Majoring In Murder (7 page)

Vernon Foner, tieless, in slacks and a sweater, stopped at our breakfast table the next morning, and Harriet seized the opportunity to designate him to assess the English department’s needs and to report back to her as soon as possible.

“Does this mean I am acting department head?” he asked.

“This means simply that I’m asking you to assess the department’s needs,” she replied directly and strongly. “An acting department head will be appointed later. President Needler is swamped, as you might imagine, and has asked me to coordinate for him,” she told him.

“Please assure him that he can count on me,” Foner promised cheerfully. “I’ll have a preliminary report for you this afternoon. By the way, if no one has already reserved it, the Langston Apartments in Sutherland Library would make excellent temporary quarters for the department. Did I tell you I saw similar rooms in Italy this past summer? It really is a shame to keep them closed when they could be enjoyed by people and serve a valuable function at the same time.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

No one questioned Harriet about the assumption of duties that usually fell to the president, believing her story of his immersion in the problems of the college caused by the storm. But, in fact, she’d assembled a core group of trusted advisers and was shouldering his responsibilities as well as her own, and accomplishing it with a steely resolve. I didn’t doubt for a moment that she was very much in charge, and up to the task. Since Needler’s return, he’d locked himself in his office, according to Harriet, and allegedly was occupying himself by phoning alumni to ask for donations to a cleanup fund he claimed he was in the process of establishing.

“At least if he generates some income with these calls, we could say his time is well spent,” Harriet confided to me over breakfast. “But I’m afraid he’s turning off some of our most generous contributors.”

“Do you think he’s unbalanced?” I’d asked. It seemed a logical question, considering Harriet’s tone.

“It’s hard to tell with him, Jess. Some say he’s brilliant. Others view him as eccentric, to be kind. All I know is that when the school hired him, he brought with him all sorts of credentials that promised to add some needed sheen to our image. I talked with his secretary this morning. She assures me I’ll be thrilled when I see the bottom line of the alumni fund.”

“Was he always like this? I mean ... well, eccentric?”

“Now and then, but I don’t think the board would have hired him if we’d had any idea he tended to isolate himself during a crisis.”

In addition to Foner, whose ambition, I decided, was written on his sleeve, two other people stopped by our table and walked away with assignments. Harris Colarulli, a postdoctoral fellow in the science department, and his wife, Zoe, an associate professor of English, had come over to offer condolences. Zoe was due to attend the English department meeting, but Harriet asked Harris to meet the buses returning from Wabash with the basketball team and the fans. He was to compare the returnees with the college’s lists, double-checking that everyone was accounted for. Zoe would help him when her meeting adjourned.

“Keep it up,” I said to Harriet after they’d gone, “and everyone is going to steer clear of you.”

“You’re right,” she said, managing what passed for a laugh. “But this is the best way to get things done. As soon as people ask if they can help, say yes, and give them something to do.”

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, if we may come to order.”

Vernon Foner stood at the front of the classroom and looked up from three piles of paper he’d laid neatly side by side on the lightwood desk in front of him. He’d changed for the meeting, having abandoned his casual attire at breakfast in favor of a gray three-piece suit and pastel pink tie, very corporate, very much a leader’s outfit. He tugged on the hem of his vest, checked the knot in his tie, and ran the tips of his long fingers down a list he’d prepared for the meeting. His apparel was considerably more formal than that of the rest of the faculty, who wore casual clothes.

I walked to the front of the room and sank into a seat close to him. I was feeling the effects of a long evening spent on the telephone, assuring my worried friends back home that I was just fine, followed by a long, sleepless night spent trying to push out of my mind the image of Wes Newmark’s dead body.

The door opened and a wail came from the back of the room. “Oooh, Rebecca, I can’t believe he’s gone.” Letitia Tingwell, the department secretary, threw herself into Rebecca McAllister’s arms and sobbed.

Rebecca patted the woman on her back, and several others came to help her into a chair. The graduate assistant, Edgar Poole, grabbed a box of tissues from a table and placed it in front of the weeping woman.

Foner peered over the top of his half-moon glasses. “We really have a great deal to accomplish and not a lot of time.”

Rebecca glared at Foner.
Verne,
she mouthed in his direction, her gaze flying to the ceiling in disgust.

Foner pursed his lips and sucked on the inside of his cheek. One foot tapped impatiently. He looked over at me. “Can’t be helped, I guess,” he said.

“They’re upset,” I said, leaning closer. “You can understand that.”

“I’m just as sorry as the next one that Wes died. But he did, and we’ve got students to teach and a department to run.”

“Don’t you think you can spare them a few minutes to grieve? After all, it may be the first time they’re seeing each other since they heard the news.”

“I’m not screaming for order, am I? But I will if we don’t get started soon. I’ve got a lot of things to do. Dean Bennett wants me to write a eulogy for Newmark. Of all people to ask, I can’t believe she asked me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Wes and I weren’t great friends—that’s no secret—not that I would’ve wished him dead. But Dr. Bennett should have asked Manny Rosenfeld or Larry Durbin. They knew him a lot longer than I did.”

“Why didn’t you suggest she ask one of them instead of you?”

“You don’t turn down a command performance from a Schoolman. It’s actually an honor that she wants me—a pain in the neck, but an honor. I’ll do it, and I’ll do a great job.” He looked out at the faculty of the English department as they began to find their seats. “He’ll sound like a saint by the time I’m done,” he muttered to himself.

Mrs. Tingwell’s sobs had subsided into hiccups. She dabbed at eyes ringed with mascara and lustily blew her nose. She wasn’t the only emotional person. Two others were red-eyed, and a few sniffles were heard around the room.

“I know that we’re all upset at the loss of our colleague,” Foner said. “And we will have an opportunity to express our grief more formally—President Needler has asked us to plan a memorial service, which I will get to in a moment—but right now we need to discuss several urgent administrative matters. Edgar, hand out the agenda, please.”

Edgar grabbed a pile of papers and walked around the room, placing one in front of each person.

“As you can see, there’s quite a bit on our plate. And the administration has announced that classes will resume tomorrow.”

“Verne, how long do they expect the cleanup to take at Kammerer House?” Rebecca asked. “If the cabinets survived the storm, we may be able to recover some files.”

“We would be severely handicapped if we relied on such an outcome,” he replied, staring at her until she turned bright red. “Think about it, Rebecca. It may be months till any papers are recovered. What you need may be hanging in a tree at this moment. No, I don’t think we’ll follow that scenario.” He turned to the green board on the wall behind him and picked up a piece of chalk. “Let’s go over the assignments and see what alterations need to be made.”

There were now eight of us in the English department, six faculty, seven if you counted the graduate assistant, plus Mrs. Tingwell, a stout woman somewhere in her fifties, who was fond of flowered dresses with lace collars. She had been put in charge of orientation for the visiting celebrity professors and had been kind enough to take me under her wing, making sure the small refrigerator in my faculty apartment was nicely stocked when I arrived, and introducing me around campus. She’d been the department secretary for thirty years, she’d told me—“I know where all the bodies are buried”—and even though Wes’s tenure had been considerably less than that, she’d been devoted to him. “I know a good man when I meet one.”

Foner cleared his throat and swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down above his pink tie. “Mrs. Tingwell,” he said, “I am assuming we can count on your good offices as we always have to man the department office, wherever it may be set up.”

“Of course, Professor Foner,” she said, her voice quavery, her eyes filling with tears. “Are you the official acting chairman now?”

“I am the unofficial acting chairman,” he replied.

“Self-appointed, Verne?” Professor Lawrence Durbin asked. He was the department’s Shakespeare authority, a bear of a man with unruly red hair.

“President Needler has yet to name an acting chairman, so for the moment, yes,” Foner said, sliding a finger under the knot of his tie and stretching his neck from side to side. “Nevertheless, Dean Bennett requested that I assess the department’s needs, and I take that to mean I am acting as chairman.”

“I see you’ve dressed up in corporate mufti today,” Durbin said. “You must be lobbying for the job.”

Foner stiffened. “I have to report to administration this afternoon. There may be some board members present. I don’t see that my attire concerns you.”

Durbin’s laugh was low and rumbling. He said in stentorian tones, “ ‘Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.’ ”

Foner glared at him: “Meaning what?” he asked.

“Shakespeare, Verne.
Twelfth Night.
You remind me of Malvolio. Don’t despair over a lack of breeding or talent. There’s always luck.” The bearlike, red-headed Shakespearean expert laughed again and turned away.

Zoe Colarulli waved the sheet of paper Edgar had distributed. “Could we get down to business? You have me down for teaching Wes’s Readings in Contemporary Literature, Verne. Don’t you think you should have discussed this with me first? I have a full load, what with the Introduction to Language Arts and my composition classes. That’s at least sixty-five students. I don’t see how I can handle any more. Rebecca’s classes are smaller. Why can’t she handle some of this?”

“Now, just a minute. I have as many students as you do, Zoe,” Rebecca said. “Don’t try to pass your responsibilities off on me.”

“Yes, but mine are composition classes, and that requires more work.”

“I work just as hard as you do,” Rebecca said, glaring at the younger woman.

“Ladies, please, don’t stress yourselves. That’s what we’re here for,” Foner said smoothly, “to determine who does what. Nothing is set in stone. We’re going to be democratic about this.”

“Vernon, I would like to add something, if I may.” The speaker was Professor Emmanuel Rosenfeld, a soft-spoken man in his sixties. He’d been at Schoolman longer than any of the others, including Mrs. Tingwell, and had served as department chair earlier in his academic career.

“Go ahead, Manny.”

“You have a very ambitious agenda here, for which I compliment you,” he said. “But we’ll be here all day if we debate the merits of each of these items.”

“You’re right. That’s why—”

“May I suggest that for each agenda item, you designate a volunteer to take charge of the problem and come up with the resolution? Then we can all re-convene at four-thirty and you’ll have your report for the administration. Does that sound good?”

Under Professor Rosenfeld’s gentle prodding, the responsibilities were quickly parceled out, and the meeting broke up with a new sense of purpose. Mrs. Tingwell and Edgar retired to a corner to put together a preliminary list of supplies the department would need, Edgar writing down her tearful instructions with his left hand, while reaching for the tissue box with his right. Professors Colarulli and McAllister took on the dilemma of who would teach Wes’s classes. Larry Durbin proposed to investigate which files still existed and which missing ones needed to be replaced. Manny Rosenfeld had offered to chair the memorial service.

“May I help with arranging the memorial service?” I asked him.

“I would be very grateful for your assistance, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Please call me Jessica.”

“And you must call me Manny. We’re excited to have a celebrity on campus. Is this your first time teaching?”

“Actually, it’s not,” I said as we walked outside together.

The air was cool enough for a light jacket, but the sun warmed our backs as we walked across the quad, which was once again filled with students. The grass had been cleared of heavy debris, and some of the refuse hanging from the trees had been pulled down. Workmen on ladders were plucking pink tufts of insulation from one of the oaks, where it had caught in the cracks of the rough bark. Others with pointed sticks were batting or poking other tree-borne scraps to dislodge them from the remaining branches. We stopped to watch the work.

“In the spring, those trees will have new shoots and leaves, and we won’t see a trace of what happened here,” Rosenfeld said. “And by next fall, when they shed those leaves, their bare branches will look normal again.”

“It’s wonderful, the earth’s powers of regeneration.”

“It is, but my poor friend Wes will miss it. Fall was his favorite season. He loved the feeling of anticipation when the students came back to campus. He loved their enthusiasm and how they challenged him, never letting him get away with pat answers.”

“What a lovely memory. He sounds like a wonderful man. I wish I’d known him better. We’d met only a few times.”

“Wes was basically a good guy, but a hard man to know, quiet, private, worked hard, kept to himself. A bachelor. No one really close to him. Our only social interaction was the monthly poker game in town.”