Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 06 - Death without Tenure

by Joanne Dobson

  Felicity poured herself a cup and sat down across from me at the kitchen table. “I think you know that I’m not here officially.”

  “I do know that. I also know that you’ve just bought yourself a world of trouble with Boylan.” I blew on the black coffee, which was still too hot to drink.

  “Ha!” She slammed her mug down. “Trouble! That son of a bitch put Lombardi down for suspension—conflict of interest; divulging information on an active investigation. Lombardi roared into the house a couple of hours ago—furious. Then a pal of his called from the barracks and said Boylan was on his way over here. I thought you shouldn’t be alone with him.”

  I huffed out my breath. “Thanks!”

  She regarded me with curiosity. “What the hell does he think he has on you?”

  I told her about the three strikes.

  “Bullshit! That stuff’s all circumstantial. He can’t make an arrest unless he’s got material evidence. Unless he can place you at the scene of the crime.”

  “Arrest? Me!” In my innocence, I’d been seeing only harassment in Boylan’s behavior. The word arrest shocked me into a new understanding of my vulnerability. This was not some abstract academic quarrel; it seemed I was in serious trouble in a homicide investigation. Would I ever get tenure after that?

  Felicity ran her fingers through her mop of short hair. “Why else go to a citizen’s home at this insane hour? We’re trained not to take such steps lightly.”

  “You really think he was here to arrest me?” One dominant consequence came to my horrified mind, and it had nothing to do with my innocence or my career. “But what,” I asked, “would happen to my mother?”

  “They would call elder services, probably.” She gazed at me solemnly. “But on second thought, I don’t think he would actually have arrested you. It would never hold up in court, and, whatever else Boylan is, he’s not stupid. But it sure as hell looks like he was trying to make you think you were in danger of that. It’s personal with him—it’s gotta be. You know, Karen, you really should report the fucker for harassment.”

  Abruptly she jumped up from the table and went into the living room. Standing at the fireplace, she selected a chunk of birch and settled it skillfully atop the glowing coals.

  I followed her in and, with a sigh, settled on the saggy couch. “Just what happened between him and Charlie, anyhow?”

  She stared at the coals, stirring them with the poker. “I don’t know for sure—there are rumors…” Her face went suddenly blank, cop-face, as if she’d just remembered something. “I think it had something to do with a prostitute.” She cleared her throat. “In any case, I wouldn’t be authorized to tell you.”

  “Okay, Felicity,” I said. “I get it. Something that would not reflect well upon the force. So, this guy’s a real problem, but he’s your senior colleague, and Lombardi’s already in trouble with him. What I want to know—doesn’t your coming here exacerbate the problem. You’ve just further antagonized him.”

  “Too late to think about that,” she retorted. “He was already antagonized to the max.” She’d removed her jacket and I could see black-and-white-and-red Scottie dog pajama tops sticking out at the neck and waist from beneath her oversized UMass sweatshirt. “You know, Boylan’s between a rock and a hard place here. He’s been simmering for months, and he’s too blinded by your connection to Piotrowski to be able to think straight. He’s ready to go after you on motive and opportunity alone, without hard evidence, all of which is against standard procedure. But Piotrowski’s a formidable enemy, and Boylan knows it. That’s one reason why I showed up here—to remind him of the consequences.” She finished her coffee and sat with her chin resting on her hand, elbow planted on the scrubbed pine table.

  We were unlikely allies. I’d first met Felicity five years earlier when she’d been assigned to shadow me undercover. I’d loathed her instantly, and she’d returned the emotion in full measure. But she was Charlie’s partner, and over the years we’d come first to a tepidly cordial détente and then to a grudging admiration of each other. Now I said to her, “I know you’re doing this for Charlie’s sake, not mine, but I want you to know how much I appreciate it.”

  She was looking exhausted, the silly Scottie pajama collar sticking up around her face, but she raised her head from her hand. “I know we didn’t always get along, Karen. But since you and Piotrowski have been together, I’ve gotten to know you better.” She fiddled with her coffee spoon, probably so she wouldn’t have to look me in the eye. “You’re okay…I think.”

  “Well, yeah. And you know what? I like you, too.”

  But she was frowning again, and cleared her throat. “That’s not to say you shouldn’t find yourself a good lawyer—and quick.”

  My heart jumped so far up my throat so fast that I almost choked on it.

  “Here’s what you tell the attorney. You think Boylan’s operating only on motive and opportunity. He’s forgetting about means. “How the hell would you, of all people, get hold of any peyote buttons—let alone enough for an overdose?”

  “Peyote? Is that what killed Joe?” Speculation had been rife on campus as to the means of death, but no one had come anywhere near guessing peyote. My god!

  “It’s assumed. Tox report isn’t in yet, but peyote buttons were found on the scene. And from what I hear, it takes a hell of a lot to o.d. on that stuff. Where would someone like you find that kind of drug?” She made a sweeping gesture toward the window that indicated my little barren plot of land and, by extension, the entire stony New England countryside. “Sure as hell don’t grow them cactuses nowhere around here.”

  “Those cacti,” I corrected her, automatically. I had a vague memory of seeing cactus plants.

  “I know that,” she said and grinned.

  A recent memory. Where had I seen them? I’d thought of something else, however, that I ought to tell her. “I know Joe did drugs—at least I know he smoked pot. That peyote might have been his. He never said what his tribe was, but out in the Southwest among the Navajo and Zuni, peyote is used in some religious ceremonials.”

  “So I understand,” Charlie’s young partner said. “So I understand.”

  Chapter 16

  Saturday, early a.m.

  Around 3:30 a.m., when her breast milk began to leak, Felicity went home. Wired, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I called up e-mail on my laptop. Wow! I already had twenty-seven more friend requests on Facebook. My former colleague, Stuart Horowitz, had written on my wall: Why don’t you ever come to Manhattan anymore? Out there in the wilds of Enfield you might as well be on the moon. I miss you.

  Stu was the consummate New Yorker. Aside from having done his graduate work at some state university out in the West that I couldn’t remember the name of, he hardly ever set foot outside Manhattan. I poked him, and went to bed. Then I lay awake until dawn began to lighten the room, my brain spinning.

  I’d done nothing more about my overdue tenure application, because I’d been focusing on trying to juggle classes, the care and feeding of my mother, and all the complications that had arisen from Joe’s death—including the extra course. My eyes refused to close: who would take Mom during my Monday classes? Was Ned—or would it be Miles—working on finding a new teacher for the Outsiders course? Why hadn’t I heard from Connie? When was she coming back? Was she ever coming back? It was days since I’d heard from Amanda. Was she now so spiritually enlightened that she’d cut all her earthly ties? Or was her battered and broken body lying at the bottom of some Himalayan crevasse? And…Charlie? Where was he? Why hadn’t he called again? I reached over to the bedside table and took up the framed photograph of him at the beach in Wellfleet. He was wearing his bathing suit and a soaked Springsteen tee. His blowing hair was lightened by the sun, and the ocean water dripping from his arms and legs highlighted well-developed muscles.

  How could I bear not seeing this man again for almost a year?

  And, then, just as the rising sun had me thinking about
getting up to make coffee, the true dilemma hit me—the real McCoy—the one I’d been blocking out by obsessing over everyday details and far-fetched fears: I was a suspect in a murder case, a case being investigated by a seemingly vengeful rival of my beloved Charlie. Was it really possible I might be arrested for homicide? Oh. My. God.

  Like a beacon in a pea-souper fog, a steely resolve began to emerge from my nighttime dithering: there was more at stake here than my tenure application or elder care or the pedagogical oversight of an orphaned American literature course. It was beginning to look like, if Lieutenant Neil Boylan had his way, I might well be charged with killing Joe Lone Wolf.

  Goddammit, I told myself, as I felt rage heat my veins, if I’m ever going to get my life back, I’m going to have to get serious and investigate this murder myself. Felicity’s support by itself won’t be sufficient. What could I do?

  First thing would be to talk to as many of my colleagues as possible, interview them, really, but make the interviews seem like casual gossip sessions. Next, get myself back into Joe’s office and look for evidence that might not have seemed significant to the police investigators. Third…Third? Well, third probably depended on the results of one and two.

  I took a deep breath. Then I fell sound asleep until nine, when my mother came into the room saying, in a voice very like her old-time self, “Karen, I simply don’t understand your coffee machine.”

  ***

  I parked downtown so I could leave Mom at the drop-in Eldercare program I’d found on the Internet: it was at the Enfield Congregational Church, and they called it a respite program. Respite, indeed. I hadn’t heard from Connie, didn’t have her cell-phone number, and couldn’t continue to impose on my friends. But respite was expensive; how on earth was I going to pay for it in the future?

  Mom’s short flash of clarity this morning just about broke my heart—because it was so short. We’d gotten through the coffee-making together and sat down at the table laughing like girls at the silly, overly complicated coffee machine. And, then, in a minute, between one sip and the next, she was gone, lost in the brain miasma that was obliterating her soul.

  Because the air was brisk and dancing with late October light, I left the Subaru at the church and walked through town to campus. Bread & Roses smelled of fresh bread and doughnuts as I powered by. Townsfolk and students mingled on the sidewalks, brushing elbows and nibbling the bakery’s special Saturday cinnamon rolls. I waded right through a clump of five or six freshmen girls. The one who was wearing a child’s silver birthday crown and carrying at least eighteen motley balloons scowled at me.

  My first stop on campus was Java Zone, the old coffee house on the far side of the academic buildings. It was modeled after a traditional rathskeller and had been there forever. Here I had the advantage over the police. They wouldn’t know that Saturday morning at Java Zone was schmooze time. Stress was high on campus during the week, and time was short; professors didn’t have the leisure for casual chats. But on Saturday a.m., faculty working in their offices or in the library gathered here mid-morning, for conversation more than for caffeine.

  I strolled in the back door, keeping an eye out for likely gossip sources. Immediately, however, I had to jump behind a wide distressed-wood pillar covered with a motley assortment of flyers: requests for rides, advertisements for mountain bikes, and posters for campus events. Lieutenant Neil Boylan, grim-faced, was standing in line at the cash register with Trooper Dunbar, the latter now also in street clothes, her short hair moussed into spikes. Behind the pillar I was face-to-face with a poster advertising a student poetry slam to be held in memory of Joe Lone Wolf that evening here at Java Zone. Okay, that would be phase three of my investigation—the poetry slam. Attending it would allow me to get a better fix on how the students felt about Joe.

  I stood there, behind the pillar, engrossed in “reading” the poster, hoping no one would come along and blow my cover. Fortunately I was close enough to the check-out counter to be within earshot of what the police were saying.

  “That Muslim kid, Alice something,” Boylan said. Today he wore ironed jeans and a blue blazer.

  “Ayesha,” Dunbar corrected him. Sporting gray sweats with ENFIELD plastered across her butt, she was evidently trying to pass as a student. “Ayesha Ahmed.” She was holding two cups of take-out coffee while he wielded a cash card.

  “Whatever. We gotta take a closer look at her. Those Arabs—”

  “She’s African, not Arab.” The trooper, an African-American who clearly did not like Boylan confusing the two ethnicities, was brusque.

  He frowned at her. “Whatever. There’s a good chance she’s some kind of extremist, you know, wearing that head towel—” He took the coffee she handed him.

  “Hijab.” She pronounced the two syllables carefully—heh-jaab—as if she were speaking to a developmentally impaired child.

  Boylan’s frown turned into a full-blown, focused scowl. “You’re pushing it, Dunbar.”

  “Sir,” she barked, military-style.

  As they left the coffee shop, I emerged from behind the pillar—just a moment too soon. Trooper Dunbar, who was following Boylan out, turned around in the doorway and looked straight at me. Her gaze was long, assessing, and grave. Then, raising both hands, she made a smoothing motion, as if covering her short, dark hair. It was some kind of a coded warning.

  As she turned back to depart the building, I felt my spine go cold—could Ayesha Ahmed be in even more trouble with Lieutenant Boylan than I was? I turned on my heel and headed for the dorm.

  ***

  “Professor?” Ayesha queried, frowning, as she opened to my knock. “What can I do for you?” She was alone in her dorm room, wearing jeans and a Barak Obama tee. Her feet were bare, as was her head, and her black hair was plaited in soft, thin braids. In short she looked like an American kid.

  I entered and closed the door behind me before I responded. Like most dorm rooms it was minimalist—two beds, two desks, two desk chairs, two dressers, one heaped with unfolded laundry, the other holding only a red-lacquered jewelry case, a bottle of Tea Rose Jasmine perfume, and a professionally photographed family portrait: mother, father, two young men and Ayesha. All were fashionably dressed and smiling—a handsome, prosperous, modern family.

  “Did you just get a call from the police?” I asked, out of breath. I had rushed over from Java Zone. After Boylan’s “extremist” remark, I had a sick feeling about how he might approach my student.

  “No,” she responded, looking puzzled. “I mean, a detective talked to me the other day about Professor Lone Wolf. That was all.” She motioned me to the desk chair, but I shook my head and remained standing. “There was nothing I could tell him. And no one’s called me since then.”

  “Good,” I said. “I think we should get out of here.” I stared over her shoulder at the family portrait in its wide gold frame; something about it seemed a little…unexpected.

  “Get out?” Her brow furrowed. “But I’m working on a poem for the slam tonight. I have to—” The phone rang, and she turned toward it; I grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t answer that—unless you want to be grilled by…by an ethnophobic detective.”

  “Grilled?” The phone kept ringing. “Because I’m Muslim?”

  A Yankees’ cap topped a pile of books on her roommate’s bed. I snatched it up and jammed it on her head. “Get your coat and shoes. We’re out of here.”

  She was still frowning, but she obeyed. The phone rang again as the door closed behind us. I could picture Boylan, cell phone slapped to his ear, striding across the noontime campus against a flow of lunchward-bound students and toward Ayesha’s dorm. “Hurry,” I said.

  Noon Saturday

  I took Ayesha home with me and made grilled-cheese sandwiches for lunch. In the car I’d explained to her what I’d heard Boylan say, that he thought she was likely to be an “extremist.”

  “Ha!” she replied. “Where have I heard that before? It’s the hijab, is
n’t it? What is it about Americans? Terrified of a piece of fabric not much bigger than a hand towel. What does he think? I have a warhead under there?”

  I let her have her say before I continued. “Then he said he was going to question you again. What do you want to do?”

  “Do?” She was so calm it astonished me.

  “I may have overreacted in coming to warn you,” I replied. “But I know from personal experience that this guy is a…,” then I decided it might behoove me not to go around using words like “jerk” about members of Massachusetts law enforcement “…that the lieutenant can make things uncomfortable for anyone he suspects.” I shrugged. “I wanted to give you a chance to go home and speak to your parents—or, if you stay here at the college, to talk to Dean Johnson. Or you could simply take the time to prepare your story, which you’ll probably need as soon as you get back on campus.”

  “My story?” She sat across from me at the kitchen table with her perky braids sticking out from beneath the oversized Yankees cap. She wasn’t reacting at all as I’d expected she would. No fear. No hysteria. As a matter of fact, a small lopsided smile seemed to indicate that she was…what?…amused.

  “Professor Pelletier,” she said, “you are very sweet to worry about me, but I assure you that I’m in no danger from your police lieutenant.”

  “But…”

  Ayesha smiled widely, teeth regular and creamy in her dark face. She evidenced a level of poise and maturity unusual in a woman of twenty. “I had nothing to do with Professor Lone Wolf’s death. I’m perfectly innocent. I do not think your state policeman will give me any trouble. But if he does, well…” Her dark eyes were inward-looking, her expression unreadable. “…if he causes me problems, I have family resources to fall back on.”