The Black Door (8 page)

I exhaled. “Of course.”

“In other words,” she was saying, by way of explanation, “sibling rivalry. It’s nothing new, of course.”

“Of course,” I answered automatically. “Well—” I rose to my feet. “You’ve been a really tremendous help, Miss Stephenson.
Really
tremendous. I think I could’ve gone through the entire student body and not found anyone as—as intelligent and articulate as you are. And I want to thank you.”

She bounced off the bed, walking with me to the door. “You’re welcome,” she said briskly. “Now, what about my interview with you?”

“Oh, yes.” I’d hoped she’d forgotten. “Well, I’m going to be pretty busy for the next day or two, probably. How about if I call you next week?”

She thought about it, and said:
“I’ll
call
you.
At the
Sentinel?”

Resigned, I nodded.

“Good,” she said decisively. “I’ll probably be downtown next Wednesday afternoon. I’ll give you a call ahead of time. I should think an hour would be enough. Can we talk in your office?”

“Well, ah, I don’t have an office. But we can find a conference room somewhere, I’m sure.”

“Good.” Suddenly she smiled, and suddenly I decided she wasn’t such a terrible brat after all. Just fat and probably lonely. She put out her hand, and we sealed the bargain.

“I’ll call you Wednesday,” she repeated.

“Fine. I’ll put it on the calendar. And thanks again. You should write books.”

“Someday I will,” she said, without the slightest doubt.

I nodded. “I believe you. Good-by.”

“Good-by.”

As I walked down the hallway, I heard another giggle. I smiled and continued toward the door, softly whistling to myself.

C
AMPION AND I SPENT
the next hour in the coffee shop, discussing the case and swapping oddments of information. I offered for trade my character sketches of Roberta and Bobby Grinnel. Campion offered the information that, reportedly, Roberta had spent the earlier part of her last night at an informal drinking session, attended by herself, John Randall and another couple. If I’d been fortunate in finding an acute student of psychology for my character sketches, apparently Campion had been fortunate in finding the campus gossip.

According to Campion’s information John Randall, Roberta Grinnel, and the other couple took a bottle of bourbon, four glasses and potato chips into the office of the student literary magazine, on which Randall worked as advertising manager and Roberta sometimes worked as an artist. The hour was about 8
P.M.
The occasion, supposedly, was the completion of the magazine’s current issue, and the four students were celebrating. Although nothing was known of the actual party, there was much speculation on what might have happened. Apparently the furnishings of the office included two couches, and the lights in the office weren’t seen all night. But, in any case, it was rumored that Roberta left the party about ten thirty, for an unknown reason. She was observed crossing the campus to the students’ parking lot, and driving off in her car—fast. From this, the campus gossips concluded that there’d been an argument, and that she’d left angry. Probably, then, she’d gone to the Quiet Place, where she’d met Pastor, either by accident or design. They’d gone to Pastor’s apartment, where the killer had found them.

As we walked across the broad quadrangle toward the conference room designated for the dean’s news briefing, I asked Campion, “Did you try to get hold of John Randall?”

He shook his head. “There wasn’t time. Besides, I understand the college authorities are practically incarcerating the kids involved in the party until they’re liberated.”

“Liberated?”

“Bailed out by either a member of the family or the family’s lawyer or duly appointed local representative. It’ll be interesting to see what Johnson says about it.”

“If you ask the question, though, you tip your hand. The TV guys might not know about the party. And Dan Kanter didn’t make it out here, apparently.” As I spoke, I eyed four TV men converging from another tangent.

Campion shrugged. “It wouldn’t be printable in any case, I don’t think. And by the time it
is
printable, the story’ll be all over. I just thought I’d mention it to shake Johnson up if things get too academic.”

“Yes, I see what you—” I paused, then pointed to a police cruiser pulling up ahead of us. Leisurely, Lieutenant Ramsey and Carruthers got out of the car, nodded to us as we drew closer, and then entered the administration building.

“I’ll bet you anything,” Campion said, “that those three students are somewhere inside there, and Ramsey and Carruthers are going to interview them right now. What’ll you bet?”

I shrugged. We were now entering the building, filing down the hallway to the nearby conference room. The detectives were already out of sight. Wherever they’d gone, it wasn’t far from the main entrance hallway.

We entered the conference room and arranged ourselves around a huge golden oak table. I was surprised to see only a handful of reporters present. Perhaps, I speculated, I’d made a mistake leaving headquarters. And it bothered me that Kanter wasn’t with us. Because, invariably, Dan was in the right place at the right time.

“I wonder where Bobby Grinnel’s hiding out? No one seems to’ve seen him,” Campion said.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s still downtown.”

“I wonder if we can smoke?” He looked around.

“I don’t see any ash trays. Do you?”

I also looked, saying, “Uh, uh.”

We sat idly for several moments, in a cigaretteless silence. Finally, after eying me obliquely, Campion asked, “Are you planning on getting any, ah, extraterrestrial assistance on this story?”

I appreciated the way he put it. For Campion, the question was tentative and polite.

I shrugged. Then, seeing another reporter light a cigarette, I promptly took out my own pack, offering a cigarette to Campion and taking one for myself.

“Well?” he said through thick smoke. “Are you?”

I thought involuntarily of the haunted look in Bobby Grinnel’s eyes as he’d gone down the passageway toward the black door.

“It’s not the kind of thing you can plan on,” I answered. “You either get it or you don’t.”

“My impression was that you had to work at it, like any other job.”

“I guess that’s true. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that much about it. For all I know, it’ll never happen again.”

“Your publicity department will never permit it.”

I smiled ruefully. “You may be right.” I glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes after two. “What’s keeping Dean Johnson, I wonder?”

“Undoubtedly, he’s talking to Ramsey and Carruthers.”

“Probably.” I drew at my cigarette.

“God,” Campion said, “wouldn’t it be something if this John Randall kid turned out to be it? His father is president of Farnsworth University. Did you know that?”

I shook my head.

“Just think of it,” Campion said, waving his cigarette in a short, animated arc. “Just think how it could’ve happened: Randall’s secretly in love with the girl, see? Desperately. And all this time she’s been giving him the shaft, and gradually it’s gotten to him. Let’s say she’s been seeing this musician for months, which your plump friend’s statement seems to confirm. So it’s been gradually eating on Randall, see? So last night, there they are, drinking in the publications office, and doing some heavy necking, at least. Maybe they’re even in separate rooms, for all we know. So then, with Randall all in a lather, they get into some kind of an argument. Or maybe she just announces, coolly, that it’s time for her to go, that she’s got a late date. It sounds like something she might do. So off she goes. And off goes Randall—off his rocker. He follows her secretly, and maybe he keeps on drinking. So then—” Campion paused, drawing hastily on his cigarette, his eyes bright with the pleasure of invention. “So then, he breaks in on them. And he—”

“And he murders them with his bare hands, without making a sound,” I interrupted. “Like any red-blooded American boy would do in the same situation.”

“Why do you say ‘bare hands’?” Campion quickly asked. “You haven’t been withholding information, have you, old buddy?”

“I’m being facetious.”

“You could be facetious and also right, though. The girl was strangled; that much’s for certain. And the man looked like his neck was broken. It could be that—” Lost in thought, his voice trailed off.

“We didn’t see Pastor’s front side,” I reminded him. “He could’ve been stabbed.”

“He
could
have. But there wasn’t any blood. And not only that, but—”

An inside door opened, and Henry Johnson, the dean of students, entered the room, unaccompanied. Some of us rose, some of us half rose, and some of us merely muttered. About to sit down, Johnson noticed our cigarettes. He went to a nearby cupboard and took out a stack of small crystal ash trays. One of the TV men distributed the ash trays as Johnson, nodding his thanks, took a seat at the head of the table.

“I’m sorry to’ve kept you waiting, gentlemen. I had, ah, an unexpected chore to perform.”

“May we start by asking the nature of the chore?” someone asked.

Johnson glanced at the questioner with quick eyes, completely unclouded by his sixty-odd years. Then he smiled, taking a brief, thoughtful moment to survey us before he spoke.

“I was talking to the police, as a matter of fact.” His eyes flicked among us, appraisingly. He was plainly deciding he might enjoy this game.

“I have a few preliminary remarks to make,” he said. “They won’t take more than two or three minutes. And then you’re welcome to ask all the questions you like.” He paused. “This murder, as you can imagine, has been a profound shock to all of us here at Bransten.” The eyes dimmed with a genuine sorrow, but the voice was steady. “As some of you might know, Bransten College has been established for more than eighty years, and nothing like this has ever happened. Nothing even remotely like this.” He cleared his throat, and for a moment seemed sunk in reverie. Then his voice became crisper. “Roberta Grinnel came to Bransten College almost four years ago, and would have graduated this spring. She majored in fine arts, and was a good student with considerable talent, some of it as yet undeveloped.” He considered, and apparently decided not to elaborate the point. It was a near-flawless beginning, I thought, candid yet discreet. The main event, of course, lay ahead—the questions and the answers.

“It is not the function of this college,” Johnson was saying, “to in any sense investigate the movements of Miss Grinnel as they pertain to the tragic events of last night. And, certainly, it isn’t my place to speculate on the implications of those events. However, I know you’ll be asking questions about Miss Grinnel and her movements yesterday. So, with the permission of the police, I’ll tell you what I can.”

He glanced around and touched his small gray mustache. He seemed the storybook dean of students: a ruddy, healthy face, close-cropped gray hair and matching mustache, casual tweeds, a trim figure and a kindly, intelligent manner. He was, I suspected, a considerable person, probably with a quick sense of humor and a patient tolerance for human frailty.

“First of all, yesterday,” he continued, “Miss Grinnel spent an average student’s day. She attended three classes in the morning, had lunch, and attended two classes in the afternoon, finishing at three
P.M.
She went to the library at about three-thirty and studied there until approximately five-thirty. She then returned to her room, bathed, and was ready for dinner at six
P.M.
After dinner, about seven, she went back to the library to finish up some research she was doing on a course in art history. At eight o’clock, she joined three other students in the student editorial offices, where they reviewed some work just completed on the student literary magazine,
Forum.
The work took perhaps a half hour, after which the four students apparently carried on a bull session until after ten. At about ten-thirty, Roberta Grinnel left the campus in her car.” He opened his hand in a small, controlled gesture of futile regret. “You know the rest. You probably know more about it than I do.” He looked at us, and then nodded slightly. “Now, if there’re any questions, I’ll be glad to try and answer them.”

Campion was the first.

“Will you please give us the names of the students present at the, ah, bull session in the editorial office?”

The reply came readily and smoothly: “I’m sorry, but the police have asked us not to give out that information. However, I’m told that when their investigations are complete, the names will be given to you by the police.”

“Have the police been the only ones investigating the, ah, bull session?” I asked. “Did you make your own investigation?”

Johnson answered promptly—perhaps a little too promptly. “No, we’ve done nothing of that kind.”

“Where are these three students now?” someone asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Are they here at the campus or downtown at police headquarters?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Do I understand,” Campion asked, phrasing his question with a precise, heavy emphasis, “do I understand that the police are ordering you neither to reveal the names nor the whereabouts of these three students?”

Johnson thought about it, staring down at the table. Finally, looking up, he said soberly, “As I told you, Bransten has never had to cope with anything as terrible as this, and on such short notice. Our first move, when we heard the news, was to consult our lawyers and determine our legal responsibilities both to the institution and to our students. Our lawyers advised us that our first responsibility was to protect the students from any type of undue harassment or—” he glanced at us with quick apology—“or publicity, until such time as the students’ parents could take full responsibility in the matter, either by their own efforts and presence, or the efforts of their appointed representatives. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. And, for that reason, I’m not going to give out these names until I have a clear authorization from the parents of the students involved.”