Veritas

by Anne Laughlin

  “Chief Sullivan, you cannot arrest me. It would be wrong. I haven’t done anything. You just can’t arrest me.”

  “So you keep saying, but of course the fact is that I can, and I will. As I’ve said, motive, opportunity. That’s enough right now. We’ll find the weapon.”

  Sally gazed at Jennifer as if she were a little bored, as if she were watching a Cubs game at the end of the season, no hope that the game would mean a damn thing, but there was nothing else to watch. It was going to take something big—a triple or a home run or something—for Sally to change her attitude. The disinterest was meant to worry Jennifer, and it appeared to work.

  “Chief, if you want to check on my alibi I can give you my cousin’s name and she can give you the names of the other people we were with Friday night.”

  Sally pushed a pen and paper over to Jennifer, who scribbled a name and number on the pad. “Now tell me why you went out there.”

  “Why? What difference does that make to you?”

  “I’m still investigating Barrow’s murder and you were the closest person to him, it seems. I want to know why you ran away just days before he was killed.”

  Jennifer glared at Sally. “I had an abortion, okay? Are you satisfied now?”

  “And Barrow was the father?”

  “Of course he was. He’s the only man I’ve ever slept with.”

  “It probably made you pretty mad that he didn’t want to have anything to do with the baby. I mean, who wouldn’t be furious to be seduced like that and then cast aside.”

  “I wasn’t cast aside! How many times do you need to hear this? We were taking a break. John just thought it was a terrible time to have a baby, what with the tenure situation and the problem with me being a student and him a professor. No one would understand.”

  Sally didn’t think Jennifer was hiding anything more, but she let her sit there in silence for a little while, just to see if anything else erupted from her. If she was delusional enough to think Barrow was just taking a break from their relationship, then she wouldn’t have killed him.

  “I’m going to check things out with your cousin and if everything is as you say it is, then we have nothing more to worry about. Okay?”

  “It will check out. I haven’t told you any lies.” Jennifer got up and slung her bag back on her shoulder. “But I’ve told you more than I’d want anyone to know.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t think this has to go any further than between us. One other thing, though. Since you were so intimate with Professor Barrow, did you pick up on any enemies he may have had, any personal problems that may have been troubling him?”

  “The only thing he ever talked about was tenure. And he really hated all the people who wanted to take it from him. He thought they were all anti-British.”

  “Anti-British?”

  “Whatever. I just mean that they all seemed to hate him because he wasn’t from here and he was a favorite of Landscome’s. Dean Ellis hated him, and so did Professor Humphries.”

  “Do you know if they had words?”

  “I don’t know. Not that he told me. He just said that once he got tenure he would be able to do what he wanted and things would be fine for us. I just had to graduate.”

  “Why did you say you were quitting school when you called Dean Ellis?”

  Jennifer looked confused, as if keeping track of the melodrama that was her life was impossible without a script. “I don’t know. That was, like, four days ago.”

  “Did you change your mind because of anything Barrow said to you? Or any change in his circumstance?”

  “Listen, I’ve told you all of what I know. Maybe I felt like quitting when I called Dean Ellis, but it seems stupid now.”

  “All right. I think that’s it for now. Just stay in town for a bit, all right? And if you think of anything else that might be helpful, give me a call.”

  Sally walked Jennifer out. Becky and Henry were drinking coffee by the front desk. “What did you need me for, Chief?” Becky asked.

  “I thought I was going to be able to arrest someone for the Barrow murder, but it turns out she has an alibi.” Sally turned around and started walking back to her office.

  “Where you going from here, Chief?” Henry asked.

  “Back to square one.”

  Sally returned to her office to check the alibi Jennifer gave her, doing it for form’s sake. She had no doubt it would be confirmed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Beth finished washing the dinner dishes, her mother at her side wiping them down with a soggy dish towel and then rooting around Beth’s cabinets, looking for a place to put them. Their conversation had been safely stalled on kitchen logistics for the past fifteen minutes, and what Beth guessed to be the normalcy of it struck her as not only unfamiliar but also strangely pleasing.

  Moments such as this were rare growing up on the prostitution ranch, a term Beth used deliberately to conjure up an image of herds of whores, tended through their prime and then moved off the ranch to meet their fate. Beth never knew what happened to the women who quietly left the ranch, usually when they were closing in on thirty. Many of the women who worked at the ranch were putting themselves through college and graduate school, so their departures were celebrated. Others bided their time until the day they were called into Mae’s office and given a generous amount of notice that their work at the ranch was coming to an end. Beth rarely got to know any of them well, except for the few who became her babysitters. These were the young women who were not proving to be customer pleasers at the ranch but whom Mae did not have the heart to fire. They watched Beth while Mae tended to ranch business, and inevitably they left after several months. After having her heart broken several times, Beth learned to not grow close to her minders.

  Mae continued her analysis of Beth’s kitchen. “Most people in this day and age have dishwashers. You’re really the only one I know who has a kitchen like this.” She was on her tippytoes, sliding a bowl onto a cabinet shelf.

  “Like what?”

  “Your appliances are ancient, your cabinets are horrible, and your countertops are not only Formica, but really old Formica.”

  “The appliances work fine. There’s no reason to replace them. And there’s no place for a dishwasher, even if I were to buy one.” Beth stood and looked at her kitchen, finding it perfectly satisfactory.

  “You have no vision. What you should do is knock this wall out, tear everything down to the studs, and put in a new kitchen that opens up to your family room there. You’ll love it.” Mae swept her arm from side to side, painting a picture of a modern kitchen/great room filled with the latest appliances and finishes.

  “You’re doing it again, Mother.”

  “Doing what again?”

  “Trying to control me. You’re already redecorating. You arrive here unannounced, which is a way of controlling me, because you know you’ll get your way. Am I supposed to throw my own mother out of my house?”

  “Good Lord. Are you this way with your friends? Do you even have friends?”

  Beth left the kitchen and headed to her room, with Mae close behind. As Beth pulled clothes out of her closet and started to change, Mae said, “Why don’t we open a bottle of wine and play Scrabble or something?”

  “Normally, I’d love the opportunity to kick your ass in Scrabble, but I have to go somewhere.”

  “Where? Can I go?”

  Beth ignored the question. “I have to go on campus for a bit. The students are having a candlelight vigil to honor Professor Barrow and to protest gun violence.”

  “Oh, gag.”

  Beth went back down the hall and into the bathroom, with Mae still close behind. She closed the door on her mother, who kept right on talking. “I can’t believe students would protest one of their own constitutional rights. That’s so shortsighted.”

  “What right would that be, mother? The right to be violent?”

  “The right to bear arms, Ms. PhD. It’s fundamental.”

/>   “Sounds like you are too. You’ve been in Nevada too long.”

  Beth came out of the bathroom and put a coat on from her front closet.

  “Here, let me grab a coat and go with you. I want to see this candlelight vigil.” Mae reached into the closet for her fringed and beaded leather jacket.

  “No. I can’t worry about you up there. I’m dean of the college, for God’s sake. Even on your best behavior I’ll worry about what people are thinking of you.”

  “Actually, that’s not true. You’ll be worrying about what people think about you, Beth. And that’s always been your problem.”

  Beth turned to open her front door. “My problems right now are numerous. Please don’t add to them. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Beth left her house and her mother and walked across the street to start climbing the hill to campus. She prayed that her mother would take pity on her and actually do as she asked. If she appeared on campus, the likelihood was high that someone would learn about Liaisons Fantastique. Mae was, if nothing else, an unwaveringly honest person when it came to what people knew about her. With the campus in crisis, Beth didn’t want her leadership diluted by the news that the dean was raised in a brothel. Even if everyone else on campus was understanding, she was sure Landscome would look for a way to use it against her.

  It was fully dark and Beth could see the glow of candles from the lawn in front of the church that stood at the top of the hill, next to Old Main. From here the bells of the Methodist church had rung for over a century until a decade ago, when the church and the college were separated. While the union between them had become unhappy, the breakup was amicable. Townspeople, faculty, staff, and students still worshipped in the church on Sundays, but there was no affiliation with the college. The bells had been silenced as part of the separation agreement. The imposing church, with its towering spire, loomed over the large group of students standing on the lawn, holding candles sputtering in the breeze that was always present at the top of the hill. They faced a young man who spoke passionately about the need for new laws eliminating all handguns in the United States. There were a few students goofing around, but for the most part it was a serious group. The speaker was replaced by a young woman who started to exhort the crowd to sing a protest song, one Beth did not recognize. What happened to “Blowing in the Wind”? Wouldn’t that be perfect for a protest of gun violence? A few minutes before, Beth had felt like a fourteen-year-old as she argued with her mother. Now she just felt old.

  As she made her way to the other side of the gathering, Beth stopped several times to speak with students. Campus security officers were positioned around the periphery, and a couple of the town’s police officers were also present. She scanned the crowd looking for Sally, spotting her as she approached the side of the crowd that Beth had just abandoned, her hands jammed into her jacket pockets. Sally stopped and also searched the crowd, nodding to her officers and then resting her gaze on Beth. An unmistakable hormone surge blasted through Beth’s body and she gave a little shudder. A delicious shudder. No matter what chaos reigned in her mind, her body was clear. She wanted Sally Sullivan and there was something more powerful about the attraction than she’d ever felt before. This was not an intellectual or aesthetic attraction. This was a full-bore attraction that was brought about by physical proximity but found its power in so much more than that. Now that she acknowledged it, she felt backed into a corner. If she didn’t act on it, would it torment her every time she saw Sally? If she did act on it, how long did she have before her heart was broken?

  Beth began to make her way back across the crowd when she saw her mother striding right up to Sally. Mae tugged on Sally’s sleeve and said something to her. Sally took Mae by the elbow and guided her in Beth’s direction. Beth froze like a rabbit, unable to move and half hoping that by holding completely still she would become invisible. She couldn’t quite cope with the idea of a chat with her mother and Sally. Perhaps they would walk right past her, talking about how much in love Sally was with her and how it would be perfect for them to get married in Mae’s wedding chapel in Nevada, recently converted from its colorful past as a brothel. The fantasy felt lovely for the moment Beth was allowed to indulge in it before she heard her name called. She turned to see Amanda, the student organizer extraordinaire, who was saying something to her.

  “I’m sorry, Amanda. I didn’t catch that.”

  Amanda leaned in closer, her earnest face creased with concern. “Are you okay, Dean? You don’t look well.”

  “Don’t I? It’s been a very trying day.”

  Beth could hear her mother’s voice saying, “There she is,” as she and Sally drew nearer.

  “Amanda, would it be appropriate for me to say a few words? It seems there’s a little break between songs.” Beth started walking toward the front of the crowd before Amanda could answer.

  “We would love that, Dean. The administration’s support is really important.” Amanda was trying to keep up with Beth, who was practically running. When she reached the front of the crowd, she moved the microphone stand away from the young woman who was tuning her guitar for another song. In the relatively silent crowd, Beth could hear her mother say, “What the hell is she doing?”

  Beth launched into a five-minute salute to those who fight against gun violence, a one-minute eulogy of John Barrow, and another three minutes on the importance of community during troubled times. She then stepped away from the microphone and plunged into the crowd on the side opposite of Mae and Sally, hurrying back home before either could catch up with her.

  As she let herself back into her little house, Beth felt almost overcome with dissatisfaction—with her life and, most of all, with herself. She was tired of being the person whose fantasy was that her mother owned a Las Vegas wedding chapel, because that was a big step up from the truth. She was tired of stretching her arms around every brick of Grafton College, trying to keep any part of it from changing. She was tired of being afraid of falling in love. What about Sally was frightening? She couldn’t think of a thing. And yet she realized she was looking for some sort of guarantee that she wouldn’t be hurt again if she gave her heart to someone. She thought it was guaranteed that she’d always love Grafton the way she had passionately loved it for years, and yet now she felt increasingly distanced from it, alienated by a leader who didn’t seem to share a single opinion with her about what made the college great. People simply differed from each other, and those differences brought about unpredictable events. There were no guarantees. Beth wondered how it was that she could understand something intellectually but have no control over it emotionally. That her mind was not strong enough to control everything in her life was frustrating beyond belief. She went into her sadly dated kitchen and made a drink, downing it as she stood at the sink. Then she made another and carried it into her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She could decide to stay locked away and protected from the hurt the unpredictable could bring, or she could throw in with the living. She wasn’t yet sure which it would be.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sally was at her desk early Sunday morning, reviewing her files, putting together a murder book, determined to find some thread to follow. The only motive for Barrow’s death that she could see was the determination of someone that he not receive tenure. Though Sally had heard of crazier motives for murder, it still struck her as improbable. But it was all she had.

  She was jotting down points to cover that day when Henry called her from the front desk. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was past seven already. The weekend day shift would be settling in.

  “Chief, what are you doing back there? I was just calling to leave a message.”

  “What’ve you got, Henry?”

  “I just got off the phone with the college president, a Nigel Landscome. Says he’s back in town and wants a call from you. Kind of sounds like he’s expecting you to report to him.”

  “Can’t say that surprises me. Give me his number.”
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  After going over a few day-shift matters with Henry, Sally hung up. She went into the kitchen to make a new pot of coffee, not anxious to give Landscome the impression that she was willing to drop everything to return his call. But after the coffee brewed and she’d fixed a cup, she couldn’t stand to wait any longer. She took her coffee back to her office and picked up the phone.

  “Nigel Landscome here.”

  Sally introduced herself and asked him when he had arrived back in Mount Avery.

  “Flew in from Heathrow and arrived late last night. Earliest flight I could get on and it was terribly uncomfortable, I don’t mind telling you. No business class upgrades left me in a middle seat in coach.”

  Sally ignored his whining. “President Landscome, I need to speak with you as soon as possible. Obviously you know that John Barrow has been murdered.”

  “Of course. That’s why I flew back on that awful flight.”

  “You should know that Dean Ellis has been very cooperative and I am confident we have security issues on campus well covered.”

  “I’ll have to take your word on that for the moment. I haven’t had a chance to suss anything quite yet.”

  Sally gritted her teeth. She knew that “suss” meant to figure something out; she’d read a fair share of British mysteries. And none of it mattered, neither his ridiculous adoption of British slang nor her irritation with it. At the moment, though, she hated him for it. Hated his absurdity and his thoughtlessness. She held her tongue and let the silence lengthen.

  “I don’t have all day, Chief. Report on your progress. It’s been over a day now since the murder occurred. I have an hysterical campus here and we need results.”

  “First of all, the campus is anything but hysterical. As I said, Dean Ellis has done a great job reassuring the students, and there are security officers positioned around the clock. Secondly, the purpose of my call is not to report to you but rather to ask you some questions. I’ll be at your house in ten minutes.”