Murder Misread
Page 13
“Damn it, Gary, not that one!” Charlie heard himself scream. Gary, at the bookcase, dropped the tape and recoiled as though he’d been slapped.
“Sorry, damn it. Didn’t mean to shout. This goddamn thing with Tal….” Charlie took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, put the glasses back on. His voice was under control again. “The study you want is on the third shelf. See them? Brown circles?”
“Got it,” said Gary. He pulled the tape, said, “See you later,” and eased out of the room.
“God, this thing has me yelling at the students.” Charlie slammed his fist into his hand.
“Hey, take it easy.” Maggie gave him a pat on the back. “We all feel snappish. It’s a damn frustrating situation.”
“Yeah. Damn, I wish I could think of who… or why….”
“Best thing to do is get some work done,” said Maggie, brisk as Aunt Babs. “Sometimes answers come when we’re thinking about something else.”
“They sure as hell aren’t coming when I think about the shooting,” Charlie admitted.
“I’ll be in the computer room. See you later.” Maggie breezed out in a flourish of red shirttails. She seemed so strong, so much in control. Charlie dragged himself to his desk.
He needed Deanna. That would help. Deanna was restorative, could make him feel strong and in control with a glance, a touch. Charlie took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
He’d met her in February. He didn’t play hockey anymore, but still enjoyed skating, the muscular memories of the sport he’d once enjoyed. That slushy Saturday he’d had to drive to Syracuse to pick up a carton of two-inch videotape, and on a whim he’d tossed his skates into the car, deciding to try the huge municipal rink. It was crowded, being Saturday, with beginners stumbling around the edges, boisterous packs of small boys shouting and shoving each other for the benefit of clumsy giggling schoolgirls, more serious skaters like himself trying to avoid them. A few figure skaters worked the center. He’d almost decided to give up and return to Laconia’s modest but less crowded rink when a slender form in figure skates sped past him on the left. She was in white tights and a short neatly darned red skating skirt. Bright brown hair was caught in a white barrette at the nape of her neck. As he watched she executed a beautiful turning leap and arabesque, landing on her right skate to skim backward, facing him now, left leg and arms extended elegantly, cheeks flushed in triumph.
Charlie slowed a fraction to match her speed and clapped his hands in appreciation.
Her eyes met his. She smiled shyly.
A great swelling wave boiled up through Charlie, loins to heart to astonished eyes. Shit, he thought, shit shit shit. But it was too late. She set the air tingling and swamped him with hopeless desire.
And then a second later whimsical fate handed him a crumb of hope after all. One of the rowdy little boys, shoved by his companions, came skidding across Charlie’s path and into the backward-coasting leg of the exquisite skater. She staggered back, arms flailing, and almost caught herself on her other skate before falling in a flurry of gleaming skate blades, red skirtlet, and intoxicating white-clad thighs. Charlie was at her side instantly, hand on her elbow, before her expression could change from astonishment. “You okay?” he asked urgently.
“Yeah.” She frowned at the boy. “Oh, God, did I hurt him?”
“I certainly hope so!” said Charlie. The lad had struggled to his feet, barked a red-faced “Sorry” at Deanna, and now skated clumsily toward his hooting buddies. She watched him depart, giggled, and stood up deftly with only the slightest pressure on Charlie’s yielding hand.
“Don’t be mean. He’s still learning,” she said.
“I’m never mean. But fair’s fair.” He noticed how her hair sprang back from her temples in a soft spun-copper glow. He said, “How about a hot chocolate? Or a Coke?”
The incredible eyes, fringed with those long, long natural lashes, turned to him again. In them he saw loneliness and need like his own, and wisdom, and caution. “No, thank you. I better not,” she said shyly.
“Hey, of course you need something after taking a spill like that. Just to get you going again.” And when she glanced at the side bleachers, still hesitating, he struck a melodramatic hand-on-heart pose. “C’mon, you don’t want to hurt my feelings!”
No, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She let him catch her hand and lead her to the refreshment stand. In fact, she was pleased to get the Coke. Her coral lips pursed around the straw, and in a haze of delight Charlie gathered up her little banal comments as though they were precious rubies. Her name was Deanna, she said. She’d moved only recently to the Syracuse suburb of Greenwood, didn’t have a lot of friends yet. Yes, she loved movies, The Sting and Rocky more than Jaws or The Exorcist. She’d come the rink today with Betty Giordano—she gestured at a laughing mixed-sex group by the bleachers. The plump, dark-haired one was her friend. But Betty had spotted some guys she knew and she’d gone over to talk to them. She, Deanna, had gone on skating.
“You’re very good,” Charlie told her. “You must have had a good teacher.”
“Yeah. When I was little, in Pittsburgh, there was a great coach at the Y. Miss Donaldson. She was going to put me in her Olympic-rules class.”
“What happened?”
“My mom and dad got divorced. We went to live in the country a while.”
“No place to skate?”
“There was a pond. It only froze two or three times the whole winter.” An adorable pout.
“Well, here you can practice. As long as those brats don’t keep knocking you down.”
She smiled. “Have to be ready to fall if you’re a skater, Miss Donaldson always said.”
Oh, he’d fallen, all right, he’d fallen. But he knew he mustn’t rush things. She was too shy. She finished her Coke and said something about checking in with Betty. “Sure,” he said with a casual salute. “See you around.”
But as she tossed her Coke cup into the trash can, she’d given him a look filled with anxiety and hunger, and set his heart singing again. He knew. She knew. They were meant to be together.
Gary tapped at the door. “Uh… Charlie?”
Charlie replaced his glasses. “Come in, Gary,” he said warmly. Just thinking about Deanna mended his tattered soul.
“I wanted to double check the coding categories on this new batch of tapes,” Gary explained.
“Sure. Have a seat.” Charlie pulled his master list from his desk drawer.
Tomorrow, he told himself. He’d see Deanna tomorrow.
11
Bernie Reinalter tented his fingers and leaned back in his desk chair. “The department will do everything possible to facilitate the processing, Anne.”
“I know that, Bernie.” He’d invited her into his office, waved her into this seat, told her to make herself comfortable, as though sitting on the student side of the desk could possibly be comfortable. Really wanted her to make him comfortable. To sit in the subordinate seat, a desk-width away, under control. No screaming allowed. No weeping either. Merely state your alleged sorrow and your intention of soldiering on as though nothing had occurred. As though your life had not been smashed.
“Are Paul and Rocky coming?” he asked.
“Tomorrow night. Paul may not arrive till Sunday.”
“That’s good. I’m sure they’ll be a great help to you. Smart kids. Well, not kids anymore, really. I tend to remember them before they went off to college.” His pale eyes looked into the distance. “I remember Rocky in her baseball cap once at a departmental barbecue. She was probably in junior high about then. I asked her, just teasing, if she was going to major in phys ed in college. ‘No,’ she said, ‘math. To catch a ball you have to solve a differential equation, instantaneously.’” Reinalter smiled. “Cool as a cucumber.”
Just like Reinalter to appreciate Rocky’s coolness. He was cool himself. Well, sometimes, like right now, he made an effort to be human, but somehow the effect was always as though he spoke f
rom a lofty, chilly height. Reinalter peak, just north of Mount Blanc. Anne said, “Rocky’s still coaching softball.”
“Good. Well, I just wanted you to know that we’ll do everything possible to help. Officially or unofficially.”
Anne said perversely, “Of course when it’s murder there are added complications, aren’t there?”
He didn’t quite flinch at the word, but his blond eyebrows contracted in a frown. “That’s true. Of course we’re cooperating with the police, trying to clear it up.”
“We’re all cooperating with the police, Bernie.” Anne pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and blew Gallic smoke at his Swiss nose. “And so far I’m doing my damnedest to turn away the reporters.”
“I appreciate that, Anne.” She’d shaken him at last, and now he leaned forward, suddenly earnest. “You know how important it is to avoid bad publicity.”
So that was it. Should have known. “Bernie,” said Anne, “someone in this department murdered Tal. That’s not going to be good publicity, however it comes out.”
“Yes, I know. But after all, it is an isolated problem, isn’t it? No need to—”
“Don’t be silly, Bernie!” Anne had had enough of the subordinate chair. She stood up and tramped around the desk to his wastebasket to tap her cigarette ash. She looked down at Bernie. “There’s every need to inspect problems in this department. The police have already searched Tal’s office and our home, and they’ll be looking at the rest of you too if they can think of any justification at all.”
Bernie’s eyes flicked down toward the leg of his desk, then up again. “That’s true, Anne. But we must still be discreet, don’t you agree? I mean, if you’re having tax problems, you don’t really want it spread across the newspapers, do you?”
Anne almost pitied him. “Hell, Bernie, I don’t give a damn. The IRS was wrong on that one. An investigation was exactly what we wanted. And we’re not talking much money anyway. Though I can see, in your case—”
She broke off at the shadow of panic in his eyes. She turned to the windows and drew on her cigarette. Lucky Bernie, two big windows overlooking the parking lot. “Look, everybody’s being as discreet as possible, seems to me,” she said. “Even the police. Walensky’s watching every move Hines makes, and vice versa. But we have to tell the truth, even if it’s ugly.”
“But some things are irrelevant! A waste of time!” A shrill note had entered his voice. He stood up, apparently realizing that it was hard to play the patriarch when even a short matronly woman like Anne could look down on his graying head. He stepped to the other side of the window and drew a deep breath. “And there are things Tal didn’t want known.”
“Tal devoted his life to truth.”
“But he also knew how to keep things in context. A lone fact is not a truth, Anne. Not by itself.”
“But it’s a piece of the truth.” Anne turned to face him. “Look, Bernie, I know some things about this department. Over the years Tal has shared some things with me. Obviously I’ve never gone running to the newspapers with hot tips about scandals in the education department. I don’t intend to start now. But damn it, if you don’t tell the cops about your problems back in Iowa, I will!”
Bernie stared at her, frosty as Alpine air. Finally he said, “It’s not relevant, Anne. Tal would know that. It can hurt a career. And a department. And slow down the investigation.”
“Tell all that to Hines too. He’s not stupid. He’s not out to ruin careers. He’ll keep it in context, as you say. But the context is murder. Tal’s murder, Bernie!”
“Anne, I know you’re upset, of course you are. But you have to keep a sense of proportion!”
“My sense of proportion is fine, Bernie. But what the hell happened to yours?”
Under her glare his eyes shifted away, then back again. “I’ll tell him,” he muttered at last.
“Good.” Anne ground out the cigarette in Bernie’s wastebasket. Yesterday, long ago, she might have felt sorry for Bernie, as she felt sorry for young what’s-his-name who needed more time for his term paper. But today it didn’t matter that Bernie had spent years cultivating an upstanding image for the department and for himself. Nothing mattered. Even finding the murderer and exacting revenge didn’t matter. But at least focusing on that task distracted her. Liberated her from deep grief into deep anger. Anger was much more comfortable.
There was a tap on the door. Cindy called, “Professor Reinalter, there are reporters here again. Can you talk to them?”
“Damn,” muttered Bernie. “The dean’s office is supposed to take care of them.”
“Want me to see them?” Anne offered.
Bernie looked shocked. “No, no, of course not. Tell them I’m on my way, Cindy.” He reached for his jacket and peered into a little mirror on the inside of his narrow closet door. “Anne, I’ll get rid of them quickly. Be right back.”
“Thanks, Bernie.” She accepted the favor. He was right that she didn’t want to talk to reporters.
“When they’re gone Cindy can help you with the forms that have to be signed.”
“Good.”
“See you later.” The door closed behind him.
As she stooped to lift her bag, an image flashed across Anne’s mind: his quick guilty glance at the leg of the desk when she’d mentioned Hines searching offices. Maybe not at the leg, maybe at the drawer. She pulled the drawer open, surprised at her own detached curiosity. Nothing in it anyway, she saw, just a couple of popular math puzzle magazines, too mass-market to be displayed on a scholar’s shelves. Sure didn’t take much to embarrass Bernie. She pushed the drawer closed again and waited until she could start signing papers.
Anne signed the umpteenth form and shoved the stack across Cindy’s desk. “Those are done. Ready for the next batch.”
“Here you go.” Cindy handed new papers to her. “Lundgren says he’ll have the rest of the stuff for you Monday, so you can go directly to see him in the personnel office. Won’t have to stop by here.” Cindy was shuffling the forms into the appropriate piles, stapling and restacking as she spoke. Today she was wearing a white linen suit over a pumpkin-colored knit shirt.
“Okay,” said Anne. “Better talk to you today, then.”
“Oh?” Cindy paused, her light prominent eyes under the overhang of thickened lashes fixed on Anne.
“Who do you think did it?”
The eyes shifted away. “God. I don’t know, Anne. Bart, maybe, or Charlie?”
“Bart, then,” said Anne sadly. “Hard to picture. Leaving Charlie’s memo book to try to prove that Charlie did it, then making it look like suicide. God. And then dropping his own pipe by mistake.”
Cindy shrugged her white linen-clad shoulders. “Could be,” she said. “Or vice versa.”
“Maggie was with Charlie and says he couldn’t have done it.”
“Could be. But who can you believe in this kind of thing?”
“Cindy, what is it about Charlie? Do you know some way he could have done it?”
“No, no.” Cindy’s hand rose and fell to the desk again in a gesture of frustration. “He and Maggie weren’t together every single minute. But it’s hard to think how either one could have done it. On the other hand, Bart is such a peaceable old bear. And Charlie had a motive, after all.”
“You think it was Tal’s new study? But they’ve been arguing the same issue for years.”
“Yeah, it’s a rotten reason. But with everyone else there’s no reason at all.”
“I know.” No reason. No reason at all. So why had it happened? Maybe this was all a cruel dream.
“Anne!” Maggie Ryan swung into the room, ablaze today in a bright red shirt. She dropped her briefcase beside Cindy’s desk. “How are you?”
“Angry,” said Anne.
“Right. Me too.” She touched Anne’s elbow and turned to Cindy. “Is there any problem about me staying in the building late tonight? Have to make up some time because I have to take a couple of hours off now.”
“Liz wants to take the kids swimming, but when I spoke to her just now she said Will’s sniffle is worse. And he’s an absolute brat if he misses his nap, even when he’s healthy. So she’s going to drive by in a few minutes, and I’ll take him home for a nap while she and Sarah go off to the park to swim.”
“Kids are so inefficient,” Anne said. “Paul and Rocky always got sick at different times too. Doubled the problem.”
“Better than tripling it,” muttered Cindy.
“You have three kids?” Maggie asked.
“Two boys and a girl. And every time a cold hits one of them, I know it’ll be three or four weeks of juggling for Mark and me, and sometimes my mother.”
“Yeah.” Maggie shook her head sympathetically.
“They do get older,” Anne said. “After a while they can take care of their own colds. But by then you’re worried about them all the time anyway, sick or well. Drugs, dropping out, general teenage stupidity.”
“God. Maybe you shouldn’t tell us,” said Cindy, resting her chin on her hand glumly.