Majoring In Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  “Well, if my expertise is not needed...” He released her hands.

  “Nevertheless, we would welcome your prayers. I’ll call you as soon as we’ve arranged a time.”

  “It will be in the chapel, I assume.”

  “Yes, in the chapel.”

  “Well, that’s appropriate. But the chapel by its very nature is a place for religious ceremonies, you know.” He took a deep breath, and looked as if he were about to launch into a lecture.

  I stepped forward and thrust out my hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” I said. “I’m Jessica Fletcher.”

  Harriet flashed me a grateful look, and added, “Yes, Pastor Getler, Jessica is a visiting professor, one of our celebrity authors.”

  “Ah, the famous mystery writer. Heard a great deal about you,” he said, taking up both my hands, “and I’ve read one of your books, too.”

  “I’m flattered,” I said.

  “Of course.” He squeezed my hands and smiled weakly. “Can’t remember the exact title right now, something about murder.”

  “Yes, that’s usually the case.”

  “Silly me,” he said. “It’ll come to me, I’m sure. Anyway, I look forward to talking to you sometime when we can sit down and get to know each other better.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” I said.

  “We must talk more.” He gave my hands a final squeeze before letting go and turning back to Harriet, his expression sober. “I’ll expect to hear from you. Unfortunately, right now I have a sad duty to perform.”

  He strolled back to where his two companions still stood.

  “Heaven help me,” Harriet said in a low voice. “Now I’ll have to persuade Vernon Foner to write a eulogy.”

  “But I just heard you say he wants to give a eulogy,” I said.

  “I had to say something or Getler would have taken over the whole service and no one else would have had a chance to speak. Verne was the first name that came to mind. I’d better talk to him tomorrow. It’ll be awkward if Getler sees him before I do.”

  “Now, don’t go borrowing trouble, Harriet.”

  “Can you believe the ego of that man?” Harriet muttered. “He’s insufferable. I have to deal with him, but I’d avoid him at all costs if I were you.”

  “But he’s read one of my books,” I said with a straight face, “ ‘something about murder.’ I didn’t know I had a book with that title.”

  Harriet snorted and covered her mouth with both hands. “Don’t make me laugh, not here. If I laugh, I might start crying, and I don’t want to give Getler an excuse to comfort me.”

  We turned to watch while one of the firemen tested the stability of a jack, the scene instantly sobering. “We’re good to go,” he yelled.

  EMTs from the local area wheeled over a pallet on which a dark green body bag lay unzipped.

  Two other men crawled through an opening in the wall that had been enlarged from the original window. Once inside, they carefully dislodged the upended office chair that was blocking the way. It fell on its side with a loud clang, one wheel rapidly spinning. The men pushed the chair toward the opening, where others outside quickly grabbed it. Reaching the body, they checked to be sure nothing would further hinder its removal. They drew Wes’s briefcase from beneath his body and flung it out of the way. It landed next to a bush outside. Then, inch by inch, they backed out, dragging the lifeless form of Wes Newmark with them, pausing only when a fragment of wallboard snagged the cuff of his trousers and threatened to topple the whole mare’s nest. Once free of the passage, they stopped again to turn Wes over, fold his broken eyeglasses, which had been caught under his body, and lay them on his chest. They placed a sheet on the ground, onto which they laid his body, cradling his head as if to protect him from further injury. They wrapped the sheet around him and gently lifted him into the green plastic body bag.

  The man in the white jacket, who’d been talking to the fire chief, walked over to the pallet. He pulled a stethoscope from his pocket and listened for any signs of life.

  “Is that the medical examiner?” I whispered to Harriet.

  “That’s Brad Zelinsky,” she replied softly. “He’s the county coroner.”

  “Is he a doctor?”

  “Yes. He works at the county hospital.”

  “Do you need to identify the body for him?”

  “No, Brad can do it. He’s one of Wes’s poker buddies.”

  I don’t know why it should have surprised me. Small communities like Schoolman, and Cabot Cove, my hometown in Maine, share similar traits, among them a certain intimacy. In a small town, everyone knows each other, even if it’s only by sight, enough for a smile and a wave. That knowledge sets us apart from the larger communities beyond our borders. What we sacrifice in privacy, we gain in comfort and security. People who move to a small town from a big city sometimes find that off-putting, preferring to keep their lives private and to choose friends from a small segment of the population. Wes Newmark had struck me as a private sort of person, not the kind to socialize much with anyone. But then Schoolman College as a whole wasn’t very large. If he’d lived here a long time—Harriet had said she’d known Wes for many years—I suppose it would be foolish to think an English professor wouldn’t have friends off campus as well as on.

  I studied Dr. Zelinsky as he finished his examination and ticked off several boxes on his clipboard. He must have been over six feet tall, but his stooped posture made him appear shorter. I gauged him to be in his late fifties. His brown hair was tousled, and as I watched him, he ran his left hand through thinning locks, leaving a clump standing on end. He scribbled his signature on the bottom of the form, touched Newmark’s shoulder, shook his head, and walked away.

  Pastor Getler leaned over the body. I could see his lips moving but couldn’t hear his words. Only the crackle of the police radio broke the respectful silence that accompanied his prayer.

  The quiet continued during the rapid breakdown of the recovery site. The ambulance sped away with the deceased, its siren and lights extinguished. The fire trucks backed down the street, onto the main road, and drove off into the night. The police in their patrol cars followed shortly afterward. The lights from the drama department and fire department were dismantled, and the crowd that had waited to witness the liberation of Professor Wesley Newmark’s body dispersed.

  I walked over to the building and picked up Professor Newmark’s briefcase. It was empty except for several pencils rolling around in the bottom, along with a few paper clips, rubber bands, and a plastic calculator. I handed the briefcase to Harriet. “His sister might like to have this,” I said.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Jessica. Are you sure it’s his?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He was carrying this when I saw him last, but it was bulging, presumably with papers. Now it’s not.”

  “Just look at the quad,” Harriet said as we walked around to the front of the building. “It’s covered with papers. Whatever he had in this briefcase is probably somewhere out here.”

  “I hope not,” I said.

  “I’m going to hunt up a cup of tea before I go home,” she said. “Will you join me?”

  “That does sound good.”

  “Do you think the Red Cross left us any of their doughnuts?”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  “It’s ironic,” she said as we headed for the Student Union. “Because of Wes, we got a big boost in the cleanup from the fire and police departments. They filled three Dumpsters tonight. Tomorrow that job is ours.”

  “And you can’t just hire a crane and cart all the debris away,” I said. “You have the files and records from three departments to salvage.”

  She moaned. “That’s right. Which means it will take twice as long to clear everything away. Plus we used the basement in Kammerer House for storage. There must be dozens of file cabinets down there.”

  “That’s strange,” I said.

  “What’s strange?”

  “I
f Kammerer House had a basement, why didn’t Wesley Newmark take shelter down there? Was it kept locked?”

  “No. There was no need to lock up old records.”

  “Phil Adler, your bursar, said he was expecting a visit from Wes.”

  “And Phil got hurt waiting for him,” Harriet said. “Foolish man. When I see him at the hospital, I’m going to ask about the nature of that appointment.”

  “I’d like to join you when you go, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. You’re more than welcome.”

  I didn’t want to alarm Harriet, but all evening I’d had a feeling that something wasn’t right. Two men had braved a tornado, and one of them had died. What kept them in their places? What worry was greater than the need to take cover from the storm? And when it was upon them, why didn’t they run? I’d heard the roar of the wind and felt its breath on my neck. Yet I’d made it to shelter in time. Why hadn’t they?

  And that briefcase. Where were its contents? Briefcases usually contain papers of one sort or another. I hadn’t seen any papers inside Kammerer House. Surely if the tornado had emptied the briefcase, wouldn’t there be at least a few papers left inside it?

  No, something was wrong. And I wanted to know what it was.

  Chapter Four

  Vernon Foner, tieless, in slacks and a sweater, stopped at our breakfast table the next morning, and Harriet seized the opportunity to designate him to assess the English department’s needs and to report back to her as soon as possible.

  “Does this mean I am acting department head?” he asked.

  “This means simply that I’m asking you to assess the department’s needs,” she replied directly and strongly. “An acting department head will be appointed later. President Needler is swamped, as you might imagine, and has asked me to coordinate for him,” she told him.

  “Please assure him that he can count on me,” Foner promised cheerfully. “I’ll have a preliminary report for you this afternoon. By the way, if no one has already reserved it, the Langston Apartments in Sutherland Library would make excellent temporary quarters for the department. Did I tell you I saw similar rooms in Italy this past summer? It really is a shame to keep them closed when they could be enjoyed by people and serve a valuable function at the same time.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  No one questioned Harriet about the assumption of duties that usually fell to the president, believing her story of his immersion in the problems of the college caused by the storm. But, in fact, she’d assembled a core group of trusted advisers and was shouldering his responsibilities as well as her own, and accomplishing it with a steely resolve. I didn’t doubt for a moment that she was very much in charge, and up to the task. Since Needler’s return, he’d locked himself in his office, according to Harriet, and allegedly was occupying himself by phoning alumni to ask for donations to a cleanup fund he claimed he was in the process of establishing.

  “At least if he generates some income with these calls, we could say his time is well spent,” Harriet confided to me over breakfast. “But I’m afraid he’s turning off some of our most generous contributors.”

  “Do you think he’s unbalanced?” I’d asked. It seemed a logical question, considering Harriet’s tone.

  “It’s hard to tell with him, Jess. Some say he’s brilliant. Others view him as eccentric, to be kind. All I know is that when the school hired him, he brought with him all sorts of credentials that promised to add some needed sheen to our image. I talked with his secretary this morning. She assures me I’ll be thrilled when I see the bottom line of the alumni fund.”

  “Was he always like this? I mean ... well, eccentric?”

  “Now and then, but I don’t think the board would have hired him if we’d had any idea he tended to isolate himself during a crisis.”

  In addition to Foner, whose ambition, I decided, was written on his sleeve, two other people stopped by our table and walked away with assignments. Harris Colarulli, a postdoctoral fellow in the science department, and his wife, Zoe, an associate professor of English, had come over to offer condolences. Zoe was due to attend the English department meeting, but Harriet asked Harris to meet the buses returning from Wabash with the basketball team and the fans. He was to compare the returnees with the college’s lists, double-checking that everyone was accounted for. Zoe would help him when her meeting adjourned.

  “Keep it up,” I said to Harriet after they’d gone, “and everyone is going to steer clear of you.”

  “You’re right,” she said, managing what passed for a laugh. “But this is the best way to get things done. As soon as people ask if they can help, say yes, and give them something to do.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if we may come to order.”

  Vernon Foner stood at the front of the classroom and looked up from three piles of paper he’d laid neatly side by side on the lightwood desk in front of him. He’d changed for the meeting, having abandoned his casual attire at breakfast in favor of a gray three-piece suit and pastel pink tie, very corporate, very much a leader’s outfit. He tugged on the hem of his vest, checked the knot in his tie, and ran the tips of his long fingers down a list he’d prepared for the meeting. His apparel was considerably more formal than that of the rest of the faculty, who wore casual clothes.

  I walked to the front of the room and sank into a seat close to him. I was feeling the effects of a long evening spent on the telephone, assuring my worried friends back home that I was just fine, followed by a long, sleepless night spent trying to push out of my mind the image of Wes Newmark’s dead body.

  The door opened and a wail came from the back of the room. “Oooh, Rebecca, I can’t believe he’s gone.” Letitia Tingwell, the department secretary, threw herself into Rebecca McAllister’s arms and sobbed.

  Rebecca patted the woman on her back, and several others came to help her into a chair. The graduate assistant, Edgar Poole, grabbed a box of tissues from a table and placed it in front of the weeping woman.

  Foner peered over the top of his half-moon glasses. “We really have a great deal to accomplish and not a lot of time.”

  Rebecca glared at Foner. Verne, she mouthed in his direction, her gaze flying to the ceiling in disgust.

  Foner pursed his lips and sucked on the inside of his cheek. One foot tapped impatiently. He looked over at me. “Can’t be helped, I guess,” he said.

  “They’re upset,” I said, leaning closer. “You can understand that.”

  “I’m just as sorry as the next one that Wes died. But he did, and we’ve got students to teach and a department to run.”

  “Don’t you think you can spare them a few minutes to grieve? After all, it may be the first time they’re seeing each other since they heard the news.”

  “I’m not screaming for order, am I? But I will if we don’t get started soon. I’ve got a lot of things to do. Dean Bennett wants me to write a eulogy for Newmark. Of all people to ask, I can’t believe she asked me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Wes and I weren’t great friends—that’s no secret—not that I would’ve wished him dead. But Dr. Bennett should have asked Manny Rosenfeld or Larry Durbin. They knew him a lot longer than I did.”

  “Why didn’t you suggest she ask one of them instead of you?”

  “You don’t turn down a command performance from a Schoolman. It’s actually an honor that she wants me—a pain in the neck, but an honor. I’ll do it, and I’ll do a great job.” He looked out at the faculty of the English department as they began to find their seats. “He’ll sound like a saint by the time I’m done,” he muttered to himself.

  Mrs. Tingwell’s sobs had subsided into hiccups. She dabbed at eyes ringed with mascara and lustily blew her nose. She wasn’t the only emotional person. Two others were red-eyed, and a few sniffles were heard around the room.

  “I know that we’re all upset at the loss of our colleague,” Foner said. “And we will have an opportunity to express
our grief more formally—President Needler has asked us to plan a memorial service, which I will get to in a moment—but right now we need to discuss several urgent administrative matters. Edgar, hand out the agenda, please.”

  Edgar grabbed a pile of papers and walked around the room, placing one in front of each person.

  “As you can see, there’s quite a bit on our plate. And the administration has announced that classes will resume tomorrow.”

  “Verne, how long do they expect the cleanup to take at Kammerer House?” Rebecca asked. “If the cabinets survived the storm, we may be able to recover some files.”

  “We would be severely handicapped if we relied on such an outcome,” he replied, staring at her until she turned bright red. “Think about it, Rebecca. It may be months till any papers are recovered. What you need may be hanging in a tree at this moment. No, I don’t think we’ll follow that scenario.” He turned to the green board on the wall behind him and picked up a piece of chalk. “Let’s go over the assignments and see what alterations need to be made.”

  There were now eight of us in the English department, six faculty, seven if you counted the graduate assistant, plus Mrs. Tingwell, a stout woman somewhere in her fifties, who was fond of flowered dresses with lace collars. She had been put in charge of orientation for the visiting celebrity professors and had been kind enough to take me under her wing, making sure the small refrigerator in my faculty apartment was nicely stocked when I arrived, and introducing me around campus. She’d been the department secretary for thirty years, she’d told me—“I know where all the bodies are buried”—and even though Wes’s tenure had been considerably less than that, she’d been devoted to him. “I know a good man when I meet one.”

  Foner cleared his throat and swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down above his pink tie. “Mrs. Tingwell,” he said, “I am assuming we can count on your good offices as we always have to man the department office, wherever it may be set up.”