An Act of Murder

by Mary Angela

  “Where was Alex? How could he have allowed something like this to happen?” I asked.

  “I can’t imagine Alex was involved,” answered Giles. “And we don’t know what was allowed and what wasn’t.”

  “I can’t imagine he wasn’t involved. He can be found in anything that has to do with the theater.” I stood up and pushed my dining room chair toward the hallway, where a package of cigarettes balanced on the wide casing of the linen-closet door. I had quit smoking years ago, but when the occasional urge to fail every one of my students or expatriate to France came upon me, a cigarette could still calm my nerves. I stood on tiptoe, feeling for the box with my fingertips, the phone crooked under my chin. The cigarette pack fell to the floor with a clunk.

  “That doesn’t necessarily constitute his guilt in the matter, Emmeline, although I know it would be easier for you to place the blame somewhere. The truth is accidents happen all the time. This time it happened to one of your students, and for that I’m truly sorry.”

  I found my kitchen matches, conveniently placed in the drawer next to the silverware and easily within my reach. I struck the box and lit my cigarette, inhaling deeply and tossing the pack onto the kitchen table.

  “Emmeline?”

  “I’m here,” I said. “I know you’re right. I just wish I could have left him on better terms. I don’t think he liked my class.”

  “Oh. Well, I can’t say if the word ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ really matters in this context. We’re here to teach them something, aren’t we? Sometimes they like what we’re teaching; sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t mean he didn’t like you. Besides, isn’t he the one you were telling me about who came to your office on Friday?”

  I sank into a kitchen chair. “Yeah,” was all I could say, because I didn’t want to admit to Giles I knew then that something was wrong. I could tell by the look on his face. The kid wanted a friend or someone to talk to. If only I could go back, if only I could have gone about our conversation differently … I wouldn’t have started talking about the damn poem.

  “See? He wouldn’t have come if he completely despised you,” said Giles.

  “Well, that’s true,” I said.

  “And so many of your students have extraordinary things to say about you at the end of the semester,” he added.

  “Thank you. I do feel better,” I said.

  “Good.” Giles sounded relieved. “Now, get some rest tonight, and I’m sure we’ll find out more tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Goodnight.” I hung up the receiver.

  Rest, however, would be elusive that evening; my mind was already anticipating the details that were sure to come to light in the next day or two. I took another drag of my cigarette and watched a curl of smoke dissipate into the recesses of the dark kitchen. It seemed impossible, but not surprising, that Austin was dead. He was one of those students who didn’t exactly fit in, so if something were to happen to someone, it might be him. Of course what had happened was an accident; Giles had said so himself. Still, I wondered about the girl from the parking lot. Could she have had anything to do with his death?

  My cigarette burned itself down to the filter. I rinsed it under the sink. Then I looked out the window for a long time. It was still light outside but just barely, the evening shadows wreaking havoc with the two-story Victorian on the corner. The tree branches seemed longer and sharper and the wind, brisker. It snaked between houses, found hordes of leaves, and threw them recklessly into the narrow street. Standing there, I realized we were all a little like those leaves, given to the caprice of outside forces, and suddenly life seemed more perilous. Had Austin not entered our town, entered our campus, entered our theater, he might be alive right now. What he would be doing, I didn’t know. I felt as if everything I did know about him was either inconsistent or incomplete. Tomorrow, however, I would go about finding out everything I could, and what, if anything, I could have done to prevent his death.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning was beautiful, the kind that makes you feel you have done something wonderful with your life just by waking up. The air was so cool that even the warm sun could not hide the fact that it was the third week of the semester, and September was coming to a close. A new urgency propelled the students’ footsteps, making the campus feel abuzz with life and learning. It was hard to imagine that only two days ago, a student had died on this same campus. My student. I pulled my dark-green jacket tighter and walked quicker, ignoring the faint scent of honeysuckle as I passed by the old College of Law Building. It seemed unfair to partake in life’s little joys when something so dreadful had just occurred.

  Normally, Lenny didn’t come to campus on Mondays; he claimed it was out of perpetual mourning for Sundays. So when I saw him, I knew he had heard about the death. It had, after all, been front-page news in Plain Speak, Copper Bluff’s daily newspaper. Although it filled the front page, the article included few details about Austin’s death, saying only that he had been working on the set of the university play and died “suddenly.” It did, however, include an oversized photo of Austin, standing next to a tree. Probably his senior picture.

  “Em, wasn’t that your student—” started Lenny.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Come on,” he said, walking toward Harriman Hall. “Let’s talk in my office.”

  His office décor was a hodgepodge of everything from baseball memorabilia to Beatles posters to a fine painting of Walden Pond. He had an impressive collection of books, but unlike mine, his were neat and orderly and did not appear to have been read for some time—if ever. His desk was much larger than mine and offered more writing room, a coffee maker, and a laptop. I wondered how I had been on campus a year without the thought of buying a new computer entering my head. I still had an old Acer with a monitor as wide as my entire desk and a CD-ROM that didn’t burn anything. I took what the college had given me because I didn’t have the money or the inclination to invest in anything better. Yet I knew I would need to address my computer situation soon. So many of my students were engrossed in their smartphones during class, though, that I realized the harm an obsession with the latest technology could bring. It’s not that I didn’t own a smartphone—I did—I just went out of my way not to become dependent on it. In fact, I was one of the few young people I knew who still had and used a landline.

  “I knew it was the same kid from the coffee shop. Want a cup? I charge just twenty cents.”

  I nodded. He was the only person in the world I knew who drank as much coffee as I did. He selected a filter from an enormous stack, heaping it with a massive scoop of coffee. Then he filled the coffee pot with a jug of filtered water, and we watched it brew in silence. As if observing an unwritten rule, we only began talking once it was finished.

  He handed me a Dodger’s cup that appeared as if it should have been thrown out ten years ago, but I said nothing. The coffee was quite good.

  “What was he doing working on a play, anyway?” he asked. “He was no lover of poetry.”

  I started to answer and then stopped. I really didn’t know the answer.

  “Don’t give me that screwy face,” he said. “I’m sure you wonder as much as I do, especially since this kid wasn’t exactly the artistic type.”

  “Well, of course I wonder as much as you do. I was his teacher!” I said.

  “I know. Look, I’m sorry. I should have said that first.”

  I took another sip of my coffee. “I realize it’s early in the semester, and I barely knew him, but he was my student, and I had concerns about him from the very beginning. You know I did.”

  “I know. That’s why I asked about the play. It doesn’t fit with what you told me,” said Lenny.

  “And there’s something else …” I said. I waited to make sure he was paying attention.

  Lenny put down his coffee cup. “If you were going for a dramatic pause, I got it.”

  I spoke quietly. “The night of the potluck, I came to campus to pick up a
few things from my office. When I got back to my car, I overheard an argument between a man and woman. Two students. I’m rather certain that one of them was Austin. The woman told Austin she could make his life a living hell.”

  Lenny leaned back in his chair. “How do you know it was Austin?”

  It was so like Lenny to miss the important part of what I was saying. “Because of something he said to me the first day of class. He said that he saw me. From the parking lot. But the crucial point here is that he may have been in danger.”

  “From a girl? I don’t know. I don’t see too many dangerous girls roaming the campus.”

  I had to agree with him. “It may be nothing; I realize that.”

  “But you’re right about one thing. A kid who doesn’t like poetry wouldn’t go out of his way to work at a place that essentially does poetry on a larger scale. Maybe he signed up for extra credit?”

  “No. He didn’t. That’s what makes it odd. Dan Fox said Austin signed up right away at the beginning of this semester.”

  Lenny tapped a pencil on his desk. “He didn’t work in the theater last year?”

  “He’s a freshmen.”

  “Hmm. Well, maybe it doesn’t matter that he was at the theater in the first place.” He tucked the pencil behind his ear. “Maybe it has nothing to do with why he died.”

  I shrugged. “I suppose not. I just hate to leave questions unanswered, especially when it comes to one of my students.”

  “If I were you, I would talk to Dan. He’ll tell you straight up what happened. More?” he asked, gesturing toward the coffee pot.

  I nodded, and he poured us both another cup.

  “That’s a good idea. I think I’ll go over there after class,” I said.

  “Let ’em out early,” Lenny said. “I’ll go with you. Isn’t it student appreciation week or something?”

  I laughed. “That was last week.”

  Someone tried Barb’s door across the hall, and Lenny shouted out, “Barb’s gone.”

  Giles poked his head through the door.

  “Giles!” I said, putting down my coffee cup. “Have you heard anything else?”

  Giles looked back and forth from Lenny to me and then walked into the office. “President Conner called me this morning. The police will be on campus today asking questions about Mr. Oliver.”

  “The police,” I said, coming to terms with the situation in my head.

  “They might even have some questions for you,” Giles continued.

  “For me,” I repeated.

  “Certainly,” said Giles. “You were one of his teachers and probably one of the last people to see him alive.”

  The severity of the situation overcame me, and I could do nothing but stare back blankly at Giles, my head cocked in an unconvincing attitude of neutral curiosity.

  Lenny reached over and patted my shoulder. “I believe what Giles is trying to say, Em, is that you are now officially under investigation.”

  I shrugged off his hand.

  “Hardly,” said Giles in his typical understated fashion. “Emmeline is no more under investigation than you or I. She just happens to be more directly involved because she was one of his professors.”

  “Still,” I said, recovering the use of my vocal cords, “Lenny is right about one thing. They are performing an investigation, which means they must think it’s possible that his death wasn’t an accident.”

  “Oh I wouldn’t go that far,” said Giles. “They’re not saying that someone killed him on purpose. They could be saying, though, that someone could be responsible for his death, and they are going to find out who.”

  Lenny looked in my direction. “That sounds like murder to me.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  Giles went over and slowly shut Lenny’s door. “Listen, you two. Perhaps you enjoy reading mystery novels in your free time or watching old whodunits on A and E Sunday afternoons or just take pleasure in how the word rolls off your tongues, but here, on campus, with a serious investigation underway, please do not toss around the word ‘murder’ so lightly. In a department such as ours, susceptible to creative whims and make-believe, it’s all the more important that we do not allow our imaginations to run away with us. Not only does it make us appear suspicious, it makes us look like crackpots.”

  “Crackpots, hah!” laughed Lenny. “Good one.”

  I shook my head.

  “Just be careful, Emmeline,” said Giles, more quietly. “You’re in a fragile state right now and you might be prone to certain … activities that would not serve you or your student. I know you want answers; it’s only natural. I want answers, and he wasn’t even my student. Be patient and tolerant, and they will come. I will make certain of that.”

  I nodded, and Giles turned and opened the door. “We’ll talk again. I have a class.”

  Lenny and I said nothing for several seconds. Then I turned toward Lenny.

  “The theater building, one hour?” I asked.

  “I’ll be there.”

  The entire class was waiting for me attentively when I arrived, thinking I knew more than they did about Austin’s death. In fact, I probably knew even less, since I hadn’t read through the entire article in the newspaper because I awoke late after my sleepless night. When I placed my text on the podium, the sound echoed in the still silence of the room, and I stood for a long moment with my hands folded across the book, not knowing what to say. Of course, duty eventually overcomes all things, and I began to speak.

  “I’m sure that most of you are aware that a classmate of yours, Austin Oliver, died on Saturday evening. He will be greatly missed in this classroom and on this campus. If you feel you need help coping with this situation, there is a free counseling service available to you, which is located in the Ronning Building—”

  “Do you know what happened?” asked Adam. He sat in the back row with Jared, the other fraternity boy.

  “No … not really,” I said, still in a daze. Someone coughed. I turned from the window. “He was working on an upcoming play. He was found in the campus theater.”

  Adam looked at Jared, who shrugged.

  “Did you have something you wanted to add, Adam?” I asked.

  “No, we—I mean I—just didn’t know he was into that. Theater.”

  “I think there was a lot more to Austin than any of us realized,” I said. “Had we the time to plumb the depths of his mind, we might have been surprised.”

  I asked for a moment of silence in Austin’s honor, and the class remained respectfully quiet. Then I opened my book, and a sigh of relief washed over the classroom. We were creatures of ritual, after all, all of us. It was nice to open a book and pretend that the troubles of the world outside could not and would not enter, even if they had once sat in the back row.

  After class, I stopped at the water fountain. As I stood there, getting a drink, I saw Adam and Jared talking outside a deserted classroom. I hung back, sitting down on the bench beside the restrooms and looking through my bag as if I were searching for an item of the utmost importance.

  Jared tossed his backpack over his one shoulder. “I told you he was a pussy.”

  “Being in a play doesn’t make someone a pussy,” said Adam.

  “Yeah, well, it doesn’t make him the tough SOB he acted like either,” said Jared, zipping his gray fleece. “I guess he isn’t so tough now.” He started toward the stairs, with Adam following quickly behind.

  I remained motionless for several moments, even after they had gone. I had a hard time liking that kid Jared. He was spoiled, arrogant, and predictable. There was a note of cruelty in nearly everything he said and wrote. It wasn’t the typical freshmen chip on the shoulder. I had a sense it was something more, but he seemed to have everything he could desire. Young men flocked to him the same way they flocked to Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Perhaps they admired his courage, or perhaps they were shocked by his brazen antics. Whatever the reason, a group of students followed him wherever he went; h
e was rarely alone.

  Adam was one of his groupies, certainly, but he was also a smart kid. I had a feeling that Adam did most of Jared’s homework but did not write Jared’s papers for one reason or another. Jared’s essays could have used his help. He tutored him, according to what I had heard. Adam, perhaps, was brought into the fraternity for that very reason. Many students in fraternities and sororities had a grade-point average they needed to achieve to remain in the house. Sororities and fraternities adhered to certain academic rules and traditions that could not be broken without breaking the aura that surrounded them.

  I stood and walked down the stairs, pausing momentarily near the Foreign Languages Department. I had no time to talk to André about the grant; I had to get to the theater. One of my students was dead, and I felt compelled to find out why.

  Chapter Eight

  What we called the theater building was actually the Grant C. Hofer Center for the Fine Arts, which housed not only our campus theater but also the Art and Music Departments. It was a large brick building, across the street from the rest of the campus. A bronze sculpture of what looked like a hammer took up much of the lawn in front and blocked the main entry; one had to circle around it to enter the double doors. There were two other side entries as well, but the front entry allowed easiest access to the main theater, where the major productions were held. Down one hallway were pianos, trumpets, and violins. Down the other were drawings, paintings, and flyers advertising the services of nude models for art classes.

  Lenny drove up in his aqua-blue Ford Taurus at the same time I was studying the hammer-like sculpture. I waited while he took his backpack out of the backseat and locked it in the trunk. Had I asked him what he was doing, he would have told me he didn’t want his intellectual property stolen. Honestly, though, I wondered what he had in there that needed to be kept under lock and key.