The Campus Murders (19 page)

“No.”

“You say you talked to this girl in the place where she lives?”

“Not much more than an hour ago, sergeant.”

“How'd she seem? Nervous? Something on her mind? Anything, for chrissake?”

“I can't honestly tell you,” McCall said with a shrug. “I thought there was something queer about her, but I'd never talked to her before so I can't say if it was her usual manner or not. She did cut our talk short, saying she had to dash over here to a singing lesson. You might find out if she ever took it.”

It turned out that she had not. Her teacher's record noted Patricia Reed as absent for her lesson.

“Then she lied to you,” Oliver said.

“Or something sidetracked her when she got to the building.”

“Don't you have any notion what's going on, Mr. McCall?”

McCall shook his head. That elusive something was still gnawing away …

“And all in the middle of these nutty kids and their battle plans! They're gathering their forces like an army. I think they're set on taking over the administration building. The lieutenant's about fit to foam at the mouth. So's Chief Pearson. I can't say I blame 'em, what with what's going on.”

“Have you ever questioned Patricia Reed officially, sergeant? In connection with anything at all?”

“No. This is the first I've heard of her.”

“If you want me I'll be around here somewhere.”

“The lieutenant might want you. He bites his lip half through every time your name's mentioned.”

“Tell him I'm on his side, will you?”

The photographer and fingerprint man were hurrying up the stairs as McCall went down. Outside, the morgue wagon was just pulling up. A crowd was beginning to gather before the music building. The tussle before the administration building was dying down as the word spread; students were streaming across campus, banners discarded.

Well, McCall thought, whatever else your murder accomplished, Pat, not the least is that it broke up an attempted invasion and vandalism of state property.

That might well have led to the callup of the National Guard.

In her office Kathryn Cohan immediately said, “Something's happened! What is it, Mike? You look awful.”

He told her.

She moaned, “That poor girl. I heard sirens, but they're so common on campus nowadays … This is unbelievable. It must be some maniac.”

“All murder is off the beam, Katie, but that doesn't help much.”

“There's an administrative meeting at McNiel Hall. You should hear them. I'll be over later.”

“I'll look in. Won't stay, though, I've got to stick to this. I want a kiss.”

Katie looked around. “So do I.”

He leaned over the desk and kissed her on the mouth. As he did so the door opened and Dean Vance burst in.

“What,” the Dean said, “have we here?”

She shut the door and set her ample back against it.

Kathryn Cohan's face resembled a strawberry.

“Well,” McCall said, “you've found us out, Dean Vance. Where do we go from here?”

“I don't know where you're going,” Ina Vance said, striding across the anteroom, “but me, I've got work to do, damn it.” She stopped at her private office door and winked at her assistant. “Nice going, Katie. Your looks and my brains and I'd have had him where I wanted him yesterday.”

She slammed her door.

“Well!” Katie gasped. “The old bag.”

“So you see,” McCall grinned, “you never know about people.”

18

The meeting was in progress when McCall entered the auditorium. He recognized the man talking onstage as John Snyder, the English professor he had questioned about Dennis Sullivan.

He took a seat halfway down the aisle. There was no one near him. They were all seated in the first four rows, probably administrators, heads of departments, and other personnel responsible for carrying out administrative policy.

Campus police guarded every entrance.

“… nothing is settled, nothing will be settled, until we take a last-ditch stand.” Professor Snyder's left cheek twitched. His fist made little frustrated assaults on the lectern.

“John?” A woman rose in the first row. “We've just learned there's been another murder on campus.” She was a broad-shouldered woman in a pale blue dress. She waved a sheaf of papers. “It's a student this time, Patricia Reed. I think you have her in one of your classes. She was—it happened in the Bell Tower. Mr. McCall, the man Governor Holland sent up here from the capital, found her. She was hanged!” Her voice rang with horror and defiance. “How much longer can we allow this bloodbath to go on?”

Snyder tightened his thin lips. “The fight is really becoming personal. These psychos will stop at nothing!”

“What do you mean personal?” someone called out.

“I mean, we're dealing with people who will stop at nothing to get at us. Oh, there's honest rebellion. I recognize that. But there's this barbarism, too. Responsible protest can be tolerated. But they've turned this campus into a shambles!”

A thin, taut woman came halfway out of her seat. “You know they've repeatedly asked for meetings with the administration on a give-and-take basis and been treated like children caught stealing cookies—”

“They've had their chances—”

Other voices chimed in, and soon the auditorium was in an uproar.

McCall listened for a while, then he slipped out of his seat and made his way out of the place. Wherever the answer lay, it was not going to come from people like these. President Wolfe Wade, stung by something the thin woman said, had come out angrily for the expulsion of all dissident students, out of hand. McCall made up his mind: one of his first recommendations to Governor Holland was going to be the replacement of Wade. He was the perfect college administrator—for the 1920s. Unfortunately, time had marched on, leaving Wade far behind.

He passed through the swinging doors into the foyer, crossed the gloomy lobby, and stepped into the sunshine. A few students were hanging about outside. They had not been invited to the meeting, even these worried-looking ones. It seemed to him that what the situation cried out for was student representation as a matter of right, the beginnings of a responsible dialogue, a meeting of minds on a level of mutual respect. The way things were going, Tisquanto State College was headed for holocaust.

Meanwhile, he had murders to challenge. Dean Gunther. Pat Reed. The near-death of Laura Thornton—if she was still alive.

He had missed something somewhere. Maybe he should start over again. Laura Thornton's room, for instance. That was where he had found the book of matches that had led to the Greenview Motel and her liaison with Damon Wilde …

He drove through the winding streets, seeing students everywhere, lines picketing the science building now, other students milling, holding signs aloft, shouting their young heads off. How much longer before this all blew up in everyone's face?

He could see nothing different in Laura's room at first. He stood in the yellowish glow from the windows and tried to forget everything he knew …

Then he spotted the two letters on Laura's bed. They had not been there on his first visit. He pounced and picked them up carefully. One was in a pale blue envelope with the return address of her parents—a letter her mother had mailed several days ago. He did not read it.

The other was in a long white envelope with a liberal arts imprint, posted the day before:

“
Miss Laura Thornton: Would you kindly return the painting INFERNO by HULBERT PHRYNE at your earliest convenience? It is overdue and others are requesting it. We would appreciate your cooperation.
”

The note was signed, “
Lucielle Smith.
”

McCall stood staring at the note. He stood for a long time savoring the taste of recognition. Every such denouement brought the same sense of mechanics: a computer with its memory banks full finally shuttling and clacking the answer in lightning maneuver. Peace, it was wonderful.

He took the letter and left.

He drove over to the liberal arts building and parked curbside. Seeking out the fine arts department, he was directed to a gallery-like room walled with paintings and other artwork. There was a desk, a young girl leaning on it reading a magazine.

“I'd like to see Miss Lucielle Smith.”

“Miss Smith?”

The girl went into a glassed enclosure and presently a middle-aged woman came out with her. She had untidy hair and she wore a green smock.

“You sent an overdue notice to a Miss Laura Thornton, a student here,” McCall said.

“Oh, Miss Thornton. The one—?”

“Yes.”

“We sent her an overdue notice? When?”

“It was apparently just received. Mailed yesterday.”

“That has to be a mistake. I'll check.”

McCall handed her the letter. She went back into the cubicle and opened a file. She bit her lip, shut the file and, carrying the letter, came out again.

“Just a moment, please.”

She walked quickly across the room to an alcove. He could see her stooping there, riffling through some canvases in a storage closet.

When she came back she said, “As I thought, a foul-up. The painting was returned—I just checked. You know how offices are. We apparently missed checking off the painting and sent the notice routinely.”

“When did Miss Thornton return it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Could I see it? The painting, I mean?”

“Are you connected with the college, sir?”

He introduced himself.

“Oh, in that case! This way.”

He followed her to the alcove. Paintings were stacked along the wall and in the closet rack. Each canvas was numbered on the back.

“It's this one,” Miss Smith said.

McCall viewed it tenderly, almost with love. It was the one he had seen once before, all right. The all-red job, an abstraction that managed to look like flames leaping to a cave roof; violent shades of red combined to assault the senses.

He straightened up, careful to show nothing to the curator, who was looking nervous. But inside it was like a holiday. Or a reprieve. His mind had snapped like a trap. It was a good feeling.

“Thank you very much, Miss Smith.”

“Would you care to borrow it? We restrict our loans to students and faculty, but in your case, Mr. McCall—”

“That won't be necessary, thank you. I just wanted to see it. But I'd like you to take this painting out of circulation—put it somewhere for safekeeping till it's called for by certain authorities. Under lock and key preferably, Miss Smith.”

“Whatever you say.” She clutched the painting as if it were trying to fly away. “How … how is Miss Thornton?”

“Still the same, I'm afraid.”

“We can't get over it here. Have you any idea who assaulted her so brutally, Mr. McCall? Is it tied in with Dean Gunther's murder?”

Apparently she had not yet heard about Patricia Reed.

“Thanks again,” McCall said, and left.

Instead of leaving the building, McCall climbed the stairs to the English department faculty room and asked when Professor Snyder was expected back from the meeting at McNiel Hall.

“He just rang up,” the young instructor said. “On his way over now. I gather it was something of a frost.”

“Yes,” McCall said, and sat down to wait.

The frenetic figure of John Snyder scuttled in a few minutes later. “Oh, Mr. McCall. Waiting for me? I'm very busy—”

“This won't take a minute, professor,” McCall said. “I'm looking for information. It's a long time since I sat in on an English course. It's about that Godiva story of the—what was it?—”

“Eleventh century,” Snyder said. “Wife of Earl Leofric of Mercia. That's the legend, Mr. McCall. Just a legend, please. It appears as one of Walter Savage Landor's ‘Imaginary Conversations,' in Tennyson's poem ‘A Tale of Coventry,' and some other literary works. What do you want to know about it?”

“What was the name of the man who disobeyed the Earl's order and took a good look—?”

“Peeping Tom.”

“I know that. What was his last name?”

“I don't believe the legend has ever given him one. All we're told is that he's supposed to have been one of the townspeople, a tailor by trade.”

“That's what I thought,” McCall said, and crushed the English professor's hand. “Thank
you.
”

McCall drove directly to Dennis Sullivan's rooming house.

He rapped on the black door; rapped again. He tried the door. It was locked.

A door down the hall opened and a freckled face poked out. “You want Dennis?”

“That's the idea, son.”

“Well, he's not in, for chrissake.”

“Any idea where he is?”

“What am I, my brother's keeper? Lay off the knocking, will you? I'm trying to sack out.”

McCall descended, preceded by a door slam.

He had to find young Sullivan. Perhaps the best bet was to check his schedule at the administration building. He started for his car.

“Hi, there! Mr. McCall?”

It was young Starret, the black student who had found Laura, just starting up the walk.

“You live here, Graham?”

“No. Just visiting.”

“I was hoping I'd find Dennis Sullivan in.”

“Oh, Sully's out at the shack.”

The little building in the woods, near where he had been stripped and beaten.

“What makes you think he's all the way out there, Graham?”

“I know the cat,” the black student said. He was toting an armful of books. “When Sully's in an evil mood, watch out. You don't want to go out there, Mr. McCall. Not right now, anyway.”

“What do you mean, ‘evil mood'?”

“Uptight, like.”