Death by Hitchcock (7 page)

Chapter 19

Will knocked on the door of Professor Winner’s second floor office in Hexley Hall.

“Come in”.

Chaz Winner was seated behind the desk at a computer. His wavy hair was brushed back from his face, and a pair of fashionable reading glasses sat at the end of his nose. On one wall of the large, corner office was an imposing poster showing a Russian sailor standing in front of an enormous battleship. The title,
Battleship Potemkin,
appeared in English at the top, and in the Cyrillic letters of the Russian alphabet at the bottom.

“Please sit down, Detective Tenney,” the professor said.

Upon closer inspection, Will saw that the professor was in a bad way. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, and his face had a peculiar pallor.

“Thank-you for seeing me today. I’m sure the shock of Bunny’s death has taken its toll on you,” Will said.

Chaz Winner replied in a monotone voice.

“How can I help you?”

“It would be useful if I could hear your account of the night of her death,” Will said. 

Chaz Winner removed his glasses and rested his elbows on the desk, pressing the palms of his hands over his eyes. 

“I’ve had a splitting headache for the last four hours,” he groaned.

“Sorry to hear that, sir. Can I get you something?” Will said.

“No, thank-you. I’ve taken all kinds of stuff,” Chaz said, leaning back and closing his eyes.”

“My account of that night,” Chaz repeated. “Very well.” He stretched his neck slowly to one side,
grimacing in pain, then to the other, trying to release the muscle tension.

“Bunny was supposed to meet me in the auditorium,” he said. “When she didn’t show up by the time the film started, I figured she was just running late, and would probably show up any second. But it was very unusual for her to be late for a movie, and five or ten minutes in, I started to wonder what on earth could be keeping her. I couldn’t concentrate on the film at all. I remember somebody tried to sit down in the seat I was saving for Bunny, and I told her she couldn’t sit there.”

“Do you recall who that was?” Will asked.

“A local eccentric,” Professor Winner replied. “An Englishwoman who comes to all our Film Society movies. She always sits right behind me for some reason. I’ve seen her around the department a few times, reading notices on the bulletin board.”

“The next thing I remember was a scream coming from outside the auditorium, and then the film stopped. I remember thinking, how did the projectionist hear the screams from inside the projection room? But he must have, because the movie stopped two seconds after the scream.”

Will glanced over the notes.

“Professor Winner, did Bunny use homeopathic remedies for anything?”

“What on earth difference would that make?” the professor said.

“We’re just following up on something,” Will replied.

“As a matter of fact, yes; she did. She started getting headaches recently, and she was taking some homeopathic stuff to get rid of them.”

“Anything else?”

“Hm. She had some special mixture of herbal tea she drank all the time,” he replied. “I couldn’t stand the
stuff––it had all sorts of weird things in it. And I believe she also took a natural remedy for menstrual cramps.”

“Professor Winner, I do need to ask you where you were from four-thirty p.m. until you sat down in your seat in Hexley Auditorium that night,” Will said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” the professor said with annoyance. “If you insist. I had a class from four to five-thirty. After that, I stopped to pick up a sandwich, and came back to my office to do some work.”

“Can anyone vouch that you were here in the office between, say six o’clock and six-forty-five?” Will asked.

“I don’t really know. I don’t remember seeing anybody. The Department secretary leaves at six.  You’ll have to ask around, I guess.”

“Professor, you’ve told me that you and Bunny were romantically involved,” Will said. “What would have happened to the relationship after she graduated?”

Chaz massaged his forehead, and sighed deeply.

“Bunny and I were going to move to LA together. I have a job lined up at UCLA,” he replied sheepishly. “Although I don’t think I’ll be taking it, now.”

“I’ll admit I was beginning to have a few second thoughts,” he continued. “Bunny was pressuring me to move out there. I wanted to please her, but it was all moving too fast for me. I have two young children, and I started thinking realistically about how often I would get to see them if I lived in LA.”

Will listened.    

“I feel like a fool,” Chaz Winner said. “I was bedazzled by Bunny. By her sexual aggression––by her drive and ambition––even by her family’s wealth.”

Professor Winner looked at Will with a careworn smile.

“I suppose part of me is relieved, as awful as that sounds,” he said.

“How long had you been involved with her?” Will asked.

“It started right after the beginning of term,” Chaz said. “Bunny came into my office one afternoon, at the end of my office hours. It seems preposterously corny, now, and I’m embarrassed to describe what happened.”

Professor Winner leaned back farther in his chair until he was practically reclining, and addressed the rest of his story to the ceiling.

“She locked the office door behind her, and sat down on my lap. She said something rather cliched, like, ‘We’ve both been wanting this’. I confess, I was overwhelmed by her.”

“Are you divorced from your wife?” Will asked.

“In the process of,” the professor replied.

“Is that an amicable situation, sir?”

“Far from it. And I can’t say I blame her. My wife, I mean––Susan. I’ve behaved very badly.”

“When will the divorce be final?” Will said.

“I don’t really know,” the professor replied. “As angry at me as she is, Susan doesn’t seem all that gung-ho to go through with the divorce. She hasn’t been very cooperative.”

“Why do you think that is, Professor Winner?”

“Damned if I know,” he replied wearily. 

“My god,” Chaz blurted, “do you think she might take me back?”

“I couldn’t say,” Will replied. “But there’s always hope.”

Chapter 20

Edwina looked up from her desk distractedly.  Curiosity about Bunny’s murder kept creeping up on her. She wondered why she had heard nothing about the investigation from Will, lately.

None of my beeswax, anyway,
she thought. 
Mustn’t waste time waiting around for crumbs of information!

With that she refocused her attention on grading papers. She would just have to put the investigation out of her mind for the time being. There was work to be done, and she was being paid to do it. Edwina hunkered down, and concentrated on her students’ work.

When she was finished marking papers, she approached the freestanding blackboard in the corner of her office. For the umpteenth time, with chalk in hand, she reviewed what was written there––a procession of long and complicated mathematical equations. Once again she scrutinized the long derivation for weaknesses. Just as gardeners experience when their hands are in the dirt, time suspended itself, and Edwina could not have said whether two hours or two minutes had passed as she stood at the board, making modifications to the equations. It was only when her stomach rumbled loudly for the third time that she glanced at her watch, and realized she had skipped lunch.

Teatime!
 

Weekday afternoon teatime in the Sanborn House Library was yet another gift from that
suis generis
visionary, Theodore Sanborn. Edwina tipped her mental cap to him as she dusted off her chalky hands and trotted down the marble staircase to the main floor. A caffeine and sugar break would be just the thing.

The library was crowded. The unwritten ‘silence’ rule was suspended for the tea hour, and the place was
filled with the sounds of amiable conversation and laughter. She procured a cup of Earl Grey tea and three ginger cookies, and surveyed the library for a good spot. Milo was sitting near the chess table, reading a magazine and eating from a plate of cookies. Eager for information about the murder investigation, or at least gossip, Edwina seized the opportunity to talk to someone from the Film Studies Department. Hopefully Milo had heard a scrap or two of information floating around Hexley Hall.

“Long time, no see,” Edwina said genially to Milo.

Milo looked up. His lap was scattered with cookie crumbs.

“Hello, Doc. How goes the universe?”

“It’s moving right along, Milo. The moon still orbits the earth, and there’s a fairly worrying, black hole in the middle of the Milky Way. Everything’s status quo. How about a game?” she said, nodding toward the chessboard.

The two settled in at the chess table, and Edwina opened with a pawn.

“What’s the state of the Film Department these days, since the murder?” Edwina ventured.

“Hm?” Milo said, responding with a pawn.

“I was just wondering how morale is in the Film Department these days,” Edwina repeated.

“Oh, right,” Milo said, regarding Edwina with an inscrutable gaze through his tortoise
-rimmed glasses.

“The death of Bunny Baldwin was a real tragedy,” he said.

Neither the inflection of Milo’s voice nor his facial expression revealed any hint of emotion. His tone was dry, and Edwina could not tell if his sentiment was meant to be genuine or sarcastic.

“What was she like?” Edwina asked.

“Waste of space,” Milo replied without looking up.

“Who would possibly have had a reason to kill her, though?” Edwina said.

“Beats the tar out of me,” Milo replied, studying the board and moving a chess piece.     

“Nobody especially appreciated that she was having an affair with Professor Winner,” he said. “I can tell you that much
––but I don’t suppose somebody would kill her because of it. Then again, his affair with Bunny was the reason for the Winner’s divorce. Maybe Mrs. Winner killed Bunny. Hell hath no fury, etcetera.”

“Since when is getting divorced a motive for murder?” Edwina said, moving a knight.

“You’d be surprised; it happens all the time,” Milo replied. “You should watch more television. Think about it. High profile film professor dumps his wife for a grad-student-sex-kitten. Must have been pretty humiliating,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Edwina.

“Yeah, maybe,” Edwina said.  “Do they have kids?”

“I think so,” Milo replied.

“Kind of hard to imagine that the mother of young kids would hunt down her husband’s girlfriend and kill her in a public building on campus,” Edwina said, making a move.

“I don’t know about that,” Milo said. 

“I’ve seen Mrs. Winner around the Department,” he continued. “Very attractive woman, by the way. I once overheard her talking to the Department secretary, berating Professor Winner. She said some pretty nasty stuff. She’s got quite a temper. Another time I heard her in his office yelling at him, really taking him apart.”

“What kind of cookies are those?” Milo asked suddenly.

“Ginger.”

“May I?”

“Sure, help yourself,” Edwina said.

“Come to think of it, Professor Winner, himself, would make a good suspect,” Milo continued, crumbs dancing down the front of his fleece jacket.

“Maybe
he
did her in,” he said nonchalantly. “Maybe he resented Bunny for busting up his marriage. Maybe it all got to be too much for him, and he wanted his regular life back with the stability of a wife and family and a yard and a dog, the way people do.”

“Hm. You think?” Edwina said, moving a rook. 

“You’d make a good detective, Milo. You’ve got a good imagination––there’d be no end of suspects with you on the case,” she laughed.

“I know for a fact that Bunny was pushy and aggressive, and all about getting whatever she wanted,” Milo said, moving his queen. “Everybody knew that. Maybe she lured Professor Winner into the affair and he regretted it. Even resented it. Maybe he wanted to get rid of her so he could get his life back.”

“Well, I can’t imagine a Cushing professor taking such extreme measures,” Edwina said. “He could have just broken it off with Bunny, and called it a day.”

“You didn’t know Bunny,” Milo said, the corners of his mouth curling up into a sour smile. 

“She was a force of nature. A sexual tsunami. I don’t think she would ever allow anyone to break up with her. But, then again...” he trailed off.

Edwina waited for Milo to finish his thought.

“Then again...?” she prodded.

“Hm? Oh, right,” he replied, looking up from the board. “I was just going to say that Professor Winner was not necessarily the only one in his household who was having an affair.”

“Oh?” Edwina said, trying to sound only casually interested.

Milo studied the board.

“I would venture to say that a dashing, young fellow student of mine in the Film Department has been a busy bee,” he said vaguely.

“How do you know?” Edwina said.

“I happened to see a text from the lady in question on my classmate’s phone. He doesn’t know I saw it. It was far too salacious to repeat,” Milo said, gazing evenly at Edwina.

By now Edwina was nearly twitching with curiosity. Her focus began to wander from the game, and she felt a pressing urge to get back to her office where she could think over this new information she had gleaned from Milo. Maybe she could connect a few dots.

“Checkmate,” Milo said.

“Whoa, caught me by surprise, there!” she said good-naturedly. 

“Thanks for the game, Milo. I’d better get back to the salt mine––papers to grade––see you around.”

“Right-o. Later, Dr. Goodman.”

Edwina’s head was buzzing with ideas about the murder of Bunny Baldwin. She bounded up the stairs to her office, and closed the door behind her. Flipping the blackboard to its blank side, she began to write.

1. Susan Winner. Professor Winner’s estranged wife, pursuing a divorce because of Prof. Winner’s affair with Bunny. Susan Winner having an affair with a grad student in her husband’s department. Did Susan Winner kill Bunny? The scorned woman? Did Susan Winner get her student-lover to kill Bunny?

2.
Chaz Winner, Film Studies Departmentt. Head. Having an affair with Bunny. Did he grow to hate her for wrecking his life?

3.
Milo Marcus. Grad student in Film Studies. Disliked Bunny. Seems emotionally disconnected. Motive?

Edwina stood back from the board and slowly read over what she had written. She took her phone out of her pocket.

How goes the case?
she texted Will.
I have a few thoughts.

Edwina hoped for a fast response, and got her wish. Will’s answer came within a minute.

On my way to interview Susan Winner
.

Then you’ll want to know she’s having an affair with one of her husband’s students in the Film Dept!
Edwina wrote.