Murder Mezzo Forte (A Preston Barclay Mystery) Page 3

  A heavy-set man with deep black eyes, Staggart charged in with his usual bull-like manner, followed by an entourage of four. One of these was the sloppily dressed medical examiner. Another was Staggart’s constant companion, a man whose face bore an amazing resemblance to that of a basset hound. I didn’t know his name, so I’d always referred to him as Dogface. But I’d found to my embarrassment that, in spite of his habitual silence, he could quote John Keats’ poetry from memory. The other two detectives I didn’t know.

  When Staggart saw me, his lip curled in distaste. “You again, Press?”

  I pointed to the office. “Not me again. Another body to keep you gainfully employed.” My conscience winced at my referring to Mitra as a body.

  “It’s hot in here,” he said. “With this heating bill, it’s no wonder your college stays in financial trouble.”

  “University,” I corrected. “Talk to your friend, the dean. I just teach history.”

  Staggart turned a contemptuous gaze on Mara. “I thought they’d have run you out of here by now.”

  More evidence of police informality.

  Mara made no answer but turned her back on him and examined the junction of wall and ceiling.

  Staggart and the medical examiner moved through the yellow tape into the office.

  I called after them, “Check the left elbow.”

  That was when Dean-Dean entered. He threw nervous glances at the various policemen like a ball bouncing around in one of the old pinball machines. Then he homed in on me—“Professor Barclay—”

  He got no farther. Dogface stepped in and put a hand on his chest. They must have seen someone do that on TV, I guess. Then the other two detectives took Mara and me separately down the hall. While I retold my story, I could see the other one listening to Mara. That one had sense enough not to touch her arm. Maybe he’d heard she was good at karate and judo.

  Staggart and the medical examiner emerged from the office and conferred with the two detectives while Dogface kept Dean-Dean occupied. Then Staggart turned to me.

  “How long did you wait in the hall?”

  “No more than a couple of minutes,” I said.

  “A ‘couple of minutes’ with no answer and the office light on, and you didn’t try the door?”

  “Professors don’t go poking into each other’s offices.”

  “So why did you open the door?”

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t like Mitra to be unresponsive. I got worried.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “So you knew the deceased that well?”

  “She and my wife were good friends.” I didn’t like the direction of his questions.

  “And that friendship was your only relationship with the deceased?”

  “That and our being members of the same faculty.”

  Staggart shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What did you do when you left the reception?”

  I answered as bluntly as I could. “I came straight here.”

  “But not alone … ” Staggart turned his gaze on Mara and leered.

  Mara showed him her own gaze of blue fire.

  “Professor Thorn was already here,” I said. “I didn’t know Professor Fortier had asked her for a meeting.”

  Staggart leered at each of us in turn. “That’s all for now. We’ll be in touch when we need you.”

  Mara and I promptly re-donned our coats and headed for the stairwell. We almost escaped without talking to Dean-Dean. But Dogface released our glorious Vice President for Academic Affairs, and for a moment I thought we would suffer an extended interview. Dean-Dean glowered at us, but he only growled “I’ll see you two later” and minced past us toward the spot where Clyde Staggart stood. They greeted each other like long-lost friends.

  That couldn’t mean anything good, considering the false stories Staggart had planted with him last fall.

  Outside, Mara and I took deep breaths in the cold, fresh air, as if that could somehow purify the scene we had just witnessed. Under the flickering campus lights, the chill added color to her ivory complexion.

  “That wasn’t as bad as I expected,” Mara said.

  My now-familiar premonition asserted itself again, thrusting an icicle into my heart to match the frigid air.

  “It will get worse,” I said. “It will get much worse before we’re through.”

  We parted then. I brooded about the Blatant Beast and that threatening future as I followed the narrow walkway from the campus down to the emptiness of my silent house.

  CHAPTER 4

  That night I dreamed of Faith again, a warm dream of companionship and love. I woke to a frigid February morning, the reality of an empty house, and a world gone stale except for teaching history. And I woke dreading the implications of Mitra Fortier’s words—“If you value your job.” They boded no good in the week before contracts were renewed.

  Or maybe not renewed.

  My internal musicians played sad melodies from Schumann’s Carnival while I dragged through a ham-sandwich breakfast, put on my brown suit—I’d worn the blue one to the reception—and climbed the narrow walkway back up to the campus. My new cell phone made an unfamiliar bulge in my pocket, but, at least, it balanced my trusty voice recorder. Last night’s razor-edge of wind had eroded to the dullness of a trowel, but the cold still seeped through my overcoat into my bones.

  I paused before the Liberal Arts Center where my office is located and looked across the campus circle to the Science Center. Students wandered into it, and everything looked so normal it seemed I might have imagined last night’s events. But I had a class to teach. In a kind of daze, I picked up my teaching notes from my office and headed into class.

  My daze continued, so much so that I couldn’t tell you what I taught. Fortunately, the news of Mitra’s death hadn’t gotten around enough for students to ask about it. That wouldn’t last, but for now it let me escape back into my office. By noon, everyone on campus would know I was involved in something weird. That meant faculty members I hadn’t seen in months would drop by my office to pump me for information.

  So I shut my office door and turned out the lights. If anyone knocked, I’d pretend I wasn’t there. I reviewed the situation while my internal orchestra played Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture. By now, I’m brazened to the necessity of thinking and planning in spite of that music.

  The first thing I wanted to know was how Mitra Fortier had died. The spot of blood above the veins inside her left elbow suggested some kind of injection. But so far as I knew, she’d never been a drug user. Besides, she was left-handed. If she’d injected herself, she would have held the syringe in her left hand and injected the right arm. That seemed suspicious, but the answer would have to wait for the police investigation. Mara’s and my finding the body did not make us guilty of anything, though Dean-Dean’s unique logic would blame us for bringing him more trouble. That couldn’t be helped. But unless something unexpected turned up, even Clyde Staggart’s enmity couldn’t make me a suspect.

  But Mitra had said that something threatened my job. Other than Dean-Dean, I didn’t know who, or what, that might be. But I admit it worried me. Since Faith’s death, I live for teaching history and, as I must have said a dozen times, I’d make a lousy used car salesman. I’d hoped that last fall’s student demonstration in favor of Mara, together with our solving the Laila Sloan murder, had won us contracts for another year. But this was crunch time. The trustees had met, and contracts would be awarded within the next seven days. We would find them in our campus mailboxes.

  Or not find them.

  Just then, Brahms’s overture ended with a rousing treatment of the student song “Gaudeamus Igitur” (Let Us Rejoice). I’d rarely felt less like rejoicing.

  During my ponderings, I’d ignored several knocks on my office door. Through its frosted glass I could see masculine silhouettes against the lighted hallway. I ignored the knocks.

  Then high heels clicked hurriedly in the hall. Shadowed slender fingers
tapped on the door, and a feminine voice called, “Press, let me in. I have to talk to you.”

  I hoped it might be Mara. But when I clicked on the lights and opened the door, it turned out to be Cynthia Starlington.

  Anxiety showed in her dark eyes.

  “I have to talk to you, Press,” she said. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  My internal orchestra cranked up again, this time with Artie Shaw’s classic recording of “Begin the Beguine.” The liquid tones of his clarinet in the lower register were perfectly suited to the meaning of the music. Or to the soft beauty of Cynthia Starlington.

  “You don’t look like you’ve committed crimes against humanity,” I said. I motioned her toward one of the hardwood straight chairs aligned against the wall to the left of my desk.

  When she’d disposed of her topcoat and seated herself, I pushed the door full open, eased a doorstop under it, and settled myself into a chair that faced hers. That put the width of the room between us. I’d admired Cynthia as a student and thought I could trust her, but in these super-sensitive times when an untoward word or gesture can get you accused of sexual harassment, I don’t take chances. As I’ve commented before, music bounces around in my head, but I don’t have any loose screws.

  “Okay, Cyn,” I said. “What’s bothering you?”

  For a few moments she said nothing but sat primly on the edge of her chair, knees pressed close together and hands clasped in her lap. She wore a brown blouse figured with darker brown leaves with a flowing brown skirt. For a poignant interval, her eyes searched mine.

  “I ... I’ve heard about Professor Fortier, Press,” she said at last. “That’s why I’m in trouble.”

  I took time to straighten my necktie. I remembered that Cynthia and Mitra had snubbed each other at the reception, but I asked, “Why should her death involve you?”

  Nervously, she rubbed her hands together. “We had a terrible row the other day. I’m afraid they’ll say I killed her.”

  “You’re rushing ahead of things,” I said. “No one yet knows how she died. It could have been natural causes or even suicide.” I thought I knew better but wasn’t ready to admit it.

  Cynthia shook her head. “She was murdered. I feel it in my bones.”

  “Hey, you’re a philosopher,” I said. “Aren’t you folks supposed to demand a rational ‘basis of belief’?”

  Her eyes grew more earnest. “That’s all fine and good for the classroom, but some things you just know because you know them.”

  I could have reminded her that if philosophy had no application outside the classroom, it wasn’t worth the effort of studying. But she was young, hardly past thirty, so maybe that hadn’t occurred to her.

  “What kind of disagreement did you have with Professor Fortier?” I asked.

  Cynthia looked at the floor. “It goes back to when I was a student. Her physics class was the only one I ever made a bad grade in. I made one teeny little error in calculation. I got all the principles right, but she wouldn’t give me credit for that. She said if the answer wasn’t completely right, the answer was completely wrong. So I made a B+ in the course, and that knocked me out of being valedictorian.”

  “You were salutatorian, and that’s quite an honor.”

  “But I’d set my sights on winning the top honor. I deserved it. You know I never shied away from the hard subjects. And Greg Willis—the boy that won it—never took anything but powder-puff courses once he got his required courses out of the way.”

  I winced at the idea that required courses constituted unnecessary obstacles in what students regarded as the superhighway to promised job credentials. But I was surprised at Cynthia’s venom after all these years of academic success.

  I took time to adjust my trifocals. “Tell me about this last incident.”

  A tear trickled down her cheek. “I went by Professor Fortier’s office and told her what I thought of her. She raised her voice right back at me—you know what a loud voice she has … had …. Anyway, while we were shouting at each other, Professor Combes and several others came out of their offices to see what was going on. And I said something I shouldn’t have. I told Professor Fortier that anyone who’d do that to a student ought to be killed.”

  This Cynthia was not the skinny kid I’d admired as a student for being methodical and well-controlled. And it wasn’t a great start on her faculty career.

  “Who else heard you?” I asked. Weldon Combes had always been a stabilizing influence on campus, but there were others who might be trouble.

  “Professor Broyles—from the Math Department, I think.” Cynthia had tears on both cheeks now. “And that trustee—I think his name is Samstag.”

  I whistled. The aging Freda Broyles was a close friend of the deceased. She had a face like a prune and a temperament like boiled vinegar. And Gordon Samstag was chairman of the board of trustees. Cynthia couldn’t have done worse if she’d threatened Mitra with an axe in the lobby of the police station. Now she looked at me with wide dark eyes that begged me to help her pick up the pieces.

  “You’ve made a real mess,” I said, “but that doesn’t indict you for murder. What did you do after last night’s reception?”

  The soft clarinet music continued inside me supported now by the full orchestra.

  Her eyes widened. “I drove straight home and went to bed.”

  I thought it best not to ask if she had a witness. The last thing I wanted was an outburst of the temper she’d been telling me about. Maybe if the police could trace Mitra’s movements after the reception or find something on her computer or cell phone, the scene with Cynthia might never come up.

  “We don’t yet know how Professor Fortier died,” I said again, still hiding my suspicions. “Until that’s definite, no one can accuse you of anything except an impropriety.” I avoided the obvious word stupidity. “Meanwhile, the best thing you can do is behave yourself and act as if the incident never happened.”

  She nodded silently and dabbed at her tears with a facial tissue.

  “If the police do question you, don’t hold anything back. They’ll dig out the truth and throw it in your face. Their questioning won’t be pleasant, but telling the complete truth is the best way out.”

  She nodded again.

  “Another thing, it won’t help your credibility with the police to be associated with me. My name has been mud with them ever since last fall.”

  Her eyes widened. “The Laila Sloan murder? They should be grateful to you for solving it.”

  Welcome to the real world, I thought. But I only said, “They don’t see it that way.” No use bringing up the long story of Clyde Staggart’s enmity. It was time to end the interview, so I stood up. “Remember, be on your best behavior.”

  Smiling now, she also stood. As she crossed the room toward me, I admired the smooth perfection of her olive complexion. I’d never noticed before, but her dark brown hair grew lighter toward its ends, with little golden tips glinting like tiny jewels in the reflected light.

  Artie Shaw’s music climaxed in my head with a long clarinet glissando and, as always, he entered the final high note a bit flat.

  “There’s one other thing,” Cynthia said. “I keep hearing about ‘The Crisis,’ but nobody explains … ”

  “They should have told you when they hired you,” I said. I tried not to go into lecture mode, but it still came out that way. “When you were a student, Overton Grace College was an under-endowed but respectable liberal arts college with about eight hundred students. But when enrollment suddenly dropped below seven hundred, it caused a panic and a change of presidents. The new one—President Cantwell—brought in a consultant to lead us back to economic health. So now we have a slew of ‘relevant’ classes to bring in hordes of students, we’ve begun a high-profile athletic program, and we’ve opened extension centers throughout the state to serve all kinds of special groups.”

  I could have said we chased money wherever it could be found, but Cynthia needed to make
her own value judgments.

  Again, her dark eyes widened. “That’s why we’re just Overton University instead of Overton Grace University?”

  I nodded. “The consultant said our denominational identification would scare students off, so it’s played down in all our publicity.”

  I didn’t tell her the consultant had the crosses removed from the campus entryways until last fall when President Cantwell suffered a fit of conscience and ordered them restored.

  Cynthia laid a hand on my arm. “Thank you, Press. I needed to know all that. And on the other thing ... I knew you could help.”

  She retrieved her topcoat and left without looking back. My arm tingled where she had touched it, and there lingered behind her a subtle perfume I didn’t recognize. If she wore that to class, she’d have the male students too hypnotized to hear a word she said. And the female students too jealous.

  My internal orchestra replaced Shaw’s clarinet with a trio of muted trumpets. Somehow I pushed them into the back of my mind and considered my interview with Cynthia. Her foolish scene with Mitra Fortier wouldn’t help her acceptance by the faculty. But if she was telling the truth, the worst she could expect was an unpleasant questioning by the police.

  It didn’t seem to change my situation in any way.

  I was wrong again.

  CHAPTER 5

  I usually took lunch in the campus grill, but today that would provoke an inquisition about Professor Fortier’s death. So, with the musicians in my brain tinkling a Chopin waltz, I followed the narrow walkway down the hill to my home and caught a ham sandwich. Then I returned to the campus for my class in Western Civilization.