Murder Is Academic

by P. M. Carlson

  “And then be ready to prosecute if you can bear it,” said Jane briskly. “Look, it’s about time we let Sergeant Rayburn go. We’ve learned a lot, I think.”

  There was a chorus of agreement, and thanks.

  Sergeant Rayburn grinned. “Guess I learned a couple of things too,” he said.

  ‘”Well, thank you,” said Jane. “Maggie, Monica, can you help me bring in the coffee?”

  Most of the group stood up to stretch and to gather around Sergeant Rayburn as Jane and her two helpers went to the kitchen to bring back coffee and cups and cookies. Jane set her tray down on the coffee table. A good session, she thought, as she played hostess and poured out the coffee; unpleasant in some ways, of course, but realism was what they wanted.

  She glanced around the room. Most of the women were subdued and thoughtful, like Jackie Edwards standing frowning at the desk, sipping the mug of coffee that Maggie had handed her, or Monica quietly passing the plate of cookies. Terry and three others now talking to Sergeant Rayburn were laughing a little, though, at some joke he had made. What should the group do next? Maybe it was time to talk to a lawyer. She’d ask Roger if there were any attorneys who might speak to the group.

  Her head was a little better. After everyone left, she finished tidying up, then went back to her desk to finish her proofreading. Staring down at the neatly printed long pages with her own scribbled marks, she suddenly felt a wave of hopelessness. The whole last ten years seemed lost, a mistake, all that work to get her degree, to publish, to impress her colleagues. Silly to think she’d ever get tenure. The departmental approval that she and Roger had celebrated so giddily last night was just one step. There were just too many obstacles. But she sat down and turned her mind sternly to proofing the last few paragraphs, and then she graded some more exams. By the time Roger returned late that afternoon she was ready to launch herself into the struggle again.

  Sue came back to Walton Street from a day as escort to the visiting Russians at about four o’clock, and she grilled Jackie and Maggie thoroughly about the WAR meeting she had had to miss. Mary Beth remained in the living room trying to read, but noticed that Jackie seemed morose and quiet about it, and that it was chiefly Maggie, clanking pots and pans as she fixed dinner, who answered most of Sue’s questions. Sue was fascinated by the bits of information they had received about the Triangle Murderer.

  “We should get up a posse or something,” she declared.

  “Innocent until proven guilty,” Maggie reminded her. “They can’t arrest everyone with a gray or blue Chevy and a J.C. Penney shirt.”

  “Pooh. In this case I’m all for a police state.”

  Maggie asked, “Frank’s coming tonight, isn’t he, Jackie?”

  “Right.”

  “Oh God,” said Sue. “Guess I’ll get into my shabbies so I won’t steal him away from you, gorgeous creature that I am. I don’t think he could take a third one of us.” Her high heels went clicking up the stairs.

  “You okay, Jackie?” Maggie’s voice asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Something on your mind?”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell you about it later. I have to talk to someone first.”

  “Sure. Do you know if Frank likes Provençal cooking?”

  “He says the only thing he hates is bean soup.”

  “Well, then, we’re home free.”

  Mary Beth took a deep breath and went to freshen herself up before dinner. In the mirror she looked pretty good, she thought, blonde hair shining again, the blue eyes and firm mouth suggesting the confidence that wasn’t really there. Maybe she was getting better. But she knew too well that there was still damage inside, waiting to surface unexpectedly again, when she saw a chipmunk or a drunk by a wall. Ros said you can’t erase time.

  But she couldn’t think about it, couldn’t talk about it. Surely Maggie was wrong, talking wouldn’t help. Surely it was fading by now, would all disappear in time. Time heals, Nick had said. Already, most of the time, she didn’t think about it. And surely she could get the thesis out of the way and get back to Guatemala soon.

  If only she could feel that she had done the right thing.

  Forget it, don’t think about it. She dabbed on more cologne to block the ugly smell.

  Dinner was fairly cheerful. Frank was teasing Jackie about a report she had made on Victor Hugo, which she defended with spirit and good humor, and Maggie’s beef stew was especially good, as her dinners often were on Saturdays when she had time to do things the French way. About halfway through dinner, there was the blare of loud music from across the street.

  “Heck,” said Sue. “Is it my turn?”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Maggie. The two of them disappeared and presently the volume was lowered a little. They came back a minute later, Sue looking glum but Maggie unaccountably cheerful.

  “Bad news,” said Sue. “Looks like party night.”

  “Gross,” said Jackie. “Let’s get out of here, Frank.”

  “Done. We’ll go to the flicks.” He patted Jackie’s shoulder possessively. “Listen, that was a great stew or whatever it was, Maggie.”

  “Daube. Thanks.”

  “Haven’t eaten like that since Paris. And not often there, because I was too poor.”

  “No one’s ever rich enough for Paris.”

  “Well, that’s true too.”

  “Here. Have some macédoine before you run off.”

  Mary Beth took some too. She hadn’t had much appetite for months, but it was important to show Maggie that she appreciated the effort that had gone into it. They had coffee, and then Frank and Jackie left. Mary Beth started clearing up the kitchen.

  “You made a lot of daube tonight,” she observed. “It was good. We’ll have another whole meal from it, won’t we?”

  “Yep,” agreed Maggie. “Monday lunch.”

  “Aha. I see now. Frank is an accidental beneficiary. You’re not trying for his heart through his stomach.”

  “God, no. It’s for the picnic. I just thought we could take the camp stove up with us and warm up the daube. It’s better the second day. And Nick will have something good to drink with it. He knows about food.”

  “Are you sure you want me along, Maggie?”

  “You mean you’d be bored if we started talking about old times?”

  “No. I’d be fascinated,” admitted Mary Beth.

  “Well, nosy, come along. And you too, Sue.”

  “Sorry,” said Sue. “Much as I’d love to meet this talented uncle of yours, the first problem is to survive this three-week summer session. Those visiting dignitaries didn’t help. I’m going up to work now.”

  “I’m going up too,” said Maggie. “I’ve got a big project due Wednesday. See you later, scullery maid.” She and Sue went upstairs.

  Mary Beth finished the dishes and scrubbed the kitchen, always a big job when Maggie’s French muse hit her. Afterward she went upstairs herself to work on Ixil verbs again. It was slowing down the thesis considerably, a fascinating but time-consuming problem. She had brought home a stack of books on other Mayan languages earlier in the week, and was working her way through them in the hopes of finding a historical explanation that would satisfy Professor Greene.

  After half an hour, the music across the street rose in volume again. Even in Mary Beth’s room, at the back of the house, she could hear the words distinctly. It was the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” Not good study music. She cursed to herself and started to close the window tighter, wondering how Maggie could stand it. But she paused with her hand on the sash.

  Somewhere another sound had begun.

  Richard Wagner. Tristan und Isolde.

  Birgit Nilsson’s enormous soprano voice.

  It filled the night. It was huge and sonorous. Mary Beth frowned to herself and went down to the front porch. Sue was already there, looking up in disbelief.

  “It’s coming from Maggie’s goddamn room,” she said.

  It was true. The garg
antuan voice, high and powerful, was rolling from the upstairs window of their own house.

  Across the street at the party, several dismayed people had come out the open front door. Someone pointed up at Maggie’s window. All up and down the street, in fact, people were coming out to hear what was happening. They watched the two houses and grinned or covered their ears. In a minute the Beatles went up in volume a notch or two.

  Birgit Nilsson rose to the occasion. With Wagner’s amplified orchestration booming beneath her, the powerful soprano voice, swollen now to a shrillness beyond bearing, soared ever more piercingly through the night. The music from across the street sounded thin in the occasional rests of Wagner’s thundering music.

  A couple of ear-splitting minutes went by. The Rolling Stones took over from the Beatles. Nilsson started the same aria again and repeated her triumph. Mary Beth laughed in spite of herself, and Sue was crowing with delight, bouncing up and down with her hands clapped over her ears.

  The music from across the street suddenly abated, and someone emerged and started toward them waving a broom with a white handkerchief tied to the handle.

  Birgit Nilsson lowered her voice abruptly.

  “Truce?” yelled the boy with the white flag. It was Bill, Mary Beth saw.

  “Anything you say, Bill.” Maggie was leaning out her window, elbows on the sill.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to hear my own music.”

  “That’s what we want too.”

  “Right.”

  “But, um, we’re having a party.”

  “I’m not. I’m just listening to records. I just want to hear my own music.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right.”

  “How about if we close the doors and windows?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “Will you close yours?”

  “Not on a nice night like this. Why should I?”

  “Because ... heck.”

  “I just want to hear my own music.”

  “You’ve got a new stereo outfit, huh.”

  “Yep. Good one.”

  “Yeah. Listen, if you can’t hear ours will you keep it a little lower?”

  “Sure. I don’t want to bother anybody. I just want to hear my own music.”

  “Okay. We’ll see if this works.”

  He disappeared into the house again, and the front doors and windows closed. They caught a glimpse of Todd’s angry glowering face before the door shut. In a minute Mary Beth, her jangled ears listening very hard, heard the faint throb of the party records again; and then, high and sweet and very soft in the June air, music from Maggie’s room. Birgit Nilsson?

  No. Maggie had switched to the Beatles too.

  Down the street a little knot of neighbors applauded and cheered into the near-silence. Sue joined in, and others up and down the street. Mary Beth felt exhilarated. She rushed into the house, well ahead of Sue, and met Maggie coming down the stairs. She threw her arms around her.

  “That was the most wonderful thing ever!” she cried.

  Maggie, pleased, grinned back. “Hardly that,” she said. “But thanks.”

  “How did you ... oh Jeez!” Several things suddenly fell into place.

  “I told you I’d show you today.”

  “But my God, Maggie, what if they catch you?”

  “Catch her what?” asked Sue, arriving at last.

  “She stole those speakers from the theatre last night!”

  “Stole, nothing. They needed fixing,” Maggie objected.

  “My God,” said Sue, pleased and appalled.

  “Besides,” said Maggie, “they’ll be back in the theatre safe and sound on Monday. Better than when they left.”

  “Jeez,” said Mary Beth, shaking her head.

  Maggie looked at her owlishly. “Some problems require drastic measures. Don’t you think so?”

  Mary Beth considered, and grinned. “I think it was the most wonderful thing ever!”

  Upstairs, the Beatles sang “A Little Help from My Friends.”

  XI

  9 Iiq (June 17, 1968)

  She was dead now, no more threat. The murderer pushed aside the long dark hair and, very carefully, cut the triangle into the young cheek. Done. Now, walk to the car calmly, get in. Back to the highway, driving coolly, back in control again.

  The Christian conquerors teach that days don’t begin until midnight. The Maya know that it takes longer to hand over the burdens of time, and that the influence of the incoming god may begin at sunset. The day known as Monday, June 17, to those who count by the Gregorian calendar was pleasantly breezy, as befitted the Ixil 9 Iiq; but shortly after sunset it became one of the most tragic of Mary Beth’s life. A Mayan traditionalist might have attributed the change to the coming of that doubly unlucky day, 10 Aqbal. Ten, the number of death, of violence. Aqbal, the day of evil in men’s hearts; the day of Night.

  But it had all begun quite cheerfully.

  Maggie had packed the speakers and amplifier carefully into the Land Rover. Jackie’s brake repairs were not yet finished, so she needed to borrow Maggie’s rusty Ford another day. Besides, the Land Rover was roomier for transporting speakers. Maggie had borrowed Sue’s backpack in case Nick needed one, and had packed her own and Mary Beth’s with the camp stove and the food. She hummed lightheartedly as she worked.

  “You’re happy to see him, aren’t you?” Mary Beth had said, tightening the top of the salad dressing jar.

  “Yes, but that’s only part of it,” Maggie had confessed. “It’s just good to know that’s behind me. It was a very bad time, and Nick was there. But I can see him now and just enjoy the friendship. The bad memories are there, way in the background, but the good ones are too. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It hurt quite a lot for a while.”

  “Your cliché love affair,” said Mary Beth daringly.

  Maggie nodded calmly. “His name was Rob. A professional actor, like Nick. Gloriously bright and handsome. I fell in love, and even agreed to marry him. He was fun. And then I found out that he was already committed to someone else.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, I told you it was cliché.”

  “Rob played violin.”

  Maggie gave her a reproachful look. “Why do you bother to ask when you know all about it already?”

  Mary Beth started packing the forks and spoons and said, “Nick told me his wife died.”

  “Yes. It was a very bad time. But he seems okay now too.”

  “So you’re free now.” Mary Beth, despite herself, felt envious. “No wonder you’re so happy.”

  “Free. No, not really,” said Maggie thoughtfully. “It’ll always be with me. I’ve learned from it, and I’ll never make that mistake again. But I’m back in control, you see. If I can see Uncle Nick like a normal human being, I can do anything.”

  “You’re brave, Maggie.”

  “Brave, nothing!” Maggie’s eyes met hers, merrily. “I’ve got this sadistic friend Mary Beth who keeps forcing me to do things and go places when I don’t want to.”

  “Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Mary Beth. Your cruel demands come from a very intelligent subconscious. It’s been right every time.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “Wish I could do something for you. Anyway, let’s get this stuff into the Land Rover.”

  The day was another fine one, the sky streaked with a few clouds but basically sunny and smelling of clover and mock orange. Sue and Jackie saw them off, professing to be jealous but adamantly refusing all invitations to come along.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a date at the library this afternoon,” Jackie explained.

  “I’m too busy too,” Sue said. “Besides, you won’t catch me in the same vehicle with stolen property. You’re going to need me to stand bail.”

  They drove the twenty miles happily, most of it on superhighway. After they exited, the last three miles were along a winding c
ountry road. They pulled into the parking lot a few minutes early to find Nick already there and out of his car, studying a map of the park on a signboard. They didn’t need Sue’s backpack after all: he was wearing one already.

  “Great place,” he said as they came up. “Looks like we can get to the top of that ridge back there, right?”

  “It takes some climbing,” said Mary Beth. “But there’s a good trail all the way.”

  “Have you been up there too?” he asked Maggie.

  “Not yet. Not to that part. But you can believe Mary Beth. She’s an expert mountaineer.”

  “I know.” He grinned at her. “Anyone who can climb the Cuchu-whatchamacallits is expert enough for me.”

  “Cuchumatanes,” said Mary Beth.

  “Well, let’s go then.”

  They started up the trail and Mary Beth noticed again how accurate and smooth his movements were for a big man—not the shambling heavy walk of a bear but the liquid tread of a leopard or lion, muscular and precise. There were ferns and maples here on the north side of the ridge, and slate outcroppings. After they had walked along a hundred yards or so the path suddenly became steeper. There was broken stone in the cliff side. They passed a sign that read, “Danger, Fallen Rocks. Do Not Leave Trail.”

  Nick said conversationally, “You know, when I was a kid, a sign like that was not a prohibition. It was a challenge.”

  Maggie’s blue eyes flicked to his, delighted, and then she bounded up the cliff side, scrambling nimbly among the rocks and branches to gain a foothold up higher. Nick was right behind her. They disappeared behind some rocks farther up. Mary Beth, uncertain, waited a second and then continued around the next bend to find them sitting above her on a big rock that almost overhung the trail.

  “Want to come with us?” asked Maggie. “The direct route?”

  “No, thanks,” said Mary Beth, smiling up at them. “I’m just a simple cross-country runner. Not a mountain goat. I’ll just meet you at the top.”

  “Okay. We’ll see you up there. Right where this trail intersects the one along the top of the ridge.”