1 Picking Lemons

by J. T. Toman

  C.J. nodded reassuringly to Stephen and gave him a wink. Then she continued. “So, if it wasn’t Stephen, then who was it? My personal favorite was Jefferson. He had the physical strength and he had the opportunity. Sure, he was out running, but it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to pop in and do the deed. Mary Beth could not be certain what time she saw him come in from the run, because her new analog watch was proving so confusing. It could have been ten past one or one-fifty. If it was the former, Jefferson had plenty of time to commit the crime and could have been the person Edmund was heard arguing with at about a quarter past one.

  “Furthermore, putting all the evidence of everyone’s movements together, it seems more probable that it was ten past one when Mary Beth saw Jeffie. Mary Beth said she saw Jefferson come in before she saw Annika leave and Annika thinks she left 40 Knollwood at one-forty that day. So, it seems more likely that Jefferson came in at one-ten.

  “But did he have a reason to kill Edmund? I could imagine that if you spent that much time with Edmund, the urge to do him in would come eventually. Charles said money was the most powerful motive, and Edmund and Jefferson were favored to win the Nobel. I happened upon a letter that indicated that Edmund was systematically ruining Jefferson’s career and, therefore, Jefferson’s chance of sharing in the Nobel and its million plus prize money. That seemed like a financial motive and fit with Jefferson being the killer. But, then, Jefferson resigned to become an alpaca farmer. This meant Jefferson wasn’t motivated by his career or money after all. And then, tragically, Jefferson himself was killed, removing him completely from the suspect list.

  “So then, my friend,” said C.J., turning to Walter, “there was you. Again, there were the lies. You told the police and all that would listen that you were in your office between one and two.”

  “That isn’t a lie,” cried Walter. “That is exactly where I was.”

  The faculty was at full attention. Betsy couldn’t wait to tell her friends in quilting group about today. This was proving far more interesting than any T.V. crime drama. Stephen, relieved from suspicion and the burden of secrets, was quite relaxed from his position at the back of the room.

  “Walter, the problem when we start to lie is there are so many little cracks where the truth starts to leak through. That is the great thing about data. It cannot help but be heard. On the day of Edmund’s murder, Jose Grimaldo made a study date with Annika Jonsdottir in the Smythe Lounge at one-thirty. It turns out that Annika’s movements that day were important not only in placing a time on Jefferson’s movements, they helped elucidate yours too.

  “Now Annika, being the studious girl she is, got to the Smythe Lounge early. Also hoping that it would be a little more than a study date, if you get my drift, she set up her books in the darkest, most remote corner, where she could see if anyone, namely one, handsome Jose, entered, but no one would notice them. At about one-fifteen, she saw Professor Walter Scovill come into the Smythe Lounge from the 42 Knollwood side, cross the room, and go through to 40 Knollwood Place. She thought nothing of it at the time. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes passed. Professor Walter Scovill comes back through the Smythe Lounge and goes back to 42 Knollwood, presumably back to his office. Annika isn’t thinking anything about Professor Scovill, but is only thinking of Jose. She waits fifteen more minutes, but no Jose arrives. Too upset to go to the seminar, she goes back to her dorm room. Mary Beth can attest that she saw Annika, leaving 40 Knollwood, crying, some time before two.”

  C.J. paused her story.

  Charles harrumphed into his mustache.

  If anyone had looked at the back of the room, they would have noticed that Jose had turned very pale.

  Walter blustered. “You are going to believe the word of a sniveling graduate student, against me, a world famous Eaton University Professor? This is outrageous.”

  “Now, when Annika came to me, she was afraid you had committed the murder. But, as I had already witnessed your...shoe shine...I was not so sure. When Annika asked Jose where he was, he said he was late paying student fees and was detained. Student fees, I thought. That is very interesting. Jose is a full-scholarship student. So I made a few calls. Jose didn’t owe any student fees. Jose didn’t have any outstanding library loans. Jose didn’t owe anyone any money. But Jose had been given a Howard Foundation Grant that had not been approved by the committee. Just by one Professor Walter Scovill.

  “I asked Jose about it, Professor Scovill.”

  “Now we’re believing the story of a Mexcian field rat?” yelled Walter.

  “What story, Walter? What do you think Jose said?” asked C.J. coolly.

  “My private life is none of your business.”

  “But…what shall we call it…indentured servitude is my business. I think Charles can fill us in on the history of servitude in this country. Charles, when did the first indentured servants come across to America?”

  Charles cleared his throat. “Well now, the Virginia Company was the first to use them. They brought across laborers to America in the early 17th century. In exchange for passage, the indentured servants had to work for about five years.”

  “And when did it end?” asked C.J.

  Charles pursed his lips in concentration. “Well, of course, it is hard to pin point the exact date it ended, but it has been gone about a hundred years.”

  C.J. leveled her gaze at Walter. “Do you want to tell everyone what you were doing between one-fifteen and one-thirty on the day Edmund was murdered?”

  Anger oozed out of Walter. “I was in my office,” he said, in carefully measured tones.

  C.J. turned her gaze to Jose. “Jose, what were you doing at one-fifteen on the day Edmund was murdered?”

  Jose rose to his feet slowly. In a quiet, steady voice he said, “At Professor Scovill’s request, I waited for him in the men’s bathroom in the basement of 40 Knollwood. Professor Scovill met me there to give me the keys to his car and instructions for the afternoon. I noticed he liked to vary the places we met. I think he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact I had to meet with him so often.

  “On that day, I was to drive the car to his house, wash his car and his wife’s car, and detail the inside of each car as well. Also, there was some yard work he wanted done. When I started in the program at Eaton University, Professor Scovill informed me that to keep my place in the program and my scholarship funding I was required to be at his beck and call for the duration of my time at Eaton University, doing whatever manual work he required.”

  The seminar room was absolutely quiet. Betsy was thinking of the suffering Jose had endured. Charles was debating the merits of indentured servitude as a system of recruiting a labor force. The senior faculty was mulling over the scandal this was going to create. The negative publicity of having the Chair of the department indenture a graduate student. It was going to be horrific. Harvard was going to have a field day with this.

  C.J. asked, “What sort of work have you done for Professor Scovill since you started at Eaton University?”

  “Well, I have washed his cars and polished his shoes. I rake his yard and shovel his snow. I do other yard work, like hedging. I have helped Mrs. Scovill with housework. It just depends on what needs doing.”

  C.J. turned her attention back to Walter. “I don’t think you are the killer, but I do think the time for indentured servitude has past. As Charles said, the practice ended in this country one hundred years ago. Because I have trained my students to collect data at all times, I have in my possession an email with details of your exploitations, with times and pictures. So I think you will excuse us if we choose to believe the story of a …what was the charming phrase you used…a Mexican field rat? Just as an FYI, that “field rat” is an extremely intelligent, personable young man whose name is Jose.”

  Jose felt Annika squeezing his hand. Walter, who had turned chalk white with rage, glared from his chair at the back of the room in silence. This was not going to end here.

  C.J. continued
as if nothing had happened. “But of course, we still have a killer. It could be Charles, with his ladder.”

  Charles perked up at hearing his name.

  “Goodness knows that Charles had a college try at being the killer. Even confessing to the crime and spending some time in the city jail. But, it turned out, that Charles had his own reasons for this, and it wasn’t him.”

  Charles stood up. “Now, now. That isn’t much of an explanation. How are folks going to know what was really going on? I am not ashamed of the reason I confessed. It’s nice of you to want to let me keep my secrets, but they aren’t secrets any more now that Mildred knows.”

  C.J. smiled. “I’m glad to hear it Charles.”

  “I ‘fessed up to that scoundrel Edmund’s murder because I wanted people to stop asking me where I was on the day he died. I was with my daughter, Charlotte.”

  There was a lot of murmuring around the room. Mildred and Charles did not have any children.

  “You don’t have to whisper. Charlotte isn’t Mildred’s daughter. I was unfaithful to dear Mildred about 20 odd years ago. A stupid mistake. I was sixty-something acting like I was sixteen. And with a woman thirty years younger than me. Don’t know what I was thinking, when I have the sweetest wife in the world at home. But, now there is dear Charlotte. She is an undergraduate here at Eaton University. Such a bright, dear thing. I didn’t want to hurt Mildred and have her find out. I thought it would be better to be a murderer than be a cheating husband.”

  Charles looked down, tears brimming in his eyes. “But my darling Mildred. I didn’t expect Mildred to forgive me, but she has. Charlotte’s mother passed away several years ago, and Mildred has enough love for me and Charlotte. I have never been so happy as I am now, as I can share my two favorite women with each other and the world.”

  C.J. patted Charles on the shoulder as the old man sat down.

  “But how did you know?” Charles asked C.J., as an afterthought.

  “Charlotte is in Edmund’s class, which I got stuck teaching. The physical resemblance between the two of you is striking, which raised my suspicions. Then, when I complimented her on her excellent economic skills, she said she took after her father. Once she began to make connections to historical economies in her questions in class, it just confirmed what I already knew. I realized, after foolishly checking her last name on the student list, that it was her father’s first name that she had. Charles. Charlotte.”

  Charles just harrumphed into his mustache.

  “But you had me going for a while with the ladder Charles. I kept thinking that it gave everyone access to the room. But then I realized that because the killer was one of us, the easiest way to get access to Edmund’s room without creating a scene was through the door. We all go in and out of each other’s offices all day. No one would even notice if a colleague was coming from Edmund’s office. But they would notice if one was scaling a ladder. The ladder didn’t help at all.”

  “I was just getting the leaves off the roof,” Charles said, somewhat confused.

  “I know,” C.J. agreed. “Well, getting back to the murder of Edmund, it could have been me. But I have data for the parking meters for the entire two hours leading up to the killing. So, I look like a poor candidate. Did Edmund strangle himself? It seems it must be the case, looking at the facts for the first murder. We seem to have a murder in which all of the possible suspects are accounted for.

  “So we turn to the second murder. Jefferson Daniels was found poisoned in his office. The difficulty with Jefferson’s murder is that the cyanide was in a full container of protein powder. Therefore, Jefferson had just started to use this container. The cyanide could have been sitting in the container for weeks without him knowing. The poison could have been put in the protein powder at any time, by any one. No one could have an alibi.

  “So now we have two murders, one no one could have done, and one everyone could have done,” C.J. concluded. “I have to tell you, I was completely baffled, until Jefferson’s memorial service. It was when Mary Beth said that Lisa DeBeyer was at the funeral and that she wasn’t moving away any more that I understood why both Edmund and Jefferson were killed.

  “My biggest problem was that I been making a fundamental mistake in my assumptions. I was assuming the same person had killed both Edmund and Jefferson. But actually, there was nothing to indicate that this was true. The method of death was very different. Would one person be an impulsive strangler and a careful, planned poisoner? I realized I needed to relax this assumption and allow for two different killers.

  “Charles had said to follow the money and we would solve the crime. In a way, he was right. The two murders weren’t about money. But the money was the clue. The murders were about love. The love triangle of Edmund, Jefferson and Lisa.”

  The faculty looked uncomfortably around at each other. Love? In the land of economics? It was so… unseemly.

  “The money was a big clue in this crime. The day Edmund’s will was read out, he showed his hand. He didn’t leave any money to his wife. He constructed a research institute that was inaccessible to Jefferson. His will wasn’t about how much he loved himself. It was about how much he hated Lisa and Jeffie. Jefferson’s will had recently been changed to make Edmund and Lisa the beneficiaries, instead of the church of St. Andrews. Jefferson had changed his will to make sure Lisa benefitted, giving away how much he loved her. As they say, money talks.

  “Now we understand the motivation, the story falls into place. Edmund and Jefferson worked so closely together. Edmund’s wife was much closer in age to the handsome, charismatic Jefferson. It was only natural that her affections would shift over. And what about her wouldn’t Jefferson love? She is a beautiful, talented, artistic woman. Now so many little details made sense. Jefferson’s resignation for one. He and Lisa were planning on moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico together. She was going to set up her art gallery, he was going to give up economics for her. So of course, at Jefferson’s funeral, Lisa wasn’t planning to move anymore. The pastor at St. Andrews knew all about the plans and counseled Jefferson against it. He told Jefferson that happiness could not be built on pain. It seems that the Reverend is a very wise man.

  “Some time before the day of Edmund’s murder, Lisa must have told Edmund she was leaving him for Jefferson. To someone of Edmund’s self-importance, this would have been galling. His ego would not have been able to take this calmly. He wanted it all––the Nobel prize, the beautiful wife…and he wasn’t going to let an upstart like Jefferson Daniels take anything that belonged to him.

  “On the day of the murder, Edmund was methodically enacting his revenge. He was sending out letters to the Nobel committee saying Jefferson had only being a research assistant and all their work was Edmund’s alone. When they left morning coffee together, I can guarantee Edmund took great pleasure in telling Jefferson his plans. Jefferson left for his run but couldn’t stop thinking about it. At just after one o’clock, Jefferson stopped his run short and went up to Edmund’s office to reason with him. Mary Beth overheard their argument. Edmund told Jefferson that he was ‘finished.’ I think we can extrapolate to the type of threats that went along with this. Jefferson was never going to have Lisa. He was going to kill both of them first. Jefferson’s career was over. And other such pleasantries. Jefferson, consumed with rage and the need to protect Lisa and everything he had worked for, strangled Edmund. It was, indeed, a crime of passion.”

  The room was silent.

  Finally, Charles spoke up. “That poor bugger, Jefferson. And then he killed himself. That bastard Edmund has a lot to answer for.”

  “Well, maybe more than you think. The tearful Jefferson we saw around the department was indeed grieving. He was devastated by what he had done and full of remorse. But neither I nor the police think he killed himself. If he wanted to commit suicide, he would have just added the cyanide directly to his drink.”

  Again, C.J. was met with wide-eyed stares of shock and disbelief. This drama was a
little too English department for her colleagues’ tastes.

  “Edmund DeBeyer killed Jefferson Daniels. While everyone had the opportunity, he is the only person who had both the capability and desire to kill Jefferson. Edmund DeBeyer placed the cyanide powder in the protein mix before he was killed himself, I would say sometime on the morning he was killed. As a former medical student, he had the skill to make cyanide powder if he didn’t want to order it off the internet. Only one person had a motive to kill Jefferson Daniels and that was Edmund. Edmund would never have stood by and allowed someone to take away one of his beloved possessions.”

  Walter Scovill stood up at the back of the room, his face distorted with anger and contempt. “This is a lovely story, Professor Whitmore, but what proof do you have? I would have thought as a data person, you would have understood that without corroborating evidence this is just cheap talk. Personally, I find the story that you are the killer very convincing. It is no secret that you despised Edmund. No one saw you collecting your parking meter data at one-fifteen. You say you have data for that time, but you would not be the first academic to make data up. You could have snuck into 40 Knollwood, argued with Edmund, killed him, and gone out again. And, as you have so cleverly pointed out, put poison in Jefferson’s protein powder at any time.”

  Walter smirked at C.J. This is just the beginning of my revenge, Annie Oakley, he thought bitterly. From the open door behind him, Walter heard a refined voice.

  “I thought it was just my husband who was a self-serving jerk. But it seems to almost be a job requirement around here.” Lisa DeBeyer had walked into the seminar room. She was impeccably dressed in an Ann Taylor black suit, and her long strawberry-blond hair was pulled back into a French twist. Despite her brash words, her face was pale with grief.

  C.J. gave her a smile.

  “Please excuse me for eavesdropping on your meeting. But I was hoping that I would not have to make an appearance. A rather foolish hope, I realize. Why would you accept the only logical explanation offered, when you can search around for another one that is esoteric and unlikely?”