Murder Misread (14 page)

“
I see,” said Maggie, her
eyes on the little ones swinging across the lawn. “Intolerant,
maybe. But you have to sympathize with the parents too. I know I’d
do just about anything to keep my kids from being hurt. Anything.”
She glanced at Anne, her blue eyes dark in the fading light. “Tal
hired him anyway?”

“
Told him to shape up and
design some more good tests, and probably no one would ever think
about it again. So Bernie came and as far as I can tell, that’s
what happened.”

“
He looks the soul of
respectability.”

“
He
is
the soul of respectability.”

“
What happened before is
in those Iowa papers, I suppose,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “Any
industrious reporter could unearth it. So in itself it wouldn’t
make any difference that Tal knew and no one else did. But if
Reinalter got into some new trouble—maybe minor in itself but
looking bad against the background of the earlier accusations—what
were they? Something kinky?”

Anne shook her head. “I
don’t know. Tal didn’t mention it to me so I suppose the papers
didn’t go into it.” She shivered and buttoned her jacket. It was
cooling off. Hard to imagine straitlaced Bernie getting into any
new troubles. She said, “I always thought of Bernie as the burnt
child, grateful for a fresh start.”

“
You’re probably right,”
said Maggie. “But let’s not cross him off our list yet. Next is
Cindy.”

“
Cindy?”

“
Secretaries are important
people in departments. Why not consider her?”

“
She was at a lunchtime
meeting. I met her coming back.”

“
Where had she
been?”

“
Don’t know.”

“
Where did you see
her?”

“
Van Brunt. At about
twelve-fifteen, just before I started across the gorge.”

“
Mm. Not quite good
enough,” said Maggie softly.

“
I know. For me either,”
snapped Anne. “Hines went over it half a dozen times with me. I’d
phoned someone shortly before I left my office in Harper, but he
wasn’t impressed.”

“
There are a lot of phones
on campus. And on College Ave., for that matter. You could have
been anywhere.”

“
Yes.
Still, Cindy and I can vouch for each other up to a
point.”
Could it have been Cindy?
Surely not.

“
And the other people at
her meeting will vouch for her.”

“
Maybe.” Would they? Anne
drained the bottle of wine into her glass. “Shall I get more
wine?”

“
No, thanks, I’m fine.”
Maggie’s shrewd eyes were fixed on her, curious. Anne returned her
gaze flatly, and finally Maggie said only, “Can you tell me
anything about Nora?”

“
Another hardworking young
professor, like Charlie Fielding. Already has a book out.
Development of social problem-solving, Tal said.”

“
Family?”

“
A younger brother in New
York. She told me she raised him so the parents must be gone. And
last year she had a live-in, a computer scientist. Brownell, some
such name. He only came to a couple of departmental parties so I
really don’t know him.”

“
How about Tal? Did he
ever mention that she had any problems?”

Anne shook her head. “No.
That is—well, she and the computer fellow had a falling-out last
year. At the Halloween party, I remember, Nora got tipsy, started
chasing after Charlie Fielding. Scared the poor fellow to death.
Don’t know if she ever got back together with her computer
scientist or not.” Anne shifted on her chair. “The only other thing
Tal mentioned about Nora was a student last year. Young man. Came
into Nora’s office, apparently threatened her somehow. Tal and
Charlie Fielding were talking in the hall and heard shouts. They
went to see what was going on, saw an absolutely furious
stringy-haired young man beating his fist on her desk. When they
appeared she told him she’d talk to him when he’d settled down, and
he left. But Tal said she seemed pretty shaken for a while after
that. Even mentioned getting a gun. That kid must have threatened
her.”

“
A gun! That sounds
serious. What was his problem?”

“
She said it was a grade.
But Tal said if that was all it was he must have had a drug problem
too. He was too worked up for your standard grade
complaint.”

“
Even
failing-this-course-means-I-can’t-graduate?”

“
Well, in thirty years of
teaching no one has ever seriously threatened me, even for that.
But I suppose it’s possible.”

“
Tal’s probably right,
about the drugs.” Maggie pulled up one leg and propped her foot on
the front edge of her seat. “God, these sunsets are
gorgeous.”

Anne nodded. The sky in
the east was dusky now, but in the west ragged ribbons of cloud
blazed pink and gold in a last moment of glory before the night.
Across the lawn the children were attempting to sing “Gonna Fly
Now.” The world was turning. Other people’s lives rolling on. Only
Anne sat stunned, rigid, trying to distract herself from the void
with these silly speculations.
“Et je voudrais mourir,”
said Cyrano,
“sous un ciel
rose.”
I’d like to die beneath a rosy sky.
Well, you didn’t quite get your wish either, Old Nosy.

Maggie asked gently, “Have
we talked enough for now?”

Anne swallowed more wine.
Stave it off a few more minutes. “Let’s go on. Keep moving before I
forget how.”

Maggie reached across the
table and touched her shoulder encouragingly. “Okay. We’ve talked
about Tal’s colleagues. About his work. Was there anything else he
worried about?”

“
Not really. Well, back
fifteen years ago when he first became chairman, the department had
serious budget problems. But he worked those out, and when Bernie
became chairman everything was back on track.”

“
Nothing
recently?”

Anne shrugged. “Nothing
big. I mean, a couple of times he said there was something strange
going on. But if I pressed he’d say no, he was just getting old.
Make a joke of it. And then of course he was always full of
sympathy for students with problems. I think that’s how he—well,
we’re talking about recently. Let’s see. Young woman with a knee
problem last year, and another who lost both her parents in a car
crash. Or little kids that he met when they came in for
experiments. He loved to meet them in the halls, talk to them.
Sometimes he’d come home saying that he should have been a
classroom teacher. I’d have to remind him that he already was. He
just got the kids ten years further on.”

“
Practically his first
question to me was about my kids,” Maggie said.

“
Yes. That’s why he was in
education; he thought kids were such wonderful people. Really got
involved. I remember a couple of years ago there was a little girl
in one of Bart Bickford’s childhood creativity studies. Jill Baker.
Told a marvelous story about being chased by sharks, and about
taking out her own eyeball to be a periscope, and having a magic
word that made the sharks stop. Clever child. But a month later Tal
told me he was still haunted by that story. I said why not? This
Jill Baker may be the next Jules Verne. Though in fairness to Tal I
should say that kids shared big problems with him too. They’d
really open up to him. There was another little girl in Bart’s
study. Frannie something. Can’t remember her name. She didn’t react
much during the testing, and Bart’s student assistant was peeved.
But Tal said she had such a sad expression that he sat down on the
floor of the hall and explained to her that it was hard to think
about everyday things when there are big problems too. Frannie
agreed and told him very matter-of-factly that she had to think
about dying. Turned out they’d just diagnosed leukemia.”

“
God!”

“
I think it was especially
poignant to Tal because this was during his own chemotherapy. He
cried about Frannie. And at about the same time the little Hammond
boy was hurt by that hit-and-run. We all felt awful, but Tal was
depressed for days.”

“
Well, he’s right. Worth
mourning.” There was a huskiness in Maggie’s voice.

“
Yes.” Anne looked at the
young woman across the table. Maggie’s leg was still pulled up, her
elbow on the cocked knee and her hand propping her forehead. The
mass of black curls shaded her face. Anne said, “Those kids are
probably what upset him most, of all the things I’ve
mentioned.”

“
Me too.” Maggie
straightened her leg and shifted restlessly in her chair. “It’s
pretty shapeless, though, isn’t it? Stresses and strains in the
department, but nothing that seems wildly unusual. I mean,
hit-and-runs do happen. Prostitutes do have clients. And so
forth.”

“
Yes. Maybe we’re on the
wrong track.”

“
Maybe. You mentioned
something to Walensky about Tal’s taxes.”

“
Oh, the IRS thing. Yeah,
we were out of the country at filing time so he applied to file
late. Pretty automatic, we thought. But the IRS lost the
application somehow, charged him with late filing. He had to go
have the documents copied again. He was really angry about
it.”

“
Right. Still, it’s hard
to see a motive there.”

“
So we’re back to the
department.”

“
Right. Don’t see how we
can avoid it. Well, tomorrow I’ll talk to Charlie again. He may
have thought of something overnight. And I bet Cindy knows a
lot.”

“
She may. She’s a bright
woman,” Anne agreed. She should talk to Cindy too.

Across the lawn the
children were lively blurs in the thickening dusk. How often she
and Tal had rested here, watching little Paul and Rocky, laughing
together, sharing their days. She said, “You asked about his
worries. But most of the time Tal brought home happy
stories.”

“
Oh, I know! I met him for
a moment. And he made it joyful.”

“
Joyful.” Yes. Tal made
the world joyful.

Her knobby-nosed,
brilliant Tal.

Suddenly Anne was
blubbering, huge wet sobs ratcheting up from her gut one after
another, on and on, swamping her with their primeval urgency. It
was a long, long time before they eased a little and, exhausted and
shuddering, she became aware of Maggie kneeling next to her, arm
around her shoulders, murmuring and rocking her gently.

The children, she saw
through filmed eyes, were sitting on the terrace in a square of
light from the kitchen window. They were paging through their books
again.

Above, the sky was
black.

Friday

June 3, 1977

9

Charlie tilted up his
chin. He scraped the razor along his stubbly neck and blinked
sleepily at the sagging face in the mirror. Smile, Fielding. Ah,
much better. Practically a Paul Newman. Suave, tough and handsome,
ready to take on whatever the world threw at him, ready to take on
Sergeant Hines or—

Hines. Oh, hell. Tal
Chandler! Reality crashed in. Charlie’s early morning brain had
sent him staggering into the bathroom on automatic, without
reminding him of yesterday. Hard to believe when half the night
he’d tossed and turned, battered by sorrow and fears, unable to
forget. At last he’d dropped into fitful sleep. A couple of hours
later the alarm had dragged him partway awake. Now, in a rush, the
blessed numbness was shattered and all the horrors
returned.

Tal was dead. His
exuberant, challenging friend had been shot.

And whoever had shot him
had left Charlie’s memo book nearby.

And Sergeant Hines
suspected Charlie.

Who the hell had done it?
Fully awake at last, Charlie swabbed the last flecks of foam from
his face and put on his glasses. After dinner last night he’d tried
to figure it out, making lists, puzzling over the million
conflicting facts, trying to think of someone who might want to
kill Tal. It seemed impossible that the friendly little man could
inspire murderous feelings in anyone. But after a while some ugly
possibilities occurred to Charlie.

Near midnight he’d finally
admitted to himself that he was damned scared.

Some of the possibilities
involved Tal knowing too much.

Which could mean that
Charlie knew too much too.

Last night, for the first
time in years, Charlie had gone around to lock all the windows,
double-check the doors. The fragility of his paltry defenses glared
at him. No burglar alarm. No gun. No Dobermans. In this development
you weren’t supposed to need that kind of protection. Crime was a
city problem, right? Murders didn’t happen in this town.

But one had. And Charlie
was caught in the middle.

He’d been much too upset
last night to work things out with Deanna, so he hadn’t even tried.
Things were touchy with her right now. There’d been no open fight,
but there were too many excuses about having to work on some
project or other, about having to see friends. With anyone else he
might have shrugged it off, a pleasant adventure gone stale. But he
and Deanna had something special, something worth saving. Not just
the shared interests—films, of course, and ice skating, and silly
jokes, and Italian food. But most of all, together they were
explosively sensual, somehow reaching and satisfying each other’s
deepest needs in a way he’d never achieved with Lorraine. Away from
Deanna he ached, incomplete, craving the scent of her hair, her
clear honey-tan skin, her warm slender legs, her smoky eyes full of
ancient wisdom and ancient hunger. She needed him, too.