Murder Mezzo Forte (A Preston Barclay Mystery) Read online

  MURDER MEZZO FORTE BY DONN TAYLOR

  Published by Lamplighter Fiction

  an imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas

  2333 Barton Oaks Dr., Raleigh, NC, 27614

  ISBN: 978-1-938499-09-8

  Copyright © 2016 by Donn Taylor

  Cover design by Elaina Lee

  Interior design by AtriTeX Technologies P Ltd

  Interior graphic by Susan F. Craft

  Available in print from your local bookstore, online, or from the publisher at:

  www.lighthousepublishingofthecarolinas.com

  For more information on this book and the author visit: http://www.donntaylor.com/

  All rights reserved. Non-commercial interests may reproduce portions of this book without the express written permission of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, provided the text does not exceed 500 words. When reproducing text from this book, include the following credit line: “Murder Mezzo Forte by Donn Taylor published by Lamplighter Fiction. Used by permission.”

  Commercial interests: No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination or are used for fictional purposes. Any mentioned brand names, places, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, bear no association with the author or the publisher, and are used for fictional purposes only.

  Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

  Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation (www.Lockman.org). Used by permission.

  Brought to you by the creative team at Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas: Eddie Jones, Ann Tatlock, Marsha Hubler, Shonda Savage, Brian Cross, Paige Boggs

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Taylor, Donn.

  Murder Mezzo Forte / Donn Taylor 1st ed.

  PRAISE FOR MURDER MEZZO FORTE

  Bravissimo! Music, mayhem, and murder. Donn Taylor delivers another delightful mystery full of surprises, sarcasm, puns, and edge-of-your-seat plot twists – a winner for sure!

  ~ Sadie & Sophie Cuffe

  Authors of The Maine White Pine Cone Conspiracy

  Author Donn Taylor brings to life Professor Preston Barclay in Murder Mezzo Forte. Soon, you’ll find yourself trying to help the professor escape the mortal coils of this intricate plot.

  ~ James R. Callan

  Author of Over My Dead Body (A Father Frank Mystery)

  In his distinctive voice, Donn Taylor delivers a murder mystery set to music--even if the musical accompaniment is only in Professor Barclay’s head. Loved it!

  ~ Mary Hamilton

  Author of Hear No Evil (Rustic Bible Camp Series)

  If Donn Taylor has as much fun writing mysteries as his fans have in reading them, he and his writings will remain forever ageless. Professor Preston Barclay’s “musical hallucinations” give him a special quirkiness, and his stubborn independence has charm that reminds me slightly of Tim Downs’ “Bug Man” character. Who but a retired college professor could poke fun so humorously at the current state of higher education? Whether or not you’re already a Donn Taylor fan—I’ve been one for years—the first sentence will make you want to keep reading.

  ~ Roger E. Bruner

  Author of The Devil and Pastor Gus, Found in Translation, and Lost in Dreams

  PRAISE FOR RHAPSODY IN RED BY DONN TAYLOR

  Richly embellished with literary and musical references and peopled with academia’s most intriguing eccentrics and snobs.

  ~ CBA Retailers and Resources Magazine

  The descriptive wording is a delightful change from the clichés of most novels.

  ~ Christian Review of Books

  This book is dedicated in gratitude

  to

  the National Association of Scholars (www.nas.org), “Reasoned scholarship in a free society,” for its efforts to restore intellectual integrity in higher education,

  and to

  the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (http://thefire.org) for its efforts “to protect the unprotected” by defending the constitutional rights of students and faculty.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Overton University (formerly Overton Grace College), its faculty, and its students exist only in fiction, but they share many denominational colleges’ conflicts of academic standards vs. commercialism, education vs. indoctrination, and Christian heritage vs. secularism. Overton City and the geography of the novel are also fictional, as is the Council for Individual Rights on Campus (CIRCA).

  I am indebted to my friend Don Roose for briefing me on corporate finance, and to Veronica Farley and Dr. Richard L. Mabry, M.D., for information on antibiotics and potential allergic reactions. My daughter Karen Taylor Saunders provided essential information on mobile phones to her troglodyte father.

  Special thanks to my agent, Terry Burns, for leading me to Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, and to my editor, Marsha Hubler, who greatly improved the novel through her editorial skills.

  I would also like to express appreciation to Ivory Doakes, housekeeper extraordinaire, whose excellent work and many kindnesses assisted Mildred and me through difficult times.

  Most of all, I am deeply indebted to my wife, Mildred Taylor, who blessed my life with love, understanding, encouragement, and sound judgment throughout the sixty-one years, seven months, and four days of our marriage until her promotion to the mansions of the Lord.

  ...imagination is the star of man and the rudder of this our ship, which reason should steer, but overborne by phantasy [Imagination] cannot manage, and so suffers itself and this whole vessel of ours to be over-ruled and often overturned.

  —Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

  A man’s heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.

  —Proverbs 16:9 (KJV)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

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  CHAPTER 1

  In that first week of February, we didn’t know that Overton University was about to exceed its annual quota of murders. We had no inkling of it that Thursday evening when the college administration held a reception for trustees and faculty. I didn’t know then that Professor Mitra Fortier would make trouble or that I would have to defend myself against scandal and worse. We would learn all of that later.

  The administration called it a reception, but it had no receiving line. Everyone just showed up at the gymnasium, now called “The Fitness Center” because the new president who joined us after The Crisis renamed everything either a Center or a Service. Faculty straggled in half frozen by the Midwestern winter and joined whatever groups they could find. The event had been billed as a mixer, but it didn’t mix. Trustees talked to trustees, the president and dean talked to trustees, and faculty cliques talked to themselves. Yet everyone seemed to share an unspoken purpose— to forget that last semester our philosophy professor had murdered a faculty member on campus.

  Someone had thrown a tarp over half of the gym floor so our street shoes wouldn’t scar the finish. The gym’s bright overhead lights cast an air of unreality over everything. Perhaps because of them I started wondering what was real and what wasn’t.

  I stood alone at one side, battling the music in my head and grieving for receptions past before the death of my wife, Faith. We talked to everyone then. But now, as the campus recluse, I don’t talk much at all. As always, I dreaded returning to my empty house and Faith’s Steinway grand piano that has stood silent these past three years.

  With any luck, I thought, I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. So I simply listened while the orchestra in my head played the overture to Die Meistersinger. This internal music came to me at Faith’s death, and it’s all I have left of her now. It’s not just a tune here and there, but a torrent that floods my life with imagined sound. The clinical name is “musical hallucinations.” They make my life like a movie that’s been mismatched with the music score from another.

  So I watched from the sideline, as neglected as the third stanza of a hymn, while the music, for once, assuaged my grief. Then a trustee walked up and broke the spell.

  “Professor Barclay,” he said. “I’m Steven Drisko.” He put out his hand.

  “I’m Preston Barclay.” I took the offered hand. It isn’t often a trustee seeks out a mere faculty member.

  This one looked about ten years younger than I, which made him about forty. I only knew that, as CEO of Overton Technologies, Inc., he’d doubled his company’s stock value. That made him Overton City’s favorite son, and some thought it should earn him canonization. He wore a tailored suit that must have cost an arm and a leg, but in the economic sense he was rumored to be a centipede.

  Drisko wasted no time on preliminaries. “Congratulations on solving the Laila Sloan murder. What will you investigate next?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I adjusted my trifocals and tried not to look self-conscious. “I just teach history.” Everything in the gym seemed more unreal, a fantasy dreamed up by my subconscious.

  Drisko smiled. “Won’t you find that dull after your adventures last semester?”

  “There’s nothing dull about history,” I said. “It’s a wonderful panorama of human accomplishment and failure.”

  My internal musicians replaced Wagner with a pianist playing Paderewski’s “Minuet.”

  “Well,” Drisko said, “thanks for a good job that helped the college.”

  He returned to the crowd of trustees and administrators. None too soon, for his statuesque blonde wife seemed to be having too good a time with younger trustees who’d come without their wives.

  “Press, I need to talk to you.” The bold feminine voice belonged to Mitra Fortier, a physics professor who’d been a good friend to Faith. Mitra was a multi-talented woman of about forty, divorced long ago and devoted to her work. In past years she’d had carefully coifed golden hair that looked like combed corn silk. Tonight it looked like a haystack after a tornado passed through.

  “Don’t look so serious,” I said. “This is a festive occasion.”

  “Don’t hand me that, Press.” Mitra’s frown deepened. “You know as well as I do how everybody feels.” She’d always been a just-the-facts realist.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked. At the time, it seemed like a safe question.

  “I need your help with an investigation.”

  “I’m through investigating,” I said. “From here out I just teach history.”

  Mitra gave me a look like my drill sergeant gave me decades ago in basic training, and she snapped, “If you value your job, Preston Barclay, you’ll help me out with this.”

  That got my attention. We work on annual contracts here with no provision for tenure. Since Faith died, my job is all the life I have left.

  “Not here,” Mitra said. She cast an apprehensive glance around the gym. “Come to my office when this thing is over.” She spun on her heel and stalked away.

  Suddenly, the scene in the gym seemed as surreal as a painting by Salvador Dali. The refreshments looked real enough, though. Beside their table I saw the slender figure and shoulder-length blonde hair of Professor Mara Thorn, my co-investigator from the previous semester. She was always very, very real. She wore a business-like navy pantsuit but no perfume or cosmetics. As I approached, her blue eyes flickered in friendship, then retreated into inscrutability as she moved out of earshot of the student servers.

  I followed and said, “I see we’re still the faculty pariahs.”

  “Yes, but we mustn’t be seen together.” A frown darkened the glow of her ivory complexion. “We can’t afford those unsavory rumors. I need this job.”

  “Rumors are a constant on this campus,” I said. “You just have to ignore them.”

  Mara speared me with her blue gaze. “I hear that our contracts come out in the week after the trustees meet. We both can forget about them if the administration finds out about you-know-what.”

  She could have meant the kiss she gave me in an emotional moment when our lives hung in the balance. Or the night we’d spent barricaded in a motel room hiding from the mob’s professional hit men. Both events were innocent, but either could give the administration an excuse not to renew our contracts.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll take this cup of punch back to my side of the gym.”

  “Fitness Center,” she corrected, then added, “How’s the new phone?”

  “I guess I’ll get used to it,” I said, “but I still use the voice recorder.” I’m known as the campus Luddite because I carried an ancient cell phone that did nothing but send and receive. My first concession to modernity was a twenty-five-dollar voice recorder. But last week I gave in and bought an up-to-date model cell phone. I’m still struggling to learn all its functions. Meanwhile, I still use the voice recorder for quick notes on one thing or another.

  Mara gave me a smile and headed back to her side of the gym. As I returned to my side, I glanced at the corner where members of the administration flitted from trustee to trustee like moths trying to choose among a plethora of light bulbs. I said brief thanks that I was only a professor.

  “Hello, Professor Barclay. Do you remember me?”

  A new feminine voice shook me out of meditation. I turned to the voice.

  “Of course I remember,” I said. “You’re Cynthia Starlington. I’d heard they contracted you to teach philosophy.” With a female philosophy professor, I’d have to lay off jokes about shaving with Occam’s razor.

  Cynthia was not the kind you forget. She’d come to Overton as a skinny sixteen-year-old freshman obsessed with making good, and s
he’d graduated summa cum laude four years later. She’d taken every one of my classes and aced them all. Her classic features and dark brown eyes naturally drew my gaze. I had to work at not teaching directly to her.

  That was ten years ago, and she wasn’t skinny now. With an olive complexion and waves of brown hair cascading over her shoulders, she’d turned into a real beauty.

  “It’s good to be back,” she said. “It’s wonderful to find Overton College grown into a university.”

  “Our administration calls it a university,” I said, “but in truth it’s still a liberal arts college. ‘Only the name has been changed to hoodwink the innocent.’”

  She laughed. “You always were quick with a quotation.” She grew serious. “This is all new to me. To be honest about it, I’m scared stiff.”

  “I can see how replacing a murderer would worry you, but you’ve always done fine.”

  A frown furrowed her brow. “I’ll need someone to show me the ropes. Will you do that for me, Press? Oh ... ” She put her hand to her mouth. “Professor Barclay, I shouldn’t have been that familiar … ”

  “It’s okay. All the faculty call me Press. I suppose I should call you Cynthia?”

  She beamed like a kid with a new lollipop. “Call me Cyn.”

  “Is that original, Cyn?” I asked.

  She laughed. “‘Original sin?’ I remember—you liked puns. So did Faith. Oh … ” Her hand flew to her mouth again. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “She’s been gone three years, so I ought to be used to it.” I wasn’t, but there was no use worrying Cynthia with my grief.

  She touched my arm. “Thanks for agreeing to help. I’d better go meet more faculty now, but I’ll be seeing you.”

  She glided away, tall and graceful. My gaze followed her as she circled the gym floor, smiling and speaking to everyone she met.

  Except Mitra Fortier. When they approached each other, their expressions froze and they passed without speaking. For some reason, my gaze followed Mitra’s haystack hairdo as she swooped down on Mara Thorn.