Murder Misread

by P. M. Carlson

  “I remember doing it to my own mom,” Maggie said. “God, I put her through a lot. But I sure appreciate her now. Cindy, tell me, is Walensky still investigating this case?”

  “Yeah, he came around once. But the black fellow from downtown, what’s his name, Hines? He’s really working on it. He’s been around a lot more.”

  “I see. I was wondering because I just passed Nora Peterson’s office, and a Campus Security cop was in there. He was closing the door.”

  Anne frowned. “Wonder what he’s after? It wasn’t Walensky?”

  “No, the younger guy. The one who drove us here yesterday. Pete something, Walensky called him.”

  “Pete Dixon.” Anne remembered the name on the gray uniform barring her way yesterday, blocking her from seeing if that too-familiar tweed on the trail was what she feared it was.

  “Right. Pete Dixon.”

  “Interesting,” said Cindy. “Walensky’s always pretty low-key. Hates publicity. Well, the administrators probably tell him to avoid headlines. But maybe he’s following up for a change. Did you see the paper last night?”

  Anne said, “I skipped it.”

  “Well,” said Cindy, “there were three front-page photos. One of the gorge, one of Tal, and one of Dean Hughes looking serious and noble. And there’s Walensky back in the shadows. You can barely make him out.”

  “Sounds like the perfect man to work with Dean Hughes,” said Maggie. “Hines was nowhere to be seen. But they had a few quotes from a police spokesperson.”

  “Anything there we didn’t know yet?” Anne asked.

  “Not a thing. A lot of people refused to comment. Including you.”

  “Yeah. They called a few times yesterday afternoon and I brushed them off. Took the phone off the hook last night.”

  “Good plan,” said Maggie, then looked up in surprise.

  A heavyset balding man in a brown uniform had entered. He bore an invoice, its multicolored leaves and dark carbon sheets crackling in his hand. “Package for Professor Charles Fielding,” he announced. Behind him in the hall stood a hand truck bearing a large cardboard box.

  Cindy said, “I’ll ring him.” Her well-groomed fingers punched out a number on the phone. The deliveryman studied the office as he waited, his lively brown eyes sliding from window to cabinets to the three women. His gaze lingered a moment on Eric the plastic head. The man looked familiar to Anne. Probably one of the fellows who had delivered the filing cabinets to the French Department last month.

  Cindy replaced the receiver. “Professor Fielding isn’t in. I can sign for it here, and he can take it down to his office himself.”

  “Okay,” said the deliveryman dubiously. He gestured at the box. “But it’s pretty heavy.”

  “I see.” Cindy eyed the hand truck and its load, then stood up and pulled her ring of keys from the drawer. “Well, let’s take it down to his office. It isn’t far. Be right back,” she added to Maggie and Anne as she hurried into the hall. The deliveryman tipped the hand truck onto its wheels and pushed it obediently after Cindy’s orange-and-white figure.

  “Wonder where Charlie is?” Anne exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  “He said something about fixing some equipment this afternoon.” Maggie was flipping through one of the file drawers behind Cindy’s desk. “A printer, I think.”

  “Tal always hated working with complicated machines. He said humans were unpredictable enough without adding unpredictable equipment.”

  “Charlie’s a good technician, though. Have you seen his house?” Maggie pulled out a file and checked the name.

  “You mean that equipment room he’s got? Yes. His office is full of equipment too.”

  “Right. Actually, I can sympathize. I like to tune up my car myself.” She was riffling through the drawer again. “When you deal with people all day it’s good to interact with something that obeys the laws of physics in a straightforward way, without layers of psychology on top.”

  Cindy came back in, one hand fluffing her curls. “Boy, Charlie’s getting low on space in there. He’s got it organized, but that guy had to push his dolly all the way back by the bookcase before he could unload the—hey! What are you doing?” She darted across to Maggie.

  “Looking at my file.” Maggie handed a manila folder to Cindy. “Wanted to see if my health form was in there. I didn’t remember if I gave it back to you or not. Will’s sniffle reminded me.”

  Unsmiling, Cindy took the folder, glanced inside, and said, “It’s there. All taken care of.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Cindy said, “Next time wait and ask me. These aren’t public files.”

  “Sorry, should have thought.” Maggie snapped her briefcase closed, dark against her bright red shirt. “Well, I’d better get out to the parking lot. Liz should be here any minute with my runny-nosed son.” At the door she turned back to Anne. “Maybe when Liz takes Will again after his nap we can talk for a minute. Will you be finished here?”

  “Yes, in a little while. I’ll probably go back to my office in Harper.”

  “Okay. I’ll find you.” She disappeared down the hall.

  Cindy replaced Maggie’s folder and Tal’s in the file drawer, slammed it closed, and locked it.

  Anne picked up her pen to sign Cindy’s forms and looked at the door Maggie had just gone through.

  With her briefcase.

  A briefcase containing two folders from Cindy’s locked file.

  She hoped they were more informative than the math puzzle magazines that seemed to make Bernie feel so guilty.

  12

  Anne finished signing the stack of forms and trudged downstairs to the parking lot. She’d drive over to her office in Harper to see if there was anything she should be doing in the French department. One of her young colleagues had had an offer from Princeton, another one thought he might be able to get Jacques Derrida to come give a lecture next year—all that had interested her earlier this week. Eons ago.

  She emerged into the parking lot. Ugly utilitarian landscape spread around every building these days. Well, probably wasn’t much better in the old days. Before asphalt and internal combustion there was mud and horse manure.

  She saw Maggie standing under the roof of the loading area, sliding something into her briefcase and talking to the deliveryman who had brought Charlie’s package. Anne waved, and Maggie ran down the two steps and across to greet her. “Finished your paperwork?”

  “Only for the moment. Cindy’s found an administrator who promises a new supply.” She nodded at the deliveryman. “Did you find out anything interesting about Charlie’s package?”

  “The invoice wasn’t very specific. Look, here comes Liz!”

  The red Toyota bearing the babysitter and two children, one bouncy and one sullen, pulled up near them. “All yours,” Liz called as she stretched across Will to unlock the passenger door.

  “Okay.” Maggie opened the door and unbuckled the child safety seat. “How’s everybody?”

  In the backseat, Sarah’s brown eyes were wide with delight. “Mommy, there’s a waterfall where Liz swims!”

  “Wim!” echoed Will.

  His mother lifted him whimpering from the car, balanced him on her hip, and caressed Sarah’s curls. Then Maggie pulled out the baby seat and said, “Have fun, you two. You’ll be done in a couple of hours, right?”

  “Yes. I’ll pick him up at your apartment,” Liz said.

  “Fine. I’m sure he’ll sleep; he’s fussy already.”

  “Wim!” insisted Will tearfully. But the Toyota was already pulling away.

  Maggie found a tissue and applied it to Will’s runny nose. He twisted his head away in annoyance.

  “Kids are such ingrates,” Anne observed.

  Maggie smiled at the tiny struggling boy. “True. Their opinions are much bigger and stronger than they are.”

  “Good thing we’re set up to love the little critters,” Anne said. “When my kids were small I remember marveling that any of us
ever reach adulthood. Babies are so low in social graces.”

  As if to prove her point, Will arched his back and reached for the pavement. “Dow!” he demanded.

  “If I put you down, you’ll just want to be up again,” Maggie reminded him.

  “Dow! Dow!”

  She glanced around the parking lot. No cars moved. She put the little boy down, and he doddered a few steps away to celebrate his freedom. His mother glanced back at Anne. “You know, Anne, I’ve been wondering if Cindy couldn’t answer some of our questions.”

  “I doubt it. A few minutes ago I asked her what she thought and she’s as lost as we are.”

  “But she may know part of the answer without realizing it.” Maggie’s eyes were following her son. “Secretaries have a lot of information.”

  “Yes,” Anne grunted. “I saw you making off with some of her information. Had a chance to look at it yet?”

  “Nope. I was going to do it while Will naps. But even so, if we could talk to Cindy while she’s away from the office—” Maggie tensed suddenly. Little Will had spotted the deliveryman at the loading dock and was toddling full throttle across the asphalt toward him.

  “Da!” he exclaimed.

  Maggie started after him, but before she reached him Will had charged up to the loading platform, tripped on the step, and bumped his small chin. He began to bellow, and the deliveryman scooped him up.

  “Hey, little guy, it’s not that bad,” he crooned as Maggie and Anne arrived. Maggie reached for him, but the boy turned away from her and buried his face against the brown uniform. Maggie’s eyes met the deliveryman’s. It was just an instant, but there was such profound eloquence in their gaze that Anne realized suddenly that things were not what they seemed to be. Recognition dawned.

  “Cyrano de Bergerac, I presume,” she said.

  Maggie grinned at her ruefully. “Nothing like a kid to blow your cover. You’re right, Anne. Meet Nick.”

  “Enchantée,” Anne said. “But what the hell is going on?”

  “Maggie said things were serious here. I thought maybe I could lend a hand.” His voice was different too, Anne noted. Pleasant, but definitely not Cyrano’s rolling cadences, nor the working-class gruffness of the deliveryman.

  “Tal acted some in college,” Anne said. “And never lost his love of it. Thought your Cyrano was great.”

  “Thanks.” Nick smiled. A broad-built, pleasantly homely man, he was still cuddling his little son against his shoulder. The boy’s sobs had waned to occasional teary hiccups.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Anne said. “We’re trying to find out what happened because our two sets of hardworking policemen can hardly communicate. And because I can’t bear not to try.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Nick promised.

  “You don’t want people to know you’re here?”

  “Not yet,” Maggie explained. “We’ll see if he can find anything by staying in the background.”

  “Right. You were practically invisible in that uniform.”

  “Invisible to you professor types.” Nick smiled, and Anne was reminded again of the dashing long-nosed Cyrano. “Not to my son. And one of the custodians here had a few questions.”

  “Time to get you into a new outfit,” said Maggie. “Hey, listen, since things have worked out this way, why don’t you take Will to the apartment with you? He can have his nap while you change.”

  “He’s ready for one.”

  “Right. And I can check in the computer room to see if the results of Charlie’s first studies are in. It would be good to get that out of the way.”

  “Okay. Call me in an hour or so.” Nick carried Will carefully to a U-Haul van parked near the loading door while Maggie fastened the baby seat into the passenger side. Will protested half-heartedly when his father buckled him in. Maggie grabbed Nick’s big hand and squeezed it in farewell, and Anne felt a sudden pang of rage that she could not squeeze Tal’s. Unfair that the world had not called a moratorium on affection. It rolled on callously, full of cute babies and people in love and flowers and birds. It should be draped in black, as it was when other princes died.

  “Are you okay?” Maggie asked gently. The van had pulled away.

  Anne looked up from the pavement she’d been staring at. “No. I’m angry. I want Tal.”

  “Yes.” Maggie hugged her.

  “And if I can’t have him I want the world to stop. I want all humanity in mourning. I want FBI sharpshooters blasting down whoever killed him.”

  “I agree! But the best I can do is talk to people. Steal folders.”

  “Are you going to read them now?”

  “Soon,” said Maggie. “I want to see if I can talk to a couple of people while they’re still around the department. And I do have to check on Charlie’s printout.”

  “I’ll come too.”

  “Sure, if you want to, but it may be dull. I’m going to the computer room first.”

  “Let’s go.” Anne hauled open the steel loading door and found herself at the bottom of a wide stair hall. She marched past the steps, energized by her anger, and on through the fire doors into the white corridors of the basement.

  Maggie drew even with her. “Fourth door,” she said.

  The room was filled with terminals, though few people sat at the machines. A big No Smoking sign hung on every wall. Maggie checked a pile of printouts, conferred briefly with a chestnut-haired young woman, then looked back at Anne and made a sour face. “Computer’s down,” she reported. “They say it’ll be back at work in a couple of hours.”

  “Tal used to go crazy waiting for results.”

  “Yeah. But usually it’s better to go do something else.” Maggie breezed back into the hall and held the door for Anne. “Look, there’s Bart. Let’s talk to him.”

  Bart turned as they approached, his heavy brow puzzled. “Oh, Maggie. And Anne! God, Anne, how are you doing?”

  The truth took too much time. Anne said, “Not bad.”

  His big face was contorted with concern. “Listen, you know if there’s anything we can do—I mean, Libby tried to call you, but the line was busy.”

  She’d had the phone off the hook. She said, “Sure, Bart, I know you’re there if I need you. But there’s really not much we can do. Unless you can help us figure out who did it.”

  “God, I wish I could! It—well, I know it must make everything even worse, Anne, with the detectives always asking questions. It’s hard even for me, and for you, on top of everything….” He shook his head.

  “And the damn reporters.”

  “Yes. Yes, I guess there would be reporters.” His hand strayed to his pocket. He had a pipe in it. Anne could see its shape through the soft tweed. She wondered if he’d had to buy a new one.

  “We had an idea and wondered if you could add anything,” said Maggie. “They found your pipe in the gorge. Do you know how it got there?”

  His deep-set eyes looked away from her, and a spasm of despair crossed his face. Anne was surprised by the depth of the misery written there. “I don’t know why,” he muttered.

  “But you think you know who.” Maggie was intent on his face. “You think Charlie did it, trying to frame you. You think I’m covering up for him.”

  He was uneasy. “Well, I know you work for him—”

  “Not for him. With him. The grant pays me as a consultant, independently. Bart, I’ve been trying to think if there was any way Charlie could have done it, but I’ve come up with nothing. So I’m asking you to think for a minute. If not Charlie, who?”

  “Not Charlie?”

  “Look, you’re thinking he tried to frame you and dropped his book by mistake when he did it. Well, why couldn’t it be you trying to frame him, and dropping your pipe by mistake?”

  “Did he say that? Is that why the police have been—”

  Anne said impatiently, “Bart, it’s one possibility. You’re a scientist, think! Each of us knows a few facts. You say our facts make you suspect Cha
rlie. But what if it’s not Charlie? What if someone else set up both of you?”

  “Both of us. God, that seems so unlikely—but then, it seems unlikely that Charlie would—” He looked into the distance, over Anne’s head. “God, you know, at first I was sure it was just a mugger. Then when they found my pipe and Charlie’s notebook—well, it was like getting hit twice. Tal, and then Charlie framing me. But why would anyone do this to Charlie and me both?”

  “To make sure the police were looking the wrong way,” Maggie explained patiently. “Probably hoping that one or the other of you wouldn’t have a strong alibi. But it would help if we could figure out who besides Charlie could have taken your pipe.”

  “I see.” Bart looked at them with a spark of hope. “So if we work out who could have taken both the notebook and the pipe, we’ll have our answer.”

  “Except that it’s not that easy.” Maggie pushed her fingers through her hair. “Charlie’s little book was in his outside jacket pocket and could have fallen out anywhere here or on the way to Collegetown.”

  “So anyone who got the pipe could also get the book.” The tweedy shoulders sagged again. “Well, the problem is, I can’t narrow it down much more. I had a smoke yesterday morning in the hall. Then I went in and worked on my grant proposal.”

  “The one Tal was helping with?”

  “Yes. After he left I was busy for a couple of hours on it. Then I had to leave to get my photos in Collegetown before meeting him for lunch. When I started down the gorge trail I reached for my pipe and it was gone.”

  “Okay. You used it this morning, put it away, put it in your pocket. Who did you see after that?”

  “You know, Sergeant Hines asked me all this but he didn’t explain why,” Bart said. “I told him I thought it was Charlie. I thought he was trying to work out how Charlie got the pipe and I wondered why he kept asking about everyone else. Anyway, the first thing that happened was that Charlie almost bumped into me, running down the hall. I saw Cindy in the office, and Tal. Asked to see Bernie but he was too busy.” There was a bitter edge in his voice. “So I went to my office. Tal came in, and later I went to check a Piaget reference with Nora in her office. Around eleven I met with a couple of my grad students in my office. While they were there Cindy called, said Bernie had been able to find ten minutes in his schedule and would I come over. So I was in Bernie’s office for ten minutes.”