1 Picking Lemons (5 page)

“Dunno. Before lunch, because I had lunch at home with Mildred yesterday. So I’d be guessing somewhere between eleven and midday.”

Walter nodded. If Charles were telling the truth, the ladder was leaning up against Edmund’s window, unattended, between one and two. Anyone could have used it to get in and out of Edmund’s office. “Why didn’t you take the ladder home with you?”

“Well, don’t be telling Mildred, but I got a touch of the vertigo while I was up
on the roof, so I couldn’t finish the job. So, I just left the ladder there, went home for lunch and rested there for the afternoon as I didn’t have any teaching yesterday and figured I’d just finish up the job today.”

Walter closed his eyes.
The feelings of Charles’s wife, Mildred, were the least of his concerns. Images of the elderly professor plunging to his death from the roof because of a vertigo attack flashed before him. That was just what he needed. The Dean, the Provost and the President would definitely want to meet again, if that were to happen.

“Charles,” Walter spoke slowly and loudly
. “Do not go on the roof again. You could fall off. Let me be clear why this is so important. The injuries you would sustain are inconsequential to me and almost everyone on the planet. The damage to my career, however, would be catastrophic. That is why you need to stay on
terra firma
.

“But,” Walter continued, transitioning smoothly into an effortless lie, “to make you feel better, I will make sure someone looks at those leaves. Today.”

Charles nodded and got up from the chair slowly. As he left the room he wondered why the Lord made such nasty people. He guessed the same reason the Lord made mosquitoes. As a little reminder that we no longer live in Eden. But it sure was comforting to know that his Creator had a plan for each and every one of the Walters on this earth, and the end for them wasn’t going to be pretty.

*****

Tuesday afternoon had begun to fade into an early dusk when the economics faculty, or to be precise, the available faculty, began to drift slowly in for what Walter Scovill had claimed in his email to be an “urgent and important faculty meeting.” While the economics faculty at Eaton University numbered over forty at full count, once you subtracted the emeritus, those with research grants, and those on sabbatical, only twenty or so were expected to be in Elm Grove for any given semester.

Gathering
Eaton’s great thinkers for any meeting was like herding megalomaniacal cats. Each professor proclaimed it was vital that the meeting start on time, but would then arrive whenever convenient to his or her individual schedule, often thirty to forty minutes after the proceedings were slated to begin. Important research or squash games, could not be delayed because of trivial details like student complaints, the university’s latest effort to rebrand itself as an elitist college accessible to the masses, provided, of course, that the masses had a spare $80,000 a year, or, as it turned out, the death of a colleague.

Today, Stephen strode into the conference room first, only minutes after the scheduled start time of five p
.m. His panic of earlier was gone. In its place was a confident man. Why should he skulk at the back with the junior professors? He, Stephen Choi, should have been awarded tenure. He damn well was going to sit up with the tenured professors where he belonged. What was the worst thing they could do? Fire him? Stephen snorted at the irony of it.

Walter walked in next. He was surprised to see the milkweed was sitting in the tenured faculty seating. A little Rosa Parks revolution in his final days? Well, he, Walter, was on a first name basis with the President of
Eaton University. He wasn’t going to demean himself by fighting about the location of Stephen Choi’s butt.

Walter noted with irritation that the entire faculty, excluding Stephen, was late. The fact he himself had just arrived almost twenty minutes after the hour did not lessen his irritation. It was understood that Walter’s time was invaluable. If he was not here, it was because he was somewhere else, attending to Very Important Business. Unlike his lesser colleagues, who just hadn’t learned the basic concepts of professional courtesy and punctuality.

With the suffering air of a middle school teacher on a hot Friday afternoon, Walter approached the front of the room and began to look over his notes. He would give them ten more minutes, and then he would begin the meeting, regardless of who was in attendance.

After just a few
more minutes, the room began to fill up. It appeared, unlike yesterday, at least three-quarters of the twenty or so available faculty would be in attendance today. Apparently Edmund was a bigger draw card dead than alive.

The seats were laid out in a giant horseshoe, and the junior faculty was sitting at the back, appropriately subordinate (except
, of course, for Stephen). The tenured were towards the front, laptops out. This gave the impression they didn’t have a minute to waste, an image somewhat tarnished by their frequent coffee breaks in the faculty lounge.

In truth,
faculty meetings were typically so boring that the hour was frequently spent catching up on correspondence, poking old friends on Facebook, or writing salacious emails with promises of what was to come later that evening to graduate students, research assistants, or, for the very lucky, nubile, young undergraduates. There had been a memorable six months when the younger gentlemen on the faculty had been addicted to World of Warcraft, raging wars while hunkered down in their offices throughout the day. This may have gone on indefinitely, or at least until the publication review panel met, except a faculty meeting had convened at an inopportune time. Undeterred, the bright young professors just brought their laptops with them. Cries of “oh, you dog” and “nooooo” gave the game away.

Jefferson came in, out of breath and dressed in very short running shorts and a why-bother singlet top, dripping with sweat and drinking anoth
er one of his vile looking smoothies. He took a seat on the right-hand side of the horseshoe, at the front, next to Stephen.

Really, that man is insufferable
, thought Walter.
How long does it take to towel off and put on a pair of pants? We get it. He has the body of Adonis. Not that big a deal. We all could look like that if we wanted to waste time at the gym.

Next stomped in Charles, hearing aid volume set at zero.

Nothing in this room worth the price of those darn expensive hearing aid batteries. Just a bunch of pussies wanting to hear themselves talk
, thought Charles irritably, as he settled into a seat on the left side of the horseshoe.

Charles was grumpy about not being home to watch
Wheel of Fortune
with Mildred and he wasn’t bothering to hide the fact. Ah well, at least he wasn’t going to miss his fivesies. Mildred, what a wonderful wife, had dropped off his gin and tonic in a little thermos. Might as well make the best of it and enjoy his cocktail hour and the legs of that nice C.J., if she came.

C.J. made the scene just before Walter’s deadline expired. Walter rolled his eyes at the sight of those dreadful cowboy boots. Surely it was only a matter of time before she got married to some cowboy hick and left to bake muffins. Please. Though, Walter admitted, it was tough to imagine the type of man
who would be willing to take on a woman like that.

C.J. grabbed an empty Styrofoam coffee cup from the back of the room, went straight to Charles, and yelled in his left ear so he could hear
, “Mama’s well is dry. Fill ‘er up, Pops.”

Too shocked to object, Charles poured half h
is G & T into C.J.’s coffee cup and was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek and a stolen glimpse down her blouse.

“Thanks
, darling. The drink was worth the price,” she said.

C.J. settled into a seat
on the right side of the horseshoe, towards the middle, took a satisfied swallow from the Styrofoam cup, and placed her long legs up on the desk in front of her, causing several of her colleagues to re-adjust uncomfortably in their seats. “Thanks for leaving that info about the position at UT Austin in my mailbox, Walt. But, you know, I love you more than a hog loves mud. So I guess I’ll just have to stay here.”

Professor Walter
Scovill closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He wasn’t picky. These were modern times. She didn’t have to marry anyone. He’d settle for the respite of maternity leave. Walter opened his eyes and gave his most ingratiating smile to the faculty. “Thank you for coming. I realize that your time is valuable,” he lied. Given the departmental publication rate for the last two years, Walter thought the time of about one-quarter of the people in front of him was valuable-ish, and the rest were disposable goods, but this wasn’t the time to get into that.

Walter knew the only thing these people were interested in was Edmund’s murder. Heck, that’s the only reason why half of them were here. He knew they had off-loaded their first week of teaching on
to their graduate students. “Just hand out the syllabus and show the kids the website.” Which didn’t actually worry Walter that much. Most of the students didn’t start class on the first day either, finding their flights “unavoidably delayed” in Belize or St Lucia or Tahiti. But, intrigued by the death of Edmund, it appeared his faculty had hurried, even rushed, back from their exotic vacations or “conferences,” a.k.a. university paid speed dating sessions. But Walter wasn’t going to pander to such weakness. He didn’t want to start by talking about Edmund. He was sick of talking about Edmund. Walter had an agenda, and he was going to stick to it. “The first item on today’s agenda is the hiring committee. They are going to give a report on their preliminary progress.”

The room fell completely and uncomfortably silent. There wasn’t even the clicking of a keyboard.
No one looked at Stephen. Everyone knew they were talking about hiring his replacement. Then the murmurings began.

C.J. just cut her eyes at Walter. Jerk. This matter could, and should, be handled at a meeting of the tenured
faculty, out of Stephen’s hearing.

Walter tried to regain control. Condescension to his colleagues was his favored method, though he was never above yelling. “Jefferson, I couldn’t hear you. Did you say something you wished to share?”

“I was just saying that I was glad that I wasn’t on the hiring committee, as their workload has doubled. I assume we are going to hire a replacement for Edmund’s position.”

Chatter broke out among the room again.

“Do you think the killer will strike again?”

“Are we all at risk?”

“Do you think we could get that guy from Harvard, if we got him a bodyguard as well?”

“I think there is an up and coming grad student at Stanford we should look at.”

C.J. said a silent thank-you to Jefferson for drawing the attention away from Stephen.

Peter Johansson stood up
and finally quieted the room with a series of restrained coughs. Peter Johansson was a graying man in his early fifties, with a disconcerting habit of rubbing his balding head as if searching for his lost follicles. His befuddled demeanor often gave the impression of a kindly soul. However, like most economists, Peter Johansson viewed kindness as an input, a means of achieving his own agenda.

“Umm. So, for tho
se of you who don’t know, I am Chair of the Hiring Committee. Despite having met several times over the summer, we have only just begun the process of the search for the new junior faculty member. It seems industrial organization professors just study organization. I don’t seem to have the quality of organization myself.”

Peter chuckled at his little joke.
No one else did. Peter massaged his scalp but finding no hair continued self-consciously. “Umm. Yes. Well, as I was saying, there isn’t much to report. As for a second position, clearly, we have to see what the budget is for Edmund’s position and, umm, the risk averseness of the candidate.”

Again
, Peter gave a little chuckle.

Snickers of laughter reluctantly broke out around the room. It wasn’t clear if they were laughing at th
e appalling microeconomics joke or the idea that the next hire would also die. Though, it soon became apparent where the focus of the room was.

People threw out suggestions of colleagues
whom they didn’t like who should be offered the position. One person asked if the department could offer the position to his wife, as his divorce was costing him a packet. Others, irritated by the graduate students they had to supervise, offered them up as bait. Jefferson observed dryly that his sympathy for the hiring committee was perhaps misplaced. It seemed there were plenty of candidates.

Walter banged his fist on the desk, trying to call the meeting back to order.
“Let’s hope the hiring committee has more progress to report next time,” Walter said acidly. “I am sure they don’t want to have to increase their teaching loads to cover the shortfall. The second agenda item is who is going to teach the Econ 101 class, which is now unexpectedly without a professor. The class takes place on Mondays and Wednesdays at nine a.m. Any volunteers?”

Now the room was deathly quiet.
No one berated Walter for not mentioning that the class was without a professor because that professor had been murdered. To do so might draw unwanted attention and, therefore, the responsibility of teaching the class. Instead, people looked intently at their computer screens, studied their cuticles, seemed fascinated to discover they had shoelaces, and were amazed by the number of wrinkles on the backs of their hands.