File M for Murder

by Miranda James

  I turned to nod at her, and with a small shock I realized I knew her. Magda Johnston, Ralph’s wife. She looked far different today from the woman I’d seen at the party a week or so ago. For one thing, she appeared to be stone-cold sober, and she was dressed more conservatively, in a gray skirt, purple blouse, and black jacket. Nothing like the garish, blowsy woman from the party.

  Laura whispered, “Water. Please. Bottle in desk.”

  I gazed down at her and nodded. “Don’t move,” I told her again. I shifted position so I could open the desk drawers. I found the water on the first try. I turned back to Laura and frowned. I didn’t think she should move her head until the paramedics arrived and examined her. So how was I going to give her water without choking her?

  Laura moved, and I knew she was going to try to sit up. “No,” I said. “Stay still. I’m going to dribble some water in your mouth from the side, okay?” That should work, as long as I could hold my hand steady.

  “Okay,” she said. She opened her mouth as I twisted the cap off the bottle. I knelt over her and held the bottle to the side of her mouth. I tilted it until a tiny trickle of water flowed. Laura swallowed, and I stopped the flow.

  We went through this procedure four more times, until Laura said, “That’s good.”

  I capped the bottle and sat back on my heels, regarding my daughter with concern. Where were the EMTs? Surely they would arrive soon.

  “They’re coming down the hall.” Magda Johnston spoke from the doorway. She appeared to be waving at them.

  “Thank goodness,” I said. I glanced at the desk. The EMTs would need more room to work, so I stood and pushed the desk toward the opposite wall. Magda saw what I was doing and stepped forward to help. Between us we managed to get the desk as far out of the way as possible. I was gently moving Diesel away from Laura as the first member of the team entered the office.

  I pulled Diesel to the corner and watched as the other emergency personnel came in. They went to work quickly and efficiently, and one of them asked Laura several questions, such as “What day is it? Who is the president?” Her responses were evidently satisfactory.

  Diesel, made nervous by all the strangers in the small office, crawled underneath the desk and watched everything from there. I called Sean to apprise him of the situation but kept the conversation brief. I asked him to come in his car to pick me and Diesel up. He would need to take me to the hospital and then take Diesel home. The emergency room was no place for a feline, even one as well mannered as mine.

  One of the EMTs, a woman not much older than Laura, knelt by my daughter and with gloved hands probed her head. I missed what happened next because members of the team kept shifting positions. I heard Laura moan, then the EMT said, “Got a little blood here and a small wound.”

  “Did you fall and hit your head?” An older member of the team, a man in his late thirties or early forties, posed the question.

  “I’m not sure.” Laura paused, her tone uncertain. “I don’t really remember much. I remember coming into my office early this morning and working, but after that, nothing.”

  The man turned to me. “Who are you, sir? Any relation?”

  “Yes, I’m her father.” I introduced myself. “I work here at the college. I became concerned earlier when my daughter didn’t answer her cell phone. When I arrived, I found Mrs. Johnston with her.”

  Magda Johnston hovered in the doorway, and hearing her name, stepped forward. “I stopped by to see Laura, and her door was slightly open. When I stepped inside, I saw her on the floor. I was just checking her out when Mr. Harris arrived.”

  A campus police officer showed up then, and he took charge of the questioning. Magda Johnston and I repeated our stories. The EMTs placed Laura on a gurney for transport to the hospital, and as they rolled her out of the office I called out that I would be right behind her.

  I turned to the campus officer and said, “Someone struck my daughter on the head and knocked her out. I don’t know why, but I suspect it has something to do with the death yesterday of her colleague, Connor Lawton. You might want to notify the sheriff’s department about this, in case there is a connection.”

  When I mentioned the dead playwright’s name, I heard Magda Johnston whimper. I shot her a quick glance, but her face was averted. Was she upset over what happened to Laura, or was it Lawton’s name that elicited a response?

  She had been very interested in the playwright at the party, I recalled. At the time I had put it down to her inebriated state, but what if there was more to it?

  An even uglier thought came to me then. Was Magda Johnston Laura’s assailant?

  SEVENTEEN

  By the time Sean dropped me off at the hospital, a nurse and an ER physician were examining Laura. The nurse appeared to be cleaning the wound while the doctor watched. The doc, an attractive woman in her forties, asked who I was, and before I could reply, Laura said, “My father.” I spotted the doc’s name embroidered on her lab coat: LEANN FINCH.

  The nurse, a chunky, short man of about thirty, didn’t stop what he was doing, but the doc nodded in acknowledgment before she resumed watching the nurse work.

  When the nurse finished, the doc bent over Laura. Her gloved fingers probed the back of Laura’s head. Laura, on her side facing me, winced.

  I stood at the side of the small room and observed the rest of the examination.

  After some minutes the doc said, “Your hair is very thick and seems to have cushioned the blow. You don’t even need stitches.” She nodded at the nurse who took over and finished treating the wound while the doc continued to talk.

  “Her reflexes are good, although she’s complained of a little dizziness and nausea. She lost consciousness, she told me. Any idea how long she was out?”

  “No.” I glanced over at Laura, who now appeared to be asleep. I explained what I knew of the situation.

  Dr. Finch nodded. “She doesn’t have any memory of what happened in the moments leading up to the blow on the head. Not unusual in the circumstances. I want a CT scan to see whether there’s any kind of internal trauma.” She laid a hand on my arm, evidently having noticed my alarmed expression. “I don’t think there will be any. As I said, her hair is very thick, but the blow did break the skin enough for her to bleed. Just a mild concussion probably. The CT scan is a necessary precaution.”

  “Whatever you think best,” I said. I prayed the doc was right and there was no internal injury.

  “Once I’ve had a chance to examine the results of the scan, I’ll probably send her home. I’ll discuss with you later the kind of aftercare she needs.” Dr. Finch smiled warmly. “Any questions?”

  “Does she need to stay awake? I’ve read that you need to keep someone with a concussion awake for a while.”

  “No, that’s not really necessary,” Dr. Finch said. “Natural sleep is okay, but if she loses consciousness you’d need to bring her back in.” She paused, apparently waiting for further questions, but when I nodded, she smiled and moved to a nearby laptop computer and began typing.

  “You can sit here if you like.” The nurse’s deep voice startled me, because I hadn’t seen him approach. He indicated a chair near Laura’s bed. “It’s going to be a little while before they come to get her for the CT scan.”

  I thanked him and sat down. My head was about two feet from my daughter’s, and as I gazed at her, I could feel my heart rate increase. Seeing her like this brought back sad memories of her mother’s times in the hospital.

  Then I chided myself for such morbid thoughts. Laura was going to be fine. This was nothing like her mother’s case, when pancreatic cancer ravaged her. Laura was young and healthy and would make a rapid recovery, I assured myself.

  As I watched, Laura’s eyes fluttered open and she yawned. “Guess I dozed off,” she said, her voice weak and low. “When can I go home?”

  “They want to do a CT scan first,” I said. “The doc wants to make sure there are no internal injuries.”

  Laur
a frowned. “Okay.”

  I checked to see whether Dr. Finch and the nurse were out of the room. They were, and one of them had pulled the door almost shut. I turned back to my daughter.

  “Time for a few questions,” I said. I hated doing this now, but Laura was in grave danger. “You’ve been through a lot in less than twenty-four hours, and I need some answers. I want to know what’s going on in that pretty, stubborn head of yours.”

  “Yes, sir.” Laura offered a brief smile.

  “First, tell me what you remember of this morning,” I said.

  “I woke up early, around six, I guess.” She paused. “I was hungry, so I went downstairs and had some toast and a cup of hot tea. No one else was up, and, I don’t know, I guess I had this urge to get out of the house. So I had a quick shower, dressed, and walked over to campus. By then it was seven, probably.”

  “Why didn’t you leave a note?” I tried to keep my tone even, though my aggravation level was rising. “Considering what happened yesterday, didn’t you think we might be concerned when you didn’t turn up for breakfast?”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that.” Laura looked guilty at this confession of thoughtlessness. “I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was to worry you, Dad.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” I clasped her right hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “After you reached campus, what did you do?”

  “The weather was so nice, I decided to walk around a bit. I must have wandered for at least an hour, and I ended up in front of the fine arts building. I went up to my office and sat there and stared at the wall for lord knows how long.”

  “What were you thinking about?” I could have prompted her with a more specific question, but I decided to leave it to her to tell it how she wanted.

  Laura was silent for a moment. A shadow passed over her face when she finally spoke. “Mostly just thinking about Connor, I guess. Everything happened so quickly, or at least that’s the way it seems now, and I was trying to process it all. It’s such a waste.”

  Tears threatened, and I squeezed her hand again. “I know, sweetheart. He was too young.”

  “Yes, he was,” Laura said sadly.

  I decided to bring the conversation back to her activities this morning. “You were in your office, thinking about all this. What happened next?”

  Laura frowned again. “That’s where it starts to get hazy. I think I went to bathroom down the hall and then into the faculty lounge. I was going to make some coffee. Yes, that’s it. I wanted some coffee, and while I was waiting for the coffeemaker to finish, I sat in the lounge and glanced through one of the scrapbooks Sarabeth Conley has kept over the years. I stayed there while I had my cup of coffee, and then I think I went back to my office.” She paused, looking pleased for a moment. Then doubt returned. “And that’s it.”

  I tried to fill in from there, to see if it jogged her memory at all. “So you went back to your office. I presume you’d left the door open?”

  Laura nodded. “I don’t usually lock it while I’m there, just going in and out.”

  “The person who struck you must have been in your office, and you surprised him or her, you got knocked on the head, and then the assailant either left or kept ransacking your office.” As I described the potential scene, I could feel chills dancing up my spine and settling in the back of my neck. Laura could so easily have been killed.

  “Dad, are you okay?” Laura sounded alarmed. “You’re really, really pale.”

  “I’m okay, sweetheart.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but I wasn’t certain how successful I was. At least Laura looked less disturbed. “Thinking about someone hurting you is upsetting.”

  “I wish I could remember what actually happened when I went back to the office.” Laura rubbed her forehead, as if she could call up the memory, like a djinni from a magic lamp. “The next thing I remember is seeing you and Magda Johnston there with me.”

  “Are you particularly friendly with her?” I hadn’t heard Laura talk about the woman that I could recall, so Magda’s presence on the scene made me suspicious.

  “Not particularly, no.” Laura started to shake her head, winced, and stopped. “She’d sort of pop up two or three times a week, asking me questions about Hollywood. She claimed to be a huge fan of that sitcom I guested on a few times. Wanted to know all about stars. But somehow the conversation always ended up with Connor. I think she really had the hots for him.” Her expression indicated her distaste at the thought.

  Given what I’d observed at that party, I wasn’t terribly surprised by Laura’s revelation. “Then I guess her presence in your office wasn’t suspicious.”

  “I guess.” Laura thought for a moment. “But I almost didn’t recognize her this morning. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen her dressed that plainly, and with almost no makeup. Strange.”

  “Yes, it was. I’ve never seen her like that either.” That bore some further thought. Was the woman in mourning for Connor Lawton? I wondered what her husband might think about that.

  “You don’t think she’s the person who hit me, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s certainly possible. I could have walked in not long after she struck you, but she wasn’t holding anything. Would she have had time to dispose of whatever weapon she used?” Surely the campus police, or even someone from the sheriff’s department, was working on that. “If we can answer another question first, however, it might help us to figure out who it was.”

  “That question being, what was he looking for?” Laura gazed right into my eyes, her expression bland.

  “Exactly. And I can think of one answer to that.” I waited to hear what she would say.

  “Connor’s thumb drive.” She sighed. “The one I took from his apartment.”

  “Did you have it with you this morning?”

  “No, I left it at home.” Her eyes widened in alarm. “You don’t think he’ll break into the house, do you?”

  This was a possibility that hadn’t yet occurred to me, and now I felt the first stirring of greater alarm. Then I forced myself to remain calm. “We don’t know for sure that’s what your attacker was after. First we’d have to know what’s on that drive in order to figure out why it might be important.” I paused as I regarded my daughter, whose expression had resumed its blandness. “Why did you take it in the first place? Do you know what’s on it?”

  “I took it because Connor’s laptop was missing. The killer must have taken it.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Laura asked for water before I could follow up with a question about the missing laptop. I found a cooler with paper cups just down the short hall from her room in the ER. After she finished, she expressed her thanks.

  “Would you like more?” I asked.

  “No, that’s enough for now.”

  I set the empty cup on a table nearby, then resumed my seat. “About the laptop. You’re sure it’s missing? You were in a very upsetting situation and you might have overlooked it.”

  Laura shuddered and closed her eyes. “It was horrible. You just don’t expect to find a person like that. Not somebody young, like Connor.” Her eyes opened, and she continued as I clasped her hand. “I stood there for I don’t know how long once I realized he wasn’t simply drunk and sleeping it off.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to be the one to find him,” I said.

  Laura squeezed my hand. “Me, too. But I guess it was meant to be.” She paused for a moment. “Anyway, I found him. Then I got myself together enough to call you.

  “Before I called 911, I started to take in other details. I glanced over to where he kept his laptop, and it was gone. That was strange, because it should have been there. I checked the other rooms very quickly, but there was no sign of it.”

  “How long did that take?”

  “Probably not much more than a minute. It’s a small one-bedroom apartment.” Laura shuddered. “I felt strange doing it, but I wanted to find the laptop if I could. Then I rememb
ered what you told me about calling 911, and I did.”

  “What about the thumb drive?”

  “While I was talking to 911, it popped into my head. Connor was really compulsive about backing up his work. He also hid his thumb drive so no one would swipe it.”

  That sounded more than a little paranoid to me but, for all I knew, most writers might be just as paranoid. “Where did he hide it? And how did you know?”

  A faint smile touched Laura’s face and then was gone. “I suppose he thought I’d never try to steal it, because I was the one person—or so he said—that he trusted not to reveal his hiding place.” She sighed. “He had this urn he took with him wherever he went that’s supposed to have his parents’ ashes in it. It has a false bottom, and he hid his thumb drive in there.”

  I couldn’t question her further, because the nurse returned, along with the staff who had come to fetch her for her CT scan. I wondered what that thumb drive contained that was so important that my daughter swiped it and didn’t tell the sheriff’s department or the police about it.

  As they wheeled Laura out, the nurse said, “You can wait in here if you like, sir. Or you can go out to the waiting room, and someone will let you know when she’s back here.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled. “I think I’ll go out to the waiting room so I can use my cell phone.”

  The nurse nodded, and I followed him out of the room. He pointed the way to the waiting area, and I walked on through a set of double doors into the corridor and down a short hall.

  Sean walked into the waiting area as I was about to sit down and call him. He came over and took the seat beside mine.

  “I was about to call you.”

  “How is she?” His expression betrayed his intense concern.

  I recounted what Dr. Finch had said, concluding with “They just now took her to have the CT scan. If that’s clear, they’ll release her, and we can take her home.”

  Sean relaxed. “I hope that scan comes out clear. I don’t want to think about any other possibility. Oh, before I forget, I called the library and talked to your friend Melba and explained that you probably wouldn’t be back today.”