Failure is Fatal (25 page)

“Now why would a junior college give part-time faculty released time for research?” I asked.

“I have a reputation in the field. That merits some special consideration. The college is well aware of needing to go the extra mile for a scholar of some renown.”

“I know you have a reputation, Lionel, and it certainly seems to follow you around,” I said.

“Li, it's snowing a lot more now, and I want a ciggie. Let's go before we get trapped in this place,” Bridget said.

“You go ahead, my dear. I'll be right with you.”

Bridget headed down the hall toward the outside door. As she reached out to open it, Der appeared in the doorway, held it open for her and entered the hallway. I could see Bridget pause outside and light her cigarette.

“Don't make trouble for me, Laura,” said Lionel. “You may have scared my brother, but you won't scare me. There's nothing but rumor out there, and you know how the academy protects their own.”

Der walked up to the two of us, catching the tail end of Lionel's speech. “But this time a woman is dead.”

Something shifted on Lionel's face. A sly look replaced the anger in his eyes.

“I knew Marie, of course. So sad, that whole thing. Especially for those of us who loved her.”

“Loved her? You loved her?” My mouth dropped open at the audacity of his assertion.

“Of course, I did. I was just a middle-aged man swept off his feet by her beauty and her intelligence. No one could ever replace her in my heart.” At this, he placed his hand on his chest where his heart would have been if he had one. A single tear fell from his eye. It appeared that he gathered himself together with difficulty. “That silly little thing with me today? Just one more in a line of bimbos who think they can capture my attention.”

Lionel hadn't seen the door at the end of the hallway open and Bridget enter. His back was to the door, and, if he had turned his head to see down the hall, his view would have been blocked by Der's large frame in the way. That Bridget had caught every word he uttered was revealed in the interplay of hurt and anger in her eyes and in the words she spoke in a choked voice.

“Lionel, you pig. You're going to regret saying that.” Anger had won out. She turned and strode down the hall and back out the door.

“Now look what the two of you have done.” He pulled his coat about him and chased after her.

“Nothing is ever his fault, is it?” I said.

“That was quite a speech,” Der said. “I don't suppose you bought any of it.”

“Are you kidding?”

A figure in uniform appeared at Melvin Chaffee's door. Captain Rodgers walked from the office into the hallway. “I heard every word of that speech. There goes a broken man.” Rodgers pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and noisily blew his nose.

Behind him, I saw Melvin Chaffee shaking his head, obviously not taken in by his brother's speech.

“What do you think, Melvin?” I said.

Melvin coughed and shifted his weight uneasily in his office chair. “He's upset, obviously.”

“I'd be upset, too. Especially if I had to drive that young woman all the way to Syracuse. I don't know what would be worse, dead silence or yelling.” Der wiped his knuckles across his mouth as if hiding a smile.

Melvin stood up and cleared his throat. “I haven't got all day here. Let's get going. I asked Captain Rodgers to sit with us because I'm really not sure how much jurisdiction you have on this campus, Detective. Captain Rodgers assures me that you have very little.”

Rodgers was still blowing and wiping his nose. He merely nodded.

“Actually, I'm just here as an invited guest. Laura wanted to see you, and she needed a ride, so I brought her across campus.” Der blinked his brown eyes and then stared innocently around the room.

“Read this.” I handed Chaffee a sheet of paper. He scanned the sheet and looked at me with puzzlement on his face.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It's one of the stories that was planted by fraternity boys in my research. I thought you might know something about it.” I was watching his face carefully. Melvin's expression registered nothing but confusion and surprise at the story.

“What I find so interesting, Melvin, is that the original of this story, now probably taped together in the forensic office,”—that was wild speculation on my part but Der didn't look as if he wanted to deny it, at least not in front of these folks—“had a phone number written at the bottom, your phone number, Melvin. How do you explain that?” If Der was disconcerted at my giving Melvin information we previously withheld from public, he didn't show it. He leaned casually against Melvin's office wall looking slightly bored.

“I don't know how my number got on any story planted in your research. Just what fraternity are we talking about?”

“You do know Ryan Cleates, don't you? Didn't he approach you early this fall about helping his fraternity out with a writing project?”

Melvin turned his back and walked to his desk. When he turned back to us, his face was blank. “I think I want a lawyer,” he said. “I know I want all of you out of my office and now!” He pointed to the door.

“I don't feel like going just yet. All this talk of lawyers makes me think you have something to hide, and I think I know what it is.” I pulled the school newspaper out of my pocket and threw it on Melvin's desk. “Next to the last page, Melvin. Your name is listed as the faculty sponsor for Ryan's fraternity. So of course he would turn to you for those stories. Who better to write them than an English professor, especially the one who's the fraternity's advisor?” Der pushed off from the wall and stood upright, curiosity animating his features.

“You hid this from me, Dr. Chaffee, and I specifically asked you about any contact with the fraternity.” Der delivered these words in his most severe official investigator voice. Melvin blanched.

“I haven't really had much contact with them. Just the one time when Ryan came here asking me to help him with a writing project. I blew him off. I thought this advisor thing would be simple, a mere formality. I sign off on their budget, and that's it. I wasn't about to have anything else to do with them. No other advisor does anything for his group except sign the financial form approving the budget. Why should I be bothered with more? I told the little creep to get lost. That's all.”

Although that was a nice recovery, his face was still the color of minute rice. But he wasn't finished.

He turned to Rodgers. “Get these people out of my office, can't you? What are you here for anyway if you can't keep faculty from being harassed in their own offices?”

Rodgers looked confused at most of what had been said. His tiny eyes shot back and forth among Melvin, Der and me. “Now, Dr. Chaffee, if you are withholding important information, you'd better give it up. And you other two, you'd better just leave, uh, I think.” The radio on his shoulder crackled. He held up his finger and stepped out the door into the hall. Moments later, he stuck his head back in the door. “Got to go now. Important, uhm, stuff on the other side of campus.” He almost ran down the hall toward the outside doorway. Der and I turned toward each other, suppressing laughter, Der by coughing into his hand and I by feigning a hiccup.

“Come back here, you lousy excuse for a police officer. Arrest these people.” Melvin's voice followed Rodgers' retreat down the hall to no avail. When Rodgers failed to return, Melvin appeared to deflate like a punctured tire, dropping into his office chair with his head in his hands. “Please just leave now,” he begged. Der and I looked at each other and shrugged in unison.

“I had the same effect on two salespeople at the automobile showroom,” I said to Der as he helped me limp through the snow to the car. “Was it something I said, or do you think it's a bug going around?”

*

I sat alone in my office after Der dropped me off. I promised him that I would go home immediately, but instead I sat at my desk with the chair swiveled around so that I could look out over the campus. I sighed, watching the snow come down in blowing swirls. Only three days until Thanksgiving and over a month since Marie Becca's murder. Although I never met the young woman, I was beginning to feel I knew her well. What a tragic end to a promising life, especially for such a courageous young woman. I didn't feel much like celebrating on Thursday, but Der and I planned everything, and I invited some of my research assistants and a few other friends to the house for dinner. Der and I would shop for supplies tomorrow. My foot was much better, more noticeably so when I kept off it. I sighed again and pushed myself out of the chair. Time to go home, feed Sam and build a fire in the stove.

“Dr. Murphy!” I jumped at the sound of the voice behind me.

“Rachel! What are you doing here?'

“Just come with me to the lab.”

I grabbed my crutches and followed Rachel down the hall. When we arrived, Tanya opened the door and let us in.

“What's going on here?”

Seated at the end of the worktable in the lab was Ryan Cleates.

I didn't know whether to shout in glee that Ryan was back or yell at him for having left. His hair was greasy, his clothes rumpled and covered with dirt, and his face was drawn and gray.

“Running away was not such a great idea, Ryan. To the police that's guilty behavior. You can't blame them for being suspicious.”

“Yeah, I know. Dumb. I just got scared. But I did come back.”

“Why didn't you go straight to Detective Pasquis' office?”

“I don't know. I hung around the bathroom in Tanya and Rachel's dorm until they came back. They brought me here.”

“He wanted to talk with you, Dr. Murphy,” said Tanya.

“Detective Pasquis should be the one you talk with.”

“No!” Ryan stood up and moved toward the door. “I'll talk to you, Dr. Murphy, but not to the police, not yet anyway. Otherwise, I'm just lighting out again.” The determined look on his sick face told me he would make good on his threat to leave.

“Okay, but I'm not hanging out in this lab all evening. I've got a dog to feed, and it looks as if you could use some food too. You're coming home with me.” I heard Der's voice whispering in my inner ear questioning the wisdom of this move. As usual, I ignored it.

Ryan was silent in the car on the way home, and I decided not to push him for information until we got some food into us. Sam greeted us at the door and seemed pleased at having company. Ryan eyed Sam, commenting that he never had pets when he was growing up and wasn't really comfortable with them. That was just fine with me. No reason for this guy to get too comfortable in my house. Bringing him home seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I wondered if Der might be right. Had I taken a murderer into my house?

Chapter 21

I threw together some marinara sauce and pasta, which Ryan gobbled down as if he hadn't eaten since he disappeared.

“Okay, Ryan, time to talk to me. But first, if you haven't already, you call your parents and tell them you're safe.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and made the call while I busied myself cleaning up the dishes.

“Why did you run? You must know how guilty it makes you look. And where have you been staying?”

“There's an old cabin in the woods above the lake here. I know about it because it's owned by my former Boy Scout leader.”

“You were a Boy Scout?” I said in disbelief.

“Yeah. I even went to scout camp near here. That's why I decided to attend college in this area. I like the country a lot. The survival stuff they teach you in scouts helped me hide out. I built a fire in the wood stove in the cabin and kept pretty warm, but I didn't have much food with me. When I finally got too hungry, I decided to come back.”

“Who are you scared of and why?”

Ryan looked bewildered and his answer revealed how unclear his thinking was during the time he was gone.

“I'm not sure, but I think I must know something I shouldn't about Marie's murder. I found a note in my book bag warning me to keep my mouth shut about Marie.”

“Did you save the note?”

Ryan shook his head no.

“Do you remember exactly what it said?”

“Something like, ‘The finger points at you. Keep your mouth shut about Marie or find yourself accused of murder.' That's not it exactly, but pretty close. So I split.”

“You should have brought the note to me or to the police or even let your parents know about it. Someone would have helped you.”

“How did I know that? I spent time with Marie, drove her car, people saw us together. Everyone would think I killed her. A geeky guy like me and Marie. They'd think I tried to put the moves on her and she resisted me. But I never did. We were friends. We really liked one another and confided in each other. I never would have hurt her. Never!” Ryan looked as if he was about to cry.

“How long did you think you could evade the authorities?”

“I came back because I couldn't stand the thought that someone killed Marie and was getting away with it.”