A Conventional Corpse

by Joan Hess

  “How annoying,” I murmured.

  “You have a way with words,” she said as she resumed typing on the keyboard. “If I were to have such a thing as ten more minutes of uninterrupted time, I could finish, print out the file, dump it on Dr. Shackley’s desk, and go home.”

  “How long does the department keep grad assistantship applications?”

  She looked up at me. “Some of them are smudged with dinosaur poop, as if it were any of your concern. I’ve heard one of the department chairs rejected William Shakespeare’s application on account of hints of plagiarism.”

  “I was hoping I might be able to look at an application from ten years ago.”

  “No, you are hoping I will get up, take you into the storeroom, and stand around while you thumb through dusty folders. Every time I sneeze, pee will dribble down my legs like tears. You probably think I’m too dumb to understand that this information is confidential. Dream on.”

  “You wouldn’t have to come with me,” I said with an inane smile, “and no one would have to know about it.”

  “Are you thinking you will come up with a reason why I should do anything for you? I could call campus security and let you explain it to them while I finish up and order a pizza on my way out the door. Pineapple and anchovies sound good. I used to order pepperoni, but lately it’s been giving me heartburn.”

  “I could give you a reason, but you most likely wouldn’t buy it,” I admitted. “A graduate assistant who was here ten years ago was killed today. She came from a highly prestigious school back east. It seems peculiar.”

  “Very peculiar. Most of the current applicants cannot fill out the forms without using an eraser on every other line. What’s so hard about writing down your address and telephone number? It’s like nobody ever asked them that before. What’s more, half of the transcripts are missing, letters of recommendation are signed in crayon, and they seem to have no idea of proposed areas of study. The expiration date has passed on the cream of this crop.”

  “All I want to do is glance at the file.”

  “And all I want is for Dr. Shackley’s wife to be beamed aboard the mothership and warped to another solar system.” She punched several buttons, and then stood up. “If I were to take a break to buy a candy bar in order to stabilize my blood sugar, I don’t suppose Dr. Shackley would ever hear about it. He would never have to find out that I’d left the key on my desk in plain sight, would he?”

  “I can’t imagine how he would,” I said. “It could never be anything more than an oversight.”

  “Whatever. If I detour by the staff rest room to experience a moment of privacy, then go to the lounge, I should be back in ten minutes.” She dropped a key on her desk. “The storeroom’s in Dr. Shackley’s office, through there. Ten minutes, in case you weren’t listening.”

  I did not think she would take kindly to expressions of gratitude. As soon as she had gone out into the hall, I grabbed the key and went into Dr. Shackley’s office. The storeroom had all the charm of a family vault that had been neglected for centuries. Metal file cabinets fined all the walls. Yellowed slips taped on the front of each drawer indicated the year when, in all probability, anyone had last pulled it open. Mindful of the time, I quickly ascertained that Roxanne Pickett’s application had been filed twelve years previously, and that she had accepted a teaching assistantship for the following semester. Her grades from Radcliffe were impressive, although she’d received a low grade in physics (hadn’t we all?) and withdrawn from a senior thesis course. Her three letters of recommendation were oddly tepid, citing her attention to detail rather than her potential to excel in graduate studies. I had a feeling she’d accepted the offer from Farber College out of desperation rather than fuzzy memories of tire swings in Uncle Bediah’s front yard. If Roxanne had developed an urge to find her roots, she would have yanked them up, steamed them, and served them with hollandaise sauce.

  I locked the closet, left the key on the secretary’s desk, and went downstairs, hoping Earlene had not thrown out her back while moving the boxes of books. Caron and Inez had gone underground for the time being, taking my car with them. I assumed that even between the two of them they lacked financial resources to get much farther than the mall, much less the next county.

  Earlene was perched on the trunk of her car, beaming at me like a leprechaun who’d been smoking shamrocks. “I put the cart in the backseat so that we can use it to take the boxes up the sidewalk at the Azalea Inn,” she chirped, sans brogue. “I thought about taking the coffee urn as well, but Lily is likely to have one. Shall we go?”

  “You stole the cart?” I asked mildly. “Haven’t we done enough damage for the day?”

  “I merely borrowed the cart, and I’ll see that it’s returned.”

  “Of course you will,” I said as I got in the car, hoping campus security would not pull in beside us. “We’re not going to stop at any gas stations or liquor stores on the way back, are we?”

  “Oh, no, I have a full tank.” Earlene took her seat behind the wheel. “You were sleuthing, weren’t you? How exciting! I was sick with envy when I first read Nancy Drew. I’ve been wanting a blue roadster ever since, but I was forced to settle for a used Chevrolet. It’s just not the same.”

  “I suppose it lacks the panache,” I said. “Do you mind if we swing by my apartment for a minute? If Caron’s there, she can help unload the books.”

  My car was parked out front I assured Earlene I would only be a minute, then hurried upstairs and let myself into the apartment. I did not require any detective prowess to determine that Caron was home: Soda cans, an empty bag of pretzels, and bread crusts littered the coffee table, and the TV was turned to some channel in which tattooed men with greasy hair lipsynched veiled threats to women clad in chainlink bikinis and salad oil.

  Caron’s voice drifted out of her room. “You heard me, Rhonda. Allegra has already sold her next book to a big-time studio for like three million dollars, and she promised me a part. Not the lead, of course, but I’ll have lines and stuff. While I’m in Hollywood, I’ll have a personal hairstylist and makeup artist, as well as a private tutor and a limo to take me to the set every day.”

  “You need to get off the phone,” I said from the doorway.

  “Hold on,” she said, then covered the receiver with her hand. “I am in the middle of a conversation, Mother. You’re the one who’s always harping about how rude it is to interrupt.”

  “Get off the phone,” I repeated. “Otherwise, the next thing I interrupt will involve your life support system in the ICU.”

  She failed to look terrified, but told Rhonda she would call back and replaced the receiver. “What’s the matter now? Does one of your precious authors have a hangnail? Should I call for an ambulance?”

  I gave her a wry smile. “After what happened today, that’s not very funny.”

  “I’m sorry.” She fumbled through various scraps of notepaper, most of which were buried under cracker and cookie boxes and several more soda cans. It was an impressive beginning for a landfill, considering she couldn’t have been home for more than an hour and a half. “You have a message,” she said gloomily, “but I can’t find it. The gist is that Peter called here from the Azalea Inn about half an hour ago, looking for you. He wasn’t pleased when I told him, I didn’t have a clue where you were. He said if you weren’t there pretty soon, he’d issue an APB on you and have you taken to jail for interfering in an official investigation. Can he do that?”

  “Yes, indeed. He’s done it before, and once he had my car towed off and impounded out of pique. Pique is not attractive in a man of his age, or any man over the age of four, for that matter.”

  She uncurled her legs and stood up. “So what do you want me to do?” she asked in a tone that suggested I was about to demand an amputation, at best.

  “Put the litterbox, the cans of cat food, two plastic bowls, and a can opener in a garbage bag, then let Earlene give you a ride to the inn. The kitty contraband goes
to the Forsythia Room on the second floor, the boxes of books in Earlene’s trunk to the parlor. Should book buyers start arriving early, oblige them. One of the boxes has the gizmo to accept credit cards. You can take checks, or cash if you can handle making change.”

  Her lower lip jutted out. “I’m supposed to go to a movie at the mall with Inez and Emily. Carrie and a bunch of other girls are going to meet us at Streetcar Pizza afterward so I can tell them all about Allegra Cruzetti and how gorgeous she is. Sally Fromberger said I wouldn’t have to do anything this evening, you know. I am trying to have a Life.”

  “Luckily, your meter is running at seven dollars an hour, which means you’ll be able to afford to have a life once this weekend is over. Please do as I ask, and if Peter comers you, tell him I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  She blinked at me. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to fix myself a drink and take a lovely, steamy bubble bath. Then I’m going to dust myself with the talcum powder you gave me last Christmas, and put on clean clothes. I may have another drink on the balcony and listen to the Kappa Theta Etas shriek about their plans for the evening—or I may knock on the downstairs tenant’s door and ask him to play me a sonata. I shall drape myself across his piano, a rose clutched between my teeth. He’ll lose his mind and force me to elope with him to Vienna, where we will buy an estate and raise a family of children with perfect pitch.”

  “I don’t guess I should tell Peter any of that,” she said, unamused.

  “You may tell him that I had a telegram from the King of Siam asking me to teach school in his palace. Please get moving—Earlene’s waiting out front.”

  Once Caron had collected Wimple’s essentials and stomped down the stairs, I made sure all the doors were locked, detoured through the kitchen for the drink, and retreated to the bathtub to allow myself a much-deserved break. It had not been an easy day.

  I arranged a inflatable cushion behind my head and sank back with a blissful sigh. Less than thirty-six hours earlier, I’d been envisioning myself in the presence of the greatest talents in the traditional mystery genre. Pearls of wit and wisdom would have been rolling off their tongues, I might have caught enough to come away motivated to write the novel that had lingered in the back of my mind since my undergraduate days.

  But the silk purses were sows’ ears, I thought with a scowl. Walter Dahl was another part of the sows’ anatomy, the one at the east end when the sow’s snout is pointing west. He certainly was not as popular as the other four authors. I rarely bothered to order his books, and after a respectable passage of time, almost always returned them unsold. So why had Sally included him in Murder Comes to the Campus? I could think of dozens of more prestigious mystery writers who fit the criteria and might have accepted her invitation—and generous honorarium.

  I utilized my toes to start a trickle of hot water. Laureen, Sherry Lynne, and Dilys were established masters in the field. Snaring Allegra had been quite a coup on Sally’s part. But why Walter?

  I realized my skin was beginning to tingle, or perhaps simmer. I turned off the hot water before the word “boil” was more apt, finished my drink and forced myself to get out of the bath. Even as I dried off, applied powder, and dressed, however, I could not stop wondering why Sally had put Walter on her list of illustrious mystery authors.

  After fixing a second drink, I went to the living room rather than the balcony above the porch, and sat down on the sofa to call Sally.

  “How are you doing?” I said when she answered. “Any idea when you’ll be released?”

  “I heard.”

  “Did Earlene call you?”

  “Oh yes,” Sally said darkly, “as well as Geraldine, Jordan, Kimmie, and Mrs. Whitbread, who’s a librarian here in Farberville and a die-hard mystery fan. Dr. Shackley called, too. His wife has a migraine, so they won’t be attending the final event this evening. I think we both know what that means.”

  “We do?”

  “Without sponsorship in the English department, the Thurber Farber Foundation for the Humanities is hardly likely to give us another grant. It’s just as well, I suppose. This entire project has been ill-fated since the day I received word of the grant.”

  I took a gulp of scotch. “Come on, Sally, Farberville hasn’t been experiencing plagues of locusts and frogs for the last six months. Sure, there were glitches with registration and the book room, but Earlene seems to have everything under control.”

  “There are police officers at the Azalea Inn, investigating a murder. This is not what I imagined when I came up with the whimsical name for the convention. I wish they’d all go away before someone else is killed.”

  “And tomorrow they will,” I said. “I’d like to ask you something, Sally. I can understand why you invited the women authors, but I’m puzzled about Walter Dahl. He’s rather obscure.”

  “I’d never heard of him, to be candid. Since the four authors I really wanted were at Paradigm House, I wrote a letter to the publicity department. The letter I received in response said that the four authors had agreed to participate, and that I might consider providing a broader coverage of the genre by including a literary mystery author such as Walter Dahl. The letter implied that he epitomized that particular aspect, and included the address of his publisher. I was delighted to oblige.”

  “Who was this letter from?” I asked.

  “Someone whose name sounded as if she’d just graduated from high school. Jennifer, Heather, or maybe Brittany.”

  “But not Roxanne?”

  Sally began to snuffle in a familiar yet still distasteful fashion. “Roxanne being the name of the woman found in the cistern earlier today, of course. Just because I’m in the hospital doesn’t mean I’m completely ignorant of what’s happened. It was on the five o’clock news.”

  “We’re having the book sale this evening,” I said, sounding like an aerobics instructor on a cruise ship. “I’ll have all the authors sign a book for you.”

  “I never thought it would turn out like this, Claire,” she said, sounding damper with every word. “I thought we would all celebrate the genre, but instead—”

  “The picnic supper is at hand. I’m sure someone will let you know how it went. If I don’t get to the inn right now, it won’t be-me because I’ll be in jail for the night. Pop a pill, and I’ll call you in the morning.”

  I hung up without giving her the opportunity to respond. I applied fresh makeup, ran a comb through my winsome curls, and stood in front of Caron’s full-length mirror to make sure my jacket and trousers were doing their best to make me look ten pounds lighter than someone who ate fettucini Alfredo in pricey bistros in New York and borscht with dollops of sour cream in St. Petersburg. Even caviar was not without calories.

  Since Caron had failed to leave the car key on the kitchen counter, I decided to walk to the Azalea Inn. I’d just come down the back steps when a voice hissed at me from the bushes. To be more precise, hissed, “Senator!”

  “What are you doing, Arnie?” I said with commendable restraint. “Aren’t you supposed to be in custody?”

  He emerged, dressed in baggy green surgical scrubs. “Some would say that. May I add that nobody ever asked Arnie Riggles how he feels about it? There is only one decent mattress in the Farberville jail, and inevitably there’s some four-hundred-pound biker passed out on it. Now that I’ve grown accustomed to classier decor, I have a true aversion to filthy blankets and lice. You can’t blame me, can you? I’ve been drinking bottled water since the middle of January.”

  “I didn’t know you drank water, Arnie.”

  “Well, when I brash my teeth.” He glanced over his shoulder as a car drove by. “Don’t think I missed your sarcasm, Senator. Because of you, I nearly died today. For a while there, I was floating down this tunnel toward a blinding light, fully expecting to find my grandmother with a plate of warm ginger snaps, but then I was snatched back to a gurney in the emergency room. It was very unsettling.”


  “Arnie,” I said, “if you indeed had a grandmother, she would have been much too busy mugging old men in the park to bake cookies. How did you get away?”

  Arnie sat down on the bottom step. “It wasn’t as hard as you’d think. The policeman at the door was wearing a nametag that said he was L. Flipp. I called the hospital switchboard and had him paged to the front desk, then hustled my butt down the hall and into a linen closet. Green is not my color, but I had no choice. Piece of cake after I put on a mask and grabbed an armful of supplies. Three security guards asked me if I’d seen me, which leads to some complex existential issues we might discuss at a later date. As for now, could you advance me a couple of dollars?”

  “So you can take a taxi to your skybox?”

  “You ever had hospital food?”

  Despite the howls of protest from my conscience, I took out my wallet and waved a five-dollar bill. “This is enough for a hamburger and fries, Arnie, and even a milkshake. Rather than make insincere promises to pay me back, why don’t you tell me what happened in the garden behind the Azalea Inn?”

  “Yeah, okay.” He took the bill, and, after patting himself down, determined he had no pockets and wedged it behind his ear. “It goes back to last night. I was at the Dew Drop Inn, and might have been boasting about how I had keys to the campus, which I am inclined to do with a couple of beers under my belt. This skinny ol’ boy offered to buy them, and since I was flat-out broke and running up a tab, I agreed, planning to report them lost Monday morning. Then I started thinking how maybe he shouldn’t have the key to that room in Old Main where I’d set the books, as well as certain other keys involving private residences. I was pulling them off when he got all hot and bothered. I had no choice but to whack him upside the head with a beer bottle. I might not have done it if I’d realized he was with some friends.”