Murder Is Academic

by P. M. Carlson

  Title page

  Copyright & history

  Dedication

  Murder Is Academic

  About the author

  Murder Is Academic

  Maggie Ryan, 1968

  by P.M. Carlson

  The Mystery Company

  Mount Vernon, Ohio

  MURDER IS ACADEMIC

  Copyright © 1985 by Patricia Carlson

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  PRINT ISBN-13: 978-1-932325-23-9

  EBOOK ISBN-13: 978-1-932325-26-3

  Cover design by Pat Prather

  Cover art by Robin Agnew

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Avon Books first edition: October 1985

  The Mystery Company Smashwords/epub edition: October 2012

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  The Mystery Company, an imprint of Crum Creek Press

  1558 Coshocton Ave #126

  Mount Vernon, OH 43050

  www.crumcreekpress.com

  For the Ixil and other victims

  ’Tis present death I beg: and one thing more,

  That womanhood denies my tongue to tell.

  O! keep me from their worse than killing lust.

  — Titus Andronicus, Act II, Scene 3

  I

  10 Kaoo (March 6, 1968)

  This bitch was unconscious already. He must have clamped too hard on her mouth. When the need was on him he didn’t pay much attention. He had an image of the greasy edge of the curtain, the steamy city outside the window. He was six, trying to hide behind the curtain. It smelled like mold and smoke. He kept looking out at the dark hot sidewalk so he wouldn’t see the knife in Pa’s hand.

  He shook his head. No. Now he was in control. He stood up and refastened his belt. This part would be easier anyway: she was so still. He pulled out the knife again and adjusted it carefully, just there on the neck, jugular not carotid. Don’t want it spurting. And afterward, carefully, the triangle on the right cheekbone, just like the mark on Mum’s cheek. Bitch. She’d never control him now. Wipe the blade, close the knife. Knife and tissue in pocket. Nobody around. Pick up the puppy. Walk casually to the Chevy. Drive away. Carefully.

  He tried to remember what she looked like. Young, he thought. Blonde? Well, he could read about her this afternoon. He generally recognized the pictures.

  Bitch. She’d had it coming.

  “In another set of studies on moral development, Piaget investigated what children thought about lies told by people with different intentions.” Professor Davies smiled benignly at the class. Damn, thought Mary Beth, he’s going to do it again. Only three minutes to go, and he was starting a new example. “For example, Piaget asked children to compare two cases. In the first, a boy tells his mother he has seen a dog as big as a cow.”

  Mary Beth didn’t think he meant to run over; he just never checked his watch. The course was interesting enough, a good way for graduate students to satisfy the social science requirement. But it usually made her late to her seminar on Mayan languages. And that was her most important course this term, taught by her thesis adviser. Not wise to offend your thesis adviser, especially if you were as eager to finish as Mary Beth was. But even the ostentatious closing of books and shuffling of impatient feet did not deter Professor Davies. He pushed back red hair from his round forehead and adjusted his notes on the tall Victorian lectern.

  “In the second case, another boy falsely tells his mother that he has received a good grade. Then Piaget asked the children which lie was worse.”

  Mary Beth wrote, “Which lie is worse?” and sighed. What was today? 10 Kaoo. The day of the Guardian of the World, not a bad day, usually. But this morning her tall new housemate Maggie, as disgustingly wide awake as the birds outside, had knocked on her door calling, “Eight o’clock, Mary Beth.” Shocked, Mary Beth had looked accusingly at her alarm clock, set for seven-thirty.

  The clock hadn’t been there.

  She had hurried to the bathroom crossly, asking Maggie, “Where’s my clock? Someone’s run off with my clock!” But Maggie, munching her toast, had just shaken her black curls, and there hadn’t been time to investigate.

  “The youngest children focused on the amount of discrepancy from real life. Boys do get good grades sometimes, the children reasoned, so that lie wasn’t far from the truth. However, dogs are never as big as cows, so that lie was worse. At this stage of moral development, intentions don’t count.”

  The phrase echoed in Mary Beth’s ears. Intentions don’t count. Tip had said; how could you do this to me? Oh God. A cold panic lapped about her, welling up like icy lava from the underworld. Far in the background, Hun-Came and Vucub-Came began to shriek with silent laughter. Willing them away, she clenched the pen in her fist until she could feel bruising pain against her finger joints. She looked around, frantic for support, for reality. The big old paneled lecture hall, worn floor, crooked brown stain in the corner of the ceiling. Okay. That was real. That was now. The rows of impatient students. Professor Davies, pudgy and red-haired. Piaget’s theories. Okay, she told herself fiercely, everything is okay. She stole a glance at Maggie, slouching serenely next to her, long legs stretched well under the seat in front. Everything was okay.

  Mary Beth held them at bay and slowly they retreated—Hun-Came and Vucub-Came, the Lords of Death. Slowly the lapping terror ebbed. She concentrated on her feet, her ankles, her knees, working her way up her body and consciously relaxing each part, but she could still feel her rushing pulse and the chill perspiration on her skin, and the shame. She had to finish soon. Get away from here, get back to Guatemala, try to find the bright and confident Mary Beth she had once been.

  “ ... a stage that takes motivation into account,” Professor Davies was saying. “These older children claim that exaggerating the size of the dog is okay, because there’s no ... ”

  Somewhere near at hand a bell shrilled. Startled, Mary Beth looked around. Professor Davies hesitated, then went on, raising his voice a little.

  “ ... no danger that the mother will believe ... ” Another bell, deeper than the first, joined in from across the room. And in another second, another bell, from the back, with an awful familiarity. Oh Jesus. Maggie! Mary Beth turned accusingly to her friend. Calm and amused, Maggie’s blue eyes met hers for an instant and then looked back at Professor Davies. More bells were joining in, eight or ten by now. Professor Davies, bewildered, turned his head back and forth, surveying the old hall in perplexity. Radiators, venetian blinds, wastebaskets, paneling, every nook and crevice seemed to be ringing. Finally the answer struck him. He looked at his watch.

  “Oh my.” Mary Beth could not hear him above the shrill cacophony, but saw his lips form the words. He stared at the watch a moment and a grudging smile twisted his mouth. He closed his notebook and shrugged elaborately at the class. Relieved, the students laughed and applauded as he left.

  Mary Beth tossed her books into her big Guatemalan bag and stood up, still a little shaky but in control again. She
marched up the sloping aisle to the back entry stairwell. There was her missing clock—in the cranny where the banister joined the wall. She silenced it and carried it back down the side aisle to her friend.

  Maggie handed her a brown paper sack. “It’ll travel better in this,” she said warily. She was a little uneasy; they hadn’t known each other long. Mary Beth took the sack and followed her. Maggie was making an efficient orbit around the room, pulling alarm clocks from behind radiators and wastebaskets. Other students, grinning, congratulated her on their way out.

  Mary Beth said, “Maggie, you’re some kind of a loon.”

  “Do you realize that you may even be on time to your seminar if you leave now?”

  “No need to get prickly.’’ Mary Beth dropped her bagged clock into her bookbag and grinned at Maggie. “I won’t evict you.”

  Maggie, a hint of relief shining in the deep blue eyes, smiled back. “My lucky day,” she said airily.

  “We Mayan landlords are very conscious of time,” said Mary Beth, putting on a landlord face. “It was a good cause. Shows highly developed morality. See you later, loon.” She swung her bookbag over her shoulder and went out into the March cold to class.

  The letter was waiting in the box marked Freeman, tossed in casually by a bored secretary. Jane glanced at the return address and tucked the envelope hastily into her briefcase, then headed for privacy. Maybe her own little experimental room, down in the basement. But when she arrived she saw that the big equipment room next door was empty too, and so she went in there instead, because she never felt easy in small rooms.

  The letter was from the Verbal Learning Quarterly. She slit it open neatly with her letter-knife, glanced at the brief paragraph, breathed “Wow!” to a nearby tachistoscope, and began to skip around the room.

  “Hey, you got a nice high,” said Josh Hinshaw admiringly from the door. Jane turned and grinned at him. She must have looked silly, bouncing around in her dignified gray suit and high-heeled pumps. Such actions were more suited to the embroidered jeans and bright beads that Josh wore. Well, she always had been too impulsive.

  “Just got an article accepted,” she informed him.

  “Hey, good for you.” Josh ambled in and sat on his desk. “Is it about these babies we’re testing?”

  “God, no! We’re miles from publishing anything on them. This article was finished a long time ago. But it’s a relief to get it into print.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, I’m going up to grab a cup of coffee.” The news was good; she could face her colleagues. “But we have two babies coming in this afternoon, so I’ll see you soon.”

  “Okay. Three-thirty?”

  “Right. See you then. Cheers!”

  Jane paused in the women’s room to be sure that her long brown hair, braided and wrapped neatly around her head, had not jounced loose during her little dance of triumph. Then, still tingling with pleasure at the joyful news, she headed up the solid staircase of the paneled thirties building to the faculty lounge on the main psychology floor. Today’s paper was lying on the coffee table. She got herself a cup of coffee and glanced down at the front page. The headlines spoke of more gore in Vietnam. And the Triangle Murderer had apparently struck again in nearby Syracuse. Four victims so far. She reached down for the paper.

  “They did what?”

  Jane straightened as Linc Berryman and Dick Davies came into the faculty lounge. Linc sounded even more excited than usual.

  “They had dozens of alarm clocks,” Dick was saying, “all set for two-fifteen.” His pudgy face was rueful. “I never heard anything like it!”

  “Good Lord!” Linc had a booming laugh. A tall, muscular young man with a bushy beard, he specialized in biopsychology, and had given guest lectures for Jane a time or two. Linc went over well with students, since he was so clearly convinced that birdsong was among the most fascinating topics known to the human mind. He was up for a tenure decision this year too.

  “What’s the joke?” asked Jane.

  “My disorganized ways finally caught up with me,” explained Dick. “I always have trouble stopping on time. Today my twelve o’clock students hid dozens of alarm clocks around the room, all set for the end of the period. Incredible sound!”

  Jane laughed. “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? I quit. Right in midsentence.” He made a face of comic defeat.

  She shook her head, smiling, and took a sip of coffee. Poor Dick. He was notorious at faculty meetings too for having no sense of time. Jane paid careful attention to Dick and his moods these days, as she did to all tenured professors. Dick was something of an enigma, a social psychologist who knew all the right words to say about equality for blacks and women, but still tended to be abrupt and impatient with her and with the two other women professors at faculty meetings. He’d been raised in working-class Baltimore, he’d said; old attitudes died hard, even if you were an expert in attitude change. But Dick’s work was undeniably good. She had been on a couple of committees for his students’ theses and was impressed by the sharp mind he brought to bear on their research. He had received tenure two years ago. Eleven articles, three of them quite influential, a couple of book chapters, and a book in manuscript.

  For Jane, today’s acceptance made nine articles. At the moment her own book was just an outline and a preliminary list of references.

  “Was the whole class involved?” she asked.

  “I got the impression most of them were as surprised as I was,” said Dick.

  “You’re right,” said a new voice. They all turned to the door. A woman student stood there. Tall, with a pleasant smile, feathery black curls, vivid blue eyes.

  “Hi, Maggie. You know something about this episode?” asked Dick.

  “I wanted to confess before you started blaming anyone else. Piaget would be ashamed of me if I intended to deceive.”

  Dick smiled. “I see. You’re afraid I’ll have the whole class write ‘I will not set alarm clocks in social psych’ one thousand times?”

  “Well, I’m new here. For all I know, the rack and thumbscrews are still in use.”

  “We reserve those for nontenured professors,” said Dick with a sly glance at Jane and Linc. They laughed dutifully. He turned back to Maggie. “But I got the message.” For the first time Jane caught the undertone of anger in his cheerful voice.

  “It was a bit Pavlovian, though,” Jane chided Maggie.

  “Yes. A crude, old-fashioned approach,” said Maggie apologetically. “Not really worthy of this high-technology department. But the situation didn’t seem to call for a full-scale sit-in.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Dick. He looked Maggie over, and said the right thing. “Well, I’ll try to reform.”

  “Okay. So will I,” she promised.

  “Want to come in and have some genuine faculty instant coffee to seal the truce?” he offered.

  “Thanks.” She gave him a broad bright smile and hefted her clanking bookbag. “But I’ve got a lot of alarm clocks to return now. Some people didn’t exactly know they were loaning them. I have to get them back before I flunk moral development.”

  Linc frowned after her. “Handsome woman. Who is she?”

  “Maggie Ryan,” said Dick. “New grad in statistics.”

  “Working with Walt Bennett?”

  “And with people in the math department. Walt says she’s got more math background than psych, so he put her in my course to fill her in. Blast him.”

  “Never trust a number cruncher,” said Linc. He sat down on the sofa and looked up at Jane. “How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” she said casually. “Just got an article accepted by the Verbal Learning Quarterly. The one on negation.”

  “Terrific! That’s a good journal.”

  Dick asked, “And how is your project with babies?”

  “Slow. I worked it out. By the time you make allowances for missed appointments, we test an average of point seven babies per day, worki
ng at full speed.”

  “This study will be included in your book, right?” asked Linc.

  “Chapter Four. I hope so,” said Jane fervently. She hated the suspense of waiting for the results that would tell her if she was on the right track.

  “Best not to count chickens,” said Dick, sitting next to Linc and picking up the paper. He was smiling, but Jane felt the sharp and icy edge in his comment. Or was it her imagination? She touched her briefcase where the letter lay and, comforted, turned to Linc.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’ve got two articles out to journals,” he replied. “One on nesting, one on heredity. Haven’t heard about either of them.”

  “Good luck.” Jane was sincere. Her relationship with Linc Berryman and Hal Hazlitt was odd this year. Theoretically, Dick and the rest of the tenured faculty could choose to vote tenure for all three candidates, or for none. As a practical matter, though, she knew they were rivals; any one of them clearly behind or ahead of the others could affect the vote for all three. But despite the competition, there was comradeship too. They all knew the hopes and fears that accompanied the mailing of articles to journals, brief summaries of months of work. It was a little like being baseball players on a farm team, she thought; they simultaneously worked together, helping each other, and competed against each other for the call to the big leagues.

  Which would never come if she spent all her time talking. She said, “Well, folks, back to work. I’ll see you later. Cheers!”

  “See you, Jane.”

  As she walked down the wainscoted hall to her office, Jane pulled out her appointment book. Two babies this afternoon, one at three-thirty and one at five-thirty. Josh would help her run the machines, as usual, but Jane alone would meet the mothers, who felt more comfortable if she wired up the babies. Josh was too much a flower child, with too much frizzy hair and too many beads, to inspire confidence. Jane, on the other hand, looked both kind and scientific; she seemed to make the mothers feel confident that no stray jolts of electricity would be allowed to course through their infants. In fact, the power all came from the equipment room next door, where Josh presided. Of course, it couldn’t reach the baby. But there was a lot of voltage in there, and it was best to keep the mothers uninformed and reassured.