Murder Misread (21 page)

“
Yes. Yes, I guess there
would be reporters.” His hand strayed to his pocket. He had a pipe
in it. Anne could see its shape through the soft tweed. She
wondered if he’d had to buy a new one.

“
We had an idea and
wondered if you could add anything,” said Maggie. “They found your
pipe in the gorge. Do you know how it got there?”

His deep-set eyes looked
away from her, and a spasm of despair crossed his face. Anne was
surprised by the depth of the misery written there. “I don’t know
why,” he muttered.

“
But you think you know
who.” Maggie was intent on his face. “You think Charlie did it,
trying to frame you. You think I’m covering up for him.”

He was uneasy. “Well, I
know you work for him—”

“
Not for him. With him.
The grant pays me as a consultant, independently. Bart, I’ve been
trying to think if there was any way Charlie could have done it,
but I’ve come up with nothing. So I’m asking you to think for a
minute. If not Charlie, who?”

“
Not Charlie?”

“
Look, you’re thinking he
tried to frame you and dropped his book by mistake when he did it.
Well, why couldn’t it be you trying to frame him, and dropping your
pipe by mistake?”

“
Did he say that? Is that
why the police have been—”

Anne said impatiently,
“Bart, it’s one possibility. You’re a scientist, think! Each of us
knows a few facts. You say our facts make you suspect Charlie. But
what if it’s not Charlie? What if someone else set up both of
you?”

“
Both of us. God, that
seems so unlikely—but then, it seems unlikely that Charlie would—”
He looked into the distance, over Anne’s head. “God, you know, at
first I was sure it was just a mugger. Then when they found my pipe
and Charlie’s notebook—well, it was like getting hit twice. Tal,
and then Charlie framing me. But why would anyone do this to
Charlie and me both?”

“
To make sure the police
were looking the wrong way,” Maggie explained patiently. “Probably
hoping that one or the other of you wouldn’t have a strong alibi.
But it would help if we could figure out who besides Charlie could
have taken your pipe.”

“
I see.” Bart looked at
them with a spark of hope. “So if we work out who could have taken
both the notebook and the pipe, we’ll have our answer.”

“
Except that it’s not that
easy.” Maggie pushed her fingers through her hair. “Charlie’s
little book was in his outside jacket pocket and could have fallen
out anywhere here or on the way to Collegetown.”

“
So anyone who got the
pipe could also get the book.” The tweedy shoulders sagged again.
“Well, the problem is, I can’t narrow it down much more. I had a
smoke yesterday morning in the hall. Then I went in and worked on
my grant proposal.”

“
The one Tal was helping
with?”

“
Yes. After he left I was
busy for a couple of hours on it. Then I had to leave to get my
photos in Collegetown before meeting him for lunch. When I started
down the gorge trail I reached for my pipe and it was
gone.”

“
Okay. You used it this
morning, put it away, put it in your pocket. Who did you see after
that?”

“
You know, Sergeant Hines
asked me all this but he didn’t explain why,” Bart said. “I told
him I thought it was Charlie. I thought he was trying to work out
how Charlie got the pipe and I wondered why he kept asking about
everyone else. Anyway, the first thing that happened was that
Charlie almost bumped into me, running down the hall. I saw Cindy
in the office, and Tal. Asked to see Bernie but he was too busy.”
There was a bitter edge in his voice. “So I went to my office. Tal
came in, and later I went to check a Piaget reference with Nora in
her office. Around eleven I met with a couple of my grad students
in my office. While they were there Cindy called, said Bernie had
been able to find ten minutes in his schedule and would I come
over. So I was in Bernie’s office for ten minutes.”

“
What did you talk about?”
Maggie asked brightly.

“
Nothing
important.”

There was a brief pause.
Bart fingered the pipe in his pocket. Finally Anne said, “You and
Bernie aren’t exactly chums.”

“
You think he—?” A short
harsh laugh. “No. I can see him framing me, all right. But
Charlie’s always been his fair-haired boy. And Tal—God, I keep
hitting that, Anne. Everybody liked Tal!”

Wounded, Anne snapped, “In
that case someone who liked him shot him. Be logical,
Bart!”

“
Yes.”
Chastised, he looked away. Such a big man,
un
bouboule
, but so easy to
hurt.

“
While we’re being
logical,” Maggie said, “let me ask if your pipe could have fallen
from your pocket.”

“
No. Well, maybe it’s
possible. A couple of times in the past I’ve leaned over and it’s
fallen out. But it’s unlikely—oh, hell, the whole thing is
unlikely, isn’t it?”

“
Yes.” Maggie’s arms were
folded across her flame-red shirt, and her brows had pulled into a
small thoughtful frown. “Well, if you do think of something, be
sure to let the police know. But don’t let us keep you any longer.
I know you’re running an experiment now.”

“
Yes.” He smiled at Anne.
“Still trying to find out how creative children can be.”

“
Is this a follow-up to
that study you ran two years ago?” Anne asked.

“
That was just a pilot
study. Had some interesting things in it. But our follow-up study
last year didn’t work out. The stories were so different the coders
couldn’t agree on categories. So now we’re constraining the kids’
stories more, giving them a topic instead of letting them choose.
Oh, hell, Anne, you don’t want to hear me babble about
this!”

Maggie’s voice held lively
interest. “Anne was telling me that Tal was very impressed by one
of the kids in that pilot study. The young Jules Verne, remember,
Anne?”

“
Jill Baker,” Anne
said.

Bart nodded. “Yes. That’s
a good example of the coding problem I was talking about. Jill
Baker told some interesting animal stories. I thought they were
pretty creative. But one of the coders thought all animal stories
were derivative.”

“
So by giving the kids
topics, you’ll get your coders to look for creativity in areas
other than subject matter?” Maggie asked.

“
That’s right. Though I
hate to limit the children’s imagination that way.”

“
This Jill Baker—did she
have brothers and sisters?”

“
Let’s see.” He looked
into space again, thinking. “I met the mother. Bobbie Baker,
something like that. Seems to me she was divorced and Jill was the
only child. Why do you ask?”

Maggie shrugged, the red
shirt rising and falling. “Just curiosity. I see my daughter
telling stories to her little brother and wonder if it’s developing
her imagination. Well, Anne, let’s go. I have to find Charlie and
tell him that the computer’s down, with his number in
it.”

“
Too bad,” said Bart.
“Anne, you call us if we can do anything, okay?”

“
Okay. See you,
Bart.”

Maggie picked up her
briefcase and they went back down the hall and around the corner.
She stopped by an open door. Anne saw that Charlie was in the room,
bent over a disassembled machine. He was humming “Over the Rainbow”
and gave a start when Maggie spoke. “How’s it going?”

“
Oh, Maggie! And Anne.
Hello.” He straightened and pushed his glasses up on his
nose.

Maggie put her briefcase
on the table next to the apparatus. “Have you found the
problem?”

“
I’ve got it narrowed down
to two possibilities,” Charlie said. “As soon as I check those out
I can fix it.”

“
Good. I figured you must
be doing all right if you were humming.”

“
Yeah.” Charlie looked at
Anne almost apologetically. “I get absorbed in equipment like this.
Forget the real world sometimes.”

Anne nodded. Nice of him
to apologize, as though he too knew the world should be in
mourning. She reached for a cigarette but then hesitated,
remembering the signs in the computer room. So much equipment these
days needed a smoke-free environment. Including humans, apparently.
Well, she’d quit one of these days, but this was hardly the
time.

Maggie was telling Charlie
about the computer printout problem. “Will you still be around a
couple of hours from now?”

“
Yes, of course. This
contraption will take me another hour at least, and I haven’t even
checked my mail today.”

“
Well, I’ll stop by again
later. Maybe we can go over the results today after all.” She
picked up her briefcase again. “Good luck with that
printer.”

“
Thanks.”

“
Next stop, phone booth,”
said Maggie when they were back in the hall.

“
As long as I can smoke,”
said Anne. “But I thought we were going to look at Cindy’s files
and return them.”

“
Yes, if we can. But
something else has come up.” Maggie shoved open the main doors of
the basement and led the way to a bank of outdoor phone booths.
Anne lit a Gauloise while Maggie opened the directory. “A lot of
Bakers. Do you know where Jill lives, Anne?”

“
Jill Baker? I don’t
know.”

“
Lives with her mother,
Bart said. A name like Bobbie. Roberta, maybe. How about R.M.
Baker, 401 Stafford—no, that’s on campus, probably a student. Well,
we’ll try B.E. Baker then. 1731 Pinetree Lane.” She slapped the
book closed and rejoined Anne.

“
So we’re going to try to
find Jill Baker?”

“
We’ll just buzz by, then
come back here.” She replaced the directory and started around the
corner toward the parking lot. “Why don’t we take my car? That is,
if you want to come.”

“
Sure. But why this sudden
interest in Jill Baker?”

“
You said her story
bothered Tal. And it occurred to me that she’d be home from school
by now. School’s still in session here, right?”

“
Until next week.” Anne
climbed into the Camaro. Children’s toys were scattered across the
backseat.

“
Okay, let’s go. Pinetree
Lane is part of that new subdivision on the west hill, right?
Forest Park?” Maggie snapped her seatbelt on and turned the
ignition.

“
Yes. All the streets have
names like that. Pinetree, Cherrywood, Oakland. Tal used to call it
Parquet Park.”

Maggie laughed. “Off to
Parquet Park we go. It’s not that far from here, if we cut over by
Minerva Creek.”

“
That’s right. You know
your way around here.”

“
When I was a grad here I
had a lovely rusty old Ford. Springs popping out of the upholstery
but it ran well. God, I loved that car. My first. I was always
tuning it up, relining the brakes, all that stuff. Drove it all
over these hills.” Maggie sighed. “The frame finally rusted through
and I sold it to a guy for the parts. I was moving to New York
about then anyway.”

“
First car, first
apartment,” said Anne. “Strange how friendly you feel toward them
even when they wouldn’t do at all anymore. Or first trip abroad.
God, I was dumb! But at the time I felt so
sophisticated.”

“
Same here.” The blue eyes
smiled at Anne. “I was this hick kid from Ohio, thinking, Watch
out, Paris, here I come! So greedy. Fifteen years old and I wanted
to gobble the whole city, everything it had to offer. Art, music,
theatre, sports, literature. Love.”

“
Same with me. I was
fourteen. Maybe at that age it’s a healthy attitude.”

“
Maybe.” Maggie’s voice
was serious now. “But you can sure take a bad fall if you aren’t
careful.”

“
That can happen anywhere.
And you recover from things that happen at fifteen.”

“
Recover. Well, maybe
sometimes.” That sidelong glance again, sober this time. “In any
case you go on.”

“
Yes. You go on, you
grow.” Anne looked out the window. They had descended into the
valley from the university hill and were crossing the town toward
the road that led up the west hill. “The French understand about
going on. They’re a lot more forgiving of wild oats than Americans.
They’ve never been Puritans. But of course they expect people to
settle down later, make commitments.”

“
To
be
sérieux
.” There was a thread of
bitterness in Maggie’s voice.

Anne looked at her
sharply. “Yes.
Sérieux
.” Untranslatable. It meant
serious, yes, but with the emphasis on being a responsible, solid
citizen. “But if you were just fifteen, they couldn’t have expected
that of you.”

“
No.” Maggie took a deep
breath and turned into the subdivision, a set of low-slung fifties
houses that varied only in paint color and plantings. “Here’s
Pinetree.”

The Baker house was
painted yellow, with a rough lawn and overgrown bushes. A well-worn
Pinto and a bike sat in the open garage. Anne followed Maggie to
the front door.