The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders (8 page)

When we had finished dinner, Ben took our empty plates to the sink and poured more coffee for both of us. “I'd sure like some of that apple cobbler,” he said, eyeing the dessert, “but I'd die before I'd ask for it.”

As we lingered at the table after dessert, I told him about the eerie feeling I'd had that day after leaving Willene Benson, and how terrified she had seemed. “These murders are gnawing away at all of us,” I said. “It's frustrating as well as frightening! I feel like I should be doing
something
.”

The first thing I noticed about Ben Maxwell was his eyes: expressive, intelligent, and blue enough to bore holes through you—as they were doing then. A large, russet-bearded man who looks as if he should be wearing a kilt, he reached for my hand across the table. “Why do you think you have to find all the answers, Lucy Nan? It's not your job, and as you should know by now, it could be dangerous.”

“Easy for you to say,” I told him, still holding on to his work-callused hand. Ben is a furniture craftsman—a fine one, and his fingers are blunt and strong. “I have to see these people on a regular basis and this thing has turned the whole campus upside down. And now I've learned there may have been an earlier murder. A freshman died from what everyone supposed was a fall from the Tree House nine years ago at about this same time of year.”

“And what makes you think it wasn't a fall?” he asked.

“From all I've heard about her, she didn't seem the type to even be up there,” I said. I didn't mention the mysterious letters the last two victims were rumored to have received.

Now Ben shook his head solemnly and I sensed he had a “harking” spell coming on. Turns out I was right. “Honey, you've gotta learn to relax, just let go…like old T. G. Talley.”

I laughed. “Okay, I'll bite. Who's T. G. Talley?”

“T. G. Talley was this old fellow who belonged to the Rising Star Baptist Church way out on the edge of town…” Here Ben paused for dramatic effect and a long swallow of coffee. “When anything was bothering old T.G., he'd stand up in church and pray about it. ‘Lord,' he'd say, ‘this here's T. G. Talley from Sweet Gum Valley speaking…'”

I must have been laughing to myself when I thought about Ben's wild story during the Senior Citizen Singers Fall Fa-la-la Exhibition at the Baptist Church the next day because Opal Henshaw gave me a dirty look from the alto section. After the concert I went to dinner with Nettie and we had to stand in line at the Full Plate Cafeteria, whose sign advertises “All you care to eat!” I usually don't care to eat there at all, but Nettie likes it because she can get liver and onions. I try not look at her while she's eating it.

Naturally I had to give a report on Leslie, so I told her I had delivered the cookies, and hoped she wouldn't ask about her niece's scholastic accomplishments.

“Leslie went through some difficulties when her daddy remarried,” Nettie told me as we moved through the serving line. She studied the desserts and added a piece of coconut cream pie to her tray. “And she's skinny as a string, but I reckon it's just getting adjusted to living away from home.”

“That and not eating.” I told her how Leslie had only nibbled at her lunch.

“Her daddy always treated her like a grown-up and expected her to act like one,” Nettie said. “Leslie was only six when her mother died, and this new wife's never had children. The poor little thing never had much of a childhood, and frankly, I think they've pushed her too hard. Her daddy's worried about her, and so am I…and now another girl at Sarah Bedford's been killed. It's a wonder to me they aren't all nervous wrecks over there!” Dishes rattled as Nettie plunked down her tray. “I don't care what that Franklin Roosevelt said—there are
a lot
of things worse worrying about than just being scared!”

I took a long pull on my sweetened iced tea. If I didn't know better, I'd think my neighbor had been hanging out with Augusta.

Coffee sloshed into the saucer as Nettie sat down her cup. “If Leslie were mine, I'd jerk her home so fast you couldn't say scat. I hope you're keeping your car locked, Lucy Nan. That campus isn't safe anymore with that maniac going around slashing people with a sickle!”

But the next day the findings of the autopsy confirmed what the police had suspected. D. C. Hunter had died from a blow to the head. Apparently somebody had waited at the top of those dark stairs, then lashed out with the rusty sickle, causing her to fall and hit her head on the stone floor. The girl had gashes on her face, hands, and upper body as if she had tried to protect herself.

The Dulcimer Man came to my class the next day. His name is Andy Collins, but most people just call him the Dulcimer Man. When Augusta heard about it, a look that can only be described as blissful reverie crossed her face. “Sophronia Lovelace,” she said, pausing in her spasmodic aerobic exercise—which that day involved running up and down the stairs.

“I haven't heard one played as sweetly since she strummed ‘Flow Gently, Sweet Afton' during a musical evening back in 1898…or was it '99?” she said in answer to my unspoken question.

“Then by all means, come along,” I told her. And since so many others wanted to hear him, we held class in one of the larger lecture rooms in Main Hall, where the musician played and sang, then demonstrated how the instrument was made. Augusta was serenely transported.

The Main Hall at Sarah Bedford has marble floors, mahogany banisters, and a ceiling that goes on forever. A large portrait of Sarah Bedford herself hangs in the place of honor above the staircase. It's one of those paintings that looks as if the subject is stepping out of a cloud of mist—or else she's just standing there while the house burns down around her.

We stayed until our guest had left and the last listener straggled away, so the building was relatively empty when Augusta and I started to leave. We were at the top of the stairs when she stopped me with a touch of her hand. “Listen…” she said, her head to one side.

I started to tell her I didn't hear a thing when I realized someone was singing what sounded like an old hymn and it seemed to be coming from a room down the hallway to our right. “It must be Londus,” I said, “but is somebody with him?”

Augusta put a finger to her lips as we inched closer. It soon became obvious that the janitor wasn't singing alone, but was accompanied by a tinny mechanical voice that seemed to come from far away. The two of us stood outside the door labeled
MAINTENANCE
and eavesdropped shamelessly on the peculiar duet. Londus Clack was singing backup to
himself!

When the roll,
When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

When the roll,
When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

When the r-o-o-o-l-l is called up yon-der,
When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there!

Augusta, apparently having second thoughts about intruding, shook her head and turned away, beckoning me to follow. Having come this far, however, I resisted and held my hand to my mouth and my ear to the door until I couldn't stand it any longer. “Londus?” I tapped lightly. “Londus, is that you?”

Immediately the music stopped and the red-faced janitor opened the door. On a shelf behind him, between a can of floor wax and a bottle of glass cleaner, sat a huge stuffed teddy bear, the kind that has a tape player in its stomach.

Mop in hand, Londus stepped quickly into the hallway, closing the door behind him. “I didn't think nobody was here,” he said, wiping his pink face with a dingy handkerchief. “Singin'…well, it kinda makes the work go faster.”

I agreed. “You sounded great—both of you—and I shouldn't have interrupted. I'm sorry.”

Londus grinned and shook his head. “Ah, well, that's all right. One of my nieces gave me that old toy a few years back, said it would help me stay on key.” He laughed. “Reckon she thought I needed it.”

He turned as if he meant to go and I walked along beside him. “Wait, please. If you have a minute, maybe you can help me…” How could I word this diplomatically?

“You were here at Sarah Bedford when that girl fell from the Tree House, weren't you?”

Londus closed his eyes. “Lord, that were a long time ago.”

“Not that long. About eight or nine years.” I stopped at a water fountain. My mouth felt dry. I could be standing here talking with a murderer in this great hollow hall and my guardian angel seemed to have abandoned me.

“Your job takes you all over the campus, so you must have a pretty good idea of what goes on. Do you know if the girl who drowned and the one who fell from the Tree House had anything in common with D. C. Hunter?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn't know nothin' about that.”

“What about boyfriends? Were Rachel Isaacs and the Martinez girl seeing anybody in particular?”

Londus frowned. “Martin who?”

I repeated the name. “The newspaper account said you found her body beneath the Tree House. Remember?”

He nodded, shoving his handkerchief in his back pocket. “She fell. That girl fell. Sure were a sad thing.”

“Some people think she might've been meeting somebody that night—a boy, maybe. And what about the girl who drowned? A pretty girl like that must've had a boyfriend.”

Londus clutched his mop with both hands. “I didn't pay no mind to them,” he said. “But that girl they found in the shed—what's her name, B.C.?”

“D. C. Hunter.”

“Yeah, her. I'm real sorry for what happened to her, but I seen what she was doin', and she weren't no better than she oughta be, sneakin' out and meetin' that man thataway. And he weren't neither.”

I nodded solemnly. “I guess you must notice a lot that goes on here.”

Londus cleared his throat and blew his nose as if he could get rid of all the bad things at Sarah Bedford College. “More than you'd think,” he said. “More than you'd ever believe.”

“I wonder what he meant by that,” I said to Augusta, who waited on the stairs. I knew she'd overheard every word.

She paused briefly to glance at her reflection in the mirror that hung on the landing. “It seems to me that Londus Clack knows more than he's letting on,” she said.

I repeated the question to Celeste and her roommate, Debra, later that afternoon, after telling them about my conversation with Londus. The weather was mild and the three of us sipped Cokes on the sunny steps of Emma P. Harris Hall.

“Londus doesn't miss much,” Celeste said. “He not only sees who you go out with, he knows what time you get in, if you keep your room neat, or if you've sneaked beer into the dorm.”

“Well, if he knows anything, he's not telling,” I said. “Another student died several years ago, apparently from a fall from the Tree House, and Londus was the one who discovered the body. I asked him if the three girls had anything in common, but I couldn't get to first base with him. Claimed he didn't know anything about that.”

Debra frowned. “I never knew there was another death. Do they know what caused her to fall?”

“Are they sure she
fell?
” Celeste wanted to know.

“That's what everybody thought—still do, I guess,” I said. “The three girls who died were all new to the campus. Two of them were freshmen and D.C. was a junior, but she'd been to school in England until this year. That's the only thing I can see they had in common.” I leaned against the brick pillar at the foot of the steps. “I realize D.C. was unpopular, but did she have any special enemies?”

Celeste grinned. “Do you have a phone book?”

“She and Leslie Monroe were having it out down in the laundry room one day not long ago,” Debra said. “I thought they were going to start punching each other. Kinda freaked me out.”

“What started it?” I asked.

“D.C. wanted to use the dryer, so she threw Leslie's clean clothes on the floor. Leslie had to wash them all over again.”

Celeste turned the can of Coke in her hands as if studying the label. “I heard she pitched a hissy fit at rehearsal one night. Actually threw a script at Katy Jacobs.”

Debra's eyes grew wide. “What happened?”

“D.C. was late, so Mrs. Treadwell—that's the director,” Celeste told me, “put Katy in her role for the first scene. Katy was the understudy, you know, and D.C. had to wait until it was over to take her place. Made her mad enough to snag lightning, they said.”

“When did that happen?” I asked.

“I think it was about a week before she disappeared,” Celeste said. “Katy says she feels funny about playing that role now.”

Debra drained her drink and scooted down a step into the sun. “That girl made more people cry than a bushel of onions. I don't see how her roommate could stand her.”

“I guess she just got used to her,” Celeste said.

Debra made a face. “Shoot! You could get used to hanging if it didn't kill you.”

We were still laughing when somebody screamed.

“Oh, dear God, what's happened now?” Celeste jumped to her feet and started running toward the sound.

“Sounds like it's coming from the cafeteria,” I said.

Debra looked at me and shrugged. “I
asked
Mrs. Benson not to serve that leftover spaghetti
again
!” And she took off after her roommate.

I hurried across the quad behind them as girls streamed out of dorms and classrooms, collecting on the leaf-strewn campus in a jittery chattering mass. Joy Ellen Harper rushed from her building, running toward the cafeteria faster than I would have thought possible, and I waded through a crowd of students to see what was going on.
Please, not another murder!
I thought, looking about frantically for Leslie Monroe. Across the campus, Blythe Cornelius stood on the steps of Main Hall with a bewildered-looking Dean Holland leaning on her arm.

“What's going on, Miss Lucy?” Paula Shoemaker worked her way over to me, remembering, no doubt, her own screams of only a few days ago. “Do you think there's been—”

I put an arm around her shoulders. “Let's hope not,” I said, wishing Augusta were nearby. We could use her tranquil influence now.

“It's Pearl!” The girl they call Troll appeared beside us. “You know—that lady who works in the cafeteria? The one who laughs a lot.”

But Pearl wasn't laughing now, and when we reached the steps of the building I saw why.

Willene Benson stood in the doorway with her frail arms part-way around a large hysterical woman. On the floor at their feet lay a big white apron like the ones we wore to boil pokeberries, only this one wasn't stained with berry juice. It was spattered with what looked a lot like blood.

If the scene in front of us hadn't been so frightening, it would have been funny. Pearl, who was at least six inches taller and about seventy pounds heavier than Willene, stood crying into the smaller woman's shoulder, and her sobs had now reached the hiccupping stage. To my surprise, Willene seemed to have overcome her customary skittishness and, at least for now, was holding her own. Still, her face was almost as white as the uniform she wore and her eyes held a dazed expression. “It's all right,” she whispered to the other woman. “It's all right now, Pearl…it's all right.”

It didn't look all right to me.

Pearl, I learned, had discovered the grisly apron at the bottom of a hamper of soiled towels and aprons used by the kitchen staff while gathering items for the laundry.

Joy Ellen had the presence of mind to summon the police and attempted to shoo away the curious onlookers, but it didn't do much good. I was relieved to see that one of them was Leslie. The rest of us waited in the cafeteria while Pearl sat with her feet propped on a chair and sipped water. The cooks had been preparing chicken pot pie, and the smell of it made me feel queasy.