Murder Misread

by P. M. Carlson

  She heard the voices first, from the fork in the path. Men’s voices, gruff working-class voices, down by the creek. As she hiked along the upper path, she tried to peer down through the ragged screen of young maples to see what was happening. Nearing the bridge, she could glimpse flashes of light and paused, squinting. A photographer of some sort? She pushed aside a young branch so she could survey the activity.

  The photographer was squatting, stretching, clambering onto logs and rocks, even into the stream in a strange ritual ceremony around a quiet heather-gray form on the path. Well outside the circle of his dance, others stood watching: men in uniforms, the gray of the campus safety officers, the navy of the city police, the white of ambulance attendants who stood with a stretcher vertical between them. Beyond them, clumps of university people—tweeds, blue jeans, Aran sweaters. A tall black man in a blue blazer was talking to the largest of the tweedy ones. Looked like Bart, Anne thought. Next to them, a lanky young woman with black curls had a comforting arm around a sobbing female student in a jeans jacket.

  Anne stepped back onto the path, letting the branch spring back across the view. With shivering hands she pulled a cigarette from her pocket, lit it, and inhaled deeply. Then she marched back to the fork in the path and down toward the crowd.

  She was stopped after a few yards by a big gray-jacketed safety officer, young, taut-faced, a trace of acne on his jaw. Dixon, said his badge. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he croaked hoarsely, and cleared his throat. “Please use the other path. This one is closed.”

  “Someone’s hurt?” asked Anne, drawing in the sustaining smoke. She knew it was a dumb question. The ambulance attendants had been standing idly by, waiting.

  “Someone’s been shot and killed!” confirmed the youthful officer, his murky blue eyes troubled and lively in his stiffly held face. “So we have to ask you to go the other way until they’re finished with the body.”

  “But you see,” explained Anne, enunciating carefully for the benefit of his dazed young ears, “I think I’m married to that body.”

  4

  Charlie stood smacking his fist rhythmically into his other hand, an ineffectual release for his fury and confusion. Tal could not be dead! “I just saw him this morning,” he’d protested stupidly to big Sergeant Hines, a line from a million B movies. But he couldn’t accept it. He’d taken one look at that lump of gray tweed and turned away. Couldn’t be zesty little Tal. Tal had been like a father, no, more like a playful uncle, from the time Charlie had first joined the department. He couldn’t be dead. This was a nightmare. A horror flick. Not real.

  But the cops were real enough. There were gray-shirted men from the Campus Security Office, and solid fellows in navy uniforms from the Laconia city police. And there were plainclothes detectives moving through the little crowd. Sergeant Hines was in charge, a big black man with a light blue summer blazer stretched across his muscular shoulders. As Reggie Hines he’d been a running back for Syracuse, Charlie remembered someone saying. A smart player, not quite good enough for the pro leagues but graduating with a good record and working his way up through the Laconia police steadily. He’d been calm and efficient questioning Charlie, his face stolidly neutral, as though carved in ebony, but his questions were alert and to the point. O.J. Simpson turned cop.

  Charlie was standing at the bend where the trails angled up, partly because he couldn’t look at the crumpled heather-gray heap farther down. The cops had shooed everyone back up the trail, gray uniforms and blue uniting in their insistence that civilians keep their distance. Hines had arrived soon and taken charge. He’d set his own men to work measuring, photographing, cordoning off a large area of the path and woods, searching the trail and creek banks. He’d rounded up the witnesses and put them under the supervision of a couple of Campus Security cops, telling them all not to discuss the scene. One at a time, he drew the witnesses aside and asked them his questions.

  Near Charlie, the young woman student who’d found the body had stopped sobbing at last. She had caramel-colored hair and square-framed glasses. Dorrie something, she’d said. Maggie’s arm in the loose blue shirt lay across her denim jacket like a soothing wing. Maggie was murmuring comfort, but her keen blue eyes were panning across the scene, checking trail, woods, cops. Half Irish, half eagle, she’d said. She saw Charlie looking at her and gave a small sad shake of her head. He realized that she believed Tal was dead and suddenly he began to believe it too. He smacked his fist into his hand again and glared at Hines. What the hell was the man doing? Why wasn’t he chasing down Tal’s killer instead of talking to Bart? Tal deserved police helicopters, bloodhounds, searchlights, SWAT teams. Instead Hines was asking Bart Bickford the same calm questions he’d already asked Charlie and Maggie and Dorrie. He’d taken Bart a few yards down the trail, but Charlie could still hear most of it above the gurgling creek and the whispering leaves.

  “Yes, he’d asked me to meet him for lunch,” Bart said. He was fidgety, his big hands knotted in his jacket pockets, his heavy brow thickened in a frown.

  “Did you pass this part of the trail on the way to Plato’s?”

  “I used the upper trail.” Bart nodded at the green-painted bridge, dull against the sun-sparkled foliage at the top of the ravine.

  “This was a few minutes before noon?”

  “A quarter of, maybe,” Bart amended. “I went early because I wanted to drop off some film to be developed.”

  Hines was making notes. “In Collegetown?”

  “Yeah. That place around the corner on Jefferson. A block off College. Quick Prints.”

  “And then you went to Plato’s?”

  “Yes. Pretty damn close to noon.” Bart shifted his weight to his other foot.

  “Did you meet or see Professor Chandler on your way?”

  “No. Saw a woman with a little girl taking a walk down here on this trail. They were the only ones on it.”

  Hines’s expression didn’t change, but Charlie sensed a new tautness in the broad shoulders, a brightening interest. “Can you describe the woman?”

  “Young, slim, brown hair, about—God, it’s hard to judge height from above, isn’t it?” Bart’s sunken eyes squeezed closed with the effort to remember. “Some kind of a checked shirt. Bluish, I think. Blue jeans. Gray sweater tied around her waist.”

  “Good.” Hines seemed pleased, scribbling in his notepad. “And the child?”

  “About five, I’d guess. Red sweatshirt, jeans. Brown hair. Kept running over to throw stones in the water.”

  “Fine. And no sign of Professor Chandler?”

  “No. Nor of anyone else. They were the only people I saw.”

  “Was anyone entering the trail from the Collegetown side?”

  “No. Only a few people on the street this time of year.”

  “Right.” Hines turned the page. “Is there anything else you can add?”

  Bart blinked at the big detective. To Charlie Bart seemed a big, sad creature out of his element, a Neanderthal puzzling over Cro-Magnon behavior. He said, “No, I can’t think of anything. But if I do—”

  “Right. Let us know. We’ll let everyone go in a few minutes. Bear with us a little longer. We’ll want a formal statement later. You’ll be back at your office today?”

  “Yes, until six o’clock or so.”

  “Fine. Give your phone numbers and address to Officer Porter.” Hines nodded at the blue-uniformed cop who was taking notes nearby. Bart lumbered toward Porter as Hines consulted his notes for the next witness. “Ms. Peterson?”

  “Yes. Here,” said Nora.

  Charlie had hardly been aware of her, standing silently in the shade of the maples nearby, her navy blue suit as dark as the shadows. Now she stepped into the dappled sunlight of the trail.

  “Just a few questions, Ms. Peterson.” Hines smiled at her, but his quick glance was sizing her up professionally. Height, weight, hair color, eye color, any distinguishing marks—Charlie could almost see her being converted to checkmarks in boxes
on official police forms.

  Charlie had already talked to Hines, so he’d been converted already.

  “Yes, he invited me to lunch too.” Nora was businesslike, only a quiver of her eyelid betraying stress. “He said it was some kind of celebration. I figured maybe he’d had a book published.”

  “I see. Now, what route did you take to the restaurant?”

  “The upper bridge.”

  “What time was it?”

  “Noon, maybe even a minute or two after. I was a little late because I wanted to finish some exams I was grading. Essay type, they take a long time to grade.”

  “Right. Did you see anyone on the lower trail?”

  She shook her head slowly. A couple of strands of her scraped-back hair had come loose, making her look strangely vulnerable. “I’m sorry, I was in such a rush because I was late. So I just hurried straight to Plato’s.”

  “You didn’t glance down?”

  “I probably did. One does when crossing a bridge. But nothing registered as any different from the last hundred times I walked across.”

  “You didn’t notice a man by those trees?” Hines nodded at the clump of maples that Charlie and Maggie had identified as the place the unknown man was lurking.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “A woman and a child?”

  “No.”

  “Was there anyone else on the upper trail?”

  “I passed a couple of students just as I entered, coming out on the campus side. Young men.”

  “Good. Could you describe them, please?”

  “I didn’t really notice. Well, jeans, of course. Sweatshirts. Backpacks, maybe. One of them was blond.”

  “How tall? As tall as Officer Porter?”

  “Yes, roughly. Not as heavy.”

  Charlie became aware of a murmur farther up the trail. A gray-uniformed Campus Security officer was talking to a city cop. The campus officer was escorting a short, stout woman—oh, God, it was Anne! He hadn’t thought about Anne. She’d always awed him a little despite her good humor, because of the keen intelligence and brusqueness wrapped in that solid matronly little figure. But Tal doted on her, proud of her accomplishments, even bragging that he’d married the prettiest professor on campus. “None of these wispy little model types for me,” he’d confided to Charlie early on, man to man. “I go for a real woman. A huggable woman.” He’d tactfully stopped those comments when Charlie had gotten engaged to slim Lorraine, a grad student with big blue eyes and enormous ambitions that eventually had drawn her away from Charlie to New York City. Lorraine had been sweet and brainy and understanding, but definitely on the wispy side by Tal’s standards.

  Back then Charlie had thought she was just right. Well, that was over and done with. Better luck next time.

  Anne Chandler was smoking those smelly French cigarettes of hers, her hands moving jerkily to her mouth. She was dressed in lightweight brown tweed. She and Tal always looked like a British couple about to go out for a tramp on the heath. Her hair was salt-and-pepper gray, cut short and ruffly around that intelligent face. The Campus Security officer led her straight to Hines. The big detective’s impassiveness had melted a little. “Mrs. Chandler? Professor Talbott Chandler’s wife?”

  “Right.” A puff on the cigarette. “He’s dead, isn’t he.”

  “I’m afraid so, Mrs. Chandler.”

  Her shoulders sagged at the confirmation. “May I see him?”

  Hines squinted down the trail. “We won’t be finished for a while yet. Do you want to sit down?”

  “Been sitting all morning. You want to ask me questions?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to cause you further distress. I can talk to you somewhere else, later.” Hines’s voice was full of compassion. “Just let us have your address, phone—”

  “You’re saying you don’t want me to see him now.” She lost interest in Hines. “Hello, Nora.”

  Nora nodded bleakly.

  Anne took a card from her bag, handed it to Hines, took another puff and turned away. Her gaze lit on Charlie. “Hello, Charlie.”

  “Anne, I’m so sorry.” He shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly. What the hell did you say? He felt as awkward as a nine-year-old, trying to tell Aunt Babs he’d lost her fifty dollars.

  “Thanks,” she said brusquely.

  Hines looked at the card she’d given him and nodded. “Thanks.” He turned back to Nora.

  Anne marched over to Charlie. “What happened?”

  He avoided her savvy dark eyes. “Well, we were going to have lunch with him at Plato’s.”

  She nodded. “Yes, Cindy told me.”

  “Well—” He felt ridiculously relieved, as though she might have challenged his statement. Heartened, he went on, “The rest of us had already arrived at Plato’s.”

  “Who’s the rest of you?”

  “I arrived with Maggie, and—”

  “Maggie?”

  “Me,” said Maggie. Anne turned to look her over. “I’m Maggie Ryan. Statistician for Charlie’s project. I just met your husband this morning, Professor Chandler. I’m so sorry—”

  “Thank you.” Anne brushed off her sympathy with a wave of her cigarette and inspected Maggie clinically. “You’re not in the Education Department.”

  “No. I’m just here for the summer this time.”

  A cloud of smelly French smoke billowed past Charlie’s nose. “Were you here before?” Anne asked her with a little frown.

  “Yes. Got my Ph.D. here seven years ago.”

  Anne nodded curtly and glanced back at Charlie. “So you two arrived at Plato’s first.”

  “Yes. We were a couple of minutes early.” He cleared his throat. “Then Bart arrived, and finally Nora.”

  “Tal asked Cindy too,” offered Maggie, “but she couldn’t come, because of another meeting she had.”

  “Mm.” Anne was looking down the trail again.

  Maggie said, “Tal said you had a meeting too.”

  “Canceled it,” said Anne, then looked sharply at Maggie. After a moment she said, “So everyone was up there at Plato’s, except Tal.”

  “And Cindy, and you, and the rest of the campus.”

  “Right.” Anne dropped her cigarette stub onto the trail and ground it out with the toe of her crepe-soled walking shoe. “What happened then?”

  “We were waiting for Tal,” said Maggie, “and I heard Dorrie here calling for help. So I ran out of Plato’s to see what I could do. She said there was a man hurt on the gorge trail.”

  Dorrie nodded mutely. Anne studied her a moment, then asked gently, “What did you see?”

  Charlie looked apprehensively at the Campus Security men. They weren’t supposed to be talking about it. But the guards had edged closer to Hines and Nora, avidly listening themselves.

  “I was coming down the trail…,” Dorrie began, tugging nervously at her honey-brown hair.

  “From College Ave.,” said Maggie.

  “Yes. And I saw this jacket lying there. And at first I didn’t know what it was, you know? And then I saw his head. And all the blood. And I screamed, and, well, I just ran back to get help.”

  Anne’s inquiring eyes turned to Maggie.

  “I brought her into Plato’s to call the ambulance and the police,” Maggie said. “Charlie and the others helped her.”

  “Maggie ran on ahead,” Charlie explained.

  “I know a little CPR,” said Maggie. “But when I saw him it was clear that it was too late. So I tried to keep people away until the cops came.”

  Anne nodded, looking down at the brown toes of her shoes. Then she raised her eyes to Maggie, and for the first time there was a catch in her voice. “He was shot?”

  “Yes,” said Maggie gently.

  Anne looked back at her shoes.

  Dorrie said in a wondering tone, “I guess I heard it. I was just starting down the trail and I thought it was a car backfiring.” Her eyes were wide behind her square-framed glasses. “God, I never though
t—”

  “You told the detectives about the backfire?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t remember what I told them. I was so confused.”

  “Well, that’s normal. But be sure you tell them first chance you get.” Maggie gave the girl’s shoulders a squeeze.

  Charlie noticed that his fist was hitting into his palm again. He felt so damn angry and frustrated. He wished Hines would let them go, so he could think. He thrust his fists back into his pockets and looked at the detective, who was conferring now with a gangly man in a pinstripe suit. Hines took a couple of notes, then came over to where his witnesses were gathered. “Mrs. Chandler?” he said gently. “Could you answer a few questions now?”

  Anne squared her shoulders, her face a mask. A tough woman, Charlie thought. She’d always seemed a little frightening. “I’m ready,” she said brusquely.

  Hines led her a few steps down the path. Dorrie said quietly, “God, I never thought about him having a wife, you know?”

  Maggie nodded but didn’t answer. She was watching Anne intently, her lower lip caught behind her teeth. Reluctantly, Charlie followed her gaze. Hines towered over the squat little woman but she seemed to be the dominant one as she answered his murmured questions. Then, suddenly, her calm was shattered. “No!” she exclaimed, her voice indignant.

  “But you see, he was holding it—”

  “Doesn’t matter!” Anne was still agitated but as confident as ever. “It just won’t work. He had no reason for suicide. None!” She was fumbling in her pocket, pulled out a cigarette. Hines lit it for her, bending over her like a lion tending a cub.

  “I had to ask, Mrs. Chandler,” he said. “Because he was holding the gun.”

  Anne shook her head stubbornly.

  “Excuse me,” Maggie called.

  Hines looked around with a frown. “Just a minute.”

  “No, you see, there’s a problem,” Maggie insisted. “The gun was in his right hand.”

  Hines continued to frown, but Anne exclaimed, “There! You see?”