Beer Money (A Burr Ashland Mystery) (4 page)

I jotted down the date and time Emily said she'd met with Tim, pounded my beer, then stood to go. It wasn't the kind of information I'd been looking for. I felt cold inside. I thought I would learn about plots against Tim, that the mystery would unfold easily. Instead, I wondered if part of the mystery was Tim. I didn't like that one single bit.

“I’ll see you around, Em.”

She nodded and acted if she wanted to tell me something else. Her face was slack, her eyes cloudy. It was that, or the cigarette smoke.

I let myself out, started up the Audi and backed out of the driveway. Emily watched me from the front window.

Eight

"Michael Ashland?"

"Yes," I said.

The voice on the other end was a man with a high-pitched voice. He spoke quickly.

"This is William Vanderkin...ah...I'm a history professor at Marquette. I was a colleague of Tim Bantien's."

I forced myself to focus. Another rough night. The beers at Emily’s had just been the start. I’d stopped for a twelve pack of Point, then demolished most of it once I’d gotten home. Now, my tongue felt thick, my mouth dry. "Uh-huh."

"I was wondering if we could talk," he said. "Maybe this morning before I leave for the Christmas break? “

"Okay,” I said. “In an hour?"

"My office is in Coughlin Hall."

"I know it."

We hung up and I went into the bathroom. Started the shower and stripped. Under the hot water, I searched my memory for any mention of William Vanderkin. I vaguely remembered Tim talking about a Vanderkin in his department. Or was it Van Dressen? If I was correct, Tim had said he was an asshole.

It took me about a half-hour to shower, shave and dress before I was on my way to Marquette's campus.

It was one of those beautifully sunny winter mornings. The kind that fools you into thinking it's warmer than it really is. Where you step outside and the cold hits you like a sucker punch courtesy of Mother Nature.

I took the 13th street exit, passed back under the freeway, and drove into the Marquette campus. The university is in a strange area, smack dab between the business district and some of the hard ghettos in Milwaukee. It wasn't uncommon to see students walking side-by-side with gangbangers and winos.

The history department, in Coughlin Hall, sat on the edge of the block, a stone's throw from I-94.

Finding a parking space was unusually easy. I parked, hurried through the cold and was glad that the front doors were unlocked. I made my way to Vanderkin's office. It was easy. Tim's office had been in the same building. I felt my mood darken.

I checked the directory near the history department's main office, and saw that Vanderkin's office was in 305. I walked up two flights of stairs, the light stale and yellow as it poured through tall windows at the top of the stairs. I went down the long, tiled hallway until I came to an old wooden door with cheap decals. Prof. William Vanderkin.

I knocked on the door.

"It's open."

The office was small, with an L-shaped desk dominating the space. Bookshelves lined the walls and were jammed to overflowing. What books didn't fit on the shelves were piled on the floor in towering stacks.

William Vanderkin sat at the desk, typing on his computer. A Styrofoam cup of coffee sat to the left of his keyboard.

He turned and looked me over.

"Mr. Ashland, I presume," he said, then stood and extended his hand. He was a bit shorter than my six-one, but he was wider, with a narrow waist and thick shoulders. He wore a sweater, jeans and hiking boots. His grip was firm and he smiled easily. He had clear blue eyes and blonde hair, brushed lightly at the sides with gray. His face was all sharp angles and smooth skin. He'd pulled a hat trick in the looks department: handsome, distinguished and slightly rugged.

"Mr. Vanderkin," I answered.

"You'll pardon the mess," he said. "But I've had so much work to do; grading papers, preparing a paper to be published..." his voice trailed off. "I guess housekeeping hasn't been my utmost priority." His smile revealed perfect white teeth. He cleared books off the visitor's chair, gestured for me to sit. I did. He went back to his desk chair, swiveled it so he was facing me, then sat.

I decided I didn't want to hear anything else about his schedule. So I got right to the point. "You wanted to talk about Tim Bantien?"

He nodded his head.

"How did you get my name?" I asked.

"Tim mentioned you often." He gave me a big, phony smile that was designed to make me feel good. It did just the opposite. "You were friends, right?" he asked.

"We went to school together," I answered evenly.

"And I seem to recall Tim saying that you are a... a private detective, right?"

"Were you and Tim close? Like I said, I don't remember him mentioning your name."

I crossed my leg casually, my foot millimeters from a tall, wobbly stack of books.

He laughed, a hollow sound that reminded me of a politician being caught breaking a campaign promise.

"Well," he said, "Tim and I were competitors, but in my mind, it was always a friendly competition. To be honest, I'm not sure how Tim viewed our relationship. I always considered him a friendly rival, and there was never a...a lack of respect between the two of us. Whenever we needed each other, whether it was to help out with research, or read through a synopsis, we were always eager to help out." He spread out his hands. "At least I was," he said. "Maybe Tim felt differently. He was sometimes hard to read."

I tried to ignore the feeling I was getting that Vanderkin didn't mind speaking of Tim in the past tense.

"The willingness we had to help each other out was kind of the reason I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Ashland," he said. He waited for me to say, 'please, call me Michael.' I kept him waiting.

"If there's anything I can do to help you tie up Tim's loose ends, I'd be happy to help out,” he said. “I'll probably also be taking over some of his classes, completing a project or two. I believe the best way to honor his passing would be to carry on his work to some degree." He spread his big hands in a gesture of supplication.

"I'd love to help you out, but Tim didn't really discuss his work with me," I said. "I'm not much of an academic. I’m more of what you’d call a… whore for commerce."

This time, the chagrin on Vanderkin's face was genuine.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

Suddenly, his face brightened.

"Tell you what, if you want, if you think Tim would approve, give me whatever files and documents, whatever you might come across in the next week or two, and I'll help you figure out what best to do with them."

"Anything in particular you want me to look for, Professor Vanderkin?" I asked, barely managing to keep the antagonism out of my voice.

"No. No, nothing particular. Just trying to help out you know."

I nodded. "I really must be going..." I said, and uncrossed my leg. My foot caught the edge of the stack of books in front of me, and I sent them crashing to the floor. They, in turn, knocked over Vanderkin's brown leather briefcase which spilled its contents onto the office's tile floor.

One of the items that fell out was Vanderkin's wallet. It was a thick bi-fold and when it landed, it landed open.

Just before Vanderkin scooped it up from the floor, I got a quick glimpse of the photo in the wallet's first plastic picture sleeve.

I stood, stepped past the edge of his desk and started picking the books up.

"That's quite all right, Mr. Ashland. Thank you," Vanderkin said quickly. He put the wallet back in the briefcase and used his foot to push the books aside.

He turned to face me, and stuck out his hand, indicating our session was over.

"Good luck,'" I said and shook his hand, which was warm and slick with sweat.

I stepped into the hallway and breathed slowly, letting the tension work itself out of my body. I clenched and unclenched my hands, a movement that barely lessened my desire to choke the living shit out of William Vanderkin.

The corridor led to a door, which opened out onto a stairwell. I took the stairs up to the fourth floor, where Tim's office had been.

My mind was racing, wondering what Vanderkin had to do with Tim's death.

I had found a motive. A good reason why William Vanderkin would have wanted Tim killed. In fact, not only was the motive feasible, it had been put on arrogant display in Vanderkin's wallet.

It was a picture of Emily Lyons.

Tim Bantien's ex-wife.

Nine

I left Vanderkin’s office, climbed another set of stairs, and stood in front of Tim's office door. I produced the narrow strip of metal that I always carried in my wallet.

I pushed aside the crime scene tape and slipped the jimmy into the keyhole of the ancient wooden door. I looked at the glass before me. Dr. Timothy Bantien, it read.

I felt around inside, then withdrew the jimmy from the lock, gave it a slight crimp about an eighth of an inch from the end, then slipped it back in. This time, with a slight twist of the wrist, the lock clicked open and I slipped inside Tim's old office.

The smell of old books washed over me along with the memories.

I closed the door behind me and locked it, then slipped the jimmy back into my wallet.

The office was bigger than Vanderkin's, nearly a perfect square with a window directly across from the door. Tim had pushed his desk up against the wall, beneath the window, with his computer on the center of the desk. That way he could type and look over the monitor out his window while he worked.

On many occasions, I had come to see him and as I stood in the open doorway, I would see Tim, his hands clasped behind his head, fingers interlocked, staring out the window into the sky.

The wall to the left was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, all of the tomes arranged neatly and in alphabetical order. I sat in the visitor's chair, suddenly overwhelmed by sadness. I imagined him sitting in his chair, turning and looking at me through his thick glasses, talking about some obscure item he'd dug up in an old journal somewhere, or asking me about a case I was working on.

I stood and went to Tim's desk, then sat down in his chair. The computer was an old Macintosh. I looked for the power button on the keyboard to turn the machine on, but couldn't find it. Then I remembered that the older Macs had a power switch at the back. I felt around the back. Found it. I was about to turn it on when I heard a whisper of movement behind me. I froze, listening.

Someone was standing just outside the door. And I cursed myself; if I was going to nose around, and begin questioning the circumstances of my good friend's death, it was time to carry something more than a wallet and car keys.

Slowly, the doorknob began to turn. I relaxed. If they didn't have a key, they weren't going to get in.

The doorknob hit the lock and stopped, then slowly turned back as whoever it was relaxed their grip.

They stood there for a moment longer and I debated about throwing the door open to confront them, but decided against it. I had a pretty good idea who it was. I heard the footsteps leave, eventually fading to nothing.

I turned back to the computer and flipped it on. As it powered up, I opened Tim's desk drawers. I looked at the mess inside, the papers jammed into small piles of disorganization. I knew instantly that the desk had been searched. He’d always kept his desk neat and organized, the antithesis of the harried, eggheaded professor.

By now, the computer had warmed up and the screen appeared before me, a neat row of folders on the right hand side. I double clicked on the first one and scanned the contents, then closed it and repeated the process for all of the folders. Nothing in there but treatises, lecture notes and articles. I double clicked on the hard drive, and searched through that but found nothing.

I located the Find File command and typed in the words "Personal" and hit search. After several moments, the answer came up: no documents found. I tried the same technique with the words 'confidential,' and 'private,' all with the same result.

I went up to the menu bar to see if Tim had a feature called Recent Documents that does just what it sounds like it should do: it catalogs the most recent documents opened on the desktop.

There was one document listed.

It was called 'Beer Money.'

I highlighted it, and the computer showed me where it was located; buried within several increasingly obnoxious names such as 'order forms,' 'index file' and 'cross-referenced tabs.'

I pulled a zip drive out of my pocket, plugged it into the computer’s USB port, and copied the files onto it, then ejected it from the desktop. I powered down the computer, then sat at the desk for a few more minutes.

This was where my friend had wound up. We'd know each other since we were kids, had gone to high school together, then college. Tim had always loved history. Loved talking about it. Studying it. Immersing himself in it. And eventually, he had loved making a career out of it. He had dedicated his life to it, and now that life was over.