lunch. Another grilled cheese sandwich washed down with coffee.
Listening to the faculty chatter in the grill, I could almost make myself believe the world had returned to normal. Mara sat across the table from me, not saying much but somehow making me feel better. The male and female composition instructors laughed about a student’s getting Bayreuth confused with Beirut, and she recycled her standard complaint that her students were recent transfers from Catatonic State. We dutifully laughed with them.
Everything felt really normal until Brenda Kirsch showed up. She wore that emerald-green warmup again, and she stopped by our table long enough to flash me a luminous smile and rub her hand in circles on my shoulder.
“Friends, Press?” she asked.
“Friendship is a wonderful thing,” I said.
She laughed and moved away with that long-legged stride, half athlete and half ballerina.
“What did you do, Press?” asked the female composition teacher. “Give one of her athletes an A?”
“Maybe she just likes history,” I said.
For several seconds I didn’t look at Mara. When I did, I wished I hadn’t.
She looked right through me and said, “In spring the sap runs free.”
“This is November,” I said.
“So the sap is out of season.” She picked up her books and stalked out.
The female composition teacher looked puzzled. “What did she mean by that?”
I tried to look innocent and said, “She’s been reading up on botany.”
My afternoon class went well—more on the ideals of knighthood and scholars’ speculation on how much they were actually practiced. So by the time I got back to my office, I’d almost forgotten my troubles.
They came back with a rush. I’d carefully placed the “lay off” message in a locked drawer of my desk. The drawer had been jimmied open and the document was gone. That left me with no physical evidence to prove I’d received a threat. And it left no doubt about something even more frightening: I was being targeted by someone who passed through locked doors as easily as a ghost.
I was still gazing at the desk drawer, half-stunned and trying to make sense of things, when I realized someone was standing in my doorway.
