Murder Misread

by P. M. Carlson

  “I don’t think so. But—well, you know, I did cross over it before, when we were on the way to Plato’s.” Charlie leaned forward, forearms on his desk, eager to explain the idea that had just come to him. “And you know, we stopped a moment to look down at the lower trail. When we saw the man hiding down there. So it could be.”

  “You’re suggesting it may have fallen from the upper trail at that time? Do you remember any moment when it might have happened?”

  “Well, no, not really. But I don’t remember any other time I dropped it, either. Damn it, if we’re going to go by my memory, that book is still in my pocket!”

  “I understand, Professor Fielding.” Hines’s voice had slowed, but there was nothing lazy about the sharp eyes that were measuring Charlie’s discomfort. “It’s difficult to remember all these details, I know. But we have to try. Now, back to Dr. Ryan. You and Professor Bickford were standing on the trail where she told you to. Now, where was she?”

  “Next to—to the body.”

  “Which side? Left, right? Near side, far side?”

  “Uh, far side. And to the left, away from the creek.”

  “You said she was waving her arms.”

  “Yes, she had on that light blue shirt, waving both arms, and yelling for us to stop. After she told us to keep people away she said she was going a few steps farther along the trail to head off anyone coming from the campus.”

  “So she went on, farther away?”

  “Yes.”

  “How far?”

  “Well, we could still see her so it was probably just this side of the bend. You know, where it angles up again.”

  “Yes. And you and Professor Bickford were where?”

  “Where we were stopped. Not quite under the metal footbridge.”

  “Did either of you move away from there?”

  “Well, Bart was pretty nervous. Guess we both were. He said we should go check the other branch of the lower trail, beyond the little stone bridge, to see if anyone was running off that way. But Maggie was right that we should keep people away until the police came. So finally we decided he should stand on the stone footbridge to stop anyone coming down from College Ave., and I’d look farther along the trail.”

  “I see.” Hines glanced at Porter, then back at Charlie. “He stood on the bridge, and you went along the trail by the creek, away from the body?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How far did you go?”

  “Not far.”

  “You went under the high bridge? The College Ave. bridge?”

  “Oh, yes. A few yards past it.” Palms damp, heart pounding like the soundtrack of a western, praying that the killer would not be there. “Then I heard sirens and when I looked across the creek I could see police coming down the trail from College Ave. So I went back to where Bart was, and we talked to them.”

  “Right. You’d seen no one when you went to investigate the trail?”

  “No. But of course it wouldn’t be hard for someone to hide, really, because of all the bushes and bends in the trail.”

  “Okay. So at the time of the arrival of the first officers at the stone footbridge, you’re on the left branch of the trail. Ms. Ryan has gone along the right branch all the way past the body and is waiting on the trail beyond it, and Professor Bickford is standing on the bridge.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” It was vivid yet—the bubbly water, Bart’s lumpy hulk on the bridge. Charlie added, “Also, while you people were talking to us I looked over at her and saw a Campus Security guy talking to Maggie.”

  “So he’d come down from the campus side. Okay, thank you, I’ve got the picture.” Hines switched topics abruptly. “Now, I’d like you to look at some things here, see if you recognize them.”

  Charlie licked his lips again and tried to concentrate on the objects in the evidence bags that Hines was showing him. A red baseball cap. A muddy pipe. A plastic ballpoint pen. A card-sized scrap of paper with a fragment of a bibliography printed on it. A pair of big black rubber overshoes in the box.

  “Does anything look familiar?” Hines prompted.

  “Well… Bart has a pipe of that general type, but lighter colored, as I remember. And the little card looks like what you find in the library for scrap paper to jot down call numbers. They cut up excess copies of old handouts and leave them in little boxes for people to use when they’re looking up books.”

  “I see. The boots don’t look familiar?”

  “Not really. I’ve seen that kind before, it’s common enough. They’re a pretty large size, aren’t they?”

  “Size twelve.”

  “I’m a size nine.”

  “Thank you.” Hines pulled his own large oxfords under him and stood up. Porter, at the door, shifted to attention too. “We’ll be back to you soon, Professor Fielding. I’d sure appreciate it if you could remember exactly when you misplaced your memo book.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I’ve told you all I can remember.”

  “Well, let me know if anything occurs to you. We’ll have to hold onto it for the time being, I’m afraid. See you soon, Professor Fielding.”

  Charlie nodded weakly and watched Hines and Porter out the door.

  What the hell should he do now? Tal shot: unbelievable. His own memo book on the lower trail. How had it gotten there? And where was it? He’d been unable to tell from Hines’s impassive expression whether his movements down the trail with Bart could account for where it had been found. He closed his eyes and tried to reconstruct those terrible moments. Tracking shot: Charlie Fielding hurrying down the steps next to the College Avenue bridge. Down into the leafy gorge, Bart crashing along close behind. The damp earth packed behind railroad-tie steps, the jar of each footstep—that could have bounced his book from his pocket! Would Hines have worried about something found so far away? Maybe. But Charlie had gone much closer to Tal. Could it have fallen out closer? Think! On down the trail, still very steep but sloped now, no actual steps. Across the little stone footbridge, three feet wide, gray stones assembled in a gentle arch over the creek, WPA project, the aging mortar cracked in places. Maggie’s distant figure off to the right, sky-blue sleeves flapping like semaphores. But wait a minute. Coming off the footbridge, two stone steps down to the trail. Could the book have jounced from his jacket then? Would Hines be interested in something found by the footbridge?

  Maybe.

  Tracking on: moving toward Maggie, noting the lump of gray tweed at her feet with no conscious understanding of what it was, but looking away hastily even before she spoke, some inner director crying, Cut! No more, no more!

  Don’t think about that. Stick to the memo book.

  If it had fallen from his pocket earlier, while he was looking down at the lower trail from the upper footbridge, it might have landed closer. Pushed by the breeze, maybe, or ricocheting off a branch. But he couldn’t remember any time that—

  “Hi,” said Maggie. She glided into the office and dropped a flat white box onto his desk. A puff of air from its landing lifted the pages of his grant proposal. “I bribed what’s-his-name, your assistant—Gary, right?—to go get us a pizza. What some?”

  “God, I hadn’t thought about eating.” But the aroma of onions and sausage set his recently parched mouth to watering.

  “Yeah, I’d forgotten too,” she said soberly. “But my ridiculous stomach never quits. It told me a couple of dolmas were not enough for lunch no matter what. Go ahead, have some.” She perched on the edge of the chair Hines had used.

  “Thanks.” Charlie grabbed a napkin and took a piece, careful of the warm cheese dripping from the sides. “Maggie, can you think of any time my memo book might have fallen from my pocket on the lower trail? Maybe when we were standing on the bridge looking down at that guy?”

  “So that Chaplin-design memo book was yours, huh?” She frowned, hooked an ankle under the rung of the second chair, and pulled it closer to prop her feet on it. “I don’t remember you dropping anything. I was
looking down at the guy in the bushes, but I think I would have noticed if you made a sudden movement big enough to dislodge something from your pocket.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie agreed gloomily. “I can’t remember anything like that happening either. But how in the world did it get down there?”

  “Mm.” She was chewing vigorously, her cheeks lumpy, her eyes clouded with thought. “Well, I think of two things,” she said indistinctly. “First, don’t worry about Hines. After all, we were together almost the whole time.”

  “That’s right.” But Charlie was not completely soothed. Hines hadn’t reacted as though he believed he had an alibi. But then Hines hadn’t reacted at all. He wasn’t stupid, though; he’d know Charlie hadn’t been down there. Maybe he was merely curious, just as Charlie was, about how it got to the lower trail.

  “But no one knew beforehand that I’d be with you, did they?” Maggie mused. “I’d told Tal I had to have lunch with the children. Hell, even I didn’t know I was going with you until the last minute when Liz offered to take them to McDonald’s.”

  “Yes, but the important thing is that the police know I was with you.”

  She paused, a fragment of pizza still held in her hand, studying him intently. “Charlie, could someone be trying to frame you?”

  “Frame me? My God, no!” But even as he spoke his stomach clenched in cold fear. She was right. Someone must have stolen his book. That’s how it got there. But who the hell hated him that much? Hated Tal that much? It wasn’t possible. He said wanly, “So you think I didn’t drop it at the bridge.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’m just a statistician, looking at another hypothesis that we haven’t yet disproven. I’m thinking that you were racing through the halls when I first saw you this morning. Could the book have fallen out then?”

  Charlie nodded unhappily. “Sure. Or outside in the parking lot, or running up the stairs.”

  “Did you have it in the same pocket as your keys?”

  “Yeah. Right outside pocket.” He patted his jacket.

  “I don’t remember anything falling out when you pulled out your keys. But the kids were there and we were both distracted.” She swooped another wedge of pizza from the box, stringy cheese trailing behind it. She spun the cheese spaghetti style onto her forefinger, lifted it high, and ate it like Chaplin savoring his boiled shoelace. “But,” she mumbled, mouth full again, “we’ve got a real possibility that someone got hold of your book and used it as a backup plan.”

  “Backup to what?”

  “Okay. Someone decides to kill Tal. Doesn’t want to get caught. Drops your memo book there so the cops will think it was you.”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  “But the guy has a high opinion of you. Knows if you did such a thing you’d cover your tracks. So he figures you would stage a suicide to throw the police off. Okay so far?”

  “Uh… yes. So the killer puts the gun in Tal’s hand. And that’s supposed to implicate me too!”

  “Right. The killer probably knew Tal was a cheery man and that his friends couldn’t accept suicide without insisting on further investigation. And further investigation would turn up your memo book.”

  “But why me?”

  Maggie swallowed the last bite of pizza, peeked regretfully into the empty box, and lounged back into her chair again. “I don’t know why. Maybe nothing more than opportunity. There was your book on the floor, just when he needed it. And you’d be walking across the bridge alone, or so he thought. Tell me, was it generally known that Tal was left-handed?”

  “I can only speak for myself. I knew, yes, but I didn’t think about it much. You don’t spend a lot of time watching other people write.”

  “Yeah. It certainly wouldn’t be at the top of your mind if you’d just shot someone and were arranging the scene to look like suicide.”

  “So you think Tal’s killer waited in the bushes. Tal came along, he ran out and shot him, stuck the gun into his hand, and ran off again. And he dropped my book to make it look as though I’d tried to stage it all. But why not keep the gun and hide it in my stuff somewhere?”

  “Maybe there wasn’t time to hide it. Maybe he had to establish an alibi. So it was easier to leave it, make it look as though you’d staged a suicide. Now, you see, we’ve learned a lot about this killer.”

  “Well, we know he picked up my book somewhere.”

  “Not any old somewhere. Probably here, because he knew about Tal’s lunch. Knew Tal would be on the gorge trail on the way to Plato’s. Thought you’d be using the trail too, but alone. So you know this person, Charlie.”

  “Me? But… well, yes, you’re right.” Charlie took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “Somebody I know killed Tal. God, I don’t believe it!”

  “Killed Tal. And tried to frame you with something you dropped right around here this morning. So, next question: Who was around this morning who might want to kill Tal?”

  “God.” Charlie put on his glasses again and leaned back in his chair. “I was going to try to think about that. But then Hines started asking about the memo book and, I don’t know, I started feeling defensive.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Maggie. “It’s happened to me, even worse than this time. Of course I was already upset because someone had died, and the cops came in like big computers, processing what I told them as though it might not be true, checking my actions as though I might have done it. I mean, that’s their job, they don’t have any choice, but it’s still scary as hell.”

  “Yeah.” Charlie found her words comforting. It was their job, after all. They had to check everyone. But he’d felt so damn defensive. He noticed he was holding his Donald Duck pen. He replaced it in the holder and said, “But who the hell… well, I guess if a person is willing to kill someone they won’t hesitate to frame someone else.”

  “Right. It’s still Tal at the center of this. Can you tell me anything about his work? He was retired, right? That’s what emeritus means.”

  “Yes, officially. Here, a professor emeritus doesn’t have to do anything if he doesn’t want to. But if he does want to stay around, he can have office space, hold seminars, and so forth. Most of them wind down slowly, do a little research, come in to catch up on the news a couple of times a week. Tal was much more involved than that. In every day, doing research, even teaching a seminar once a year. Loved students, and they loved him.”

  “So his retirement was on paper only.”

  “Right. Of course his chair was awarded again, to Kenton, the personality development man. And Tal didn’t have to serve on university committees anymore.”

  “He probably didn’t miss those.”

  “You said it!”

  “Who were his friends in the department? Who did he talk to?”

  “God, everybody! Well, you met him. He made the rounds of everyone in the department who was on campus, just about every day. From Reinalter down to the lowliest student. And he’d made a lot of friends in other departments. Often had lunch at the faculty club across campus.”

  “And was he always as curious as this morning?”

  “Usually. He was always asking questions, skimming grant proposals and papers, gossiping.”

  “About things he’d learned from other people?”

  “Yeah, the usual things. Where Nora was going on vacation, how Bart had the flu, what kind of car Reinalter was thinking of buying –that kind of stuff. But he and I talked about reading research, mostly.”

  “So he didn’t seem to know anyone’s dark secrets?”

  “Never passed any on to me. But, uh, are you suggesting someone told him something and then… but what could possibly be that dangerous?” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “And if it was, why would anyone tell Tal?”

  “And what would Tal do with the information? Would he—oh, hello, Captain Walensky.” Maggie’s head turned toward the door. “Have you come to tell us not to talk about this case?”

  “Not at all, Miss Ryan.” Walens
ky, baggy-eyed and drooping, seemed older than when he’d first appeared just an hour ago. “Just wanted to apologize for the city police. Hope they haven’t been hassling you too much.”

  Charlie said, “They’ve been asking about my damn memo book when they know I was with Maggie and couldn’t have done it.”

  “Christ,” Walensky growled. “Just filling up their files. I might be able to stop them if I could prove it was suicide, but they’ve got this idea it might be homicide and so my hands are tied.”

  “Well,” said Maggie, “Charlie’s memo book was found at the scene of the crime. They have to ask. As soon as they find out who did it they’ll leave us alone.”

  “If they find out,” Walensky corrected her. “Now, you’ll tell me if you think of anything that might throw light on this. Anything about his enemies, or about worries that might lead to suicide?”

  “In fact,” said Maggie, “we were just wondering if someone in this department might have something to hide. Professor Chandler was so curious and sociable, he might have learned something that someone didn’t want known.”

  Walensky’s brows bunched skeptically. “This is a campus, Miss Ryan, not a hangout for criminals. I say that, and my job shows me the worst of it.”

  “That’s true, I’m sure. You probably spend most of your time on parking violations instead of grand larceny.”

  “Yes. And if it turns out not to be suicide, damn it, we should be hunting down in Sergeant Hines’s town, not up here on the hill.”

  Charlie thought of his memo book, of someone deliberately leaving it to point blame at him. Maggie’s idea made a lot more sense than Walensky’s. Whoever dropped his book in the gorge was someone from this department.

  Unless it really had fallen from his pocket somehow….

  Maggie was standing up, folding the pizza box, cramming it into Charlie’s wastebasket. “Well, I’m going back to my desk before they want to question me again,” she said. “I’ll be next door in 104, Captain Walensky.”

  “Okay, fine,” he nodded.

  “But we should all probably be thinking about the possibility that someone from this department had a reason to kill Professor Chandler,” she added gently. “Because in my experience, professors can be just as naughty as any other group of people. They just use bigger words to explain it.”