Bloodied Ivy (4 page)

“You misunderstand me, sir. At least for purposes of this discussion, I am not questioning
whether
Mr. Markham was forced over the edge, but
why
.”

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you I’ve ruminated on that at length,” Cortland said, rubbing his hands together nervously. My own hands were getting damp just watching him. “As I related to Mr. Goodwin in our interlocution, Hale had his share of…calumniators.”

Wolfe winced at this verbiage and I hid a smile behind my hand. “Tell me about them,” he said dryly.

We were treated to another show of squirming, leg crossing, and throat clearing. Cortland then repeated, in more or less the same words, what he had told me about Keith Potter and Leander Bach. Wolfe watched him through narrowed eyes, pausing twice to drink beer. “It’s patently obvious how you feel about Mr. Potter,” he said when Cortland had finished. “How well do you know him?”

“Well enough.” Cortland shrugged. “Or perhaps I should say, ‘As well as I want to.’”

“That says nothing, sir. Try again.”

Cortland sat up straight, twitched his shoulders, and sighed to indicate his irritation. “Keith Potter is an opportunist above all else. That was apparent from the day he stepped onto the Prescott campus. He was all smiles and glad-handing, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all he’s ever been in the three years since he assumed the presidency.”

“Then you observe him in action a great deal?”

Another sigh. “Enough. Mostly at receptions and, er, assemblies and faculty meetings. A congressional candidate would do well to take lessons from him. I realize that university presidents have to be diplomatic and personable—it comes with the territory. After all, one of their major duties is to importune wealthy alumni and irascible tycoons like Leander Bach. I don’t quarrel with that. But as far as I can discern, that’s about all Potter is good at—coaxing contributions out of nabobs.”

“Is he capable of killing someone?” Wolfe almost purred.

“I’ve thought about that, of course,” Cortland said, setting his jaw. “I don’t like him one minim, as you have indeed observed, but I scarcely conceive Keith Potter would have the audacity to do such a thing, even if eliminating Hale would almost surely clear the way for a munificent bequest from Bach.”

“And with Mr. Markham’s death, is that bequest now forthcoming?”

“Nothing has been said officially, and I have heard no talk around campus. I suspect Potter will get Bach to come around now, but he’s waiting what he considers a decent interval after Hale’s demise to make the announcement. I say we can do very nicely without the largess of Leander Bach.”

Wolfe rang for more beer, then readjusted his bulk. “How did others at Prescott feel about Mr. Markham?”

Cortland put his palms together and closed his eyes, clearly pondering a weighty question. The guy was really a piece of work. “Mr. Wolfe,” he answered in a voice just above a whisper, “I don’t know the extent of your knowledge of university faculties, but their members can be appallingly petty—individually and corporately. Prescott is no exception. And if you happen to be politically conservative, that pettiness is particularly glaring.”

“That sounds like paranoia,” Wolfe remarked.

“Paranoia? Hardly. Hale Markham is arguably the most famous faculty member the school has ever had. He has—had—been on our faculty for almost forty years, and had garnered international attention for most of that period. He’d been widely published, both academically and in the popular press. Yet he was never, not once, offered the chairmanship of the Political Science Department, even though that chair has changed hands four times in the last nineteen years.” Cortland let loose of this damning fact and sank back into his chair triumphantly.

If this evidence of academic injustice shocked Wolfe, he kept it well hidden. “Are you suggesting a left-leaning conspiracy against Mr. Markham?”

“Don’t mock me, Mr. Wolfe,” Cortland shot back. The little guy had a spine after all. “The fact is, Prescott, like most schools, has a strong liberal-Socialist bias within its faculty, and to some degree in the administration as well. If you don’t subscribe to their ideologies, there are a hundred ways you can be passed over, slighted, ignored, frozen out, cut down. Believe me, I know.”

Wolfe’s right index finger had begun tracing circles on the chair arm, an unmistakable sign he was losing whatever patience he had started this encounter with. “Sir, let us get down to cases. You came here because you contend that your colleague was the victim of a willful act of murder. So far, you have provided little in the way of suspects. Can you suggest someone within the university? Or anyone else, for that matter?”

“I am hardly an authority on murder, Mr. Wolfe. I don’t pretend to divine the machinations of the criminal mind. That’s why I came to you. I can only tell you about those people who disliked Hale.”

“Do so.”

“Besides Potter, there was Orville Schmidt, for one—he’s chairman of the Political Science Department. He had been jealous of Hale for years.”

“Because of Mr. Markham’s prestige?”

“That’s part of it, yes. I’ve heard him more than once in meetings and social gatherings refer sarcastically to Hale as ‘our local celebrity.’ Never to Hale’s face, mind you—he was always cordial to Hale in person, even deferential, but then, that’s Orville for you: as two-faced as Janus himself.”

“And Mr. Schmidt’s political philosophy?”

Cortland screwed up his face. “Orville has always fancied himself as a profound liberal thinker. He’s written a number of articles about how Socialism is”—he paused to shudder—“an inexorable tide that will ultimately engulf the Western World. And of course there was his book on FDR’s social justice policies and programs,” he said, not bothering to keep the contempt out of his voice. “Eight hundred pages and not an original shred of research or an original idea. Little wonder it got such insipid reviews. And to make matters worse for Orville, it came out at almost the same time as Hale’s
Bleeding Hearts Can Kill
. Did you read it, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Yes,” he said, tight-lipped.

Cortland seemed oblivious to the reaction. “A brilliant volume—beautifully written, masterfully reasoned. God, how it galled Orville that Hale outsold him by—what?—twenty to one? Fifty to one? Maybe more. But poor Orville doesn’t give up. Next month, he’s got another book coming out—this one on George Marshall and his two years as Truman’s secretary of state, you know, the Truman Doctrine and all.”

Wolfe drew in a bushel of air and expelled it slowly. “So you’re suggesting Mr. Schmidt as a suspect, one driven by overwhelming professional jealousies?”

“Not necessarily,” Cortland squawked defensively, jerking upright again with all the coordination of a marionette. “But he did resent Hale, maybe more than anyone else on campus. And the piece Hale did on his FDR book didn’t help any.”

“Tell me about it.”

Cortland hunched his shoulders. “Even
I
thought Hale was astray on that one. He wrote a satirical little article about Orville’s book for a small conservative journal. It was well-written, of course—everything Hale ever did was. And it was humorous, in a devastating way. Orville was absolutely livid. He thought the piece held both him and his book up to ridicule.”

“Did it?” Wolfe asked.

“You’d have to say so. Granted, the book didn’t have a lot to recommend it, but this article, which Hale later claimed was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, was pretty mordacious. Hale told me that Orville telephoned him at home in an absolutely uncontrollable rage, accusing him of taking a cheap shot at a colleague.”

“And Mr. Markham’s response?”

“Hale said he told Orville to loosen up, that the thing was intended as a joke, but that seemed to serve only to infuriate Orville further. The result was that the two were even more antagonistic to each other than they had been heretofore. Or rather, Orville was more antagonistic. I think Hale was indifferent and didn’t care one way or the other what Orville thought. He seemed to relish tweaking people. That’s part of the reason he made enemies.”

“There were others?”

“Oh, yes. Again, at the risk of repetition, when someone on a university faculty is successful, particularly outside the academic world, as Hale indeed was with his books and newspaper columns and television appearances, the envy very quickly becomes palpable among his colleagues. And this is especially true when the successful person is a conservative. It drives the Jacobins crazy.” Cortland’s voice was somber, but the smug look on his face gave him away—the kind that probably made his liberal colleagues itch to punch him out.

Wolfe looked grumpy. I knew he was thinking about lunch—at that precise moment Fritz probably was sautéing the veal cutlets, which we were having along with endive salad. And although we occasionally invite clients to join us in the dining room, I could tell Wolfe was in no way about to add our present guest to that privileged group. “Mr. Cortland,” he said, “so far, you’ve mentioned two purported enemies, at least philosophical ones, of your late colleague—three, if you count Leander Bach. Based on what you’ve told us, hardly a bumper crop. Can you add to it?”

Cortland’s cheeks turned pink. “I’m sorry. I guess I haven’t been a great deal of assistance, have I? It has been excessively frustrating for me, too: I know beyond question that Hale’s death was no accident, but I feel uncomfortable singling someone out and suggesting there is even a small chance he might harbor enough ill will against Hale to contemplate murder.”

“You came here seeking help,” Wolfe growled, turning a palm up and looking disgusted. “Mr. Goodwin felt your concern was justified and your conviction warranted. Through a device not worthy of mention, he inveigled me into seeing you. At this moment, you are in peril of losing my attention, however.” Wolfe reached into his vest and pulled out the platinum pocket watch he almost never consults, setting it deliberately on the desk blotter. “You have two minutes to regain that attention.”

Cortland went into an accelerated version of the squirming routine again before settling down. “Well…people who didn’t like Hale. All right, another one was Ted Greenbaum—he’s also in the Political Science Department.

“For that matter, Hale didn’t like him either. Ted’s in line to be the next chairman of the department—at least that’s how it looks to most of us. Years ago, he was a student of Hale’s—Ted positively idolized Hale. He was three years behind me at Prescott.” He shook his head as if referring to someone who had gone on to that big classroom in the sky. “I never would have believed his metamorphosis if I hadn’t seen it and experienced it.”

“You are of course speaking about his philosophy,” Wolfe translated.

Cortland nodded. “After graduation, Ted went off to Stanford for a doctorate, then taught at one of those excellent small colleges in Ohio—Kenyon or Oberlin, if I recall correctly—for a few years before coming back and joining our faculty. Those were great times, with Hale, Ted, and me all teaching and giving seminars and writing. In a cover story on ‘The New Right,’
Time
magazine even called us ‘Prescott’s All-Star Team.’ That mention really irked the hell out of left-wing faculty members, and the school administration, too.”

“But somewhere along the way, Mr. Greenbaum became an apostate?”

“Lord, I haven’t heard that word for ages,” Cortland said, gazing admiringly at Wolfe. Realizing he had been distracted, he hurried on. “But, yes, that’s exactly what Ted became. About eight years ago, maybe nine, he turned his back on us, and for that matter on everything to which he’d previously been dedicated. I’ve never seen anything like it. His shift seemed to come virtually overnight. I think it hit Hale almost as hard as Lois’s death.”

“What motivated the change?”

“Ambition,” Cortland said with feeling. “I didn’t see it in him earlier, but Ted was driven to be a success above all else. And he apparently felt that even though the three of us had received generous accolades, being a conservative at Prescott was not the way to get ahead in the academic world. I’ve always suspected Orville was the big influence behind his left turn, although I can’t prove it, and I’ll be damned if I’d ever ask either one of them about it.” He crossed his thin arms defiantly.

“How did Mr. Greenbaum get along with Mr. Markham after his defection to the liberal camp?”

Cortland’s expression was an answer in itself. “About the way you would expect. Hale thought of him as a turncoat, which is of course what he was. In departmental meetings, they sniped at each other incessantly, and Orville, who presided, pretty much let them have at it without interceding. I think he enjoyed seeing Hale get exercised.”

Wolfe was looking even grumpier than before. “I don’t suppose you can think of any reason Mr. Greenbaum would want to push your mentor over a precipice?”

“Not really,” Cortland said, frowning. “He’s an unprincipled ass, and he and Hale hadn’t spoken a civil word to each other for years. But as for murder…”

“I thought as much,” Wolfe muttered, gripping the chair arms and levering himself upright. “Sir, I must excuse myself because of a previous engagement.”

“But what about Hale? What next?”

“What indeed?” Wolfe said, shooting me one of his I’ll-deal-with-you-later looks. “I suggest at this point you and Mr. Goodwin decide on a course of action.” Cortland, who now was on his feet too, began to sputter, but his protests bounced off the broad expanse of Wolfe’s back as he passed through the doorway and into the hall.

“He’s angry at me, isn’t he?” Cortland whined. “But I was only being honest. As was obvious, I have a good deal of antipathy toward the men I mentioned, but I veridically have a difficult time picturing any of them—or anybody else I know, for that matter—as villainous enough to carry out a premeditated murder. That’s why I came here in the first place. In the hopes that he, and you, of course, could cut through this conundrum.”

“That’s the business we’re supposed to be in, all right, cutting through conundrums.” I was beginning to wonder if the little professor ever tried to say anything simply. “Let’s not be too hard on Mr. Wolfe, though. At this very moment, his brilliant mind is no doubt shrewdly processing the things you told him. I’ll discuss the situation with him this afternoon and call you. My thinking right now is that I’d like to go up to Prescott, see the place where Professor Markham fell, and meet the people you mentioned, along with any others who knew him well.”