by Amanda Cross
“Do you think he disliked Haycock?”
“Of course he did, or so I assume. David doesn’t love everyone; unlike Petrillo, he doesn’t give everyone the automatic benefit of the doubt, though not even Petrillo has managed that with Haycock and some of his buddies. No, David Lermann makes very exact analyses of people, though he’s less ready to judge them than the rest of us; I guess you could say that. You’ve got to see a great many different points of view if you’re going to teach Socratic philosophy and the Bible.”
I determined to interview Lermann. Meanwhile, I tried to think of what else to ask Antonia. She’d been as honest with me as possible—I did think that. I also felt sorry for her, sorry because she might have enjoyed what she did, had she not had all the hassle and fuss within the department to distract her and make her edgy. Anyway, she promised to help me if I thought of something else, so feeling rather incomplete and dissatisfied, I left Antonia and went in search of David Lermann.
I found him in his office, talking to a student; a long line of students sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall waited for him. Instead of waiting, I interrupted him and asked if we might meet at the finish of his student conferences. He looked at his watch, made an appointment to see me in the student coffee shop an hour hence, and returned to his discussion; I couldn’t tell of what, exactly, but the student seemed pretty intense about it. Good for Lermann, I thought.
He was late turning up at the coffee shop, which I’d rather expected. I could picture him trying to disentangle himself from a student and taking a long time about it. I’d spent the intervening hour wandering around the campus and thinking. I stopped in to make appointments with the dean of faculty and the president—fortunately, with the murder of one of their professors, they could hardly refuse to see me—and then walked and thought. When the hour was up, I got directions to the student coffee shop —which turned out to be in the student center, next to the college bookstore, in which I also browsed while waiting, then got myself a cup of coffee and settled at a table in the corner. I’d noticed that the bookstore had a small section called FACULTY BOOKS, where I saw books by some of my suspects. Nothing, of course, by Lermann.
He arrived disheveled and apologetic, carrying a briefcase held together by duct tape. He saw me staring at it.
“I know, I know,” he said. “My wife says it’s a disgrace, and I’ve promised to get a new one. But it works all right. I know I won’t feel happy with a new one until it looks like this.” He smiled.
David Lermann was the first person I’d met on this case, or maybe on any case, who was noticeably, plainly, unquestionably fatter than I was: a lot fatter. I’ve noticed that fat men have difficulty looking neat or even pulled together—more so than women, if the women have any sense of themselves and have figured out what their style is. Fat men just take male clothing and shove themselves into it. Well, it’s hard to explain.
I thought it funny, odd, that Lermann was fat. I mean philosophical, lovable professors who like to teach and are devoid of ambition, you tend to think of as the long, lean type, too absentminded to eat much. So much for Central Casting.
“Can I get you a coffee?” I asked.
“That would be kind of you,” he surprised me by saying, “but I think I’d prefer a Coke. I’m thirsty, and I’ll enjoy getting my caffeine that way.”
I got him a Coke, and each of us a Danish. I had the feeling he was hungry too; I knew I was. He bit into it gratefully, and while he was chewing I told him who I was and why I needed to talk to him.
“I know,” he said after a long swig of Coke. “I wondered if you were going to overlook me because I teach only freshmen and women and don’t get into department politics. I did vote for Catherine Dorman, though, but that didn’t really help. I don’t attend meetings of the full professors because I’m not one, but I do get to vote on tenure matters, being tenured myself.”
“I find it odd to meet a college professor who really loves to teach,” I said. I wondered if he wondered how I knew that, but he probably assumed it was general knowledge, which it was. “The impression I have is that most professors value only the time they can get away from teaching.”
“I’m fortunate. When I used to think I would have to retire at sixty-five, which isn’t that far off now”—he looked to be in his middle fifties, but I didn’t contradict him—“I thought, Well, I’ll get a job selling shoes or something, and I’ll know that I was able to do the thing I loved to do for most of my life.”
“Why shoes?” I asked.
“I think it’s pretty easy to become a shoe sales-person,” he said. “Particularly if you’re not trying to move up to something better in that line of work. I’ve never learned to move up, or to want to. I figure they’d put up with me if I just went on selling shoes.”
I wanted to tell him I was sorry to hear he was married, because he was the only man I’d ever met whom I could think about marrying; I could tell that even on such short notice. He’d be good to live with; not to lust after—that was more the Don Jackson type—but to live with. I wouldn’t mind his taped-together briefcase; I’d like talking to him. Back to work, Woody, I reminded myself.
“Have you any thoughts on Haycock’s murder?” I asked. “I know you, like everyone else Haycock knew however slightly, were at his house the day he died.”
“For a short while, just from courtesy. As a matter of fact, we discussed retsina.”
“You did?” I said, really surprised.
“Yes. He asked me if I thought the ancient Greeks drank retsina, if Socrates drank it; I wanted to say the answer was probably yes, but that I thought that hemlock probably tasted better. I had to tell him I didn’t know of a direct reference to it in Greek literature.”
“Do you read Greek?” I asked, sounding more astonished than was polite.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I read Hebrew too, and I’m studying Arabic. You can’t really understand these matters if you can’t read them in the original tongue. Not that I don’t think they should be taught by people who don’t know the languages. It’s just the way I feel personally.”
“Don’t you think they should promote someone who reads Greek?” I said.
He laughed, but decided to explain to me how easy Greek was to learn.
“But it’s an entirely different alphabet,” I interrupted; I did know that.
“The first year is very hard, but the great thing about learning Greek is that the second year you can read Greek classics, some of them anyway. There’s none of this ‘My aunt’s red pencil box’ about it.”
“Maybe I’ll try one day,” I said. “But about Haycock.”
“Not a good man. It has been said, and truthfully, that you can judge a man or woman by his or her enemies; true enough, but you can also tell a thing or two about a man who has only enemies. I hope his mother and father loved him, because I really don’t think anyone else did. What a sad testimony.”
“You believe that he caused a great deal of harm in the department then?”
“Oh, yes; I don’t suppose the English department will become heaven on earth with him gone, but it can only get better. I’m sorry to have to say it.”
“Did you drink the retsina at Haycock’s party?”
“I wanted to —that’s the strange thing. I was about to ask him if I might have a taste when someone distracted him, and he drank it and was dead. He pointed to me and said, ‘Red shirt ’ before he collapsed, looking straight at me. I wasn’t wearing a red shirt.”
“That’s an effect of digoxin,” I said. “Color changes. That was a narrow escape you had.”
“So I have learned. I have never much feared dying, although the body fears it. But between Haycock and me, I really think the world can better spare Haycock. I wouldn’t say that about many people.”
We went on chatting for a bit, but there wasn’t much else to ask. He had really handed me the most dramatic revelation of the whole case. It didn’t solve anything, but it
shook one up.
I took out my cell phone and called Don Jackson on his cell phone to tell him I was through. He was caught up in some work, so we didn’t get to meet before I set off for home, bracing myself for the wait at the Holland Tunnel entrance.
Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong.
—TENNYSON, “The Lotus-Eaters”
Eleven
BACK to New Jersey the next day, later in the morning with the tunnel less crowded. I had appointments with the president of the college and the dean, in that order. I wasn’t hoping for much, but I had to try. Don had agreed to meet for an early dinner at “our” place, which allowed me to avoid the evening rush hour and to see him again. Maybe even give him a lift on my bike. Well, I enjoyed it, and who else knew or cared?
The president kept me waiting for the obligatory quarter of an hour. If you see people on time (unless they’re wealthy donors or likely to be, in which case I suppose you wait for them on the threshold) you lose face. I’ve never understood this, and make a point of being on time if I can, since I appreciate promptness in others. One of the reasons I ride a bike is because, aside from rush hour to and from New Jersey, I can pretty well figure how long the trip will take me and arrive on the dot or as near as makes no matter.
I was finally ushered into his presence by the sort of secretary who asks if you want tea or coffee. I refused; I wouldn’t dream of asking Octavia to make tea or coffee, though sometimes if she’s having it herself she’ll offer me some, and vice versa. I wasn’t with the president for more than five minutes before it became clear that he didn’t know anything about the Haycock murder, except that it had occurred, and he certainly didn’t know anything about the situation in the English department. That, apparently, wasn’t his job, although he didn’t say so. He fudged and dodged, and as far as I was concerned declared himself thoroughly useless. I gathered his responsibility was the larger picture: the infrastructure, meaning the buildings and what was holding them up, and institutional finances, meaning raising money. He was good at that—I’d already been told that was his chief, perhaps only talent—and while he didn’t exactly brush me off, I got the message that there was little point in wasting his time or mine. Since I agreed with this, I made my exit as soon as I could without being dismissive; I felt dismissive toward him.
The dean was quite another matter. The faculty and students, as well as the curriculum, were his responsibility, and he certainly knew what was what in the English department. I was bowed into his presence by the same class of secretary— clearly smart and probably more knowledgeable than her boss, a characteristic I had gathered of most of the administrative staff.
“I don’t know how I can help you,” he began, not too promisingly. “The whole situation has been mind-boggling. I mean, why should anyone want to murder Charles Haycock?”
I was in no mood for evasive bullshit.
“Please, Dean,” I said. “You know as well as I and no doubt a good many other people do that Professor Haycock was a troublemaker and, to say the least, a difficult colleague. What would help me is your view of the situation.”
“Really, Miss—Ms.—Woodhaven, I can hardly discuss confidential college matters with you.”
“Ah, but you can and must, Dean,” I said. I stood up and leaned against his desk, looking down at him. I’m rather a large object to have directly in your line of vision, a fact I make good use of when necessary. “You may recall that the police are also investigating this matter, working with me—that is, we are working together. I would hate to have to get a search warrant and go through all your files, but if I have to I will. Now wouldn’t it be easier for all of us if you just tell me what you know about Professor Haycock and the troubles in the English department and give me any relevant documents?” I didn’t make it sound exactly like a question.
The dean was flustered, as I had hoped he would be. If I involved the police, or made a noisy fuss of any sort, he would be in the spotlight, and who knew where that might lead? He had to decide, and quickly, whether it was better to play along with me or keep dodging. I decided to give his dilemma a spin in my direction.
“I have an appointment with the police later today. I’ll get that warrant if I have to, and come back with official company.” I saw no point in mentioning that my appointment with the police was in order to eat a hamburger and maybe have one beer. I paused meaningfully. And I could see it working.
“In fact, Professor Haycock was causing a certain amount of discomfort in his department and, by obvious extension, in the administration. He seemed to think he would be able and should be allowed to transform the department into something nearer to his own idea of literary studies.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yes, he told me, he wrote me, he harangued me. He seemed determined to make life unpleasant for anyone who didn’t, well, agree to go his way. Not,” the dean quickly added, “that his actions or desires were a motive for murder; hardly that, of course. Still, well . . .”
“Life will be a lot simpler now that he’s gone, however he went,” I finished for him.
“I would hesitate to put it that way,” he said. “I think you’re viewing the whole affair in an unfortunate and dramatic light.”
I forbore to point out that murder was by definition dramatic. “And were you at his party where the fatal drink was taken?” I asked. I knew he wasn’t, but it never hurts to make the person you’re questioning uneasy, especially if he’s what they call a hostile witness— especially if he’s a dean.
“I was two thousand miles away, at a conference in Phoenix, Arizona, as it happens,” he said.
“Exactly why your view of the situation is so important to me then,” I said. Flattery works too. “Almost everyone else even remotely connected to this case was there. The insights of someone who wasn’t there and who knows the college are invaluable. Surely you can see that.” I sat back in my chair and looked expectant.
“Haycock was really serious about reorganizing the department. He had a few colleagues who would go along with him, but on the whole his plan would have been disruptive, to say the least. When he died, I had been planning to put the matter before the president and then take some action. Exactly what action I can’t say; in fact,” he added, sensing my question, “I don’t know. And that’s all I can tell you about it. I’m sure the situation would have been resolved without too much fuss. Professors often begin by suggesting extreme measures; that gives them maneuvering room.”
“Did you know that he was particularly antagonistic to Professor Lansbury, Antonia Lansbury?”
“My dear Ms. Woodhaven, everyone knew that; I suspect even the groundspeople knew that. She and some others—junior people, I believe—put on some play that Haycock found exceedingly offensive. I didn’t see it and don’t know what it was. In any case, they were at loggerheads; I don’t think they agreed on anything. But do try to understand, that kind of enmity is, alas, not unusual in academic departments, even in a relatively small college like this. It never leads to violence. I would advise you not to make too much of it.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said. He looked at his watch, and the phone rang to tell him his next appointment was waiting.
“I don’t want to rush you,” he said, clearly dying to, “but I have another appointment. Perhaps Miss Dubinsky, my secretary, can help you if you need any more information.”
I could have kissed him. I wanted to question the secretary, and now he gave me the right to do so with fewer lies necessary. For once in this case, it seemed, the gods were on my side. He rose to show me out, and to greet a small committee of what I took to be trustees or something; they looked rather too spick-and-span for faculty these days.
I greeted “Miss” Dubinsky and, giving my name and occupation, held out my hand. She took it rather dubiously; I gather hands were not usually offered to her. “I hope you can help me, as the dean has suggested you might. Since he had to meet with those folks�
�—I pointed to his closed office door— “he said that you would be glad to assist me in any way you could.”
She looked uneasy, in need of persuasion. “It’s no great thing,” I said soothingly. “I assured the dean there was no need to get a search warrant from the police, with whom I am working on this investigation. All I need to see is the letter Professor Haycock of the English department wrote to the dean suggesting changes in the department’s structure.” I tried to sound a trifle bored with the whole thing, but mindful of my duties.
“Well,” she said, “if the dean said you could see it.” She walked slowly to the file cabinet, still not quite sure, but began to rifle through the files. “I don’t think I should let you take it away,” she said. “You’ll have to read it here.”
“Of course,” I agreed at once, taking the letter— it took some restraint not to grab it from her—and reading it where I was, standing, so as not to appear too eager or intent. It was a long letter—two full pages—and I read the first page twice before turning to the second, which I also read twice. I had to commit it to memory, and I didn’t want to appear to be studying it too carefully. I’m a fast reader, but you would never have known it from the pace with which I worked my way through that letter.
The letter really showed what a nut Haycock was. His long-range plan was to fire all the un-tenured types, including the writing guy, Kevin Oakwood, who had certainly misunderstood Haycock’s view of him. Then he wanted to force all the tenured professors who didn’t suit his fancy—that wasn’t how he put it, of course, but I knew the cast of characters—to teach only required survey and composition courses. No wonder someone had decided to murder him; the only wonder was that he hadn’t died sooner. The question was, of course, who had decided to murder him?
