Murder Misread (12 page)

“
I’m sorry to bother you,”
she apologized. “But I thought it might be better to catch you now
than later, when more people will be here. I just had a
question.”

“
Come on in. Maggie,
right?”

“
That’s right. This is
Sarah, and this is Will.”

“
Hi.” Anne grinned
foolishly down at the bright-eyed youngsters. Cute. She opened the
door wider. Sarah stepped in to look inquisitively around the
oak-beamed hall. Little Will spied something and beelined for the
living room with Maggie in hot pursuit.

“
Come on, Will!” She
scooped him up as he passed the coffee table and asked Anne, “Where
do you want us?”

The little boy was
pouting, making grasping movements toward the brass fireplace poker
with his pudgy hand. Anne said, “How about the kitchen? I’m trying
to finish up a box of crackers.”

“
Great.” Maggie put Will
down and herded the children after Anne into the kitchen. She sat
on one of the chairs and plopped Will into her lap. All three
accepted the crackers.

“
Yum!” said Will, cramming
one into his small mouth, the delights of brass pokers
forgotten.

“
Yum,” Maggie
agreed.

Anne sat down at the other
side of the table. “Well. You had a question?”

“
Yeah, about my new boss.
I’m sorry to barge in like this, Professor Chandler,
but—”

“
Oh, God, call me Anne.
You have as many degrees as I have. As many children,
too.”

“
Anne it is. You have
children?”

“
A boy and a girl, like
you. Paul and Rocky. A man and a woman, I should say.”

“
Your daughter is named
Rocky?”

“
Roxane.”

“
Oh, of
course!”

“
She decided at age ten
that Rocky was more suitable. Tal complained, of course. He’s—he
was such a romantic at heart, wanted his gorgeous daughter to have
a gorgeous name. But she played first base for the Laconia Lions
and he had to agree that Rocky was a better name for striking fear
into the hearts of the opponents.”

“
A good dad.” Maggie’s
smile was warm. “Will Paul and Rocky be joining you
soon?”

“
Yes. Rocky should be here
by Saturday night. Paul thinks he can get here Sunday.”

“
Good.”

“
Yes. Now,” Anne pursed
her lips sternly, “you’re avoiding the question you came to ask.
What is it?”

“
Well, I was talking to
Charlie Fielding. And I wondered if someone might be trying to
frame him. Look, please tell me if you don’t want to talk about
it.”

“
Frame him? What do you
mean?” There was no question of not talking about it. Ancient
habits of mind persisted. For most of the problems of her life, the
most productive reaction had always been to discuss them, inspect
their logical structure, think through the solution. Now, even
though part of her knew that there was no solution, no satisfactory
solution, the process of discussing it was comforting, familiar.
Better even than making lists. And she was determined to find out
what had happened.

“
Did Sergeant Hines show
you the items they found there in the gorge?” asked
Maggie.

“
Yes.”

“
Well, the little Chaplin
memo book belongs to Charlie Fielding. But I’m pretty certain he
didn’t drop it there today because I was with him from about
nine-fifteen on. He says he looked at it before he left his house
this morning. So sometime between then and the time I arrived at
the scene in the gorge, somebody dropped his book
there.”

“
Bart,” said
Anne.

“
Bart? Why do you say
that?” With the schizophrenic skill Anne remembered from her own
days of young-motherhood, Maggie was expertly doling out crackers,
wiping crumbs from little mouths, and following the conversation
with eager attention.

“
The pipe.” Anne shook her
head. “But why would he?”

“
That was Bart’s pipe?
Charlie said it was similar, but lighter—oh, of course! He didn’t
have his! You gave him that cigarette because he needed a smoke! He
was practically sick.”

“
I sympathize with
withdrawal symptoms,” said Anne. “Speaking of which… you don’t
smoke?” She held the pack toward Maggie.

“
Thanks, no. But Gauloise
smoke brings back some good memories.”

“
You’ve been in France,
then.” Anne lit her cigarette.

“
Paris, my junior year of
high school. Learned a lot.”

“
A city full of
lessons.”

“
Yeah.” Maggie fumbled in
her bag, handed a book to Sarah, and at Will’s squeal pulled out
one for him too. Then her blue eyes locked on Anne’s again. “When I
met your husband this morning we discussed French for a minute, and
he said he especially wanted me to meet you. That’s the other
reason I came tonight.”

“
Because of your French?
How did he know that?”

“
Well, he heard my
daughter swearing in French, and—”

“
Mine does that too.” Anne
smiled approvingly at Sarah.

“
And because my husband
acted Cyrano a few years ago at the Farm Theatre. Nick
O’Connor.”

“
Cyrano? That was your
husband? God, we enjoyed that!” She remembered Tal bouncing around
the parking lot afterward, replaying his favorite parts as they
walked to the car. Anne herself had still been wrapped in the
romantic pathos of Cyrano’s beautiful death scene, a catch in her
throat as she tried to smile at Tal’s antics.

There was a catch in her
throat now. Anne blew her nose into a paper napkin.

Maggie said, “I’m glad you
liked it. Nick will be working at the Farm Theatre again this
summer. Marc Antony and Big Daddy. He’s going to join us next week
after he finishes shooting a TV episode.”

“
Oh? Which
one?”

“
Kojak.
They needed someone who could
look similar to Telly Savalas.” But Maggie had picked up the waning
of interest in Anne’s tone and returned to her first question. “Can
you think why Bart, or anyone else, might want to frame Charlie
Fielding?”

“
Frame
Charlie? No.” Gratefully, Anne turned to the
prob-l
em. “Can’t imagine Charlie
with serious enemies. He’s a shy young man, always pleasant, eager
to please. Very smart, good insight into scientific problems. Works
too hard. Sometimes I think it’s unhealthy, the way young
professors have to put in such long hours for tenure. I imagine
that’s why things didn’t work out with Lorraine.”

“
Lorraine?”

“
His ex-wife. She’d been a
student here. Very hard-working herself, ambitious. Stayed on after
she earned her Ph.D. Tal was chairman then and he found a half-time
instructor job for her, but of course it was pointless in terms of
getting on with a career. So she finished up her research, got some
articles accepted, and went off to a position at Queens College.
Commuted back and forth on weekends for a while but apparently they
couldn’t make it work.”

“
Yeah, Nick and I have had
to do that occasionally. Hell of a way to run a marriage. The
divorce was amicable, though?”

“
Far as I know. Though
Charlie seemed very withdrawn for a while.” Anne peered
suspiciously at Maggie. “You’re not suggesting that Lorraine Fisher
engineered this whole thing from afar to get back at Charlie, are
you?”

“
Sounds ridiculous,”
Maggie admitted. “But you never know, some ex-wives are pretty
bitter. And since I’m working for the guy, I just wondered if there
was anyone who was angry at him, or would benefit somehow if he got
into trouble. What about his academic situation? Any
rivals?”

“
Chiefly Tal.”

“
Tal? They seemed the best
of friends this morning.”

“
Sure. The rivalry was
strictly intellectual. The big point of contention is what guides
the eye to the next fixation point.”

“
Oh, I remember them
joking about that. Charlie emphasizes the meaning, the hypothesis a
reader has about what meaning will come next on the page. Tal
emphasizes the physical stimulus on the page. Letters and
spaces.”

“
Right.” Anne smiled. “The
usual academic angels on the head of a pin.”

“
Sure. But with some
practical implications all the same. I mean, besides maybe helping
us understand how to teach people to read better, there’s lots of
grant money and other academic prizes riding on it.”

“
True.”

Sarah was tugging at
Maggie’s sleeve. Maggie bent her head toward the little girl,
nodded at her urgent whisper, and gave her another cracker. Will,
sitting flat on the floor, was crooning to his book. Maggie smiled
across at Anne. “So I was hired to help prove your husband was
wrong!”

“
To try to,” Anne said
with spirit. “He was assembling counter-evidence. Tal said this
latest study would hit right at the heart of Charlie’s theory.
Showed the importance of word shape over meaning.”

“
Really? Who knew about
this study?”

“
I don’t know. Tal only
analyzed it a couple of days ago. But I don’t think it was a big
secret.”

“
So someone might have
realized the problem it would cause Charlie?”

“
What are you suggesting?
That Charlie was framed because someone thought he had a motive
to—to—But that’s ridiculous!”

“
Maybe. But Charlie’s put
a lot of years into this study. If it collapsed now it wouldn’t be
a small thing.”

Anne nodded morosely. “So
maybe someone thought it would make a passable motive. But it’s
irrelevant anyway, right? Charlie was with you.”

“
True, but…. That’s a
horse, Will. Horse.”

“
Doggie!”

“
Well, have it your way.”
Maggie caressed the little boy’s shiny curls.

“
Silly Willy,” declared
Sarah scornfully.

“
No, not silly. He’s
labeling sets, Sarah. Just hasn’t subdivided it between horses and
dogs yet. Charlie was with me, yes,” she continued without breaking
stride, “but no one knew he would be. So the killer might have
chosen to frame Charlie because there was a kind of motive and
because it was easy to get Charlie’s memo book and drop it there to
point the police in the wrong direction.”

“
I see.” A sensible plan.
Would Bart be that sensible? Probably. “But I thought it was
supposed to look like a suicide.”

Maggie said, “Like a
staged suicide. Staged by Charlie.”

“
Pretty
complicated!”

“
Yes. But I wondered—well,
suppose the police hadn’t found Charlie’s memo book. This is an
unkind question, but since there’s a kind of motive for Charlie, I
wondered if there might be some kind of motive for
suicide.”

“
Absolutely not!” Anne
leaned across the table, stabbing at the air in front of Maggie
with a stiff forefinger. “He was happy! Celebrating, for God’s
sake! It couldn’t be!”

“
I know.” Maggie didn’t
cringe from her anger. She reached toward Anne gently. “My
husband’s first wife—they thought it was suicide. He was shattered.
Absolutely shattered. And it wasn’t even that much of a surprise.
She’d had a history of depressions and suicide
attempts.”

“
Nothing like that!” Anne
shook her head. “Two years ago, sure, in the midst of chemotherapy,
Tal was depressed. Who wouldn’t be? But after… well, he valued life
that much more. And he’s doing fine. His doctor gave him a good
report just this morning!”

“
Charlie thought that’s
what he might be celebrating at lunch.”

“
But you’re suggesting
that the killer thought that the police might believe suicide. If
they didn’t find the memo book.” She leaned back, exasperated.
“Sounds like an academic mind at work, doesn’t it? Explanations
behind explanations, in case the first explanations don’t
work.”

“
Yes. Also, it’s an easy
way to get rid of the gun in a hurry.” She combed her curls back
with her fingers. “But now I have to ask an even nastier question.
You arrived on the scene pretty soon. You’ve got nice insurance
policies in there on the coffee table. You know Tal’s department
well, could have set things up.”

“
Merde!”
Anne slammed her fist
onto the table. “You’re worse than that idiot Hines! Look, it’s
true, two years ago Tal and I both had to face the possibility that
he’d die. We had to face that it was out of our hands. But damn it,
I wanted every instant of that man that I was granted! In whatever
shape it came!”

8

“
Yes,” said Maggie. “I
believe you.”

“
Well, then, why are you
asking these things?” Anne demanded.

Sarah had moved to her
mother’s side at the sound of Anne’s raised voice, and Maggie gave
her a reassuring hug. Oblivious, Will still crooned “Doggie” to his
book. Maggie said, “It’s my first day on a new job, and somebody’s
murdered, and my boss is implicated. I want to know what’s going
on. And it’s hard to find out without asking rude, gross questions.
You see,” she added gently, gesturing at Anne’s clenched hand on
the table, “you’re on my list, Anne. Just as I’m on
yours.”