Murder Is Academic

by P. M. Carlson

  “Okay,” said Bill cheerfully. Todd still glowered.

  “Thanks,” said Mary Beth, feeling unwelcome. “See you around.”

  Maggie closed the door carefully behind them. They were halfway down the front steps when the volume rose again, a little, behind them. They exchanged a resigned glance.

  As they came up their own front walk, a chipmunk darted across in front of them. From somewhere behind her breastbone, the wave of terror surged through Mary Beth. She stumbled on the steps and caught herself on the rough brick of the porch column.

  “You okay?” asked Maggie, concerned.

  “Yeah. It startled me.” She kept her face hidden against the brick and tried to stop shaking.

  “Yeah, he moved fast.” Maggie waited patiently.

  “Well.” Mary Beth made an effort and straightened, pretended she wasn’t nauseated. Would she ever be in control again? She forced her voice into a semblance of steadiness. “Let’s get back to work.”

  “Okay.” Maggie took her elbow and guided her back in to the refuge of her room and the thesis tapes.

  Frank called Maggie twice the next week. The second time she replaced the receiver with a sad and reflective look.

  “Bad news?” asked Jackie, who had answered it first.

  “Yes. Old Maggie has blown it again. Another experiment bites the dust. Another living sacrifice at the shrine of my blunders.” With which extravagant declaration she slammed into her room. Mary Beth and Jackie exchanged a startled glance.

  On Friday afternoon, he came again. It was raining, and his dark hair was dripping a little into his collar.

  “Maggie here?”

  “Upstairs.” Mary Beth went to get her. As they came back down, she noted the glow in his face in the instant before he masked it.

  “Hi, Frank.” Maggie was breezy. “Good to see you. What brings you here?”

  “I thought maybe you’d like to see the Resnais tonight.” He pushed back his damp hair.

  She sounded regretful. “I’ve really got too much work this weekend, Frank. Maybe some other time.”

  “Oh.” He tried to smile but couldn’t get past the first tentative flicker. “I mean, well, I thought you wanted to.”

  “I did. But it turns out I can’t.”

  “No way I could change your mind?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Next week?”

  “No, it looks just like this weekend. Too busy.”

  Her voice was friendly but firm. He was genuinely upset, surprise and hurt and anger just under the surface. Clearly he had expected something else. “Well—all right. Guess I go back and see it by myself.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his rain jacket.

  “May I go?” Jackie’s gentle voice startled them all.

  “You? Sure. I mean, I should have thought ... ” He was confused. “Sure, Jackie, that’d be great.”

  “Okay. Let me get my coat.” She went to the hall closet. Frank was still looking at Maggie, suspicious now, and bitter.

  “Not my idea,” she said.

  “You must have known I’d be here!”

  “Frank, let’s keep things straightforward, okay? I just can’t go.”

  “But why?” He could no longer hide his anguish. Maggie, tense, still faced him squarely, eyes cold as sleet.

  “Okay, Frank,” she said. “If you want it public, here goes: I need my freedom. And we were beginning to find each other too damn attractive.”

  A brittle second passed. Then Jackie said, “Whoops. Maybe you don’t want company.” She had paused in belting her raincoat.

  “On the contrary,” he said unsteadily, “I really need it now.”

  “I won’t go if you don’t want me along,” she said. “But I really did want to see the film.”

  “Okay,” he said, voice rough. “But just promise me you won’t be straightforward, like some people.”

  “Let’s just go see the flick,” she said soothingly. They went out into the rain.

  For a few minutes Maggie prowled around the kitchen unhappily, then flung herself out into the rainy backyard, where she split firewood viciously until she dropped a log on her shoe. She came back in, limping and coated with mud. Mary Beth waited in the upstairs hall as she hobbled up.

  “The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” she said. “Can I help?”

  “Nope,” Maggie replied. “I’m just going to take a shower.”

  “Good idea.”

  “A cold one.”

  “Oh. But you were right to level with him, Maggie.”

  Acid blue eyes met hers. “Why don’t you just shut up and enjoy your immunity?”

  Mary Beth retreated into her room, stung. Maggie’s arrows were rare, but swift and accurate.

  Jackie was back by midnight, enthusiastic about the film.

  V

  6 Imush (March 28, 1968)

  This bitch was cagey. Most were stupid—opened their windows or even got out to talk to him. This one rolled the window down only a few inches, and even though he was very polite, she wouldn’t open any further. “Never mind,” he said at last, “I can see you’re in a hurry. I’ll manage.” Suspicious bitch. He watched her drive away. Well, he’d be cagey too. No stories tomorrow in the newspaper for her to think about, tell the police about. The police were stupid; the bitches controlled them too, them and their sweaty blue shirts.

  He waited to be sure she was out of sight, then drove across the intersection, up the ramp, onto the highway. He’d take the little beagle to a vet. He smiled to himself. Even if this bitch accused him, he was safe. Syracuse was huge. And he was on his way up, respectable, intelligent. Respectable occupation, respectable home. They’d never believe he was the one. They’d think it was some bum. One of the advantages of his work was that he wasn’t stuck in an office, didn’t have to punch a clock.

  Mum’s puppy hadn’t been a beagle. A solid tan dog, curly ears. Maybe a golden retriever. Pa saying, “You think I won’t?” The knife against the curly tan throat. Mum shrieking, dropping the shotgun. Pa saying, “Shut up, you’re scaring the boy.” He was scared now. No. No, not now. Not scared. Angry, that was it! Because this suspicious bitch had forced him to wait. She hadn’t been like Mum, like the others. Was she controlling him? No, of course not, he was controlling her. Vet first. Then back to work. Quick. Respectable.

  “La wat-'in,” said Ros’s gentle voice from the machine.

  Mary Beth loved to transcribe her tapes. Slipping into her beloved Mayan was like escaping her present useless self. It was important to record the language and culture of the brave warm people she had known, who clung to their proud past with a justified tenacity understood by too few. And for Mary Beth, the voices on the tapes awakened the mountain scents, the bright colors, the friendly smiles of Ros and other friends, the optimism and confidence of her own younger, stronger self. When she dared think about it, she was surprised. The television news now, with its accounts of battle and death in Vietnam, confirmed her pessimism; it was a bad world. But Guatemala too had been filled with cause for pessimism, with violence always lurking behind the beautiful surface, with poverty and illness common, with injustice a constant fact of life. Why did Ixil give her such strength? But it did. From the flat tasteless world of her depression she was able, for a few hours each day, to slip into the brighter world of her work.

  Running helped sometimes. And music. Maggie had found a chunky red-haired mathematician named Dan Reade who played clarinet well, and their quintet met for practice now once or twice a week.

  And once when Jackie and Peter talked her into accompanying them to the university theatre production of The Crucible, Mary Beth discovered afterward with a sense of shock that she had not had a bad thought in three whole hours. She had always enjoyed theatre, but now it seemed to have the power to absorb her completely. She resolved to go whenever she could.

  But the most consistent solace was her work. She wrote now, “La wat-'in, ‘I will sleep,’” and pu
shed the start button again for “I am sleeping.”

  “N un-wat-'e,” said Ros.

  Uh-oh, thought Mary Beth, recording the words carefully. That doesn’t fit. She switched on the tape again for “I slept.” In the background she could hear Ros’s toddler chattering.

  “Kat wat-'in,” said Ros’s voice.

  That was okay. “Wat-'in” was okay.

  She made a list. To be a linguist, Professor Greene said, you had to have the soul of a clerk. And lots of three-by-five cards. Mary Beth shuffled through her stack. Right, there it was, a transitive verb’s pronoun. Why had Ros used it with the intransitive “am sleeping”?

  Damn. Could Professor Greene be right? Maybe it would take longer—a year and a half without being able to escape back to Guatemala. I’ve got to do it sooner, she told herself fiercely. I’ll figure it out. I’ve got to.

  Cathy Berryman filled her sherry glass and asked, “Jane, quick, tell me what Corbett’s lecture was about. Linc is always telling me I sound like a dummy, but I can’t take that many hours away from Donny to come hear the lectures. So fill me in, okay?”

  “Sure. Corbett is studying altruism,” explained Jane. She and Cathy moved away from the bar that Dick Davies had set up in his dining room. “He was trying to show that people who feel they are to blame for something will behave more generously than people who are just innocent bystanders.”

  “Because they feel guilty?”

  “That’s what he thought. But, in fact, the Innocent Bystanders in his study were just as altruistic as the Guilties.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “That’s what they’re arguing about right now.”

  Petra Davies, round and smiling in her baby blue dress, joined them. “Hello, Jane. You look lovely tonight!”

  “Thank you.” Jane was wearing her silk paisley, the one that Roger said made her eyes look green.

  “So glad you could come, Cathy,” Petra went on. “How’s Donny doing?”

  “Fine! The nursery school says he’s just like his dad,” said Cathy proudly. “Loves animals. They’ve got rabbits and gerbils and parakeets, and Donny gives all the other kids instructions about taking care of them.”

  “Doesn’t he have pets at home?” asked Petra.

  “Of course! Five cats, a German shepherd, and two snakes.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Donny adores them. He’s writing a book, he says, about the snakes. Of course it’s only three pages long so far.”

  “Excuse me.” Jane left Cathy and Petra to discuss the Berryman child. Her interest in little Donny Berryman was strictly academic. Linc had brought Donny to campus for her to test a couple of years ago when she was beginning her work with prelinguistic babies. But now he was four, an accomplished speaker of his native tongue, and beyond the murky beginnings that fascinated Jane professionally.

  There was another danger, she had found. As a female psychologist who studied infants and children, it was all too easy to be viewed as a sort of super nursery school teacher. During her first year she had occasionally tried to discuss linguistic development with mothers, but usually her comments were interpreted as signs of interest in the particular child and she soon found herself embroiled in a discussion of formulas or toilet training. She, who had never changed a diaper in her life. Maybe someday, if she got tenure, she and Roger would raise a family. But not soon. Her children now were the articles and the slowly forming book, and they needed all her attention. She joined the small mob of faculty and graduates around the guest of honor, Professor Corbett.

  “But why?” Dick Davies was asking. “It’s all very well to say the Guilties were generous because they wanted to make up for their supposed sin. But it doesn’t explain the Innocent Bystanders. You need a motive that will explain both groups.”

  “We couldn’t think of one,” admitted Corbett.

  “Why do the two groups have to have the same motive?” Maggie Ryan asked. “Suppose the Innocent Bystanders have a sort of general belief in justice, in good outweighing evil. Every one of us is responsible for making it a just world.”

  Corbett was interested. “So the source of their altruism is some sort of felt obligation to adjust the scales? If something goes wrong, you counter with your own good deed? But that’s pretty abstract if you aren’t actually guilty.”

  “Very abstract,” agreed Jane. “An attempt for a just world.”

  “Maybe the Guilties felt that way too,” suggested Dick. “Maybe it’s one motive after all.”

  “Maybe,” said Jane, “but it could be different. Guilt is part of eye-for-an-eye justice. The misdeed and the punishment in perfect proportion. Individualized, ideal justice. But the abstract principles Maggie is talking about are what motivate people in civil rights groups or peace groups or the Peace Corps. Caring for people. Not just personal atonement.”

  “I see,” said Corbett. “I never killed Vietnamese villagers personally, but it’s still up to me to help stop the war?”

  “Right,” said Jane. “Although you’d also feel obliged to fix things you personally had damaged.”

  “Yes, I’ll work on that,” said Corbett.

  “Anyone else for a refill?” asked Dick, waving his empty glass.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Jane.

  As they walked toward the bar she heard Maggie ask Corbett, “I know you’re interested in altruism. Donations to charity and so forth. But the motives you’re studying could lead to other types of behavior too. What about revenge, someone who forces some other guilty person to correct the scales, whether he wants to or not? Or what about people who feel individually guilty, but hurt themselves, instead of helping others?”

  Interesting questions, thought Jane. Human behavior was much more complicated than Corbett’s little model allowed. Than anyone’s model allowed. But she abandoned the train of thought because Dick was pouring her sherry and asking, “Enough?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Roger isn’t here tonight.”

  “No, he sends his apologies. He’s busy on a tough case.”

  “Tell me, Jane. Do you plan to marry soon?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curiosity.”

  “Yes, I can see that it would be an interesting question. I wonder if Hal will marry soon? Or, on the other hand, if Linc and Cathy plan to divorce soon?”

  “Yes, interesting questions all.” Dick took a sip of sherry, his blue eyes twinkling in cheerful defeat. “I agree that family has nothing to do with our work, Jane. I mean, God, my own father was arrested for assault once, so I’d be the last to complain about your private background. It’s just that in the past we’ve had a couple of excellent women professors resign in order to marry.”

  “This one won’t.”

  “Yes, of course, I wasn’t implying that.”

  The hell you weren’t, thought Jane. She said, “All the same, Dick, let me repeat that I am totally committed to my research and teaching. I love it.”

  “Yes, of course. Do you have any preference? Between research and teaching?”

  “Oh, you know how much variety there is in both. Rewards and frustrations. It’s exhilarating when you do an experiment that gives you a glimpse into the way people work. It’s also wonderful to get a good paper from a student. I enjoy both sides.”

  “Of course, experiments don’t always work out.”

  “And students sometimes disappoint you. Just today, I had to fail a young man because he’d altered data on a midterm project. Wanted it to be statistically significant, so he changed the numbers.”

  “You failed him?”

  “Had to. It was premeditated cheating. I can bear with ignorance or laziness, Dick. But altering data strikes at the heart of what science is trying to do. It’s an attack on truth.”

  “Well, failing him may be a bit extreme. But you’re right to nip it in the bud. By the way, I just read your articles on mothers’ speech to young children. Quite good.”

&nb
sp; “Thanks.” Jane was proud of that series of three articles, based on her long-ago thesis. “I have a student working in Canada on the same variables with French speakers.”

  “You language people are lucky. Your area of investigation is so clearly marked off, and the next steps are so obvious. It’s easy to tell whether something is or isn’t language. In social psych we have problems. Where does motivation stop? What are the edges of personality?”

  Jane smiled. “We scientists are hopeless romantics, aren’t we? We all have these secret images of ourselves smashing through jungles of ignorance, like Balboa or Davy Crockett.”

  “Our armor a lab coat, our weapon a rapierlike intelligence.” Dick was amused by her metaphor.

  Linc Berryman, big and dark-bearded and jovial, joined them. “Hello, hello!”

  “Hi, Linc.”

  “Jane, I was just talking to Terry Poole. Tell me, what’s this I hear about WAR?”

  “War?” asked Dick.

  “Our militant acronym for Women Against Rape,” explained Jane. “I’m a sort of figurehead faculty adviser for a group of women who want to reduce the incidence of rape. Especially against themselves.”

  “Any special reason they chose you?”

  “I was handy, female, and altruistic,” said Jane. “I suppose Corbett would put me in the Innocent Bystanders group. We were all upset by the Christie James murder.”

  “I see. What does the group do?”

  “We’ve only had two meetings so far. We plan to study all aspects of the situation—from prevention to self-defense to the psychology of rapists.”

  “And just what is the psychology of the rapist?”

  “I’m not in psychopathology,” Jane said, smiling. “But I gather there are many varieties. Rapists who first gain a woman’s confidence, may even date her, come from all classes. But a man who rapes strangers is often young, from a low socioeconomic class, abused as a child, violence-prone, and angry at women for some reason, maybe unsure of his own sexuality. Most don’t care who the victim is as long as she’s female.”