Of Mice and Murderers

by John Stockmyer

  Then too, this was a classroom building, a building with students coursing through its veins.

  Ahead and to his right, a cute blond coed in a red wrap-around was bent over a modernistic stainless steel water fountain. Down the hall, a well-dressed boy and girl were seated on the same kind of blond maple benches he'd seen in Administration.

  A serious-looking male student in comfortable blue dress slacks was approaching. Notebook in hand, he passed the drinking fountain girl (who, by this time, was sashaying off.)

  As Z paused to take off his gloves, he noticed other students further down the hall, several of them tucked into an alcove to the right, a couple of boys and a girl, all sitting on green-and-brown-patterned wing chairs, pulled up around a low, wood frame, glass-topped table.

  Except for the decorative wall hangings and a few students in the pleasingly wide hall, the place was empty, the corridor accessing dark-stained numbered doors spaced twenty feet apart, all doors closed except for one.

  Careful to keep from limping in this upper class company, Z walked slowly down the dark blue-bordered carpet, when parallel to the open door, glanced in to see what he thought he would: old wood, tablet arm chairs lined up in rows, the teacher's desk in front, a rollover set of U.S. maps standing to one side. Behind the desk was a green chalkboard -- no doubt still called a "black"-board.

  Beyond the open classroom, he went past the student conversation area, one of the boys nodding to him politely.

  It was at the end of the corridor that he found what had to be the heart of the first floor: an extensive open area fed by right-angle halls; a gathering place with ten to twelve chrome-and-Formica tables, each square table flanked with tubular steel, straight chairs -- seats and back rests of durably molded blue, yellow, or red plastic.

  Three vending machines stood against a partition in the room's center, one dispensing Dr. Pepper (and other unhealthy colas,) a second putting out chips and candy, a third offering what looked like soup cans. A four-foot-high grey metal, trash bin was placed to the left of the vending machines, the receptacle's metal "mouth" jammed with cellophane "Twinkie" packages, candy bar wrappers, and macho-crushed cans.

  As he watched, two designer-jean, cable-knit-sweater boys came into the food area from the left hall, thick wool overcoats draped over their arms. Pausing, they fed coins into the drink machine, the money rattling down, the machine whirring them its thanks before thumping down their drinks.

  Bending over, picking cola cans from the dispenser slot, popping in the can's tab openers with soft hisses, the boys moved to the nearest table and sat down.

  A solitary "pleasantly plain" girl sauntered in from the right, bisecting hall, to sit across from the boys.

  So few students for the space.

  Why?

  A glance at a no-nonsense, white with black hands clock over the food machines, cleared up the mystery.

  Two-thirty.

  If Bateman's courses changed on the hour, most students were in class. The students he was seeing waiting for the next class.

  He might have been proud of himself for figuring out the "student shortage" except that he should have guessed the location of the rest of the young people from seeing the closed classroom doors he'd passed coming down the hall. Closed doors meant students and teachers inside. (On the other hand, he was on foreign ground. Couldn't be expected to understand everything at first glance.)

  Coming to the end of the entrance corridor, Z zigzagged through the tables until he was in the center of the commons, from that position able to look down each of the connecting halls, seeing something better than what he'd hoped to find -- FACULTY OFFICES -- on a plaque fastened to the right hall wall.

  Sidling to the right, weaving between tables, pushing in a chair that was in his way, he exited the lunch room area to pad down the right hallway.

  Past more closed doors.

  Past more pictures mounted on clear plastic display frames. Early world maps with fanciful borders entwined with mythical beasts. A painting of Grant and Lee at Appomattox. George Washington in a toga. A steam boat on the Mississippi.

  The hall's only occupant was a vacant-eyed coed dressed in an understated, brown silk dress who was sitting in the middle of a bench. Did her stunned look tell him she was facing an examination? Could it be she was blind? Was it possible she had drunk embalming fluid? So many questions. So little time to ask them.

  Ignoring the girl (who was certainly ignoring him) Z continued to walk until he found what he was looking for: a black-lettered "Faculty Offices" sign on the upper part of a chicken-wire-buried-in-frosted-glass, old-fashioned door.

  Pausing to take a deep breath, he turned the wobbly doorknob, pushed the door into the room, and eased himself inside, to find a secretary behind a well-ordered desk to the left of the entrance. An older, blue-haired woman. Efficiency to a fault.

  As he entered, the secretary looked up sourly from her task of straightening items on her immaculate desk: paper clips, stapler, typing paper, bottle of correction fluid, ballpoint pen, rubber thumb stall. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

  "Dr. Calder?" Z whispered, the woman answering with a shrug in the general direction of an open archway, the secretary back to arranging those naughty paper clips before he had time to ask another stupid question.

  Once again experiencing that grade school feeling (the same weakness of stomach he'd gotten when Miss Harrison sent him to the principal's office,) he escaped through the partition to find himself in a windowless workroom.

  Battered, gray filing cabinets lined the nearest wall. An old paper cutter and a broken-spined unabridged dictionary on a scarred wood table in the room's center.

  A sturdy, library table against the left wall held a copy machine.

  Beyond the work table were four, cracked-varnish doors, each with a nameplate.

  Skirting the table, moving from right to left, he walked past each door tag in turn: Dr. Jenkins -- Dr. J. D. Paul -- Dr. Washburn -- Hugh Calder.

  Sighing his arrival, Z rapped gently on the Calder door; heard a faint "Come in."

  Rotating the doorknob, Z pushed, then one-stepped into a narrow space. Wheeling to shut the door he turned back to see that the office was made even smaller by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at each end of the cubicle. Between the bookcases, a scruffy Calder-occupied desk, the professor faced away and tipped back in his chair.

  Hearing Z come in, Calder glanced over his shoulder, smiled when he recognized who it was, and wheeled back his desk chair, completing the motion by spinning the chair on a polymer slab designed to protect the room's thin carpet.

  An open book and yellow legal pad on the desk said that Dr. Calder had been reading and taking notes.

  Less of an office than a vertical coffin, it was probably still the case -- as in business -- that it was more prestigious to inhabit your own rathole than to share luxury space with a colleague.

  Dr. Calder now launched himself to his feet to shake Z's hand. "Glad you could come."

  The greeting over, Z saw the doctor's welcoming smile sag like a "happy face" gone wrong, a sober Calder taking a step around him to get the professor's overcoat off a metal hook on the back of the door.

  "I still don't believe Tommie Victor killed himself." While Dr. Calder had been trying to read and take notes, it was obvious he'd just spoken the final words in a mental dialogue he'd been having about the fate of the dead janitor. "You've got to understand the situation here." Wrapping a pocket stuffed, white wool scarf around his neck, Calder struggled into his coat. Began buttoning it. "This is a private school, newly purchased by a religious outfit." A quick grimace said a lot. "By 'newly', I mean two years ago.

  "And you have to give it to them." The professor paused to pat both coat pockets -- nodded his satisfaction that the bulges meant his gloves were in them.

  "They've poured in money. Fixed the place up."

  Calder seemed to be the kind of guy who was always fair -- even to people he
didn't like. A noble trait more talked about than practiced.

  "Fixed up the halls?" Z said.

  Calder nodded. "Though most of the improvements have been cosmetic, this outfit also put in a central system with ducts to all the buildings for both heat and air conditioning." In his absent-minded way, Calder paused while rummaging out his gloves. "I can't tell you how moldy it was in these buildings, particularly in old Bateman Hall, before they did that. Must have cost a fortune to put in a big forced-air system like that.

  "But like I was saying," the prof continued, transferring both gloves to one hand as he continued to explain, "this is a private school. And that means it's expensive to come here. That being the case, the reputation of the school is all-important in attracting students. Which leads me ... finally," he said, grinning boyishly, "to my point. The-powers-that-be will do anything to hush up a scandal that might tarnish the good name of Bateman College."

  "Like when a college official hints that the Victor death was a suicide," Z purred.

  "Right. Very perceptive." Z was suddenly the focus of Calder's shrewd appraising look. "Particularly for a man too dumb to go to college."

  Calder grinned again before doing his instant sober shift of mood. "What I think ... and I have no proof of this except my knowledge of how the administration of this place operates ... is that they're scared to death that a student might have shot Tommie V."

  "Why would that ...?"

  "Remember. At this college, a student murderer would be the son -- or daughter -- of someone pretty well-fixed -- because that's the only kind of kids who can afford to go here. Not only would having a murderer for an offspring sour a rich daddy on the school, but a murder on campus would scare off other students."

  "Why would a student kill the janitor"?

  "Who knows?" Calder nudged his chair to one side and leaned back against his desk, bracing himself there with both hands.

  Z remembered something. "There's no doubt that what Professor Furlwangler said is true, that the murder happened in the basement of Bateman Hall?"

  Again, an unexpected grin from the prof. "I'd be embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to remember Fritz's name." Quickly serious, Calder nodded his agreement about the basement.

  Forgetting entirely about leaving the office, backing up to his desktop, pushing down on it with his hands, Calder hopped up to sit. Laid his gloves beside him.

  "Any student business in that basement?" Z asked.

  "I don't think so. Mostly, Bateman's a hollow shell. Built around the school's auditorium. Some classes are held in Bateman, of course, in smaller rooms around the theater's perimeter. Dramatics. Speech.

  "All the rooms upstairs are used for storage, I believe.

  "As for the building's basement, from what I've heard, there's nothing down there that would be of interest to students."

  Wanting to be entirely accurate, Calder paused to rethink that answer. "Maybe to a drama student. The place was described to me as having old props -- set storage -- that kind of thing. We'll go over in a minute to see for ourselves."

  The chubby professor paused; assumed his introspective look. "If what I've been told is true, the place where Tommie V was killed is just about as far off the beaten track as possible. Even with directions, it may take me awhile to locate the spot. Got my map coordinates from Allen Kaiser -- American Lit. He got them from Lucas himself."

  "Lucas?"

  "Terbrugghen. Speech -- Drama. He's the director of what passes for theater on this campus. If Bateman Hall is anybody's building, it's Terbrugghen's." Calder paused again; leaned back on one arm; contemplated the cracked plaster ceiling. "All I can think of is that Tommie V might have stumbled onto a drug buy." He looked at Bob again. Shrugged. "Students here have a lot of money. Some are spoiled rotten. I've had run-ins with students who think that, because they're rich, they can get away with anything."

  "A place to take your girl? Out of the way like that?"

  "Could be." Calder shrugged. "As I said, I haven't seen the room myself."

  Dead sober again.

  "The only thing I'm certain of is that Tommie V didn't kill himself! I know him. He was happy here at Bateman."

  "Happy ... being a janitor?" Z immediately regretting sounding so snobbish. Nor was he unaware that some people considered a custodian's job to be a cleaner way to make a living than being a P.I. There were even times he would agree with them.

  "Not everybody wants to be a nuclear physicist," Calder was saying. Scooting back, the prof put his palms on the desk to either side of him. Crossing his ankles, Dr. Calder began to swing his legs. "Tommie liked being a custodian. It was a step up for him."

  "Up?"

  "His father cleaned Greyhound buses for a living. Tommie V was 'Cleaning a college.' That's the way he put it to me. He was proud of the work he was doing here. And it showed! He was doing a hell of a job.

  "But enough of that. What I wanted to impress on you is that Tommie V was a happy man." The professor hesitated to consider that assertion one more time. "I'm a psychologist. I think I could tell if he had mental problems. And he didn't. His death wasn't suicide."

  Warm enough to begin unbuttoning his coat, Z thought about the likely conclusion to the Victor case. Though it wasn't the sort of thing you told civilians, he was certain the verdict would be suicide. If only because little effort would be expended unraveling a janitor's demise. Turn the world upside down to find a stolen Monet, but deep-six an investigation into the death of a common worker.

  Z was unexpectedly embarrassed to realize that even his interest was in the missing painting. He knew and loved that painting. Didn't know the janitor. Simple as that.

  The situation reviewed, Calder was up again, gloves in hand, waving Z though the door ahead of him.

  Shutting the door behind them, the prof led Z through the workroom, past the look-busy secretary, Calder opening the door to the hall.

  A hall radically changed!

  Jammed with students!, young people popping out of open doorways, talking to one another in cheerful, raised voices -- students calling to friends down the hall -- students holding books and notes and pens and parts of each other's anatomy. Some of the boys had lumpy backpacks strapped to their shoulders. Fresh-faced coeds lugged carryalls.

  Z looked at his watch. Five minutes until two.

  So this was what college looked like between classes.

  The boys, as he'd expected, were dressed in slacks and shirts -- here and there a "rebel" (radically garbed in tailored, hand-stitched jeans.) Girls attire ran to smart wool skirts with matching jackets, most girls wearing blouses of color-coordinated, curve-enhancing silk.

  Following Calder's brisk lead through the student throng, they arrived at the open central area, the place alive with the younger set. Lines had formed before the machines while, at the buzzing tables, young women (no doubt because of overcrowding), sat in young men's laps.

  A number of students -- all smiles -- spoke to the prof as he skirted their tables. Hearing Calder's name, students across the room turned to call and wave.

  For his part, Calder went out of his way to speak to students. To smile. To hold his gloves in the air like a fighter celebrating victory. A friendly kind of guy. If, Z thought, he ever did decide to go to college -- unlikely as that might be -- he could do worse than have Calder for a teacher.

  Past the tables, a left turn aimed them at the outside door, Z buttoning up, Dr. Calder putting on his gloves.

  As Z had imagined they would be, the classroom doors were open; students rushing in; others rushing out.

  Still following Calder's enthusiastic lead, the two of them pushed through the double exit doors at the building's front, Z again assaulted by the wind's bite, a gale that didn't seem to "nip" a well-padded Calder, the prof starting a running monologue about the college and its buildings.

  At the end of the Social Science path, they turned left to hike along the crowded front sidewalk.

  Here, too,
they moved through cross migrations of bundled-up students, scarves wrapped around mouths and noses.

  For two more minutes when, like magic, Z and the professor were alone.

  Three o'clock.

  Once more, the classrooms had sucked in the school's students. Would spit them out again at ten 'til four.

  Z and Calder arriving at the walkway to Bateman Hall, they turned in, the wind blowing them from the "promenade" toward the porch of what was undeniably the architectural atrocity of the campus, Bateman Hall, a building of fanciful cupolas, ginger breading and corner towers to no purpose, topped by a multi-gabled roof, the roof's high points pierced by blue-ball lightening rods, the tallest roof-point crested with a copper-eagle weather vane.

  "This is the original school," Calder said as they penetrated the "asparagus"-topped colonnade to step up on the low Bateman porch. "All of it. In just this one building."

  Stopped by a massive double-door portcullis, Calder dragged back the hammer-marked wrought iron handle of the right hand door, the door groaning out slowly -- like all doors in all movies -- about all monsters.

  The professor then held the heavy door while motioning Z to go inside.

  Sure. Let Big Bob Zapolska confront whatever lurked in there!

  No help for it without declaring himself a wimp, Z entered, Calder trailing, the slam of the heavy door behind them severing the wind's wail as cleanly as the chop of a guillotine.

  Calder resuming the lead, they went through a more modern door into the building's entrance way -- again, newly painted.

  Urn-bone white.

  Incandescent bulbs in high old-fashioned, bubble glass fixtures provided what little light reached the worn hardwood floor. Even with recent renovation, the building showed its age. Was dark and echoey.