The Black Door

by Collin Wilcox

  “Well, I’ve never really—”

  “I’ll make a bargain with you,” she said suddenly, her eyes snapping with brisk calculation. “I’ll exchange an interview with me about Roberta Grinnel for an interview with you about ESP.” It was a statement, not a request. And, besides, the exchange sounded promising.

  I thought for a moment and then said, “I’ll agree to that, but only under one condition.”

  “What’s that?” She popped a macaroon into her mouth.

  “That you interview me some other time but right now. You see, I’ve got an appointment at two o’clock, and …”

  She waved a hand. “Agreed.”

  “Good.” I paused, trying to collect the scattered threads. “You may or may not know it, Miss Stephenson, but Roberta Grinnel was found murdered in a man’s apartment, under circumstances that were, ah, compromising, to say the least.”

  She nodded attentively. “I gathered that from the noon news.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes.” I’d momentarily forgotten about radio newscasts, a common failing of newspaper reporters.

  “Were you aware that she was carrying on an affair with this man?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Yes and no, I’d say.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, Roberta was a pretty reliable topic of conversation around here, in spite of the fact that she kept pretty much to herself. It was more or less common knowledge that she didn’t sleep here one or two nights a week, although she always made it by reveille, so to speak. So the conclusion was obvious. But she didn’t flaunt it, and as a result she got away with it. With the school authorities, I mean.”

  “I’m told that there’re no hours here at Bransten, no check-in, or housemothers.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. However, it’s not quite as simple as that. The idea is that the students are supposed to govern themselves and their own morals, by means of student government and social pressures. If someone persists in playing a radio late at night, for instance, it’s brought up at the precinct level, you might say. The same thing is true of morals offenders.”

  “Then you do punish morals offenders.”

  Frowning, she took a moment to think about it. Then, with a small, out-of-patience sigh, she said, “We do, if the offense constitutes a nuisance to the community, like playing the radio too loud. And, of course, there’s a pressure in the direction of conventional, healthy moral behavior, just like there is anywhere else. That’s a common misconception about Bransten, that it’s morally permissive. Actually, it isn’t; it just handles the morality problem differently, by assuming that the student is adult enough to take some responsibility for his own behavior, and, to a certain extent, the behavior of others. The result is—” She swallowed another macaroon, which seemed to be her favorite. “The result is that Bransten isn’t any less moral than any other college, and probably a lot more moral than some, believe me. It’s quite possible, in fact, that the moral climate at Bransten is really healthier than most places. Take Roberta, for instance. It’s true, she was in and out of lots of boys’ rooms; there’s no question about it. But, given her particular predispositions, she’d’ve acted much the same at any college, just as soon as she was separated from Daddy. The only difference is, at most colleges, she’d’ve spent most of her time in the boiler room of some fraternity house, feeling basically even guiltier, with the result that she’d’ve been an even sicker person psychologically.” She looked at me didactically, a dumpy pedagogue in blue jeans. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes,” I answered, impressed. “You make yourself very clear.” I decided not to press the compliment further, since she seemed to distrust praise or flattery.

  “Assuming that she was carrying on an affair with the man with whom she was found, was she also going around with anyone here on campus, that you know of?”

  “Oh, sure,” she answered readily. “Several. Or, rather, several boys were completely gone on her, and she didn’t do anything to discourage it, as long as they didn’t press her too hard for possession. That’s one thing about Roberta, she might’ve played rough with the boys, but she played fair.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She didn’t give them any false hopes or herself any unfair advantages. Most girls, as you probably know, make devastating use of their looks and their desirability. Or, to put it another way, the average girl uses the man’s sex drive against him, for her own ends. Roberta didn’t do that, in spite of the fact that, objectively, she was a really gorgeous, desirable girl. Maybe that’s the reason—she didn’t have to be reassured.” Her glance flickered aside, involuntarily a little pensive. “The rest of us, I’m afraid, have to have constant reassurances that we’re desirable to men. So we tease them a little, make them beg. It’s all part of the game, as I’m sure you know.” Again, briefly, her eyes wavered aside as she thought about it. Reluctantly, I had to admire her uncompromising insight. I wondered how many chances she’d had to tease the boys and therefore confirm her own desirability.

  Finally, a little subdued, she summed up, “Basically, I think Roberta wanted to always have the initiative with men. Which isn’t, of course, an especially feminine characteristic. It does, however, go with the Electra complex.”

  I nodded. I was beginning to get hungry and a little impatient to get away from the psychology, in spite of its revealing insight.

  “Was there any boy here at Bransten that Roberta saw more of than any other?” I asked. “Or one that seemed more in love with her than any other?”

  She thought about it, now eating a cream-filled cookie.

  “There’s John Randall. I gather that she’d go back to him, from time to time, and he’d go back to her. John himself is like her, in many ways, basically self-centered, attractive, and inclined to be rough on the opposite sex. Maybe that’s why they got along. They played by the same rules.”

  I nodded, making a mental note of the name. Then, responding to an impulse, I said, “Do you know Roberta’s brother, Miss Stephenson?”

  “Yes.” She almost snapped out the single word.

  “What kind of a person is he?”

  The answer came promptly, as if she were reading from a prepared text. “He’s a semi-hysterical, ineffective, spoiled, unattractive brat who spent his entire life in the shadow of either his sister or his father, and who therefore doesn’t have any sense of self-identity whatever. As a result, ever since he came here, he’s been strutting around like a little Hitler, imitating, I suppose, his illustrious father.” Her lip curled as she took a deep breath. It was the first time I’d seen her show any real feelings or convictions. My impression was that she was reacting mostly to Grinnel’s politics, which she obviously despised.

  She began again. “Bobby and Roberta, each in their different ways, are practically textbook examples of what happens to a child when he has the misfortune to have someone like Robert Grinnel for a father. As infants and young children, he undoubtedly gave them constant overdoses of himself, and his—” she hesitated, but only briefly—“his satanic, messianic, self-righteous charisma, and they’ve been stuck with it ever since. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ he must have announced every morning at the breakfast table. ‘Suffer them to come unto me, just as soon as they’ve become perfect little Aryans.’”

  Again her lip curled, and now her breathing was quicker. But her voice was controlled as she finished. “The only problem being, of course, that there’s no such thing as perfection. A child doesn’t know it, but an adult does, or should. So it’s the crudest thing you can require of a child. Result: Bobby has been trying to get Daddy’s attention ever since, and Roberta’s been trying to make love to Daddy. Subconsciously, of course. And, in addition, Roberta has been trying to castrate Bobby, to show up the competition, and Bobby’s probably been trying to—” she paused, her eyes wayward with sudden reflection—“trying to kill her,” she said softly. “Figuratively, of course.”

  I exhaled
. “Of course.”

  “In other words,” she was saying, by way of explanation, “sibling rivalry. It’s nothing new, of course.”

  “Of course,” I answered automatically. “Well—” I rose to my feet. “You’ve been a really tremendous help, Miss Stephenson. Really tremendous. I think I could’ve gone through the entire student body and not found anyone as—as intelligent and articulate as you are. And I want to thank you.”

  She bounced off the bed, walking with me to the door. “You’re welcome,” she said briskly. “Now, what about my interview with you?”

  “Oh, yes.” I’d hoped she’d forgotten. “Well, I’m going to be pretty busy for the next day or two, probably. How about if I call you next week?”

  She thought about it, and said: “I’ll call you. At the Sentinel?”

  Resigned, I nodded.

  “Good,” she said decisively. “I’ll probably be downtown next Wednesday afternoon. I’ll give you a call ahead of time. I should think an hour would be enough. Can we talk in your office?”

  “Well, ah, I don’t have an office. But we can find a conference room somewhere, I’m sure.”

  “Good.” Suddenly she smiled, and suddenly I decided she wasn’t such a terrible brat after all. Just fat and probably lonely. She put out her hand, and we sealed the bargain.

  “I’ll call you Wednesday,” she repeated.

  “Fine. I’ll put it on the calendar. And thanks again. You should write books.”

  “Someday I will,” she said, without the slightest doubt.

  I nodded. “I believe you. Good-by.”

  “Good-by.”

  As I walked down the hallway, I heard another giggle. I smiled and continued toward the door, softly whistling to myself.

  5

  CAMPION AND I SPENT the next hour in the coffee shop, discussing the case and swapping oddments of information. I offered for trade my character sketches of Roberta and Bobby Grinnel. Campion offered the information that, reportedly, Roberta had spent the earlier part of her last night at an informal drinking session, attended by herself, John Randall and another couple. If I’d been fortunate in finding an acute student of psychology for my character sketches, apparently Campion had been fortunate in finding the campus gossip.

  According to Campion’s information John Randall, Roberta Grinnel, and the other couple took a bottle of bourbon, four glasses and potato chips into the office of the student literary magazine, on which Randall worked as advertising manager and Roberta sometimes worked as an artist. The hour was about 8 P.M. The occasion, supposedly, was the completion of the magazine’s current issue, and the four students were celebrating. Although nothing was known of the actual party, there was much speculation on what might have happened. Apparently the furnishings of the office included two couches, and the lights in the office weren’t seen all night. But, in any case, it was rumored that Roberta left the party about ten thirty, for an unknown reason. She was observed crossing the campus to the students’ parking lot, and driving off in her car—fast. From this, the campus gossips concluded that there’d been an argument, and that she’d left angry. Probably, then, she’d gone to the Quiet Place, where she’d met Pastor, either by accident or design. They’d gone to Pastor’s apartment, where the killer had found them.

  As we walked across the broad quadrangle toward the conference room designated for the dean’s news briefing, I asked Campion, “Did you try to get hold of John Randall?”

  He shook his head. “There wasn’t time. Besides, I understand the college authorities are practically incarcerating the kids involved in the party until they’re liberated.”

  “Liberated?”

  “Bailed out by either a member of the family or the family’s lawyer or duly appointed local representative. It’ll be interesting to see what Johnson says about it.”

  “If you ask the question, though, you tip your hand. The TV guys might not know about the party. And Dan Kanter didn’t make it out here, apparently.” As I spoke, I eyed four TV men converging from another tangent.

  Campion shrugged. “It wouldn’t be printable in any case, I don’t think. And by the time it is printable, the story’ll be all over. I just thought I’d mention it to shake Johnson up if things get too academic.”

  “Yes, I see what you—” I paused, then pointed to a police cruiser pulling up ahead of us. Leisurely, Lieutenant Ramsey and Carruthers got out of the car, nodded to us as we drew closer, and then entered the administration building.

  “I’ll bet you anything,” Campion said, “that those three students are somewhere inside there, and Ramsey and Carruthers are going to interview them right now. What’ll you bet?”

  I shrugged. We were now entering the building, filing down the hallway to the nearby conference room. The detectives were already out of sight. Wherever they’d gone, it wasn’t far from the main entrance hallway.

  We entered the conference room and arranged ourselves around a huge golden oak table. I was surprised to see only a handful of reporters present. Perhaps, I speculated, I’d made a mistake leaving headquarters. And it bothered me that Kanter wasn’t with us. Because, invariably, Dan was in the right place at the right time.

  “I wonder where Bobby Grinnel’s hiding out? No one seems to’ve seen him,” Campion said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s still downtown.”

  “I wonder if we can smoke?” He looked around.

  “I don’t see any ash trays. Do you?”

  I also looked, saying, “Uh, uh.”

  We sat idly for several moments, in a cigaretteless silence. Finally, after eying me obliquely, Campion asked, “Are you planning on getting any, ah, extraterrestrial assistance on this story?”

  I appreciated the way he put it. For Campion, the question was tentative and polite.

  I shrugged. Then, seeing another reporter light a cigarette, I promptly took out my own pack, offering a cigarette to Campion and taking one for myself.

  “Well?” he said through thick smoke. “Are you?”

  I thought involuntarily of the haunted look in Bobby Grinnel’s eyes as he’d gone down the passageway toward the black door.

  “It’s not the kind of thing you can plan on,” I answered. “You either get it or you don’t.”

  “My impression was that you had to work at it, like any other job.”

  “I guess that’s true. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that much about it. For all I know, it’ll never happen again.”

  “Your publicity department will never permit it.”

  I smiled ruefully. “You may be right.” I glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes after two. “What’s keeping Dean Johnson, I wonder?”

  “Undoubtedly, he’s talking to Ramsey and Carruthers.”

  “Probably.” I drew at my cigarette.

  “God,” Campion said, “wouldn’t it be something if this John Randall kid turned out to be it? His father is president of Farnsworth University. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Just think of it,” Campion said, waving his cigarette in a short, animated arc. “Just think how it could’ve happened: Randall’s secretly in love with the girl, see? Desperately. And all this time she’s been giving him the shaft, and gradually it’s gotten to him. Let’s say she’s been seeing this musician for months, which your plump friend’s statement seems to confirm. So it’s been gradually eating on Randall, see? So last night, there they are, drinking in the publications office, and doing some heavy necking, at least. Maybe they’re even in separate rooms, for all we know. So then, with Randall all in a lather, they get into some kind of an argument. Or maybe she just announces, coolly, that it’s time for her to go, that she’s got a late date. It sounds like something she might do. So off she goes. And off goes Randall—off his rocker. He follows her secretly, and maybe he keeps on drinking. So then—” Campion paused, drawing hastily on his cigarette, his eyes bright with the pleasure of invention. “So then, he breaks in on them.
And he—”

  “And he murders them with his bare hands, without making a sound,” I interrupted. “Like any red-blooded American boy would do in the same situation.”

  “Why do you say ‘bare hands’?” Campion quickly asked. “You haven’t been withholding information, have you, old buddy?”

  “I’m being facetious.”

  “You could be facetious and also right, though. The girl was strangled; that much’s for certain. And the man looked like his neck was broken. It could be that—” Lost in thought, his voice trailed off.

  “We didn’t see Pastor’s front side,” I reminded him. “He could’ve been stabbed.”

  “He could have. But there wasn’t any blood. And not only that, but—”

  An inside door opened, and Henry Johnson, the dean of students, entered the room, unaccompanied. Some of us rose, some of us half rose, and some of us merely muttered. About to sit down, Johnson noticed our cigarettes. He went to a nearby cupboard and took out a stack of small crystal ash trays. One of the TV men distributed the ash trays as Johnson, nodding his thanks, took a seat at the head of the table.

  “I’m sorry to’ve kept you waiting, gentlemen. I had, ah, an unexpected chore to perform.”

  “May we start by asking the nature of the chore?” someone asked.

  Johnson glanced at the questioner with quick eyes, completely unclouded by his sixty-odd years. Then he smiled, taking a brief, thoughtful moment to survey us before he spoke.