Majoring In Murder (11 page)

“He was afraid for his life,” Lorraine said resolutely, waving the folded letter at Harriet. “And then he died. I can’t ignore that.”

“Well, go ahead and make a fuss. All you’ll end up doing is tarnishing the good name of the college—a college, by the way, that gave your brother an excellent opportunity to move up in his career. And not only will you make Schoolman look bad; you’ll be making your brother look like a lunatic. No one with any sense is going to believe this. It’s not reality. Don’t you see? This is fantasy. This is mental illness.”

“If he was mentally ill, why did you let him run the English department? You didn’t think he was too ill for that—”

“Lorraine,” I interrupted, “why don’t you wait for the autopsy report before taking this to the police?”

“Police! I can’t believe you’re thinking of involving the police.” Harriet’s irritation was palpable. “The man was in a tornado. We found him under a mountain of furniture. If he’d used the brains God had given him, he would have gone to the basement and he’d be alive today.”

“Harriet, I know you’re upset, but you really should look at this calmly,” I said. “It doesn’t pay to be emotional when what’s needed are facts.”

“You’re darn right I’m upset. This could ruin us.”

“Ruin you? What about my brother? He was killed.”

I placed a hand on Lorraine’s arm to keep her in her seat, and said to Harriet, “I understand your concern. You’re worried about the college’s reputation, and that’s legitimate. But stop and consider for a moment. You’re a reasonable woman. In light of the letter, don’t you think it’s worthwhile asking some questions about his death? He was obviously afraid that someone was out to get him.”

“He was hallucinating. That’s what’s obvious to me.” Harriet turned to Lorraine. “Look, I don’t want to upset you by saying unkind things about your brother, but you know he was quirky. He had an overactive imagination and was always immersed in his books. He had practically no life outside those pages, and I’ll bet he was always that way, wasn’t he?”

Lorraine looked warily at Harriet. “Yes, he always loved books. That’s true. From the time he was a little boy. That was the way he learned things—by reading books. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t tell the difference between fiction and reality.”

“I’m not suggesting that, and I’m sorry if I sounded as if I were,” Harriet said. “It’s just that Wes didn’t have a lot of friends. His life revolved around the classes he taught and the books he read. His monthly card game was the only break from his routine that I ever saw. He rarely went anywhere on vacation, at the most a weekend in Las Vegas. Most of his time off was spent writing. He was very prolific and widely published, which the college likes to see. He lived a life of the mind. It’s not unusual in an academic setting, but it is insular. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he began to see traits in other people that he read about in his books. A few people in the English department may be eccentric—Wes was, too—but none of them is mean or vicious. I’ve worked with these people for years. And Wes had very little influence over their professional lives, other than to assign which classes they taught, order books, and review curricula. When they publish their papers and books, credit automatically goes into their files. Annual reviews include his comments, but they’re done by committee, so no one person has an undue influence on the outcome. Sure, if it’ll make you feel better, ask around, talk to the police department, but please, I beg you, be circumspect. It’s taken a long time to build up a positive reputation for Schoolman, but it will take only a few poorly worded accusations to wreck the years of exemplary service.”

Lorraine nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

Harriet eyed the clock on the wall and rose from her seat, picking up her teacup and saucer. “I’m sorry to leave, especially since we haven’t really resolved anything, but I have a five-o’clock meeting with the buildings department. Maybe we can sit down again tomorrow and figure out what you’ll need for Wes’s funeral. There’s only one funeral parlor in town, and that’s Markham’s. I’ll have my secretary call you with the number. In the meantime, please stay here as the college’s guest. I’ll leave a book of meal coupons for you with the cafeteria manager, if you’d like to eat there.”

Lorraine and I got to our feet and took our dishes to the sink. “I’ll clean up here,” I said, gently elbowing Harriet out of the way. “Why don’t you go off to your meeting. I’ll help Lorraine settle in and then be on my way.”

Harriet dried her hands on a paper towel. Her face was drawn and pale, a new worry clearly written on her features. She thanked me and handed her card to Lorraine. “Here’s my number,” she said. “Please call if you need anything. I truly am sorry about Wes’s death. And the college will cooperate with you in any way we can, both with his funeral and with anything else that needs to be done.”

“I knew I was going to be causing trouble,” Lorraine said to me after Harriet had left. “Can I help you over there?”

“No. Just sit down and keep me company,” I said. “Cleanup will take only a minute.”

Lorraine dropped into a chair and sighed. “You know, everything she said about Wes was true. He was quirky and absorbed in his books. I always thought he would become a novelist, not a professor.”

“Why didn’t he?” I asked, placing the clean cups in the drainer next to the sink.

“He couldn’t stand the rejections. When he was a kid, he said he was going to write a best-seller and make us all rich. He always had some scheme going to make money. He tried three or four times, and each book was sent back with a form letter.”

“What kind of books were they?”

She snorted softly. “Mysteries mostly. But after the last one was rejected, he decided that kind of book was dumb anyway and tried nonfiction.” She placed her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“No apologies necessary,” I said. “Go on. I’m interested in the sort of things he wrote.”

“He loved puzzles. That’s why I was surprised that he didn’t stick with mysteries. Mysteries are such wonderful puzzles to solve. When we were kids, we used to hide a prize and then leave clues for each other to find, kind of like a private scavenger hunt.”

“Is that what he meant in his letter when he told you to investigate like you used to do together?”

“I guess so. I’d forgotten about that.” She paused before saying, “Is now a good time to say I’m an admirer of yours, Jessica Fletcher?”

“That’s very kind,” I said.

“I’m not being kind,” she said. “It’s the truth. And I’m not just buttering you up so you’ll help me.”

“What help are you looking for?”

“What I’m hoping is that you’ll help me find Wes’s killer, if there is a killer.”

“We need to find out more before we can make that determination,” I said. “Harriet mentioned that he was published widely. Obviously he didn’t always receive rejections. What were his successful books?”

“Oh, I don’t know all of them. I remember that the first book he sold was an analysis of the work of Daniel Defoe. All his published works are academic treatises of one kind or another.”

“Do you know if he was working on a book now?”

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. It would have been great if he was writing a novel. He always dreamed of writing fiction. Maybe Harriet is right. Maybe the letter is a product of his imagination. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either,” I said, “but a policeman in New York once told me, ‘Just because a guy is paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t after him.’ ”

Lorraine smiled, as I hoped she would.

“You suggested I wait till after the autopsy before I speak to the police,” she said. “What do you think the autopsy will show?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m hoping it will say what killed him. And I don’t believe it was falling furniture.”

“Can the autopsy tell you that?”

“It can say whether the blow to his head was fatal, and sometimes what the object that hit him was made of, but it may raise more questions than it answers.”

“When can we get the report?”

“Tomorrow, I hope. Dr. Brad Zelinsky, the county coroner, is doing the autopsy. He was a friend of Wes’s. They played cards together.”

“They played cards and he remained a friend?” Lorraine said. “That’s a first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wes was a real cardsharp.”

“He was?”

“Another of his get-rich-quick schemes. He must have read every book in the library on how to win at cards.”

“And did he win?”

“He was pretty good. That’s how he earned extra money through college.”

“By gambling?”

“Yup. But he didn’t keep any friends, not after he took their money playing poker, bridge, canasta, gin rummy, anything he could place a bet on.”

“He was in a friendly game with his colleagues. They had a limit on what they could lose.”

“I’m surprised he stayed in it. He liked a high-stakes game.”

I dried my hands and sat down next to her. “Would you mind letting me see his letter again?” I asked.

“Sure. You can even keep it if you want. This is only a copy. I was afraid she might tear it up.”

“Harriet?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think she would have done that.”

“You know her. I don’t. I didn’t want to take the chance.”

Lorraine gave me the letter and I reread Wes’s message.

“What did he enclose with his letter?” I asked. “Was it a key?”

“This,” she said, drawing a chain from under her turtleneck.

“A locket?”

“It’s got a picture of us inside.”

“May I see?”

She opened the locket to reveal an old, cracked photograph of two little children playing with a kitten. “We must have been around eight and ten when this was taken.”

“Do you think he meant it as a keepsake?” I asked.

“Wes was never a sentimental man.”

“I wonder why he sent it to you.”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you’d help me find out.”

I sat back and thought of Harriet’s angry reaction to my questioning how Wes Newmark died. She was obviously not anxious for his death to be anything more than a freak accident, an act of nature aided and abetted by his poor judgment in not seeking shelter. I certainly didn’t want to upset my friend. Still ...

“I’ll help any way I can,” I said. “But no jumping to conclusions, no rushing to judgment. Chances are your brother died accidentally.”

I looked into her open, honest face and knew I really didn’t mean what I’d just said.

“Yes, Lorraine, I’ll help you.”

“Who can tell me who wrote the first classic whodunit?”

I was happy to see a few hands go up. Classes had resumed at Schoolman College, and it was comforting to take up the routine again. My class had about a dozen students spread out across the room, many with laptop computers on their desks, and some with minicassette recorders to record my lecture, certainly a change from my college days, when students who didn’t take notes were marked down for not paying attention.

“Eli?”

“Was it from the Bible, Professor Fletcher?”

“There may be some mysteries in the Bible, Eli, but the classic whodunit is a fictional genre. You need to think a bit more modern times, but not too modern, mind you.”

“I know,” Alice called out. She was parked in a wheelchair, her broken ankle encased in a colorful cast and propped up on the raised leg rest. A pair of wooden crutches was tied to the back of the chair with a bungee cord.

“Tell us,” I said.

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“No, but you’re in the right century, at least. Anyone else?”

A dozen blank faces stared at me.

“I know you’ve read him in high school.” I wrote a name on the blackboard to a chorus of groans. “Edgar Allan Poe,” I said. “Now, who knows which of his stories we’re talking about?”

The students shouted out titles of familiar Poe stories.

“ ‘The Black Cat’?”

“ ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’?”

“‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’?”

“That’s the one,” I said. “ ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ is considered the first classic whodunit, and from this mystery classic, in which a crime is committed and then solved—those are the two elements that define the mystery—all other kinds of mysteries have descended.”

“What do you mean, ‘other kinds of mysteries’?” Tyler said. “How many different kinds of mysteries are there?”

“I’m glad you asked that question,” I said. “Mysteries are often categorized by the different elements in the story. When you pick out a mystery, what do you look for? For instance, who is the person who investigates the crime? Is it an officer of the law? A private investigator? A medical examiner? An amateur sleuth?”

“I like the ones where a private investigator is on the case.”

“Okay, Tyler. That’s one kind of mystery.” I wrote private eye on the board. “Mysteries may also be grouped by setting. What kind of atmosphere does it have? Does it take place in the city, in the country, or someplace special?”

“I like it when they go back in time and solve a mystery no one ever solved before,” said Janine.

“A historical mystery,” I said, adding it to the list.

The students caught on to the labeling and began calling out their guesses until we had a list of twelve, having added
cozy, gothic, horror, police procedural, spy, thriller, legal, suspense, forensic,
and
hard-boiled
to our original two.

“You can see that there are many variations on the classic whodunit,” I said. “We could come up with more. There are no hard-and-fast rules. For instance, some people group female private eyes separately.”

“I like it when a woman solves the crime,” Alice said. “Most of the time it’s men in the stories. I like to read about women.”