Rhapsody in Red

by Donn Taylor

  Remembering Brenda’s strength when she kissed me, I shuddered. The knot on my head started aching again.

  “She played as many town pranks as the boys,” Mara continued, “but she had no real trouble till she was a freshman in high school. Then she got into Laila’s gang. Sherman knew about her suspended sentence, but he didn’t know it had been expunged. He said she was a good athlete and some out-of-state university gave her a scholarship. Her family moved away before she finished. He heard Brenda married somebody, but he doesn’t know who. That’s the last he heard of the Joneses.”

  “Not much there that we didn’t know already,” I said.

  “One thing more.” Mara looked particularly proud of herself. “After Brenda and Laila’s gang got convicted, one of the town boys made a derogatory remark about Brenda’s virtue.”

  “I’d think that wasn’t very wise,” I said.

  “It wasn’t. Brenda brained him with a two-by-four, and he spent three weeks in the hospital. They had to reconstruct part of his skull.”

  I whistled. We already knew Brenda had strength enough to knock Laila over the head and strangle her. Now we knew she had a history of violence. And we knew she kept a blackjack in her desk drawer.

  My head throbbed, suddenly flooding me with suspicion.

  Brenda had bashed the head of one person who’d crossed her. Was she the one who did the job on me?

  CHAPTER 31

  We didn’t talk much on the drive back to Overton City, and our mood remained grim. My head continued under siege: the lump on the outside kept throbbing, and one of the mad drummers returned on the inside. I brooded because I’d been slugged, and I worried about my suspension from teaching. All used-car-salesman jokes aside, what would I do with my life if I couldn’t teach history?

  Mara looked as worried as I felt. Her situation was worse than mine. As a new faculty member, she had no history of positives to mitigate the alleged negatives. There were also questions about her being stalked and what she would do for a car. I knew she couldn’t afford to have the old car repaired.

  We made two calls on our cell phones. Sergeant Spencer agreed to check on Morris Wimberly’s whereabouts at the time of Laila’s murder. Mara arranged a meeting with Dr. Sheldon on our way into town and asked him to develop a time line for President Cantwell’s earlier years—one we could compare with Laila’s. Though the difference in their ages argued against it, their hometowns were close enough together that they might have met.

  We didn’t say much for the rest of the trip.

  Around four thirty, Dr. Sheldon greeted us like an old lion licking its chops at lunchtime. “Welcome home from the wilds of the west, children. What have you to tell me?”

  I held a chair for Mara and asked, “How about President Cantwell?”

  Dr. Sheldon waved the question away. He wheeled his chair around to face us and boomed, “All in good time. Now give: What did you learn out west?”

  Mara summarized our information from Insburg Tool and Trucking, Inc., graciously omitting the fact that we only learned it because of her intervention with Blossom Harlow, MRS. Even more graciously, Mara didn’t recount my subsequent encounter with the waitress.

  “Hmmmm.” Dr. Sheldon kept rubbing his hands like a gloveless explorer in the Arctic. “So if Laila didn’t work at the Insburg Whatever-it-is, we have a five-year gap in her time line before she shows up at Bi-County High. Offhand, I don’t know how to investigate that gap.”

  “She once said something about working in Las Vegas,” I said, and described my interview with Morris Wimberly.

  Sheldon said nothing, so Mara reported her conversations with Sophie Sloan, Lydia Tenfife, and Solomon Sherman. It hurt my ego to recall that I’d initiated the western trip, but Mara had developed most of the information. Not that either of us had learned anything that seemed particularly noteworthy.

  To round things out, I somewhat sarcastically reported the waitress’s observations about President Cantwell.

  Dr. Sheldon’s voice softened. “Don’t be too hard on him, Press. He’s spent his life being a cork. He’s always floated at the level of his surroundings and never developed a level of his own. But that last faculty meeting got to him. Now, at age forty-six, he’s realized he needs to be a breakwater instead of a cork, and he doesn’t know how to make the change. He’s never heard of the National Association of Scholars or the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.”

  “Overton would have to make radical changes to qualify for the council,” I said.

  “Cantwell will find that out,” Dr. Sheldon continued, “and he has his work cut out for him. Historically, secularization is a one-way street. No college that started down it has ever been able to come back. Cantwell can use your prayers.”

  That one struck home. I hadn’t prayed in a long time. Not that I was bitter about Faith’s death, but I was still numb. Three years was a lot of numbness, now that I thought about it. Dr. Sheldon’s comment reminded me I needed to push my own pain aside and help other people with theirs. Deep inside, I already knew that. But I’d been too self-absorbed to act on it.

  “All right,” I said.

  “One bit of bad news.” The great voice grew low and somber. “Mrs. Jessel died Wednesday night while you were sleeping off that knock on the head. They buried her this afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We never know what kind of a life people with dementia have. But her passing will take some financial strain off of Giff.” My conscience hurt because I’d skipped visiting her these last couple of weeks. I wondered if she’d known the difference.

  Mara’s eyes teared up. “She was such a sweet lady. She didn’t know who was visiting her, but she always received us graciously.”

  I didn’t know Mara had visited her at all. I found out later that in spite of everything else she had going, she’d visited every couple of days.

  “I have good news, too.” Dr. Sheldon’s voice boomed again. “President Cantwell wants me to offer online courses in history.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Mara said. “How will it work?”

  Dr. Sheldon pointed toward the notebook computer on the table beside his bed. “I log that gadget on to the university network and work through it. Earl-George came out the other day to set up my password and show me how to connect via the Internet. He isn’t half as dumb as I thought he was. Did you know he’s added an on-campus wireless connection?”

  “He’s a good computer mechanic,” I said. I wasn’t prepared to comment further on the ability of Earl-George’s synapses to communicate with each other. My private opinion was that you could fly a B-52 between any two of them.

  “Well, children,” Dr. Sheldon said, “what will you do about your suspensions?”

  Mara and I exchanged glances. It seemed incredible to me that we’d traveled together two days without raising that question.

  “Nothing we can do,” I said, “until President Cantwell comes back from his . . . uh . . . fund-raising tour.” I found it politic not to suggest he’d been fishing. “Dean-Dean has made up his mind, and nothing short of a presidential order will change it.”

  Mara nodded agreement. “I’ll try to talk to President Cantwell, too. And maybe Sergeant Spencer can help. He’s an alumnus, so the president ought to listen to him.”

  “If all else fails,” Dr. Sheldon said, “I know several good lawyers.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I hope we won’t need them.” I stood to leave, and Mara stood with me.

  Outside, the last orange streak was fading from the evening sky. The night wind brought a growing chill, and I felt the beginnings of deep fatigue. As we drove across town, making a ham sandwich at home seemed an onerous task.

  “How about supper at Dolt’s?” I asked.

  “I’ve got to quit sponging on you,” Mara said.

  I thought of a snappy comeback, but it involved coloring outside the lines. So I said, “Okay, you can quit as soon as we finish supper.”

/>   She sighed and nodded. She must have been tired, too.

  At Dolt’s we endured the usual aural mayhem and saw the usual crowd of students who, as always, sat here in groups and yelled into cell phones at people who were elsewhere.

  Mara ordered the Reuben she hadn’t risked out west, and I settled for another ham and cheese. After the waiter brought our sandwiches and gave the customary command to enjoy them, we ate in silence. Truth to tell, we were both too tired to talk.

  Over coffee, though, I raised the sticky subject. “I know you don’t want to get obligated, Mara, but you can’t get along in this town without transportation. Let me have your car towed, and let’s get an estimate on repair. I can lend you any reasonable repair cost, and you can pay me back when it’s convenient.”

  She looked pained. “That’s sweet of you, Press, but I’m a bad credit risk. I’m still up to my ears in student loans. I live close to the campus. I can walk to work.”

  “The money is sitting in a bank doing nothing,” I said. I didn’t tell her it was insurance money from Faith’s death, dedicated to Cindy’s education. But I knew Faith would approve of my offering it.

  Mara’s chin lifted. “Press, don’t you see that anything we do together will lend credence to Dean Billig’s accusations? We can’t afford that.”

  “The offer remains open,” I said, “but we need to get your car towed before my neighbors have the city do it at your expense. At least let me do that.”

  She gave a deep sigh. “All right.” She couldn’t have sounded more depressed if she’d signed up for five years in the Foreign Legion.

  When I paid the check I scanned the restaurant to see if anyone was watching us. No one was.

  “Before we have it towed,” Mara said as we drove to her car, “I need to get the papers out of the glove compartment.”

  I pulled into my driveway and parked. Everything seemed quiet. The neighborhood looked the same as always, and none of the neighbors seemed to be watching. Nevertheless, it somehow felt like that final moment of stillness before the fury of a storm.

  I walked with Mara to her car. She fumbled in the glove compartment and emerged with a handful of papers.

  She moved around toward the rear of the car and said, “I’d better make sure I haven’t left anything in the trunk.”

  I went with her.

  She sniffed and said, “What’s that awful smell? I didn’t leave anything in there that would spoil.” She started her key toward the lock.

  “Don’t open the trunk,” I said.

  “Why not?” Her hand stopped in midair.

  “Look at the lock,” I said. Even in the dark, I could see scars made by ungentle use of tools.

  “Oh.” Her hand dropped to her side, still holding the keys. Her face showed bewilderment. “Why would anyone do that? I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

  “They didn’t do it to take something out,” I said. “The question is what they put in. That’s a job for the police.”

  I led her back to my car, took out my antique cell phone, and dialed 9-1-1.

  Long ago, in another country, I’d smelled that smell before. I knew exactly what the police would find in Mara’s trunk.

  The only question was who it would be.

  CHAPTER 32

  Mara turned up her coat collar against the wind’s cold caress as we waited for the police. We did not talk. I think she must have guessed what we’d find in her trunk. The first police vehicle arrived without siren or flashing lights and parked a discreet distance behind her car. The lone policeman gave her car a cursory glance, then joined us in my driveway.

  I told him who we were and said, “That’s the car that got bombed Wednesday night. We haven’t been near it again until just now. We don’t like the smell, and it looks like someone broke into the trunk. We’re afraid to open it.”

  He called in more police, including a few grumpy specimens from the bomb squad. These looked the car over and crawled underneath the trunk area with flashlights. By this time a crowd had gathered. Other policemen moved people back and blocked off a wide area with yellow tape. A television van arrived and its crew shoved cameras in people’s faces. Being featured on TV was a disaster Mara and I couldn’t afford, so we lost ourselves in the crowd farthest from the TV van.

  We need not have bothered. When the first policeman didn’t find us by my car, he summoned us by name on a bullhorn. Now half of Overton City knew the ruckus centered on us. The other half would know it before midnight, what with the TV cameras recording our conference with the police. I wondered how we’d explain this to the faculty hearing committee, much less to Dean-Dean.

  By now we had enough policemen on site to put down a fair-sized insurrection. Blessedly, they kept the crowd off of my property. My neighbors didn’t fare so well, but that was their problem, not mine.

  A bomb squad man took Mara’s keys, backed everyone else away, and opened the trunk. When it sprang open he grimaced and recoiled, fanning his face with one hand. Mara stood straight as a statue and just as silent, staring ahead while tears drew glistening snail-tracks down her cheeks.

  She didn’t need to see what was in the trunk. No policemen stopped me as I walked forward, squinting against the lights held for the TV cameramen. By tomorrow my face would be notorious on the airwaves. I hadn’t felt so conspicuous since I testified against Clyde Staggart. This was another thankless and hideous task, but it had to be done.

  “Don’t touch anything,” the bomb squad man said. “Stand out here and look. Do you know him?”

  “I know him,” I said, my voice quavering. “He’s a student at the college.” I half-expected someone to correct me and say university, but no one did. “His name is Marcus Fischbach.”

  I didn’t say more. I was too distracted by the bizarre spectacle of the body. One of Marcus’s hands clutched what looked like a fragment of polished quartz. His ears dangled earrings etched with the outlines of a five-pointed star interwoven in the ancient pentagram design. A pentagram medallion had been thrust into his mouth.

  Most striking of all was the ornate handle of a dagger that had been thrust into the body just below the breastbone. I didn’t know much about Wicca, but I thought most of those items were used in Wiccan rituals.

  Their presence bred sudden suspicions about Mara. Not that she could have killed Marcus Fischbach. We’d left town too soon after I’d seen him alive. Some of her Wiccan contacts might have done it, though. I couldn’t imagine why, but maybe Mara wasn’t as “solitary” as she’d claimed. Again, she had no alibi for the time of Laila’s murder, and she was strong enough to have done it. For that matter, she was strong enough to have slugged me and smart enough to have spent the night nursing me to throw off suspicion. I didn’t want to believe any of these things, yet my historian’s mind kept forcing me to face their possibility.

  My head whirled with doubt, and whatever my internal musicians were playing dissolved again into dissonance. I felt like Milton’s Satan must have felt floundering through Chaos, its elements too inchoate for him to either stand or fly.

  Still confused and still dogged by TV cameras, I walked back to give the details to Mara. She received them stoically. Her jaw remained set, though tears no longer flowed.

  “I don’t own any of that stuff,” she said. “I don’t know where it came from.” She stared ahead for a moment and said, “I don’t know Marcus Fischbach. I don’t even know who he is.”

  My former suspicions based on theoretical possibilities dissolved before her obvious sincerity. I felt ashamed that I’d ever doubted her. I realized I’d proved again that a historian’s hypotheses can lead into error as well as truth. I still didn’t understand the Wiccan implements, but instinct told me Mara had nothing to do with them.

  Fortunately, the police kept the TV microphones away from us. Our images would be splashed all over the video, but for the present, at least, our words would remain our own.

  Another police car arrived, and the bull-n
ecked Clyde Staggart emerged. He spent a few minutes directing his team, then charged up the driveway to Mara and me.

  Leering, he glanced from one of us to the other and eventually settled on me. “Press, you just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”

  “I’m not in trouble,” I said. “Marcus Fischbach is in trouble, and so are you.”

  He smirked. “How do you get that?”

  I grinned at him with one side of my mouth. “Marcus is dead and now you have two unsolved murders on your hands. I’d call that trouble. Wouldn’t you?”

  His face reddened. “You’ll soon have more trouble than you can handle.” He turned to Mara. “I’ll talk to you first. Come in the house.”

  “What house?” she asked. Her stunned expression changed to anger.

  Staggart jerked a thumb at me. “His house. Let’s go.”

  He made a bad mistake then. He reached for her arm to lead her away. Almost as a reflex, it seemed, she flinched that arm out of reach and, with the other hand, delivered a resounding slap to the back of his hand.

  “Don’t you touch me,” she hissed.

  Anger blazed in Staggart’s eyes. “We’re going in there, and I’m going to talk to you.”

  A few moments before, I’d suspected Mara of all sorts of things, but now I found myself defending her. “You’re not going in there without a key,” I said, “and I’m not giving you the key until she has a witness to make sure you behave.”

  Staggart flexed his wounded hand a few times. Mara had given it quite a wallop, and I gathered he wanted to make sure it still worked. His glance at me radiated fury, but he waved one of the uniformed policemen over to accompany them.

  I handed him the key. “You have my permission to interview her in my living room. You do not have permission to search anything.”

  He threw another angry look at me, then barked a command for Mara to follow him. This time he kept his hands to himself.

  Mara gave me a grateful glance and followed him.