“Not in so many words, but it’s the way he’s been behaving lately, the looks he gives us, as if he’s trying to peer right through us. And then some of his comments during lunch are hard to miss. For instance, a few days ago when Hale’s name came up in some context or another, as it does fairly often, of course, Walter made a remark about the accident. From the way he stressed the word, it was obvious he was suggesting the fall wasn’t an accident. There’ve been other occasions like that, too.”
“Who are the us that he gives strange looks to?”
“Oh, pretty much the ones who were at the table at lunch today.”
“Speaking of which, did Markham used to be part of that luncheon gathering?”
“Hale? No, never. He preferred to have a sandwich in his office and get a little writing done during the noon break. Besides, he didn’t much like some of the people who showed up there.”
“Such as Schmidt and Greenbaum?”
“Right.”
“How did he feel about you eating with those guys?”
“Oh, he probably didn’t much like it; but Hale knew me well enough to realize that I do whatever I please. And although I’m not wild about any of those three—including Cortland—I don’t mind eating with them.” Her dark eyes defied me to make more of it.
“Probably because you enjoy needling them. I notice that you and Cortland seemed to agree on at least one thing: President Potter.”
“Oh, you mean ‘His Eminence’?”
“I gather you don’t have a great deal of admiration for your president?”
Elena folded her arms. “He’s sort of plastic, as far as I’m concerned. I suppose he’s all right at raising money and giving speeches and putting on a good public face for the school, but we’re not talking deep thinker here. I suppose maybe it’s that he’s a little too slick for my taste.”
“What do others think about him?”
“On campus, you mean? Most of the students don’t give a damn one way or the other about who the president is—they almost never see him. As for the faculty, the vote’s mixed. A lot feel the way I do, and then there are some who seem to think he’s dynamic, probably because he’s so much younger than his predecessor. And the alumni are happy because of the way he’s increased the endowment and is planning new buildings. Alumni are always impressed by two things—football and construction. Both give them a chance to beat their chests about the old alma mater. And with the kind of football teams we invariably have, new buildings are pretty important.”
“Buildings as in Leander Bach?”
“Oh, you know about him, do you? Walter—or somebody”—her voice was sarcastic—“has done a pretty good job of briefing you. Then you probably also know that Bach had no use for Hale.”
I nodded. “To the point where he wasn’t going to crack open his checkbook while Markham was still part of the school, or so I heard.”
“You heard more or less right,” Elena replied crisply. “Bach is a blustering eccentric. Another one of those self-made millionaire pains-in-the-ass who dangle their money with all kinds of strings attached to it.”
“Did he really try to get Markham off the faculty?”
“Oh, I don’t have any doubt of it. Potter talked to Hale about three or four months back and suggested he might want to think about retirement. Bach’s name never came up in the conversation, but Hale told me he was sure that was the reason behind it. He told Potter—in effect—to stuff it, that he was happy right where he was. The subject wasn’t brought up again.”
“And now the school will get Bach’s bucks?”
“That’s what I hear,” she said, making a face.
“Which means of course that Markham’s death was a boon to Potter.”
“Now, wait just a minute, Archie,” Elena said, angling forward in her chair. “You’ve been around violence for so long you think it’s everywhere, which is understandable. And what with Walter Cortland whispering murder in your ear, I’m not surprised that you add two and two and get seven. Potter may be a jerk—hell, he is a jerk—but he’s hardly a murderer. Remember, you’re not in New York now.”
“This may come as a shock to you, but the act of murder isn’t confined to the five boroughs and a few blue-collar suburbs.”
“Oh, I know. It’s just that—let’s stop right where we are,” she interrupted herself. “I brought you over here to ask you questions, and for the last thirty minutes, I’ve been doing almost nothing but answering yours.”
“You’re right, and I appreciate it,” I said, grinning and standing up. “I promise that at another time I’ll do the answering, but I really have to go now, and besides, I’ve taken a lot of your valuable time. Can I ask a favor?”
“You may ask, but I won’t guarantee anything.”
“Please, for now, don’t tell anybody who I am.”
“You’re absolutely convinced it’s murder, aren’t you?” Elena said, rising and folding her arms as if she were suddenly cold.
“Call it a strong hunch.”
“All right, Mr. Archie Goodwin,” she said, no longer smiling. “I’m not happy with all this secrecy of yours, especially after I’ve been candid with you. But I know enough about your reputation to know that you must have reasons, and besides, anybody Lily likes has got to be all right. I’ll keep your secret. At least for now.”
“And in return,” I said, “I’ll buy you dinner the next time you’re in New York. That’s a promise. And I’ll also give your best to Lily.”
“I accept the invitation. And tell Lily I pledge to call her soon.” We parted with a businesslike handshake, which made two of those I’d had with attractive women in one day. Whatever became of the friendly embrace? I walked back to Cortland’s office in Richardson Hall, deciding on the way that I would not tell him Elena knew who I was. No sense complicating the situation unnecessarily.
The auburn-haired greeter with the nice nose was still manning her desk in the Political Science Department reception area. She was on the phone, but when she saw me, she smiled in recognition, mouthed “He’s expecting you,” and motioned me to go on back. I made a mental note to shake hands with her on the way out.
Cortland was at his desk grading a stack of papers. He glanced up as I walked in, and his face looked a question mark at me.
“Well,” I said, easing into the guest chair, “I can’t honestly tell you I’ve made any great discoveries today, but I can say that I haven’t ruled out murder.”
He dropped his red pencil on the desk blotter. “And how did your meeting with Elena Moreau go?”
“All right,” I said casually. “You said earlier that she and Markham had been…friendly?”
“Oh, yes,” he said firmly, nodding. “I never discussed his private life with Hale, mind you, but I knew, like everyone else, that they were very close friends.”
“Meaning lovers?”
Cortland cleared his throat. “I really haven’t the faintest idea. You’d have to ask her that.”
I pushed on, undaunted. “Do you have any idea how Elena Moreau felt about Gretchen Frazier?”
“None whatever,” Cortland said in an offended tone.
“Okay. You mentioned when we first met that you’re executor of Markham’s estate. I assume you have a copy of his will?”
“Why, yes, I do. At home,” he said absently. “Why?”
“I’d like to see it. If you could make a copy and mail it to Mr. Wolfe in New York, it might very well be of some help.”
Cortland looked doubtful, but after I assured him the document would not be seen by anyone other than Wolfe and me, he promised to mail a copy that evening. I thanked him, getting up to go.
“Oh, one more thing,” I asked, trying to make the question sound spontaneous. “Do you know what route was used to take Markham’s body up out of the Gash?”
“I must say, that’s a bizarre query.” Cortland squinted at me through his smudged lenses. “But I, uh, suppose you detectives have a rationale
for everything you ask. Let’s see…I actually can supply an answer. It was mentioned in the story in what passes for a local newspaper here. They brought”—he shuddered—“Hale…up that wooden stairway not far from the Old Oaks.”
“I thought as much. Thanks.” I got up to go.
“When will I hear from you?” he asked, and I said it would depend on Wolfe. “My boss is a hard man to predict,” I said. “But I’m sure we’ll be talking about this whole business in the next few days. And if anything happens up here that you think I should know about, please call.”
Cortland assured me he would, and I said good-bye, walking out past Ms. Auburn-Hair, who was off the phone. “I really hope you had a nice day here, Mr. Goodman,” she said, flashing a smile that ranked right up there with Elena’s.
“Thank you for asking,” I said. “It was so nice that I just know I’m going to come back. And when I do, I hope we can have lunch or dinner together. I’ll trust you to pick the place.”
My answer was another smile, the kind that I chose to take for a yes with capital letters.
EIGHT
IT WAS ALMOST FOUR WHEN I left Prescott. The traffic going south was a lot heavier than when I was driving up, so it was after six when I finally eased the Mercedes into the garage on Thirty-fourth Street. When I got back to the brownstone, Wolfe was, naturally enough, parked behind his desk with beer and his book. He didn’t bother to look up when I walked in.
“Well, aren’t you even going to ask how my trip was?” I said after I’d gotten seated. “After all, I’ve been behind the wheel for close to a hundred-fifty miles, round trip, which in your eyes ought to qualify me for hazard pay.”
“I seem to recall that the expedition was your idea,” he said blandly, “and that you were more than willing to undertake it on your own time.”
“True enough. I suppose if I told you that within an hour of arriving on the Prescott campus, I figured out who the murderer was, confronted said person, extracted a confession on the spot, hauled the guilty party off to the local police, and then collected a check for one hundred thousand dollars from Walter Cortland, I’d get your attention?”
Wolfe set his book down and glared. “Confound it, I don’t want to hear about your peregrination at this moment. After dinner is soon enough.” With that, the book went back in front of his face, so I sauntered out to the kitchen to monitor Fritz’s progress on dinner, lamb chops with walnuts. So I would have lamb twice in seven hours, but that was okay with me.
“Archie, I was afraid you would miss two meals in one day.” Fritz looked worried as he turned from the stove, where he was checking on the chops, which he cooks in wine with chopped onion and parsley. “How was your trip?”
“Tolerable, but if what you’re really asking is whether we have a case and a client, that’s going to depend totally on the large presence who’s soaking up beer down the hall yet as we speak.” The fretful expression on Fritz’s face deepened as he pivoted back to his work, while I went to my room to clean up and get out of the suit I had been wearing for twelve-plus hours. I knew Fritz was seeing us as candidates for New York’s homeless population.
Wolfe invariably sets the topic for dinner-table conversation, which is never business but can range from foreign policy and economics to the social structure in ancient Rome and the fluctuating price of coffee beans from South America. This time, though, I was able to set the agenda by bringing up Greenbaum’s lecture on the Whigs, and damned if it didn’t get Wolfe going. He started by saying the word was derived from Whiggamore, a seventeenth-century term used to describe Scotsmen who opposed King Charles I of Britain, and he went on, with me barely wedging a few sentences in, to talk about why the party dissolved in the United States in the years before the Civil War. I felt like I was listening to a repeat of Greenbaum, with one difference: Wolfe is one hell of a lot more interesting.
After dinner and dessert, which was peach pie à la mode, we sat with coffee in the office. “All right,” Wolfe said, delivering one of those sighs meant to show how long-suffering he is. “Before you start badgering me, report.”
I swung to face him, stifling a smile. “Yes, sir, from the beginning.” I proceeded to run through the entire day, and as I described the cast of Prescott characters, his face reflected varying degrees of distaste. But then, his overall opinion of contemporary American education, including that at the university level, is probably somewhere in the D-plus range. When I finished it off by telling him that Elena Moreau had recognized me, he snorted. “Your repute appears to follow you.”
“My repute? Your mug has been in the papers a lot more than mine has. If you’d been up at Prescott, someone would have recognized you even before you got out of the car. Hell, you’re the best-known living American who’s never been on the cover of People magazine.”
He shut his eyes, probably hoping I would disappear, then opened them after five seconds. I was still there. “Is Mrs. Moreau likely to reveal your identity?”
“Nine-to-two against,” I answered. “If she’s not the murderer, she has no reason to blow my cover, and if she is, there’s even less reason for her to finger me and make me suspicious of her.”
“Assuming there was a murder, are you giving odds on her guilt?”
“Too early. Right now, my gut says probably not, but don’t ask for concrete reasons; I don’t have any.”
Wolfe looked disgusted. I’ll admit my instinct was pushing its luck with him these days. “What does your gut tell you about the others?”
“Not a lot. I suppose, though, that either Elena or Gretchen Frazier could have been so jealous of the other’s relationship with Markham that one of them took it out on him—in the ultimate way.”
“The others you met?”
I shrugged. “Greenbaum seems like something of a wimp, but that may be deceptive. As I told you, he and Gretchen may have been fooling around with each other last year, to hear Cortland tell it. If she dumped him to spend more time with Markham, I suppose his male pride could have been bruised to the point that he gave the old war-horse a shove, although that seems somewhat farfetched, I know. If anything, Markham would have wanted to push Greenbaum into what you refer to as the abyss. After all, it was Greenbaum who deserted Markham and his political philosophy, and the deserter looks like he’s eventually going to get what he seems to want, which is the top job in the department, whenever Schmidt retires.
“Speaking of Schmidt, he chuckles a lot and acts like he’s pretty benign. But like with the two women, we’re talking jealousy, in this case the professional kind, and I don’t know just how much these college types are motivated by envy, although I can guess. One thing sticks with me, however: As long as Markham was around, Schmidt would really only be number two in the Political Science Department, regardless of his title. I don’t read him as being able to handle that very well, to say the least.”
“And the president, Mr. Potter?” Wolfe asked, making a face.
“I didn’t meet him, as I told you, only saw him from across the room. He’s slick-looking, photogenic, and from Elena’s perspective, pretty shallow and superficial. Could he have given Markham the big push? Sure, why not? The way both Elena and Cortland have described him, he’ll do pretty much anything to stay where he is, and lately that’s meant trying to keep the very loaded Leander Bach happy. Bach, as we know, didn’t have any use for Hale Markham, so…”
“Pfui.”
“Does that mean ‘pfui’ as in ‘all those Prescott people are disgusting wretches and wretchesses’; or maybe ‘pfui’ as in ‘Potter is a lout’; or perhaps ‘pfui’ as in ‘Leander Bach has no business trying to throw his weight around in an academic community’?”
“You know very well there is no such word as wretchess.”
“Yeah, well, it sounds like it ought to be a word, although I personally wouldn’t describe either Elena Moreau or Gretchen Frazier as a wretchess. I was merely trying to interpret your ‘pfui.’”
“I suggest y
ou abandon interpretation and stay with observation,” Wolfe said, watching the foam settle in a newly poured glass of beer.
“Okay, and I have an idea where more observation is needed—Markham’s house. I’d like to run back up to Prescott and give it a thorough going-over. I’m sure I can get Cortland to let me in.”
“What precisely do you expect to find?”
“I’m not sure, but you know how good I am at combing a place. If there’s anything at all there that will help us figure out what happened, I’ll find it, even though Markham’s been dead for weeks. Besides, this is on my own time and at my expense, remember?”
“Except that you’re away from here during office hours, so technically it’s my time,” Wolfe corrected. “Are the germination records up to date?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I shot back. “As you’ve heard me say before, the personal computer is a wondrous thing. Aren’t you glad we finally got one? And it’s practically noiseless, unlike the clattering typewriter that used to irritate you so. As for the time I spend on the Prescott business, I’m keeping a log,” I said, pulling a notebook from my center desk drawer. “I’ll replace every hour I end up owing you by working evenings and on my days off.”
Wolfe considered me through lowered eyelids. “Very well. If I were to say no to this questionable venture, I realize full well that I’d never hear the end of it, and no decision is worth that experience. When will you go?”
“Tomorrow, assuming that I can get hold of Cortland and get into the house. I’ll give him a call in the morning and probably leave here well before noon.”
“Will you be home for dinner?” It’s never difficult to identify Wolfe’s priorities.
“Sure, why not? I can’t imagine anything keeping me at Prescott longer than a few hours. Although based on an early sampling, I must say the place has more than its share of beauty, and I don’t necessarily mean the kind that has to do with oak trees and river valleys and birds that have three different colors on their wings.”
Wolfe sighed, rang for more beer, and picked up his book. I knew enough to shut up while I was more or less ahead.
The Bloodied Ivy (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 3) Page 7
