Shadows on the Ivy (16 page)

Maggie picked up the pile of pink slips waiting for her on Claudia’s desk. Uncle Sam was curled up on Claudia’s chair; Claudia must be having lunch. Sam looked up at Maggie, yawned widely, and put his head down again. Clearly he was the only one on campus not concerned about Sarah, Tiffany, or his own safety. And Claudia hadn’t unlocked Maggie’s office this morning, so he hadn’t been playing bravest cat in the jungle with her snake plant. One positive point for today.

Linc had planned to take the day off since Maggie was handling his class, so his door was closed, too. She heard voices inside Paul’s office. Probably he was with a student. Good. She needed some quiet time to get caught up. And she didn’t want to think about last night.

Maggie searched the depths of her pocketbook for her keys. She always dropped them on top. How did they manage to maneuver their way to the bottom and camouflage themselves, hiding themselves next to the loose change, pens, tissues, single aspirin, business cards, magnifying glass, credit cards, and…there they were. Maggie unlocked her office door.

She put the portfolio on the visitor’s chair and turned to sit at the desk. Then she turned back. Something was different. She saw it at once: Tiffany’s briefcase was on the floor next to the visitor’s chair. She must have left it there yesterday afternoon.

Could Tiffany have been trying to blackmail someone? If so, since there was no trace of photographs in her room at Whitcomb House, then she might have had them with her. Maggie took a deep breath, picked up the briefcase, and tried to open it. Locked. Of course. If Tiffany was carrying something valuable, then she would have locked it.

Should she call the police? They’d be able to break the lock. Or pick it.

But maybe Maria was mistaken about the blackmail. Tiffany was dead, but she still deserved some privacy. But her killer didn’t deserve any protection. Maggie sat at her desk and held the smooth leather Coach briefcase on her lap. With its rich, soft leather and burnished hardware, it was not the sort of accessory a typical supermarket cashier would have.

Kendall had said one of Tiffany’s gentleman friends had given it to her. Maybe the man she was supposedly blackmailing?

That would be ironic, Maggie thought. To carry materials that could destroy someone in the briefcase he had given you.

Paul’s words last night came back to her: “Oliver is interested in the young women of Whitcomb House.” Could he have been the person she was going to blackmail?

Maggie unlocked the large file drawer on the right side of her desk where she kept records of student grades. She slipped the briefcase inside and relocked the drawer. She needed to think.

Oliver certainly had money. Enough money to be worth blackmailing. He was married. Tiffany had implied to Maria that the man she was seeing was married. But the bruises…Could Oliver have been abusive? Maggie shook her head in confusion. Oliver was a big man, but he had always seemed so gentle. Maybe not in business. But Dorothy certainly didn’t seem afraid of him. And people who were abusive were consistently abusive, weren’t they? Oliver didn’t look or act like a brute. Yet…there had been opportunity. He had met the women of Whitcomb House often enough. And Oliver wouldn’t have wanted Dorothy to know if he was having an affair.

Maggie stood up and looked out the window of her office, over the campus, toward Whitcomb House. Michael had cheated on her, and she hadn’t known until after he’d died. Wives didn’t always know. Or at least know for sure.

She and Michael had had such separate lives; he was often on the road during the week for his insurance business; she was away at antique shows or auctions over the weekends. There had been lots of opportunities for Michael to have cheated and for her not to have known. She could have cheated, too, she thought. But adultery had never been even a remote possibility for her. She’d naively believed everything in her marriage was going well.

Was that the way Dorothy felt? Since Oliver had retired, they spent a great deal of time together. Even their separate projects—his gymnasium, her Whitcomb House—were both on the same campus, only a mile or so from their home. Maggie had never sensed any problem between them. Oliver was openly affectionate with Dorothy and quietly amused with her foibles, such as his going along with her not wanting a bartender Sunday night. A small thing, Maggie thought, but a telling one. Oliver enjoyed spending the money he’d earned, and enjoyed watching Dorothy spend it.

Did any of this mean he wouldn’t have an affair with a younger woman? Tiffany was attractive and flirtatious. Maggie had seen her in action.

Would a man like Oliver risk a marriage he seemed happy in, and his reputation in the community, for an affair with Tiffany? It didn’t make sense to Maggie. But, then, adultery hit a little too close to home for her to be rational about it.

What about Sarah? She had collapsed in Oliver’s home; she had been poisoned there. What did she have to do with this? Tiffany might have had an affair with Oliver. Maggie granted that. She appeared to have had an affair with someone, and Oliver fit the picture: older, married, wealthy. But Sarah? Could she have been having an affair with Oliver as well? She was his stepdaughter, but he didn’t know that. Paul had said Oliver and the
women
of Whitcomb House. Did he really mean more than one woman? Or possibly even more than two? Could Kayla or Maria or Heather be involved? At first they had been reluctant to share information about Tiffany. But now it felt as though everything they knew was out in the open.

Maggie needed to talk to Paul. She needed to find out exactly what he’d meant last night. For now she’d keep Tiffany’s briefcase under lock and key.

And cope with immediate issues. She called back the Pennsylvania promoter; no, she couldn’t do his antique show this weekend. Sorry; yes, he could keep her on his waiting list for other shows. The woman with the
Godey’s
prints didn’t answer.

The first new message was from President Hagfield. Would she please make an appointment to see him? As soon as possible. Maggie sighed. Clearly, when the man at the top of the pyramid called, it was a priority. She dialed his number without looking at the other messages.

“He really wants to see you,” his assistant said. Jennifer was a former student of Maggie’s. “But he’s at lunch right now. Could you come by in about an hour?”

“Do you know what he wanted to talk about?”

“I’m not sure, Maggie, but it had to do with Whitcomb House. He’s very upset.”

“It’s sad, isn’t it?”

“It is. But to tell the truth, Maggie, Max seems more upset about what the reporters will write about the college than he does about what happened to Sarah Anderson or Tiffany Douglass. Although I’m sure he cares about them.”

“Of course. And it’s part of his job to keep up the public image of Somerset College.”

“The newspapers keep calling him. And someone from ABC. Do you think we might be on CNN, too?” Jennifer’s voice implied that being on CNN might make it all worthwhile.

“I have no idea. I just know that the faster Tiffany’s killer is found, the better things will be for all of us.”

“And the safer,” Jennifer said. “A lot of professors and students have been calling to ask if we’re going to close the school for a few days. Asking if it’s safe to be on campus.”

“What are you telling them?”

“That we’re all saddened by these tragedies, but that Sarah and Tiffany would have wanted us to continue operating Somerset College, keeping the light of learning alive.” Jennifer stumbled a bit on the last
l
sound.

“Who wrote that for you?”

“President Hagfield. He even typed it out himself. It sounds good, doesn’t it? Really professional. Like CNN.”

“Absolutely, Jennifer. Just like CNN. I’ll be over in an hour, then. In the meantime, I think I’ll go and get some lunch myself.”

Maggie did a quick calculation. She needed food in the house for her impending houseguests. She could just about make it to a supermarket, pick up the basics, drop them at home, and be back in an hour. Bread and cheese to eat in the car would be her lunch.

She left a note for Claudia. “Gone to lunch, then to see Max at 1:30. Back after that.” That should cover any questions that came in while she was gone.

She made a mental list as she put the Black Americana portfolio back in the van with her other prints. Diet Pepsi. Orange juice. Milk. She drank skim, but she remembered Gussie liked 1%. What about Jim? He’d have to drink what they did. Wheat bread—enough so they could make sandwiches to eat at the show this weekend if sales weren’t high enough to splurge on lunch. Ham and cheese for the sandwiches. Honey mustard. Romaine. And breakfasts: marmalade, she thought, and maybe some strawberry jam. Eggs. Bacon, despite the fat content. Maybe turkey bacon. And she’d make lasagna to have after setup Friday night, when they were all tired. Lasagna noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, spinach, sausage, onions, mushrooms, garlic, tomatoes…By the time she’d reached the supermarket she had the weekend meals figured out. If she was lucky, they’d do well enough at the show to eat out Sunday night, and Gussie and Jim were eating with friends Saturday night. But, if plans changed, she’d have options covered. Bless a mind that could multitask. She added a hard roll and some soft blue cheese for her lunch today and pushed her cart toward the checkout line.

The headline on today’s local newspaper was bold and three columns: “Somerset College Coed Found Dead in Single-Parent Dorm!” Maggie cringed. No wonder Max wanted to see her. It had been her assignment to ensure that Whitcomb House and its students were an asset to the campus community. That, if anything, they provided positive publicity for Somerset College. She picked up a copy of the paper and scanned the article.

Nothing was included that she didn’t already know. But the article didn’t miss the possible connection to Sarah’s poisoning Sunday night. Or that Oliver and Dorothy Whitcomb had donated Whitcomb House to the college, and that Sarah had collapsed at their home.

“It couldn’t be Oliver,” Maggie thought. “At least not with Sarah. Even if he would consider poisoning someone…how could he do it in his own home and expect to get away with it?” And yet no one had been arrested as far as she knew. It just didn’t make sense.

She dropped off the groceries at home, stopping only to make sure anything needing refrigeration was put away, and to give Winslow a special scratch and a bite of salmon. She’d straighten the kitchen later.

Two blocks from her house she saw a large
HOUSE SALE
sign. Today she really didn’t have time…but once in a while they were worthwhile. She deserved ten minutes of possibilities, no matter what. This was for her business.

The sale was in the garage and family room of the house. She glanced through cartons of books. There were a lot of children’s books. Maybe she should start collecting some…No. It was too early. She hadn’t officially decided about adoption yet. But these were in great condition. She hated to leave them. Maggie hesitated and then picked out half a dozen picture books for the children at Whitcomb House.

At the bottom of a carton of picture books was the leather cover of an old scrapbook. She pulled it out carefully. Scrapbooks could hold nineteenth-century Christmas cards or valentines or advertising cards, and if the contents were beautifully lithographed and not glued in, they might have value. Of course, she didn’t hope too hard. Scrapbooks could also hold junk or recent memorabilia or pictures of interest only to the owner, not to an antique dealer. Maggie balanced the album on the pile of picture books she’d selected and opened it.

The album was filled with page after page of carefully dried and pressed seaweeds—or sea mosses, as they were called in the nineteenth century. Drying sea mosses and wildflowers was a Victorian lady’s craft and amusement. But dried plants were fragile; rarely had an album like this survived. Maggie handled it carefully. On the inside cover was handwritten, “Sea mosses I collected on Long Island, summer, 1883. Eloise Hammond.” Provenance!

They would have to be handled with care, but they could be spray-glued, placed in deep mats, and then framed. They would look spectacular on someone’s wall. And the price was?

Maggie casually took the album and the picture books to the women behind the cash box. “I have six children’s picture books, and this old album,” she said. “How much will that come to?”

“Oh, why not a dollar each for the children’s books, and you can have that old album for five. It’s been in my grandmother’s attic for years.”

Maggie smiled and pulled out $11.

She’d have to handle these pages carefully, and pay Brad and Steve to do the framing, but there were at least twenty pages of dried sea mosses. She could hang them on one wall at a show and ask $200 each.

Some dealers didn’t take the time to go to suburban garage sales. Maggie couldn’t help grinning as she carefully put the album on the front seat of her van. Some dealers really missed out.