by Judith Mehl
Maddy played indifference to his finely proportioned body. The bronze skin highlighted the chiseled muscles to perfection. She failed, and not one to disguise defeat, surrendered graciously. An hour later amidst disheveled sheets they discussed what Ambrose’s death would mean to the tournament.
Ted seemed unconcerned. He knew the tournament was run by a large management company and the reinforcement crew was sent in by mid day. He was angry that the police had questioned him for two hours, only to let him go and warn him to stay in town—like he was going anywhere in the middle of a tournament where he was top seed.
When the phone rang he stumbled out of bed to answer, stepped on a Parcheesi piece that had landed on the floor, and twisted his foot in the tangled sheets. Maddy grabbed the phone and asked the officer to hold as she helped Ted up and suggested he might want to take the call if possible. “Just what I need,” he groused. “Another harassment call from the police! And my ankle is swelling already. I’ll probably lose the tournament because of that bastard, Ambrose. He can’t even leave me alone when he’s dead!” Fortunately his hand covered the mouthpiece during his tirade and when he answered he managed to sound civil.
Maddy scooped the rest of the ice from the bucket and formed a compress while he settled back on the bed and propped up his ankle.
“What did they want?”
“Can you believe they want me to go downtown first thing in the morning for another statement?”
Maddy gathered her clothes and dressed in the bathroom. “That does sound like harassment. What do they want with you?”
Ted groaned from the pain in his ankle. “They know how much I hated Ambrose because of that mess where he criticized my attitude to the media before the tournament.”
Maddy tugged on her shoe and returned to the bedroom. “So? A lot of people hated Ambrose.”
“Yeah, well, right now I’m more concerned about my career. If this ankle doesn’t improve by playing time tomorrow afternoon I’m out of the tournament. How do I go to the trainer and say I injured it in bed? The media would love to hear that one!”
He could see Maddy’s face when she glanced at the swelling, but she said, “Maybe I can help you there.”
She winced when the clock clicked past ten, picked up the phone and dialed. “Kat’s into ethnobotony. She has all sorts of healing techniques. Maybe she can recommend something.”
Fortunately her friend answered on the first ring. “Kat, you’ve got to help! Ted’s hurt his ankle and won’t call the trainer. But it’s really swollen.”
Ted watched Maddy pace anxiously as Kat talked, then plead again. “To be out of the running for an injury acquired by tripping over a Parcheesi piece would probably ruin his reputation. Can’t you help?”
Ted inched forward to hear Kat’s reply. “Maddy, if it’s something serious you know he should get medical help.”
“But Kat, he says it’s not a serious injury, just swollen from twisting it wrong.”
Kat recognized the importance of the minor injury to a professional player, and acquiesced. “Okay, I’ll be there shortly.”
KAT FOUND the Saint John’s Ankle Oil, left a note for Nick in case he came home, and was on her way. As she drove the winding road into town, she recalled Nick’s warning about going out late at night to visit suspects. This was her second night in a row. She got away with it the first time because she was with the campus police. This time might be controversial. In reality, if she were the police, she would consider Ted a suspect. She spent the first ten minutes of the drive imagining telling Nick how she wasn’t really out to see Ted, but to help an old and trusted friend. Besides, if she knew Maddy, who took their hobby of graphology very seriously, she would have already analyzed Ted’s handwriting before becoming involved with him. So, she could explain to Nick, he really isn’t dangerous.
Having won the imaginary argument to her satisfaction, Kat reminisced about the first time she’d learned about the Saint John’s oil from a Native American at the Apothecary, Glinna’s shop. It was a mixture of Saint-John’s wort, lavender, marjoram, peppermint, and chamomile essential oils.
Since that day the “miracle” cures of friends piled up. Kat loved the history of the area and researched ancient cures of the Native Americans and their use of native plants. She learned to grow many of them in her garden, and even dried the herbs to concoct some of those cures. Over time, friends and family came back for more, to heal that next wound or cure another rash. Hopefully what she had with her would help Ted.
She had dropped Maddy at Ted’s motel room earlier that day, so she easily found the place and reined in her speculation.
Maddy apparently attempted to clean the motel room since there weren’t any Parcheesi pieces in sight. Kat inspected Ted’s injured ankle and explained the oil was not a miracle cure so as not to raise his hopes, but claimed it helped heal many a bad ankle.
She applied the oil liberally and listed the ingredients, explaining how it would feel warm. “Applying it to the injured area increases blood flow and significantly warms it up. Usually the brain is intent on the pain and the injured area cannot relax. The heat diverts the brain’s attention to the burning sensation on the skin and allows the tightened muscle to relax. The increased circulation from the heat also speeds healing.”
Ted winced at first, but eventually settled into the warmth and relaxed. The swelling definitely reacted like Kat described. Maybe there was hope.
Kat capped the bottle and wiped her hands on a towel. She advised him to apply it every twenty minutes. Maddy looked at the clock and cringed, the implication they would be awake all night to do so. Kat merely raised her eyebrow in a statement that clearly said, “You called me and asked for advice, remember?”
Kat shared anecdotes about the healing herbs and ended with her favorite, “In ancient Greece, Saint John’s wort was thought to protect against evil. Maybe, it will help you with everything else that has been going wrong, Ted.”
“I could use help there. The cops are gnawing on me like I’m their only bone. I spent hours with them today and they still won’t believe I wasn’t anywhere near those woods the night he died.” Ted lifted his injured leg slightly, inspecting it. He could definitely feel the oil working. He shook his head in frustration. “The one night I go back to my room alone, and early, and I’m left with no alibi!”
Kat appreciated the opening his comments provided. This way, her prying looked like mere interest in his problem. She questioned him somewhat intensely about his relationship with Ambrose, the disagreement, and the police interrogation. In the end, Ted’s insight into the manager’s nature was narrow and one-sided. Ambrose had hated him and was out to ruin his career.
Because Maddy’s friend had come to his rescue despite the hour, Ted took the time to reiterate everything he’d told the police. His dealings with Ambrose had been limited, certainly in the past. Since they arrived for this tournament they’d had few conversations. He recalled one where he mentioned the tennis center he’d heard Ambrose was building. The man’s anger had skyrocketed.
While he scrunched around on the pillows in an effort at comfort, Maddy and Kat asked Ted who he thought would want to kill the manager. The talk that day had engendered many responses to that question, and the list of potential killers was long and varied, depending on who was asked. Ted frowned in concentration.
He mentioned Eric Jorgen, the Scandinavian player. “Eric has some kind of old feud that comes up frequently with Ambrose. I don’t think anyone’s ever known the real basis of it. Ambrose always seemed to have it in for him, more than he did the rest of us. Though it was difficult to tell.”
Ted rubbed more oil on his ankle. “Ambrose wasn’t friendly to anyone. Many of the players were from foreign countries and worked frantically to get this far. They weren’t willing to wreck their chances by confronting the negative manager about his attitude. They’d shake their heads and walk away.”
Maddy looked for her bag under the bed.
She dug out the day’s program, settled into a chair switched on the lamp. “Eric C. Jorgen, Scandinavian born and bred, enters the Mountain View Tournament with high hopes of bringing his count to competitive total.”
She read some more quietly to herself, then continued. “Jorgen has a wife and two children who travel with him frequently to his tournaments.” She looked at Kat and Ted. “Do you know if they’re here?”
Ted admitted he hadn’t seen much of Eric this tournament, then practically blushed as he looked at Maddy and said, “Well, I haven’t seen much of anyone.” He said he’d check into it in the morning.
The two women continued with their roster. Kat added Matthew Hightower. Ted didn’t know him but Maddy looked amazed to hear his name.
“That pussycat! I’ve never seen him raise his voice in all the years I’ve known him. What could bring him to kill?”
Kat repeated what little she’d heard of the shouting match. Some investigation was paramount. She stalled a minute when she remembered how little she knew about the vandalism incident. The cryptic writing swirled in her mind in cursive curlicues that left an illusive signal. The handwriting, hampered by rough surface and a huge brush, revealed nothing, and Burrows, so far, revealed even less. She feared a shadowy relationship between the vandalism and the death of the tournament manager. She returned her focus on the list of murder suspects for now, knowing there was nothing she could do about the other without more information.
Ted’s face wrinkled in fascination as the two women considered friends and foes alike as possible killers. He finally interrupted the cozy conversation.
“You two do this often?”
Their heads swiveled as one in his direction. They’d obviously forgotten all about him. “What?”
“Consider how your closest friends could plot murder, disguise motives, set up alibis.”
They laughed, a little uncomfortably, realizing how it must sound to someone who didn’t know them and their past adventures.
As Kat walked to the door, Ted waved the oil bottle and said, “If this keeps me in the tournament I’ll be eternally grateful. Thanks a lot, Kat.”
When Maddy walked her to the car, Kat whispered, “I want to see his handwriting analysis first thing in the morning.”
Sheepishly Maddy hesitated, “Uh, well, I haven’t done one yet. But I will before I see you tomorrow, okay?”
Kat came to a standstill. Then, before Maddy could blink, her friend ushered her into the passenger seat, then plopped behind the wheel. Kat maneuvered into a sideways position that allowed her to see directly into Maddy’s face. “You what?”
Maddy, who stared down irate professors with aplomb, meekly shook her head. “We’ve been busy.”
“Too busy to study the guy’s handwriting enough to know if he might be a killer? Sexually preoccupied, you mean. My God, Madeline Gerard, you’ve never let a guy get to you like this.”
“You don’t really think he’s the killer do you?
Kat glared.
“All right, so I broke my own rule, but he plays a mean game of Parcheesi. I promise I’ll do an analysis right away.”
Maddy’s attempt at humor fell flat. Parcheesi was already the evening’s sore point. Kat raised an eyebrow after pointedly looking at her illuminated watch face. It registered well past midnight.
Kat nodded as Maddy opened the car door, “Didn’t we learn the hard way not to make assumptions? Let’s play it safe.”
Kat returned home, deeply concerned about the murder, the victim, and the many residual victims, whose reputations may not survive the suspicion of violence, no matter how ill-placed.
Did she need to get embroiled? Should she seek Nick’s help? How could she pry more information from Detective Burrows? The questions piled atop each other like unbalanced dominoes. Would her interference stack them neatly or topple them all?
At home, a hot cup of blueberry tea soothed her while she rearranged mental puzzle pieces to fit her few facts. Where did Ted Wright fit in the puzzle? For now he had too many jagged edges.
She looked out the window, cradled her mug, and studied the lacework of tree limbs in the moonlight while she contemplated her next move.
Chapter 9
Flamboyant handwriting—untruthful? Not necessarily. Combined with other traits it’s a sign of ego, of confidence, passion, and open expression of feelings.
“Handwriting: A Key to Personality” by Klara G. Roman
Ted whined to Maddy and Maddy called Kat, again. “It’s bad enough Ted’s supposed to ice his ankle, practice, and compete, now he has to deal with Detective Burrows.”
Kat uh-uhed in sympathy, but didn’t need to, for Maddy was on a roll.
“He wants to cooperate, he really does. He doesn’t want to look like there’s something to hide.”
Kat heard the unspoken plea for help and promised she’d call Detective Burrows and see if she could discover why the man concentrated on Ted. As far as she was concerned there were many other worthy suspects to pester.
She left a message for the detective and called Maddy to calm her and elicit information of her own. She wanted a breakdown of Ted’s handwriting analysis.
“I promise, Kat. I’ll give it to you as soon as we can meet privately.” They arranged to fit in some time together early that afternoon. Kat pressed her advantage while she could. “I’ll give you my list of suspects now so you can start hunting up samples as soon as possible.”
Kat rummaged around her purse one-handed as she held the phone in the other and neatly pulled out the list she’d compiled. As much as she hated to, she put Matthew Hightower’s name closer to the top. Maybe he did it in a rage. His scene with Ed shortly before his death made him a suspect. On the other hand, he was an unlikely suspect. If Kat was to catalogue her acquaintances, many of the professors fit the broad category “of meek and falsely arrogant academic.” In high school they were the ones with a string of ballpoint pens in their shirt pocket, lofty ideas in their heads, and nerd written all over them from their plaid shirts to their short hair. As they became experienced professors, they were pretentious and overwhelming in an eternal attempt to feel safe in their environment. The bluster masked lack of confidence and desire for control.
Matthew didn’t fit that pattern, from his classic neutral clothing to his mild demeanor, but he was surely the square peg that didn’t fit the round hole of a killer profile. Some thought Matthew artfully naive, especially since his ingenious attitude was belied only by a slight twinkle in his eye when he spoke of the few beloved landmarks of his life—none of which were human.
His delight these days was a second home in Arizona. His reluctant approach to all things academic revealed that mentally he was only partially on campus; his heart was more and more frequently in the arid land of his retirement community as conveyed by his gentle smile and far away look.
Matthew Hightower had stopped by earlier and asked her advice about talking with the police. After absorbing details of the incident with Marie, whom he refused to name except to the police, and the argument with Ambrose, she was relieved. She’d been astounded to overhear Matthew shouting; she should have known it was more the likes of Don Quixote tilting at the windmills of “users” like Ambrose. Mixed emotions swamped Kat but Matthew stayed at the top of the list.
To Ambrose, there was nothing more mesmerizing than tennis. Admittedly that was followed closely by women, of all kinds. Rumors circulated about his hits on female students and his lack of constancy with Lauri. She could have killed to avenge her humiliation beyond endurance, and definitely made a top spot on the list.
Kat added Eric Jorgen, based on Ted’s information, and threw in some of her own that she and Maddy hadn’t discussed the day before.
Maddy raised her eyebrows in surprise at David Nettle’s name, but merely snorted at the addition of Lauri Carmichael. “I’ve always thought she was sour grapes. Even so, I never could understand her attraction to that man. Worse, try figuring his attract
ion to her.”
“I think I’ve already got a sample of Lauri’s writing here. I was ticked at a handwritten report she turned in. I wanted you to pick apart her writing but then I came to my senses.”
Kat, pleased that they may be progressing quickly, pondered the thought of viewing Lauri’s handwriting. Something like this might change her personality and her writing.
“It’s a good starting point and would reveal tendencies. We also need a current sample, to see if things have changed.”
Kat let Maddy contemplate how she’d acquire everything she’d need, and evoked a promise to start on the list while Kat made herself indispensable to Burrows.
She planned to pick up any tidbits on the investigation as she convinced the detective to explore beyond Ted as a suspect. Her reliable student, Cheri, helped compile a list of work other students could tackle as they came in for duty and what Cheri was entrusted to do alone.
She compiled a list of work for her Cheri, too. If the detective wouldn’t return her calls, she’d try storming him in his den. Of course, she was smart enough to bring Matthew, knowing the detective wouldn’t turn down information from a suspect. Matthew fortunately wanted her to accompany him when he went to report to the police. She waited for him to arrive now so they could visit Detective Burrows together.
As they ran into the police station, an extremely irate Ted confronted them. He was fuming that he’d been there for hours; the police were harassing him, they didn’t know what they were doing, and he didn’t have a chance in hell of winning the next match if he didn’t fit in some warming-up time. Kat sympathized, while the nervous Matthew hovered in the background. Ted stomped off, but managed a semi-gracious thank you to Kat for her help with his ankle. She noticed as he walked away that he stepped with assurance. She smiled at the power of healing herbs, grabbed the suddenly reluctant professor by the arm and marched towards Detective Burrows’ office.
