Murder Misread (13 page)

Anne looked at her fist.
Beneath it was the paper on which she’d written the names of people
who’d been in the gorge:
Charlie, Nora,
Bart, Maggie, Dorrie.

She said,
“
Merde
,
”
and sagged back in her chair.

“
Yeah. Look, it’s your
turn if you want. Ask me rude, gross questions. Or if you prefer,
I’ll leave. Up to you.”

Anne glared at Maggie. The
younger woman hugged her child to her side but gazed back at Anne
with those frank, intelligent eyes. Anne raised her Gauloise to her
lips and said, “You’re a ruthless bitch, aren’t you? Don’t give a
damn what people think. Or feel.”

Maggie shrugged. “Depends
on the stakes. If we’re talking about murder, yeah, sometimes I’m
ruthless.” She released Sarah and bent down for her bag on the
floor. “You want me to go, then.”

“
Just a minute,” growled
Anne. An idea was taking form amongst the clouds of suspicion and
rage. “A little ruthlessness may be just what we need. And I’ve
always preferred truth to good manners myself.”

“
Ditto,” said Maggie,
straightening. “Honest, I’m not here trying to add to your
troubles. But I’m curious, and sometimes rude and gross is the only
way to get answers. So I’m an oaf sometimes.”

“
Listen, oaf.” Anne took a
long draw of fortifying smoke. “I’ve been remembering a little
about Jackie Edwards. You struck me as much more sensible than the
police back then. And you found Jackie’s killer.” She fought down
the embarrassing tremor in her voice. “Maggie, help me find
Tal’s.”

“
Hey, whoa!” Maggie arched
her eyebrows at Anne, then gave Sarah a pat of dismissal. The child
went to sit on the vinyl floor next to her little brother. The two
children began to argue about Will’s book. Maggie ran her fingers
through her hair and frowned. “I’m not police, Anne. There are
plenty of police.”

“
Too many,” Anne snapped.
“Hines seems to know his job, but he doesn’t know the campus. City
cops hardly ever set foot on it. So he’s here asking dumb questions
about insurance, just like you. And Walensky knows the campus but I
don’t think he’s ever handled a murder. Even botched that
hit-and-run two years ago, when the little Hammond boy got two
broken legs. Tal was furious. Said Walensky was more interested in
making NYSU look good than in catching the driver.” She squinted at
Maggie. “But you know all this! You came here to ask about Charlie.
You must not trust the cops all that much yourself.”

“
You’re right.” The
children were up now, wandering around the room. Maggie’s gaze
followed them as she spoke. “Walensky seems out of his depth. Hines
is starting from way behind because Walensky isn’t helping him.
Also, he has to spend time checking out Charlie Fielding, and
checking out me. I can take a shortcut because I know neither of us
did it. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to think about—Hey!” This last
was directed to Will, who was opening one of the base cabinets.
Maggie dove across the room like a hawk after a mouse and snatched
Anne’s cut-glass bowl from his plump hands.

Anne ground out her
cigarette. “We’ve still got an hour of light left. They can play on
our swing set out back if they want. And we can have a glass of
wine on the terrace.”

“
Perfect!” Maggie’s wide
smile flashed. She’d found a toy for Will in her bag but apparently
it didn’t match the charms of the cut-glass bowl. She chucked the
whimpering boy under the chin. “Will, did you hear? Do you want to
go swing?”

“
Swings! Hurray!” cried
Sarah.

“
Wing! Way!” echoed
Will.

Maggie took the children
out to the swings while Anne got out a second glass and arranged
them with wine, crackers, and ashtray on a tray. She glanced out
the window. Maggie was checking the chains and seats of the swing
set, at one point shinning up to the top bar of the frame to
inspect the bolts. Apparently it passed muster because when Anne
came out to the terrace with the wine, Maggie loped back up the
lawn to join her on the flagstones. “That’ll keep them happy for a
while,” she said. “They’re going to play astronauts, sailing
through the air.”

“
Fine.” Anne gestured
toward the white mesh chairs and table. The living room and kitchen
projected into the backyard a little farther than the dining room
between them, and the flagstone terrace nestled between the two
wings, protected from the worst of sun and wind. Tal always enjoyed
having dinner out here, or even breakfast on hot days. Today had
been too cool. Anne picked up her glass and sipped before seating
herself.

Maggie angled her chair
for a good view of the children, then pulled a snapshot from her
bag. “May I borrow this photo?”

It was a group picture of
the departmental Christmas party. Anne, Tal, Bart and his wife,
Charlie, Nora, Bernie, all holding champagne glasses and grinning
stupidly at the camera. Anne had last seen it posted on her
refrigerator with a magnet. She said, “Be my guest.”

“
Thanks.” The photo
disappeared again into the bag. Maggie took a sip of wine, nodded,
and asked, “Is there anything I can tell you for
starts?”

“
You were with Charlie
Fielding the whole time, you said?”

“
Yes. Well, almost. We
crossed the gorge on the upper trail, and when we hit College Ave.
I ran on ahead to mail a letter to Nick. Had to cross the street to
the branch post office, mail it, cross back again. A couple of
minutes, maybe. Charlie was just about where I’d left him. Now, he
might have had time to race back to the upper footbridge and race
back. But he couldn’t have shot anyone on the lower trail, stuck
the gun in their hand, and gotten all the way back up so
soon.”

“
And you’re sure that’s
when it was done?”

“
Yes. We stopped on the
upper bridge on our way over, and we stood looking at the lower
trail pretty carefully. It hadn’t happened yet. The trail was
empty. But we saw someone hiding in the bushes down there. God, if
I’d known—” Maggie took a gulp of wine and sat frowning at the
glass, twiddling the stem in her long fingers.

“
Who was it?” Anne asked,
her throat tight.

“
I don’t know. We could
just make out a sleeve and a shoe. Same color as those big boots
Hines showed us, but that doesn’t prove much. Too far away to see
if there were already footprints in the mud.” She jerked her thumb
angrily at herself. “And bright girl Ryan here was maundering on
about how it was probably a birdwatcher. God.”

“
What about the others who
met for lunch?” Anne asked. “Could it have been one of
them?”

“
Bart or Nora? Sure.
They both say they used the upper trail too. You
heard them. But either one could have been on the lower trail after
we moved on.”

“
And there’s Bart’s
pipe.”

“
Yes. He was fidgety at
lunch too,” Maggie said. “Already missing it.” She took another sip
of wine, peering at Anne owlishly over the rim of the glass. “Did
Bart have some quarrel with Tal?”

“
No. Not that I know of.
You’re asking because I jumped in with his name.”

“
Yes.”

“
I was just thinking of
the pipe. Well, Bart has his problems. He’s not a happy man.
Finding it difficult to publish these days, and because of that,
Bernie Reinalter has been miserly with the pay raises.”

“
He has
tenure?”

“
Oh, yes, there’s no
getting rid of him unless they can prove gross incompetence. But
Bernie does the budgets, and with inflation the way it’s been I’m
sure Bart is hurting. Tal said he was hopeful about this new grant
proposal he was sending in. He’d asked Tal for a letter of support.
Probably to counteract the lukewarm words he’d get from
Bernie.”

“
I see. Well, that’s not
such an unusual situation. Does Bart have a family?”

“
His wife works at the
NYSU Press, a science editor. A couple of grown kids, moved off to
the big city.”

“
No family problems,
then?”

“
His wife had an eye
operation last year. No obvious marital problems, if that’s what
you mean. But who knows for sure about such things?” She wondered
if anyone in the department had known about Miss Premed, years ago.
Tal was a discreet man, apparently had never intended to endanger
his marriage. It had been Miss Premed’s idea to show up on the
doorstep to demand tearfully that Anne release Tal to his true
love. Anne, a baby balanced on her hip and fifty-three
undergraduate essays in French waiting for her attention, had said,
“Honey, if Tal wants anything from me, he’ll have to ask me
himself. I just don’t have time to work through intermediaries.”
He’d never asked, of course, never brought it up at all, but had
carefully brought home the news that Miss Premed had transferred to
a New York City college next term. Poor kid…. Anne dragged her
meandering thoughts back to the present.

“
I see,” Maggie was
saying. “Now, we figure Charlie’s memo book might have bounced out
of his pocket while he was running from his car to his office this
morning. Several people could have picked it up.”

“
Bart?”

“
He’s one. Nora, Cindy,
the chairman. For that matter, my babysitter, Liz, was in Van Brunt
in the morning. But I asked at McDonald’s about her, and a waiter
there confirmed that my two kids had been there with a young woman
of Liz’s description from a quarter till to
twelve-thirty.”

“
He was sure of the time?
Not that Liz would have any reason—”

“
I know. The waiter’s
shift started at eleven-thirty. He admitted it was an estimate but
was certain within five minutes.” She smiled. “We statisticians
occasionally use common sense. Anyway, I believe him enough to let
her take the kids again.”

“
Well, I’m glad someone’s
cleared.”

“
Cross one off. Right.
Now, what do you know about Reinalter?”

“
Bernie? But
why—”

“
That’s what we’re trying
to find out,” said Maggie brusquely. “Reinalter arrived at Van
Brunt about nine, Cindy says. I met him just for a moment when I
was getting forms from Cindy. She says he left at eleven-thirty for
lunch with a couple of Japanese computer scientists at the faculty
club. He could have found Charlie’s notebook, and if he’d left a
car at the right place near the trail entrance, he could have been
at the faculty club by twelve-fifteen. Not really likely, but don’t
cross him off until we know a little more.”

“
I see what you mean. But,
damn it, after what Tal did for him! He really went out on a
limb!”

“
What did Tal
do?”

Anne stared out at the
lawn. It was almost completely in shadow now, but the sky was still
bright above the evergreens. The children bobbled back and forth on
the swings, their chatter thin in the distance. Sarah was on the
trapeze, a strong little girl who had pulled herself up nimbly to
sit on the bar. She was lecturing Will about the surface of the
moon. Will was paying little attention. He had thrown himself
across a swing seat on his stomach and was pushing himself forward
with his stubby legs, then swinging back with a giggle.

Maggie said, “It’ll be
even more rude and gross if I have to ask Reinalter.”

Well, that was true
enough. “Tal was chairman when Bernie came,” Anne said slowly.
“About fifteen years ago. Bernie was at some little college in the
Midwest. Someplace in Iowa, maybe. He’s in educational testing, and
he’d just developed a new math inventory that people thought was
pretty good. He applied for a position here. Gave a good talk, and
the search committee said grab him. But Tal thought it was a little
odd because it wouldn’t be an advance for Bernie. The rank was
exactly the same, the salary was actually lower. Bernie said he
wanted to move to the East, to a larger university, and so forth.
But Tal had an old friend in Iowa. Not at Bernie’s school, but in a
nearby town.”

“
No friends at Bernie’s
school?”

“
It was a pretty small
college. But the old-boy network came through anyway. Tal’s friend
did some research and found that Tal was right. Bernie was under a
cloud. Apparently the local DA in Bernie’s town had arrested a
couple of prostitutes. And in exchange for leniency they’d named
Bernie as one of their clients.” Anne snorted. “Didn’t name any of
their cop or lawyer clients, I bet.”

“
Hey, they wanted
leniency,” Maggie said.

“
Exactly. Bernie couldn’t bite back. Anyway, it being an
election year, it hit the local newspapers before it was dismissed
by the court. It
was
dismissed,” she added, to be sure Maggie
understood. “Now, it would have been bad enough in a town like this
one, with a big university. Parents sending their daughters off to
college and hearing rumors that one of the professors patronized a
bawdy house—horrors! But think of the reaction in a small town in
the Bible Belt, that long ago. And think of a professor who works
not just with college students, but who does educational research
with the town’s small children. Like your children.”