Murder is Academic (27 page)

“Because you don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of making a case for him. Maybe that sounds cruel, but he needs to find out the consequences of his wrongdoing and pay some price for that. If he’d blown the whistle on Talbot and your husband in the beginning, he wouldn’t be in this mess now, and the college and others wouldn’t have suffered either. Maybe two people wouldn’t be dead. And now this is about much more than his job, Beth. It’s about the health of the college as well as that of the lake.”

“It’s not all his fault.”

“I know. I’m simply saying he had a significant role in continuing a host of lies that have ended two lives and damaged a lot of others including your own. Think about it. He’s a big boy who made the wrong decision.”

Although I could see that Beth was disappointed in my stance on Donald’s behavior, she needed to see him for what he really was, not a victim in the situation, but one of the perpetrators.

“I suppose you’re right. It’s just that Donald seems so broken up over this whole thing. I wish I could be of some help.”

“You can be of help by continuing your supervision of his work until such time as the college takes action against him. If that takes some time, and he continues to work diligently and competently under you, you might be able to provide a positive perspective on his skills to a prospective employer. But really, Beth, that’s about all you can do now.”

Beth nodded, then looked up at me. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked more exhausted than I had ever seen her. I realized the past weeks had taken a toll on her, and she needed sleep more than anything else.

“Come on.” I took her arm and directed her toward the door and out of the building. “You need to go home, take a hot bath and go to bed. I’ll follow you in my car to make sure you make it there all right. And then I insist on coming in, making you a cup of tea and seeing to it that you get into bed after that bath.”

Beth could see that it was no use arguing with me. She seemed too tired to put up much of a fight.

As we were about to get into our cars, I noticed Donald’s car was still in the parking lot.

“I thought he said he was going home earlier. Don’t tell me I have to play nursemaid to both of you.” I turned to go back into the building to find Donald when Guy pulled up on his motorcycle.

“I was just about to follow Beth home to see that she got some much needed sleep. Why don’t you follow us, and I’ll fill you in while Beth’s relaxing in the tub. Actually, you follow Beth. I’ll be along in a minute. I just need to shoo Donald home, too. It’s been quite a night for everyone, and we’re all a bit exhausted.”

Guy nodded and prepared to follow Beth’s car. I ran up the steps to the second floor lab. As I approached the lab, I could hear Donald’s voice coming through the door. He was on the phone with someone, and I didn’t want to disturb him. I just wanted to eavesdrop.

“Don’t worry about it, ma cherie. We’ll survive.” The person on the other end of the line said something, followed by Donald’s “Bon nuit” and the sound of the receiver being replaced. I hesitated a moment and then stepped into the room. Donald looked as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh, Dr. Murphy, you’re still here. I thought I heard you leave.” Guy began to fiddle with some papers on the desk in front of him. “I just thought I’d straighten things up here before I went home.”

“When I saw your car still in the lot, I thought I’d run up and tell you to head home. You’ve had a rough night. We all have.”

Donald appeared relieved at my words.

“I was a bit worried about you. You weren’t talking to yourself just now, were you? I heard your voice from down the hall. It sounded like you were speaking French. I didn’t know you knew French, Donald.” I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“I don’t really. I just picked up a few words here and there. I worked for a while in Quebec Province. I was just talking to a friend. Thought I’d let her know that I might have to leave my job here.” His gaze darted around the room, and he clasped and unclasped his hands.

I smiled. So Donald had a girlfriend, someone he could confide in. I’d let Beth know. It would make her feel better about Donald’s plight.

“Well, goodnight. Don’t stay too late. Things will look better after a good night’s sleep.”

“Thanks, Dr. Murphy. That’s just what my friend said. ‘Sleep on it’ was what she recommended. I’ll walk out with you.”

He hit the light plunging the lab and adjacent hall into darkness before I could reach the stairway. I stumbled and quickly caught my balance by grabbing hold of the banister.

“Watch your step there. The college doesn’t need someone else on the staff injured or worse.” Donald grabbed my arm and led me down the stairs. “I know this place like the back of my hand, even in the dark.”

I was surprised by the strength in his hands and arms. For a wiry little fellow, he was surprisingly powerful. I was grateful he’d caught me before I plunged down those stairs.

We parted in the parking lot, and I drove off toward Beth’s house. Donald’s car lights followed mine for a while on the road, then turned off at the edge of town.

Chapter 24

“What a guy your Guy is.” Beth greeted me at the door in a fluffy robe. “He made me tea and ran my bath. I just got out. What took you so long?”

“Oh, I chatted a while with Donald. I caught him on the phone with his girlfriend, I think. It sounded as if she was comforting him a bit.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s got someone. He’s never made friends at the college that I know of. He’s really not faculty, and he rarely encounters anyone on the staff because he’s out at the field station most of the time.”

The three of us talked for a while until Beth could no longer hide her yawns or keep her eyes open.

“Time for us to go, and for you to hit the sack, Beth.” She offered no resistance, and I expected her sleep would come quickly and last far into the morning. “We’ll let ourselves out. You go on up to bed. We’ll tidy up the tea things and lock the door after us.”

The night sky looked as if it were preparing for another storm. No stars were out, and the cloud cover obscured the moon, too. I expected a real blow by morning. A tornado might be brewing, and it would be hard to spot coming at night. Even in the day the rolling terrain and heavy-forested hilltops hid a funnel cloud until it was on top of you.

We had been lucky around the lake. Only a few small twisters had come through the area in the past decade or so. Since most of the houses on the lake didn’t have basements, there was no safe place to take cover. The best I could do was to drive into the college, assuming I had time to get there.

When Guy and I got back to the house, I ran for the TV to check the weather station and the local forecast.

“What’s up?” Guy asked.

“I don’t like the looks of this weather. If there’s a tornado on the way, we’ll be better off getting out of here and into a building with a basement.”

“And where would that be?” He looked worried.

“Well, we could go into town and stay at Annie’s apartment. There’s a basement there. Or the college library. There’s both a basement and a sub-basement in there. And it stays open until midnight.” I ticked off the possibilities.

“I guess the reason no one has a basement on this lake is because of the spring run-off from the hills above the lake.”

“One of my neighbors decided to dig himself a basement several years ago. It was fine until the February thaw when he had a swimming pool filled with about three feet of water in his newly constructed basement. Next summer he filled it in. That was the first and last basement in this neighborhood.” I smiled at the memory of his endeavor. He was warned against attempting it by the old timers in the area, but, being a city person and smarter than they, or so he thought, he ignored their advice. Everyone had a good laugh out of his folly and showed up at his house during the thaw with floats, beach balls and rubber rafts. Some were even clad in bathing apparel.

I shared the story with Guy while I kept half an ear on the weather channel. The local forecast predicted thunderstorms for the lake area, but no tornado watch was issued. We muted the sound, but kept the video on to catch any updates as they came onto the screen.

Guy pulled some chilled spring water out of the fridge and poured us two glasses while I ran upstairs and changed into my robe. The storm was gaining strength, and the trees in the yard were losing limbs to the churning winds.

“Better drop the blinds so the windows are covered in case a limb comes through one,” I called to Guy down the stairs. “It’s not much protection, but at least it’ll contain any flying glass.”

“Already done, ma cherie.”

I slowly descended the stairs. Guy noticed the expression on my face. “What’s wrong? Storm given you the willies?”

“What did you just say?”

“Sorry. I just called you my dear in French. Don’t you like it? I know you’re not one for expressions of affection, but…”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that’s the second time I heard that phrase tonight.”

“Okay, give. Who’s been wooing you in French? I’ll have his head.” Guy filled his voice with mock anger and jealousy.

A large tree limb hit the side of the house with a bang just as a lightning strike hit somewhere in the trees across the lake.

My eyes traveled to the television screen. The thunderstorms were upgraded to severe thunderstorms.

“No one’s been wooing me. But I did overhear Donald Hall talking to someone on the phone he called ‘ma cherie’. He told me it was a friend of his. His use of French jogged a memory in my mind that I can’t quite get hold of. Didn’t you say you thought you had met him somewhere before?”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that. But the only memory that comes to mind is from Canada on a road project one summer. The guy seemed heavier and his hair was lighter. Maybe it wasn’t him.”

“Maybe it was him. Donald looks pretty small, but tonight when we left the field station together, I tripped and he caught me. I was surprised at his strength.”

“What would Donald be doing working on a road crew?”

“You work construction during the summers. Why wouldn’t others find the employment as lucrative as you do?”

“This guy’s name wasn’t Donald though. It was a French-Canadian name like mine. I don’t remember it, however.”

I sucked in a short breath. “Could it have been ‘LeBeau’?”

“Right. That’s it. Henri LeBeau. Why?”

“It was the name on the condo papers for the wastewater treatment system. To be specific, the name on the both sets of documents, one filed in the county office building and the other set found among Talbot’s papers.” My mind was racing.

“So if Donald is really Henri, I guess he worked for the condo development organization and for Talbot before he worked at the college? That seems pretty suspicious,” Guy said.

“It’s more than suspicious. It’s downright deadly.” I reached for the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

Before I could reply, the wind shook the house until the windows rattled, and the screen door to the kitchen entrance blew off its hinges. Giant hailstones began to fall, covering the yard in white.

“Not a good sign,” Guy said. “That’s often a precursor to a tornado. I think we should consider finding somewhere safer.”

“Spell ‘behavior’,” I said to Guy.

“Are you crazy? We’re about to be blown away, and you want to conduct a spelling bee?”

“Just humor me. Spell it.”

Guy looked exasperated, but complied with my demand, knowing that, if he didn’t, they might find our bodies in the rubble of my house tomorrow.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Can we get out of here now?” Guy urged. The television was now running a banner at the bottom of the screen announcing a tornado warning for this county.

“Let’s boogie.” Guy grabbed my hand and headed for the door. Before we could leave, the phone rang.

“Hi. It’s Beth. The wind woke me, and I started to worry about both of you out at the lake. I just heard over the radio that they spotted funnel cloud just north of the lake. I’m on my cell phone in my basement. You’ll never make it into town for cover, but I’ve got an idea. There’s an area at the biological field station that’s built into the hill. It’s a storage room with no windows. The key to it is under a rock at the base of the sign as you pull off the main road. You’d better get over there now. Hurry!” At her last word, my phone went dead. The house was plunged into darkness. Guy grabbed me and began shouting over the howling of the wind.

“The last word on the TV was there’s a tornado headed…” The rest of his sentence was cut off by the shudder of something large hitting the second story of the house. The pounding was accompanied by the sound of glass breaking and the howling of wind down my stairs.

“That was Beth. She called to let us know we can take shelter at the station. Come on. We’ll take my car.”

We made a dash for the car. I started up and squealed out of the driveway onto the road heading to the station. As quickly as the wind had come up, it grew deadly still.

“Step on it, Laura. I think the tornado’s on its way.”

“We’re almost there.” I rounded a curve and slammed on my brakes. A large tree had been toppled by the winds, and it lay across the roadway. There was no hope of getting the car around it.