Failure is Fatal

by Lesley A. Diehl

  *

  Friday night found the three of us, Guy, down from Canada for the weekend, Der and I sitting in the living room of my house watching the beginning of a snowfall through the windows overlooking the lake.

  “If the snow continues as the forecast predicted, you may find it difficult to get out of here on Sunday evening, old man,” Der said to Guy.

  “Guess I’ll have to call in sick then and snuggle up here for the duration.” Guy drew me closer to him on the couch.

  “Don’t think you’re going to have too much of my attention this coming week if you do stay,” I said. “Der and I are going to be making those calls, I’ve got papers to grade, and I should be making up the next to the last exam for my courses. In some ways this semester is going by too fast.”

  “Nights,” Guy said. “What will you be doing nights this week if I stay?”

  “Sleeping.” I got off from the couch. “Anyone want more coffee?”

  Sam raised her head from the floor where she was napping and thumped her tail once as I left for the kitchen. She seemed prepared to hibernate for winter and offered little interest in either observing the snow outside or running out to play in it. It was one of the few times I saw her not in motion for less than ten minutes. She was growing out of puppyhood, something I welcomed in a way, but I would miss her frenzied play and enthusiastic exploration of everything that moved.

  I returned to the living room with the coffeepot. Guy offered his cup for a refill, but Der shook his head no. He seemed distracted this evening and had said little since he arrived. Neither one of us had much hope the upcoming calls would produce much. Whoever the students were who wrote those unusual stories, they seemed content to sit back and let Der and me struggle with their identities. Der considered letting the students know about the earlier description of the murder, but decided the existence of the description and its details constituted information that only the authorities and the murderer could know. It was his ace in the hole.

  The three of us continued to stare at the falling snow, a fire crackling in the woodstove making the room warm and cozy. Conversation lagged, and we were falling asleep when the phone rang in the kitchen. Sam jumped up and ran to the phone as if she would answer it.

  I laughed and hurried to the kitchen to pick up the phone.

  Guy and Der watched curiously through the doorway as I merely nodded and said a few words into the receiver.

  “Investigator Der is here right now, but with all this snow predicted, I don’t think it’s wise that you try to get out here unless you’ve got four-wheel drive. We could meet you in your room. Oh, okay, I understand. My office it is then. Yes, in about fifteen minutes.”

  Der entered the kitchen at the mention of his name and was standing near me when I put down the phone.

  “That was one of our subjects, the student who failed to show for an individual meeting because she was home. It seems she wrote one of those unusual endings, and she wants to explain why. She seemed anxious not to meet where anyone might see us, so it’s my office. The building should be deserted now.” I grabbed my coat out of the closet and began to frantically dig around on the closet shelf for the gloves I knew had to be there but that I hadn’t used since last winter. I wanted them because they were my warmest pair. I finally pulled out two gloves, not matching, of course, but close enough to pass for a pair in the dim light of evening.

  “I’ll go start the car, so we can get moving,” Der said.

  “And I…” Guy said.

  “Oh, god, I’m sorry, but it’s better you not come along. She seems pretty nervous and a stranger might…,” I said.

  “And I am going to grade some papers I brought with me this weekend. I know you need to be there. She obviously wants you there.” Guy put his arms around me and hugged me to him. “Besides, Der will be along to see that you don’t get into any trouble.” He was being a real gentleman about having his weekend taken away from him, but I knew it grated on him. His face was a study in contrasts—a smile on his mouth and irritation in his eyes.

  I flew out the door then looked back to see Guy and Sam in the entryway wreathed by the porch light, figures made indistinct by the rapidly falling snow.

  The powerful police cruiser cut through the accumulated snow easily, but I wondered how well we would fare on the way back given the rate at which the snow was falling and piling up on the deserted roads. The road crews would wait until the snow stopped, or at least until morning, and with tomorrow being a weekend day and no schools in session, driving tonight on unplowed and unsanded roads would prove treacherous. I was content to have Der at the wheel and not to be navigating my poor old beat-up Toyota through this storm. When we reached the campus, I told Der to swing into the small parking area behind my office building.

  Huddled in the doorway of the building a lone figure sought shelter from the blowing snow.

  “Abby? Abby Jones?”

  “Dr. Murphy, I’m so glad you’re here,” the young woman said. Her voice seemed washed by relief. She appeared tense and tired and something else. Afraid? The light from the building outlined her features. She was tall and slender and her hands, when she drew them from her pockets to shake mine, were graceful with long fingers and shapely nails. Her skin was café au lait in color. When she spoke, her accent was that of the islands. It seemed incongruous that someone whose entire persona bespoke the warmth of the Caribbean should find herself in the middle of a snowstorm in upstate New York.

  I quickly took out my keys and opened the door, then led the three of us up the stairs and down the hall to my office.

  “This is Detective Pasquis, Abby,” I said.

  She looked at Der and seemed to visibly relax. It appeared that she was only too happy to see another dark face in this sea of white.

  We sat down and Der and I waited for Abby to speak.

  “I’m pledging a sorority, against my parents’ wishes, you know, but I thought it might help me fit in better on this campus.” A knowing look passed between her and Der.

  “The weekend before the testing session, the pledges from the sorority and the pledges from the fraternity house next door were gathered together for a meeting. We were asked if any of us signed up for your experiment, Dr. Murphy, and only two of us raised our hands. The other person was a guy. I didn’t get his name. He and I were separated from the others and taken into a room with two fraternity guys. I think one was the frat president, but I’m not certain. Once in the room, the other pledge and I were told we were going to play a little trick on you by messing up your research. We were handed short paragraphs and told that we were to use these as the endings for the stories asked for in your research. I began to protest that I didn’t think it was wise to intentionally falsify research results. The frat president became abusive then and told me I would be out of the sorority unless I did this. He also said they had ways of checking on whether we followed through with the plan.”

  As she spoke Abby twisted her hands around one another and looked down at the floor. I could tell it was difficult for her to tell us this story, that she felt she failed herself somehow and that she was embarrassed by her behavior.

  “The frat pledge seemed to think the plan was funny, and he was eager to cooperate, although he complained that his story was too long. We were told to memorize the stories and then destroy the papers they were on. I again voiced my objections to doing it. I was told you’d get yours in the end and I would too if I took your side. I was also warned not to tell anyone or the consequences would be far worse than merely being tossed out of the sorority. I was really terrified by the time I walked out of that room. I still didn’t think what I was doing was right, but I was thinking I had little choice.”

  “So you did what you were told and wrote the story they gave you when you were in the research session?” Der said.

  “Yes, I did, although I’m not proud to say I did.” She raised her eyes to meet Der’s. What she saw must have encouraged her. She raise
d her head and continued speaking. “I felt so bad about it that I left campus and went home to talk this over with my parents. They were pretty disgusted with me and told me I had to come to you and tell you what I did, Dr. Murphy. I know I had the opportunity to confess earlier, but I was afraid. I’m still scared, but I know I need to tell the truth.”

  “You said the fraternity president became abusive with you. What did he do?” asked Der.

  “It’s not that he did anything, but he was verbally abusive and he used the N word. He said all the usual things, about my kind not being wanted here, how I was lucky to be the token in the sorority. You know the routine, Detective Pasquis.”

  Der merely nodded.

  “Did you see the other pledge in the testing session?” said Der.

  “Yes, I did. I guess he had trouble memorizing his story because I caught him sneaking peeks at a paper on top of the books that he placed on the floor beside his desk. He was pretty devious about it, so I doubt any of the research assistants caught him.”

  “Do you have the paper you were given?” said Der.

  “No, I threw it away the night they gave it to me. It was short and easily memorized.”

  Der and I now knew she was given the shorter of the two story endings. The other came from the frat pledge, and he tore it up and threw it in the wastebasket.

  “Were there any phone numbers on the paper you were given?” I said.

  “No.”

  “I think that’s all for now, but I’ll be in touch with you again,” said Der.

  “What’s this all about? It’s pretty unusual for police to get involved in fraternity pranks, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “This may be more than a prank. We think it might be connected to a criminal matter,” Der said.

  “Criminal? Oh, no. I thought I was simply blowing the whistle on a fraternity.”

  “And it may turn out that’s all it is,” I said.

  “I’ve decided the sorority isn’t for me. And if the sorority and fraternity were involved in anything criminal, it just confirms my decision not to join and to let you know what they were attempting. My parents were right all along.” She sighed and turned to me. “I’m really sorry for messing up your results, Dr. Murphy.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” The research was secondary to identifying Marie’s killer. We had more leads than before we talked with Abby, but it still felt like a race against time if the recent stories predicted the kind of violence found in the earlier one.

  Chapter 9

  Der’s sedan plowed its way back to my house with difficulty. The snow continued to come down and at an increasingly rapid rate. It was difficult to see through the windshield, and the wipers began to ice over. He turned on the defroster, upped the heat, and increased the fan speed.

  “Pretty early in the year for a snow fall of this amount,” he said.

  “Uhm,” was all I could offer, lost in my thoughts.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Murphy. I thought talking with Abby would energize you. It’s another piece of the puzzle.” He maneuvered us out of a skid.

  “What’ll you do about the frat connection?” I said.

  “Follow up on it. Abby will help us identify the guy who was in the testing session with her, and we can go from there to his fraternity and its officers.”

  “That only gives us the identities of the people who wrote the notes and maybe the identity of the person who created the idea, but will it yield the killer? Maybe these descriptions have nothing to do with the murder.”

  “I don’t know how you can think that, Murphy. There would have to be too many coincidences for all of this not to be connected.”

  “Someone dislikes me and kills people? I don’t get it.”

  Guy and Sam met us at the door as we tramped in through the snow. I was happy to be home again, off the roads and in front of a warm fire. Der began to fill Guy in on the conversation with Abby.

  “Murphy’s having a difficult time believing that someone can hate her enough to destroy her research and kill someone,” Der said.

  “What’s the old saying? ‘If it walks like a duck, blah, blah, it is a duck’,” Guy said.

  “The whole thing is just creepy,” I said. “And I’m dead tired”

  “Well, I’ve got to go before the roads get so bad even that old tank out there won’t make it through.” Der grabbed his coat off the hook by the door. “I’m going to visit the fraternity house Abby mentioned tomorrow and see what I can find out.”

  “Don’t make your call before noon or no one will be up,” I said.

  “Oh, but that’s the best time to interview people, when they have been rudely awakened and their defenses are down.” He ducked his head out into the storm.

  “Keep me posted,” I yelled out the door, catching a full blast of snow in the mouth.

  Guy pulled me back into the kitchen. “We’d better get some sleep,” he said

  “I have to convince Sam that she should go out into this storm and do her business before we can go to bed.” Sam was still curled up on the floor beside the couch.

  “C’mon, girl,” I said. She thumped her tail once as if to say, thanks but I’m fine here.

  “Okay, but you’re going to be one sorry dog about five in the morning.”

  “I’ll get up early and let her out, Murphy.” Guy reached for me. “How about a nice body massage? You’re all tense from tonight.”

  I nodded my head in agreement, and we proceeded up the stairs to the bedroom. I lit a few candles and got the massage oil from the bathroom.

  “A little music?” Guy placed a CD in the machine.

  We were well into the massage, and Guy’s warm hands were kneading the muscle knots in my shoulders and back into wonderful submission. My body began to relax, and I let my mind wander. Guy’s breath moved against my neck, and he planted a kiss on my ear. The kiss turned into a nibble, and the vibrations from the sensation began to work their way down my spine into my feet. I wiggled my toes in anticipation and then sat bolt upright on the bed.

  “Muscle cramp?”

  “A frat boy, that’s what!” I reached for the bedside phone and dialed Der’s number. I could tell when he picked up that I awakened him.

  “The guy who let me in the building, that night when the lab window was open, you know, Der, the night I went into town to check out my hunch.” I was hoping for some sound from Der that would confirm he was awake and listening.

  “Yeah, Murphy. Go ahead.”

  “It was a frat boy!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was a frat boy who opened the door for me, Der. I just now remembered the guy was wearing one of those kerchiefs on his head, you know, the ones the frats make all their pledges wear. They’re so common on campus that it didn’t register at the time, but he certainly was a pledge from one of the fraternities.”

  “You called me at this hour of the night to tell me that?”

  “But don’t you see? It connects to Abby’s story about the involvement of that fraternity. I’m sure that the guy who let me in the building must have been the same person who broke into my lab.”

  “I see what you mean, Murph. All the more reason to visit the fraternity tomorrow.”

  “Can I come along?”

  “Absolutely not! Thanks for the information. Now go back to sleep.”

  I placed the receiver back in the cradle and rolled over toward Guy.

  “Now where were we?” I crooned in his ear. His reply was a resounding snore.

  *

  Saturday morning dawned cold and clear, the snow having stopped during the night, but the weather channel predicted more by evening. Sam seemed to have discovered the joys of snow. She was outside, running through the deep powder and barking at the top of her lungs, as if to invite Guy and me to join her.

  “I’d better leave this afternoon,” Guy said, as we watched her antics through the kitchen window, drinking our first cups of coffee at the kitchen table. �
��That’ll give them time to clear the roads of this snowfall, and I can miss the next one.”

  “It seems as if you just got here,” I said, “and we’ve barely had time to get reacquainted.”

  “I know, babe. And whose fault is that? I thought I had a pretty good massage technique. Never had complaints before. Usually women don’t sit bolt upright in bed during my ministrations and make phone calls. And to another man, no less!” His eyes twinkled with good humor.

  “Just how many women have you given massages?”

  “Tell you what. I’ll whip up some pancakes,” Guy said.

  “I don’t want pancakes. I want another massage. The one you gave me last night has worn off.”

  “Okay.” No argument there.

  We called Sam in, dried her off and left her in front of the warm woodstove while we played massage parlor upstairs. By the time we were finished, pancakes sounded pretty good, and Guy, wearing my robe, was in the kitchen heating the griddle. A sharp bark from Sam warned us that someone was coming. Der entered the kitchen, greeted by the smells of cooking bacon and wet dog.

  “I didn’t even hear your car. The snow must have muffled the noise.” I poured him a cup of coffee and offered breakfast.

  “Breakfast? I had it hours ago. Do you know what time it is?” Der eyed Guy’s outfit.

  Catching his scrutiny, Guy shot him a look that discouraged any comment.

  “Go get dressed. I’ll finish the pancakes,” I said.

  “The reason you didn’t hear the car is that your drive isn’t cleared. I had to park on the road. I guess things around here have been too busy this morning for anyone to do chores.”

  “Cooking is a chore.”

  “Only for someone who cooks as badly as you do. Give me that. You don’t press down on a pancake.” He took the turner out of my hand, removed his coat and suit jacket and began cooking the pancakes.