Majoring In Murder (16 page)

A hand grabbed my ankle!

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of there right now,” an angry male voice said.

“That’s just what I’m doing,” I said, “if you’ll let go of me.” The hand released my leg and I backed out into the darkened parlor. The afternoon sun had slipped toward the horizon; its soft light cast a golden glow over the mound of rubble. I sat back on my heels, placed the poker on the floor under the desk to keep from getting more dust on it, and looked up into the furious face of a local uniformed cop.

“I know you weren’t expecting anyone to be in the house,” I said, “but all your tramping around upstairs could have set off another landslide, Officer. It’s a delicate balance under there.”

“What are you talking about, lady? I never went upstairs.”

“Someone was upstairs,” I said, getting to my feet; he made no move to help me. I brushed dust off my jacket. “I heard them.”

“There’s nobody else in the house, lady, except you, and you’re not supposed to be here. Come on. You’re under arrest.”

“Under arrest? That’s preposterous.”

“You going to give me a hard time, ma’am?”

“Look, Officer, my name is Jessica Fletcher. I teach here at Schoolman. I realize I probably shouldn’t have entered the building, but I was looking for—”

He grabbed my arm and led me outside.

“This is all a mistake,” I said. “Please call Lieutenant Parish. I’m sure he’ll tell you that—”

“I already did,” he said.

“And?”

“And—he told me to bring in anyone found trespassing in this building.”

“But—”

“Are you coming peacefully with me, or do I have to cause a scene out here?”

“A scene? No, no scenes.”

The small radio pinned to the shoulder of his uniform sounded.

“Jenkins here,” he said into it. “Right. Says her name is ...” He looked at me.

“Fletcher. Jessica Fletcher,” I said. “Is that Lieutenant Parish? If it is, I wish to speak with him.”

Officer Jenkins removed the radio from his shoulder and held it up to my mouth, his thumb activating the TALK button.

“Lieutenant Parish, this is Jessica Fletcher. I know your officer is doing his job, but there’s no need to arrest me. I have a perfectly logical explanation.”

“Mrs. Fletcher, I don’t care if you’re the queen of England. You’ve broken the law and that means you’re under arrest. I’m sure you have an explanation for it, but you can tell it to the judge. Over and out!”

“Really, Jessica. The last time I had to bail anyone out of jail was when some wags in the senior class hauled Professor Constantine’s MG up onto the roof of the Student Union. You can imagine how long ago that was. It’s been at least five years since Archie stopped driving, and his last vehicle was a far cry from a sports car.”

“Schoolman must have an unusually well-behaved student body,” I said.

Harriet and I walked out of the New Salem County Courthouse, where I had spent the last several hours waiting to see the judge. The night was clear and cold enough to prickle the inside of your nose. I still wore the running suit I’d had on earlier, dusty from my prohibited exploration, and not warm enough to shield me from the chilly night air. I looked up at the sky, at the millions of stars, and shivered. I was grateful that Harriet had dropped everything to come to my rescue. Nevertheless, at that moment I wished myself back in Cabot Cove, in my cozy home, warmed by familiar surroundings, with my cherished friends about me. Oh, dear, Seth would be wondering why I hadn’t returned his call, and I briefly debated whether or not to give him the full account. He was always sympathetic, but prone to worrying, too.

“I tried to explain to Lieutenant Parish why I’d trespassed,” I said, “but he was not in the mood to listen.”

“He was just doing his job,” Harriet said curtly, her pique evident in her tone.

“Yes, I suppose he was.”

 

Parish had given me the silent treatment from the moment Officer Jenkins delivered me to the town jail, and hours later on the way to the courthouse.

“You’re lucky I’m even bringing you here,” he told me as he escorted me up the stairs. “I could have left you in jail overnight and been perfectly justified.”

“Yes, you could have,” I said. “I’m grateful you didn’t.”

He grunted. “It’s only because Judge Coffman’s court is open late tonight.”

“I wish you’d let me explain,” I said. “There’s a logical justification for why I was in Kammerer House. Once you understand, I’m sure you’ll agree—”

“If you’re talking about Brad Zelinsky,” he interrupted, “and his harebrained idea that someone murdered Wesley Newmark, I don’t want to hear it.”

“But there’s good reason—”

“Stop right now.” He pointed to a bench outside Courtroom B and I sat on it. “I don’t know who’s more addled,” he said, “Brad for wanting to write a book about being ‘a brilliant coroner standing in the way of crime,’ or you for encouraging him.”

Zelinsky’s having brought up his book idea when he’d called in the autopsy results to Parish wasn’t very prudent. It took away the impact of his report, and cast his findings in a questionable light. It had evidently led Parish to suspect Zelinsky of cooking up a possible murder because it would make for a juicy chapter in his book.

While waiting to come before the judge, I’d considered telling Parish about Lorraine Newmark and the letter she’d received from her brother, but decided to save it for another time, when the news might be received with more interest. A closed mind is not the place to present new evidence.

Frustrated at Parish’s refusal to even entertain the possibility of a crime, I was relieved I hadn’t shown Officer Jenkins the poker, nor mentioned it to Parish. Until it was tested, there was no proof it was the murder weapon. I’d managed to nudge it farther under the desk with my foot before being taken from Kammerer House. If someone came into the parlor, it would hopefully remain out of sight. The problem was, I realized, that retrieving it would require a return trip, and I was in enough trouble already for trespassing.

 

“Judge Coffman was willing to release me on my own recognizance,” I said to Harriet as we crossed the courthouse parking lot, “but his hands were tied because I didn’t have any identification. That’s when they let me call you.”

“What happened to your wallet?”

“One of the officers at the New Salem jail confiscated my handbag, and forgot to return it when we left. Lieutenant Parish was so annoyed with me, he refused to go back and get it.”

“You have it now.”

“Another officer kindly brought it to me.” I climbed into Harriet’s car. “But it wasn’t until after you’d already left to come here.”

I was thankful the New Salem County judge had been more patient and understanding than Lieutenant Bill Parish. He also turned out to be a mystery buff. After I’d furnished my identification, offered a slightly skewed explanation for having crossed the police line, called attention to the fact that I’d neither gotten hurt nor harmed the premises, and promised to send him some signed books, Judge Coffman dismissed the charges against me. Since I was the only accused appearing before him that night, he took the occasion to give me a long, convoluted description of the sort of cases he handled day after day, mostly speeding, shoplifting, malicious mischief, and the occasional grand theft auto. He was bored, he told me, and longed for a case that would challenge him, one he’d need to pull out his law books for, one that might even catch the attention of the television court channel. “Know anybody at Court TV?” he asked.

“Ah, yes, I do, but not well.”

“Put in a good word for me, will you? Maybe they’d like to do a series on small-town justice.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, thanked him for his courtesies, and left the courtroom.

“I’m sorry to have pulled you away from campus and made you come out here,” I said to Harriet, pulling on my seat belt.

“Your adventures here are ending up more interesting than the finance committee’s analysis of the cost of repairs.” She didn’t sound as though she meant it.

“But not nearly as important,” I said. “How is it going?”

“Needler has come through,” Harriet said, shaking her head. “He’s picked up contributions from the Alumni Association, and has pledges from at least two foundations we’ve been trying to get grants from for years.”

“That’s wonderful, Harriet.”

“Yes, it is. But something about the man still makes me uneasy. Ever since the tornado he’s been different, jumpy, more reclusive than ever. I’ve been watching him closely, and he knows it.”

“The two of you may have created a vicious cycle. You think he’s paranoid and keep an eye on him. He sees you watching him and becomes paranoid.”

Harriet laughed. “You’re probably right,” she said, driving away from the courthouse and back toward Schoolman.

A black-and-white cruiser pulled out of the lot behind us, and I realized Lieutenant Parish would not have abandoned me at the courthouse if Harriet had failed to arrive. It was a comforting thought. He was not a fan of mine right now, but at least he’d stuck around to make sure that someone drove me home. Perhaps if he had enough time to get over his annoyance at my ignoring the yellow tape and his Keep Out signs, he might unwind enough to listen to my theories. I’d always prefer to assist authorities in their investigations than end up conducting my own.

Someone had struck Newmark on the head. I was convinced of that now. But I couldn’t prove it yet, not till an examination of the poker confirmed my suspicions. If it didn’t, the case would undoubtedly be closed—“Cause of Death: Accidental.” Aside from not wanting to see that happen, I was also beginning to wonder why everyone seemed so anxious to see it end up that way, particularly Lieutenant Bill Parish and Harriet. I understood her motivation, to avoid any hint of scandal at a time when the college was in the process of getting back on its financial feet. But even then, surely covering up a murder couldn’t be justified.

If forensic examination showed the poker to be the murder weapon, I’d have strong evidence to bring to the police. In the meantime, the question to be answered was,
Why
did someone want Newmark dead? If I could figure
that
out, I might be able to come up
with who
it might be.

“I’ve really got no reason to complain,” Harriet said.

“I beg your pardon?” I’d been tuning her out.

“As I said, repairs are going a lot faster than I anticipated. We’ve already paid for new windows in the Hart Building, and called in an electrical expert to revamp the entire warning system. I even had an arborist examine the oak trees in the quadrangle. You know, those trees are well over a hundred years old.”

“They’re very beautiful.”

“Replacing the three buildings we’ve lost is the biggest nut, but demolition is now under way on the bursar’s office, same with Milton Hall, and we expect to start on Kammerer House next week.”

“So soon?”

“Yes.”

“Harriet, what if the police want to start a murder investigation? You’ll be destroying the scene of the crime and any evidence that remains there.”

“The police are not going to start a murder investigation.” Her jaw was set, her voice cold and matter-of-fact.

“How do you know that?”

“Bill Parish assured me,” she said, sounding confident and pleased. “I know about your suspicions and that you’ve been poking around Kammerer House. But, Jessica, Wes’s death was an accident. I know that, and the police do, too. You write about murders and you’ve been involved with investigations in the past, so it’s only natural that when someone dies in unusual circumstances, you immediately suspect murder.”

“Harriet, please don’t patronize me. I’m not as single-minded as that, nor so foolish.”

“We’re a quiet little country college with our share of eccentrics, certainly, but not murderers,” she continued as if I’d never spoken.

“I know you want to believe that, but it doesn’t make it so.”

“We’ll get past this terrible tragedy and learn from it. Schoolman is building a reputation as a first-class educational institution, and this will simply be a sad footnote in our history.”

“And if I said I could prove it wasn’t an accident? Would that convince you to hold up on the demolition of Kammerer House?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m sorry, Jessica, but we’ve got to move beyond this.”

“Harriet, a man is dead, and even though you won’t entertain the idea, you may have a killer on campus. Surely you can see the danger there. Wouldn’t it be wiser to do everything in your power to ensure the police have what they need to identify and apprehend this person?”

“I’ve never gotten in the way of the police. Why do you think I called Bill Parish? I asked him when it would be all right to start on the demolition, and he said, ‘Start whenever you like.’ ”

“I’m going to bring him Newmark’s letter to his sister. Surely when he sees that, he’ll decide to hold off a bit.”

Harriet looked at me and smiled. “Jessica, I’ve already given it to him.”

“When did you do that? I thought we were waiting for the results of the autopsy.”

“I went back to Lorraine that same evening, following my meeting. She said the letter was a copy and I could have it. I turned it over to Bill. He agreed with me that Wes was prone to imagining things, that his death was a terrible tragedy but not a crime.”

“How would Lieutenant Parish know that about Wes?”

“Because I told him so. It’s over, Jessica. Let it go. Wes’s death was an accident.”

“Sounds like a murder to me. It’s a cryin’ shame you have the police against you.”

“They’re not really against me, Seth. It’s just that they’re not exactly for me, either.”