Murder Is Academic

by P. M. Carlson

  The radio announced that it was nine-forty-five and began to soft-sell an elegant restaurant in Syracuse, which no doubt played Muzaky background music itself. Jane took the commercial for an excuse to stretch and look around. Her own equipment, against the wall behind her, was neatly stowed, tapes filed, amplifier and polygraph battened down properly for the night. Her new tape recorder in its shiny metal cabinet sat on the table nearby. Above her, the extra shelves were finally being dismantled; the scaffold bars, like a jungle gym, were still there, but the chairman had finally located a dry room that was suitable for storing the unused equipment, and Josh had most of the machines and shelves moved out. In the back corner, someone was preparing new apparatus for a thermal perception experiment. Probably Milliken upstairs; he did environmental stuff. This would have to do with perception of radiant heat versus air temperature, Josh had told her. A crayoned sign on the circuit breaker box warned against turning on Breaker 14. The heating panels and blowers sat unattached in an untidy clump near the comer, and a brand-new control panel was already being wired up next to it. Science had certainly come a long way, she thought wryly. In the old days you could just ask people if they were warm enough.

  It was so hard to concentrate. The ad hoc committee, and Jackie Edwards’s death, and the demands of WAR to do something, and summer school. Everything seemed to conspire against her poor little pilot study. Well, she’d just have to concentrate. She glowered at the neat columns and began again to fill them in from the next polygraph tape. But she had not gotten very far when there was a knock at the door. Well, that figured. Maybe two other people in the whole building, and one of them wanted to bother her.

  “Come in,” she said, and looked up. “My God, Maggie, what’s happened to you?”

  “You haven’t listened to the news,” said Maggie. “Some guy assaulted me today. But I’m okay.” Her face was bruised and swollen.

  “Are you really all right? Shouldn’t you have a doctor look at you?”

  “Already did. He says I’m ugly but okay. Look, I wanted to ask you a question. I just came from your office.”

  “Oh. Well, I had to work down here tonight ... ”

  “I mean, I was in your office.” Jane was surprised; she’d left it locked. Maggie explained, “I used my plastic ID card on the lock.”

  “Security in this place is rotten,” said Jane dryly. “Well, okay, tell me what you want.”

  “What I want? Justice, I guess. I want to see Jackie’s killer dead.”

  A violent sentiment, a calm voice. Jane looked at her closely, wondering if she had a concussion or something too. But then it was natural for her to be upset; she’d lost a close friend. Jane said soothingly, “Arrested, at least. We all want justice. It’s a terrible thing, what that man is doing.”

  “Okay. Justice. I also want to carry out Jackie’s last wish.”

  “Of course. Can I help?”

  “Yes. She wanted you to sign something like this. I did the secretarial work for you.”

  Jane took the proffered paper. It was on departmental letterhead, addressed to the Verbal Learning Quarterly. It read: “I would like to make a final correction in the proofs for the article to be published in your September issue, ‘Social Class Differences in the Acquisition of Negation.’ The author should be listed as Sonia Michaelson, not as Jane Freeman. Thank you very much.’’ There was space for Jane’s signature.

  Jane placed the letter carefully on Josh’s desk.

  Maggie said, “Before I typed this on your typewriter, I took the liberty of glancing through a couple of old files. You were at Graham College, an instructor, when Sonia did her honors project. And I looked at the drafts of the article itself. It’s Sonia’s work.”

  “Jackie said she had worked out the new statistics but hadn’t told Sonia yet.”

  “True. If you’d given her another minute, she might have told you that I helped her work out the new statistics.”

  “Given her a minute?”

  “Before your killed her.”

  Jane’s mouth fell open. “Me? What are you talking about? Maggie, you’re not well. Have you told anyone else about these insane suspicions?”

  Maggie seemed amused. “What kind of question is that? Would you believe me if I said yes? Or no, for that matter?”

  “You’re right.” Jane considered. “Actually I’d be more inclined to believe no. First, even you must realize it’s an outrageous accusation. The police would not be convinced. Next, if you’d called the police you’d wait for them, not come here in person.”

  “Right on all counts, so far.”

  “After all, how can you seriously suggest that murder was committed for authorship of an esoteric article?”

  “How can I suggest it? Well, I thought of how upset Jackie was after she saw the galley proofs for this article. And today a friend reminded me that the same thing may have different names. And I thought of how tough it is to get tenure. And I thought of your Volks being at the dealer in Schellsburg that Monday.”

  So she had worked that out. What a tiresome world this was. “The Triangle Murderer killed her, Maggie. But I suppose this is blackmail,” Jane said wearily, reaching into her bag. “Well, you’re absolutely right, I don’t have time now to argue with the police. How much do you want?”

  “For starts, I want you to sign that letter.”

  “Would fifty do?” Jane stood up with the bills in her hand. But Maggie bounded instantly onto the desk and up to the ceiling, grasping a scaffold pipe and hauling herself up smoothly to sit on it.

  The letter-knife hidden behind the money in Jane’s hand never had a chance to scratch her.

  It had been so much easier with Jackie. It had happened so quickly and smoothly that even Jane hadn’t quite realized it until it was done.

  Not now. This one was tough. And there was no sense trying to bluff anymore. Jane put a chair on the desk and climbed onto it. But by the time she was within reach of the scaffold, Maggie had swung herself to another pipe and was now perched calmly on it. No way to catch her up there. A gymnast, someone had said. And in her airy element.

  “I want to talk about a few things,” Maggie said. “And for reasons that may become clear, I don’t want any more marks on me just at the moment.”

  “Few people would.” Jane abandoned her undignified roost, took Josh’s pliers from his desk drawer, and walked across to the corner where the new heating panels sat.

  Maggie shifted a little to keep her in sight. “Well, but there are considerations beyond the strictly hedonistic. Although it’s true that I already hurt enough.”

  Jane, glancing up, saw that bright blood was seeping into Maggie’s blouse under her arm. Swinging up onto the pipes must have opened the wound. This assault, then, had damaged more than her face. That was good news if they reached the hand-to-hand stage; Jane knew that otherwise she wouldn’t have much of a chance. Maggie was fitter than she was, she remembered from the self-defense classes.

  She made sure Circuit 14 was still off and, keeping a wary eye on the woman hovering above her, clipped off the new 240-volt outlet that Milliken’s assistant had installed that day for the heating panels. She split the cable sheathing lengthwise for a couple of feet, separating out the three wires. Black was the hot lead, white was neutral, red was ground. She bared the thick copper of the black and white wires and wrapped the white one around one of the pipes that supported the scaffold Maggie was sitting on.

  Maggie said, “Before you fry me, you really should know a few more facts.”

  “I’m always ready to learn,” said Jane civilly. She attached a longer cable to the black wire and crossed back to the door, wondering why Maggie was not attempting to escape. Maybe she didn’t think Jane was serious. Jane began to attach the cable to the scaffold leg nearest the door.

  “Take a look at this,” said Maggie. “The original has been mailed. I did make sure of that.”

  She dropped a paper, a carbon copy on onionskin, which flut
tered to the floor. Jane kept the knife ready; Maggie could move fast, she knew. Maggie saw her hesitation and added, “Don’t worry, I’m not coming down yet. I don’t want more scars. And I do want you to read it.”

  Jane snatched the paper from the floor and backed up to guard the door again, although Maggie had not stirred. The radio shifted to a saccharine organ version of something by Verdi.

  It was a copy of a letter from Maggie, addressed to Sonia Michaelson in New Jersey. “You probably already know that our friend Jackie Edwards was killed this June. Before she died, she had been intending to call your attention to the September issue of the Verbal Learning Quarterly. I understand that Professor Freeman of this university completed an article on your behalf. Jackie feared that since you had changed fields you might miss it, so I thought I would drop you a note.”

  That was all. September, thought Jane, that was all the time she had. Unless ...

  “If you sign that other letter,” said Maggie, “there will be a very small prepublication scandal.”

  “Which will eliminate all possibility of tenure.”

  “Probably. If you don’t sign, though, there will be a large postpublication scandal, including shocked retractions in the VLQ. Which will also eliminate tenure.”

  “True. But if I don’t sign it, and you are dead, nothing will happen till September.”

  “When Sonia will see your name on the article and launch the large postpublication scandal. And that will put more than you under suspicion. It will also put your previous work under suspicion.”

  Her previous work. Damn, damn, damn. That had always been the problem. It went beyond this one article. She thought of the eight stacks of offprints in her office. Her other articles, her mind’s children, would be discredited too, ignored. All those hours, all that struggle to get a professional reputation. To add a little to human knowledge. To claim her bit of immortality. She said, “It sounds as though I would be much better off without you and Sonia.”

  “Yes. If it weren’t for the problem of bodies.”

  “You must know I’ve solved that problem.”

  “If you’ll bear with me, I think you’ll find there is now a major difficulty. Minor ones too. For example, two deaths from the same address, same car, are quite a coincidence.”

  “Though it’s in character for you to go after killers,” observed Jane acidly.

  “Touché!” Maggie was amused. “But another problem will be my car. You aren’t set up as well this time, with your own car waiting conveniently in the Schellsburg garage near the ramp. If you drive me there, how will you get back?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “I suppose you could use the South Syracuse ramp,” Maggie mused. “The bus terminal is only a half-mile away.”

  Jane had not thought of the South Syracuse ramp. She said, “Thank you for the helpful hint.”

  “However, getting my car started may prove a problem this time.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s parked across the lot. In gear, brakes on, doors locked. The key is under a bush in the hedge there. The distributor rotor is under another.’’

  “You are cautious.” Two hundred yards of hedge around that lot. Jackie, in contrast, had been parked just outside the loading door.

  “But in any case, you’ll want to wait till after ten.”

  “What does the time have to do with it?”

  “The news will be on in a minute. You’ll want to hear it.”

  “I will?”

  “Definitely.”

  Jane leaned back against Josh’s desk, knife still ready, and studied Maggie. Probably a play for time. Why? She was tired, Jane could see that. Bruised and pale, she’d probably lost blood already today. The slowly spreading red circle under her arm would not account for that much pallor. But she was still alert, still poised on her uncomfortable seat near the ceiling. An avenging angel, thought Jane suddenly, and then felt uneasy. Nonsense, she wasn’t about to avenge anything.

  But how the hell could she get that car away? The Volks couldn’t tow that big old car. But it couldn’t be left next to this building, a neon arrow for the police.

  “Since you are determined that I should have all the facts,” she said, deciding to show that she was aware of the situation, “shouldn’t you speed things up a little? I don’t have a lot of time, you know. Enough, but not a surplus. Night watchman, you know.”

  “I know.” Maggie remained serene. “But you’re more likely to believe it from the radio than from me.”

  Jane walked back across the room, uneasiness growing. She kept her eyes on Maggie, but was not surprised now that there was no attempt to escape. She had had several chances and had ignored them already. Clearly, she was staying. Why?

  But Jane still had the upper hand. The circuit through the grid of pipes that made up the scaffold was complete now. All she had to do to kill her was flick the switch.

  Of course, if she dropped down early, Jane would be in for a fight. An idea she didn’t like at all.

  The pseudo-Verdi ended and the news began. And there it was. First item. “Syracuse police announced today a major break in the Triangle Murders case. A Syracuse man, Henry Cooke, has been arrested after an attack on two State University students, Mary Beth Nelson and Margaret Ryan. The women escaped with minor injuries. Detectives would not comment on how many of the crimes Cooke will be charged with. Cooke is a ... ”

  Jane lurched across the room and snapped off the radio and leaned dizzily onto the desk.

  Maggie said, “Cooke is Caucasian, drives a gray Chevrolet, and uses a hurt kitten as a lure for soft-hearted women. And Jackie, of all people, would never have stopped to help a man on a highway ramp near Syracuse.”

  Jane commanded her head to stop spinning. She said unsteadily, “You stopped for him.”

  “Well, I’m not Jackie, I’m me. As you yourself just pointed out, it’s in character for me.”

  “And your ... existing ... wounds have probably been recorded by the police. I see.”

  “I thought you’d see. The latest in modern forensic technology has surrounded me all afternoon. Every scratch and pimple has been recorded and declared nonfatal. There is even a second record, made just an hour ago, by an excited university clinic intern who has visions of becoming a hero with his evidence when Cooke’s trial rolls around.”

  Jane’s mind checked off the implications. She could not get rid of the body as she had before. Or the car. She could not even count on the usual delay that tended to follow the disappearance of a student. Students generally expected their friends to behave erratically from time to time, and seldom reported disappearances immediately. Jackie had not been reported missing. But Maggie was a temporary celebrity now. Her car was disabled in the parking lot of this building. If she disappeared, or if her body were found, there would be a full inquiry. Starting with people who were in this building tonight.

  “You could turn on the barbecue here,” Maggie said helpfully, “but you’d still have to put me somewhere. You wouldn’t want me found in your lab.”

  “And you wouldn’t wait up there for it anyway. I was only wiring it up to encourage you to come down.”

  “A giant cattle prod. I see. Still, I imagine that these new facts make you more reluctant to knife me.”

  “Correct. But more eager than ever to make you disappear.”

  “Naturally. Still, what are your options now? You can’t just let me go, of course. You’ll end up jailed.”

  Jail. A little thick-walled room. A closed door. Jane said, “Of course.” What the hell did Maggie want?

  “If you manage to kill me, however, you’ll also end up in jail. Probably soon, since the police are currently taking an interest in me and my car. But if you’re lucky, perhaps not until September, if they need Sonia’s evidence to inspire them to complete insight about who in this building might want me dead.”

  Jane had forgotten about Sonia. The foolish vision she had had, of overpowe
ring Maggie somehow (how?) and getting her to the gorge and pushing her in, evaporated. No way to overpower her in the first place, no solution even if she did.

  Jail if she let her go. Jail if she killed her somehow.

  Her work discredited in any case.

  Also discredited if Sonia Michaelson reported who had written the article. And the difficulties of killing Maggie were doubled in the case of Sonia, who would have to be located somehow and headed off before she could mention the letter to anyone. God, thought Jane, I don’t even remember what Sonia looks like.

  And then there was Roger. What would it do to his career? She could almost hear his boss now. “Roger, I understand that you ... ahem ... cohabited for four years with a murderess. We must ... terminate our business association, I’m sure you will understand.”

  She looked at Maggie tiredly. “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “It was just an impulse.”

  “The article or the murder?”

  “Both. I reworked Sonia’s material with the correct statistical treatment back at Graham College the summer after she did it. I didn’t direct her work, you see; I would have told her to analyze it correctly. I was just the outside reader. But it intrigued me enough to reanalyze it. But before I could tell her, she moved into another field at another university, and then I was appointed here, and I forgot about it until tenure started breathing down my neck.”

  “And there it was in your files, ready to ship off.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Sonia would never see it. So it was just bad luck that a friend of Sonia’s happened by.”

  “It was already mailed, and even accepted.”

  “And you couldn’t bear a scandal. Because of tenure, and because it would make your other work suspect.”

  “And it’s all important work,” said Jane with fierce maternal pride.

  “I know it is. We’re agreed on that.” She seemed to understand.

  “I’ve never fudged data. It’s rock-solid.”