Failure is Fatal (6 page)

Der walked over to the window and examined it.

“With the way these windows work, if the window weren't latched, it could blow open with all of this wind.”

Der was right, of course. There was a latch at the top of the window, which secured it to the frame, but if the latch were undone, the window would swing in and a strong enough wind could spring it open. In fact, just that happened several times last spring.

“And, frankly, I don't remember if the light was on or off or whether or not you turned it off when we left the lab. Since it was still daylight then, the light could have been on, and we wouldn't have noticed it. I do remember there was writing on the chalkboard and it's gone now, so the cleaners must have been in here.”

I walked over to the trashcan and looked in.

“The cleaners only come in during the week, and, if they were here, they would have emptied the trash. The can is still full of papers from today. Besides, they never touch the chalkboard in here.”

“Okay, let's assume someone came in here. How did they get in?” Der again examined the window. “A person would have to be skinny as a rail to get in through that window even if it was open.”

“Maybe one of your assistants left the window unlatched, and the wind caught it,” Guy said.

“Unlikely,” I said, “given that we all knew that window could be caught by the wind. We had a mess in here last spring when someone left it unlatched and rain and wind poured in overnight. It was a mess.”

“So the hunch you mentioned, Murphy? Certainly it wasn't that someone would enter your lab tonight and you wanted to be there just in case the intruder needed to confess to you, was it?” Der said, taking my focus off how and why someone entered the lab.

“No, of course not. Come look at this.” I showed him all of the consent forms and the response sheets filled out by the subjects.

“These were all blown around the room, but when I placed them back in order, you can see there are sixteen in each pile, if you also count the response sheet with the murder description on it which you have. When you look at the sign-up sheet, only fifteen students signed up to take part in the experiment.”

“So there is always the same number participating who signed up?” Der asked.

“Usually, but not always. Students forget they signed up, and they don't show for the testing session, or a student may bring along a friend that needs credits or someone comes in at the last minute knowing there will be a testing session and they need credit. We'll test as many or as few students as appear. We just need their names so that we can inform their instructors of their participation. That way they get their participation points.”

“I don't get it then. Why such a big deal about the number being different in this session of testing?”

I was loathe to admit what I did earlier in the day, examining the consent form that appeared to go with the murder description, especially after I made such an ethical fuss about subject privacy and all. I shuffled through the consent forms and handed the one with the name “Charles Darwin” to Der. Guy looked over his shoulder at the name and smiled.

“Didn't your assistants notice this?” Guy said.

“Karen and Paula just finished separating the forms and were reading the test results. They hadn't begun getting the names off the consent forms yet.”

“So there was an additional student at the testing session, Mr. Charles Darwin,” Der said.

“Or someone inserted that form into the test results sometime after the testing,” I said. “Over a week has elapsed between testing and today when Karen and Paula began to work on the session results.”

“And where were those consent forms and results during that time?”

“Here in the lab locked up in one of these file cabinets, until tonight when I stupidly left them on the table in the two ordered piles.”

“If someone came in here, they had an entire week to find an opportunity, and they found it tonight,” Der said.

“Why would someone do this? As a mere prank or because the individual knew something about the murder?” I rechecked the file drawers to make certain they all were locked.

“We're forgetting something here,” Der said. “It's what I was saying earlier today. This feels personal, Murphy. This individual, this possible intruder/killer, has selected your research for communication, and I wonder why.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered as if the window were again open.

“Since Paula discovered that description this afternoon, I've been getting that creepy feeling that someone's out there watching me or following me, or worse yet, knows what I'm about to do. I guess that's why I was so jumpy at the lake when you arrived, Guy.”

“I noticed, and it's so unlike you to get the creeps.” Guy reached out and put his arms around me. Suddenly I felt warm again. But just as suddenly, the chill returned as Guy dropped his arms and walked over to one of the file cabinets.

“Looks like a paper blew under the cabinet.” He bent down and pointed to a corner of paper peeking out from under the file.

“I'll get that.” Der extracted a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and teased the sheet out from under the cabinet.

“It's one of your response forms, Murphy. This sure does mess up your count if it's from this round of testing.”

Der turned the paper so I could read what was written on it.

“I don't think so. I think it's our first clear indication that someone was in here, and it may be a message from our killer. Read it,” I said.

The writing on the response form read:

I was here. Now you figure out how and when.

Chapter 6

Guy read the message. “Is this for you or Der?”

“Or for both of us,” I said.

“Both?”

“Everyone knows we're good friends.”

Hearing footsteps in the hallway we all turned as the young officer who keyed me into the lab appeared in the doorway. Behind him stood the head of security, Captain Rodgers.

“I heard through my man on the desk that there was some trouble here. Why am I not surprised to find you in the middle of it, Ms. Murphy?” He stood with his fingers hooked into his belt, legs spread, ready for anyone to defy him. His tiny eyes took in the three of us. Thin lips turned downward, a face shiny from too close a shave, and broken veins along reddened cheeks completed the unpleasant face he turned toward me. I decided to make nice.

“You really shouldn't have bothered to come over. Everything's just fine here. But so good of you to be concerned,” I said.

Rodgers scowled. “You may think this is your lab, but it's college property, and that makes it my business. Next time you forget your keys, you won't get in here. We can't open doors for just anybody.”

“I'm not just anybody…” I began, but Der interrupted me.

“Absolutely, Captain Rodgers. We know you have a job to do here, protecting the property of the campus. But we're worried that the lab was broken into earlier this evening.” Der went on to explain to Rodgers what I found, but didn't include the information about the note.

After listening to Der's description of the room when I entered it, Rodgers crossed his beefy arms and shook his head. “So you only guess that you closed the window and turned off the lights. Now let's see here, Ms. Murphy. The intruder came in through the window, which you locked and latched. That's very tricky, isn't it? Unless he was a ghost. And if the intruder didn't get in that way, he came in how? What's your story now? He came in through the window, or you are certain you locked the window? I'm confused. I'm also confused as to why you think there was an intruder at all. Ms. Murphy, I really do wonder about you. Harmless graffiti on your door, which you raise a fuss about, an alleged note about murder in your research, now an intruder or not in your lab. Looks to me as if you need a whole lot of attention you're not getting otherwise.” With this final comment, he looked at Guy. “Should take care of this little gal, if you know what I mean. And, Mr. Detective, you should watch your step on my campus if you don't want your professional reputation to suffer.” He hitched up his pants and settled them firmly under his belly, then turned on his heel and left without a good-bye. The young officer hurried to catch up with him.

I gave a look at Guy and then at Der. They both appeared composed and a bit amused.

“That his mean old sheriff act?” asked Der.

“C'mere, li'l gal. I've got orders from the police to take you home and take care of you. Know what I mean?” Guy grabbed me around the waist.

“Yeah, well, he's surely one mean son-of-a-gun, and he's particularly partial to you, Laura. Stay out of his way.” Der appeared to be taking Rodgers' warnings seriously.

*

The ride home to the lake on the back of Guy's bike was a cold one, not only because of the weather, but because I could tell there was going to be some discussion about my antics getting to the campus tonight. To be truthful, I rarely thought about the consequences of my impulsive actions. Sometimes I worried myself—after the fact, of course. Besides, there was something so satisfying in taking action rather than thinking how to proceed.

After we got home, Guy poured us both a glass of wine and, in his “parent” voice, told me to sit down. I considered pushing back, pointing out to him that I was, after all, an adult, but then I remembered the earlier promise I made to myself to pay some penance for my impulsive acts, so I meekly sank onto the couch.

He began the discussion with his usual, “I love you and worry about you, but you go off on your escapades without thinking, blah, blah, blah….”

“Laura!”

“Don't yell at me,” I said.

“You're spilling your wine. You fell asleep.”

“Did I? I'm sorry. Can I just go to bed now? I'm so tired. You can finish punishing me tomorrow when I'm fully alert.”

“I'm not punishing you. I'm trying to talk sense to you. Oh, I give up. Let's go to bed then.”

“Oh, goody. We can continue where we left off earlier.”

“I thought you said you were tired.”

“I'm not that kind of tired.”

*

After the threat of continued cold and snow for most of the weekend, Sunday dawned sunny and warm. The weather forecast for upstate New York and southern Canada promised warmth over the next week, so Guy decided to ride his bike back north instead of storing it in my garage. Since he was spending the next weekend with his children and would not make the trip back here for two weeks, I feared that the weather would turn on us by the end of that time and he wouldn't be able to return on the bike to store it in my garage as he wanted. He remained optimistic that the weather would hold, that we would have a repeat of the earlier Indian summer and he would regret not getting in some last riding days if he left the bike in the garage now.

We spent the rest of the weekend running between the bed and the kitchen for snacks. No more was heard from Der on Saturday, and only a brief phone call from him on Sunday informed us that there were no fingerprints on the piece of paper declaring the intruder's presence in the lab; the murder description itself contained numerous sets of fingerprints including those of all my assistants. The murder investigation and the break-in were both at a standstill. As we sat on my bed eating popcorn and watching a Netflix movie, Guy spent more time looking at me with concern written on his face than he did following the story line.

“This murderer or intruder seems to have a thing about you. Maybe you should write down the names of those who have it in for you.”

I laughed and saw Guy's face go steel gray with anger.

“I'm not laughing at you, honey. It's just that the list you're suggesting would be too long to generate in my lifetime. When you're in the education business, you draw the ire of a lot of people—students angry over grades, parents angry over their children's grades, administrators angry that you're not volunteering more time for committee work, other faculty angry because you got a grant they didn't. It goes on and on. You must run into it at the high school level too.”

“Yeah, you're right. But someone furious enough to commit murder, or even to break into someone's lab and interfere with an ongoing research investigation?”

“The more I think about it, the more I believe the link between the person who is messing around in my research and the murderer of Marie Becca is tenuous at best.”

I am sometimes so naïve.

*

The following week Der began interviewing the students who signed up for the research to see if they remembered anything in the testing session that would help the investigation. In addition, he talked with my research assistants on several occasions and with me daily. By the end of the week, the dearth of leads stymied and frustrated him. As for me, that creepy feeling lifted, and I felt eager to get on with the research. Der agreed to let me go ahead, and informed the president that he was encouraging me to continue with the project. President Evans agreed, but argued that the Committee on Research with Human Subjects should be involved. Der said no to that; he didn't want the description of the murder and how it was found to be public knowledge.