Majoring In Murder (12 page)

“Women sleuths are very popular today,” I said as Edgar Poole, the graduate assistant, entered the class and held up a sheaf of papers. “Thank you, Edgar,” I said. “Please distribute them, if you don’t mind.” I’d given him a list of books and articles on mysteries to photocopy, but with the English department temporarily housed in the library, and without its usual complement of equipment, he’d had to beg a favor from another department to accommodate my request.

“While Edgar is handing out your reading list, who can tell me how to classify writers who use humor?” I asked. “Where do they fit in with the list we have on the blackboard?”

Freddie, a gruff young man with a shock of brown hair hanging in his eyes, raised his hand. “Would you make it a subcategory of what we already have? Say ‘humorous cozy’ or ’comic suspense’?”

“That sounds logical,” I said, writing the word
humor
on the board with arrows pointing to the main categories.

“I’m writing a funny, hard-boiled, horror thriller,” said Eli, tugging on his earlobe. “With lots of blood.”

“Are you?” I said. “How far along are you?”

“I’ve got about fifty pages done.”

Of all my students, I found Eli especially appealing. There was a brightness to his face and walk that was contagious, youthful enthusiasm for everything around him that was hard to ignore. I could have done without the baseball hat worn backward and the impossibly long and baggy pants that rode down on his hips, but cosmetics aside, he was a likable young man.

“Where is your book set?” I asked.

“On a college campus,” he replied. “I figured I’d write what I know about.”

“Good idea,” I said, a vision of Wes Newmark’s battered body coming and going in my mind as though someone had put up a slide, and then clicked it off my screen.

“I look forward to reading your book,” I said, quickly adding, “when you’ve completed it and have done all the necessary rewrites.”

There were a few groans at the word rewrite.

“All good writing is in the rewriting,” I said. “And having a solid plot and outline, complete with detailed character sketches and a logical timeline, is crucial. We’ll be discussing how to craft a good outline in future classes. For now, let’s stick to a discussion of some of the basic elements that go into murder mysteries of all types. It used to be that readers of hard-boiled mysteries rarely picked up a gothic. Fans of cozy mysteries would never be seen reading political mysteries. But today many authors weave mysteries into their works just to fit into the genre. So you get combination genres, like mystery-romance and mystery-science fiction. Even among pure mystery writers, there may be many overlapping qualities, because the definition of a mystery is growing. In the last decade, mysteries have experienced a kind of renaissance, gaining widespread acceptance and filling most of the slots on best-seller lists, so much so that we now have bookstores that sell only mysteries, and Web sites that focus on mysteries in general, or specific mystery writers in particular. We have publishers that specialize in mystery books. Many mystery writers have become celebrities, appearing on nationally broadcast TV talk shows.”

“I saw you on the
Today
show once,” said Barbara, a petite brunette sitting in the front row.

“I’m flattered that you remember.”

Edgar, who’d taken a seat in the back of the classroom, waved his hand. “What’s your favorite kind of mystery, Professor Fletcher?”

“I like them all,” I said, “but I have to admit a partiality to the amateur sleuth. I like the idea that an everyday person like you or me, without special training or unusual abilities, can be an acute observer of humanity and of daily life, and see things that others might miss. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple is a good example. Dame Christie introduced her in
The Murder at the Vicarage.
And, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle created his brilliant amateur sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, based upon a professor he once had in medical school. Miss Marple and Holmes solved mysteries by being particularly observant of things going on around them.”

“What kind of things, Professor?” Tyler asked, typing on his laptop as he spoke.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll give you an example. Let’s take Eli. What’s different about Eli since our last class?”

The students turned in their seats. Eli stood, grinning at me.

“I know,” Alice said. “He got a haircut.”

Eli shook his head.

Tyler hazarded a guess. “He’s wearing new pants?”

“You doofus. I wore these last week,” Eli said to his friend.

“You’re growing a mustache, right?” Janine said.

“Nope. Thought I could get away without shaving today.”

“Maria? Jake? Barbara? Freddie? Anyone have any ideas?”

Eli put his hands on his shoulders and did a slow pirouette.

“I give up,” Tyler said, turning in his seat. “There’s nothing different about him. He’s always been nuts.”

“The first order of business if you’re going to solve a mystery,” I said, “is that you must be observant. You have to notice the little details, so that if there’s a change, you’ll catch it. People in training to join a police force or the FBI take courses in how to sharpen their observational skills. It’s one of the key traits used in mysteries.”

“So what’s different about Eli?” asked Alicia.

“You’re giving up so easily?”

The students looked at Eli and back at me.

“He’s wearing an earring,” I said.

“So what’s the big deal?” Freddie said. “I wear an earring.”

“Eli’s never worn one to class before,” I said. “It’s not a major change, but it’s a change. Sometimes the smallest detail provides a clue that leads to the solving of the mystery.”

“That’s so cool, Professor Fletcher. I just got it done on the weekend.” Eli turned to Tyler. “Like it? It’s eighteen-karat gold.”

“Cool,” Tyler said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was waiting for you to notice, man.”

“Let’s say a murder took place while Eli was having his ear pierced. That would give him an alibi for the time of the murder. Maria, how would you define what an alibi is?”

“It’s an excuse, isn’t it?”

“That’s correct. It’s from the Latin word
alius,
meaning ‘elsewhere.’ Eli was elsewhere, having his ear pierced, at the time of our hypothetical murder. And if a person can present an alibi to the authorities, one that can be confirmed, he or she will no longer be a suspect in the crime. The investigator must look for someone else.”

“How do the police decide someone is a suspect?” Maria asked.

“Following a crime, the police start their investigation by asking a lot of questions. Who knew the victim? Who might have wanted that person dead? Who was seen near the crime scene? And little by little they narrow down their list of potential suspects by focusing on those people who fill two requirements.” I wrote two words on the blackboard—motive and opportunity. “There may be several people who have a motive, a reason to kill the victim. But there will be fewer who had opportunity. Where was the suspect at the time of the murder? In our hypothetical murder case, even if Eli has a motive to kill the victim, he also has a firm alibi. Therefore he is removed from the suspect list. Yes, Eli?”

“What happens if there’s a death and it looks like an accident but it really isn’t?”

“What are you asking?”

“Well, how do they find out it’s not really an accident?”

“There are several ways that might happen,” I said, “but let’s put it to the class. What do you think would indicate that a death thought to be an accident is not an accident at all?”

“Ooh, ooh, I know,” said Tyler, waving his arm.

“All right, Tyler, start us off.”

“The guy is heavy in debt to the mob. That’s how they get rid of deadbeats. They make it look like an accident.”

“Okay. That’s a possibility. If other people have died under similar circumstances, that may cause the police to look a little more closely at this victim. That’s when the police recognize a
modus operandi,
or method of operation.” I wrote M.O. on the blackboard. “Criminals often use the same M.O. from crime to crime.”

“Like the Boston Strangler?” Maria said.

“How do you know about the Boston Strangler?” I asked.

“I read about it on the Internet.”

“Maria is referring to a famous case,” I said. “The Boston Strangler was a serial killer who always chose single women, living alone, as victims. There was never any forced entry, suggesting that either he knew his victims, or he presented a trustworthy appearance. And in each case, he molested them and then strangled them with a piece of clothing. That was his M.O.”

“That’s disgusting,” Alice said.

“Murder is never pretty,” I said. “Let’s get back to Eli’s question. What might trigger a police investigation into a seemingly accidental death? Barbara?”

“What if the police found a clue at the crime scene?”

“Give us an example.”

“I don’t know, like a button torn off a jacket. I saw that in a TV show once.”

“Good. So we have a familiar M.O., and evidence at the crime scene. Anything else? Freddie, did you have something to add?”

“Yeah. What if someone tipped off the cops?”

“An informer. That’s another thing the police will take into consideration. Of course, it would be helpful to know the motivation of the informant. Is this person being a good citizen, or is he trying to get someone else in trouble? Any other ideas? No? I’ve got one. Assuming there’s an autopsy, the medical examiner may find something that’s inconsistent with an accidental death. And you would want to investigate the nature of the accident itself to be sure there’s nothing amiss in how it occurred. Are we answering your question, Eli?”

“Mostly. But what if the police say someone was killed accidentally, you know, like in a tornado, like Professor Newmark was. And what if the guy had some enemies. Not that I’m saying Professor Newmark had enemies or anything. But what if this guy—who wasn’t Professor Newmark but was killed in a storm like him—what if he had enemies? How would you know if they had anything to do with his death? It’s almost like the perfect circumstances. It looks like he was killed by a tornado. But how can you be sure his death was really an accident?”

“Yeah, Eli, you must’ve done it,” Freddie called out. “Didn’t Newmark fail you last year?”

“I’m not talking about Newmark. I’m making up a hypodermic case. Right, Professor Fletcher?”

“I think you mean hypothetical, Eli.”

“See?” Eli said to Freddie.

“Sure, you were just making it up,” Freddie said.

Eli fell off his chair and grabbed Tyler’s sleeve. “I’m innocent, Officer, innocent, I tell you.”

There was uneasy laughter around the room.

Tyler pulled away. “Cut it out, dork.” He flashed a nervous look at me.

“Anyway, I have the perfect alibi,” Eli said, straightening up. “I was in the tornado shelter with Professor Fletcher. Wasn’t I, Professor?”

“You were, but I don’t see—”

Eli didn’t let me finish. “Freddie, you didn’t do too great on Newmark’s final either, as I remember,” he said.

“Hey, don’t look at me, Eli. I was right next to you in the shelter.”

“No, that was me,” said Tyler.

“Then it must have been Edgar,” Eli said, pointing to the last row. “He hated the professor, didn’t you, Ed?”

“That’s not funny, Eli,” Edgar said, his face bright red. “A man is dead. That’s nothing to make fun of.” He grabbed his papers and left the room, leaving the door agape.

“Eli, I think you owe Edgar an apology,” I said.

“Aw, I was just playacting.”

The other students looked away, silently fidgeting or pretending to read.

Eli looked around and, seeing no support, slipped back into his seat. “Sorry, Professor, lost my cool there a little.”

“That was quite a dramatic display,” I said. “Are you trying to tell us something?”

“No, ma’am. I’m sorry I disrupted the class.”

But he didn’t look sorry at all. In fact, he looked pleased with himself.

I cleared my throat. “Let’s finish up then,” I said, looking at my watch. “We were talking earlier about the two factors that define a mystery—that a crime is committed and a crime is solved. While books have been written on theft, kidnapping, arson, and extortion, the crime that both fascinates and repels us the most is murder.” My words seemed to ring in the silent classroom. “For the next class, I’d like you to do a little analysis.” I wrote on the blackboard,
Elements of a murder mystery.
“Using your textbook and referring to one of the books or stories on the reading list Edgar has given you, please write down what a novel must contain to meet the definition of a murder mystery.”

I listened to the scratching of pencils and pens on paper, keyboard keys clicking, followed by the sound of tape recorders being turned off and laptop cases being closed.

“I’ll see you next time,” I said.

The class stood and shuffled toward the door. Maria hung her book bag on the handlebars of Alice’s wheelchair and steered her friend out of the room. Tyler punched Eli in the arm. “You going to the gym to watch the basketball practice?” he asked.

Eli feinted and pretended to jab at Tyler’s jaw. “Yeah.”

“Me, too. I’ll walk you there.”

“Eli?”

He turned to me expectantly.

“I’d like to see you, please.”

I waited until all the other students had left the classroom.

“Would you like to tell me about that little scene the class just witnessed?”

Eli shrugged.

“I’m curious to know why you raised the subject,” I said, stuffing my papers into my briefcase. “It wasn’t just a hypothetical case. If you have reason to believe Professor Newmark’s death was anything other than an accident, I’d like to hear it.”