Five Classic Spenser Mysteries (80 page)

Dr. Vogel sat behind the desk, slim, medium height, thick curly hair trimmed round, black and gray intermixed, clean-shaven, wearing a black pin-striped double-breasted suit with six buttons, all buttoned, pink shirt with a wide roll collar, a white tie with black and pink stripes, and a diamond ring on the left little finger. Whatever happened to shabby gentility?

“Sit down, Mr. Spenser,” he said. I sat. He was looking at my card, holding it neatly by the corners before his stomach with both hands, the way a man looks at a poker hand.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met a private detective before,” he said without looking up. “What do you want?”

“I’m investigating the theft of the Godwulf Manuscript,” I said, “and I have only the slightest of suggestions that a member of your department might be involved.”

“My department? I doubt that.”

“Everyone always doubts things like that.”

“I’m not sure the generalization is valid, Mr. Spenser. There must be circles where theft surprises no one, and they must be circles with which you’re more familiar than I. Why don’t you move in those circles, and not these?”

“Because the circles you’re thinking of don’t steal illuminated manuscripts, nor do they ransom them for charity, nor do they murder undergraduates in the process.”

“Murder?” He liked that about half as well as Tower had.

“A young man, student at this university, was murdered. Another student, a young woman, was involved and stands accused. I think the two crimes are connected.”

“Why?”

“I have some slight evidence, but even if I didn’t, two major crimes committed at the same university among people belonging to the same end of the political spectrum, and probably the same organization, is at least an unusual occurrence, isn’t it?”

“Of course, but we’re on the edge of the ghetto here.…”

“Nobody involved was a ghetto resident. No one was black. The victim and the accused were upper-middle-class affluent.”

“Drugs?”

“Maybe, maybe not. To me it doesn’t look like a drug killing.”

“How does it look to the police?”

“The police don’t belabor the obvious, Dr. Vogel. The most obvious answer is the one they like best. Usually they’re right. They don’t have time to be subtle. They are very good at juggling five balls, but there are always six in the game, and the more they run the farther behind they get.”

“Thus you handle the difficult and intricate problems, Mr. Spenser?”

“I handle the problems I choose to; that’s why I’m free-lance. It gives me the luxury to worry about justice. The cops can’t. All they’re trying to do is keep that sixth ball in the air.”

“A fine figure of speech, Mr. Spenser, and doubtless excellent philosophy, but it has little relevance here. I do not want you snooping about my department, accusing my faculty of theft and murder.”

“What you want is not what I’m here to find out. I’ll snoop on your department and accuse your faculty of theft
and murder as I find necessary. The question we’re discussing is whether it’s the easy way or the hard way. I wasn’t asking your permission.”

“By God, Spenser …”

“Listen, there’s a twenty-year-old girl who is a student in your university, has taken a course from your faculty, under the auspices no doubt of your department, who is now out on bail, charged with the murder of her boyfriend. I think she did not kill him. If I am right, it is quite important that we find out who did. Now, that may not rate in importance up as high as, say, the implications of homosexuality in Shakespeare’s sonnets, or whether he said
solid
or
sullied,
but it is important. I’m not going to shoot up the place. No rubber hose, no iron maiden. I won’t even curse loudly. If the student newspaper breaks the news that a private eye is ravaging the English Department, the hell with it. You can argue it’s an open campus and sit tight.”

“You don’t understand the situation in a university at this point in time. I cannot permit spying. I sympathize with your passion for justice, if that is in fact what it is, but my faculty would not accept your prying. Violation of academic freedom integral to such an investigation, sanctioned even implicitly by the chairman, would jeopardize liberal education in the university beyond any justification. If you persist I will have you removed from this department by the campus police.”

The campus police I had seen looked like they’d need to outnumber me considerably, but I let that go. Guile, I thought, guile before force. I had been thinking that more frequently as I got up toward forty.

“The freedom I’m worried about is not academic, it’s twenty and female. If you reconsider, my number’s on the card.”

“Good day, Mr. Spenser.”

I got even. I left without saying good-bye.

On the bulletin board in the corridor was a mimeographed list of faculty office numbers. I took it off as I went by and put it in my pocket. The mannish-looking secretary watched me all the way out the front door.

I walked through the warm-for-early-winter sun of midafternoon across the campus back toward the library. In the quadrangle there was a girl in a fatigue jacket selling brown rice and pinto beans from a pushcart with a bright umbrella. Six dogs raced about barking and bowling one another over in their play. A kid in a cowboy hat and a pea jacket hawked copies of a local underground paper in a rhythmic monotone, a limp and wrinkled cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

I went into the reading room of the library, took off my coat, sat down at a table, and took out my list of English professors. It didn’t get me far. There was no one named Sacco or Vanzetti; none had a skull and crossbones by his name. Nine of the names were women; the remaining thirty-three were men. Lowell Hayden’s name was right there after Gordon and before Herbert. Why him, I thought. I didn’t have a goddamn thing on him. Just his name came up twice, and he teaches medieval literature. Why not him? Why not Vogel, why not Tower, why not Forbes, or Tabor, or Iris Milford, why not Terry Orchard if you really get objective? Like a Saint Bernard, Tower had said. Woof. Why not go home and go to bed and never get up? Some things you just had to decide.

I got up, put the list back in my pocket, put on my coat,
and headed back out across campus, toward the English Department. Hayden’s office was listed as fourth floor Felton. I hoped I could slip past Mary Masculine, the super-secretary. I made it. There was an old elevator to the left of the foyer, out of sight of the English office. It was a cage affair, open shaft, enclosed with mesh. The stairs wound up around it. I took it to the fourth floor, feeling exposed as it crept up. Hayden’s office was room 405. On the door was a brown plastic plaque that said
DR. HAYDEN.
The door was half open and inside I could hear two people talking. One was apparently a student, sitting in a straight chair, back to the door, beside the desk, facing the teacher. I couldn’t see Hayden, but I could hear his voice.

“The problem,” he was saying in a deep, public voice, “with Kittredge’s theory of the marriage cycle is that the order of composition of
The Canterbury Tales
is unclear. We do not, in short, know that ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ precedes that of ‘The Wife of Bath,’ for instance.”

The girl mumbled something I couldn’t catch, and Hayden responded.

“No, you are responsible for what you quote. If you didn’t agree with Kittredge, you shouldn’t have cited him.”

Again the girl’s mumble. Again Hayden: “Yes, if you’d like to write another paper, I’ll read it and grade it. If it’s better than this one, it will bring your grade up. I’d like to see an outline or at least a thesis statement, though, before you write it. Okay?”

Mumble.

“Okay, thanks for coming by.”

The girl got up and walked out. She didn’t look pleased. As she got into the elevator I reached around and knocked on the open door.

“Come in,” Hayden said. “What can I do for you?”

It was a tiny office, just room for a desk, chair, file cabinet, bookcase, and teacher. No windows, Sheetrock partitions painted green. Hayden himself looked right at home in the office. He was small, with longish blond hair. Not long enough to be stylish; long enough to look as though he needed a haircut. He had on a light green dress shirt with a faint brown stripe in it, open at the neck, and what looked like Navy surplus dungarees. The shirt was too big for him, and the material bagged around his waist. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses.

I gave him my card and said, “I’m working on a case involving a former student and I was wondering if you could tell me anything.”

He looked at my card carefully, then at me.

“Anyone may have a card printed up. Do you have more positive identification?”

I showed him the photostat of my license, complete with my picture. He looked at it very carefully, then handed it back.

“Who is the student?” he said.

“Terry Orchard,” I said.

He showed no expression. “I teach a great many students, Mr.”—he glanced down at my card lying on his desk—“Spenser. What class? What year? What semester?”

“Chaucer, this year, this semester.”

He reached into a desk drawer and pulled a yellow cardboard-covered grade book. He thumbed through it, stopped, ran his eyes down a list, and said, “Yes, I have Miss Orchard in my Chaucer course.”

Looking at the grade book upside down, I could see he had the student’s last name and first initial. If he didn’t know her name or whether she was in his class or not without looking her up in his grade book, how, looking at
the listing
ORCHARD, T.
, did he know it was Miss Orchard? Like Tabor, the zinnia head, no one seemed willing to know old Terry.

“Don’t you know the names of your students, Dr. Hayden?” I asked, trying to say it neutrally, not as if I were critical. He took it as if it were critical.

“This is a very large university, Mr. Spenser.” He had to check the card again to get my name. I hope he remembered Chaucer better. “I have an English survey course of sixty-eight students, for instance. I cannot keep track of the names, much as I try to do so. One of this university’s serious problems is the absence of community. I am really able to remember only those students who respond to my efforts to personalize our relationship. Miss Orchard apparently is not one of those.” He looked again at the open grade book. “Nor do her grades indicate that she has been unusually interested and attentive.”

“How is she doing?” I asked, just to keep it going. I didn’t know where I was going. I was fishing and I had to keep the conversation going.

“That is a matter concerning Miss Orchard and myself.” Nice conversation primer, Spenser, you really know how to touch the right buttons.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry, but when you think about it, prying is more or less my business.”

“Perhaps,” Hayden said. “It is not, however, my business; nor is it, quite frankly, a business for which I have much respect.”

“I know it’s not important like Kittredge’s marriage cycle, but it’s better than enlisting, I suppose.”

“I’m quite busy, Mr. Spenser.” He didn’t have to check this time. A quick study, I thought.

“I appreciate that, Dr. Hayden. Let me be brief. Terry
Orchard is accused of the murder of her boyfriend, Dennis Powell.” No reaction. “I am working to clear her of suspicion. Is there anything you can tell me that would help?”

“No, I’m sorry, there isn’t.”

“Do you know Dennis Powell?”

“No, I do not. I can check through my grade books, but I don’t recall him.”

“That’s not necessary. The grade book won’t tell me anything. There’s nothing at all you can think of? About either?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry, but I don’t know the people involved.”

“Are you aware that the Godwulf Manuscript has been stolen?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you have any idea what might have happened to it?”

“Mr. Spenser, this is absurd. I assume your interest relates to the fact that I am a medievalist. I am not, however, a thief.”

“Well,” I said, “thanks anyway.” I got up.

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I wasn’t more useful.” His voice was remarkable. Deep and resonant, it seemed incongruous with his slight frame. “Thanks for coming by.”

As I left the office, two students were waiting outside, sitting on the floor, coats and books in a pile beside them. They looked at me curiously as I entered the elevator. As it descended I could hear Hayden’s voice booming. “Come in, Mr. Vale. What can I do for you?”

On the ground floor were two campus policemen, and they wanted me. I hadn’t eluded Mary Masculine after all.
She was hovering in the doorway to the English office. One of the cops was big and fat with a thick, pockmarked face and an enormous belly. The other was much smaller, a black man with a neat Sugar Ray mustache and a tailored uniform. They weren’t wearing guns, but each had a nightstick stuck in his hip pocket. The fat one took my arm above the elbow in what he must have felt was an iron grip.

“Start walking, trooper,” he said, barely moving his lips.

I was frustrated, and angry at Lowell Hayden and at Mary Masculine and the university. I said, “Let go of my arm or I’ll put a dent in your face.”

“You and who else?” he said. It broke my tension.

“Snappy,” I said. “On your days off could you come over and be my dialogue coach?”

The black cop laughed. The fat one looked puzzled and let go of my arm.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Never mind, Lloyd,” the black cop said. “Come on, Jim, we got to walk you off campus.”

I nodded. “Okay, but not arm in arm. I don’t go for that kind of stuff.”

“Me neither, Jim. We’ll just stroll along.”

And we did. The fat cop had his nightstick out and tapped it against his leg as we went out of the building and toward the street. His eyes never left me. Alert, I thought, vigilant. When we got to my car, the black cop opened the door for me with a small, graceful flourish.

The fat one said, “Don’t come back. Next time you show up here you’ll be arrested.”

“For crissake,” I said. “I’m working for the university. Your boss hired me.”