Hangman's Root (28 page)

"That's right," Castle said triumphantly. "The fifteenth of July. I remember, because it's my birthday."

Sheila was beaming, obviously relieved that he had such a satisfactory explanation. "Then perhaps you'll also recall, Dr. Castle, where you called Dr. Harwick from, and where you reached him?"

Castle concentrated. "Well, I called from this office, of course. And I reached him ..." His forehead furrowed. "Oh, gosh. I don't remember whether he was at home or in his office." He tilted his head and gave her a sexy smile. "Does it really matter?" He looked at his watch. "Say, it's getting late. How about adjourning for happy hour? We could continue this over a drink."

Sheila frowned slightly. "You're sure that you called from this office?"

He nodded emphatically. "Oh, yes," he said. "Of that, I'm positive."

Sheila put her notebook back in her purse. "Then you should be able to supply the International Telephone Call Authorization form you filled out, stating the purpose of your call," she said, "as well as the billing to Hamburg, Germany."

Castle stared at her. "Ham . . . burg?"

"That's right," Sheila said. "On July fifteenth last year. Dr. Harwick was neither in his office nor at home. He was in Hamburg, attending a professional meeting."

Castle looked down. When he looked up, his face was set. He'd forgotten all about happy hour. "I've said all I have to say on this matter."

Sheila's voice was firm and her southern accent had all but disappeared. "I have another question, Dr. Castle. I need to know where you were last Wednesday evening."

He stared at her. "Wednesday evening?"

"That's right," she said. "The night Miles Harwick died."

With a jerk. Castle's chair came upright. "Are you implying that I was involved in Dr. Harwick's death?"

"Well, sir," she said, "you can see why I have to ask. I've been given to understand that you and Dr. Harwick stole a substantial

sum from the university, and that you forged his signature to insurance documents leaving an even more substantial sum to the department—under your direct control." She paused, letting that percolate. "And then there's the matter of the blackmail letter Dr. Harwick received, which was stolen from this office last night. It's very fortunate, of course, that Ms. Bayles made a copy."

"A copy?" His nostrils flared as he turned to look at me. "You made a copy} "

I cleared my throat and spoke for the first time. "That's right," I said. "Perhaps it would help if I review our reconstruction of the events with you. Dr. Harwick showed you the letter right after he received it. Both of you feared that his role in the embezzlement scheme was about to become public knowledge. Your part in it would inevitably be known as well, and your career ruined, even though you might be protected from prosecution by the statute of limitations. But the blackmailer did not appear to know about you, or about Jim Long, with whom you also checked. If Harwick were to die, you thought, that would be the end of it. The blackmailer would be stymied, and Harwick could no longer implicate you."

"You can see," Sheila said reasonably, "how easy it would be for someone to think you were the one who murdered Miles Harwick."

Castle's face had turned ashen. "I think," he said in a low voice, "that I'd better not say anything more until I call my lawyer."

The door clicked shut.

"Excuse me," I said abruptly, and stood up. I hated to leave when the conversation was getting interesting, but I had to know what was going on with Cynthia. Was she simply being nosy? Or was she—

The outer office was empty.

I crossed swiftly to the door just as McQuaid opened it.

"Hey/' he said, "who the devil was that woman? She came bar-rehng out of the office Hke a bat out of hell. Almost knocked me down."

"Where'dshego?"

"The parking lot exit." He took three paces to the window. "There she is," he said, pointing to a gray Plymouth.

Cynthia was scrabbling in her purse for her car keys. Where was she going.- And w hy was she in such a hurry?

I turned to McQuaid. "You'd better get in there with Sheila. Fm going after Cynthia."

"Did you get a confession?"

"Not yet," I said, halfway to the door. "He's phoning for his lawyer. Go on, get in there."

"But I thought the plan was for me to—"

"The plan's changed," I said over my shoulder. "Sheila's one smart lady, but Castle's a crook. I don't trust him from here to the water cooler."

If the parking lot exit gate hadn t jammed, I might have lost Cynthia. She inserted her card twice, but nothing happened. She sat there, stuck, while I dashed for my car, climbed in, and drove one aisle past the exit, where I could see what was going on. A man w alking through the lot spotted her dilemma, came over and pounded on the contraption. It opened and she drove through. So did the car behind her. Crossing my fingers, I drove up to the gate, inserted my good-for-one-visit temporary card, and went through, too. Ruby would say that the goddess had smiled.

The after-class rush to get off the campus was over, but there was still plenty of pedestrian traffic, mostly undergraduates on their way back to their dorms or to the video-game hangouts. Dodging gangs of them—why do students always seem to walk

in multiples of five?—I got to the corner in time to see Cynthia's Plymouth turn left on Hawkins Boulevard, heading west.

I turned too, staying back a long block. Subterfuge was probably unnecessary, since she didn't act as if she knew she was being followed. But I did it anyway, to be on the safe side, for the next couple of miles. That's why, when I came around the blind corner at the Immanuel Lutheran Church and saw that the street was empty for three blocks ahead, I almost panicked. But when I looked up and noticed where I was, I hooked an abrupt right. It was the Falls Creek blacktop. And ahead of me was the Plymouth, heading north, fast.

Falls Creek? I frowned as I pushed the accelerator to the floor. Did Cynthia live out this way? Maybe she'd forgotten something she was supposed to do this evening and was hurrying home to do it. But by the time she turned left onto San Gabriel, I began to suspect that this was something more than a forgotten errand or an afternoon visit with a sick friend. When she made another left on Sycamore, I was sure of it. Three blocks later, she was pulling to a stop in front of a long, low, brown-shingled ranch, almost out of sight behind a screen of yaupon holly and cedar.

Dottie Riddle's house. And Dottie's Blazer was in the drive.

Cynthia was out of her Plymouth and halfway up the walk when I whipped a quick U-turn at the corner. I parked on the far side of the vacant lot, angled through the weeds at a lope and came up on Dottie's backyard. It was empty, and there was no one in the cattery except a hundred and fifty-some cats and God only knew how many guinea pigs. I looked in the garage and the treatment room. There was no sign of Dottie. She—and Cynthia— must be inside.

I went to the back door, put my ear to it and my hand on the knob, and listened. Hearing nothing, I turned it soundlessly and stepped inside, hesitating in the semidark of the kitchen entry. Ariella brushed up against my leg like a vagrant ghost, startling me. I stifled my squawk just in time. But I don't think I would have been heard, because from the sound of the voices down the hall, Dottie and Cynthia were in the living room. I crept down the hall to the living room doorway, looked in, and quickly ducked back.

Cynthia Leeds, both feet planted firmly on the floor and her purse in her lap, was sitting at one end of the sofa, at right angles to the doorway. Dottie was in the overstuffed chair to her right, her back to me. There was no way to get Dottie's attention, but Cynthia was in a position to see me unless I was very careful. I flattened myself against the wall.

"I still don't understand," Dottie was saying, "why youVe come all the way out here for a United Way contribution, Cynthia. The fund drive was over two weeks ago."

I heard a rustle and the zip of a purse opening and took the risk of another look. "YouVe right," Cynthia was saying, as she pulled something out of her purse. "It is over. All over." She rested her right hand on the arm of the sofa. In it was a handgun. It was small and silvery but very businesslike. "I'm here about Miles Harwick's murder."

"What are you doing with that thing?" Dottie demanded irritably. "Put it away!"

"No," Cynthia said crisply, "I don't think so. I'm very sorry it has to come to this, Dr. Riddle, but I'm here to kill you."

Dottie laughed.

Cynthia's hand tightened on the gun. "That's just fine," she said bitterly. "Laugh if you want to. Don't take me seriously. But it won't help. You're going to pay anyway."

"But I didn't kill Miles!" Dottie exclaimed, misunderstanding.

"I know you didn't," Cynthia said. "/ did."

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe I should have guessed. But I had put so much faith in the rational process. Kevin and Amy, intent on revenge for a dead brother's suicide, logically could have killed Harwick. Frank Castle could have done it too, for Harwick was a threat to his continued prosperity. That it might have been Cynthia Leeds had never even occurred to me.

Nor to Dottie. "You're kidding." She was incredulous. "K?«?"

"Why is that so hard to believe?" Cynthia asked, nettled. "What makes you think I couldn't kill somebody? Really, Dr. Riddle, you're every bit as bad as the men. Thinking that a woman—a mere secretary among all the glorious beings of the biology department—can't do something really big and important."

"No," Dottie said lamely. "I don't think that." For once, she seemed almost at a loss, and I was, too. Had I overlooked Cynthia as a suspect because it hadn t occurred to me that a mere secretary might be capable of planning and executing a murder? Was I as guilty as the males in Cynthia's department of failing to accept her as a real person, with real feelings and therefore a real motive for murder?

"But I don't understand, Cynthia," Dottie said. ''Why did you kill Miles? What did he do to you?"

Cynthia's laugh was short and harsh. "You worked with the man for ten years. Didn't you ever want to kill him?"

"Well, sure," Dottie said. "At least twice a day. But I didn't. Whydidjvow?"

"Because," Cynthia said heatedly, "he was an absolutely terrible man, a tyrant. He was nasty to the staff and the faculty, and even worse to students. Every week we got a complaint. His grading was unfair, he didn't hand back quizzes, he didn't read what the students handed in. And his research—" She made a distasteful mouth. "You weren't the only one criticizing him, you know. Several of the other full professors went to see him. They asked him to drop that research project and choose something that was less . . . well, flammable. Something with more scientific credibility. Less damaging to the department's reputation. The week before he died, he even got a letter from the funding agency asking for a more detailed protocol so they could review it. They'd gotten complaints, too."

Dottie laughed shortly. "No kidding. And I thought I was the only one who cared that he was making a fool out of the department." She shook her head. "You're right about Harwick's shortcomings. But I still don't see why you killed him."

Cynthia's voice was level. "I suppose I wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for Dr. Castle. I felt so sorry for him. He was always having to soothe irate students and explain to people why Dr.

Harwick had done this or that horrible thing. Last year, after a fuss about one of Harwick's finals, several of the other full professors even told him they wanted to hold a hearing and revoke Harwick's tenure. That would have been^o embarrassing."

"Amazing," Dottie said. "All this shit was coming down and nobody ever told me?"

"Frankly, Dr. Riddle," Cynthia said, in the voice of a friend telling a friend she has denture breath, "you'd be the last to know. You aren't very well liked, either. You're always challenging, questioning, making things difficult. What do you expect?"

''And I'm the only woman."

"Well, that, too." Cynthia shook her head. "Sometimes I felt sorry for you, because you were so out of touch with what was going on. But the one I really suffered for was Dr. Castle. He didn't like Dr. Harwick any more than anybody else did. But he had hired him, and he was determined to be loyal if it killed him."

I was beginning to get a cramp in my leg from crouching down, but I couldn't move. Of course, it wasn't loyalty that drove Frank Castle to defend Miles Harwick. It was their earlier collusion, from which Castle could never extricate himself. A Latin phrase popped into my mind from one of my old law books. Fac-inus quos inquinat aequat. Villainy makes equals of all those whom it links. Once yoked with the devil. Castle could never cut the tie that bound them together.

"I still don't understand—" Dottie began, but Cynthia was going on with her story.

"And of course there were the bomb threats, which put everybody on edge, and all those animal rights protesters, marching around, chanting and yelling and carrying those awful signs. And the phone ringing for simply hours on end. It was impossible to get any work done. But the final straw was two weeks ago, when I found the blackmail letter in the computer."