Honest Doubt

by Amanda Cross

  Don had told me the police were looking into that; it was so common a drug, however, and easy enough to make from the even more common foxglove plant, that the source was unlikely to offer much of a clue to the person who’d dropped eight 250-microgram pills into Haycock’s retsina. Given that he had heart trouble, fewer would also have worked, suggesting that we didn’t have a specialist in heart medicine among our suspects, but then we knew that already. Anyhow, information about digoxin was easily gotten—look how much of it I knew by heart, when I couldn’t remember why a play of Virginia Woolf’s should have annoyed the chief victim. No wonder Kate was in demand for literary-type murders; you had to be one to know one, as the saying goes.

  When I swung off the highway and onto the smaller road leading to the college, I went over in my mind who exactly I was going to meet up with today, even if I had to pursue them to their homes. I have a trained memory, which, so far at least, has always produced what previously acquired information I asked of it, but I don’t burden it unnecessarily: last names only for Clifton’s English department, except for Antonia and Dawn. So I had to track down Goldberg, American Literature; Petrillo, Medieval; Wanamaker, Comparative; Janeer, Romantic, not tenured; Lermann, Eighteenth Century, tenured but only an assistant prof; then there was Graham, Novel, un-tenured, and Oakwood, Creative Writing, adjunct. Thank God one of the cast of characters was on leave. This could take all day. Well, it would take all day, but I was ready.

  Dawn had told me that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were the best days to find everyone around. Fridays many of them took off if there wasn’t an important meeting, and Monday they were still a little spacey—my word, not hers—from the weekend. These professor types seemed not only to be the most disagreeable bunch I’d ever heard of outside of the criminal world, but they were also the luckiest. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad to sit at home reading Tennyson and writing about him, and then holding forth on him in the classroom. Maybe there was something I was missing here, but it did seem as though hating each other provided the only real excitement available.

  Dawn was busy when I came, but she greeted me and handed me a schedule that showed who would be in their office, a classroom, or home at what hour. Very useful. I had all their résumés, of course— CVs, they called them. The department had started to protest when I asked for those, but I said, “Either help me or find yourself another private eye.” I meant it too. Truth is, I wouldn’t have known to ask for the damn things, but the police had found them after arming themselves with a search warrant—Haycock had wanted to be chairman, after all; they needed to look around his office—and Don had told me about them.

  I decided to begin with Petrillo, Medieval, who was having office hours even as I arrived and who sounded the nicest of the men. Petrillo had published a lot, most of it about people I’d never heard of, unlike Tennyson and Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf, and half of whom seemed not to have written in English—but the number of student committees Petrillo had served on, and the fact that he was teaching a course on race in addition to his regular schedule and his regular period, made me think he might be more human than the others.

  I waited outside his office door for the last student to depart, then introduced myself. Petrillo got to his feet and welcomed me as though I were someone he was really glad to see. Watch it, Woody, I said to myself. Don’t get bamboozled again by a charming intellectual who knows how to manipulate conversation. Even Longworth, after all, had told me exactly what he wanted me to know, and had done it charmingly.

  “Ask away,” Petrillo said, leaving me to set the tone. I asked all the necessaries. Yes, he was at Haycock’s house that day and stayed around for quite a while, being a convivial type, which was far from easy here—waving his arm to indicate the department’s territory. Yes, he saw Haycock die, or anyway collapse. It was he, Petrillo, who had dialed for help, and he’d already told some nice policeman whom he’d seen there. Did I want him to repeat it?

  I had a real talker here, I could see that. I asked how he felt about Haycock.

  “Not a nice person,” Petrillo said, “but an honest one. The trouble with most of the right-wing boys, frankly, is that they lie so easily there’s no reason to believe anything they say. Haycock’s ideas were crazy, and he was certainly a bit feudal about Tennyson—no trespassing, no reason for anybody else to be there—but you knew how he felt and where he stood. He considered women an inferior species, designed to serve man, not to equal him or, heaven forbid, to try to rule with him, but at least he said what he thought. Believe me, around here that’s almost admirable, even if his opinions were antediluvian even in Tennyson’s time.”

  “ ‘He for God, she for the god in him,’ ” I said.

  Petrillo didn’t even look surprised at a private eye’s quoting that. I paused a minute, hoping he’d mention the author, but he didn’t. Well, he’d assume I knew what I was talking about, wouldn’t he?

  “So, hypothetically speaking,” I said, “even if you’d had the chance to murder someone in this department and get away with it, you wouldn’t have picked Haycock?”

  “That’s a terrible question for an officer of the law to ask,” he said, quite shocked. “You are an officer of the law, aren’t you? Well, whether you are or not, surely you can’t suppose that any sane person would want to murder anyone, especially someone he knew?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. “But I do apologize if I’ve offended you. Not that many people believe in sin these days, and murder’s only the biggest sin of all.”

  “There are probably worse sins,” he said. “I’m a Catholic and I believe in sin; not everybody does. I don’t say the Church and the pope are not responsible for serious crimes, but that has nothing to do with my beliefs.”

  “I guess you have to explain that to a lot of people,” I said.

  “Yes, I do. But I shouldn’t be preaching to you. What else can I tell you?”

  “Well, frankly, this department seems a pretty unpleasant place. Everybody seems suspicious of everybody else, and half of them are frightened of something or other. Why do you think that is?”

  “Why do I think it is, or why is it? Or are those the same question?”

  “Most people think they are.”

  “Too true. As to why is it, it’s never easy for those who have long languished in unchallenged power, power awarded them because of their sex, their color, and their family background, to tolerate, much less welcome, insurgents who are challenging their domain. No one is going to give up the old privileges of being an important professor or an old-fashioned husband or the teacher of canonical texts—not easily, not readily, not without a good deal of force being applied. Why should they? A few odd, quirky types like me want to do the right thing, but we’re usually called fools and worse for feeling that way. Mostly, if people out of power want to have a share in that power or even take it away altogether from those who’ve always had it— that is a revolution. Even in my long-ago period, the smart chaps knew that if you give the underdog the smallest bit of power, he— or she—is going to want more and more. That’s how it is.”

  I nodded; nothing new here, though I must say I couldn’t get over marveling at the way these people talked.

  “Why do I think it’s worse here?” he continued, not missing a beat. “Because we have not, alas, collected a bunch of good people, differing in their views, perhaps, but basically broad-minded and generous. No, indeed. And that’s not an accident,” he added, sensing what I was about to ask. These guys not only talk more and with longer words, they answer questions before they’re asked. I suppose it comes from teaching.

  “Those in power,” he said, “tend to attract to them, and to attach to them, others like them. They want colleagues who agree with them, who think the same remarks are funny and the same jokes allowable. That explains this department, I’m afraid.”

  “How did they happen to attract you?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Well, medievalists are
rather different. It isn’t easy to tell from their writings or their shop talk how they feel about contemporary life—not right off the bat, anyway. I wanted this job. My wife works in New Jersey—she’s a surgeon, in a good place for a woman surgeon, comparatively speaking—so I guess I didn’t go out of my way to say disturbing or aggressive things.”

  Well, Woody, I thought, if he’s leading you astray, he’s damn good at it. I’d have to see if this struck Kate the way it struck me. I had to admit once again that Claire Wiseman sure knew what she was doing when she told me I needed someone to consult re: academia.

  “Just one more question,” I said. “If you had to pick the likeliest among your colleagues to have dropped the pill in Haycock’s Greek drink, who would that be? Please be frank; I won’t tell anyone, but I do need help here.” I’d gathered, of course, that he was the sort who would always want to help if he could.

  “I don’t mind the question,” he said, “but I can’t answer it. I’ve thought about it a good deal: who among them would be willing to have murder on his soul? Oddly enough—perhaps because none of them is Catholic, or not so’s you’d notice—I thought that any one of them could have done it, or couldn’t possibly have done it, depending on how you looked at it at any one time. I know that’s not much help, but there it is, I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you for your honesty,” I said, getting up and grabbing my bag and helmet.

  “A pleasure,” he said, rising also. “Not the subject, alas, but talking with you. I’ve never before met a private detective. I’m glad we hired you.” So he was helping to pay my fee also. One thing I didn’t know, and would probably never know, was who had willingly kicked in to the agreement to hire and pay me, and who had been dragged in because of what not taking part might suggest.

  Wanamaker, Comparative, turned out to have taken his students to some exhibit somewhere, and would have to be postponed. Goldberg, American, was lecturing; I decided to drop in and listen to him. At least I could get some impression, and not waste time getting it one-on-one. It was a crazy case, really. They could all have done it; they all had motives, at least one as good as the other; and the only ones with the biggest motives were the ones I didn’t want to have done it. Not a very professional attitude, but there you are.

  Goldberg glanced up when I came into the lecture hall through a squeaky door at the back, but he didn’t take much notice of me. I slid into a chair next to a guy who seemed to be sleeping; his feet were on the seat in front of him, and his chair was tilted back against the wall. He straightened it up when I came in and stared at me. The helmet seemed to win his attention. I smiled at him—it always pays to seem friendly—and turned my attention to Goldberg. He was holding forth about the American tradition, with a lot about God and puritanism and veils; at least, I thought he said veils, the sort that cover a woman’s face; I got that much. But there wasn’t much more to get, in my opinion, unless you were into guilt and stuff. The guy next to me seemed to agree; he took a piece of paper from his notebook, which I gathered he carried as a form of disguise, since there was nothing in it, and scribbled a note to me: What kind of bike? it said.

  Yamaha, I scribbled back. What book is he talking about? I added, nodding at the professor as I handed the paper back.

  Who the fuck knows? he wrote in return, handing me the paper with an enormous shrug of his shoulders. I had kept my eye on Goldberg, who frowned in our direction; I tried to look apologetic and humble. But he wasn’t glaring at me; he was glaring at my dozing, note-passing companion. “Mr. Ferguson,” Goldberg said, spitting out every syllable, “I have no objection to your sleeping; I quite understand that my taking attendance persuades you to sleep here rather than elsewhere. I would, however, appreciate your not conversing, vocally or by pen, with anyone else.”

  Mr. Ferguson saluted in answer, tipped his chair back, and closed his eyes. I thought his behavior unnecessarily rude, but Goldberg certainly seemed to be a pompous ass, and not exactly courtesy himself.

  When the lecture was over, Mr. Ferguson exited with haste, but he waited for me on the stairs. “Could I see it?” he asked. “Your wheels?” he added as I looked bewildered.

  “It’s over in the parking lot,” I said. “I think it’s the only bike there. You can look, but don’t lay a finger on it; I’ll know where to look if there’s so much as a fingerprint.”

  “Got you,” he said.

  We continued down the stairs together. “Mr. Ferguson,” I said. “You don’t seem to care much for American literature. Why are you in the class?”

  “You have to take a certain amount of lit beyond the survey. I had Petrillo for the survey; an okay guy, but he tended to stick around old times. I mean, who cared what they were doing that long ago? I thought American lit would at least make some sense, but forget it. Goldberg is not only a shit, he’s a boring shit. Like calling me Mr. Ferguson. He calls all the others he bothers to notice, or who bother to suck up to him, by their first names. I’m not worthy of that honor.”

  “I wonder,” I began, and then decided not to beat around the bush. “Why are you in college at all if it bores you out of your mind?”

  “Sports,” he said, as though that explained everything. I looked my question.

  “Yeah, sports at Clifton, if you can believe it. I hardly can. They play in some league so minor no one’s ever heard of any of the colleges. But hell, they gave me a scholarship, and the folks thought it would do me good to go to college and help me to get on in the world. Not all the courses are that bad; he’s the dullest and the biggest prick. None of them’s great either.”

  “Do many students feel the way you do?” I asked. “About Goldberg and the college in general?”

  “Many do; they have these stupid required courses—an asshole idea. There’s too much lit required, and most of the students think these old guys are like from some other universe. Well, nice talking with you; I’m off to look at your bike and feel it up a little. Just kidding. Don’t freak.”

  Somehow there didn’t seem much point in waiting around to talk to Goldberg. I didn’t mind Petrillo mentioning sin, but there’s only so much religious stuff I can stand in one day. I went back to the department and waited outside some more office doors. I didn’t learn much. If one of these professors was hiding a murderous hatred, or an act of murder, he or she was not going to let it all hang out during their first interview with me.

  My last encounter that day was with Kevin Oakwood, the adjunct teacher of creative writing. When I got to his office and explained who I was and what I wanted, he told me he couldn’t sit still another minute, and if I wanted his perspective, I’d have to buy him a drink. I agreed, and off we went, he with a briefcase stuffed with papers and I with my bag and helmet. He didn’t question the helmet. I got the impression other people didn’t interest him much, least of all fat, no-longer-really-young women. He marched at a great pace and I followed like a pet bulldog.

  He led the way to a seedy bar, hardly devoid of students but unlikely, I gathered, to appeal to students who might want to corner him and talk about their writing. He did, however, accept several greetings in a way that suggested he was not above picking up companionship here, and would probably do so when I had left. It didn’t take a detective to figure that out.

  We sat at a small table. I offered to go to the bar and get the drinks, which seemed the right thing to do. It also avoided his asking me what I wanted, which was nothing alcoholic; if I got it myself, the seltzer might look like gin and tonic. He wanted beer, a large one. “The thirst those creative types create is unbelievable,” he told me.

  When I returned with his beer and my drink, which he didn’t even glance at, he gulped beer for a while, and then lit a cigarette. “I guess you must be the detective they’ve hired about the murder of Lord Tennyson,” he said. “Yes, I was there that day, and no, I didn’t do it. What else can I tell you?”

  “I’m surprised you teach creative writing if you don’t like the students or t
heir work,” I said, hoping to get a rise out of him. A lot of useful stuff rises with rises.

  “Jesus, sweetie, where did they dig you up? I know there’re some writers who like teaching writing, encouraging the young and all that, but mostly they’re poets and mostly they’re ladies, and mostly they couldn’t write themselves out of a wet paper bag. I write novels, and I teach writing to pay the rent and buy the necessaries. Like beer,” he said, finishing his off.

  “Have another,” I said, figuring that was the only way to keep him there any longer.

  “Thanks, I think I will,” he said. I got up to get it for him. I could have made him get it, but I needed to pay for it, and the thought of handing him the money didn’t sit well. I suspected he wouldn’t bring back any change.

  He started talking as soon as I was back. “The real trouble,” he said, “isn’t the students; they’re not bad, they like to write about kinky sex and quirky parents—well, I guess I encourage that, but I have to read the damn stuff, don’t I? It’s the older women, the alumnae, who are allowed to take the course. They’ve all decided to write their stories, and believe me, their stories are as exciting as their bodies, which is to say not at all. I mean, who the fuck cares about their marriages or their affairs or their bloody children? And I can’t tell them to go home and do some laundry, because if I make them happy they may give the college a little token of thanks for the college kitty and say it was all due to me. It’s to puke.”

  “You are a member of the English department?” I said, putting it as a question.