Death in an Ivory Tower (Dotsy Lamb Travel Mysteries)

by Maria Hudgins

  Georgina was clearly shocked at the crime, an anomaly in a town where crime usually meant bicycle theft. “Lindsey Scoggin, you say? That’s Claire’s mother?”

  “Dr. Lindsey Scoggin. Why? Do you know her?” It would be too coincidental, I thought, to have mentioned the shooting to someone who actually knows the victim. Lindsey was new in town and hadn’t had time to make more than a few acquaintances.

  “The name sounds familiar, but I don’t know where I’ve heard it. Oh, wait! At my friend’s house this morning. On the telly! It was all over the news.” She slapped her hand against her forehead. “That was Claire’s mum?”

  Our conversation wandered onto Georgina herself and what she was doing in Oxford. She was a student, she told me, of Keble College and would soon begin her third and final year. Keble was widely regarded as the ugliest of Oxford’s forty colleges, she said. Reading chemical engineering, she hoped to work in pharmaceuticals (which she pronounced “pharma-CUTE-icals”) upon graduation.

  “Speaking of pharmaceuticals,” I said, giving the word the American pronunciation, “I take it you know Dr. Bunsen.”

  Her expression froze for a second. “Why? I mean, I know he’s a fellow here, and he’s staying for the summer. I see him around.”

  “You were in his rooms last evening. I heard you because his window was open. I wasn’t snooping. I was looking for the back gate and Dr. Bunsen’s rooms are directly over that walk. I heard you say, ‘If looks could kill, I’d be dead right now.’”

  Georgina flashed me an incredulous sneer of the sort you get when someone is desperately buying time. “Last evening? What time last evening?”

  “About dusk. About six-thirty.”

  She stared at her feet for a second before answering. “Right. I was there. I went up to see him because I’m writing a paper on liver enzymes and I need some reliable sources. What I meant . . . what I was talking about when I said that . . . was this girl I caught trying to nick my iPhone.”

  I decided to let that pass as if I believed her. “I gather, from the fact that your last name is Wetmore, it’s Harold rather than Daphne to whom you are actually related.”

  “What’s keeping Claire? Do you think we should go up?” Georgina looked toward Staircase Thirteen, then returned to my question. “Right. Uncle Harold and my father are brothers. My parents live out Cowley Road. I’m staying with them until Michaelmas,” she said. Michaelmas was Oxford’s word for the fall school term.

  “Perhaps we’d better check on the kids,” I said.

  We met Claire clattering down the stairs. “Caleb’s crying. Can you come up?”

  “What about?”

  “He’s afraid Mommy’s dead.”

  I lunged ahead of Georgina and clambered up the last two flights. “You have the key, Claire. Open the door.”

  We found little Caleb lying face up on my bed, tears streaking across his cheeks and into his ears. After a minute of cuddling, he consented to stop crying long enough to talk to Grandma Lettie on the phone.

  I called her. Before I handed the phone to Caleb, Lettie gave me the latest news. “She’s out of surgery but they’ve got her in intensive care. They’ve put a breathing tube down her throat and a drainage tube in her side. They’re worried about fluid collecting in her chest. Oh, Dotsy! They let me peek in for one second and I just about passed out! She looks awful.”

  Hiding my gut reaction, I said, “Caleb is so worried about his mom. He’s right here beside me. Could you talk to him and tell him she’s going to be fine?”

  Caleb took the phone and swung his feet off the side of the bed. He listened, mumbling an occasional, “Yeh,” between hiccups and sniffles. Then, he said, “Are you sure? Are you really sure?” Apparently Lettie told him she was sure because Caleb said, “Okay, bye,” and handed me the phone.

  Lettie said, “That was tough. Does he look all right now?”

  I assured her he did.

  “Can we come to the hospital now, Grandma?” Claire said, loudly enough for the phone to pick up her words.

  “Stall them for an hour, Dotsy. Then bring them out.”

  “You sure?”

  “Give me an hour. I’ll figure out how to handle it. Claire is too smart to believe us if we lie to her.”

  “You got that right!”

  While Claire took her little brother downstairs to the toilet, I seized the moment to talk to Georgina. “Lettie needs an hour. After that, I can take the kids to the hospital.”

  “I can go with you. I can look after the children while you and Mrs. Osgood go in to see their mother.”

  “Thanks, but we’ll be all right. What I do need you to do is figure out how to keep them entertained until it’s time to go.”

  Georgina sat on the side of my bed and stared at the floor for a minute, then said, “Bubbles.” She jumped up and stepped across to the door. “I’ll meet you in the quad in five minutes.”

  With no further explanation, she dashed out and down the stairs. When the children returned, I helped Caleb wash his hands at my sink and gave him a comb for his hair. By the time we emerged into the quad, Georgina was there with a ten gallon bucket and a long tube attached by rings to a mesh belt. She waved the contraption in a sweeping motion and produced a bubble about the size of a MINI Cooper. It started as a long, caterpillar-like, undulating form, then, picking up rainbows in the afternoon sun, morphed into a sphere. The children were captivated. I was, too.

  Georgina showed them how to make their own bubbles by dipping their hands in the soap and glycerin mixture, their fingers curled into okay signs. Conferees walking across the quad to the afternoon session stopped to watch. I asked, “How did you just happen to have this all close to hand?”

  “Pure luck,” she said. “Last week Uncle Harold, Aunt Daphne and I went to a fete they had at Attwood House. Aunt Daphne’s sister is Lady Attwood, and they have more money than God. You should see their house.

  “Anyway, it was outdoors on the lawn and they had games for children and adults. That’s where I saw this bubble thing and the lady who was in charge had several of these tube contraptions. I bought one from her.”

  “Is that where you learned to shoot clay pigeons?” I asked.

  “Right! But not last week. The Attwoods have a bunch of people out in the autumn for a pheasant hunt, but they have a trap shoot set up for people like me who don’t want to kill birds.” Georgina made a face, then turned to applaud the bubble Claire had produced. “You should go. Aunt Daphne can get you an invitation. Oh, I guess you won’t be here in October.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  * * *

  Georgina went with us to the hospital, but left us almost immediately for the research wing. By this time I knew without asking that she and Keith Bunsen were lovers. I knew it by how often she mentioned him, by her tone of voice when she did, and by how often she looked toward his window while we were playing with the children in the quad. I’d never heard either of them mention or even speak to the other when Daphne or Harold Wetmore was present, so I further speculated that this was not a match approved by the family. She told me she was living with her parents for the summer but would share quarters with two girlfriends when school started. “My mum and dad were against it. Thought we’d be bonking every bloke in town. But I’m so knackered most nights after ten hours in the lab, I can’t think of taking the bus out Cowley Road. I’m ready to pack it in.”

  We found Lettie in Lindsey’s room, or rather, the room they’d bring Lindsey to when she left the intensive care unit. Lettie grabbed her grandchildren and kissed them. Both kids teared up, but Lettie, stoic as a gladiator, sat them down to talk. She explained about how they would only, because of germs, be allowed to peek in at their mother from a distance. Nothing was wrong. The tubes and equipment they would see were standard for chest wounds. Their mother would be well soon.

  “Does she have a breathing tube down her throat?” Claire asked.

  Lettie rolled her eyes at me as if to say
, I forgot how smart this kid is. “Yes, but it doesn’t hurt her. They’re keeping her asleep until they see there’s no fluid left in her chest.”

  “Medically induced coma,” Claire said.

  “Is that what Aunt Dotsy told you?” Lettie’s tone had a sharp edge.

  “That’s what doctors call it. I’ve heard Mom call it that.”

  With a sigh, Lettie rose and led the children out. Having nothing to read, I studied the view out Lindsey’s third-floor window. Long shadows stretched across the grassy fields lined with green hedgerows. I heard a peck on the open door behind me.

  It was Chief Inspector Child again. This time he was alone. He asked where Lettie had gone and I told him. “She has Dr. Scoggin’s children with her?” He seemed concerned.

  “The children really need to see that their mother is still alive. Lettie can handle it.”

  “Several of Mrs. Scoggin’s neighbors have called to say they will stay at the flat and care for the children. You don’t have to do all the work yourself.”

  “I don’t mind at all. I’ll work it out with Lettie when I have a chance.” I sat on the bed and motioned CI Child toward the room’s only chair. “Will the bullet they removed tell you what kind of gun it was?”

  He paused as if considering how much he should tell me. “The bullet is an unusual caliber. Our lab has it now, but the firearms man says it may be from the sort of gun used by German infantrymen in the Second World War.”

  “Wow! That would narrow it down, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not really. Guns have to be registered, you know, and a big percentage of the ones in private hands are old. Collector’s items, and a lot of them are German and date from the nineteen forties.”

  “But you do have records.”

  “Even if forensics tells us the type of gun and it turns out to be German and from the Second World War, that won’t tell us much. It seems like every home in nineteen fifty had at least one weapon swiped from a German soldier, and a lot of them are still around.”

  Chief Inspector Child hitched up his trouser leg at the knee and cleared his throat. “Mrs. Osgood has told us Lindsey Scoggin was seeing Dr. St. Giles Bell. Do you know him?”

  “I met him once. Lindsey took me around the hospital here a couple of days ago, and we went to Bell’s lab in the research wing. We talked for a few minutes.”

  “It’s critical that we find out who had a motive for trying to kill Lindsey. So far we have nothing. Dr. Bell, as her frequent social companion, is the most likely suspect, but he was apparently in London at the time of the shooting. Do you know of anyone else? Even if it seems far-fetched, we need to know. Anyone who had argued with her? Anyone who might consider her a rival?”

  “A rival for the affections of St. Giles Bell?”

  “Any sort of rival. Or anyone who might want to keep her quiet. About anything at all.” CI Child was casting his net as widely as possible.

  “I’m sorry, no. But there is something. On Sunday I went to the police station myself and made a report.”

  He sat up. His hand went to his jacket pocket and drew out small notepad.

  “This was on Sunday just after Lindsey and I had toured the hospital together. The day before, one of my fellow conferees, a man named Bram Fitzwaring, was found dead in his room shortly before he was to have addressed the entire conference. His room was on the same staircase as mine but below it. His death was ruled natural and due to hypoglycemia. He was diabetic, and so am I. That’s why I think his death wasn’t natural. He managed to wreck his room before he died. With hypoglycemia he’d have died quietly in his sleep. And several of us who ate the mussels at the party earlier that night had gotten sick. Dr. Bell’s research involves a potent shellfish toxin called saxitoxin. In fact, in his lab I actually saw a pan of oysters in water laced with saxitoxin.”

  Inspector Child marked through a line he’d just written in his notepad, held his scratchings at arm’s length, and shook his head. “You are suggesting that Dr. Bell killed Mr. Fitzwaring? With a toxin he keeps in his lab here at the hospital?”

  “No. I’m suggesting that someone did. Someone who had access to his lab.”

  “Such as Lindsey Scoggin?”

  “No!” This was not going right. “Of course not. What motive would she have had?”

  “What motive would anyone have had?” Child made a hand gesture that I took to mean Go on. You started this.

  “I’m not accusing anyone, but some of the people at the conference didn’t think Fitzwaring should be there, and they certainly didn’t think he should be delivering a paper on the first day.”

  “Why not?”

  This brought up the whole thing about King Arthur as legend vs. King Arthur as real man. It would have taken me hours to do the subject justice and to relate all the various comments I’d heard from other conferees. Bram’s top two opponents, and, by extension, the most likely suspects, would be Harold Wetmore and Larry Roberts. I made up my mind that I would not, under any circumstances, mention either man’s name. Chief Inspector Child could do this dirty work himself.

  “Can you be more specific about who didn’t want him there?”

  “Not really. I heard some comments from people I don’t even know.”

  “Might anyone have had a more personal reason? I have a hard time believing someone could commit murder for purely academic reasons.”

  “You don’t know these people.”

  “I’ve lived in Oxford all my life. I believe I do.”

  “Of course. As for a more personal reason, he and a friend, Mignon Beaulieu, both came here from Glastonbury. They were friends with the owner of The Green Man on the High.”

  “I know the place.”

  “I think there’s a larger group of friends that might be called New Agers. They’re into magic and ancient rites and Celtic stuff.”

  “Did this companion, Mignon, say anything that led you to think she or anyone else might have wanted to do away with Mr. Fitzwaring?”

  “Not at all. No. But there is something going on that I don’t understand.” I immediately wished I could take that back. If he didn’t already have me mentally measured for a straightjacket, he would if I mentioned King Arthur’s bones.

  “Like what? Explain.”

  “I can’t explain because I don’t know. But you could talk to Mignon yourself. She’s still in town.”

  “And you say you reported this on Sunday?”

  “At Thames Valley Police Station on St. Aldate’s. You can check.”

  It seemed to me that Child had weighed in his mind the benefits of referring me for counseling versus the possible benefits of treating me like a well-informed consultant, and the latter won. “Is this”—he looked at his notes—“saxitoxin, a chemical that would show up in autopsy?”

  “If a fluid sample from the body was chemically analyzed, it might, but Fitzwaring’s body has already been cremated.”

  “The body was autopsied before it was cremated, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, but the medical examiner put down hypoglycemia as cause of death.”

  “You don’t understand. Fluid samples are sent to a lab. The lab would have no reason to test for a strange poison like saxitoxin. They’d only test for common things like oxycodone. But they don’t throw these samples away immediately. They hold on to them for a time.”

  “You’re right! I hadn’t thought of that. His blood could be tested again.”

  Lettie and the children returned, somber and subdued. She said, “I’m going to take Claire and Caleb home and see that they’re taken care of for the night. They tell me they’ll be all right if a neighbor stays with them, as long as they can call me anytime they want.”

  I told her I’d be glad to stay with them, and their new friend, Georgina, had also volunteered. Georgina must have been waiting out in the hall, because at that moment she stepped through the door and confirmed my words.

  While Georgina talked to the children, Lettie pulled me aside. “
Before I took the children to the ICU, I worked with the staff down there to rearrange the equipment around Lindsey and hide some of it under the bed. All the kids saw was the breathing apparatus.” She put the back of her hand up to the side of her mouth and added, “I also brushed her hair and added some blusher to her cheeks.”

  “They let you do that?”

  “I explained how important it was.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  * * *

  On the taxi ride back to town, I reviewed the events of the last few hours in my mind. When Lettie said the children would be well cared for by Lindsey’s neighbors, I felt relieved because I needed the evening to follow up on questions that the day’s events had brought up. Why was Mignon still here? If the Grey Lady was actually Bumps McAlister, wife of the owner of The Green Man, did that mean Mignon and Bram were also in on the stunt? What about my second sighting of the Grey Lady? Was it Bumps again? This was probably not important, so I reminded myself to stick to the important matters, the death of Bram Fitzwaring and the shooting of Lindsey Scoggin.

  Were the two related? I couldn’t see how, but I knew they were. The connections were tenuous at best. Shellfish, poison, Staircase Thirteen. Shellfish in Dr. Bell’s lab and shellfish served at the cocktail party. Lindsey’s mother and Fitzwaring both staying on Staircase Thirteen. Fitzwaring, a participant in a study conducted by a man who lives only yards from Staircase Thirteen and has a lab only feet from Dr. Bell’s lab where saxitoxin, potent shellfish poison, is stored in quantity. None of this connected up but somehow, taken all together, there were too many threads not to indicate some sort of cloth.

  I knew Lettie had my cell phone number, but I drew my phone from my purse and called her to make certain. The children were settled in for the night, and a neighbor they trusted was with them. Lettie was just climbing into Lindsey’s rental car to return to the hospital when she answered my call. Remembering Lettie’s poor driving record in countries where they drive on the left side of the road, I cautioned her. We’d had a wreck at a roundabout in Scotland that resulted in Lettie driving a pencil through the roof of her mouth.