And when they were sitting in the motionless boat, listening to the eerie night sounds of the swamp, watching the permutations of moonlight on the brown water, Julienne would tell her brother about her problems with Nils and how angry and discouraged the situation made her. And maybe Philippe would suggest that she just take time out, the way the psychologists are wont to say; Philippe had probably visited his share of psychologists and psychiatrists. He'd remember an old rental shack on solid ground out in the swamp where she could kick back, think things over, and take pictures. He probably even knew a place to stop for supplies and knew where to pull in to ask the owner's permission to use the shack. In fact, since he wasn't answering his phone at the hotel, he might be there with Julienne.
No, he'd returned the boat, but he could have rented another, at a weekly rate, picked up the supplies in the morning, and returned. I was feeling almost cheerful when I returned my red Escort to the rental agency. My imagined scenario made sense. I could picture Julienne and her brother sitting lazily on a pier somewhere in the swamp, fishing, taking pictures of the strange trees and the alligators and snakes and other denizens of the mud flats and the water, getting reacquainted after so many years of following their separate career paths.
By the time I reached Jackson Square, I decided I deserved a treat, so I stopped again at La Madeleine's and bought a glass of red wine and a piece of chocolate cake with deep, rich frosting. My snack wasn't for the book; it wasn't particular to New Orleans. It was happy food, and I enjoyed every sip and bite as I sat at the window and watched the passing scene. Red wine and chocolate: food for the gods. Jason thinks it's a crazy combination, but what does he know?
24
News of an Untenured Adulterer
I returned to the hotel after my dose of comfort food on Jackson Square to find a voice-mail message from Jason: "Caro, I talked to one of Julienne's colleagues this morning. The latest gossip from her university is that the dean of her college received an E-mail from Linus Torelli announcing that he'd just accepted a job in Sweden and wouldn't be back. Seems Torelli told the dean he was leaving because he's being blamed for Julienne's disappearance by, and I quote, 'some nosy friend of hers.'" Jason's delighted chuckle sounded in my ear as he asked, "Think you're the 'nosy friend'? Torelli also says he was not having an affair with Professor Magnussen and he resented all the vicious gossip about them, most of which he attributed to her husband.
"Maybe it was a mistake, but I called Nils with the news, and he seemed pretty upset," Jason added. "I don't know how it went this morning with the police, but I think you ought to check on him. OK? See you around five-thirty."
Torelli had resigned? That seemed a bit overboard to me if he wasn't guilty of anything, and I resented being characterized as the "nosy friend," even if the dean, whom I'd never met, didn't know my name. It's rather off-putting to think that one is being unpleasantly characterized on the Internet, which is not, as I understand it, a particularly private means of communication. And what an odd way to resign! Bad enough to disappear and resign in the middle of a semester without notice, but to do it by E-mail! That is hardly proper academic etiquette.
Feeling tired and put upon, I combed my hair and applied a bit of lipstick as I wondered what Nils was upset about. One would think he'd be glad to know that Torelli was gone for good, declaring Julienne's innocence in the process. But of course, that meant—if Torelli was to be believed, and I believed him even if I hadn't liked him—that Nils had been wrong about Julienne. He'd be upset because he was feeling guilty at having misjudged her.
As I put down my lipstick case, it also occurred to me that if Torelli had not been involved with Julienne, he'd have had no reason to do her harm, although he might have agreed to hide her out from her husband before he left. He might have been the renter of the boat. In fact, he might not be in Sweden at all. One can't tell where an E-mail originates. I had to remind myself once more that Lieutenant Boudreaux said Torelli had flown to Sweden. Could that be faked? In truth, I didn't know what to think. My speculations were unaccompanied by proof.
I picked up my handbag and headed for the Magnussen room. At least I didn't have to go out in the rain again, for it was pouring down from low-hanging, gray clouds. Even I, starved for the sight and feel of rain, was getting a bit tired of it. El Paso's perpetual sunshine might look good by the time we got home. I knocked on Nils's door, waited, knocked again harder, called his name, and finally got a response, although not a very welcoming one. Nils opened the door looking rumpled and unhappy, more so when he saw me.
"Did you come to say, 'I told you so'?" he asked bitterly.
"I came because Jason said that you seemed upset after he called about Torelli's resignation."
"Why should I be upset?" Nils retorted sarcastically.
"The man's gone to Sweden. He's not coming back. My wife didn't go with him. I'm delighted."
He didn't look at all delighted. His thinning blond hair stood up in ragged tufts, his face seemed bloated, his eyes puffy, and I could smell scotch on his breath. "Do you want to discuss this out in the hall?" I asked calmly. Getting impatient with a man so edgy didn't seem like a good idea.
He shrugged and waved me in. He had one of the rooms that overlooked the courtyard, while ours overlooked the street. I stood for a moment eyeing the greenery below, thinking it must be more peaceful at night than the front of the building where Jason and I could hear the voices and laughter of people on the street. On the other hand, the melancholy sounds of horns wailing in the night were romantic. People our age, parents of grown-up children, can always use a bit of romance in their lives.
Nils had dropped down on one of the twin beds, so I sat down on the other, facing him. He looked the picture of dejection, hands dangling between his knees, head hanging. "We'll find her," I said encouragingly. "Do you want to help me look? Maybe she's rented a place in the swamp."
His head came up abruptly. "Why would you think that?" he demanded.
I felt a stab of panic. After all, the only clue I had about the swamp was the fact that a man had rented a boat to go night fishing. No woman had been seen with him. What if the man had been Nils, and he felt that I was closing in on him, and he—
"You think she's so furious with me that she'd hide out in some moldy swamp so I can't find her and try to patch things up?"
"I... I don't know where she is," I stammered. "I'm just guessing." Patch things up? If he wanted to patch things up, didn't that mean he hadn't done anything to her that would prevent them from reconciling?
"I did some investigating myself," Nils continued, lowvoiced. "After Jason called me about Torelli's resignation, I called this fellow in her department."
I nodded and guessed, "Mark somebody or other."
"How did you know that?" He looked alarmed, as if I had psychic powers and might be reading his thoughts.
"I remember Julienne saying this Mark always knows everything that goes on. In her department, at any rate."
"Oh. Well, he does."
"What did he say?" I found that I was almost afraid of the answer.
"That she wasn't having an affair with Torelli. The son of a bitch has been dropping those hints in the department to cover up the fact that he was fucking the chairman's wife."
You can imagine my horror. No one that I know uses the "f' word, at least in my presence. Well, maybe some of the younger faculty. And the students. My son Chris used it once, and when I reprimanded him, he said, "Oh, Mom, everyone uses it." I was not happy to hear that. I suppose if I'd been part of the counterculture of the sixties and seventies, I might not have been so disgusted with Nils's language, but frankly I avoid R-rated movies because so many seem to employ a one-word vocabulary, which shows a woeful lack of inventiveness on the part of the scriptwriters, in my opinion.
"Well, aren't you going to say anything?" Nils snapped.
I managed to get my mind off the wording and onto the content of his revel
ation. In this case, the word in question wasn't just an expletive; it was used to describe an activity: Linus Torelli having sexual relations with his chairman's wife. Good heavens! I never cease to be amazed at the clandestine sexual activities that go on in the academic community. In this case, not just adultery, but adultery of the stupidest kind. Not that liaisons between students and professors aren't madness in these days of proliferating sexual harassment charges, but to become involved with one's chairman's wife was surely a suicidal impulse, professionally speaking. "Did he have tenure?" I asked.
"Tenure? That's your only comment? Did he have tenure?" Nils stopped looking woebegone and looked, instead, irritated.
It was a stupid question. Even insensitive, given Nils's obvious misery. Although I'm sure it would come to the mind of any person who has spent many years involved with college faculties. Even if the chairman's wife was the aggressor, the chairman wasn't likely to take that into account if he became cognizant of the affair. Would a chairman's wife seducing an untenured professor be considered sexual harassment? I wondered.
"He didn't," said Nils.
"He didn't what?" I had been lost in my speculations, which only proved that I needed a nap.
"He didn't have tenure," said Nils impatiently. "My God, he was ten years younger than Julienne. He wasn't even coming up for consideration until the end of next year."
'Then why did you think Julienne would be interested in him?" I retorted.
Nils gave me a strange look. "You mean why would she go after someone without tenure when she was married to someone who had it?"
"No!" What a silly interpretation of my question! "I meant why would she be interested in someone ten years her junior? Or, why would you believe it of her?"
Nils sighed. "Because I'm a fool." He dropped his head into his hands. "I've been so stupid."
I had to agree with that, although I didn't say so aloud. "So why did he take off for Sweden in the middle of the semester if he was in love with the chairman's wife? Did the chair find out about it?"
Nils shook his head and mumbled, "Martha found out about the supposed affair between Julienne and Torelli. In fact, her husband called her from here to tell her about Julienne disappearing and Torelli being suspect and so forth, and the wife called Torelli and tore a strip off him, said she was going to tell her husband that Torelli had seduced her."
"Good grief! How do you know all this?"
"Torelli told Mark. So Torelli hopped a plane to go home and pacify the chair's wife and try to talk her out of screwing up his bid for tenure, and she decided that he'd just been after her because he wanted her to support him with her husband."
"Is that likely?" I asked, amazed. What a bizarre story!
"I don't know. Maybe. She's older than Julienne and doesn't look half as good. What the hell would he want with her if he weren't hoping to get something out of it? Anyway, he panicked and went to Mark for advice."
"Which is like telling your troubles to Barbara Walters on national TV. I remember Julienne saying this Mark is a terrible gossip," I mused. "He not only knows all but tells all. If Torelli's that indiscreet, maybe he did need someone to support his bid for tenure."
"Julienne always said he was a good scientist." Nils scowled. "If she hadn't kept saying that—"
"Oh, nonsense, Nils. Don't put your jealousy off on Julienne. Especially now that you know you were wrong about her. And especially since your jealousy drove her away, and we don't even know where she is."
Nils looked so guilt-stricken that I almost wished I hadn't reminded him of his culpability in all this. "So what advice did Mark give Torelli?" I asked to get his mind off his troubles.
"He said that Torelli was done for with Martha on his case, and he'd better take the job in Sweden if they offered it. They did, and he did. End of story."
"Surely Martha wouldn't have told her husband that he should fire Torelli because she had been having an affair with him."
"No," Nils agreed. "She'd have said both Julienne and Torelli should be fired because they were having an affair, which he'd have believed because he'd already heard the rumors. That way she'd have gotten even with them both."
"Julienne has tenure," I pointed out.
"She'd never have been given another raise. She'd have found herself teaching all the scut classes and lots of them. She'd have gotten all the bad committee assignments. You don't have to fire someone to get rid of them. Julienne wouldn't have put up with that kind of treatment, and Martha wouldn't have stopped nagging her husband until he forced Julienne to leave."
"And Torelli just went off and left Julienne to that fate? How despicable! And this Martha doesn't sound like a very nice person, either."
"Martha's a bitch," said Nils.
I was reminded that he had called me a bitch just this morning. While I was remembering that, Nils was rising from the bed and grabbing a raincoat that had been thrown across the desk chair. "Where are you going?" I called after him as he headed for the door.
'To get drunk," he replied and slammed out.
Well, that wasn't a very fruitful approach to the problem of his missing wife! I sat a minute longer on what must have been Julienne's bed before she disappeared. Without any new ideas about where to find her, I used Nils's telephone to try Philippe's hotel room again. Might as well let Nils pay for the call. Goodness knows, I had spent an insane amount of money on calls before I discovered what they were costing. I punched in the numbers. By now I had them memorized. Without much surprise I listened to the ringing of the telephone. Philippe still wasn't in.
I hoped that meant he was with Julienne. Maybe his failure to answer meant that they had left town together, and he had kept his hotel registration to foil attempts to find them. Was Philippe a loving enough brother that he would risk his own position at the medical school where he taught in order to comfort his sister? Perhaps, if not to the swamp, they'd gone to the family cabin on the lake.
But the weather there would be dreadful, worse than New Orleans.
Then suddenly Nils's words came back to me, or to be more exact, his verb tenses. "She'd never have been given another raise ... She'd have gotten all the bad committee assignments...." As if nothing the chair's wife or the chair meant to do to Julienne made any difference. Because she wouldn't be around to take the heat for the alleged affair. What was Nils thinking? And why?
25
The Roux Morgue
It was after three-thirty when I returned to my room and sank down on the red bedspread, toeing my shoes onto the floor and stretching out. Although I was determined to have a nap, my mind refused to turn off. Nils didn't expect Julienne to return. Why? It didn't bear thinking on. And Martha, the chairman's wife. A spiteful woman. Would she seek revenge if Julienne did return? Surely, Martha could be persuaded that there had been no affair. Well, none but her own.
Still, that would be a difficult subject to introduce tactfully. What was Julienne supposed to say in her own defense? "I wasn't having an affair with Linus Torelli. You were." Actually, that approach, put more subtly, had merit. This Mrs. Chairman Martha might think twice about accusing Julienne if she knew that Julienne was aware of the jealousy that lay behind Martha's campaign to get rid of someone she perceived as a rival for the affections of a lover.
But there was no campaign to force Julienne out. Not yet. And Martha—I was calling some woman by her first name when I had never set eyes on her. This whole wild story about affairs and vengeance might be a figment in the imagination of another person I'd never met, Mark the Gossip. Still, Torelli had left the country. And Julienne was missing. Oh God, how I hoped that she was with her brother!
But where could she and Phillipe have gone? When did she plan to return? Why hadn't she called me? What kind of job had the amoral Professor Torelli been forced to take in Sweden? Where should Jason and I go for dinner? Preferably someplace with food interesting enough to write about in my book. I should look
at the Louisiana New Garde, but I was so sleepy. My thoughts drifted and broke up as my eyes began to close.
The ringing jerked me awake. Time to get up, I thought groggily as I reached for the telephone. "Thank you for calling," I mumbled and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The telephone receiver was on its way back to the cradle when I saw the time. Four o'clock? They'd given me a wake-up call at four o'clock? Light shining through the windows told me that it wasn't morning, and I replaced the receiver against my ear in time to hear a male voice saying, "Miz Blue? Miz Blue?"
"Lieutenant?" Why was he calling?
"Miz Blue, Ah'm tryin' to get ahold a Professor Mag-nussen."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well." There was a long pause.
"Is something wrong?" Suddenly, I was no longer sleepy, but rather short-winded and anxious. "What's wrong?"
"Likely nothin', ma'am. But if you know where the professor is—"
"He's gone out to get drunk."
"Damn!" Another pause. "Sorry 'bout the language, ma'am."
"Why did you want to speak to him?"
"Well." The next pause made me even more nervous than the first. "Well, Miz Blue, fact is, we got this body in the morgue. Jus' came in."
"Oh, my God. It isn't—"
"Probably not, ma'am. We jus' thought, your friend bein' missin' an' all, maybe the professor should take a look."
"Where did you find the body?" He told me in great detail, little of which meant much to me as a nonresident of the area. However, I did gather that the body had been fished from the swamp by a tour boat, much to the dismay of the tourists. "Is it... is it..."
Fairbanks, Nancy Page 18
