Murder Is Academic
Page 19
“I know. If I thought the work was sloppy you wouldn’t have this chance tonight. Listen, you said Jackie was an impulse too.”
“She came here Monday. Said she wanted to talk privately.”
“Two-thirty in the lab?”
“Yes. Josh was gone, organizing the new storage room. And she asked me to do the same thing you did, notify the journal. I just remember thinking, I wish she was dead. And suddenly she was.”
Maggie nodded sadly. “I see.”
“But then everything fell out so neatly. The loading door over there was unlocked for Josh. I had her car and keys, and my own car was waiting to be picked up near Syracuse. All I had to do was ... ” She stopped abruptly.
“Yes. I saw it. I had to identify her.” Maggie’s voice was cold, and suddenly Jane was forced to face it, and to realize what she had done. And to realize what she had been about to do tonight. She hid her face. Not an Innocent Bystander after all.
“It wasn’t me,” she said desperately. “Not really. It’s the strain.”
Maggie did not comment for a moment, just observed from her airy seat. Then she said, “Sign the letter.”
“Why the hell should I?” said Jane, trying to collect her courage. “I’m just deciding whether I should try to take you down with me or not. Why should I sign that letter for you?”
“Not for me. For you. For the good work you’ve done.”
“When you or Sonia start talking, the good work is suspect. Kaput.”
“Look, work it out, okay? Sonia won’t start anything if she sees her own name on the article.”
“True.” Jane thought for a minute. “I might even get a thank-you note, don’t you think? No tenure, but a thank-you note. She can send it to the jail.” She almost giggled.
“Tenure, I think, is out,” said Maggie, and brought her back from the edge of hysteria.
Okay. No tenure, she was right. No tenure no matter what she did. And also jail, no matter what she did. And losing Roger. And worst of all, her work was doomed. No matter what she did. So why bother anymore?
She dropped the knife into her bag and unwrapped the wire slowly from the pipe next to the door, and coiled the cable again as she crossed the room. Then she began to unwind the white wire from the other pipe. Her mind stumbled about, searching for an escape. Jail ... or jail? Discredited work ... or discredited work? Maggie watched her sadly from above.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell the police,” Jane asked finally. “Why are you here?”
“Because I want to finish what Jackie started. She wanted Sonia to get credit for her work.”
“Yes.”
“But she did not want to destroy the value of what you’ve accomplished yourself. Why else would she have kept quiet when she saw those galleys at the WAR meeting?”
“So you noticed that too.”
“I’m afraid she didn’t fully appreciate the tenure problem, though. My dad’s a professor; I did.”
There was a pause.
Jane said, “You explained that if I signed the letter, Sonia would have no reason to start a process that would discredit my work. You didn’t explain what would keep you quiet.”
“Oh, but I did.”
There was another pause.
“You said you wanted justice,” said Jane slowly.
“Yes.”
Maggie waited.
“You seem to be suggesting that under certain conditions you would not reveal the circumstance of Jackie’s death.” She met Maggie’s eyes and saw that she was right.
Maggie said, “It’s your choice, of course. But I don’t see much sense in giving academic women a bad name. Most of us play by the rules. And my buddy Henry Cooke might as well be tried for nine deaths as eight. Under certain conditions, as you say.”
Jane went to the desk and stared at the letter. She could, perhaps, save her good work. Limit the damages to this one mistake, let the rest live on. And she might save Roger from the stigma of criminal association. But could she really trust Maggie to keep silent? She glanced up again. The blue gaze was implacable. Justice, she had said. That would have to do.
She signed the letter.
She scribbled a note on an index card too. “Dear Roger, This pressure to get tenure is just too much for me. I love you.”
Then she put on her lab coat and picked up the electrolytic salve and crossed back to finish unwinding the white wire from the corner pipe. She fastened it to the metal cabinet of her own unplugged tape recorder, because that would look more realistic. The black wire, the one that would be charged, bent up cobralike a foot away. “The night watchman,” she said, “will be back here about ten-thirty-five.”
“Okay,” said Maggie. “The letters and I will be gone.” She added with sober respect, “I was thinking of overdosing on Valium. You’re right, this is a lot better.”
Jane rubbed the electrolytic salve carefully into her skin and wrapped the shining copper end of the black wire firmly around her right wrist under her watchband, so that it wouldn’t slip as she moved. Then she lifted the wired recorder cabinet and set it on her left hand, its weight heavy and metallic on her palm. “Well,” she said to Maggie, “cheers.” And then, after only the smallest of hesitations, she flicked on Circuit 14.
EPILOGUE
3 Hunaapu (September 23, 1968)
Mary Beth took a last sniff of the crisp September evening air. A good day, Hunaapu again. She went into the brightly lit old house, unlocked the office door, and plunked her Ixil materials down on the desk. Professor Greene was pleased with her thesis so far and she hoped to get something done tonight on Chapter Six.
The house was on the edge of campus behind the chapel, and belonged officially to the Methodists. The chaplain had been very eager to help, something to do with the church in society. “Splendid, splendid!” he had enthused. “We had a draft counseling group in that room but they moved into larger quarters. Now we have the English classes for foreign students on the second floor, and the Word of the World Press, and of course our own counseling program. We’d love to have you too.”
“We can pay for our own phone and supplies, of course,” said Mary Beth. The Rape Crisis Line had received one of the first grants from the Jane Freeman Memorial Fund for Women, organized by her grieving, grateful students.
Now Mary Beth checked the message pad. Only two notes. A radio station in Syracuse wanted to interview someone in their group; and Lila, a recent victim, had called but said she would ring again about 10 p.m. Lila was a waitress whose boyfriend, initially stunned, had found his tongue and now spent his time raging at her for being a whore; he’d half-convinced her that in fact the rape was really her fault.
A cluster of Japanese and Indian students, chattering incomprehensibly, came into the hall and started up the stairs to class. Mary Beth waited for them to pass, then called the radio station and arranged for an interview over the weekend. She was getting to be very good at interviews. Henry Cooke’s trial had given them lots of practice. It had been odd to be part of the bloody fabric of news programs. Vietnam, or the Chicago Democratic Convention police riots, or the assassination of U.S. Ambassador Mein in Guatemala might be featured, and then Mary Beth and Maggie would be telling their story.
Sue was delighted. “I told you!” she exclaimed. “All you have to do is fight back and they’ll pay attention!”
“Today Henry Cooke, tomorrow the world,” said Maggie, unimpressed.
One of Nick’s letters contained a mock review of their appearance on a national news program. The review claimed that “The heroine, M. B. Nelson, turned in a competent and appealing performance,” but that “acting honors belong to M. Ryan for an amazingly convincing impersonation of an innocent auto mechanic lured unwittingly into danger.” Maggie had smiled at it, crumpled it into a wastebasket, and run out to split wood.
Mary Beth was just reaching out to take the cover from the typewriter that the Methodists had scrounged for them when ther
e was a hesitant knock on the open door.
She looked up and wondered how long he had been standing there—his dark eyes worried, a tall, shy, loosely built young man in a checked shirt and jeans. He shifted his books to his other hand. Applied Calculus. Stress in Metals. An engineer.
“Can I help you find something?” she asked.
“This is the rape counseling office?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Craig Barnett.”
“Hello. Mary Beth Nelson.”
He shifted his books nervously again. The third book, oddly, was in Spanish. The plays of García Lorca. He said, “I, um, wanted to help.”
Mary Beth stood up and smiled politely. “Well, thank you, Craig. But we’ve found that generally women prefer to talk to other women about it.” Another well-meaning kook. Not as pushy as some, though. Painfully shy, really.
He stood there stiffly, a little frightened of her, but stubborn. “Yes, but I mean the men,’’ he said. “I mean ... Look, the thing is, my sister was raped.”
“I see.” But she didn’t, quite.
“She was at the laundromat. Same as every week. And this guy forced her.”
“Do you want us to talk to her?”
“No, no. This was a couple of years ago in New Jersey. She’s doing better now. But the thing is, I was home then. It was just before I had to leave for Central America for the Peace Corps. And she came running straight from the laundromat to my mom and me, and told us what happened.”
“Yes.”
“And I was furious. I’ve never been so angry in my life.” His lips tightened with the remembered agony of rage and helplessness. Mary Beth suddenly felt very motherly toward him. He continued, “I wanted to kill that guy, really. And I’m a sort of peaceful person.”
“That’s the natural way to feel.”
“Yes, but you see, I was so helpless. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do.”
“Yes.”
“And so what I did was, I yelled at my sister—I told her that she was a damn fool for doing the laundry alone. I asked her why she hadn’t kicked him in the balls.”
“She probably tried.”
He hurried to explain. “I was so upset, I accused her anyway. And worse. I asked her how she could disgrace the family like that. How she could do something like that to me.”
Mary Beth sat down suddenly on the edge of the desk. “My God,” she said.
“Yes, I know. Later my sister told me that was almost as bad as the rape. When I said those things to her.”
“Yes, I see,” she said weakly.
“But it was because I felt so helpless, you know? And so angry.”
“Yes, I see.” Oh God, I see, I see.
He was only awkward on the surface, she found. The bashful dark eyes took in a lot. He said, “Somebody said that kind of stuff to you too.”
“Yes. And I didn’t know why till this minute. I was dumb, I guess.” Nick had said it too, hadn’t he? Your heart plays tricks on you, you start seeing yourself as the victim. Poor Tip. She added, “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not really. My sister said the problem was being so upset herself. Otherwise she might have understood. As it was, she said if there had been any way to divorce a brother, she would have.”
“Yes.”
“And it took me a while to figure it out too. Then I was really ashamed of myself.”
“Yes.” Had Tip figured it out? No, he would have told her. Unless he was ashamed too. Well, it was too late now. But the hard knot of bewildered anger and hurt she had felt toward him was dissolving.
Craig said, “I thought maybe I could help people, because it happened to me too. You know, parents and brothers and husbands. Keep them from hurting people more, when they’re really desperate to help.”
She was silent a moment, looking at the angular, earnest young man who had brought her such an unlikely and unexpected gift. Then she said, “There’s someone I want you to talk to tonight. She’ll be calling about ten o’clock. Her boyfriend is telling her it was her fault.”
“Yeah, sure. I can stay awhile. Poor woman.”
“Poor boyfriend too,” said Mary Beth. She sat down in her chair again. “Have a seat, Craig. We definitely need you. Let me give you the ground rules our counselors have worked out.”
“Great!” The dark eyes twinkled when he smiled. She was glad that she wasn’t making him nervous anymore. It must have taken courage to confess what he had just confessed. He leaned forward in his chair and asked eagerly, “You really think I can help people?”
“I really do, Craig.” She smiled at him. “You’ve helped your first already.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
P.M. Carlson taught psychology and statistics at Cornell University before deciding that mystery writing was more fun. She has published twelve mystery novels and over a dozen short stories. Her novels have been nominated for an Edgar Award, a Macavity Award, and twice for Anthony Awards. Two short stories were finalists for Agatha Awards. She edited the Mystery Writers Annual for Mystery Writers of America for several years, and served as president of Sisters in Crime.
Books by P.M. Carlson:
Audition for Murder: Maggie Ryan, 1967 (1985)
Murder Is Academic: Maggie Ryan, 1968 (1985)
Murder Is Pathological: Maggie Ryan, 1969 (1986)
Murder Unrenovated: Maggie Ryan, 1972 (1988)
Rehearsal for Murder: Maggie Ryan, 1973 (1988)
Murder in the Dog Days: Maggie Ryan, 1975 (1991)
Murder Misread: Maggie Ryan, 1977 (1990)
Bad Blood: Maggie Ryan, 1979 (1991)
The Marty Hopkins Series
Gravestone (1993)
Bloodstream (1995)
Deathwind (2004)
Crossfire (2006)
Short fiction
Renowned Be Thy Grave, or The Murderous Miss Mooney (1998)