Murder Misread

by P. M. Carlson

  What should he do about it?

  Not tell Hines, he decided instantly. He couldn’t face that cold, intelligent questioning again now. But this needed investigation, soon. He picked up his phone and dialed.

  “Captain Walensky, please. About the Chandler murder.”

  “Yes, sir, just a minute.”

  After a few seconds Charlie heard, “Walensky.”

  “Hi, Charlie Fielding here. Listen, I just got something in the mail. I don’t know if it’s connected to what happened to Tal, but it’s very strange.”

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  Charlie lowered his voice even though there was no one in the hall. “It’s, um, a copy of Screw.”

  “Of what?”

  “Screw. The sex tabloid. And they’ve circled an ad with a Laconia address.”

  “Christ. Who sent it to you?”

  “I don’t know. The return address is New York City.”

  “I’ll be right over. Does anyone else know about this?”

  “I just opened it myself.”

  “Well, I don’t have to tell you to keep this quiet until we figure out what’s going on.” Charlie could hear the worry in Walensky’s voice. “If it’s connected to the murder it’ll come out, of course. If not, we’ll do what we can to keep your department out of it. No need to damage your reputations.”

  “My reputation?” Charlie squawked. “I’ve got nothing to do with this ad!”

  “I’m sure you don’t. But you understand that if the press hears about it they’ll hound you anyway because you received it. So far we’ve deflected most of them to the dean’s office, but we couldn’t stop them if they heard about this. You understand?”

  “Yes. I understand.” Charlie could see visions of flash bulbs and shouted questions, La Dolce Vita. “God, why can’t someone figure out who killed Tal? Get things back to normal!”

  “We’re doing our damnedest,” said Walensky wearily. “As it is, the dean calls me every couple of hours. Nothing to do but keep the lid on if I can and get on with the investigation. Look, I’ll stop by in a few minutes and pick up that Screw. Save the envelope too.”

  “Okay.” Charlie replaced the receiver slowly.

  What a day.

  Saturday

  June 4, 1977

  14

  Anne pulled the sheets from the dryer, still warm. Seemed like Christmas, why was that? This was June. Oh, the sheets, the blue and yellow sheets she only used when Paul and Rocky visited. Holiday sheets. She trudged up the stairs with the laundry basket. The sheets hadn’t been dirty, in fact. But they’d been sitting in the closet since January, so she’d popped them in the laundry to freshen them up. Paul and Rocky probably wouldn’t even notice. Or maybe they would, subliminally. Tal said that most mental work was unconscious, not just the elaborate salacious stuff Freud talked about, but also the everyday chores of keeping your balance when you walked, keeping your finger muscles at the right tension when you held a pencil, moving your eyes when you read. Consciously you were thinking about the clever ideas Molière or Rostand was spreading before you, but another part of your mind was quietly piloting your eyes, skipping them across the pages in order to pull out those ideas. She’d helped Tal proofread some of his articles, and it had been strange to read about reading, reflecting on an activity the very instant she performed it.

  Back to Tal. That was some submerged part of her mind too, leading her from any thought back to him. But she hadn’t wanted to think about him. How had she got here? Oh, the sheets. Paul and Rocky maybe noticing unconsciously that they were fresh. Smell was usually unconscious, hardly registering except to tinge the background emotionally. Maybe Paul and Rocky would smell the fresh-washed sheets and be soothed, not knowing why.

  She’d finished Paul’s bed. She smoothed down the bedspread and took the other set of sheets to the sofa bed in her own den. This had been Rocky’s room once. She’d been shocked when Anne had taken it over. Most young people were prejudiced, believing that their own childhood was sacrosanct, worthy of eternal preservation. But after a day of pouting because her collection of horse magazines was now stored in the basement, Rocky had accepted that being in graduate school in Chicago really didn’t leave a lot of days to be home. And yes, she could see that with two parents sharing the downstairs den, it was crowded, bursting with books. But Anne could tell that her daughter was sobered by the realization that she too was subject to inexorable Time. Chapter One was finished. She was now an adult, no longer a child playing at being an adult.

  Anne hauled the sofa bed open. Good exercise. Good to find tasks that used muscles instead of mind. Her mind was untrustworthy just now, inefficient, meandering, numbed much of the time but subject to occasional bursts of angry grief. At breakfast she’d automatically poured two glasses of juice, and then the realization that he wouldn’t drink his had triggered twenty minutes of helpless sobs.

  But she could focus on the investigation, she found. Hines had called this morning, wanting to know if anyone in Tal’s department had weapons. Nora’s gun was all she could think of. He’d also asked about Tal’s term as chairman. Apparently Bernie Reinalter had told him about the problems of heading a department, and Hines had decided to check conflicts involving Tal back then. Anne had told him about the early financial problems but had hesitated to say anything about Bernie’s past. Bernie should tell him about that. No need for her to ruin a reputation. So she’d told Hines that she’d get back to him when she’d had a chance to think.

  She was still tucking sheets around the unwieldy sofa bed mattress when the doorbell sounded. Must be Maggie. She’d called last night, saying she had some news and wanted to come over this morning to talk to her again. Anne gave the half-made bed a slap. Hell, if she didn’t get back to it, Rocky could damn well make it herself.

  Maggie was in faded jeans and a crinkly navy shirt today, one of those lightweight no-iron Indian cottons. Looked comfortable. “Lots of news,” said Maggie. “And lots of questions.”

  “No husband and kids today?”

  “Nick’s doing some background work. And Liz has the kids, bless her. They’re getting along well.”

  “Good.” Anne waved her toward the kitchen. “Now, did you find anything in Cindy’s files?”

  “Found some questions.” Maggie sailed through the dining room, dropped her briefcase on the kitchen table, and landed in the same chair she’d used night before last. “Where to start?”

  “Coffee?” Anne had taken two mugs from the cupboard, hand-painted French mugs with green leaves and yellow flowers that she and Tal had picked up one sabbatical year.

  “Right. Coffee’s the best place to start.”

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Everything, please.”

  “Okay. Now, start anywhere.” She poured the coffee into the mugs.

  “Okay. The gun. The gun in Tal’s hand belonged to Nora.”

  “To Nora!” Some of the half-and-half that Anne was pouring into Maggie’s mug splashed onto the counter.

  “Yes. The one she’s had in her desk for months.”

  “She could have taken the pipe and the memo book, but—”

  “There’s another odd thing. Remember you told me she got the gun after that scene in her office last year? Tal and Charlie Fielding interrupted and the fellow left.”

  “That’s what Tal said.”

  “That’s what Charlie said too. But he told me yesterday that the threatening student looked like that young campus cop. The one who drove us in Walensky’s car.”

  “A cop? How can he be the stringy-haired student that Tal described?”

  “Haircut, uniform.” Maggie shrugged.

  “But why would Walensky hire him? And why did she say he had a grade problem?”

  “Good questions.” Maggie put down her mug, half empty. “I’d like to talk to Nora.”

  Anne stared at Maggie and said, “She could be it, couldn’t she? Nora. Her gun.”

  “Sure. Or it
could be anyone else, if they could get at her gun.”

  Anne said bitterly, “Yes, I know the rest of us aren’t out of it. Hines called again this morning. I realize now what he was fishing for. Asked me if I knew of anyone around the department who had a weapon. Naturally I thought of what Tal had said about Nora. So now he knows I could have stolen her gun. Played right into his hands, didn’t I?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I imagine everyone else he asked said the same thing. It was no secret around the department.”

  “I guess not,” Anne agreed glumly.

  “The only other thing I learned about Nora was that she worked her way through college in Illinois, a lot of it at night.” Maggie leaned back comfortably, rocking her chair on its hind legs.

  “I thought she’d gone to Penn.”

  “For her Ph.D. Had a fellowship. But as an undergraduate she had a tough life. And you said she helped raise her kid brother.”

  “Yes, she mentioned that once. Was there anything else in the folder you lifted from Cindy’s file?” Anne asked.

  “No. That’s all I found about her. I mean, she’s signed up for the same insurance as everyone else, has warm letters of recommendation from eminent scholars, et cetera.” She rocked in her chair again. “There wasn’t much in Bart’s file either.”

  “But there was something?”

  Maggie nodded. The morning sun slanted across the windowsill and glinted on her black curls, glossy as the starlings on the lawn the other evening. “He was in a hospital in St. Louis about ten years ago. Doesn’t say why, just says he was there ten months.”

  “A hospital.”

  “St. Charles.”

  Anne shrugged. “Don’t know it. Though ten months sounds like a long time.”

  “Bad car accident, maybe? Or maybe something mental.”

  Anne’s mouth tightened. “God, you’re blunt!”

  “Same to you, ma’am. Maybe we should ask Bart about it.”

  Anne blew a cloud of smoke at the sunbeam. It writhed a moment, then dissipated into thin ghostly traces.

  Maggie asked, “Feel squeamish about asking him?”

  “Most of these people are innocent.”

  “Right. But one isn’t. One of these secrets may have been the motive. On the other hand, if you prefer, we could just tell Sergeant Hines.”

  “Even less fun when he asks about things.” Anne crushed out the cigarette. “I want to find out, damn it.”

  “Okay. Let’s ask. But first, tell me about Cindy.”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, as I say, there wasn’t all that much in the folders. But a secretary might notice more. I wondered if she might have the opportunity to blackmail people.”

  “Cindy? Blackmail? No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Anne sagged in her chair and picked up her empty mug. “I can’t, of course. Maybe I’m being squeamish again. But—look,” she said with sudden decision, “let’s go see her. That’s easier than explaining.”

  “On Saturday?”

  “She lives on the Cortland Road. Had us out for a picnic once. Country place. It’ll be a nice drive.”

  “Fine. Nora first, then Cindy.” Maggie stood up and closed her briefcase. “We’ll use my car, okay?”

  “Why not? Let me stop in the bathroom first.”

  Anne inspected herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. She was surprised to see so little difference. Her graying hair still swirled back from her face, short and businesslike. Her dark eyes in their fan of wrinkles looked tired, yes, underlined by blue pouches, and the corners of her mouth were dragging a little. But there was no visible sign of her inner shock. An Edvard Munch frozen scream, walled over with thick numbness. And that numbness in turn walled over with layers of little tasks. Wash the sheets, make the beds, catch the killer. Busy busy. Ne te foule pas la rate, don’t overdo, don’t sprain your spleen. The French could be graphic.

  But what the hell else was there to do? A sprained spleen was a small price to pay for keeping that eternal scream at bay.

  When she came out Maggie was examining the departmental directory. “Just getting Bart’s address,” she said. “If Cindy doesn’t know anything about him, we can go see him too.”

  “Sounds thorough.”

  “And we should come back here for lunch. I told Nick to call me here if I wasn’t home.”

  “Fine. Let’s get moving.”

  She suddenly found herself scrutinized in that direct, disturbing way that Maggie had. “Do you still want to do this, Anne?”

  Anne sighed. “Look, I’m tired, I’m miserable. But I’ve got to know why it happened. So doing something feels better than staying here trying to stay numb. It’s just that my brain wanders off sometimes.”

  “Your brain is doing fine. Let’s go, then.”

  Nora’s apartment was just inside the city limits. The complex consisted of ten two-story brick buildings set at angles to each other and pierced by open stairwells. The access road wound among them, bellying from time to time into parking lots. Tall trees thick with young foliage surrounded the complex, but the few that grew nearer the buildings were spindly, some with guy wires still attached to their slim trunks.

  Nora came to the door. In jeans and a sloppy gray sweater, her gray-streaked hair tied in a loose ponytail instead of its usual bun, she looked younger than she did in her severe campus clothes. “Anne! How are you? And Maggie.”

  “Hello, Nora.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  She was looking at Anne, so she answered, “We wanted to talk a few minutes. Compare notes.”

  “About—about what happened? But the police are doing that. I’ve been talking to Sergeant Hines and Captain Walensky both.”

  “Yes. They’re very busy on this,” Maggie said. “But we thought if we compared notes we might jog our memories. That would help them too.”

  “You want your memory jogged.” Nora hesitated, then opened the door wide. “Fine. Not a bad idea. Come on in.”

  Maggie motioned for Anne to wait. “We’ve heard about your gun, Nora.”

  “Yes. I figured that was it. Come on, we’ll jog memories.”

  They followed her into a long white living room with a picture window at the end. Nora grabbed a gray jacket from the charcoal tweed sofa and tossed it into the dining area. “Sit down.”

  Anne complied, sitting at the other end of the sofa. Maggie was making a quick tour of the room and stopped by an enormous framed print of a rune stone on the side wall. “Love those,” she said to Nora. “So mysterious.”

  Nora nodded. “I like to think one of my ancestors did it. A Norseman or Norsewoman chipping those signs into the stone, long ago.”

  “Me too.” Maggie picked up a photograph sitting on the table below the print. “I’ve got Viking blood on my mother’s side. Always thought that was why I love to go exploring. Family’s important, isn’t it?” She joined them, sitting in a black chair at Nora’s end of the sofa.

  “Yes, I suppose it is. Now, you said you wanted to talk about the gun.” Nora was sitting on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward stiffly, hands clamped together in her lap. But when she turned to Anne her eyes were soft and concerned. “Anne, are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Truth is best, even if it hurts for a while,” Anne said. “It’s what Tal stood for. And so do I.”

  “And so do the rest of us,” said Maggie.

  Nora’s head snapped around to stare at her. “Do we really?”

  “Of course. Though sometimes it has to be balanced against other great abstractions. Justice, mercy, love.”

  “Or your pocketbook? Your summer paycheck?”

  Maggie leaned forward too, meeting Nora’s angry glare. “I’m not lying to protect Charlie Fielding, Nora. I’ve told the truth as best I could, and I’m trying to learn the rest of the truth. Are you?”

  Nora’s glance fell. “Yes. Yes, of course. I’m just saying you ought to think very
hard about what happened.”

  “I will. But what makes you so sure Charlie did it?”

  “He was Tal’s rival. You know that, Anne. And he tried to implicate me by using my gun! No one else would have done that!”

  “Bart? Bernie? Cindy?” Maggie asked.

  “There’s just no reason!” Nora said. “I’ve been thinking about it, believe me! Right after Tal—right after it happened, I checked my desk drawer. And that’s when I realized there was a chance it had been my gun. So I’ve been going over all the possibilities and nothing else seems reasonable. No one would drag me into it like this!” Her voice had become almost shrill.

  “Except Charlie?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have thought it of him either, but –well, I embarrassed him once. He’s been cool to me ever since.”

  Anne said, “I told Maggie about the Halloween party, Nora.”

  “I see.” Nora looked at her clenched hands.

  “What was going on that night, really?” Anne asked. “It’s the only time I’ve ever seen you close to drunk. You must have been under some strain.”

  “Nothing special. Family—I mean, the man I’d been living with had left, so I was down.”

  “The fellow in computer science?” Anne said sympathetically, and went on, encouraged by the tiniest of nods from Maggie. “Ray something?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I remember him. Seemed pleasant, but you never know.”

  “No, you never do. Turned out he just couldn’t understand commitments to anyone else. To my work.”

  “He’d been with you a couple of years, hadn’t he?” Anne continued.

  “More than that. Look, it had nothing to do with Tal. Believe me, Anne!”

  “I believe you. But it led up to your problem with Charlie.”

  “Only in a vague way. I was feeling low about it, sure. And I drank more than usual and got giggly, and Charlie was doing all those little Chaplin tricks—”

  “Yes, I remember,” Anne said. “He wasn’t a bad mimic, really. All the eyebrow-wriggling and hat-tipping Chaplin did when he saw a pretty girl. And he’s usually so shy.”

  “That was it!” Nora said eagerly. “He’d always seemed half-terrified of me before, but he put on that little mustache and hat and suddenly seemed to be really flirting. And… well, I wasn’t feeling much like Professor Peterson either. I had my old-fashioned blonde wig and a slinky dress. And I started thinking that Charlie was probably lonely too, maybe I should flirt back. So I got him to drive me home.” She shrugged without unclasping the hands in her lap. “Well, he switched right off. Even in my foggy state I could tell. Nothing but monosyllables all the way home, and when I asked him if he wanted to come in for coffee he practically pushed me out of the car. By that time I didn’t care, but looking back now, I think he was embarrassed. And I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me.”