Murder Misread (7 page)

Hines’s arm shot out, hand
up in a traffic-cop stop. “I’ll show you.”

Walensky paused. “It’s on
NYSU property.”

Hines said softly, “And
you’re calling us in, right, Wayne? Even if it’s your side of the
line. How about we go look together?”

Walensky’s frown swept
over the watchers. He jerked his head toward the body. “C’mon,
Reggie. We gotta cooperate.”

“
Right. That’s what I’m
saying.”

“
All right.” Walensky
looked at Anne again. “Mrs. Chandler, I’m sorry.”

Anne nodded, unsmiling.
The two policemen moved down the trail.

“
Little bit of friction
there,” Maggie observed.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah.
Dorrie called the Laconia police but the Campus Security people
usually respond to campus problems so I suggested calling them too.
Didn’t know they’d all show up at once.”

Anne said, “They’re
supposed to have an agreement now. The administration got together
with the city police chief and with Walensky.” Her voice was crisp,
detached, scholarly. “Worked out some arrangement; I don’t know the
details. The campus police handle campus complaints, but they’re
supposed to call in the city department when it’s
serious.”

“
I remember in the sixties
the city cops tried to break up an antiwar demonstration,” said
Maggie. “Roughed up some students and made the thing twice as
bad.”

“
Right,” said Anne. “That
kind of thing was why they worked out the agreement. Basically it
means student demonstrators are called before campus judiciary
committees.”

“
Instead of getting real
rap sheets. I see,” said Maggie.

“
But major crimes are
turned over to the city police, right?” Charlie said uneasily.
“Like that kid who stole the NYSU Film Club receipts?”

“
Right,” said Anne. “He
was caught by Walensky’s people but turned over to the city courts.
What the hell are they doing down there?” She gestured with her
reeking cigarette.

Charlie looked too.
Walensky was squatting, with some effort, inspecting the muddy bank
of the creek. When he straightened he looked grim.

“
Footprints,” Maggie
informed them.

“
What?” asked
Charlie.

“
Someone walked through
the creek, came up the bank at that point, then back down into the
creek.”

Anne’s sharp eyes were on
Maggie. “You were down there?”

“
I went down while Dorrie
was phoning the police and ambulance, just in case I could help. I
couldn’t, but I did take a quick look around.”

“
And what did you see?”
Anne asked dryly.

“
The gun in his right
hand. Powder burn on the right side, behind his ear. Footprints
along that muddy section. Some very small ones, maybe that little
girl that Bart saw. And big ones, deep tread like a man’s boot. No
overlap. Don’t know which came first.”

“
A good observer,” said
Anne.

“
Just curious. Anyway,
you’re right. As a suicide it looks pretty fishy.”

Anne nodded vehemently.
“Impossible.”

Hines and Walensky had
apparently agreed to a truce and were ambling back up to the
group.

“
Thank you all for
waiting,” Hines said. “Mrs. Chandler—”

“
Yes?”

“
We’d appreciate it if
you’d identify him for the medical examiner downtown. In about an
hour, if that’s all right.”

“
I can’t go with
him?”

“
It would be easier for us
to take him. We’ll send someone for you soon.
Meanwhile—”

“
Meanwhile,” Walensky
broke in firmly, “we’ll take you all back to Van Brunt Hall. Take
some preliminary statements for our own records while we wait for
Sergeant Hines to finish up here.”

Hines’s face had that
carved-wood look again. “Thank you, Captain Walensky. See you all
soon.”

Charlie trooped up the
hill with the others, following Walensky and his men. His mind
churned, images and worries flashing by in a rapid-sequence
montage. Tal, expansive, inviting everyone to lunch. Hines’s
careful reconstruction of the traffic on the trails. The shadowy
figure among the trees. The obvious disruption to come as two
different police forces took statements and snooped through Tal’s
things and Tal’s friends. He had so much to do, and this was bound
to louse things up. Things wouldn’t get back to normal until the
cops had tracked down the killer. Could be weeks. And he had so
damn much to do. But God, that was a selfish, callous thought. Tal
came first.

Anne was trudging up the
hill next to him, smoking, her face as wooden as Hines’s, trying to
escape grief behind an Eastwood-tough exterior, trying to distract
herself.

And you, Charlie Fielding,
trying to distract yourself too.

An image pushed itself to
the fore: Tal pretending to be Cyrano, the ruler-sword waving, yes,
in his left hand.

Something seemed to be
caught in Charlie’s throat.

5

Captain Walensky handed
Anne into the backseat of the pale gray Campus Security car. Her
mind, hunting distractions, cataloged the smooth plastic
upholstery, the floor carpeting scrubbed but still stained faintly
yellow by some accident or other. “There you go, Mrs. Chandler. Are
you comfortable?”

“
Fine,”
said Anne shortly. She hated to be fussed over. Disguised
condescension, most of it. Men holding doors for you and then
shocked when you insisted on attending the meeting instead of
fetching them coffee. Better these days, or better disguised. But
Wayne Walensky was old-style,
un
vieux
birbe
. She’d have to bear with
him. And, she reminded herself, he meant well. He knew her, knew
Tal, knew and loved the whole damn campus. That was worth a
lot.

Charlie’s new statistician
slid in next to her without waiting for directions while Hines and
Walensky stood talking to the student outside. Anne could hear
their voices dimly, making arrangements to get the young woman’s
official statement. Anne felt distant, an observer only, suspended
above the petty world on a jet of pure white rage. She’d have to
cope later, she knew. Pull out her shredded heart and hold it up to
the light. But for now the job was to find out who the hell had
done this to Tal. To
her
.

Outside, Walensky was
telling the student they could drop her at the library, and the
girl climbed in next to the statistician. Strangers both. Just as
well. Charlie and Nora and Bart would just ask what they could do
for her. Fuss over her. But hell, she’d better get used to that.
Everyone would fuss.

The back door slammed,
then Walensky climbed into the front passenger seat next to his
driver. Seemed to be the same young fellow Anne had met on the
path, though it was hard to tell from the back of his neck. He
needed a trim, looked almost shaggy next to the captain’s neatly
clipped head. But Walensky’s gray short-sleeved shirt was
sweat-stained and wilting, she saw as he plopped one arm along the
top of the seat back. There was a scar on the back of his upper
arm, a long red line dotted on both sides with stitch marks so that
it looked like a ghostly zipper. And these sweating, scarred
fellows were supposed to catch Tal’s killer. God. She looked away,
out the window.

Walensky said to the
younger man, “Library first, Pete.”

The car moved smoothly
from the curb, passing a second Security car where Bart and Charlie
were being invited to climb in. Walensky swabbed his forehead with
a rumpled handkerchief, frowning at them, then glanced back at
Anne. “Sorry about that Hines fellow, Mrs. Chandler,” he said.
“Those city cops are clumsy as elephants.”

“
It’s all right,” said
Anne.

“
Those guys don’t
understand,” Walensky went on. “A campus community is different.
Where young Hines comes from, downtown, well, a little head-bashing
may be necessary. But up here on campus we’ve got a basically
law-abiding community. Strong feelings about politics, sure, but
even that’s cooled off in the last ten years. Anyway, that’s not
involved in a case like this. Get a lot more information with kid
gloves than bludgeons.”

Anne felt far away,
looking down at Walensky as though at an insect, a life-form whose
little hungers and desires were pitiful compared to her own
enormous need. He buzzed on, “See, Hines is a real stickler for all
the rules. Doesn’t realize the rules are for a whole other class of
people. Now, your campus community, you don’t want to force things
into pigeonholes. These are bright people. You want to let them
make some connections. Let them think things through. Speed things
up in the long run.”

“
Captain,” said Anne
bitterly, “just catch the killer, all right?”

“
Sure!” He shifted on his
seat so he could see her better. “That’s what I’m talking about!
I’ll do my best, but that Hines—still, the guy who did it is
probably from downtown. Hines’s territory.”

“
Maybe cooperating is
best,” said Charlie’s statistician pacifically.

Walensky snorted.
“Cooperate? That’s a new word to Sergeant Hines. Muscle his way in,
is more like it,” he grumbled. “Here’s the library. Pull over,
Pete.”

Anne’s eyes had wandered
to the statistician. She looked so familiar. Anne’s mind snatched
eagerly at the distraction: who was this woman? Charlie had said
Maggie something. That seemed to fit. But fit what? Something dim
in her memory. She watched her say good-bye to the student Dorrie,
who was climbing out of the car. Then Maggie pulled the door closed
and settled into the far corner, stretching lanky legs toward the
middle of the car. She glanced at Anne. Deep blue eyes in a
pleasant squarish face, a mass of feathery black curls. Anne saw
that face suddenly in black and white. Newsprint. Tragedy. She
blurted, “Jackie Edwards.”

Maggie nodded. “You taught
one of Jackie’s favorite courses. French drama.”

“
My god. You’re her
roommate!”

“
Yes.”

“
The one who caught the
guy.”

“
I helped, yeah.” Sorrow
shadowed the blue eyes.

Walensky had been leaning
out his window, giving some kind of instructions to the student
they were leaving. Now he turned to look at Maggie. “What guy? Wait
a minute—Margaret Ryan. Not the Triangle Killer?”

Maggie nodded again, her
mouth grim.

“
Christ,” said Walensky.
“Small world.”

Anne remembered Jackie
Edwards. A lively, pert young grad student, full of promise and
enthusiasm. That beast of a man had raped and killed her. Suddenly
Anne’s eyes were brimming. She bumbled blindly into her bag,
looking for a tissue. Then one was pressed gently into her hand.
“Here,” murmured Maggie.

“
You all right, Mrs.
Chandler?” asked Walensky uneasily from the front seat. A question
so silly it was unworthy of consideration. Anne blew her nose
noisily into the tissue while her mind splashed about searching for
something solid so she could haul herself out of the undignified
sea of tears.

Maggie, more pragmatic
than the policeman, provided a second tissue and a lifeline. “You
know, it might help the police if you thought about some of the
things Tal was doing this week.”

Walensky said, “Now, Miss
Ryan, this isn’t the time to trouble her with—”

“
Oh, shut up, this is
exactly the time!” Anne barked at him. She blew her nose again.
“Only reason I’m coming along is to try to speed things up! Now, do
you have a notebook?”

“
Uh… yes, ma’am.” Walensky
glanced hastily at young Pete. Probably wanted to be sure the
younger man understood that he was buttering up the university
community rather than capitulating to an old bitch. Well, Anne
didn’t care what Walensky thought of her, as long as he got the
information.

“
All right. Tal’s
projects. Today is what, Thursday? Well, he was expecting to hear
back from a publisher sometime this week. They’d accepted his book
but it was conditional on some revisions. He’d sent them in a month
ago but hadn’t heard yet. He was also working on an article,
finishing the statistical analyses. He was thinking about a grant
proposal, but I don’t think he’d actually started work. Depressing
things, grant proposals. Like writing a book or monograph but it
doesn’t count as a publication. But as I say, he hadn’t really
started on that except to collect some reprints on the subject.”
Anne found a dry corner of her tissue and scrubbed the last
vestiges of those embarrassing tears from her eyes. “That’s all the
campus stuff I remember. Did you get it all, Captain?”

“
Yes, ma’am. Though the
car doesn’t help my penmanship much.”

“
Well, do your best,” Anne
said resignedly. C-student, no doubt, Wayne Walensky. Tal deserved
better. “Ask his colleagues about it too. Now, do you want me to
tell you about his home projects?”

They were pulling into the
Van Brunt parking lot, but Walensky said, “Yes, please.”