Honest Doubt

by Amanda Cross

  “This is a joke, right?”

  “No joke. Also, teaching gets tiresome. The students have read less and less, often can’t write worth a damn, even in graduate school—I’d hate to tell you how many dangling modifiers I’ve corrected in my time! And the time off professors get— sabbaticals and summers—are the highly sought rewards of the profession.”

  I nodded, trying not to let my expression reveal that I didn’t know what a dangling modifier was. It sounded vaguely improper.

  “Teaching’s not what it is about,” Kate continued, speaking I thought more to herself than me. “Not after the first few years, anyway. And those for whom teaching is a joy, those who don’t long for time off, don’t get tenure; they certainly don’t get the thanks of their academic institution. They used to; not anymore.”

  “But people keep on getting Ph.D.’s in English.”

  “Right. And they hate their professors, among other reasons you may unearth, because there are no jobs; certainly few good jobs. And the older guys, the established ones, don’t like being resented. There’s a lot more than that—arguments over fields, subject matter, new genres of criticism—but I’m leaving you to find that out on your own. A college like Clifton may be very different from a university of the sort I’m used to.”

  “It sounds as though murder is not as unlikely as I thought.”

  “There’s a great deal of anger and fear. Whether or not that leads to murder is a question; I doubt it, but I used to doubt a lot of things that have recently become quite ordinary.”

  I sighed. She was right. I didn’t want to be burdened with more than the general picture; I wanted to decide about the characters in this story without having to fight against Kate’s impressions, with which I would probably be tempted to agree.

  “Well,” I said, a bit too plaintively, “at least I can ask you about Tennyson, can’t I?”

  “By all means; I’m always ready to bone up on poetry and literary criticism, particularly of figures I haven’t ever taught or even thought about in years. But Tennyson may not turn out to be the motive here.”

  “He very well may be. Anyway, that’s what Claire Wiseman thought; that’s mainly why I was supposed to consult you.” I sighed, and started to my feet again. Tomorrow I’d begin interviewing these folks.

  “I forgot to tell you,” Kate said. “That’s me— babbling on about the academic world and forgetting practicalities. Reed has found you a detective sergeant in the New Jersey police who’s ready to pass the time of day. He owes Reed one, is how Reed put it.”

  “I don’t like to think of Reed calling in his chips on my account.”

  “Don’t worry. I suspect Reed suspects, or anyway hopes, that you’re the only reason he will ever have to call in a chip from New Jersey. I’d offer you a drink now, but it occurs to me that drinking and driving don’t go together any better on a motorcycle than in an automobile.”

  “True, alas.”

  “You’ll have to come one evening on public transportation,” Kate said. “We’ll have a lovely tipple when this is over, or even underway.”

  “Right,” I said. Banny, to my delight, got up to see me out. I suspected this was less affection than the thought of some treat that would materialize when I was out of the way. But all acts of affection are welcome, I thought, worrying about tomorrow, and wondering how soon I’d have an excuse to see Kate again.

  How fares it with the happy dead?

  —TENNYSON, In Memoriam

  Four

  I HAD planned to visit Clifton College the next day, but when I returned home from my visit to Kate, there was a message from Donald Jackson, calling, he said, at the suggestion of Reed Amhearst. This was Reed’s New Jersey policeman whom Kate had mentioned. So I arranged to meet with him before facing the Clifton English department. I could, of course, have interviewed most of the faculty in New York, where, like Dawn, many of them lived; few, it seemed, were prepared to live in New Jersey.

  I have never understood what this odd prejudice is against New Jersey. Certainly the view from their side of the Hudson—a view of Manhattan—beats any vista New York itself can provide. But emerging on my bike from the Lincoln Tunnel, I had to admit that the scenery along the Jersey Turnpike certainly suggested nothing pleasant or inviting. Still, I supposed, one suburb was very like another, and none of them my choice of a place to live. The only real differences I had ever found between one suburb and another was the distance between the houses, and the size of the lawns.

  Donald Jackson told me to meet him in a bar not too far from the college. He had explained, when I returned his call, that he didn’t want to meet in the police station, and that he thought we ought to talk before I took on the English department or any part of the college. A good idea, I thought.

  I found the bar and the detective without any trouble; he was in a booth, and I could see why he had chosen the place. It was a local sort of bar not suited either to the students or the nearby suburban folk. The police didn’t meet each other socially in this town, and weren’t likely to stick their heads in here; Donald Jackson and I were quite unnoticed. In fact, it was my kind of place—working class, with big sandwiches and breakfast all day. We each ordered coffee; he had a hamburger and I had breakfast, my favorite meal: bacon, eggs, home fries, and toast.

  He told me he was called Don, and I told him I was called Woody. He was tall, muscular, handsome—a black man who knew just how attractive he was to women; I for one would never again wonder why they kept starring Denzel Washington in every second movie. I worried that the first sight of me would disappoint him; I always worry about that. I didn’t ask why he owed Reed, and he didn’t tell me. He treated me just right, like he was ready for now to respect a new colleague, giving me the benefit of the doubt. I thought we could probably work together just fine.

  “If I’ve got this straight,” he said, “you’re a private eye hired by the college to find out who offed their Professor Haycock.”

  “That’s about it,” I said, “except that the family hired me before anyone in the English department did. I’ve sort of spread out my investigation to the college since that anonymous letter. A member of the family may have done it, but somehow I don’t see it. That doesn’t mean I may not see it any day soon.”

  “That’s how I figured it. We were originally called in by the family too, and now we’re supposed to be looking at everybody, including the college. But between you and me, I don’t think that the police are going to get very far here. The idea seems to be that the main suspect is a woman who didn’t show the proper respect for some poet who’s been dead a century, give or take a year.”

  “Yes,” I said. The bacon and eggs were great, but I tried to keep my mind on the conversation. He asked if he could try my potatoes and I said he sure could. I thought that was the most tactful request I’d heard from man or woman in years, maybe ever. I saved it up for Kate, to show her an example of real tact: making someone who was female, fat, a private eye, and not usually welcomed by the police, feel good. Real tact.

  “The poet Tennyson.” I groaned. “Fortunately I’m getting some help on the literary side of things, but colleges are not exactly my usual place of operation either.” I didn’t mention that it was Reed’s wife who was assisting me. Don probably knew it, but he’d respect me for not spilling everything—just the stuff he needed to know, and from him, the stuff I needed to know. Which was plenty.

  “I haven’t seen so much infighting since we had to look into some guys who were shaving points in a basketball play-off,” he said. “There’s a lot of money involved there. But, hey, I like one country singer, I’m not going to blow you away because you like a different one who may dislike mine, if you follow me.”

  “You might if your reputation, which in the academic world is the same as money, or just about, were tied up in one singer or another. I mean, if I’ve written five books on a poet, and you think he’s not only dead but gone for all practical purposes, and if you
tell the students that, and furthermore, if you try to promote a young scholar who agrees with you . . .”

  “I get it,” he said, obviously afraid I’d never manage to finish the sentence. “But do you drop little heart pills, digoxin, into his drink because he doesn’t like what you have to say about his poet?”

  “We may never get it,” I said. “But . . .”

  “It would help you if I filled you in on where we are in our investigation, which isn’t far, but we’ve at least eliminated a few of the suspects, that is to say, in the faculty.”

  I took out my notebook. “I appreciate this,” I said. “I’ve talked to the department secretary, but I’m not what you’d call clued in.”

  “You’d need an advanced degree for that,” he said. “Here’s how it looks: There are about twelve of them on the faculty, counting two part-timers. One of them teaches writing and the other is filling in for two courses for the professor on leave. At least we can eliminate two of the faculty, both men. One is on his ‘sabbatical’ ”—Don put the word in sneering quotation marks—“and one is on ‘paternal leave.’ ” The second sneer I rather expected was not forthcoming. “I wish I’d had paternal leave when my kids were born,” he said to my surprise.

  Great, I thought. I’m going to grab this guy and take him home for my very own. I wish. “That leaves ten,” I said. “Enough to get straight. Isn’t one of the ten Haycock?”

  “Sure enough, smart lady. But maybe he killed himself and tried to blame it on the woman who didn’t think much of his country singer; we’ve got to count him in.”

  “Okay by me, but can’t we eliminate any of the others on the grounds that they weren’t at Haycock’s house the day he died? I know that isn’t supposed to have eliminated the wife, but the faculty?”

  “They were all there. Start-of-term party, always given by one of the senior guys. Except: Not only was the wife absent, so was the chief suspect—if one believes the anonymous letter, the only senior woman in the department.”

  “The one who made nasty about Haycock’s poet.”

  “The very one. And that lady professor was there, if only for a few minutes, but after the bottle was uncorked. She dropped in to say she was sorry about not coming to the party, some important previous engagement, but she offered some dish she’d made for the party. Anyway, as far as I can see, Haycock was asking for it. He always drank retsina. Ever tasted it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s Greek,” Don went on. “Haycock developed a liking for it when he visited Greece. Probably his poet was Greek or something. Anyway, it’s made from resin and it tastes like detergent; I tried it. You could put just about anything in it, sure it wouldn’t be noticed. No doubt he thought it clever to be known as the drinker of such awful stuff.

  “I knew the pills were in the retsina. But that didn’t mean pills could have been dropped in the wine bottle at any time. It was only opened that afternoon by Haycock himself, before the party. So the person who put in the digoxin pills had to have been there. Remember, the great thing about putting the pills in retsina is that nobody else was likely to drink it. It’s a wonder anyone ever did.”

  “Right,” I said. “But from what I’ve learned, digoxin is so potent that only tiny doses of it are needed, and it works so fast it might not have mattered if the victim tasted it or not. Maybe the murderer didn’t know that and decided to play it safe. I still don’t see how the wife could have done it; she was definitely not there.”

  “I never thought much of the wife as a suspect,” Don said, “though I suppose she could have doctored the drink and somehow gotten the cork back in and the bottle all sealed up, which is a bit far-fetched.” He reached for money to pay the bill, gesturing to cut my protests off. “Next meal’s on you,” he said. We got up from the booth as he went on talking. “It didn’t seem to me she had a motive worth anything, in spite of the son’s suspicions; she lacked opportunity; and the only circumstantial evidence against her is that she knew he took those pills. I know, I know, poisoning is supposed to be a woman’s crime, but you certainly couldn’t prove it by me.”

  Outside, I pointed to my bike. “Yeah,” he said, “Reed told me about that. I brought my helmet.” He must have left it near the door; now he waved it at me.

  I stood there stunned, looking idiotic, which was how I felt.

  “Do you mind dropping me off near the station house? I like riding on motorbikes.” I was so obviously unhappy, he patted me on the shoulder.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t have a license or something.” I shook my head. “What’s the problem? Did you just learn to drive this thing?” He was really puzzled, and I could see that for the first time I was worrying him.

  “I’m not sure you’ll fit on the back,” I said. “It’s a small seat, and I’m pretty large.” It was the truth, and the only excuse for my hesitation, but I hated to have to say it.

  “Shit,” he said. “I’ve ridden on smaller seats in back of bigger people. Let’s go. And if I fall off because there wasn’t enough room, I promise not to sue you.”

  Gritting my teeth, I put on my helmet and got on the bike. He slid up easily behind me and, as soon as I had it started, put his arms around my waist. “Just keep straight on,” he shouted in my ear. “I’ll tap you when we hang a left.”

  There was nothing to it, really—nothing. I wished I didn’t like his arms around me, I wished I wasn’t so fat where he was holding me, but mostly I enjoyed it. He got off near the station—not wanting to be asked about his lift, I suspected—and told me he’d be in touch. I told him where I was staying, and he said, “You know my numbers,” and was gone.

  I followed his directions to the college, feeling as if I’d just been given a gift. Wake up, Woody, I told myself. Wake the fuck up! He’s a policeman, and he’s probably got a neat agenda of his own. All right, he’s doing Reed a favor, but don’t let him get you on his side without a struggle. You may not end up agreeing about who done it. Remember that, Woody, I said to myself. But I felt a small glow, like the glow I’d felt with Kate, only a bit more electric. You watch out, I told myself, or you’ll start acting like all those fool women you have to track down or whose husbands you have to track down. Shape up, I told myself.

  To sober up, I made myself think about digoxin, the oldest and most widely known way to bump someone off quickly. It’s the poison of choice in many books with murder plots, because it’s so easy to get hold of, relatively speaking. The book of poisons I had looked up foxglove flowers in said as the source of digitalis, it was the oldest cardiac medicine, used hundreds of years ago to treat something they called dropsy and we call congestive heart failure. It’s readily available, even as a pill, but if push comes to shove you can buy foxgloves at a florist and extract the stuff yourself. Haycock had been given enough to kill ten people, maybe twenty. Now that was a sobering thought.

  But it was the sight of the college that really sobered me. It looked like the set for one of those movies they used to make in the Forties. My mother always loved them, and dragged me along with her to revival houses to see them. I expected June Allyson to come chirping out onto the quadrangle at any moment. But what approached as I stopped to ask where the English department hung out was a man who did recognize me as a woman in my helmet and who didn’t think motorbikes belonged on his precious campus. My being a woman made him a little less nasty about it. Or maybe he thought a big dame on a motorbike was not going to take bullying too easily.

  I lifted the helmet and smiled. “I’ll leave it in the parking lot,” I said. “Then, how do I find my way to the English department? I’m expected, and they won’t be too happy to be told I was stopped by campus security.” Total bullshit, but how was he to know? If you’re thin, you bat your eyelashes. If you’re fat, you throw your weight around. It almost always works.

  “The English department’s in that building,” he said, pointing to something in the near distance covered in ivy. “And walk your bike to the parking l
ot back there. Motorbikes aren’t what they want around here.”

  I obeyed meekly. Knowing when meekness gets you what you want is a P.I.’s best tool, and much easier to do if you’re female. He nodded, watching me push the bike toward the parking lot. I was thinking he was a lot easier to handle than the professors in the English department were going to be.

  Once I’d parked the bike, reached the right building on foot, and climbed the stairs to the English department—I avoid elevators; they can get stuck or, worse, force you into close contact with someone you don’t want to meet—I greeted Dawn and asked which professor I might talk to now. She gave me a list of the faculty, and helped me to match the names up with the fields. I’d brought a list of those with me. Haycock I knew was Victorian, or had been, and I knew the only woman full professor was Modern. Her name turned out to be Antonia Lansbury.

  “Any relation to Angela?” I asked. Talk about women detectives on television; that Lansbury dame played a woman who never went anywhere without tripping over a body, but I liked the actress: not young, and not into romance.

  “A distant cousin, I think,” Dawn said. “Antonia’s teaching, but she’ll probably be here later, if you want to wait for her. She always sees students in her office after her classes, which is more than the men do. Anyway, most of them. You could find her then.”

  “I might,” I said. Now I wanted to get the names of the others. American was a guy named Donald Goldberg; he just got tenure, Dawn advised me in a whisper—terrible fight, the department was divided, but the dean and the president got him in.