The Visiting Professor

by Robert Littell

  Lemuel clears his throat. “Let me risk a wild guess,” he says. “You want me to take my sweet time before making a decision. You want me to think about it a minute or two before saying yes.”

  “I will definitely enjoy working with you at A.D.V.A.,” Doolittle notes. “In addition to your other qualifications, you obviously have a sense of humor.”

  Sheriff Combes’s beer belly swells over his tooled leather gun belt as he sinks back into his swivel chair. “I’m all ears,” he announces, sucking pensively on a twenty-five-cent cigar.

  “All ears is something I can relate to,” Lemuel fires back. “I used to be all toast.”

  The sheriff, eyeing Lemuel across the desk, fixes his professional squint on him. “What language are we talkin’ today?” He waves a beefy hand to clear a tunnel in the cigar smoke so he can get a better look at the man who claims to have solved the serial murders. “Use the King’s English, talk turkey,” he orders.

  “Talk turkey?”

  “Get down to brass tacks.”

  “Brass tacks? Hey, what language are we talking today?”

  “Who’s the perpetrator who went’n murdered all those folks?”

  Lemuel sifts through the file folders, extracts one and begins to walk the sheriff through his theory. “You need to start off by understanding that the serial murders are chaos-related,” he says. “The victims were not selected at random, even though to the naked eye the crimes may appear random. If the serial murders were really random crimes, right? they would exhibit a telltale pattern of random repetitions—for instance, two victims wearing red flannel shirts; for instance, two victims with the same age or occupation. The failure to come up with this telltale pattern means the killer set out to simulate randomness—he painstakingly selected the victims for their apparent randomness.”

  “Why did he wanna go’n stimulate randomness?”

  “The answer is as plain as the nose on your face, no offense intended,” Lemuel tells the sheriff. “He wanted to convince the police that the crimes were random in order to throw them off the track.”

  “I’m still all ears.”

  “Once the police assumed randomness was the motive for the crimes, they would start looking for the nut case responsible for a series of serial murders, they would not dig very deep into the possibility that one of the victims had been killed for a motive other than randomness. At this point, the perpetrator could murder the one person he really wanted dead, but dared not kill unless and until that particular murder could be disguised as just another in a series of random murders.”

  The sheriff takes this all in with a skeptical nod. “I reckon,” he says, without specifying what he reckons.

  “Using game-theory concepts, I calculated that the serial killer would murder the person he really wanted dead about two-thirds of the way through the list of victims, and then kill a third again as many people to keep up the appearance of a serial murderer stalking the tri-county. So I began seriously sifting through the files at murder number twelve. At murder number fifteen, I hit pay dirt—I discovered the real victim of the serial murderer.”

  “The fifteenth victim was Purchase Honeycut, the self-styled tri-county used-car czar,” the sheriff recollects. “Made some thin’ of uh splash when they found his corpse.”

  “According to the file you gave me, Honeycut owned the Purchase from Purchase dealership on the Interstate outside of Hornell. Buried in the same file was a little-noticed detail: Honeycut had a silent partner, none other than his brother-in-law, Word Perkins, the handyman-night watchman at the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies.”

  “Bein’ uh silent partner is not a crime. How about motive?”

  “Honeycut and Word Perkins made out a notarized agreement stipulating that if one of them died, the business would revert to the living partner. When they started out twelve years ago, the dealership was worth peanuts. Since then, Honeycut divorced Perkins’s sister and built up the Used-Car Bazaar to the point where it is worth a small fortune. Check it out. The dirty details are all in the fine print of the state police report. Since the police were looking for a serial murderer, the notarized agreement got lost in the shuffle.”

  The sheriff scratches several fingernails across the stubble on his cheek. Distracted by the sound, Lemuel says, “There is more.”

  “Hit me.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Give me the more.”

  “Honeycut’s body was discovered in an automobile graveyard off Route 17.”

  “He was found slumped over the steerin’ wheel of uh wrecked Toyota, the entry wound from uh .38 caliber dumdum bullet rubbed with garlic in his left ear,” the sheriff recalls.

  “You definitely have an eye for detail, Sheriff. So do you remember what was in his jacket pocket?”

  The sheriff nods his heavy head carefully, almost as if he is afraid of dislodging a thought. “Uh hearin’ aid, which was peculiar inasmuch as Purchase Honeycut wasn’t deaf.”

  “But Word Perkins was. Is.” Lemuel brings up a grunt of satisfaction. “From a psychological point of view, there is a certain logic to a deaf man shooting his victims in the ear.”

  The sheriff rocks forward until the edge of his desk bites into his stomach. “There wasn’t no blood splattered around the vehicle, which meant Honeycut was shot somewhere else an’ his body dumped in the Toyota.”

  “Let us, for the sake of argument, slip into a plausible fiction.” Lemuel closes his eyes. “The two partners have been getting on each other’s nerves ever since Honeycut divorced Word Perkins’s sister. One night Honeycut turns up at Word Perkins’s apartment in Hornell. Maybe they quarrel about money—Honeycut has been milking the dealership and Word Perkins feels he is not getting a fair share of the profits. Maybe they quarrel about politics—Honeycut is a lifelong Republican, Word Perkins is a reform Democrat. Either or, it does not alter the dynamics of the story. Honeycut does not give a centimeter. Word Perkins pulls out a pistol. ‘I never could stomach folks who own what they know,’ he shouts. Honeycut backs away, holds up a hand, desperately tries to talk him out of pulling the trigger. ‘You will never get away with it,’ he pleads. ‘The police will suspect you the instant they discover you inherit the dealership on my death.’ Word Perkins cackles cruelly. ‘I have already killed fourteen people, each victim carefully selected to make the murders appear random. You will be the fifteenth.’ Honeycut sees he cannot save himself, but he can return from the grave to point an accusing finger at his killer. So he slips a spare hearing aid lying around on a table into his pocket in order to send a message to the police.”

  “What we gotta do now,” the sheriff says excitedly, snatching the telephone off the hook, punching buttons, “is go’n see if the power of the hearin’ aid found in Purchase Honeycut’s pocket matches the hearin’ deficiency of the alleged perpetrator. If it does, we’ll drive over to Hornell, we’ll advise Mr. Word Perkins of his right to remain silent, then we’ll beat the shit outa him till he talks.”

  Lemuel wanders into the outer office and helps himself to a cup of water from the cooler. A teletype machine clatters away in a corner, spitting out paper, which accumulates in a carton on the floor. Two deputy sheriffs are playing gin at a desk near the door. A third is straddling a bench, spit-polishing his knee-length leather boots. Lemuel can see that the deputy’s socks have holes in the heels. Norman is nowhere in sight, but his voice drifts over a partition. He appears to be chatting with someone on the phone.

  “Sheriff sure as heck expects to be involved. … No, no, he ain’t got no thin’ ‘gainst the state police makin’ the actual arrest, but it has got to be clear it’s the sheriff that went an’ investigated the tip, it’s the sheriff that went an’ broke the case, it’s the sheriff that went an’ ordered the arrest. … Yeah. … He ain’t forgot the nuclear dump deal. … Sheriff figures he owes you one, so he’s not ‘gainst sharin’ the photo credit. … When we march her out, how about the sheriff
’ll be on one side and one of your boys on the other. … Right or left, it don’t make no difference to him. … No problem, she can be handcuffed to the state police officer as long as the sheriff has got a firm grip on her other elbow. … Yeah, wheelin’ an’ dealin’, buyin’ an’ sellin’, we’re talkin’ drugs, we’re talkin’ LSD, we’re talkin’ amphetamines, we’re talkin’ all kinds of shit.” Norman delivers a horselaugh into the phone. “Would you believe in a hollowed-out sex book called The Weight Report or The Height Report, though what weight or height’s got to do with sex I sure as heck don’t see. … No, we don’t expect as how the incriminating evidence’ll be hard to find. I actually been up to her place once on department business, I don’t remember an awful lot of books floatin’ around. … Right. Right. Rendezvous at the Kampus Kave on South Main at eight. We’ll hit them up for a lasagne on the house before we arrest the perpetrator. Yeah, see you.”

  The sheriff materializes in the doorway of his office. “Norman,” he brays.

  Startled, the deputies playing cards, the deputy shining boots look up. Norman bolts from his cubicle.

  “I reckon as how I went’n solved the serial murders,” the sheriff announces. “‘Member the hearin’ contraption we found in the pocket of Purchase Honeycut? Well, actin’ on uh tip from uh civic-minded citizen, here present, I went’n checked it out with the Hearin’ Center in Hornell. The power of the hearin’ aid matches the audio deficiency of the handyman oven at the Chaos Institute, who by coincidence turns out to have inherited the used-car dealership of the late lamented Mr. Honeycut.”

  “Are we gonna go an’ bring the state police in on the arrest?” Norman wants to know.

  “No way. Their Bureau of Criminal Investigation has done diddly on these murders. We went’n solved em. We get to get the credit.” The sheriff hikes his gun belt up on his stomach. “I want you to hold the fort, Wallace,” he tells the deputy who has been shining boots. “Bobby, Bubba, long with me’n Norman here, we’re gonna pick up uh signed’n sealed arrest warrant, after which we’re gonna go’n get our pictures in the newspapers. You’re welcome to tag along, Mr. Falk. You went’n earned it.”

  Lemuel can barely keep his voice reined in. “I need to get back to Backwater. … I have important computer business to attend to.”

  “Come on, Lem,” Norman coaxes. “The least you can do is get yourself on the tube again.”

  “Hey, no, really—”

  “Maybe you oughta keep us company,” the sheriff decides. “What with you bein’ the one who went’n risked his life on the nuclear-dump deal, we got us uh better chance of hittin’ network prime time with you on board.”

  Chapter Six

  I can say you, when it comes to watching someone being arrested, I am, if only it could be otherwise, not a vestal virgin. I have already described the young lady I fell wildly, eternally, achingly in love with as she was being dragged by her hair across the cobblestones in front of the Smolny Institute. Also how I was hauled in for questioning when the second of my two signatures turned up on a petition. I did not look forward to witnessing the arrest of what the sheriff, with the bureaucrat’s genius for dehumanized jargon, called the perpetrator. (I suppose it is easier to arrest people, easier, in the end, to execute them, if they do not come equipped with a handle.) The trouble was I could not worm out of it without alerting Norman to the possibility he had been overheard making arrangements to bust Rain.

  So now I’ll do the arrest of the alleged perpetrator.

  I will start with the weather. In the great scheme of things, April showers are supposed to lead inexorably to May flowers, but someone had not gotten the word. It was a raw, soggy May evening, the result, no doubt, of trivial turbulence created by a night moth flailing its wings in a reach of Siberia. Swollen teardrops of rain were exploding against the windshield faster than the wipers working at breakneck speed could clear them away. Which is why what I witnessed was blurred, first by the rain, later by the teardrops which spilled from my eyes, I will tell you why eventually.

  I was in the backseat of the sheriff’s cruiser as we eased into Purchase Honeycut’s Used-Car Bazaar on the edge of Hornell. The other cruiser, with Bobby and Bubba in it, drove up the ramp across the lot, blocking that entrance. The four headlights illuminated the one-story, all-glass building.

  Norman picked up the car microphone. “Seen hide nor hair of the TV boys yet?” he asked Bubba over the radio.

  I was jotting down “hide nor hair” on the back of an envelope when static erupted on the radio:

  “—Jus’ ‘rivin’ now—”

  A white truck with “Channel 8 News” printed on the side pulled up to the curb outside the lot. A man leaped out and started filming with a shoulder-mounted camera that also bore the “Channel 8 News” logo.

  “Here’s where we earn our paychecks,” the sheriff said, climbing out of the car.

  He was wearing a yellow fireman’s raincoat and carrying a battery-powered bullhorn and a revolver, which he kept out of sight behind his back. He gestured for me to wind down my window.

  “Go’n stay put,” he told me, “in case the perpetrator decides to resist gettin’ hisself arrested.” He raised the possibility of a shootout with a gleam in his eye, as if he was measuring the size of the headlines to come.

  The sheriff checked to make sure the TV people were filming, then waved the bullhorn in the direction of Bubba and Bobby, who drew pistols and started forward. Walking in lockstep, he and Norman began wading through an enormous puddle toward the glass building with the neon “Purchase from Purchase” sign sizzling over the front door as if it was electrocuting horseflies.

  A figure loomed in the open glass door.

  The sheriff and his three deputies froze in their tracks. The sheriff raised the bullhorn to his lips. “I’m Chester Combes, the county—”

  He was drowned out by an ear-splitting squeal from the bullhorn. “Like I was sayin’, I’m Chester Combes, the county sheriff? I was sorta countin’ on havin’ uh word with you, Word.”

  “ ’Bout what?” the man at the door shouted into the rain.

  “ ’Bout the demise of Purchase Honeycut an’ nineteen other serial-murder victims.”

  Word Perkins cackled wildly. “A nitwit like you couldn’t a figured it out all by himself. I’ll lay odds you hadda have help from the visitin’ professor who don’t own what he knows—who went an’ loaned you the answer.”

  I could see Word shielding his eyes with his hand and peering into the headlights. “I know yaw out there, huh, professor from Petersboig,” he called.

  Sinking down into the backseat, I watched the sheriff scratch the nape of his neck with the barrel of his revolver. “You wanna be sure an’ edit out the part where he calls me a nitwit,” he told the TV reporters through the bullhorn. He turned back and took a step in the direction of the sizzling neon sign. The other deputies closed in from different directions.

  “Word Perkins,” the sheriff bellowed through the bullhorn, “you’re under arrest. It’s my duty to warn you anythin’ you say may be used in evidence against you. …”

  Through the drops of water streaming down the front window, I could see the perpetrator reach up and snatch the hearing aid out of his ear. Then in one flowing motion he stepped back and slammed the glass door shut and stooped and turned the key in the lock at the base of the door. The sheriff and his deputies charged up to the building. The sheriff kicked at the glass door, but it did not give. He brought his revolver out from behind his back and pointed it at the man standing inside.

  “I’m directin’ you to open up or I’ll open up,” he blustered through the bullhorn.

  Word Perkins shrugged and shook his head to indicate he could not hear what the sheriff was saying. Backing away, he turned and disappeared into an office with glass partitions. I could see him wrench open a metal filing cabinet and fling out several fistfuls of paper before coming up with an object wrapped in a piece of cloth. Walking slowly, lost, so it see
med from a distance, in the eerily silent world where you cannot hear your own footsteps, he made his way back into the showroom and confronted the sheriff and his three deputies through the locked door. The television cameraman came up behind the sheriff and filmed over his shoulder.

  Word Perkins peeled the cloth away from the object as if he was skinning an orange. The object turned out to be a snub-nosed revolver. The sheriff and the three deputies dropped into a tense crouch, their pistols thrust forward. Word Perkins calmly removed a bullet from the folds of the cloth and rubbed its nose against what would later be identified as a clove of garlic. Thumbing the bullet into the chamber, he brought the pistol up and jammed the barrel into his left ear.

  “You don’t wanna go’n do that,” the sheriff cried over the bullhorn, but of course the perpetrator could not hear him.

  I rolled my window all the way down and stuck my head out to get a better view, but the scene was still blurred. Tears over which I had no control were flooding from my bloodshot eyes, I was crying like I had not cried since … since …

  Through my tears I could see Norman whirl around and block the lens of the television camera with his hand, God bless him for this delicacy, even a perpetrator is entitled to a certain amount of privacy when he blows his brains out. I also looked away. In my mind’s ear, dear God, if only it had been a fiction I could slip into and out of like the sleeveless sweater my mother knitted me when she got out of prison, in my mind’s ear I heard the muted, brittle explosion, it sounded like a sharp dry cough coming from behind a closed door, I saw the faceless men who had been searching the apartment lunge toward the bathroom, I saw one of them kick the door off its rusted hinges, I heard my mother emit a sound so inhuman it stabbed my eardrums. And then I was pushing through the men standing around the bathtub and sinking to my knees next to their thick-soled, steel-toed shoes and gaping at the syrupy fluid oozing from between the thick lips that had so often teasingly kissed me on my child’s lips.