by Glen Ebisch
She had only arrived in Boston that day, and even America, where guns were as common as dandelions in the spring, did not offer them to the uninitiated on every street corner. She’d have needed time and connections, both of which seemed lacking. He could more easily imagine her hitting Underwood over the head with the cricket trophy; however, she hadn’t been in the country at the time. And the possibility he had discussed with Lieutenant Thornton of Nora having an accomplice, while it explained some things, still seemed pretty speculative.
That got Charles to thinking about who else might have gained by Underwood’s death. It did seem as though Greg Wasserman had a better chance at an endowed chair now that Underwood had left the scene, but what would he have gained by killing Sylvia Underwood? He probably should have mentioned Greg’s possible involvement to Thorndike yesterday, but it had slipped his mind. Probably selective forgetting because telling her would have made him feel like a snitch. But he decided to tell her at the next opportunity.
Finally, as much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t come up with a motive for Ernest Ritter to have killed Sylvia either. He clearly benefitted from Underwood’s death, but not Sylvia’s. In addition, if Sylvia had had evidence that either one of these men was guilty of killing her husband, she would surely have told the police, and not put her life at risk by remaining silent.
Charles pulled into the church parking lot and went down the stairs to the basement. This time John was waiting for him.
“About time you got here, Professor. These tables don’t set themselves up, you know.”
Charles ignored him and walked over to where the pile of tables was leaning against the wall. He took one end and waited until John did his jumpy little hippity-hop walk over and took the other end. Without speaking they worked their way down the room, putting the tables into place. Soon enough they were down to the last one. Although John hadn’t spoken, Charles sensed that the man was getting more and more agitated.
“You know, I don’t like you much, Chuck,” John whispered, coming to within arms’ reach and poking a finger in his direction.
Charles gave him a slow look. “The name is Charles and you can’t imagine how little that means to me,” he replied.
John’s right arm went back, and although Charles hadn’t been in a fight in his adult life, his time on the Amherst boxing team told him to expect a long right hook, the punch of most inexperienced brawlers. He ducked and John’s arm went over his head. Ducking under it, Charles seized John’s arm and pulled it up behind him while shoving his face into the basement wall. John gave a grunt of pain as Charles pulled his arm higher.
“Go ahead, break my arm, see if I care,” the man hissed defiantly. “I can handle pain.”
“Oh, I’m not going to break your arm, but if you try that again, I will tell Nancy that you tried to hit me. She’ll fire you, and I suspect this job means something to you.”
“And I’ll say it never happened!”
“And which of us do you think she’ll believe?”
The fight went out of the man like the deflating of a balloon. Charles figured that this job was about the only thing in his life that gave John a semblance of dignity, and he wouldn’t want to risk losing it. Although not proud of getting into a physical altercation with this down-and-out guy, Charles did feel a sense of satisfaction that his point had been made with greater clarity than would have been possible with a lengthy exchange of ideas. The intellectual’s approach to things was not always the most direct or effective.
He let go of John’s arm. The man slid along the wall and walked away without looking back at him. How their relationship would develop in the future seemed up for grabs. It could make working here more difficult. Charles walked over to the serving table, lost in thought over whether there was any way to make amends to John in a way that wouldn’t insult him more.
“So you did come back!” a voice exclaimed in his ear.
Charles jumped and saw Karen Melrose standing right next to him.
“Sorry to surprise you. I just couldn’t believe you actually returned.”
“I told you I would,” Charles replied, slightly hurt that he’d been doubted.
“People say all sorts of things.”
“I don’t,” Charles wanted to reply, but decided that sounded too pompous.
“I’ve got something for you,” Karen said with an almost flirtatious smile as she motioned for him to follow her. Reluctantly, he walked behind her across the basement to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door and took out a large paper bag. Inside was a metal pan. She slowly lifted the aluminium foil covering it to show him a cake of some kind. Charles stared at it.
“You did say it was your favourite,” she said accusingly, when he didn’t immediately respond. “It’s a blueberry crunch.”
“Of course it is,” Charles said, smiling brightly. He vaguely remembered at some point in yesterday’s conversation having said he liked blueberry crunch.
Karen handed it to him. “It’s for you.”
“Why thank you,” he said, forcing high wattage into his smile.
“Now I’ll leave it right here in the refrigerator, but don’t forget to take it with you when you go.”
“I won’t forget,” he promised.
He hurried back out to the serving line. Once again Karen got the spot right next to him. She told him more about her late husband, who had been an accountant, and bragged a bit about her son and daughter: one was a dentist and the other a lawyer. He couldn’t remember which was which. Feeling a burning need for levity at any price, he almost asked her which one she thought inflicted more pain on people, but decided that, given Karen’s sense of humour, such a comment would be poor payment for the blueberry crunch.
But he spent much of the time feeling trapped, as though the smiling, chatting, Karen Melrose was pulling him into her web one fine conversational strand at a time. For one crazy moment he even envied the men in the food line who, although poor and mostly homeless, were free. When the lunch was over, and he had once again pushed the food around his plate leaving most of it unconsumed, he helped the now completely uncommunicative and sulking John put the tables away.
He was heading for the door to leave when Karen called across the length of the basement, “Now, don’t forget your blueberry crunch.”
Several of the other women, although they kept their faces toward their tasks, smiled. Charles had the sinking feeling that he and Karen were well on their way to becoming an item. As he walked across the room, carrying the bag in front of him, an obvious sign that he and Karen were linked together by the bond of food, he thought that an invitation for her to come home with him and share a piece of crunch would have been quickly accepted. He admitted reluctantly to himself that the idea of such companionship wasn’t completely unpleasant, but he couldn’t find the will to place the noose of a relationship around his own neck.
Chapter Sixteen
After his morning run with Greg, where Charles, to his delight, managed to eke out five more blocks than yesterday, he returned home, showered, and spent a leisurely hour over his breakfast, the newspaper, and coffee. When the phone rang, he was surprised to see by the German cuckoo clock on the kitchen wall that it was already nine-fifteen.
“This is Lois in Dean Carruthers’ office. Would you be able to come in to meet with the Dean at ten o’clock this morning?”
Although tempted to say that he couldn’t fit it into his busy social schedule, Charles decided that would be childishly spiteful, so instead he agreed. He quickly got ready and enjoyed his brief ride through the Berkshire Hills where the light greens of spring were already beginning to darken into the deeper hues of summer. Living among the hills and valleys might incline one toward being insular and having a certain narrowness of aspiration compared, for example, to western landscapes where one could see to the distant horizon. But there was something comforting and reassuring about living on a more human scale. Perhaps your dreams were smaller
, but they tended to avoid the megalomania of those with fewer natural boundaries.
When he walked up to the Dean’s secretary’s desk, she glanced up at him, and then did a double take. Her second look seemed to Charles to be somewhat flirtatious. Although half-believing he was imagining it, Charles wondered why she would suddenly take such an interest in him. It was true that when teaching he had worn a jacket and tie, one of the last holdouts on maintaining a faculty dress code, and now he was wearing a soft knit shirt with casual chinos. Did he suddenly appear more accessible, more masculine? He also remembered that Lois was divorced, and so she might be looking for an eligible partner. He returned her smile with a polite one of his own, unsure how much encouragement he wanted to give her. He also wondered if it was a sign of creeping senility that he thought every woman he met had designs on him.
Lois went into the Dean’s office to announce him, and a second later she motioned for him to come in. She gave Charles yet another smile as he walked past, which he answered with a friendly nod.
“Good to see you again so soon,” Carruthers said, meeting him in the middle of the large room and shaking his hand. He directed Charles to a seat, and then settled in right across from him.
“I could have told you this on the telephone, but I wanted it to be in person. The College has awarded you the title of professor emeritus.”
The Dean looked at him expectantly.
Charles knew that everyone who taught at Opal College for at least twenty years and didn’t retire under a cloud received emeritus status, so he found it hard to muster much excitement. But he did manage a smile. It seemed to him that it had been granted very quickly.
“Thank you. Remind me of what the benefits are of being emeritus.”
“Well,” the Dean began as if they were almost too numerous to mention, then he paused as if trying to recall exactly what they were. “Of course, it allows you to officially say you are a professor emeritus which gives you a certain stature.”
“Right. Anything else?”
“You are entitled to use the College athletic facility for free.”
Charles decided that might actually be valuable. In the winter, when running outdoors would be unpleasant, he could always run on the indoor track, if he didn’t mind being observed by students.
“You are also entitled to office space on campus.” A light bulb seemed to go off over the Dean’s head and he smiled smarmily. “In fact we’ve decided that as a particular token of the school’s appreciation, you will be allowed to continue using your old office. We’re sure it has many memories for you.”
And no one else will take it, Charles thought. A murder scene office would definitely go begging. Even if most academics didn’t believe in ghosts, they did believe in prestige. Whoever took that office would be admitting they didn’t deserve anything better.
“Thanks,” he said politely.
The Dean stood and put out his hand again.
“Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you. And if you do take up research again, we would be happy to have you give a presentation on campus.”
“That would be nice. One last thing, it seems to me my emeritus came rather fast. Was there a reason for that?”
Carruthers cleared his throat and looked a shade embarrassed.
“President Simpson felt it was the least we could do under the circumstances.”
Charles nodded. The President of the college, an American historian, had always admired Charles’ work. It was nice to know that he was appreciated on some level.
Charles left the office, gave Lois a last lingering smile, and headed back to his car. He still had all his stuff from the office in the trunk, boxed up exactly as Underwood had done it on that fateful day. He drove around to the English Building and, leaving the picture of Barbara on the seat so he wouldn’t forget to have the glass replaced, he carried the box up the back stairs to his office. Since he had never turned in his key, it was easy to get inside.
He settled into his reliable old desk chair and sat for a moment waiting to see if the office felt any different to him after the traumatic event that had recently taken place there. After a few moments, he decided that the old place was the same as ever, and he wouldn’t be bothered by the memory of finding Underwood’s body behind this very desk. Charles was an agnostic on the question of whether places where violent events had occurred gave off particular vibrations. He’d never experienced any himself, but he kept an open mind on whether others who were more sensitive to such things might do so. One thing was certain; there wouldn’t be any competition for this office. Maybe in the distant future a new hire unaware of its history could be suckered into taking it, but until then it was his for as long as he wanted it. Although keeping an office seemed to go against his policy of making a clean break with his former employer, Charles liked the idea of having somewhere to go other than home. Who knows, he thought, maybe someday he’d even start writing again.
Charles slowly unpacked the box, returning everything to its accustomed place. Even the rubber snake he had confiscated over twenty years ago from the male student who had thought it would make him popular to terrorize the female students. His efforts among the women had met with little success, but for the sake of class discipline Charles had taken the snake, and there it had stayed in the front of the top middle drawer ever since. He had just put the last of his pens in the drawer when Andrea walked past and looked inside.
“Is this Charles Bentley I see or his doppelganger?” she asked, smiling.
“It’s the man himself.”
“I thought you didn’t want anything more to do with the College.”
“Well, they made me a professor emeritus and the office came along with it, so I figured why not?
“Congratulations. I suspected you’d get it, but there’s always the possibility that some administrator you’d offended over the years would block things.”
Andrea walked in the office and sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk.
“Here to work on your article?” Charles asked.
She nodded. “Better to work here than at home where I can always find a distraction. Some days I find I’d even rather clean house than write. I guess crime has been keeping you busy lately. I hear you found another body.”
Charles nodded sombrely. “Sylvia Underwood. I seem to be the innocent bystander to every murder that happens.”
“Do the police have any idea who killed her?”
“I don’t think so, and I have eliminated several suspects.”
“Oh, you’re working with the police now?”
“We consult occasionally, but I’m conducting my own investigation, purely armchair.”
“And whom have you eliminated while sitting in your armchair?”
“Ernest Ritter.”
“Why?”
“He may have had a motive to kill Garrison Underwood, but I couldn’t think of any reason for him to murder Sylvia.”
“Makes sense. I’m sure you hated to cross him off your list.”
“Indeed. I also decided that Greg Wasserman may have had a motive to kill Garrison, but he too had no reason to kill Sylvia.”
“How is Greg involved in this?” asked Andrea with a puzzled expression.
Charles explained about the Opal chair being given to English instead of science.
“Wow! To do something that drastic the Dean really must have been desperate to get Underwood to come here. The science division has to be furious.”
“With Greg leading the way, I believe. But, as I said, he had nothing against Sylvia.”
“What about Nora Chapman? Rumour has it that she was furious with both Underwoods.”
“She was certainly angry at Garrison for leaving England in an attempt to avoid responsibility for his soon-to-be-born daughter. I don’t know if she was angry with Sylvia, but she probably thought that her child should inherit part of Garrison’s estate. Now, with Sylvia dead, the child might well get
all of it.”
“That gives her a prize motive for murder,” Andrea said.
“She’s a good suspect for killing Sylvia, but not for Garrison.”
Charles went on to tell her what he had learned from Lieutenant Thorndike about Nora’s arrival being too late for her to have killed Garrison. He also presented the scenario that Nora had had an accomplice.”
“I like the idea of a male accomplice. I saw Nora around campus yesterday. When she’s not pregnant, she would be a very attractive woman. A lot of men might fall under her spell.”
“I see you don’t subscribe to the view that pregnancy makes every woman beautiful,” Charles said.
Andrea shrugged. “There’s beauty and there’s beauty. I don’t think a pregnant woman is all that sexually desirable to men. Once Nora has her figure back, that would be another story.”
Andrea checked her watch. “I’d like to take you out to lunch and play Sherlock Holmes some more, but I have a commitment today.” She stood up. “But I promise we’ll get together soon.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” he replied.
Charles watched her as she walked out the door. When he’d been on the faculty, they’d eaten together at least once a week, which hadn’t happened since his retirement. Of course, that was only a couple of days ago. Maybe he was making much out of a little. Still, the thought occurred to him that, when he had been in a position as a senior faculty member to help Andrea, she had paid more attention to him. Now that he had been kicked to the curb, she seemed a shade less concerned with maintaining their friendship. He shook his head and decided that he was being ungenerous. People did get caught up in things, and Andrea was in the middle of writing an article that could be important to her career.
“Are you busy?” a woman said from his doorway.
