Murder Misread (6 page)

“
Just a few questions, Ms.
Peterson.” Hines smiled at her, but his quick glance was sizing her
up professionally. Height, weight, hair color, eye color, any
distinguishing marks—Charlie could almost see her being converted
to checkmarks in boxes on official police forms.

Charlie had already talked
to Hines, so he’d been converted already.

“
Yes, he invited me to
lunch too.” Nora was businesslike, only a quiver of her eyelid
betraying stress. “He said it was some kind of celebration. I
figured maybe he’d had a book published.”

“
I see. Now, what route
did you take to the restaurant?”

“
The upper
bridge.”

“
What time was
it?”

“
Noon, maybe even a minute
or two after. I was a little late because I wanted to finish some
exams I was grading. Essay type, they take a long time to
grade.”

“
Right. Did you see anyone
on the lower trail?”

She shook her head slowly.
A couple of strands of her scraped-back hair had come loose, making
her look strangely vulnerable. “I’m sorry, I was in such a rush
because I was late. So I just hurried straight to
Plato’s.”

“
You didn’t glance
down?”

“
I probably did. One does
when crossing a bridge. But nothing registered as any different
from the last hundred times I walked across.”

“
You didn’t notice a man
by those trees?” Hines nodded at the clump of maples that Charlie
and Maggie had identified as the place the unknown man was
lurking.

“
No. I didn’t.”

“
A woman and a
child?”

“
No.”

“
Was there anyone else on
the upper trail?”

“
I passed a couple of
students just as I entered, coming out on the campus side. Young
men.”

“
Good. Could you describe
them, please?”

“
I didn’t really notice.
Well, jeans, of course. Sweatshirts. Backpacks, maybe. One of them
was blond.”

“
How tall? As tall as
Officer Porter?”

“
Yes, roughly. Not as
heavy.”

Charlie became aware of a
murmur farther up the trail. A gray-uniformed Campus Security
officer was talking to a city cop. The campus officer was escorting
a short, stout woman—oh, God, it was Anne! He hadn’t thought about
Anne. She’d always awed him a little despite her good humor,
because of the keen intelligence and brusqueness wrapped in that
solid matronly little figure. But Tal doted on her, proud of her
accomplishments, even bragging that he’d married the prettiest
professor on campus. “None of these wispy little model types for
me,” he’d confided to Charlie early on, man to man. “I go for a
real woman. A huggable woman.” He’d tactfully stopped those
comments when Charlie had gotten engaged to slim Lorraine, a grad
student with big blue eyes and enormous ambitions that eventually
had drawn her away from Charlie to New York City. Lorraine had been
sweet and brainy and understanding, but definitely on the wispy
side by Tal’s standards.

Back then Charlie had
thought she was just right. Well, that was over and done with.
Better luck next time.

Anne Chandler was smoking
those smelly French cigarettes of hers, her hands moving jerkily to
her mouth. She was dressed in lightweight brown tweed. She and Tal
always looked like a British couple about to go out for a tramp on
the heath. Her hair was salt-and-pepper gray, cut short and ruffly
around that intelligent face. The Campus Security officer led her
straight to Hines. The big detective’s impassiveness had melted a
little. “Mrs. Chandler? Professor Talbott Chandler’s
wife?”

“
Right.” A puff on the
cigarette. “He’s dead, isn’t he.”

“
I’m afraid so, Mrs.
Chandler.”

Her shoulders sagged at
the confirmation. “May I see him?”

Hines squinted down the
trail. “We won’t be finished for a while yet. Do you want to sit
down?”

“
Been sitting all morning.
You want to ask me questions?”

“
Yes, but I don’t want to
cause you further distress. I can talk to you somewhere else,
later.” Hines’s voice was full of compassion. “Just let us have
your address, phone—”

“
You’re saying you don’t
want me to see him now.” She lost interest in Hines. “Hello,
Nora.”

Nora nodded
bleakly.

Anne took a card from her
bag, handed it to Hines, took another puff and turned away. Her
gaze lit on Charlie. “Hello, Charlie.”

“
Anne, I’m so sorry.” He
shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly. What the hell did you
say? He felt as awkward as a nine-year-old, trying to tell Aunt
Babs he’d lost her fifty dollars.

“
Thanks,” she said
brusquely.

Hines looked at the card
she’d given him and nodded. “Thanks.” He turned back to
Nora.

Anne marched over to
Charlie. “What happened?”

He avoided her savvy dark
eyes. “Well, we were going to have lunch with him at
Plato’s.”

She nodded. “Yes, Cindy
told me.”

“
Well—” He felt
ridiculously relieved, as though she might have challenged his
statement. Heartened, he went on, “The rest of us had already
arrived at Plato’s.”

“
Who’s the rest of
you?”

“
I arrived with Maggie,
and—”

“
Maggie?”

“
Me,” said Maggie. Anne
turned to look her over. “I’m Maggie Ryan. Statistician for
Charlie’s project. I just met your husband this morning, Professor
Chandler. I’m so sorry—”

“
Thank you.” Anne brushed
off her sympathy with a wave of her cigarette and inspected Maggie
clinically. “You’re not in the Education Department.”

“
No. I’m just here for the
summer this time.”

A cloud of smelly French
smoke billowed past Charlie’s nose. “Were you here before?” Anne
asked her with a little frown.

“
Yes. Got my Ph.D. here
seven years ago.”

Anne nodded curtly and
glanced back at Charlie. “So you two arrived at Plato’s
first.”

“
Yes. We were a couple of
minutes early.” He cleared his throat. “Then Bart arrived, and
finally Nora.”

“
Tal asked Cindy too,”
offered Maggie, “but she couldn’t come, because of another meeting
she had.”

“
Mm.” Anne was looking
down the trail again.

Maggie said, “Tal said you
had a meeting too.”

“
Canceled it,” said Anne,
then looked sharply at Maggie. After a moment she said, “So
everyone was up there at Plato’s, except Tal.”

“
And Cindy, and you, and
the rest of the campus.”

“
Right.” Anne dropped her
cigarette stub onto the trail and ground it out with the toe of her
crepe-soled walking shoe. “What happened then?”

“
We were waiting for Tal,”
said Maggie, “and I heard Dorrie here calling for help. So I ran
out of Plato’s to see what I could do. She said there was a man
hurt on the gorge trail.”

Dorrie nodded mutely. Anne
studied her a moment, then asked gently, “What did you
see?”

Charlie looked
apprehensively at the Campus Security men. They weren’t supposed to
be talking about it. But the guards had edged closer to Hines and
Nora, avidly listening themselves.

“
I was coming down the
trail…,” Dorrie began, tugging nervously at her honey-brown
hair.

“
From College Ave.,” said
Maggie.

“
Yes. And I saw this
jacket lying there. And at first I didn’t know what it was, you
know? And then I saw his head. And all the blood. And I screamed,
and, well, I just ran back to get help.”

Anne’s inquiring eyes
turned to Maggie.

“
I brought her into
Plato’s to call the ambulance and the police,” Maggie said.
“Charlie and the others helped her.”

“
Maggie ran on ahead,”
Charlie explained.

“
I know a little CPR,”
said Maggie. “But when I saw him it was clear that it was too late.
So I tried to keep people away until the cops came.”

Anne nodded, looking down
at the brown toes of her shoes. Then she raised her eyes to Maggie,
and for the first time there was a catch in her voice. “He was
shot?”

“
Yes,” said Maggie
gently.

Anne looked back at her
shoes.

Dorrie said in a wondering
tone, “I guess I heard it. I was just starting down the trail and I
thought it was a car backfiring.” Her eyes were wide behind her
square-framed glasses. “God, I never thought—”

“
You told the detectives
about the backfire?” Maggie asked.

“
I don’t remember what I
told them. I was so confused.”

“
Well, that’s normal. But
be sure you tell them first chance you get.” Maggie gave the girl’s
shoulders a squeeze.

Charlie noticed that his
fist was hitting into his palm again. He felt so damn angry and
frustrated. He wished Hines would let them go, so he could think.
He thrust his fists back into his pockets and looked at the
detective, who was conferring now with a gangly man in a pinstripe
suit. Hines took a couple of notes, then came over to where his
witnesses were gathered. “Mrs. Chandler?” he said gently. “Could
you answer a few questions now?”

Anne squared her
shoulders, her face a mask. A tough woman, Charlie thought. She’d
always seemed a little frightening. “I’m ready,” she said
brusquely.

Hines led her a few steps
down the path. Dorrie said quietly, “God, I never thought about him
having a wife, you know?”

Maggie nodded but didn’t
answer. She was watching Anne intently, her lower lip caught behind
her teeth. Reluctantly, Charlie followed her gaze. Hines towered
over the squat little woman but she seemed to be the dominant one
as she answered his murmured questions. Then, suddenly, her calm
was shattered. “No!” she exclaimed, her voice indignant.

“
But you see, he was
holding it—”

“
Doesn’t matter!” Anne was
still agitated but as confident as ever. “It just won’t work. He
had no reason for suicide. None!” She was fumbling in her pocket,
pulled out a cigarette. Hines lit it for her, bending over her like
a lion tending a cub.

“
I had to ask, Mrs.
Chandler,” he said. “Because he was holding the gun.”

Anne shook her head
stubbornly.

“
Excuse me,” Maggie
called.

Hines looked around with a
frown. “Just a minute.”

“
No, you see, there’s a
problem,” Maggie insisted. “The gun was in his right
hand.”

Hines continued to frown,
but Anne exclaimed, “There! You see?”

“
See what?” Hines
asked.

“
Is she right? Was the gun
in his right hand?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, Tal’s
left-handed.”

Hines snatched out his
notebook eagerly. “You’re sure? Well, of course you’re sure.” He
wrote it down. “Now, Mrs. Chandler, I’ll have someone drive you
home, and—”

“
Look, Sergeant Hines, I
want to do something,” Anne said crisply. “You say he wasn’t
robbed. I know it’s not suicide. I can’t think of any reason
someone would do this, but I can’t just sit around fretting. I
could help you check his office. That’s where he spent the morning.
Something may occur to me.”

Hines checked the
pugnacious tilt of her jaw and acquiesced. “Okay. I’ve got some
things to finish up here, then we’ll go to Van Brunt Hall
and—”

“
Sergeant
Hines.”

The speaker was a
handsome, square-faced, graying man with a mustache and sharp blue
eyes. His gray uniform strained around a beer belly, but Charlie
sensed power yet in those muscles. Burt Reynolds at sixty. Hines
turned, but didn’t seem impressed. “Captain Walensky,” he
acknowledged, but Charlie could hear quotation marks around
the
Captain
.

Walensky scanned the
group, nodded at Charlie and at Nora before returning his attention
to Hines. He wasn’t as tall as the black detective, but he wore his
age with a solid dignity. His eyes fastened on Anne Chandler.
“Hello, Mrs. Chandler,” he said solemnly.

Anne gave him a curt
nod.

He cleared his throat and
said, “What have we got, Reggie?”

“
Suspicious death, Wayne,”
Hines snapped back.

Walensky’s Burt Reynolds
eyebrows furrowed. “My man said suicide.”

“
Yeah, but you know how
things are, Wayne. You never know how things may turn
out.”

“
It was Professor
Chandler?” Walensky said softly, his eyes sidling to
Anne.

“
I’m afraid so,” said
Hines.

Walensky muttered
something under his breath, then, “I knew him. Great
guy.”

“
Yeah.” Hines’s expression
didn’t change.

“
Well, I’d better get at
it.” He took a step down the path.