Veritas

by Anne Laughlin

  “Now, wait just a minute. I didn’t agree to any such meeting. I’m dead on my feet and was just going in for a lie-down.”

  “I really don’t care whether you were going in for a wank. Ten minutes.”

  Sally hung up the phone and blew out a breath. She wanted to arrest him just for the hell of it. She thought about the possibility of Landscome being the murderer, but his London trip and the fact that he’d recruited Barrow and put him up for tenure made that seem only wishful thinking on her part. She grabbed Ted Benson on her way out the door. Ted was just coming on shift, his first cup of coffee slopping over the sides of his paper cup as he trotted behind Sally to the car.

  “Did your girl have a nice birthday, Ted?”

  “She did, Chief. I should have told you last night that the reason I was anxious to get over to her place was I decided to ask her to marry me.” Ted held on to his cup with both hands as Sally squealed out of the station house parking lot.

  “No kidding? Well, congratulations.” Sally shot Ted a look. “She did say yes, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did. I can’t believe it. I mean, I can believe she said yes, ’cause I know she loves me. I just can’t believe I’m getting married.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll celebrate later. We’ve got to knock something loose on this case, today. I’m going to find out why this stick-up-his-ass president wanted John Barrow to get tenure. It sounds like he was going out on a limb to make sure it happened. Why?”

  “’Cause he liked him?” Ted offered.

  “Maybe. But liked him in what way? It doesn’t seem likely they were lovers, since Barrow made a habit of sleeping with female students.”

  Sally pulled into the wide brick drive of Landscome’s house, located a block off campus on a stately street with large homes on huge lots. The doctors and lawyers of the town lived in this area, along with business owners, auto and implement dealers, the town’s two real estate brokers, and those families coming from “old Mount Avery” money. The president’s home was the largest of them all, its lawn well tended by work-study students, the wooden shutters and window trim freshly painted, the front door a glossy black, just like you’d see in London. The house was way too large for one man, but as far as Sally knew the widowed president lived alone.

  The front door was yanked open as soon as Sally rang the bell. Landscome stood holding the door, the wisps of his remaining hair standing upright, his blue cotton oxford shirt wrinkled and wet under the armpits. He looked like he’d just gotten off a long flight, not arrived the night before, but he still managed to seem imperious as he scanned Sally and Ted from head to toe.

  “The mayor will be hearing about your rudeness, Chief. I’m sure he won’t be happy,” Landscome said, blocking the door.

  “You be sure to let me know how that goes, Mr. Landscome. We’re here to ask you some questions about the murder of one of your faculty members and we’re going to stay here until we get some answers. If you’d rather do it while we’re out here on your front steps, or even better, down at the station, that’s just fine with me.”

  Landscome headed down the center hall of the house, veering left into a dark study, Sally and Ted close behind. He sat behind a large wooden desk placed in front of the bay window. The curtains were drawn and the room was messy and smelled sour. Sally thought it felt like the elegant surroundings of a rich, bottoming-out crackhead.

  “Let’s get this over with, Chief. First off, I want to know what your investigation has turned up so far. Have you found anything that would qualify as a clue?”

  “A clue? Do you mean like a cigarette with lipstick on it? Or a smoking gun? I’m afraid things aren’t quite as neatly laid out for us as that.”

  Landscome ran his hands over the top of his head and then began to massage his temples. “I’m glad you find this all amusing, Chief. Let me ask you more directly. Have you found anything at the scene or on the body that may indicate why the murder occurred?”

  “And I’ll ask you again, more directly, just what sort of thing you have in mind?”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Landscome spat. “I am trying to find out from you if we know why this happened. Is that such an odd question?”

  “Just oddly put, I’d say. But to answer the question, I’ll say that we are still exploring all possible leads. We have nothing conclusive at this time.”

  Landscome slumped back in his chair. “Fine. I will get your report after I’ve had a chance to talk to the mayor. Now, what do you want to ask me? I can’t imagine what it could be.”

  “I’ve talked to several people about the fight over whether to grant tenure to Professor Barrow. I’ve also learned that you were very much in the camp wanting it, that in fact you brought him in to the college and put him into the tenure-track position over the objections of some members of his department. Do I have that about right?”

  “That’s more or less correct. However, he did pass his department’s tenure review and was standing legitimately before the full tenure committee.”

  “And this made some people pretty upset, didn’t it?” Sally asked.

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned since coming to Grafton College, it’s that it doesn’t take much to upset faculty members. They take turns writing scathing memos and disrupting meetings over the most inane dribble you can imagine.”

  “But this issue has been particularly sensitive, hasn’t it?”

  “I don’t think I have the longevity here to answer that question, Chief Sullivan. They seemed upset to me, but that had no effect on my decision making. I am the president of the college, and in my opinion John Barrow would have made an excellent permanent member of our faculty. That’s why I brought him to Grafton.” He picked up a mug of something from the desk and grimaced as he took a drink. “It’s bloody awful he’s dead.”

  “Where did you meet John Barrow? What was so special about him that you were willing to bring him here from England, with no guarantee of tenure, and against the wishes of the faculty you were just getting to know?”

  Landscome snorted at that. “I’m the president, as I said, and I don’t let the whining of a spoiled faculty influence how I run the college. John Barrow represents everything that is noble about the academic life—devotion to scholarship, dedication to teaching and to students, publishing in his field. He has the highest recommendations from his former colleagues at the London School of Economics, which is how I heard of him.”

  “I’d like to see those recommendations. There was nothing like that in his personnel file.”

  “Certainly. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow when Cora can get them for you. I haven’t any idea where she may have filed that information.”

  “Why don’t we give her a call right now and ask her to meet us at your office?”

  Landscome looked exasperated. “Why does any of that matter? What possible connection can his past recommendations have with his murder? Are you sure you’re not in over your head, Chief?”

  Sally sat in one of the leather chairs in front of Landscome’s desk. “Here’s what I see, Mr. Landscome. I see an unpopular president increase his unpopularity with the faculty by trying to force them to grant tenure to a teacher who I’ve heard described as lazy and of mediocre quality. There is real tension between the faculty and the administration because of this. No one knows why you care so much about this Barrow fellow.”

  “I don’t care that much about Barrow. That wasn’t the point. The point was that I need to show the faculty who the decision maker is and that I won’t be cowed by their hysteria. And I still don’t see what my actions could have to do with Barrow’s murder.”

  Sally picked up the desk phone and handed it to Landscome. “Call your secretary and arrange for her to meet Officer Benson at your office. Tell her to get us copies of the letters of recommendation. I’m seeking information at this time, not forming opinions. If you fail to cooperate, that’s another bit of information for me.”

  Landscome
took the phone and hit a speed-dial number. He asked Cora to meet him at his office in an hour, without providing an explanation as to why. He hung up without saying good-bye.

  “I just can’t imagine why people don’t like you, Landscome, as charming as you are,” Sally said. “Now, one last thing before I leave. Where were you on Friday night around eleven p.m. central time?”

  “You know very well that I was in London. I just arrived back late last night.”

  “There have been stranger things than people flying back and forth from places trying to fake an alibi. I actually don’t know where you were on Friday night.”

  “I was staying at Brown’s Hotel in London, if you must know. I checked out shortly after Dean Ellis called me with the news.”

  Sally handed a card to him.

  “We’ll be following up on all this. In the meantime, give me a call if you think of anything else.”

  Landscome stood as Sally and Ted walked toward the door. “I expect to be kept fully informed, Chief.”

  Sally ignored him, leaving by the front door without a word of farewell, Ted behind her. When they were in their squad buckling up, Ted said, “He’s kind of a jerk.”

  “Yeah, I went in expecting as much. I didn’t expect to find him so agitated.”

  “What do you mean? He just seemed to want to pick a fight.”

  “He seemed very anxious to find out what we knew, what we might have found,” Sally said.

  “Like there should have been something there that was incriminating to someone, right?”

  Sally pulled into traffic and headed back to the station. “I think there’s only one person President Landscome ever worries about, and that’s himself. So I wonder what he was expecting that we’d find?”

  “Shouldn’t we go back and ask him, Chief? Interrogate him or something?” Ted was getting that eager look in his eyes, like he was about to see some action.

  “Actually, Ted, I was thinking of waterboarding. That usually gets an answer out of a suspect pretty quickly. What do you think?”

  Ted studied Sally’s face. “I think you’re messing with me, that’s what. But really, Chief, if you think he’s hiding something, why wouldn’t we go ask him?”

  “It’s a fair question. I just don’t want to put him on the defensive. It seems he might be worried that we’ll find something specific, so I’d like to exploit his nerves a bit more and try to get him to spill what he knows. First I’m going to take another look at everything we found at the scene and at Barrow’s office. Maybe there was something I missed the first time through.”

  *

  An hour later Sally threw a file into a bankers box and closed the lid. She felt like screaming, and might have done so if Henry weren’t down the hall. She had just reviewed all of the files taken from John Barrow’s office at school as well as from the file cabinet and desk drawers in his home office. There was nothing that jumped out at Sally any more than upon their initial review.

  The collection included financial records, which did not reveal any evidence that Barrow was threatened by debt or enriched through blackmail. Barrow had the modest income and significant school loans of most younger academics. He maintained a file labeled Ongoing Research, which seemed pretty thin to Sally. There were two large boxes filled with the working drafts of his dissertation and a paper he had published in an academic journal. Its title was “Shakespeare’s Sister—The Real Bard? How Feminist Fantasies Have Twisted the Established Research.” Sally would have to ask Beth about that. Was this controversial? Enough to kill over? She was beginning to suspect that all things academic were potent grounds for violence.

  The desktop computer removed from Barrow’s home office was now set up on Sally’s desk. She’d explored every corner of both the onboard hard drive and the external backup drive, just as Ted had. His browser history and bookmarks showed a liking for Internet porn, but Sally was so used to seeing that in the course of investigations that she almost considered it normal. Barrow’s tastes in porn were heterosexual and fairly vanilla, with an emphasis on enormous breasts. It was pretty tame, as far as these things went.

  The computer in Barrow’s office at school was networked and shared with an office mate. Ted had examined it the morning following the murder and found that there was nothing there that Barrow would not be comfortable having someone else see. Sally was still left with a single possible motive for Barrow’s death—that someone really didn’t want him to get tenure. That or a random act of violence that had the killer ringing a stranger’s doorbell and shooting when the door opened. She wasn’t sure which seemed more improbable.

  Ted had been dispatched to meet Landscome’s assistant. Sally called his cell to see if he’d found the letters of recommendation.

  “The secretary’s going through some files now, Chief. She’s already said she doesn’t think she has anything like that here and that any letter of recommendation should be in the dean’s file.”

  “They’re not there. I reviewed the original file myself. The dean said she didn’t consider the file to be complete and has asked Landscome for the letters several times.”

  “So what do you want me to do? Should I go get Landscome and bring him here?” Ted asked.

  “No, let’s let him think we’re not focusing on him. There’s something up with him bringing Barrow here. I’ll ask the dean to contact the school in London and get the letters from them, if in fact they exist. You just stay there until the secretary finishes and then meet me at Katie Murphy’s house.”

  She gave Ted Katie’s address and hung up, then called Katie. A groggy voice answered on the third ring.

  “Is this Katie Murphy?” Sally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Sally Sullivan, Mount Avery Police.”

  No response. Sally could hear some sounds of movement and then someone in the background asking who was calling this early on a Sunday morning. Sally thought it sounded like Mel.

  “I’m sorry, Chief Sullivan. I was sound asleep. What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to talk to you this morning, at your convenience. I have some additional questions for you.”

  There was another silence before Katie said, “It never occurred to me that I would be considered a suspect.”

  Sally heard a very clear “What the fuck?” in the background, followed by a shush. Now she was sure it was Mel.

  “I’m not treating you as a suspect. I’m just following up on the tenure controversy we discussed before.”

  “I see. I’m not sure what help I’ll be, but I’m happy to answer your questions. Should I come to you?”

  “No, I’ll come by your place.”

  “That would be fine, Chief.”

  Sally wondered if Mel’s truck would be parked in front when she arrived, or whether she’d parked it where it couldn’t be seen by Delilah.

  Next she called Beth at home. Mae answered the phone.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Ellis. It’s Sally Sullivan. We met last night on campus?”

  “Of course, Chief. I wouldn’t forget you. But if you’re calling for Beth, I’m afraid she’s not here. She went out for a run some time ago.”

  “Okay, will you have—”

  “Is there anything I can help you with? I’m worried about Beth, with so much going on.”

  “No, if you’d just have her—”

  “I mean, talk about a rough business. Who’d ever think a college could be so full of nasty people? It makes my business look like a convent. Well, maybe not a convent, but you know what I mean. People I deal with are straight up. What you see is what you get and all that.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what business you’re in. Beth hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “Really?” Mae said, her mock surprise evident. “I’m surprised it wasn’t the first thing out of her mouth. Oh, wait a minute. She’s just coming in now. Hold on, Chief.”

  Sally heard the phone being put down and then some muffled conversation. “Chie
f? Sorry to keep you waiting,” Beth said. She sounded slightly out of breath.

  Sally smiled with the sound of Beth’s voice. The image of her came instantly to mind, clad in her running clothes as she’d seen her so many times, running past the police station on her way out of town.

  “I thought you were going to call me Sally.”

  “Right. Is this a social call?”

  “I wish it was, but it’s not. I’m trying to track down the letters of recommendation for John Barrow, the ones you said you tried to get from Landscome.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “Yep. And so far he can’t produce them. I don’t want to waste much more time trying to find out if they exist or not.”

  “I take it you think they might not.”

  “That’s the feeling I have, but I need it confirmed. Would you call that school in London—I forget what it’s called—and request copies?”

  “The London School of Economics. And yes, I’ll call, but it’s Sunday afternoon there. I’ll have to wait until first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Or the middle of the night. That would work also,” Sally said.

  “That doesn’t work so well for me, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. When I called the LSE at the time Barrow was hired, they did confirm that he had been teaching there as a part-time instructor in English. I didn’t ask for his letters because Landscome kept telling me he had copies for our file. It seems stupid of me now.”

  “Don’t second-guess yourself. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  A silence hung on the line. Sally was reluctant to hang up, wanting the contact with Beth, but not much good at small talk. Then she remembered the party. “Are you going to Delilah Humphries’s party later?” she asked.

  “Yes. It’s essentially mandatory attendance for me.”

  “She invited me and I thought I’d drop in at least. Maybe someone will just come up to me and confess to the murder.”