The Puzzled Heart (21 page)

T
HE
next day, Monday, was the start of Kate’s weeklong spring break. This holiday always occurred in the exact middle of the spring term, bearing no relation either to Easter or to the vernal equinox, but it was always welcome as the only break in a long semester. Kate determined that by the time of her return to classes she would either have found Muriel or eliminated her as a possibility. Harriet and Kate sat together in Kate’s study and Kate reiterated Leslie’s idea about an ancient grudge (assumed ancient because Kate did not remember it) and then explained about Muriel and all the memory searching that had resulted in her identification, if identification it could be called.

Harriet took this all in, demonstrating her habit of
listening intently when she was being offered information. She was quiet for a time.

“The problem,” she eventually said, “as of course you’ve already seen, is that whoever Muriel is now, she has not shown herself in this investigation. Either we know nothing of her, or we must surmise her from the people we do have. There is no way, for instance, that Dorothy Hedge could be Muriel, because you’d surely have recognized her even after all these years.”

“I suppose I would have,” Kate said dubiously. “Yet, when I talked to Dorothy, I wasn’t thinking of Muriel or the past in any way.”

“No, but you had your antennae out, so to speak. Anything the least bit noticeable would have been noticed.”

“Let’s assume that, for the moment, at least. I suggest that we go back to the right-wing group idea, and look for whoever is behind that, with the advantage that we are assuming for the moment that
whoever
is Muriel. I take it you met the mother of the bad boy who wrote the letter. Could she have been Muriel?”

“Good heavens, Kate, how the hell would I know?”

“By her age, for one thing.”

“Exactly. Your brother pointed out that Muriel might well be sixty by now. Right-wing Mama could be sixty. She looked a bit older, I thought, but who can tell? What you’ve got to do is get the university’s records on her son, which should give you some
background. Get hold of his application to the university if you can. Meanwhile, I think I’ll go visit her again, let her argue me into joining her reactionary group.”

“She might know you’ve been questioned about the murder.”

“She probably won’t, but if she does that will tell us something about how closely she’s following all this. It will also give me a chance to say how rotten our government and police are.”

“What it comes down to,” Kate sighed, “is that we have to go back to the very beginning.”

“Always a good idea,” Harriet said. “I do hope,” she added after a pause, “that you aren’t harboring even the slightest suspicion that I attacked Toni. Not that that would keep me from this investigation, since anything I find out will only go to prove my innocence. But I just thought I would ask.”

“I’m not harboring the slightest suspicion,” Kate said. “The big question as far as I’m concerned is, can we assume that whoever killed her was connected to our investigation? If it was someone from her earlier life or from another case, that makes me more worried about proving your innocence.”

“I’ve considered that. But I don’t really think that Toni had any cases I didn’t know about, and none of the ones I know about are the least likely to have led to murder, least of all hers. Not that she wasn’t secretive about some things. There were certainly arrangements she made that she didn’t discuss in my presence
or where I could overhear. But I always assumed these had to do with her private life. It doesn’t make sense that they had to do with a case; we discussed all our cases all the time, and anyway, yours was our main job at the moment.”

“But the police, according to Archie, haven’t found any indication that she had a private life, at least not a complicated one at all or one likely to lead to violence. You certainly didn’t think she did.”

“No. But I almost never went to her house. We didn’t have a social life together—you know, drinks, walks, meals with conversation. Ours was strictly a business arrangement. Now that I think of it, perhaps that is a little odd. But I’m such a loner myself that it didn’t really occur to me to think anything of it. You know, Kate, you’re the only person I’ve let get close to me in years, and that was partly because I like you, and partly because you helped me out in a very serious personal matter.”

“I do wish,” Kate said, “that everything we dredged up didn’t lead to a dead end.”

“Well, on to our assigned task then,” Harriet said, rising. “Me to Mama, you to son’s records. Let’s talk tonight in case either of us has discovered anything at all.”

Kate had a harder time of it than she had expected. The English department, she knew, had records, but the Bad Boy, as she and Harriet had taken to calling him, was not a student in the English department.
That meant accosting the Dean’s secretary and demanding a student’s record. This Kate did, at first in her most tactful manner, then with a bit more authority as the Dean’s secretary held firmly to her instructions that no student’s file was to be given out except with the Dean’s written instruction, and the Dean had taken himself off to the Bahamas for the spring break, exact whereabouts unknown, or so the secretary claimed. Only after Kate had tracked down the Associate Dean, who was at home nursing a cold, did she manage to wrench the records from the diligent secretary.

“I was just following orders,” the secretary said rather apologetically, handing over the records. “You will look at them here, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, and you acted correctly,” Kate said, also conciliatory.

Bad Boy’s records were more revealing than Kate had dared to hope. He had applied several times to the university and been turned down. He was at last accepted upon the recommendation of one of the university’s major donors, a man Kate recognized as a member of a foundation subsidizing right-wing publications and organizations on many campuses. (This identification of the donor was not of course in the application; Kate had long known of him, as had many others who regretted the powerful financial influence of right-wing foundations on campus life.)

Bad Boy’s folder also recorded his failure in several courses and his having been brought up on
charges of plagiarism and cheating. He had not, however, been expelled—for reasons anyone might presume to guess. He had at least been warned that the offenses must not be repeated. Kate found it of interest that his ill-advised letter to the student newspaper had been included in his folder. His parents’ names were, of course, given in his original application: father dead; mother a native and resident of Georgia, now living in New York, supposedly to be near her son. Bad Boy’s original application had included a picture. He was not bad looking, except for a smirk on his face which appeared to be permanent. His name, Kate noted, was Kenneth Lawrence Thomas. His mother’s name was Electra Thomas, a wonderfully appropriate name, whether she had been endowed with it at birth or had adopted it because she acted too wholly in defense of the father and patriarchal rights.

Kate was not surprised to discover, in reading over Bad Boy’s (for so she continued to think of him, “Kenneth Lawrence” denoting nothing of special interest) transcript, that he had taken only the required courses in literature and that it was in these, she had no doubt, he had attempted to get away with plagiarism. Plagiarism was a plague these days among undergraduates, and Kate had always been astonished to discover the ineptitude of most plagiarists. One student had actually copied his paper from the introduction to the text used in class. Then there were the firms that wrote papers to order.

Kate dragged her wandering mind back to a contemplation of this particular student. The only other significant fact was that Bad Boy belonged to a fraternity that had years before become notorious for screaming epithets at some black students, thereby starting a riot. The fraternity’s defense, Kate remembered, had been that its members had only observed that blacks had kinky hair, which was a simple matter of fact. Why should blacks be so sensitive about having their hair described for them? This was all very intriguing, but hardly suggested a connection to Muriel of long ago. Not at all certain what she had discovered, or what use it would be, Kate thanked the secretary politely, returned the folder, and went home to await Harriet. She hoped Harriet had discovered something more relevant, or at least surprising.

Harriet, upon her return, was, unlike Kate, to be seen as figuratively licking her lips. Electra could not be Muriel, Harriet assured Kate. Her Southern accent was real, and she was the mother of Dorothy Hedge and a still older sister, which made her far more advanced in years than Muriel could possibly be. “But I did discover a few delicious bits,” Harriet assured Kate. “I deserve a single malt Scotch, as I’m sure you will agree.”

Kate went to get it, returning to insist upon an immediate account.

“Well,” Harriet said, this time licking her lips literally in appreciation of the Scotch, “just for starters, daughter Dorothy Hedge is not a renegade from the
family’s political positions. Quite the contrary. Mama was quite willing, upon being assured of my fervent agreement with all her opinions, and not knowing that I had any connection with you, to brag about how daughter Dorothy had fooled you into giving an account of your husband’s kidnapping.”

“Are you suggesting that the Hedge woman is Muriel?”

“Of course not, Kate. Do try to concentrate. You told me yourself that Muriel was not from the South, apart from all other considerations. No, the point is, dear Dorothy knew of the plot, aided and abetted it, and cheered it on. She lied to you, and induced you, with your unsophisticated sense of trust, to confide in her.”

“I’m going to ignore that comment. I didn’t lose a thing by
confiding
in her, as you put it. If I hadn’t, you might not have rumbled to her true convictions—if Mama was telling you the truth, which can never be assumed.”

“I’m ahead of you there. I believe nothing from the mouth of that woman without other evidence. Which I’m hoping Reed with his connections can get.”

“What sort of evidence?”

“Mama said”—Harriet held out her glass for a refill—“that Dorothy came in to see Mama and Bad Boy at least once a week. If she comes in that often, she probably has an E-ZPass. If she has an E-ZPass, it records every time she goes through the tollbooths at the Henry Hudson Bridge.”

“What you no doubt mean,” Kate said with some acerbity, “is that her car went through the tollbooths. The identity of the driver is not revealed in the record, is it?”

“Rant on. It’s evidence enough for me, if we can get it. I daresay E-ZPass’s habit of sending a printed account each month must embarrass not a few wayward folks who have said they were going to be somewhere else at the time. However, that’s not our case at the moment.”

“Okay, what else did you learn?”

“Well, obviously that Mama and Bad Boy were connected to Reed’s kidnapping. I know we guessed that, but now we know it. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t tell us who was behind the whole scheme, and I admit I couldn’t extract that from Mama in this visit even if she knows—and I’m not sure she does.”

“She must know, if she agreed to take part and to let her son take part.”

“Not necessarily. She could know who got in touch with her, but that person may not be the chief operator.”

“Really, Harriet, you’re beginning to sound as though we’re dealing with the Mafia.”

“And so I should. The analogy is not in the least farfetched. Think about it.”

Kate, obeying this command, thought. After a time she said, “Harriet, who suggested the idea of using Banny to pass messages between us? Where did the idea come from?”

“Toni, of course. She said she’d used that method of communication before on a case.”

“And who located Banny as the particular dog to be used as a go-between?”

“Toni did. She said she’d decided that Saint Bernard puppies were the most madly appealing puppies in the world, so she looked up some index of kennels and found one that bred Saint Bernards.”

“And the person who bred them happened to know Dorothy Hedge who happens to be the daughter of Mama and the sister of Bad Boy. Quite a coincidence!”

“Not really. People around here who breed dogs live relatively nearby, in Connecticut or upstate, and naturally a breeder would know a woman who boards dogs. Toni found Banny through an ad. She told me all about it.”

“Did she show you the ad?”

“Yes, she did, as a matter of fact. It said Saint Bernard puppies, with pedigrees, born on such and such a day—the usual thing, or so I supposed, in an ad for dogs.”

“I see,” Kate said. “Well, I’m going to have to figure it out when I have the time. Everybody seems so interconnected, and yet it can all be rationally explained. I’ll ask Reed to see if he can get hold of the record of Dorothy’s trips into Manhattan, or at least the trips her car took.”

And with that their consultation ended, Harriet promising to visit Mama again and to try to work the
conversation around to Reed’s kidnapping and the details thereof.