MO Sudan Wittig Albert
is built, Castle will be two-thirds there. All he'll need are two or three good researchers to bring in the grants."
"Will he have the money to hire them?"
Dottie raised one shoulder, let it fall. "Five senior people are retiring in the next three years. And there's Harwick's salary, too, of course. That'll give Castle a nice bundle of salary money to wheel and deal with. He ought to be able to buy anybody he wants." She laughed again. "A real shell game, huh? Build the lab, hire the big guns, and watch while the big guns knock down the big grants. Them that has, gets. That's the way it works."
What Dottie was saying about the grant business was revealing, but her bitterness toward Castle was pulling us off the mark. "What kind of animals was Harwick using ten years ago?" I asked, still trying to pin down any possibility that he might have been guilty of animal abuse.
"Rats. He and Castle teamed up to test the toxicity of cosmetic products. It was a pretty small project, compared to what Harwick was into recently."
"Was there anything questionable about their work? In terms of the use of animals, I mean."
She made a quick motion with her head. "Only if you question the LD 50 test."
"LD 50?"
"It's a methodology used to establish degrees of toxicity, to protect users of a product from poisoning. The researcher administers the drug or chemical or cosmetic to all the test animals, in increasing dosages. The LD 50 standard is reached when half of them die. Harwick and Castle went through quite a few white rats back in those days."
"Is that a common procedure?"
"Too common. The trouble with it is that the extrapolation of research results from rodents to humans is highly unreliable. What kills rats may or may not injure people. Furthermore, there's a
great response variability among animals, depending on sex, age, weight, and stress level. And even if you have good data and you can reliably extrapolate it, you can't apply the information to most human poisonings because you usually don't know how much or even what kind of substance the victim has ingested." She glanced up at me with a wicked glint in her eyes. "So don't eat your lipstick. The fact that it only killed half the rats doesn't mean it won't kill you."
"I don't wear lipstick," I said hastily. "At least, not very often. What happened to that project?"
"Harwick and Castle were working for some company in San Antonio. Harwick brought the money with him."
"Meaning?"
Dottie was patient. "Meaning that when CTSU hired him, Harwick moved his research funding with him. That's one reason why the university was glad to hire him. His grant paid part of his salary."
I jotted a note. "Ten years is a long time. I don't suppose you'd remember the name of the company that was funding him?"
She shook her head. "The records are probably around someplace, though. It was a small company, but as I remember it, there were a couple of big names on the board. Come to think of it, that's how Castle got the chairmanship."
"Oh yeah?" I was intrigued. "How'd that work?"
She cocked her head to one side. "The president of the company promised the president of CTSU that they'd fund a lab and put money into ongoing research. There was a string attached, of course. Two strings, actually. One was that the research would be their research. The other was that Castle would be appointed chair. I suppose they wanted him because they knew that his ambitions were in line with their goals."
My jaw dropped. Deals like the one Dottie was describing
came down every day in the real world, but somehow I'd thought that academics were above trading on influence. "Does that sort of thing happen often?"
"What do you think?" Dottie's grin was bleak. "University types aren't really any holier than thou. The difference is that our dirty deals don't usually make it into the media. In fact, I probably wouldn't have found out about Castle's quid pro quo if Beulah Bracewell hadn't told me. She was the department secretary back then. Castle didn't like her, so when he was appointed chairman he got the dean to transfer her. She went to Personnel, and Castle hired Cynthia Leeds."
"Did you tell people what you found out? About how Castle got his chairmanship, I mean."
"Sure, I did. I raised a stink. But I'm a woman, and I'd just gotten tenure. My say wasn't worth much with the senior professors, and they were the only ones who could have gotten in his way." Her shoulders were eloquent. "They were all pretty busy, anyway, trying to figure out how to put the make on Castle to get what they wanted."
"And all this happened about the time Harwick was hired?"
"Yeah. But Castle's big idea got shot down not long after that." She smiled in wry appreciation of a cosmic joke. "He'd only been in the job a few days when the company that rigged his appointment was bought up by Revlon—that's a name I do remember And Revlon was already tied into an animal research program at some other university—Perm State, maybe. Yeah, I think that's where it was. Anyway, Harwick's funding dried up like Mineral Wells in August. Castle's lab evaporated along with it."
"And they've spent the last eight or nine years trying to get it back?"
"Right. Castle's positioned Harwick for every possible grant." Her mouth was skeptical. "Although if you ask me, Harwick was a pretty poor excuse for a researcher—not nearly the
hotshot Castle thought he was. Both of them busted their butts to get the Regents to include an animal lab in the new building. But you know about that." She stabbed out her cigarette with quick, jerky motions. "And now Harwick's dead, and Castle's got what he wants."
I was fascinated, but unenlightened. None of this seemed to have a bearing on Harwick's death. "How about Harwick's personal life?"
"He didn't have one. Not much of one, anyway. No family that I know of. No girlfriends to speak of, either, although he dated one of the secretaries in Education for a while—^Vannie Paige." I started to write a note but Dottie shook her head. "Don't bother. That was four, maybe five years ago. Vannie married the assistant football coach last year. I don't think it broke Miles' heart."
"What about men friends?"
Dottie gave me a shrewd look. "If you're thinking he was gay, maybe. He kind of had that look, don't you think?"
"What do you think?"
She propped her chin on her hand. "Well, if he was, he stayed in the closet. When he first bought the house, right after he got hired, some guy used to stop by every few weeks. But that didn't last long. I remember him because the first time or two he had this beautiful greyhound with him."
I started clutching at straws. "Did Harwick travel? Did he have any addictions? Any hobbies?"
"Sometimes in the summer he'd close up the house and take off a few weeks. Addictions, I don't think so, if you mean was he a boozer or a druggie. Hobbies, ditto." She paused. "No, wait a sec. It wasn't exactly a hobby, but he was involved at one point with some sort of furniture-making enterprise. Up around Wim-berley somewhere."
Ah-ha. "Did it involve a man by the name of Max Wilde?"
"That was it. Wilde made furniture that Miles liked. He had several pieces, and for a while he may have been involved financially. But I got the impression that Miles and Wilde got into some kind of hassle about it."
I made a couple of notes, then looked up. "A few more questions. One, do you know who might have phoned the department last week, threatening to bomb the place if Harwick didn't close down his project? And two, do you have any idea who leaked Harwick's research protocol to the campus newspaper?"
She shook her head. "No, on both counts, if you mean do I know, specifically. The animal rights people were obviously behind the bomb threat. But the protocol leak puzzled me, too. All I can think of is that somehow a copy got into the hands of somebody who had something against Harwick, and who couldn't pass up the opportunity to get even. That could be just about anybody in the department." She looked alarmed. "The police don't think it was me, do they?"
"If they do, I haven't heard about it." I closed my noteb
ook. "One more thing. If I wanted to get a look at an employee's personnel record, would Beulah Brace well be in a position to help?"
"Sure," Dottie said. "That woman knows everything that goes on at CTSU, and she's got an opinion about three-quarters of it. Are you going to ask her about Miles' records?"
"Yes. And Kevin Scott's, as well." The department couldn't be the only place where staff addresses were kept. "You remember Kevin," I added. "The nervous young man who took care of Harwick's animals."
Dottie frowned. "You think he has something to do with this?"
"I don't know, but I want to talk to him." I put the notebook in my purse. "Something else. Do you remember a piece of white nylon rope in your garage?"
Dottie looked blank. "Rope? Not offhand. I remember re-
cently looking for rope to tie cages together, and having to settle for wire. Why?"
"Just asking," I said. I pushed my chair back. "Let me know if you think of anything else. Oh, by the way, we learned about Wilde last night. Ruby's in Wimberley right now, playing Nancy Drew."
Dottie leaned forward, her face serious. "I'm grateful to both of you. It's nice to have friends at a time like this." Then she sat back quickly, as if she were half ashamed of having given in to a sentimental female impulse. "If Miles didn't kill himself, have you got any idea who murdered him.^"
I thought of the blackmail letter and Kevin—and Amy. "Hey," I said. "You're supposed to leave the detecting to Ruby and me. Didn't Justine Wyzinski tell you to think positive?" That's what I would have told her, if she were my client.
"Yeah, she did, but I'm not very good at it." She pushed back her chair and stood up as Janette came into the room. "How're the cats and the guinea pigs?"
I got up too. "On the increase," I said. "You now have one hundred and ten guinea pigs and seven new kittens."
"A hundred and ten/?/^j"?" Janette echoed, incredulous. From her look, I could see that she thought Dottie ought to be permanently incarcerated, probably in the psycho ward at the hospital.
''Guinea pigs," I said. "They're like big white rats." Janette recoiled.
"I'm glad Beetle had her kittens," Dottie said. "I'm only sorry I wasn't there to help." She looked at me. "Make sure Ariella gets her shot." Her half-smile was wistful, yearning. "Tell her to be patient. I'll be home as quick as I can."
"It had better be soon^' I said. "Somebody needs to separate the boy guinea pigs from the girl guinea pigs."
It was noon. I went home and found three messages on the answering machine. Laurel was back and available if I needed her. Leatha, my mother, would love to hear from me when I had a spare moment and if I didn't Fd be hearing from her (no surprise). McQuaid reported that the English prof was willing to come down to eighteen months on the Meadow Brook lease. There was no word from Amy, also no surprise.
I phoned McQuaid at his office. "Eighteen months, huh?"
"That seems pretty reasonable," he said. "And I'm running out of leads. That house may be the only one around that's big enough for us."
"But it has five bedrooms," I objected. And a tower with a window seat, and wild turkeys, and space for a big herb garden. I closed my eyes and saw the yellow desert marigolds and huisache daisies splashed along the rock wall.
"The place across from the middle school is still available." He was serious.
I shuddered. "Do you want to look at Meadow Brook again?"
"Do you?" he countered.
We were a couple of wary teenagers, dancing the do-you-don't-you two-step. "Well, maybe. If you do."
McQuaid chuckled. "Pick you up at seven. Wear walking
shoes, and we'll take a hike along the creek." He paused. "Aren't you the least bit excited?"
"To tell the truth," I confessed, "I'm scared." It wasn't just the eighteen-month lease, either. It was actually living—day to day, moment to moment—with McQuaid and Brian and (oh, God) Howard Cosell. Suddenly five bedrooms didn't seem like enough. Maybe ten would do it. Or fifty.
"Yeah," he said, sober. "Me, too. The thing with Sally was bad. I'd hate to go through that again." There was a pause. "But I guess that's the chance we take. No pain, no gain."
Spoken like an ex-quarterback who still jogged five miles every morning and worked out with weights three times a week. But his response pointed up the essential difference between us. Never having been married, I was focussing on the difficulty of day-today living. Having been married and divorced, he was focussing on what might happen at the end. Either way, it was scary.
"Not to change the subject," he went on, "but I talked to Sheila a few minutes ago. Got your bucket?"
I sat up straight. "Another leak?"
"It's not going to make you happy. Remember the hairs Bub-ba found in the noose? There were three, stuck in the knot, as if they'd been caught when it was tied. The hair from Dottie's hairbrush looks like a match. Ditto the nylon rope from her garage."
"You've made my day."
"What do you think? Harwick sneaked into her house, stole some of her hair and a clothesline, and used them to frame her for his death?"
"Could be."
"Sure," he said skeptically. "How could Harwick be sure that the hair in the knot would be spotted? Somebody could have cut him down and destroyed the evidence. That's how the prosecution will rebut, you know. With the hairs and the Beuthanasia, the case against Dottie is pretty solid."
I set my teeth. "You've made my whole day. Let's hope the evening is better."
"I was just giving you the other side."
"Yeah," I said, "thanks." I tried to make it Hghter. "Tell Sheila I really appreciate it, huh?"
"I will. She's a little miffed just now. She thinks Bubba's closing her out of the loop and she doesn't like it."
"I can understand that," I said. "After all, it happened on her turf. But I'm sure Smart Cookie will find a way to put things right."
He laughed. "She likes the nickname. Said it was a real compliment. She's got one for you, too."
I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it. "Oh, yeah?"
"Sage Woman," he said.
I put down the phone, grinning.
Lunch was an avocado-and-sprout sandwich and milk. While I ate, I phoned Laurel to find out how the pepper paper had gone and to ask if she could mind both my shop and Ruby's for the rest of the week, in case the thing with Dottie was still unresolved. She was happy to do it. What's more, her sister would be available, too, if business was more than Laurel could handle alone.
I had just finished eating when the phone rang. It might be Leatha, making good on her promise. I let the answering machine screen the call, but when I heard the voice, I picked up the phone myself.
It was Amy.
"I need to see you," she said, low and tense, as if she didn't want to be overheard. I heard somebody laughing behind her. Maybe she was calling from work.
"Have you talked to Kevin?"
"No." She hesitated. "This has nothing to do with Kevin." She repeated herself, for good measure. "Nothing. Really."
Hangman 'd Root l'^9
I didn't believe her. "Where do you want to meet? When?" "Can I come to your place? Say, six? I don't get off work until
five-thirty."
I rapidly calculated the time it would take to feed a clowder of
cats and a plague of guinea pigs. "Six ought to work," I said. "See
you then."
44 4
Beulah Bracewell's office was in the administration building, on the other side of the quad from Noah's Ark. The Spanish-style buildings on the campus, most of which are more or less ersatz, at least have some historical referent. They connect to places and people and ideas. The administration building connects only to itself. It has no personality. It's nothing but a big pink brick box, with a fake colonnade across the front and seven floors of offices concealed behind reflective windows that insiders can see out of but outsiders can't see into—a perfect metaphor for what happens in bureaucracies.
I found Personnel on
the third floor, in a large multistation, open-plan office that took up the whole south side of the building. Beulah's desk was in the far corner, behind a bank of lateral file cabinets topped with an impressive set of large ring binders and a lanky philodendron whose leaves were green on the side that faced the window and yellow on the other side.
Beulah was sixtyish, white haired and slender, with soft pink skin, a low voice, and a contained manner. She reminded me of my grandmother, whose improbable name my father had bestowed on me. She had the look of someone who would go quietly about her work while everybody else was searching for towels to throw in. She motioned me to a chair, her shrewd gray eyes sizing up my denim skirt, blue plaid blouse, loafers, and grubby nails. She was probably measuring me for one of the openings
described in the brochure on her desk: Job Opportunities at CTSU. People Working Together for Higher Education, Good Citizenship, and Strong Stewardship. The title sounded Hke something hammered out by an undergraduate marketing class. It had enough buzzwords to make your ears ring.
"Perhaps you've heard that Dr. Riddle was arrested yesterday," I said, after I introduced myself. "I'm working with her lawyer to try to fill in some of the details of the case."
"Of course I heard it," Beulah said. She made an impatient gesture. "Last week everybody was talking about Dr. Harwick. This week it's been nothing but Dottie." Her mouth turned down at the corners. "How's she holding up?"
"About as you'd imagine," I said. "She's mostly concerned about her cats."
Beulah's dark eyes snapped. "Those cats! I love Dottie, but I'll never in the world understand why she spends so much time and energy on animals." She frowned. "Is anybody taking care of them while she's in jail?" Beulah had no trouble with the word.
Hangman's root : a China Bayles mystery Page 14
