Murder is Academic (31 page)

Any more contemplation of saying good bye to those who mattered would put me into a real funk. I decided I needed to make the best of the end-of-summer blues with a barbeque for all of us. With enough good food, wine and great friends, we’d end the summer with a bang and look forward to the coming semester. The list of guests included Der, Annie, Beth, Alicia, Guy, and Ron. I would host. Beth called and asked if she could bring one of her fellow doctoral students from the university.

The night of the barbeque was perfect—no wind, no rain, and higher temperatures than we had had at night for several days. Regardless of the mild weather, I decided we should spend after dinnertime in the living room in front of the stove.

Guy laid the fire, but suggested we play it by ear. “With the evening this warm, we may just want to go down to the dock and sit by the water.”

Beth introduced her friend, Natalie, to everyone and we gathered on the back deck.

“You know,” Natalie said, accepting a glass of wine from Guy, “Beth hasn’t told me all the details of the Donald Hall thing. She said you could tell it better, Laura. And that Der would help fill in the legal stuff.”

“It’s really a fine bit of sleuthing on Laura’s part with the help of her sidekick here, Annie. The two of you did great work with the exception of the thing with Bunny Talbot. Using a poor paperboy to run your errands.” Der clucked his tongue in dismay. “Laura thought there was something fishy about Stanford’s suicide note. What gave it away, finally?”

I turned to Guy and said again, for my audience’s benefit, “What word did I ask you to spell for me once I knew Donald’s real name was Henri LeBeau?”

“You asked me to spell ‘behavior’.” He smiled, knowing what I wanted. “B-E-H-A-V-I-O-U-R.”

“But that’s not the way to spell it,” Alicia said. “That’s the English or French spelling, not American.”

“That’s the point, though. That was the way it was spelled in the suicide note Stanford supposedly wrote. But Will was American. He would never spell behavior that way,” I said.

“But I did because I’m French-Canadian and Henri LeBeau alias Donald Hall would spell it the way I did because he was from Montreal. So, voila. The note was written by someone other than Will Stanford. And the likely culprit was Donald Hall once we knew he and LeBeau were one in the same.”

“And LeBeau was the hydrolic engineer who designed and signed off on the waste water treatment system for the condominiums. Of course, when the condominium developers including Talbot decided to build twice as many condominiums as originally planned, they decided to simply go with the size of the original system and paid LeBeau to certify it would handle the added volume of waste water, knowing that the water would be inadequately treated. But the smaller system would save them money, and Talbot knew he could buy Will Stanford with position and favors for the field station.” I took a quick sip of my drink.

“You know what’s interesting?” Beth said. “Will kept records on what the water samples really tested, and there were some interesting things going on with the lake water. Of course, he never spent any time looking at those results, but they give us a rather complete picture of what was happening to the lake over a period of about a decade or so. It will make an interesting study in and of itself.”

“Where did you find those records?” I was surprised to hear the real readings were available.

“He e-mailed them to me every day at Syracuse, then erased his e-mail messages from his computer. My e-mail is automatically saved to my hard drive. I only took a look at those e-mail records after we knew Donald had killed him.” Beth paused and looked across the lake for a moment.

Natalie touched her shoulder.

“No, it’s Okay.” Beth smiled and continued speaking. “Clearly Will was not without weaknesses. I’m just glad to know he recorded the real results of the water testing as well as phonying the results. It doesn’t redeem him in my eyes or probably anyone’s, but at least something beneficial may come of looking at the actual data.”

“If Talbot hadn’t kept the original report from LeBeau reporting the condominium count at half that actually built, we wouldn’t have been alerted to the discrepancy in the count and the phony water sample reports.” For Beth’s sake, I wanted to move our discussion away from Will’s role in the situation. “For once Talbot’s suspicious and malicious nature gave us the lead we needed to finally put this all together.”

“That’s been bothering me for a while,” Annie said. “Why did Talbot save the original report? It incriminated him.”

“Ah, yes, that’s true,” I said to Annie, “but in true Talbot character, I believe he knew it also incriminated LeBeau. He saved it in hopes that it would serve as an insurance policy protecting him from LeBeau if LeBeau tried anything funny.”

“He tolerated the blackmail,” Der said. “probably because he couldn’t decide what else to do at the time. If LeBeau had upped the amount he wanted, Talbot would have found a way to use those papers against Henri, or Donald, as we knew him.”

“Say, I heard that Bunny Talbot moved out of town in a hurry. Does anybody know where she’s gone?” Annie asked.

No one knew a thing about Bunny.

We spoke of Annie’s sabbatical, Alicia’s relocation and Guy’s return to Canada. Although the conversation was pleasant and interesting, it seemed to sadden all of us that many members of our group would be leaving. We wandered down to the dock and stared into the water until the moon’s rising could be seen reflected on the lake surface. Soon everyone began to depart in couples—Annie and Ron to her house to finish her packing as her plane left in two days, Beth and Natalie for Syracuse to complete a summer project on which they both were working, and Der and Alicia, probably to his apartment where they surely would be interrupted by a call from his office.

Guy and I walked arm and arm back to the house after seeing everyone off from the driveway. The screen door to the kitchen was still off its hinges from the storm, but neither Guy nor I seemed eager to spend any of our time working on it. Guy had removed the limb from the roof and replaced the shattered sky light.

“I forgot to tell you. I bought you a present. It’s upstairs in the bedroom. Let me just run up and get it.” Guy seemed as eager as a kid giving his first girlfriend a friendship ring.

I had no idea what to expect as Guy and I never exchanged any kind of gifts. He carefully descended the stairs with a large box resplendent with a large red ribbon on its top. The ribbon seemed to be shaking with a life of its own and suddenly popped off the top of the box. A small fuzzy blonde head pushed its way through the box flaps and looked at me with black eyes.

“It’s a dog.” Guy was obviously pleased with himself for keeping the gift a secret this long. I could tell he had given no thought to whether or not I would welcome a pet into my life.

“I can see that.”

“Don’t you like animals?” Disappointment began to show on his face.

“Of course I like animals. I love them. I adore them. It’s just that I haven’t had a pet for a long time. And usually when I have one pet, I end up with several. They seem to gravitate to me. This means that by the next time I see you, this house will be filled with several dogs and litters of cats.”

I reached out for the puppy who greeted me by licking my hand. I pulled the pup close and a little wet tongue tickled my nose and began to tentatively explore the rest of my face by nuzzling my ears and nudging its face into my hair.

“Boy or girl?” I turned the little wiggling body upside down. “Oh, a little girl. Named yet?”

“I thought you could name her. You do like her, don’t you?” Guy still looked a bit worried his impetuous gift was not what I expected and was not well received.

“Of course I do. I just never expected a dog in a million years.”

“I thought she could be a watch dog of sorts and kind of protect you while I’m not here. I mean, when she gets bigger, of course. We can take her to obedience classes and train her to voice commands.”

“Hey, wait a minute. What’s this ‘we’ stuff. I thought she was my dog.” I tucked her closer under my chin.

“Well, of course. It’s just that I thought I might share in all of this cuz I’ll be here some of the time, and some of the time you’ll be visiting me in up north. I thought she would be a good traveling companion for you when you drove up to see me. You could even take her to the college with you.” Guy’s eyebrows pulled together with concern.

“Guy, I love her, and I love that you thought to give her to me, but I’m okay. I don’t need protection. I’d like her to be my companion. I don’t want to make her into a guard dog. I think it’s a good idea we take her for obedience training and all, but if she’s going to live with me, then she’s going to be a pet. Okay?”

“Good. So long as you like her. I fell in love with her. She’s a bundle of fuzz, isn’t she?” Guy reached out and patted her downy head.

“Here.” I shoved her into Guy’s arms and ran for the bathroom.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just so sweet.” I was sobbing and blowing my nose on the wad of tissue I grabbed in the bathroom.

“I can’t believe it. You’re crying. I’ve only seen you cry once. I’ve seen you mad, even furious, scared, passionate, but never did I expect to see you cry over a little dog.”

“Give me my dog.” I grabbed her and wept into her fur.

“Geez, I think you’re scaring the little gal, and you’re getting her fur all wet. Time to go to bed. I think the excitement of the past several weeks finally got to you. Along with all the wine tonight.”

“Noooo, it’s not that at all. It’s your giving me such a wonderful gift. I think she’s about the best thing that’s happened to me lately.”

“And what about me?” Guy patted me on the rear as he maneuvered me up the stairs and into the bedroom. “I’m the one who thought of the puppy as a gift. Don’t I get some credit here, huh? How about some attention for me.”

Guy took the puppy gently out of my arms and placed her into the cage that he had somehow smuggled up my stairs and into my bedroom without my knowledge.

“Oh, yeah, you. You are pretty thoughtful, I guess. But I really like the dog.” I pretended to turn my attention back to her, but Guy began an exploration of my neck with his lips that far surpassed the nuzzling the dog gave me earlier. I mean, this didn’t tickle quite the same way. She watched us intently as we began to shed our clothes, and a sharp little bark greeted our dive under the blankets.

“Hush, Samantha,” I said sweetly but firmly. She put her head on her paws and yawned. “Go to sleep.” Then I realized I just named my dog.

“Where did you get that name?” Guy slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him.

“I don’t know. It came to me suddenly. It feels just right.”

Samantha slept soundly through the night in her cage. Guy and I got some sleep too, but not much.

Chapter 29

I was sitting on my dock looking across the lake at the finished bridge that spanned the river emptying out of the lake.

“Here’s to you, Guy.” I raised the cup of coffee I had in my hand in a salute to his expert bridge workmanship.

“Talking to yourself, are you, Murphy?” Der began the short walk down from my yard to the dock to join me.

“Just admiring the bridge. There’s coffee in the pot in the kitchen.”

“Found it.” He lowered himself to the dock with a groan. We both sat a while, saying nothing, dangling our legs over the side of the dock.

“It was a great wedding last weekend. Thanks for inviting me. Your son and his wife looked really happy. You, too.”

“I was so happy for David and Sandy. They’re honeymooning in the Adirondacks, you know. Camping. I thought I’d never see the day David would pitch a tent and sleep in a sleeping bag.”

“From what I could see David seems like a pretty solid person, and Sandy does too.”

“Well, he wasn’t always that way. Having Sandy in his life has offset the effects of his grandmother and his father. She’s brought out his sense of fun. It was always there. He just needed permission from someone to use it.” I sighed.

“You miss Annie a little, do you?” Der asked on our way into the house.

“I’ve said good-bye to so many people in this past week that I feel like I haven’t a friend left in the world.” I brushed away a tear that leaked out of the corner of my eye.

Gee, I was emotional lately. I probably should give thought to increasing my intake of chocolate. I left off eating all those donuts in the middle of the Hall case and, with menopause knocking on my door, and no murder in the offing, I felt the need for something to sink my teeth into.

“You’ve got me.” Der put his arm around my shoulders.

“Huh? Oh yeah, you’re right. And you’re stuck with me, at least until my sabbatical begins next year.”

“I know you and Guy are trying to spend weekends together. What are you planning on doing when you leave for your sabbatical?”

“I have no idea.” I shook my head in dismay.

“These things have a way of working out. You’ll see.” He gave my shoulder an awkward pat.

As we neared the house, Sam gave a loud bark from within letting me know she was happy neither at my absence nor at my focus of attention on someone other than her.

“Besides,” Der said as he opened the door and stood to one side to let Sam pounce on me, “you’ve got Sam here to keep you company.”