A Trap for Fools

by Amanda Cross

  “Edna, you should be running this investigation.”

  “Of course, Kate. With your help. That’s how, on a larger scale, I run the university. How did you think administration worked? I’ll put the ad in tomorrow.”

  Kate realized she was in for a spell of waiting, a condition she had never relished. But it occurred to her, as it had so often recently, that as the years go on a sense of deep patience comes over one; one seems to know the virtue of ripeness, and the danger of rushing events. She had recently heard the story of a demonstration by a biologist: he and his class watched a butterfly slowly emerge from its chrysalis, and with agonizing deliberation expand its tightly folded wings. The scientist, impatient, helpful, stretched the wing and damaged it forever, teaching his students the while. Inevitably one must learn to wait.

  Meanwhile, Kate settled down with the one material contribution the administration had yet made to Kate’s endeavors: a folder of all the records the university had on Professor Adams. Kate flipped through it in amazement. The yearly updates of his curriculum vitae were to be expected, as well as a record of his salary and sabbaticals. Included also were all newspaper and magazine clippings that mentioned Adams and the university (it was to be concluded that the university employed a clipping bureau), and a list of all the classes Adams had taught, with their registration figures. (Kate thought: I never knew they kept a record of that.) There were also copies of all his letters to any member of the administration, usually complaining about some suggested change of which he disapproved; requests for favors, from traveling money to appointments of his friends as adjuncts; student complaints about him (rather a large number, it seemed to Kate, but she didn’t know they kept these either). There were various technical details, such as the bank into which his salary checks were automatically deposited, the insurance he carried, additional payments into his pension fund, and all the details of his family, his children, his marriages, his medical claims. Then he had been, for a two-year period, chair of his department, and there was a cluster of correspondence from that time, including his increasingly petulant letters to various deans and vice presidents about departmental matters as well as university policy, about which he felt newly required to complain in his capacity as head of his department.

  Of course Kate wondered if they had a similar record on her, and recognized that they must, except that she had never been chair of her department, and had never, as far as she could remember, written a letter of complaint to anyone in the administration. Whether or not letters complaining about her had been received she might not ever find out unless murdered, but she was pleased to discover that she was not in this regard particularly interested, or even decently curious. She thought, I grow old.

  So too had Adams grown old. The records of his life scarcely recorded his breathless sense of aging, but that sense was palpable: in his resentment of the young, offered privileges he had not had; in his growing pettiness; in his marriage to a woman almost twenty years younger than him and wholly nonintellectual; in the sparsity of his publications, the recording of small notes and necrologies in his vita, sure evidence of faltering powers and interest. Under the heading “Works in Progress” signs of what Kate took to be the new book began appearing several years before. To have published it would have been important to an unproductive scholar like Adams, whether or not it was well received. The latest copy of his vita, however, did not list this book as “forthcoming from Harvard University Press,” as one might have expected. Given the time it took publishers to process a manuscript into a book these days, to say nothing of the time earlier spent having the manuscript read, readers’ reports consulted, and discussion of the book held by the various boards who ran university presses, Adams must certainly have known by last year’s curriculum vitae that his book was scheduled to be published. Perhaps he was keeping it under wraps, as a surprise for his doubting colleagues. Kate made a note to get a copy of the manuscript of the book as soon as possible; she realized that she did not even know its title, nor would she have known it was forthcoming but for the remarks of the divine Cecelia.

  After leaving a message to herself to request a copy of the book from Vice President Noble, to whom all requests from her were officially to go, Kate called it a day. The question is, she thought, can I call it a beginning?

  Chapter Five

  If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim.

  Kate, waiting for news of Adams’s book, and for her and Edna’s requests to the women’s groups to filter through and find a willing subject, decided to get in touch with the sons of Canfield Adams. She was looking through her folders of material (courtesy Vice President Noble) to see if she had their addresses, when the phone rang. “Is this Professor Kate Fansler?” an aging male voice inquired. Kate admitted that it was. “You don’t know me,” the man went on to say. “I’m an alumnus of the university, what I believe is euphemistically known as a ‘friend.’ That means I give money in certain amounts. My daughter has a friend on the faculty, and tells me you want to speak to anyone who knew Professor Adams at all well. I took a good many courses with him, and would be glad to give you what information I can; I can’t imagine it will be of any use, but my daughter urged me to call. My name is Wither-spoon, by the way: Gabriel Witherspoon.”

  Networking is a wondrous thing, Kate thought. “I would very much appreciate talking with you, Mr. Witherspoon. Can we set a time now?”

  “Why don’t you come here to tea?” Mr. Witherspoon asked. “You’ll save me a trip to the university, and I can offer some excellent pound cake made by my cook.”

  “That would be lovely.” They set an afternoon convenient to them both; Kate jotted down the address, Park Avenue in the seventies, and decided to check it out. There is absolutely no point in showing up at strange addresses after one phone call to find oneself hideously embarrassed at best, endangered at worst. She called Noble’s secretary, who promised to get back to her promptly with the information. While she was at it, Kate also requested the addresses of the Adams sons. Whatever comes of this, she thought, I shall once in my life have the experience of snapping my fingers and having people hop to it, not good for the soul as a regular thing, but fun as a unique experience.

  Indeed, the secretary was back on the telephone with commendable speed. First, the whereabouts of the Adams sons. Kate made a note of this, also hearing with satisfaction that the university would pay all travel costs incurred during the investigation. Then a word about Mr. Gabriel Witherspoon, which Vice President Noble would like to have with Professor Fansler personally. Oh, whoopy-do, Kate thought, either a big donor or an embarrassing nut. Before Noble was thirty seconds into his disquisition, Kate knew it was the former. “I don’t know how you got to him,” Noble said, pausing just long enough for an explanation, which Kate did not offer, “but he’s one of our ‘best’ donors. I do hope . . .” His voice trailed off. Kate was soothing, but not acquiescent.

  “I shan’t try to frighten him away from the university as a haunt of murderers, obviously,” she said. “But I’ve got to hear what he has to say, and ask him questions. If you or any others in the administration are having second thoughts about this investigation,” she asked forcefully, “now is the time to say so. I shall bow out with pleasure. But if I am to continue, you’ve got to help me without constantly warning me off. Can we get that quite clear, or do you want time to think it over before I go any deeper into this? I can always beg off to Mr. Witherspoon and anyone and everyone else.”

  Noble was conciliatory, but clearly nervous, Kate decided to drive the point home, “If you think that you can solve this murder, or let us say this mystery, without stirring up memories, resentments, ill feeling, you’re being naïve, and I urge you yet again to reconsider. I must talk to people, and what I discover, or what people start reconsidering and discussing, may not be all that you would wish talked a
bout in the higher academic echelons. But this problem is not going to be cleaned up delicately and behind the scenes; few problems are. So do be certain; shall I wait for you to consult others?”

  “No,” Noble said with some asperity. “That won’t be necessary.”

  Kate was aware that there had been a certain mockery in her voice, unsuccessfully suppressed. People always thought secrets could be held inviolate through thick and thin; Kate had learned that even through thin they were unlikely to remain hidden; through thick, as one might denote a murder investigation, there was no chance of keeping the lid even partly on.

  Mr. Witherspoon had suggested the day after tomorrow for their tea, and Kate appeared at the door of his Park Avenue apartment house exactly on time. The doorman called up to announce her, and told her to get off on the seventh floor, thereby indicating that Mr. Witherspoon occupied a duplex in this very elegant building.

  A maid in a white apron opened the seventh-floor door to Kate, who was immediately back in her childhood—except that as a child, visiting her friends, she would have gone to the bedroom floor and been admitted into the heart of the family life. Downstairs was for adult entertainments, sherry in the library, formal dinner in the dining room. Her friends in those days, more often than not, had dinner on trays in their bedrooms—cozy, infinitely intimate and privileged. There was often, Kate remembered, a younger brother who longed to join them but who could not lower his dignity by asking. The nicest of Kate’s friends included him, demanding half of his dessert as price, not because they wanted it, but because it preserved his pride to let him buy his way into their company. One could never pretend really to want a younger brother’s company, nor could one reveal pity: how the subtle politics of the nursery returned to one, Kate thought; she, only with brothers very much older, had marveled at the variety of family dynamics.

  The maid showed Kate into the library, where Mr. Witherspoon rose to greet her. Kate wondered if he had been a small brother in the circumstances she remembered; did they, in short, share another world? If Mr. Witherspoon knew that they did—and this was very likely because the Fansler name was well known in the higher reaches of Waspdom—he did not let on. She had come to see him as a professor and scholar, and he offered sherry and information in the library. Kate’s knowledge of the rules of the game forced her to accept the sherry.

  “When did you study with Professor Adams?” she asked, pretending to sip from her glass and then putting it down.

  “That,” Mr. Witherspoon said, “is a long story. I retired at sixty-five and determined to pursue what had always been an interest of mine: the Crusades. Is that an interest of yours?” he asked, whether hopefully or not Kate could not quite determine. She shook her head emphatically but, she hoped, in an interested way.

  “I went to the graduate history department at the university, determined to get an M.A. while learning more about the Crusades. The chairman of the department very kindly consulted with me at considerable length—(I bet he did, Kate thought; primed by the development office if not the president himself)—and said that, unfortunately they were not that year offering any courses on the Crusades, nor indeed anything for beginning graduate students but the most general courses about the Middle Ages. But, the chairman said, had I ever thought of studying the culture at which the Crusades were aimed: Islam? I hadn’t, but he was very persuasive. He said that as a matter of fact there was a professor at the university who would exactly suit my interest, if I could just turn it around, so to speak. That, of course, was Professor Adams. The chairman did warn me, in the nicest possible way, that Professor Adams was not overwhelmingly popular with the undergraduate students, but he thought I might find him suited to my purposes. So, to make a long story short, I agreed, and took myself off to Professor Adams. I found him wonderfully informative on Islam, and I studied with him for years, going on to earn a Ph.D., all but the dissertation. What they call an ABD these days, I understand.”

  “How many courses did you take with Professor Adams altogether?” Kate asked. She was enchanted with Gabriel Witherspoon. His making a long story short plunged her back yet again into her parents’ world, even as his apartment had done.

  “Quite a few. I can look up the records and tell you the exact titles, if that would help. He also provided what I guess you could call tutorials: private instruction, in his office. I found him a very interesting man, and, as a result, I quite abandoned the Crusades and have a now long-standing interest in Islam. I was disturbed to hear of his death.”

  “Had you been in touch with him recently?”

  “The university has several dinners a year for donors—though they always pretend they have some other purpose—and Adams was often asked to sit at the table with me at those times. I was certain the university requested, perhaps even demanded, his presence, but he did not strike me as the sort of man who would have come if he hadn’t wanted to. One of the times he came to such a dinner he brought his new young wife, but she found the proceedings dull, and he never brought her again. I was a little surprised that he had married her, but these May-December alliances are commoner than one likes to admit.” Thus, graciously, did Mr. Witherspoon indicate his disapproval of the marriage. “I take it,” he added, “his wife is not in any way suspected in connection with the death.” This was not really a question, more a hope, and Kate confirmed it.

  “She was in California at the time. Could you give me some sense of Professor Adams, of the man, of what you thought of him not just as an Islamic scholar, though I would like to hear that too, but as an individual. You must have formed rather clear impressions over the years, and while you might not want to proclaim them in the ordinary way, my questions are not, alas, in the ordinary way.”

  “I see you don’t like sherry. And it comes to me that I offered you tea, and ought not to try to palm off sherry on you. Will you excuse me just a minute, while I see if I can round up some tea for us?” As Kate smiled he walked from the room, marking, as Kate knew, a step into his confidence. She had, one way or another, passed muster. Her ability to do this with the likes of Witherspoon was one of her strongest suits as an investigator, unwilling as she was to admit the fact, or at least to dwell on it. Despite her often outspoken differences with the establishment, she was one of them by birth, and they sensed it.

  Witherspoon returned to await the tea and continue the conversation. He removed Kate’s sherry glass to a side table. “I understood why Adams wasn’t a popular professor; I understood it particularly well because it was what made him appeal to me. He didn’t want to be touched personally, he didn’t want to admit any weaknesses, or reveal anything at all about himself. He was, as I am, or used to be, of what they called the ‘old school’: proud, appearing hard and unfeeling, but underneath it all, afraid, particularly of emotion or of letting anyone get too near you. The problem with Adams, I think, was that he was in the wrong profession for that particular kind of personality. In business or law one can be open about cases or problems without having to slip over into personalities; I rather think it is not so easy to be impersonal in the academic world. You will be able to interpret this better than I. What I mean is, you can still consult up to a point in law or business, the consultation is expected and does not indicate weakness. But in the academic world, or at least as Adams saw that world, one couldn’t consult one’s colleagues without indicating weakness or giving away power. He never consulted, and therefore, with no one to advise him with frankness, he made mistakes. That’s how I see him. And as he consulted less and less, he was consulted less and less, he made more mistakes, and he became very lonely. I suspect that in that loneliness he did foolish things. But I can’t tell you what they were. He was never foolish with me. I trusted and admired him, and was willing to sit at his feet, as it were; I didn’t challenge him, I wasn’t about to become a colleague or a competitor; we got on. And here is the tea.

  “Will you pour?” he asked Kate, and
she did, with no more than a nod to her more recent self. There were delicate sandwiches, homemade cookies, and thinly sliced lemon. All as it should be. Kate settled back with her tea, lemon, no sugar, and a sandwich, her ease in the role of lady serving increased by her admiration for Mr. Witherspoon.

  “I think you have described him exactly right,” Kate said. “It fits with every impression I have of him, both the few I’ve garnered personally and what I’ve heard. I’ve known others like that; their loneliness seemed strength, particularly since they had begun their professional lives with great panache, great talents. But somewhere defensiveness set in, and they froze in a mold that left no opening for other views or other advice. And anyone who disagreed with him, or acted from other beliefs, must have seemed threatening and dangerous. It’s the more remarkable in that having studied Islam, a totally foreign culture, in his youth, he seemed unwilling to learn anything else new.”

  “That’s about it,” Mr. Witherspoon agreed. “I felt sorry for him, to tell you the truth, at the same time that I admired him. I was, for example, wholly courteous to his wife the one time I met her, but I think he knew, from that very politeness, that I had my doubts. That’s perhaps putting it too strongly. We talked only of Islamic matters, and I never moved any closer to him; now, I wish that I had. Do you think he committed suicide?”

  Kate, who had noticed the pause before the phrase “committed suicide,” and understood Mr. Witherspoon’s attempt to speak uneuphemistically, answered him with equal frankness. “It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely. He would have had to open the window, straddle a wide outside sill, and then jump or push himself to the edge. This could only have been done on impulse, and he was not an impulsive man.”