Murder Misread

by P. M. Carlson

  “See what?” Hines asked.

  “Is she right? Was the gun in his right hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Tal’s left-handed.”

  Hines snatched out his notebook eagerly. “You’re sure? Well, of course you’re sure.” He wrote it down. “Now, Mrs. Chandler, I’ll have someone drive you home, and—”

  “Look, Sergeant Hines, I want to do something,” Anne said crisply. “You say he wasn’t robbed. I know it’s not suicide. I can’t think of any reason someone would do this, but I can’t just sit around fretting. I could help you check his office. That’s where he spent the morning. Something may occur to me.”

  Hines checked the pugnacious tilt of her jaw and acquiesced. “Okay. I’ve got some things to finish up here, then we’ll go to Van Brunt Hall and—”

  “Sergeant Hines.”

  The speaker was a handsome, square-faced, graying man with a mustache and sharp blue eyes. His gray uniform strained around a beer belly, but Charlie sensed power yet in those muscles. Burt Reynolds at sixty. Hines turned, but didn’t seem impressed. “Captain Walensky,” he acknowledged, but Charlie could hear quotation marks around the Captain.

  Walensky scanned the group, nodded at Charlie and at Nora before returning his attention to Hines. He wasn’t as tall as the black detective, but he wore his age with a solid dignity. His eyes fastened on Anne Chandler. “Hello, Mrs. Chandler,” he said solemnly.

  Anne gave him a curt nod.

  He cleared his throat and said, “What have we got, Reggie?”

  “Suspicious death, Wayne,” Hines snapped back.

  Walensky’s Burt Reynolds eyebrows furrowed. “My man said suicide.”

  “Yeah, but you know how things are, Wayne. You never know how things may turn out.”

  “It was Professor Chandler?” Walensky said softly, his eyes sidling to Anne.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Hines.

  Walensky muttered something under his breath, then, “I knew him. Great guy.”

  “Yeah.” Hines’s expression didn’t change.

  “Well, I’d better get at it.” He took a step down the path.

  Hines’s arm shot out, hand up in a traffic-cop stop. “I’ll show you.”

  Walensky paused. “It’s on NYSU property.”

  Hines said softly, “And you’re calling us in, right, Wayne? Even if it’s your side of the line. How about we go look together?”

  Walensky’s frown swept over the watchers. He jerked his head toward the body. “C’mon, Reggie. We gotta cooperate.”

  “Right. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “All right.” Walensky looked at Anne again. “Mrs. Chandler, I’m sorry.”

  Anne nodded, unsmiling. The two policemen moved down the trail.

  “Little bit of friction there,” Maggie observed.

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah. Dorrie called the Laconia police but the Campus Security people usually respond to campus problems so I suggested calling them too. Didn’t know they’d all show up at once.”

  Anne said, “They’re supposed to have an agreement now. The administration got together with the city police chief and with Walensky.” Her voice was crisp, detached, scholarly. “Worked out some arrangement; I don’t know the details. The campus police handle campus complaints, but they’re supposed to call in the city department when it’s serious.”

  “I remember in the sixties the city cops tried to break up an antiwar demonstration,” said Maggie. “Roughed up some students and made the thing twice as bad.”

  “Right,” said Anne. “That kind of thing was why they worked out the agreement. Basically it means student demonstrators are called before campus judiciary committees.”

  “Instead of getting real rap sheets. I see,” said Maggie.

  “But major crimes are turned over to the city police, right?” Charlie said uneasily. “Like that kid who stole the NYSU Film Club receipts?”

  “Right,” said Anne. “He was caught by Walensky’s people but turned over to the city courts. What the hell are they doing down there?” She gestured with her reeking cigarette.

  Charlie looked too. Walensky was squatting, with some effort, inspecting the muddy bank of the creek. When he straightened he looked grim.

  “Footprints,” Maggie informed them.

  “What?” asked Charlie.

  “Someone walked through the creek, came up the bank at that point, then back down into the creek.”

  Anne’s sharp eyes were on Maggie. “You were down there?”

  “I went down while Dorrie was phoning the police and ambulance, just in case I could help. I couldn’t, but I did take a quick look around.”

  “And what did you see?” Anne asked dryly.

  “The gun in his right hand. Powder burn on the right side, behind his ear. Footprints along that muddy section. Some very small ones, maybe that little girl that Bart saw. And big ones, deep tread like a man’s boot. No overlap. Don’t know which came first.”

  “A good observer,” said Anne.

  “Just curious. Anyway, you’re right. As a suicide it looks pretty fishy.”

  Anne nodded vehemently. “Impossible.”

  Hines and Walensky had apparently agreed to a truce and were ambling back up to the group.

  “Thank you all for waiting,” Hines said. “Mrs. Chandler—”

  “Yes?”

  “We’d appreciate it if you’d identify him for the medical examiner downtown. In about an hour, if that’s all right.”

  “I can’t go with him?”

  “It would be easier for us to take him. We’ll send someone for you soon. Meanwhile—”

  “Meanwhile,” Walensky broke in firmly, “we’ll take you all back to Van Brunt Hall. Take some preliminary statements for our own records while we wait for Sergeant Hines to finish up here.”

  Hines’s face had that carved-wood look again. “Thank you, Captain Walensky. See you all soon.”

  Charlie trooped up the hill with the others, following Walensky and his men. His mind churned, images and worries flashing by in a rapid-sequence montage. Tal, expansive, inviting everyone to lunch. Hines’s careful reconstruction of the traffic on the trails. The shadowy figure among the trees. The obvious disruption to come as two different police forces took statements and snooped through Tal’s things and Tal’s friends. He had so much to do, and this was bound to louse things up. Things wouldn’t get back to normal until the cops had tracked down the killer. Could be weeks. And he had so damn much to do. But God, that was a selfish, callous thought. Tal came first.

  Anne was trudging up the hill next to him, smoking, her face as wooden as Hines’s, trying to escape grief behind an Eastwood-tough exterior, trying to distract herself.

  And you, Charlie Fielding, trying to distract yourself too.

  An image pushed itself to the fore: Tal pretending to be Cyrano, the ruler-sword waving, yes, in his left hand.

  Something seemed to be caught in Charlie’s throat.

  5

  Captain Walensky handed Anne into the backseat of the pale gray Campus Security car. Her mind, hunting distractions, cataloged the smooth plastic upholstery, the floor carpeting scrubbed but still stained faintly yellow by some accident or other. “There you go, Mrs. Chandler. Are you comfortable?”

  “Fine,” said Anne shortly. She hated to be fussed over. Disguised condescension, most of it. Men holding doors for you and then shocked when you insisted on attending the meeting instead of fetching them coffee. Better these days, or better disguised. But Wayne Walensky was old-style, un vieux birbe. She’d have to bear with him. And, she reminded herself, he meant well. He knew her, knew Tal, knew and loved the whole damn campus. That was worth a lot.

  Charlie’s new statistician slid in next to her without waiting for directions while Hines and Walensky stood talking to the student outside. Anne could hear their voices dimly, making arrangements to get the young woman’s official statement. Anne felt distant, an observer onl
y, suspended above the petty world on a jet of pure white rage. She’d have to cope later, she knew. Pull out her shredded heart and hold it up to the light. But for now the job was to find out who the hell had done this to Tal. To her.

  Outside, Walensky was telling the student they could drop her at the library, and the girl climbed in next to the statistician. Strangers both. Just as well. Charlie and Nora and Bart would just ask what they could do for her. Fuss over her. But hell, she’d better get used to that. Everyone would fuss.

  The back door slammed, then Walensky climbed into the front passenger seat next to his driver. Seemed to be the same young fellow Anne had met on the path, though it was hard to tell from the back of his neck. He needed a trim, looked almost shaggy next to the captain’s neatly clipped head. But Walensky’s gray short-sleeved shirt was sweat-stained and wilting, she saw as he plopped one arm along the top of the seat back. There was a scar on the back of his upper arm, a long red line dotted on both sides with stitch marks so that it looked like a ghostly zipper. And these sweating, scarred fellows were supposed to catch Tal’s killer. God. She looked away, out the window.

  Walensky said to the younger man, “Library first, Pete.”

  The car moved smoothly from the curb, passing a second Security car where Bart and Charlie were being invited to climb in. Walensky swabbed his forehead with a rumpled handkerchief, frowning at them, then glanced back at Anne. “Sorry about that Hines fellow, Mrs. Chandler,” he said. “Those city cops are clumsy as elephants.”

  “It’s all right,” said Anne.

  “Those guys don’t understand,” Walensky went on. “A campus community is different. Where young Hines comes from, downtown, well, a little head-bashing may be necessary. But up here on campus we’ve got a basically law-abiding community. Strong feelings about politics, sure, but even that’s cooled off in the last ten years. Anyway, that’s not involved in a case like this. Get a lot more information with kid gloves than bludgeons.”

  Anne felt far away, looking down at Walensky as though at an insect, a life-form whose little hungers and desires were pitiful compared to her own enormous need. He buzzed on, “See, Hines is a real stickler for all the rules. Doesn’t realize the rules are for a whole other class of people. Now, your campus community, you don’t want to force things into pigeonholes. These are bright people. You want to let them make some connections. Let them think things through. Speed things up in the long run.”

  “Captain,” said Anne bitterly, “just catch the killer, all right?”

  “Sure!” He shifted on his seat so he could see her better. “That’s what I’m talking about! I’ll do my best, but that Hines—still, the guy who did it is probably from downtown. Hines’s territory.”

  “Maybe cooperating is best,” said Charlie’s statistician pacifically.

  Walensky snorted. “Cooperate? That’s a new word to Sergeant Hines. Muscle his way in, is more like it,” he grumbled. “Here’s the library. Pull over, Pete.”

  Anne’s eyes had wandered to the statistician. She looked so familiar. Anne’s mind snatched eagerly at the distraction: who was this woman? Charlie had said Maggie something. That seemed to fit. But fit what? Something dim in her memory. She watched her say good-bye to the student Dorrie, who was climbing out of the car. Then Maggie pulled the door closed and settled into the far corner, stretching lanky legs toward the middle of the car. She glanced at Anne. Deep blue eyes in a pleasant squarish face, a mass of feathery black curls. Anne saw that face suddenly in black and white. Newsprint. Tragedy. She blurted, “Jackie Edwards.”

  Maggie nodded. “You taught one of Jackie’s favorite courses. French drama.”

  “My god. You’re her roommate!”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who caught the guy.”

  “I helped, yeah.” Sorrow shadowed the blue eyes.

  Walensky had been leaning out his window, giving some kind of instructions to the student they were leaving. Now he turned to look at Maggie. “What guy? Wait a minute—Margaret Ryan. Not the Triangle Killer?”

  Maggie nodded again, her mouth grim.

  “Christ,” said Walensky. “Small world.”

  Anne remembered Jackie Edwards. A lively, pert young grad student, full of promise and enthusiasm. That beast of a man had raped and killed her. Suddenly Anne’s eyes were brimming. She bumbled blindly into her bag, looking for a tissue. Then one was pressed gently into her hand. “Here,” murmured Maggie.

  “You all right, Mrs. Chandler?” asked Walensky uneasily from the front seat. A question so silly it was unworthy of consideration. Anne blew her nose noisily into the tissue while her mind splashed about searching for something solid so she could haul herself out of the undignified sea of tears.

  Maggie, more pragmatic than the policeman, provided a second tissue and a lifeline. “You know, it might help the police if you thought about some of the things Tal was doing this week.”

  Walensky said, “Now, Miss Ryan, this isn’t the time to trouble her with—”

  “Oh, shut up, this is exactly the time!” Anne barked at him. She blew her nose again. “Only reason I’m coming along is to try to speed things up! Now, do you have a notebook?”

  “Uh… yes, ma’am.” Walensky glanced hastily at young Pete. Probably wanted to be sure the younger man understood that he was buttering up the university community rather than capitulating to an old bitch. Well, Anne didn’t care what Walensky thought of her, as long as he got the information.

  “All right. Tal’s projects. Today is what, Thursday? Well, he was expecting to hear back from a publisher sometime this week. They’d accepted his book but it was conditional on some revisions. He’d sent them in a month ago but hadn’t heard yet. He was also working on an article, finishing the statistical analyses. He was thinking about a grant proposal, but I don’t think he’d actually started work. Depressing things, grant proposals. Like writing a book or monograph but it doesn’t count as a publication. But as I say, he hadn’t really started on that except to collect some reprints on the subject.” Anne found a dry corner of her tissue and scrubbed the last vestiges of those embarrassing tears from her eyes. “That’s all the campus stuff I remember. Did you get it all, Captain?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Though the car doesn’t help my penmanship much.”

  “Well, do your best,” Anne said resignedly. C-student, no doubt, Wayne Walensky. Tal deserved better. “Ask his colleagues about it too. Now, do you want me to tell you about his home projects?”

  They were pulling into the Van Brunt parking lot, but Walensky said, “Yes, please.”

  “Okay. He had a doctor’s appointment this morning, regular checkup. Doctor said he was absolutely fine. And Tal was trying to get last year’s taxes straightened out. We were in France for spring break and sent in an application for late filing. But some half-wit at the IRS lost it, so Tal was busy making copies of everything he’d sent just to prove we were law-abiding citizens. Aside from all that, just the usual stuff. Getting the car washed, clipping the hedge. What everybody does.”

  “Fine, Mrs. Chandler,” said Walensky heartily. “Anything else?”

  “Got nothing to add now. I’ll tell you when I think of something. Now, you’ll give all that to Sergeant Hines too, right?”

  “Yes,” said Walensky without enthusiasm. “We’ll cooperate, best we can. But be sure to call on me if he gets obnoxious, all right? Both of you.”

  “All right.” Maggie opened her door and hopped out onto the blacktop, unfolding her long frame, stretching. Walensky shoved the notebook back into his pocket and climbed out too. Anne allowed him to hurry around to open the door for her. Men like Captain Walensky functioned best when they were being protective, and she needed him at his best.

  Inside the building, Cindy looked up in surprise to see Walensky. When she heard the news, she clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no,” she moaned. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  Anne didn’t want to hear Cindy. She stalked over to the
window. Parking lot view. Here came the second car, the one with Charlie and Bart and Nora. Anne pulled out a cigarette and lit it. But it tasted flat, tired. Ereintée, fagged out. A pun in English. Tal would’ve liked it. She turned back to the room.

  Bernie Reinalter had appeared at his office door and was staring at Walensky with barely disguised shock. The department chairman was a tall, pale man with fading blond hair. Silver hairs among the gold. His family was Swiss, he’d told Tal once. Tal, who had done a stint as chairman himself, grumbled about Bernie’s insistence on meeting deadlines and budget restraints. But under Bernie the department had done well enough, hiring some good people, winning expanded support for the preschool lab facilities. We could do a lot worse, was Tal’s judicious overall assessment.

  Walensky was taking notes, talking to Cindy. “Now, what time was this?”

  “It was late for Tal. Nine-thirty, maybe. He’s usually in an hour earlier.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “The usual hello, how are things, very jolly—God, I can’t believe this!” Cindy was dabbing at her mascaraed eyes.

  “Did he mention any plans?”

  Bernie Reinalter had noticed Anne. The chairman strode toward her decisively but paused before he reached her, with an awkward, helpless movement of his well-kept hand. “Anne, I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do—”

  She nodded curtly. “Thanks, Bernie. I’ll let you know.”

  “Please do.” His hand made another ineffectual gesture. This was something efficiency and planning couldn’t fix. He looked back at Walensky. Anne ground out the tasteless cigarette on the inside of the metal wastebasket.

  “He was going to return some books to the library after he checked his mail,” Cindy was explaining. “Had a bag full of them. He dropped them on the chair there and went into the mail room. I called after him that the mail hadn’t come yet today, but he reminded me that he still had to pick up yesterday’s. See, he’d left at lunchtime yesterday. And today he had to go to the IRS office, he said.”

  Walensky nodded, writing it down. “And then what?”

  Cindy glanced at the door. Anne saw that Nora and Bart and Charlie were coming in, all looking tense and drawn. Funereal faces: Nora’s smooth face tight with worry, Charlie anxious behind his glasses like his favorite Woody Allen, Bart enormous and sloppily mournful. Cindy nodded a greeting at them and answered Walensky. “And then he came out, even happier than before. Something about a publisher. That’s when he invited me to lunch. I couldn’t go, but just then Professor Bickford stepped into the office and Tal started talking to him.”