A Little Class on Murder

by Carolyn G. Hart

  “Annie, love, what’s the matter? Why does your mouth keep opening and closing? I thought you’d be really pleased. You did urge me to accept a new challenge today.” His handsome face shone with pride.

  But was there a glint of amusement in those dark blue eyes?

  Annie took a deep breath, then once again said nothing. What could she say? Certainly she had urged him to look for a worthy task.

  “A five-hundred-dollar retainer. I will say for Miss Dora, she doesn’t stint when she makes a commitment. All expenses paid.”

  Miss Dora. The old harridan. The clever, manipulating hag! Annie cleared her throat. “And what exactly does Miss Dora want you to do?” Watson himself couldn’t have made the inquiry with more naïveté.

  “Find out who spilled the beans about the faculty problems to the student newspaper editor. It ought to be a snap. I’ll get right to work on it. After lunch.” His eyes glistened.

  This time Annie had no difficulty in deciphering the message.

  Annie’s steps lagged. Max gripped her elbow. “Now, sweetheart, remember. You are a helpmeet, furthering me in the pursuit of my profession.”

  “You know I don’t want to have anything to do with the mess over here,” and she glowered at the lovely rose-colored building, drowsing in the thin November sunlight. She had, of course, been quite unable to resist a bitter diatribe against Miss Dora. Max, naturally, had professed his innocent acceptance—“Just trying to make you proud of me, love”—of a task which he was now, as, of course, she understood, duty-bound to complete.

  “A commitment once made,” he murmured stalwartly.

  Savagely, Annie wondered if a twisted sense of humor was grounds for a divorce.

  Annie reluctantly edged inside the room. As expected, she read surprise and disdain on the faces of several faculty members. She didn’t blame them. She had no real reason to be at this emergency gathering, despite the notification from the secretary, who obviously was merely following orders to inform everyone on the list of full-time and adjunct faculty of meetings. But this particular meeting Annie would not—out of delicacy—have attended, except for Max’s importunings. And she devoutly wished Max were here right this minute to face these hostile glances.

  Even Burke looked blank as she stepped inside. Then he nodded abstractedly.

  Annie slunk to the back of the room, her face flaming. But, when she settled at the last table and looked around, she realized that she was being overly sensitive. No one was paying attention to her. The air crackled with tension.

  The faculty members sorted out into the same seats they had taken last Thursday. There were two exceptions. The road hog, Kurt Diggs, sat alone at the first table. Neither Charlotte Porter nor Josh Norden had arrived. Diggs sprawled ungracefully, one arm balanced on the back of the next chair. A heavy silver identification bracelet edged out from beneath his moss green cable knit sweater. His sensuous face looked sullen, the full lips set in a disagreeable pout. He didn’t remove his aviator sunglasses with their deep green tint. At the middle table, Professor Garrison’s smooth cheeks had an unhealthy reddish tinge and his pipe jutted from between clenched teeth. The big blond man with the unwavering half-smile, Professor Moss, focused an equally unwavering gaze on Burke. The third occupant of that table, Frank Crandall, shifted uncomfortably in his chair and nervously drummed the fingers of his right hand against the table top.

  Sue Tarrant nodded briefly at Annie, but there was no warmth in her greeting today. Her eyes burned with anger when she glanced toward Burke. The cheery color of her bright lipstick was in stark contrast to the grim set of her mouth.

  At the front of the room, Burke closed the door, then walked to the lectern. His bristly eyebrows were drawn into a sharp V over his beaked nose, and his green eyes moved searchingly from face to face.

  There was no buildup, no marshaling of facts, just the implacable demand.

  “Which one of you did it?”

  Silence.

  Silence so absolute that the restless drumming of Crandall’s fingers thudded like the muffled drum roll accompanying a riderless horse until—abruptly—his hand stilled.

  Burke clawed savagely at his cheek and left reddened streaks against his leathery skin.

  “By God, I’m going to find out.” Those green eyes smoldered with fury. “And when I do, I’ll make sure—if it’s the last thing I ever do—that whoever did it never works for a college or a newspaper or an advertising agency or a television station again. Whoever you are, I’m going to find you. One way or another.”

  Garrison pursed his mouth judiciously. “I am, of course, appalled at this evidence of a colleague’s reprehensible revelations of confidential information to the public. However,” he cleared his throat, “I wonder if perhaps we, the faculty, have not benefited from this unfortunate occurrence.”

  “Benefited?” Sue Tarrant stared at him incredulously. “Victor, how could you possibly say that? I haven’t been able to talk to Charlotte, she won’t answer her phone, but this is dreadful. Just dreadful. That matter—well, I don’t even want to discuss it—but it was just a desperate, one-time act—and she’s repaying it, every penny with interest. How could anyone—” and she looked from Garrison’s smooth face to the petulant droop of Diggs’s lips to Moss’s half-smile to Crandall’s sympathetic headshake “—find any good in this?”

  “Now, Sue,” Moss rumbled. “You’re like most women. Can’t look at any problem without emotion. Next thing we know you’ll write a tearjerker on Charlotte for the Sunday supplement. Make all the women cry. And you can pick up five hundred bucks.”

  “Go to hell, Malcolm,” she said fiercely.

  That eerie half-smile intensified just a little. “Be glad to, Sue. Might be interesting. But, to the point, if you can manage that. As to any good arising from this situation, I believe I appreciate Victor’s appraisal. Although I regret any distress suffered by Charlotte, I’m afraid we all have to admit that there is a question, isn’t there, about the propriety of public officials condoning criminal acts because of friendship with the perpetrator? Nonetheless, overlooking Charlotte’s probable unhappiness and the distress of any others who might expect to be subjects of this young editor’s revelations, I believe Victor’s point is that perhaps it is to the good that we, as a faculty, bring out into the open and discuss just exactly what our new chairman has in store for us.” His sky blue eyes challenged Burke. “In fact, it has occurred to me that perhaps our chair is transferring his struggle for control of this department from the private domain to the public.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Burke demanded.

  “He means maybe you know bloody damn well who dumped on the faculty,” Tarrant accused shrilly. “Maybe you’re coming on a little too hot and heavy as the Great Avenger. Maybe we don’t buy it, Burke.”

  Garrison chimed in. “It does look a little odd, to say the least. You are, of course, uniquely situated to provide that kind of information. And we all know who permitted Kelly to attend the faculty meeting last week. Could it be that you’re presenting yourself as a hero, as Charlotte’s protector? Then the other information critical of the faculty will be revealed and you can bewail this invasion of privacy as you plan farewell luncheons for us and hire new people.”

  Burke managed a sour smile. “I always knew you had a truly serpentine mind, Victor, and you just proved it.” He shook his head. “I don’t play games with people. Not with you, not with anybody. And you can believe what you goddamn well want to, but I’m telling you—and everybody else here—I do intend to find out who betrayed a position of trust by feeding confidential information to Kelly. I’ll tell you straight out, I despise this kind of journalism. Despise it. News is information that rightly and understand my word, understand it well, rightly belongs to the public. This is a public institution, so the public has a right to know whether it is being run as it should. That doesn’t mean the public has a right to know every personal fact about every person employed he
re. I didn’t cover up malfeasance in office by Charlotte. I discovered and accepted restitution from her for one mistake. One. I consider that a judgment call on my part. Further, I have every intention of righting what I see as several wrongs and making changes which I believe will benefit the department, but I have no intention of destroying reputations publicly to do it. So, I’m not behind the information revealed in The Crier. I believe in the public’s right to know—and I believe in the right of privacy. We’re supposed to teach students where one ends and the other begins. We’ve done a lousy job with Kelly.”

  Crandall brushed ineffectually at a droop of shaggy hair across his brow. “If you didn’t give him that information, then it has to be one of the other committee members who played Deep Throat.”

  It took Annie a second, then understanding came. Of course. All The President’s Men. Deep Throat, the still-unknown source in the executive branch who met at two A.M. in underground parking garages with Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter, during the unfolding of Watergate.

  “It sure as hell looks that way,” Burke growled. “There are four on the committee besides me. Professors Garrison, Moss, Norden, and Tarrant.”

  Kurt Diggs slammed a meaty fist against the table. “Listen, my friends,” and his voice was ugly, “let’s get one thing straight. If anybody jerks me around, they’re going to have trouble. And I mean big trouble.”

  “We’ve got to get this stopped,” Tarrant cried. “Where is Brad? What does he have to say about all this?”

  Burke’s face looked like volcanic slag. “The sorry bastard. I haven’t been able to find him yet. But when I do, I intend to tell him what a lousy newspaperman he is and—”

  “Lousy?” Brad Kelly couldn’t control the tremor in his voice and his face was pale, but he stood in the doorway like David facing Goliath. “Is that why I’m getting calls from AP and UPI and The Atlanta Constitution? What’s wrong with telling the truth?”

  “Punk, tabloid journalism,” Burke said levelly. “You know better. You know you should check with every possible source on a story. Why didn’t you call me as department head? Why did you hide behind ‘informed source’? Because you wanted a sensational exposé, that’s why, young man, and you are willing to sacrifice anybody and everybody to do it.”

  Kelly breathed deeply, trying to draw air into stress-emptied lungs. He swallowed jerkily. “I called Mrs. Porter. That’s the other side, isn’t it? I asked her why and she”—he paused, looked down at his clenched hands—“she just kind of sighed and hung up.” With an effort of will, he relaxed his hands, let them hang limp, and faced his accuser. “I’m sorry to dump on her. I like her. Who doesn’t? But it’s a story! A big story. And somebody’s ox always gets gored. That’s what Professor Garrison said in ethics class. But I got a hell of a story and I ran it. That’s what investigative reporting is all about. Look at Sixty Minutes! Look at Geraldo Rivera! They do real stories. That’s what I’m going to put in The Crier. And you can’t stop me.” He took a step into the room, gave each of them a considering, defiant glance. “And nobody’s going to stop me. Nobody can stop me. The Crier may be housed with the journalism department, but it’s independent. I’m elected by the students so there’s not a thing you can do about it, Mr. Burke. So you people might as well brace yourselves. I’m editor. I’m going to stay editor, and I intend to keep on publishing the real stories, not just the prettied-up handouts you’d like for me to run.”

  “Who fed you the information?” Burke demanded.

  Kelly shook his head. “No.” The tremor was gone now. “I’m protecting my source. That’s what you teach us to do. It’s in the finest old traditions of journalism to protect your source. And that’s what I intend to do.”

  “But we may take it that your source is a member of the faculty?” Garrison asked smoothly.

  “You may take it any way you want to,” Kelly replied gruffly. “Now, I’m here to cover this unannounced faculty meeting for The Crier.” He looked steadily at Burke. “Do you have any statement to make regarding your plans to redirect the focus of the journalism department?”

  “I will speak to you after this meeting is concluded, Mr. Kelly. If you wish to take your seat—”

  “Surely you are not still permitting this young man access to our deliberations,” Moss objected.

  “I will not close an open meeting,” Burke said brusquely.

  Kelly nodded in quiet satisfaction and walked toward the back. As he slipped into the seat between Annie and Sue, who glared at him, the door to the hall opened again.

  Josh Norden wavered unsteadily in the doorway.

  “For God’s sake, Josh—” Burke began.

  Norden gripped the doorjamb with a shaking hand. A tear trickled down his face. “I went to get Charlotte. I wanted her to know we were behind her.”

  “Of course, we are,” Burke said quietly.

  “But I was too late.”

  Sue broke the shocked silence. “Too late?”

  Norden’s mane of white hair quivered as he nodded and the tears coursed down his cheeks. “Bloody, bloody water. She cut her wrists and sat in the bathtub and all her blood ran out.”

  8

  The phone rang. “I’ll get it.” Annie smiled at Max, immersed in papers on the couch. She swept the books from her lap onto the coffee table and popped up.

  “Hello.”

  “Have you found Charlotte’s murderer yet?” the crackly voice demanded.

  “Miss Dora, it was suicide. The police are quite certain. Her apartment doors were locked and bolted on the inside. And the knife had only her fingerprints. A steak knife. Very sharp.” An unwelcome vision arose. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to accept. But it truly was suicide.”

  “Hounded to her death. Same thing as murder. I want to know who caused it.”

  “Perhaps you’d better talk to Max.” Annie held out the receiver, mouthed, “Your client,” and escaped back to her chair.

  “Of course, Miss Dora, I’m working very hard on it.” It was his most charming and persuasive voice.

  Annie stared pensively at her notepad, then wrote, “Mary Roberts Rinehart’s novels often associated death with water: Loon Lake in The Wall, the playhouse pool in The Great Mistake, and, of course, the pool in The Swimming Pool, her last full-length novel.” Another unwelcome image arose: an older woman, a bathtub, and rose red water. She shivered.

  “Certainly I intend to talk to all the faculty members. And Brad Kelly, of course. Yes, as soon as possible.” He sounded a little less charming. “I am working on it. In fact, I’ve made some progress.”

  Almost without volition (the Golden Age writers were so fond of automatic writing), Annie scrawled down the list of faculty who were members of the committee privy to personnel information:

  1. Victor Garrison

  2. Malcolm Moss

  3. Josh Norden (but he cried)

  4. Sue Tarrant

  5. R.T. Burke

  As she studied the names, faces came to mind: Garrison’s plump cheeks, Moss’s perpetual half-smile, Norden’s befuddled blue eyes, Tarrant’s too-bright makeup, Burke’s hawklike face.

  “Of course, I’ll report to you as soon as I discover anything concrete.” Then Max glared at the receiver. He turned to Annie. “She hung up.”

  “Miss Dora is not one to waste her time in common civility.”

  Max replaced the receiver. “You don’t like her very much.”

  “Perceptive of you,” Annie remarked.

  He shoved a hand through his thick blond hair. “I’m not sure I like her much either.” He dropped back onto the couch.

  Annie pushed up from her chair, clutching her list, and joined him. “That’s all right. I’m glad you’re going to investigate it for her.”

  He looked at her inquiringly. “That’s a switch.”

  Annie squirmed. It wasn’t really true that she was stiff-necked and would never admit to making a mistake. After all, the circumstances had changed. “
I’ve been thinking about it. Charlotte Porter—she was such a nice person. Like somebody’s favorite aunt. Like Miss Silver. Why would anyone humiliate her that way? Whoever it was has to be a rat and deserves a little trouble.”

  “I agree,” Max said firmly.

  Annie waggled the list. “So it’s one of these? Which one, Max?”

  He took the list. “It’s not that simple, Annie.”

  “But these are the people on the committee. That’s what Burke said at the meeting. No one else knew. It has to be one of them.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. While you were in the faculty meeting, I talked to the department secretary, Emily Everett.”

  They exchanged understanding glances. It was painful even to see someone as obese as Emily.

  “Unlovely and unhappy,” Annie murmured.

  “Very unhappy. She wouldn’t talk about the article in The Crier, kept mumbling, ‘Awful. Awful. I don’t want to think about it.’ And this was before we knew about Charlotte Porter’s suicide, remember. So I told her I was doing a study on efficiency for the trustees. That got her attention. I told her that her office was considered one of the best run on the campus and I needed some insight on how she arranged everything. She kind of forgot about The Crier for a while. People love to talk about themselves and their work, even if they despise it.” A look of supreme satisfaction. “I had her explain the filing system.”

  “The filing system?” Shades of Poirot’s Miss Lemon, creator of a filing system beside which all other filing systems faded into insignificance. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Annie, my sweet, if I have learned one thing from my arduous labors for Confidential Commissions, it is that the world today is inundated with files, records, pieces of paper. Really, criminals didn’t know how great they had it fifty years ago. In green or beige filing cabinets or, increasingly, on little black disks, across this great land there repose mounds of records on each and every one of us. I have become expert in unearthing information. But,” and a look of great guile slid across his regular features, “I do not reveal this skill. So, I talked to Emily. About the office. How long she’d been there. What she did on a typical day. The immense number of responsibilities upon her bowed shoulders. How—”