Failure is Fatal (21 page)

“C'mere, Sam. I've got to dry you off a bit.” I awkwardly got down on my knees and dried Sam's feet, legs and underbelly with the towel I kept by the door. “You're starved, I know. So am I.”

I explored the cupboard. “You'll eat and I won't, unless I want to join you in a can of dog food.”

Finally, at the back of the cupboard I found a can of tomato puree. Some pasta and a bit of onion, and it would be Italian night.

Seated later in front of the fire with a plate of spaghetti on my lap, most of it untouched, and my injured foot elevated onto a stack of floor pillows in front of me, my mind wandered over the events of the last few weeks. Why had someone, probably the murderer, chosen to play with my research, warn me off first with a note after breaking into my lab, and then run me down with a car? I knew the questions, but not the answers, and like Der, I was beginning to feel down about this case. I yawned and looked up the stairs.

I called to Sam; she arose from in front of the fire and headed toward the door. As I let her out into the yard, I looked up at the clock over the fridge. Eleven p.m. Sam began to bark in the yard. I heard a car slow down and then stop. Sam's barking grew more frantic. I turned on the light outside the door and stuck my head out.

“Sam! Come.” She obediently ran up to me, hair on the back of her neck standing on end. I stepped out onto the walk and grabbed her collar.

A car door closed, and a figure appeared at the end of the walkway. Was I stupid to come outside to check? I held my cell in my hand, ready to punch in 9-1-1.

“Dr. Murphy. Is it okay for us to come in?” someone called from the shadows. “It's Rachel and Tanya, your research assistants.”

“It's okay, girl,” I said to Sam. “Friends.” Sam looked delighted at the news, picked up one of her sticks beside the door and pranced down the drive to meet the visitors with play in mind.

“Come on in. What are you doing out here and at this time of night?”

I showed them into the kitchen where I gestured toward the hooks inside the door for their coats.

“Coffee?”

“No thanks. Please sit down. We heard about your latest mishap today. You shouldn't be walking around on that foot, you know,” Tanya said. Rachel merely nodded her agreement. “We know it's late, but we figured you'd still be up. You always said you weren't a morning person,” Tanya continued.

“So we took a chance,” Rachel said.

“Let's sit in the living room in front of the fire.” The fire was still high in the stove and cast a cheery light over the room.

“This is great,” said Tanya. She settled into the sofa. Sam looked into her face as if confirming her doggy sense that this was someone who could be manipulated into play.

“She's picked you as the one she thinks most likely to play with her. Just ignore her.”

“How can I? She's so loveable, though she seemed so fierce when we pulled up.” Tanya ruffled the fur on Sam's chest and petted her head. “It took us a while to find your place. Paula told us how to get here. She'd been here last spring, but her directions were pretty vague. We've been kind of driving around for a while.”

“Well, that, and it took you a long time to decide to come, you know,” said Rachel.

“I thought this could wait until after Thanksgiving, when Dr. Murphy was in better shape,” Tanya said. The tension between the two young women was new to me. Their very different natures usually seemed to complement one another. Now it was obvious that something was amiss.

“Tell her,” said Rachel.

“I'll be right back.” Tanya arose and ran out the door toward the car. Several minutes later she appeared with a large box in her hands. Rachel opened the door and helped Tanya maneuver the burden into the living room. They placed it on the carpet in front of me.

“I received a notice from the campus mail center today that there was a box too large for my campus mailbox being held in the main office. We went down to claim it late this afternoon.”

“I don't understand.” I looked at the box with curiosity. It was already open; the top flaps were loose. I turned my head to be able to see the return address, but the light from the fire was too dim for reading.

“It was sent to her from Ryan Cleates, the other day. You tell her the rest.” Rachel turned toward her sister.

“There was a note to me inside. Ryan said he was leaving for a while, and he needed to store some of his stuff, but that he couldn't trust the guys in the house to take care of it. So he was entrusting it to me. Then he wrote the funniest thing in the note.” At this point she handed the note to me. I took the paper and leaned closer to the fire to see the writing. It was as Tanya described it. The final line read: “If anything happens to me, get this stuff to Dr. Murphy. She'll know what to do with it.”

“No one seems to know where Ryan is. It's just creepy. I didn't know what to do. Ryan and I barely knew one another—just an evening when I attended a frat party he was at and a few conversations on campus. We had one class together, and we talked sometimes after class, but I didn't really think of him as a close friend. Why would he send me his things?”

“I don't think he really had many friends. You were probably as nice to him as anyone he'd ever met, perhaps with the exception of Marie.”

“He knew Marie Becca?” Tanya was shocked.

“But what's even more important, I think, is his request that this be turned over to you, if anything happens to him. I wanted Tanya to get this to you as soon as possible. Why wait until after Thanksgiving?” Rachel turned accusing eyes on her sister. Now I saw the source of the tension between the two—Tanya's desire to spare me because of my injury and Rachel's acknowledgment that I needed to know about the note now. I smiled to myself. Rachel might be the shy one, but there was a boldness in that quiet manner that I had to respect.

“Have you looked at the contents of the box?” I asked of the two.

Compatibility established once more, the two answered together, “No.”

“I think you were right to leave the contents as they were, and I'm glad you decided to bring this out to me. I'm not going to look in there until I call Detective Pasquis and let him know what you brought me.”

“Does that mean we can't see what's in there?” said Rachel.

“It was addressed to me,” Tanya said.

I considered Tanya's statement. It was technically her property, and Der certainly would want her permission to go through the box. I admired the young women's restraint in not examining the contents and their initiative in bringing it to me. I knew they were curious and had every right to be.

“I'll tell you what. I'll call the detective now, and we'll set up a meeting here for sometime tomorrow so that we can examine what Ryan sent to you.” I punched Der's contact into my cellphone. He answered on the third ring and sounded wide awake even though it was close to midnight.

“Okay, Murphy, what trouble are you in now, and how did you manage to get into it on crutches?”

I ignored his comments and explained about the box that Rachel and Tanya delivered to me.

“Tomorrow morning at your place, then,” Der said.

“Can we make it afternoon? I know Tanya and Rachel need some sleep and so do I. They have to drive back into town yet tonight, and I have a luncheon engagement tomorrow.”

“You're going out for lunch tomorrow? You're not supposed to be on that foot, you know.”

I explained about my arrangement for lunch with Lottie at the house.

“Tomorrow at three, then? We can skip the morning donuts,” he said.

I held the receiver away from my ear and called to Tanya and Rachel, “Three tomorrow okay?” They both nodded.

“Can I trust you not to rummage around in that box between now and then or do I have to send someone out to the house to guard it?” Der said. I hung up without a reply.

Sam accompanied Rachel and Tanya to their car while I remained on the couch, staring at the box still positioned at my feet. I reached out to lift back a flap, but I heard Der's voice in my ear admonishing me to keep my hands off. I ignored it, peeled back all four of the flaps and looked in. Sam barked at the door wanting to be let in and stopping me from what I was about to do—exactly what Der told me not to do. I closed the flaps and grabbed my crutches. Ten minutes later Sam lay beside me on the bed, sleeping soundly. I, on the other hand, was wide awake, the virtue of denying myself access to the contents of the box battling with my yearning to know what Ryan so obviously thought I needed to know.

Chapter 18

Lottie was punctual. I unwrapped a gigantic sandwich from the deli and began to eat it.

After several bites, I leaned back onto the couch where we decided to have our lunch, abandoning my sandwich for several bites of my garlic dill. Lottie looked at my half-eaten sandwich with longing, so I handed it to her along with the rest of the pickle. I asked her about Marie's work for the Art Department.

“Marie came to the department as a work-study student several weeks after this semester began. She had another assignment that didn't work out well for her, so she got started late with us, but she really was a good worker. Marie kind of rotated among faculty, taking on work that needed to be done and that other students couldn't do, so she never got a consistent work assignment with any one faculty. Sometimes I used her in the main office to do work for me. She was reliable, always showed up on time and on the days she was assigned to do work.”

“So you probably knew her better than anyone else in the department?”

“I guess I did, but I wouldn't say I knew her well. She wasn't given to sharing confidences or even complaining about classes or a roommate or the other things that students usually come to talking about over a period of time. I was a bit worried when she first came to work. There were several weeks there when she looked tired and sick. I expressed concern over her health and told her she could ease into her work or take some time off if she needed to, but she said she was having a tough time in one of her classes and was simply putting in a lot of work and not getting much sleep. She looked better after a while and then…” Lottie paused. “Then we heard she'd been murdered. It was a shock. She was such a nice young woman.”

“This other work-study assignment, the one that didn't work out for her. Do you know where that was, what department?”

“That was with the English Department,” Lottie said.

“I wonder what went wrong there?”

“You could ask Kay Williams who's the secretary in English. She might tell you.”

“I don't know Kay very well. Could you get in touch with her and ask her to call me? The two of you are pretty good friends, aren't you?”

“Sure, I'd be happy to.”

She and I and continued to chat about campus happenings.

She left around two o'clock, time enough to make another pot of coffee before Der and the twins arrived. I also needed to call Der and ask him to bring me some supplies, or I'd be forced to go into town to shop. About to dial Der's number, I heard a car pull into the drive. I looked through the window to see Der coming up the walk, arms filled with bags. He struggled to open the door, juggling the bags in his arms while I tried to help him, crutches jutting out at difficult angles, threatening to topple the both of us.

“Murphy, sit down and get out of my way!”

“Boy, are you in a grumpy mood today.” I moved to one side while Der plopped the bags on the table. “I was just about to call you and ask you to pick up a few things for me. How did you know I needed anything?”

“You always need stuff. I don't know why you call this a kitchen. Just because it has appliances doesn't mean that it contains food or that cooking ever occurs here. If I had a kitchen this size, I'd have it stocked and be cooking all the time. Good. Coffee. You do make great coffee, though. A little strong, but good.” Der removed canned goods, bread and produce from the bags and packed them away in the cupboards and refrigerator while I sat eyeing his work, knowing that I would have to rearrange things once he was gone.

“You like to cook, do you?” I hoped Der wouldn't discern the sly note in my question.

“Yeah, I do, but I never get the chance. I don't have the time and when I do, my apartment's kitchen is so small, I can't move in it.” Der removed cold cuts from a bag and placed them in the bottom right-hand crisper in the fridge. Unable to contain myself any longer, I popped up from the table and moved them from the right-hand side crisper to the left. Der waved me away and back into my chair. I'd just have to wait until he left.

“So you might like cooking in my kitchen?”

“Why all the questions about cooking?” said Der. I gave him a smile, which I followed with a look of supplication.

“What do you want?” he said, arms across his chest.

“Would you like to cook Thanksgiving dinner here for a few of us?”

“Sure.”

“Great.”

Finished with putting away the groceries he purchased, Der looked around the kitchen with satisfaction. He shooed me into the living room and onto the couch while he brought me coffee. We planned the Thanksgiving menu together and were finishing up on the list of supplies we'd need for the dinner when Tanya and Rachel arrived. Der shoved the box to the middle of the space between the sofa and chairs in the living room and opened the flaps.