Death by Dissertation

by Dean James

  “Goodness, Andy,” Ruth’s voice broke through my chaotic thoughts. “You look dumbstruck. What does this mean?"

  I felt I owed her the truth. As the person who would have to sign off on the dissertation, Ruth would be in a difficult position if Dan’s work was proven to be plagiarism. But I wasn’t completely certain what the truth was. I had to have a little time to assimilate this new information and review my obviously flawed reconstruction of events.

  “Well,” I said shakily, “at the very least, I should tell you there’s a good chance Dan’s dissertation isn’t his work.”

  “That’s a serious accusation,” Ruth warned. “What proof do you have?”

  I looked at her for a long moment, and I saw the concern—and the fear— in her eyes. Spotting a pad of paper and a pen on her desk, I reached over and picked them up. I started scribbling while she watched with growing irritation and concern.

  “I’m going to give you a citation,” I told her as I wrote, “to an article you should check out. You read it, compare it to Dan’s work, then you tell me.” I handed the piece of paper over to her, and she examined what I had written.

  Ruth studied my face, as comprehension dawned in her eyes. She had known Dunbar, and she was certainly astute enough to make the connection.

  She slumped back in her chair. “I thought there was something vaguely familiar about that chapter on Asser’s Life of Alfred."

  “Look, Ruth.” I leaned forward in my chair. “I think I’ve finally got it figured out, and I’ll talk with the campus police when I’m ready. Then they can handle it. I don’t want to run the risk of getting anyone, you and me included, in trouble.”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right about turning it over to the police, but I’m still having trouble understanding why a dissertation could be a motive for murder. It’s by far the best work by a graduate student that I’ve read, but is it worth killing for?” She shook her head.

  “I know it all seems like a bizarre nightmare,” I said, “but I believe this is the key to the whole thing. After all, a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard is riding on this work.”

  Ruth nodded. I could see that, against her will, she was coming to believe in the truth and strength of Dan’s motives for murder.

  “The only thing I can’t figure out,” I said, “is how he got hold of it. According to the story I heard, nobody could find a copy.”

  “If I remember correctly,” she said slowly, “they were sharing an apartment.” That clinched it, as far as I was concerned.

  I stood up. “Please don’t say a word about this to anyone, except maybe Maggie or Rob. I’m going down to my carrel to wait for them. I want to talk this through with them first, before we talk to the police.” I grinned to reassure her, and myself as well. “Maybe, by tomorrow, this whole thing will be over.”

  Ruth shook her head. “It won’t be quite that easy, but I’ll do as you suggest.” She shot me a look. “And you be very, very careful until you talk to the police. Thank God I don’t have an appointment with Dan today or tomorrow.” She shivered. “Maybe I ought to go home and lock all the doors and close the blinds, or maybe I should just lock myself in here.”

  Both sounded like good suggestions, I said, and I promised that I would be careful. When I left, Ruth was still shaking her head, staring at the piece of paper I had written upon. The hallway outside her office was quiet as I made my way to the stairs. Down on the fourth floor, I headed to my carrel.

  I switched on the light and sat down. Staring at the postcards of cathedrals, I wondered where Maggie and Rob were. There was no note on my carrel, so I supposed they hadn’t made it to campus yet. If I headed home, I’d probably miss them. Surely they were on their way.

  I tried to focus on the implications of what Ruth had told me. I unlocked the desk drawer in my carrel and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and began to jot down notes.

  Dan was the one who had stolen Dunbar’s work. Ruth should be able to confirm that partially, once she compared Dan’s dissertation to Dunbar’s article. After that, it would be up to the police to connect Dan to the murders. Would they believe that he would kill just so he could pass off someone else’s dissertation as his own?

  I had no idea what kind of evidence the police had, like time of death and forensics, but perhaps they had something which could link Dan if they were aware of his motives. Up till now, the police had no reason to connect him to the scene of the crime.

  Then I cursed myself for an idiot. I had played right into Dan’s hands. I had tried to be magnanimous and honorable, to allow him the time to go to the police on his own, because I had been certain that Margaret was the thief. There was no telling what Dan could be up to now. An hour earlier, I had seen him upstairs, and then he had gotten away from me quickly. He could be headed for the airport now to catch a flight to anywhere.

  Should I call Herrera and tell him everything? Would he think I was a crazy, interfering busybody, still trying to deflect attention away from Rob and myself?

  I had a sudden prickling at the nape of my neck, as if someone was watching me. I stuck my head out of my carrel and looked up and down the stacks. I didn’t see anything, and all I could hear was the hum of the lights. Trying to control my nerves, I settled into my chair again.

  Dan had manipulated me so easily. He had told me a convincing story of seduction and blackmail, which had steered me completely away from his real motive. I didn’t know if Dan had told me the truth about his relationship with Charlie, but the story had definitely served its purpose. I had set him aside as a viable suspect, despite the fact that he had told me he was at the scene of Charlie’s death. I decided to call Herrera and tell him what I knew—or was it what I thought I knew?

  A dark shape fell across my desk, startling me, and I almost banged my head on the metal shelf behind me.

  “Thank God you’re finally here,” I said quietly to Maggie and Rob, my heart hammering away in my chest. “You startled me, but, boy, am I glad to see you.” I got up and peered through the stacks at Dan’s carrel and was relieved to see it dark.

  Rob pulled a chair from the carrel next to mine, and Maggie perched on the edge of my desk. Sensing my excitement, she asked, “Okay, Andy, what’s going on?”

  I described my conversations with Dan Erickson, Dr. Farrar, and Ruth McClain. As I related Dan’s story, I could see the distaste in Rob’s face and something I couldn’t identify in Maggie’s. Maybe Dan hadn’t been making up everything he told me; obviously there was something to my speculations earlier about his ambiguous sexuality. Perhaps Maggie would enlighten us once I finished.

  The telling of my fact-gathering took about thirty minutes, and neither Maggie nor Rob interrupted. I had to remember to keep my voice down so that I didn’t broadcast to the whole fourth floor. By the time I got to my conversation with Ruth, I was hoarse and my throat longed for water.

  “Well, Andy,” Rob replied, “I have to hand it to you. I think you’re right. Dan has to be the murderer. If he’s trying to pass off someone else’s work as his own, then he might be willing to kill to keep it a secret. If anyone accused him of plagiarism, he would lose any chance of being considered by Harvard.”

  Maggie nodded. “I agree with Rob. I don’t think any of us would pass up a chance like that easily.” She paused, and a shadow passed briefly across her face. “Besides, from what Dan told me, he had it pretty rough growing up in Boston, and Harvard represents something very important to him.”

  I wanted to ask her what she thought about the validity of Dan’s story about Charlie, but I couldn’t rake up the nerve to do it. Almost as if reading my mind, however, Rob jumped in.

  “You know,” he said, “I never knew about any connection between him and Charlie, but I did wonder if Dan was gay. Then, when Maggie started dating him last year, I decided I was wrong. But from what you’ve told us, Andy, I guess I was right all along.”

  I glanced quickly at Maggie. She nodded. “That’s why Dan a
nd I went out only twice,” she said. “I picked up on a lot of uncertainty from him. Plus, I caught him cruising other guys. I decided that I didn’t want to go through all that with him, no matter how attractive he was.”

  The story Dan had told me that morning could very well have been the truth. That simply intensified his motives in murdering Charlie. He needed to keep quiet the fact that he was plagiarizing someone else’s work, and on top of that he was humiliated and angry over the way Charlie had treated him. Whitelock had gotten caught in the crossfire, though I in no way considered him blameless.

  I couldn’t help but believe that Whitelock knew that Dan’s dissertation was really the work of Dunbar. But in Whitelock’s eyes, the fact that his doctoral student was heading off to a fellowship at Harvard more than compensated for the immorality of the situation.

  Seeing that Maggie and Rob were waiting for me to say something, I quickly said aloud what I had just been thinking, and they agreed with me.

  “But now what are we going to do?” Maggie asked. “Shouldn’t we be on the phone to Herrera right now?”

  Both Rob and I nodded vigorously. “Now that we’ve talked it through,” I replied, “and neither of you thinks I’m crazy, then I feel better about calling Herrera. He can track Dan down and settle this whole thing.”

  I stood up, and Rob shifted his chair. I looked out into the stacks and caught a glimpse of blond hair and the flash of a long-sleeved shirt. Someone was hiding and listening to us. I nudged Maggie and nodded toward the spot. Casually, she stood and took a step to the left, where she was in a position to see down the aisle.

  She tensed, and Rob and I watched, immobilized. We could hear the thump of footsteps on the worn linoleum as someone started running through the stacks, away from us. It was Dan, and he had been listening, for who knew how long.

  “After him,” Rob said as he began to run.

  Maggie reacted immediately, cutting through the stacks to my right, in the direction of the front staircase on the south side of the building, trying to head Dan off before he could get out.

  I felt frozen to the spot as I watched Maggie and Rob rocket off on the chase. Then I got my legs in gear and followed Rob. Once my legs started functioning, my brain did the same, and I suddenly had an idea where Dan might be headed, if Rob hadn’t managed to head him off at the pass, so to speak.

  The eastern end of the floor had a staircase rarely used by students because of its inconvenient location and poor lighting. It had been the scene of an attempted rape several years earlier. The convenient feature of this staircase— convenient at least for Dan’s purposes, I thought grimly—was an emergency exit in the basement entrance. He could get out that way, rather than through the front door.

  Ahead of me, Rob suddenly veered off through the stacks, and I thought he must have seen something, but I couldn’t believe that Dan would run around in circles on the fourth floor. I had almost reached the door to the stairs, and I pounded the last few steps to it. If Rob needed me, he’d give a holler. In my flight, I had barely had time to notice that a few carrels were occupied. Wonder what their occupants thought about this race through the stacks?

  I yanked open the door to the stairway and stepped inside. Over my own heavy breathing, I could hear feet running lightly somewhere down below me. They had to belong to Dan. I yelled, “Stairs, Rob!”

  Then I was off at breakneck speed. Though my face was streaming with sweat and my glasses had begun to slide, I managed, by some minor miracle, to keep them on. One hand on my glasses and one hand on the railing, I almost flew down the steps, my feet barely touching the treads.

  When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I had so much momentum that I couldn’t stop, and I literally hit the door. If Dan wasn’t already out of the building, he certainly knew that someone was behind him. I jerked the door open and plunged into the murky shadows of the basement.

  I paused to get my bearings. The door from the stairs opened onto a small room maybe tour feet square. Opposite the stairway door was an opening out into the basement stacks. To my right was another opening; this one led down a short hallway with storerooms off either side. At the end of the hallway was the emergency exit.

  I peered through the dim light to the end of the short hallway. The exit sign glowed feebly in the gloom, and I could see a bunch of boxes piled in front of the door. The fire department wouldn’t like that. Certainly this wasn’t the first time the building had failed to come up to code, but for once I wasn’t complaining.

  My breath quickened again. Those boxes in front of the door meant that Dan was still inside somewhere. He might have had time to get out of this hallway and out into the basement stacks, but he couldn’t run up the stairs to the first floor. Maggie was surely there by now, and I figured she’d probably had someone call the police. Dan must realize that he couldn’t get out that way.

  I took a deep breath and began moving cautiously down the dark hallway. The storage rooms didn't have doors, and their openings were shrouded in the dark. I stuck to the center of the hallway, which was only about five feet wide, and tried to listen for sounds ot movement or breathing.

  I heard nothing as I moved closer and closer to the pile of boxes in front of the emergency exit. As I stood next to the pile, I thought I heard a sound behind me. Someone grabbed my left arm and twisted it savagely behind my back. My glasses almost flew off my head from the impact.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Pain shot through my arm and nearly took my breath away. I tried to turn to get a look at Dan’s face, but he twisted my arm brutally, and I gave up. His ragged breathing matched my own.

  We stood there for a moment, then Dan forced me into one of the storage rooms. Once we got past the darkness of the doorway and into the interior of the room, I could see the glimmerings of light from windows high on the wall. He pushed me up against the wall underneath one of the windows, and there was enough illumination to see his face and the room around us. He let go of me, and I subsided against a shelf, rubbing my arm, which had gone numb from the force of Dan’s grip.

  Full bookshelves lined the walls, and I could see boxes of more books in the floor, but a wide swath through the center of the room was clear. Just about anything could happen, and no one would notice for a while. There was little chance that anyone would come along to interrupt whatever Dan was planning to do. Unless, I prayed fervently, Rob had heard me and followed me down the stairs.

  “Why did you have to stick your nose in all this, Andy?” Dan asked abruptly. He stood in front of me, muscular and threatening.

  I no longer had the energy to try to knock him out of the way and run for it. “Did you really think Rob and I were going to sit still and let either one of us be arrested for murder?” I said, my voice raspy from all the talking I had done earlier and from the exertion of the chase down the stairs. I swallowed, but that didn’t help much. “I’m afraid it’s too late to go back now. You’re not going to get very far if you run. You know that. Maggie and Rob have seen to it that the police are on the way.”

  I wondered what was running through Dan’s mind. Maybe he had reached the point where he just didn’t care. I was praying that I could talk him out of doing something I’d regret. Besides, unless the police had strong evidence to link him to the crimes, who knew whether a jury would convict him on the motives and evidence I had ascribed to him?

  “If you hadn’t been so damned nosy,” Dan said furiously, “no one would ever have connected me with this. And they didn’t have enough real evidence to make a charge stick against you or Rob.”

  “Maybe not,” I responded. I stared at him through the murky light, trying to decide whether I had regained enough strength and energy to try to knock him out of the way. As I peered at him, over his shoulder I could see someone hovering in the doorway of the room. Rob was quietly sneaking up with a large book in his hands.

  Dan stared at me, his eyes full of hatred. “You don’t know what I’ve been through, what it took fo
r me to get this far, and now you’re ready to take it all away. Just like they did.”

  Chilled, I realized that by “they” he meant Charlie Harper and Julian Whitelock. “Did it mean so much to you that you had to kill them?” I asked as gently as I could.

  “You’d never understand,” he said. “Everything I ever wanted, about to fall out of my hands, because Charlie couldn’t leave me alone. He deserved what he got, dammit. He pushed me too far, once and for all.” Dan seemed to have forgotten me, and I was afraid he’d sense Rob sneaking up on him if I didn’t do something.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” I said in as calm a tone as I could muster, “is how you could live with yourself, knowing that you stole the work of a dead man. How could you do it?”

  He laughed bitterly. “A hell of a lot of good it was going to do him, wasn’t it? He didn’t need a good job or a good reputation. I needed it. So I took it.”

  I was chilled by the sheer, brutal self-interest of his actions. “Was he that much better than you, Dan?” I had to keep him distracted for a moment longer; Rob was getting closer. “Did you hate him because he was brilliant and you aren’t? What will you do when Harvard finds out?”

  I had gone too far. Before I could stop him, he had his hands around my throat, squeezing the dickens out of my vocal cords, trying to bang my head against the shelves behind me, all the while screaming at me.

  I was beginning to have trouble with my vision as I struggled to loosen Dan’s hands from around my neck. I caught a glimpse of Rob, who became a blur of motion in the dim light. At the last second, Dan sensed there was someone behind him, but he realized it too late. The heavy book in Rob’s hands connected with Dan’s head. The crack of head against book was so loud, I thought his skull must surely be fractured.

  He toppled sideways to the floor, and I slumped against the wall, rubbing my throat gently with my right hand and the back of my head with my left. Rob dropped the book on Dan’s head for insurance. After the second loud whack, Dan was out cold.