Death by Dissertation

by Dean James

  “You’re right,” I said. “Whitelock must have called whoever he thought was on those tapes with him, so potentially everyone involved in those little games of his knows about the tapes and thinks you have them.”

  Rob nodded. “Cheery thought, ain’t it?”

  “I guess we’ll have to spread the word somehow that the police have those tapes,” I said. “That’s the only way we’ll be safe.”

  He laughed. “Just give Bella a call, and that’s all we’ll have to do. It’ll be all over campus within an hour.”

  “Right.” I grinned.

  “I don’t know about you,” Rob said, nodding in the direction of the door, “but I want to get back to the computer.”

  “Good idea. Those files may be the clue we’re looking for.”

  “Okay,” he said, opening the door. “Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll go over and print them out for us to work on. Call Maggie, too.” The door shut behind him.

  Three heads would be better than two, and, besides, Maggie would be annoyed if we left her out. I dialed her number, and she answered on the third ring. I explained what Rob and I were going to do.

  “Be there in ten minutes,” she said and dropped the phone into its cradle. The sharp click echoed in my ear, and I hung up.

  Maggie lived with her father near the university, which meant she wasn’t very far away. By the time she arrived, Rob had returned with a small stack of paper.

  I fetched pencils and paper for each of us, and we all set to work at the kitchen table. For more than an hour we bent over our task, emitting grunts and groans of frustrations as we tried to break Charlie’s code. I kept trying various complicated combinations, but every one of them failed.

  Maybe I was making this more difficult than it really was. I next tried several simple formulas, then hit upon one that seemed to work; but after I had done the first two words, which came out hodie audivi, I thought I was wrong yet again. I started to crumple up the paper and throw it away, but then I realized sheepishly why the words looked familiar.

  I had broken Charlie’s code.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The jumble of letters which constituted the first entry in Charlie’s journal danced before my eyes as I tried to control my excitement at breaking the code.

  Ipejf bvejwj k ejdfsf vu dpowfojbu b ipsb tpmjub. Fshp jotusvyj, fu qfstdsjqtj rvbn dpohsfttjpofn, tjd vu opoovmmbt dfufsbt qfstdsjqtj. Gpstjubo dvn ufsnjobwj, k fsju pcpfejfoujps.

  By experimenting, I had transcribed the first word, ipejf, as hodie, which I recognized belatedly as the Latin word for today. The second word, bvejwj, thus became the Latin audivi, or I heard. I continued transcribing and soon had several sentences in Latin.

  Hodie audivi j dicere lit conveniat a hora solita. Ergo instruxi, et perscripsi quam congressionem, sic ut nonnullas ceteras perscripsi. Forsitan cum terminavi, j erit oboedientior.

  Charlie’s system was simple; he had merely shifted the alphabet forward by one letter. A became B, B became C, and so on, right through the alphabet, ending with Z becoming A.

  He had been clever, using a simple code to disguise notes kept in Latin. Only someone familiar with Latin would likely figure it out.

  I watched the other two, still frowning and scribbling away. “What’s the matter, guys? Haven’t figured it out yet?”

  They looked up at me, and Maggie said, “I suppose that’s your way of telling us that you cracked it?” She dropped her pencil and sighed.

  Smugly, I nodded.

  “Good work!” Rob said. “I was getting a headache.”

  “So give, already,” Maggie demanded impatiently. “How does it work?”

  “First of all,” I replied, “what made it stranger than it had to be was that Charlie did the code from Latin instead of English.” Charlie had been a whiz at foreign languages, fluent in French, German, Spanish, and Latin, with a decent knowledge of Italian as well.

  I showed Maggie and Rob how the code worked, and they began transcribing their entries with renewed enthusiasm. I turned back to my page. Translating as I read, I decided to get my Latin dictionary to verify certain words.

  “Where are you going, Andy?” Maggie asked as I got up.

  “My Latin dictionary’s upstairs, and I’m afraid I’m going to need it. Charlie was a little better at Latin than I am.”

  She laughed. “While you’re at it, bring your German dictionary, too. This one’s in German.”

  Rob groaned. “Do you have a French dictionary?”

  Bemused, I shook my head. Latin, German, and French—the guy was a showoff, even in something so private as a journal. But maybe there had been enough of the child in Charlie—a child who enjoyed the “secret code” game— that could help me understand his writing a journal like this. “I guess I might as well dig up my old high school Spanish dictionary, just in case.”

  In a few minutes I returned with an armful of books. I paused in the doorway of the kitchen, arrested by a disturbing sight. Rob, unaware that I stood behind him, was carefully folding a piece of paper, while Maggie peered in the refrigerator, her back to him. As she investigated the contents of the fridge, Rob tucked the folded paper inside his shirt. Then Maggie turned around, Diet Coke in hand, and saw me.

  “Here they are,” I said, moving forward and brandishing the dictionaries. For the moment, I decided not to query Rob on his strange behavior. What he’d hidden in his shirt must have been part of Charlie’s journal. Had he read something incriminating? Or maybe something very personal? I was curious to know the answer.

  While Rob and Maggie worked on their pages, I picked up my first page and scanned the Latin, stopping a few times to check words and jot down notes. Then I was ready to read the whole passage.

  Today I heard J say that he would meet A at the accustomed hour. I made my preparations accordingly, and I have recorded that meeting, as I have recorded several others. Perhaps when I have finished, J will be more amenable.

  So much for that one; I was eager to decipher the others. I could consider their meaning after I finished. Wrapped up in the task, I forgot all about Rob and Maggie.

  The next one on my page turned out to be in Spanish, which I considered my best foreign language. I didn’t need the dictionary for it. After that came French and German, and I had to borrow the German dictionary from Maggie. Most of the entries, it turned out, were brief records of times when Charlie had happened to discover that Whitelock had made an assignation. Apparently the professor had grown somewhat careless in his student’s presence, presuming—to his eventual dismay—trust where there was none. What was more likely, however, was that Whitelock had treated Charlie just as he had treated Bella, like part of the furniture. Except that furniture didn’t videotape your sexual escapades and blackmail you with them.

  Charlie had also noted several occasions, like the first, when he had recorded meetings, presumably the ones in Whitelock’s house. The Latin verb was used out of context, but I didn’t think Charlie meant a written record, as the verb indicated.

  The initial A, which probably stood for Azalea, was mentioned frequently. Then I came upon an entry in Spanish which gave me even more to ponder after I transcribed and translated it.

  Finally I discovered the identity of J’s second mistress. The tigress W, who has subverted her politics in favor of her genitalia, debuted on camera last night. Such unexpected depths to our feminist hypocrite!

  Here was confirmation of our speculations—Wilda Franken had been having an affair with Whitelock! Charlie’s references couldn’t apply to anyone else.

  Charlie could easily have threatened Wilda with exposure. The fear of becoming a laughingstock in a university that was a bastion of old-boyism might have been enough to make her lash out at both Charlie and Whitelock.

  And what about Azalea? I could imagine how she would have reacted to threats from Charlie. Her position of responsibility and trust among the history professors was her driving force. Any threat to this position would arouse al
l of her instincts for self-preservation; she could have struck Charlie down in a moment of anger.

  But what about Whitelock? As I had reasoned it, he might have panicked after Charlie’s murder and threatened to expose the women involved with him, one of whom he must surely have suspected of murder. Feeling cornered, Azalea could have struck before Whitelock had time to make good his threats.

  My head whirled. The field of suspects was already expanding, and we hadn’t finished deciphering Charlie’s notes yet. Maybe we could convince Herrera that these two made better suspects than Rob and I did! I picked up the pencil and set to work again, eager to see what other revelations Charlie’s notes held.

  The next entry, in Latin again, intrigued me further. My translation of it read:

  A and B have been spying on me lately. I wonder why? Is A having an affair with J also? Strange situation, if it’s true, and why haven’t I been able to record them? Maybe I’ll have to record more often to catch them together. In the meantime, I want B to lay off. They’re both making me a little uneasy.

  A could mean Azalea, I thought, but who could B be? The only B’s I could think of were Bella and Bruce, and I just couldn’t imagine a reason for either one of them to do Azalea a favor. Maybe Selena Bradbury, though. She and Azalea seemed to be pretty friendly. Or B could be our unknown factor—some-one who was involved but who was unknown to us.

  Maggie expelled a loud breath just then and dropped her pencil and paper on the table. Rob laid his down more quietly, but it looked like both of them were ready to take a break. So was I. My head had begun to throb.

  “Time for a caffeine break?” I asked.

  Rob nodded, and Maggie waved her nearly empty can at me.

  I got up and looked inside the fridge. “We’re in luck,” I said, pulling the cans of Diet Coke out as I spoke. “I have exactly three left.”

  Maggie glanced at her watch. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m about ready for some lunch.”

  “Me, too,” Rob said, after a big swig of his Coke, “but I’m curious enough right now to put lunch off just a little longer.”

  “Okay either way by me,” I said, watching Rob. He certainly was eager. Maggie grinned, her earlier irritability gone. “I’m more curious than hungry, I guess, so let’s finish what we’ve got.”

  Renewed by the fresh infusion of caffeine, we went back to work. Only three more entries were on my set of pages, and two were brief notes of Charlie’s recorded “meetings,” one between J and A, and another between J and W. The third made my tired eyes widen in surprise.

  Something must be rotten in the state of Texas concerning M’s dissertation. I overheard her yelling at J in his office today, to the effect that he didn’t dare not pass her. This bears investigation. Could she be one of his mistresses? J made an odd remark about PD, the saint whose virtues so disgust me, and that shut her up. She came rushing out of the office and nearly caught me listening. I wonder it there are any records of PD’s dissertation?

  The M had to be Margaret Wilford. She was the only one of Whitelock’s three remaining doctoral students whose initial was M. I puzzled over the PD for a moment, then recalled Dr. Logan’s tragic story about another of Whitelock’s students, Philip Dunbar, who had died under such sad circumstances.

  I glanced again at the final entry. What could Dunbar’s dissertation have to do with Margaret and a double murder? How was she involved, if at all? I reconsidered the details of the story Dr. Logan had told me, then sat bolt upright. Margaret, along with Selena, had been one of Dunbar’s closest friends. Surely close friends would have known something about extra copies of his work.

  But no copy had surfaced, oddly enough. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but the lack of a copy seemed strange. Most graduate students at the dissertation stage were obsessive, to say the least, about not letting anything happen to their work. Surely Dunbar would have had another copy somewhere.

  But not if Margaret had hidden it away, claiming it was lost, perhaps intending to use it, at a later date, as her own.

  I turned this thought around and around, and the more I considered it, the more attractive—and plausible—the idea was. According to Dr. Logan, Philip Dunbar and Julian Whitelock had not had much contact once Dunbar had reached the dissertation stage. Whitelock had been afraid of his brilliant student, who apparently had seen little reason to have his erstwhile advisor oversee his work through its various stages. Beyond Whitelock’s signature on the form that registered his topic with the university’s graduate studies committee, Dunbar could have avoided contact with his professor until the dissertation was ready for examination.

  As cantankerous as he could occasionally be, Whitelock wouldn’t have refused to pass his student’s dissertation, if the student was as brilliant as Dr. Farrar claimed. The other members of Dunbar’s committee wouldn’t have let Whitelock turn down a good dissertation if they felt it warranted their support. Besides, they probably would have welcomed the opportunity to score a few points off the old bastard. Whitelock hadn’t been any better liked by his peers than he had been by most of his students.

  It was possible that Whitelock hadn’t seen the dissertation and didn’t know much about it. Margaret could have hidden it away these four or five years, intending to claim it as her own work when a sufficient amount of time had passed.

  I knew little about the woman. She had been a graduate student long enough to pull it off, if that was indeed what she intended to do. By asking some discreet questions, perhaps I could discover just what the members of the history department had known about Dunbar’s dissertation.

  “Guys, you’re not going to believe some of this. It just gets curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.”

  Maggie and Rob looked up at me and frowned.

  “All right, all right,” I muttered. “I’ll wait till you’re finished.”

  I didn’t have to wait long. In less than ten minutes, Maggie had spread out our scribblings so that we could all see them. She and Rob sat together at the table, and I stood behind them and read over their shoulders.

  Eager to hear their reactions, I pointed first to the entry about M and the dissertation. “What do you think about this?” I waited while they read.

  “Damn!” Rob said. “Plagiarizing someone else’s work. Could that be what he was talking about? Who’s PD, by the way?”

  Briefly, I told them Dr. Logan’s story about Philip Dunbar and his missing dissertation.

  Maggie looked at Rob, then at me. “So you think Charlie found out that Margaret had a copy of the dissertation—if, indeed, she did have a copy?” she asked, the doubt strong in her voice. I nodded, and she continued. “So then Charlie would have threatened both of them, because if Margaret was going to try to pull this off, Whitelock must have known about it. Was she sleeping with him, too? Geez!”

  “So she murdered Charlie,” Rob summarized, “and then she killed Whitelock when he threatened to turn her in to the police. It sounds plausible to us, but do you think a jury would buy it? I mean, would they really accept scholarly theft as a motive for two cold-blooded murders?” He shook his head. “As opposed to inheriting a multimillion-dollar estate? I don’t know.”

  “I’ll admit it would probably sound a bit incredible to a lot of people, but a persuasive D.A. could make it stick,” I argued. “And, besides, most people probably think university types are strange anyway, and they might believe a psycho academic could do anything.”

  Maggie laughed. “And despite what people think, ‘psycho academic’ isn’t redundant.”

  “Okay, okay.” Rob held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Sorry.” I grinned. I indicated the rest of the pages. “So what else did we find?”

  Of the entries which Rob had deciphered, most were simple records of meetings between J and A. Azalea certainly seemed to be the companion of choice.

  One other entry was more interesting.

  A and B sought me out for
another conversation, in which A kept digging, trying to force me into giving myself away. This time, the remarks were more threatening in nature, but I mollified them, temporarily, with protestations of innocence. I gave A a rather silly clue to think about, and that should keep her mind busy for a while. I need to watch them more closely from now on.

  “Who are A and B?” Rob asked. “Is Bella or Bruce working with Azalea, for some ungodly reason? That one really gets me.”

  “Who knows?” Maggie shook her head. I could tell by the distaste in her voice that, although Bella irritated her, Maggie didn’t like to think she was connected with something this awful. “Maybe kinky sex just makes strange bedfellows, if you’ll allow me the pun.”

  Rob and I groaned.

  “Anyway,” Maggie continued, ignoring us and leafing through pages, “I’m not sure the rest of this is much help. At least now we can add Azalea, Wilda, and Margaret to the suspect list.”

  “How much of this journal did you print out, Rob?” I asked, thinking there must be more than the few pages we had.

  He watched me with narrowed eyes. “I printed everything in that subdirectory. It’ll take me a while to see whether there’s anything more on the hard drive and to go through all the floppies Charlie had.”

  A pretty neat evasion, I thought. Maybe he should be in law school instead. Maggie made a face. She knew how to use a computer, but she wasn’t terribly fond of anything mechanical. “Better you than me.” She stood up. “I’m ready to eat. How about if I run down to the grocery store and buy some stuff for lunch? It’s on me.”

  While Maggie was gone, Rob excused himself and went upstairs to his temporary bedroom. He didn’t reappear until Maggie returned half an hour later. We enjoyed the graduate student equivalent of the yuppie power lunch: ham sandwiches, potato chips, and more Diet Cokes.

  As I munched, I asked a question that had been puzzling me. “How did Charlie manage to make those videotapes?”

  Rob set down his sandwich and swallowed carefully. “I don’t know for sure,” he replied, “but I’ve been thinking about that too. You know Charlie did some house-sitting for Whitelock?”