Murder in the Dorm (2 page)

Predictably, in the department main office Jodie, the secretary, and Phoebe McMillan, the administrative assistant, were talking about Kelsey’s killing with Amanda Rankin, the department head who, happily, was serving the final semester of what Charlie considered an unproductive three-year term. He joined them for a few minutes, deflected the inevitable questions, and soon knew there was nothing to learn from them. Charlie went to his office and started getting ready for his morning class.

The class was a fourth-year epistemology course and had only a dozen students. They were all serious about the subject and there was no chatter about Kelsey. It was only when the students were leaving that Chantal Oliver, a woman Charlie had helped with a paper on relativism, stopped and mentioned Kevin Kelsey.

“I met him at a party. I never had a class with him, but I was shocked to hear of his death. What I can’t imagine is who would want to kill him. He was quiet and if I can be frank, more than a little dull. I know, Dr. Douglas, that when I was a sophomore you helped the police when Dr. Wilson was killed, so do you know what happened?”

“No, I don’t. I didn’t know Kelsey and all I’ve been told is that he was killed. It wasn’t an accident. Do you know anyone close to him who might know something?”

“There was a guy with Kelsey at the party, a Lawrie Mac-something. I didn’t see Kelsey with a date. Well, I hope they catch whoever did it.”

As she left Charlie thought by the time Chantal was out of the building Kelsey would be a distant memory. It was useful, though, that she confirmed Kelsey knew McDermott. “Lawrie” was obviously a nickname for “Lawrence” and the “Mac-something was surely “McDermott.”

Back in his office Charlie was again trying to get going on his paper when J. D. Allen appeared in the doorway. J. D., a colleague in the department, was now the only one who shared Charlie’s interest in Foucault after another colleague’s departure, so they often had coffee together. J. D. put a covered cardboard cup on Charlie’s desk, wiped his hand down the front of his rumpled blue chambray shirt, and took the lid off his own cup. He sat down and sighed deeply.

“I just got rid of my present albatross.”

Because of his relative youth and casual manner and attire, J. D. regularly attracted M.A. candidates who wanted him to supervise their theses but just as regularly turned out to be uninspired and tediously dependent. Charlie’s own rule was “Never take on a student who needs you,” and it filtered out exactly the students J. D. attracted.

“Okay, now to the serious stuff: what’s the inside dope on Kelsey’s murder?”

“I thought that’s what you were after, but have to disappoint you. I saw DeVries yesterday, but just long enough to tell her I didn’t know Kelsey but would ask around about him. I did and learned he was friends with a Lawrence McDermott, an exchange student from St. Andrews who I’m pretty sure goes by ‘Lawrie.’ That’s it.”

“Doesn’t sound like she was as forthcoming as last time around.”

“No, she’s being more careful.”

“You going to get mixed up in this one?”

“No. There’s no point. I didn’t know Kelsey. He was in Computing and Jodie said his only philosophy course was Wilson’s intro course. You seem to do a lot with students, though, did you ever run into Kelsey?”

“I might have, but the name means nothing to me. I’ll go on the Computing site; maybe they have a picture of him and I’ll recognize him.”

“What about Lawrence or Lawrie McDermott? Know him?”

“Nope. I’ll look for him, too. He in computing?”

“I assume so.”

J. D. and Charlie finished their coffees and J. D. went back to his office. Charlie realized he should have thought of what J. D. said and turned to his laptop. The Computing site didn’t have a picture of Kelsey but they did have one of McDermott, captioned as a welcome exchange student. McDermott was nondescript except for a scraggly mustache, but he looked older than Charlie had expected.

At a quarter to noon thoughts of lunch began to intrude. Charlie was just about to shut down his laptop when DeVries appeared in his doorway. With her was a gaunt-looking man who looked seven feet tall. He wore a tan suit that was too light for the end of March and did not go well with his sallow skin.

“Charlie. May we come in? This is Detective Guy Matson, my new partner.”

Charlie shook hands with Matson, who gave him a brief, tight smile.

“We were at the crime scene and thought we’d drop by to see if you might have learned anything new. No one we’ve spoken to knew much about Kelsey. We tracked down McDermott but won’t see him till two o’clock today. Thanks for his name.”

“I’ve learned nothing new about Kelsey but haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone in Computing yet. I may at lunch.”

“I hope you do better than we did. None of his instructors or staff members ever had much to do with him on a personal level. We only got the usual information about his courses and academic background. What we can tell you is that the coroner determined the blow to the head was what killed Kelsey.”

“Was he struck on the right or left side?”

“You’re thinking right- or left-handed. That’s a detail we can’t release. What I will add is that whoever struck Kelsey had to be roughly six feet because of the angle of the blow. We didn’t learn much from the family. Kelsey’s mother is in a senior’s residence and pretty much out of it. A brother lives in Chicago and told us he’d not seen Kelsey since his high-school graduation. He’s taking care of the funeral arrangements. We learned nothing from Kelsey’s personal effects except that his laptop is missing. We found a printer and a power supply in his dorm room, but no computer. From the little we know his activities at the university consisted of going to class, eating in the cafeteria, and working and sleeping in his dorm room. We’ve no information about where he went off-campus. We don’t know if there was anyone he was seeing. Aside from the connection to McDermott that you told us about, no one has come up with the name of anyone with whom Kelsey spent time. When we talk to McDermott we may learn more.”

Matson spoke for the first time.

“We’d really like to get some idea of who he saw or where he went off-campus. Nothing we’ve seen or heard about what he did here has been of any use.”

DeVries and Matson left and Charlie walked to the Club. He was later than usual, but there was room at the Club table. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone there from Computing. Charlie then asked after someone in Computing to whom he might talk. More people joined the table and eventually Charlie got a name: Janice Sommers. He’d try her the next day; he’d invite her to lunch.

Over dinner Charlie carefully avoided mention of Kelsey or DeVries. He opened a bottle of a quite nice cabernet to distract Kate and mostly succeeded but did catch her looking at him pensively a couple of times. Fortunately, her favorite TV show aired on Thursday night, so she took the rest of her wine to the den and Charlie relaxed with a book.

Chapter 3

The First Friday

Charlie was in his office by eight-thirty and talked to a couple of students who’d made appointments. He called Janice Sommers at ten and invited her to lunch, saying a colleague had given him her name and he’d tell her the whole story over a glass of wine. Charlie then made notes to sort out what he’d been told: Kelsey was killed in a way that seemed unpremeditated. He’d been hit on the head, likely as the culmination of a bad argument. The killer had availed himself or possibly herself of a bookend in Kelsey’s room. The most plausible scenario was Kelsey in a heated dispute with someone, that someone losing it and hitting him, then getting the hell out when he or she saw Kelsey go down. DeVries and Matson thought whoever struck Kelsey was roughly the same height, six feet, no doubt because the angle of the blow meant the bookend had been swung parallel to the floor rather than angled from above or below.

As to who the assailant might be, unfortunately access wasn’t a factor. Some years earlier there would have been limits to who could get into the dorm, but the main doors were no longer locked until midnight. Kelsey’s killer could easily have been in his room before that and slipped out unseen afterwards since all dorm doors had panic-bars.

Charlie realized the morning had slipped away and had to move to meet Sommers. He arrived at the Club just at noon to find a slender, well-dressed woman with long auburn hair waiting in the entryway. She gave him a big smile.

“You must be Charlie; hello, I’m Janice.”

Once at their table, Charlie ordered wine for them and started on his prepared explanation. He didn’t get far.

“Oh, I know about your involvement with the murder of Barrett Wilson, and I’ve been told that if it hadn’t been for you the killer might have gotten away with it. I also know there was a related murder off-campus and you were a great help to the police with it, too. When you called I was delighted. As soon as you said who you were I assumed you’re involved with Kevin Kelsey’s murder and might tell me something.”

“Well, the reason I got in touch with you is that I didn’t know Kelsey and know almost nothing about him. I was hoping that you could fill me in on him, not about the academic side, but what he was like as a person. The detective I worked with last time wants me to ask around about Kelsey. All I’ve gotten for her so far is that Kelsey was close to an exchange student named Lawrence McDermott.”

“I spoke briefly with a Detective Matson but couldn’t tell him much other than that I’d had Kelsey in two courses last term. He almost never spoke in class, got middling grades, and never approached me outside of class. I was aware he was friendly with Lawrie McDermott. They were both in one of the courses and I saw them together elsewhere on campus. I don’t recall seeing Kelsey with anyone else.”

“Did you ever overhear anything between them?”

“No, but their conversations were rather intense. It wasn’t as if they were arguing, but were serious about whatever they were discussing. I did several times see McDermott talking to someone else, though; a woman named Barbara Kline. She’s in third-year.”

“Okay, this is a tricky question because it invites exaggeration or evokes invention, even if unintentional. Was there anything about Kelsey that struck you as out of the ordinary?”

“I see the problem, but I think I have a couple of credible answers, one trivial, one maybe not so. The latter is that Kelsey never once looked me in the eye. He always seemed to focus on my forehead, so it seemed he was looking at me but wasn’t really. The other thing is that he always carried a copy of The Wall Street Journal and often read it in class. Most of the students have their laptops on their desks and I thought it quaint that Kelsey carried a paper around, though he also had a laptop. It was the eye thing that bothered me; he struck me as furtive, but perhaps he was only pathologically shy.”

Charlie and Sommers finished lunch and headed off in separate directions after he promised to keep her informed on the case. He hadn’t learned much, but had reconfirmed the connection between Kelsey and McDermott and gotten Barbara Kline’s name. No point calling DeVries yet. He wondered how her interview with McDermott would go.

When he got to his office, Charlie looked up Kline and jotted down contact details. He then spent the afternoon working on his paper and talking to a few students who had questions about his epistemology course. At four-thirty he went home to find Kate again sitting in the living room.

“I don’t feel like going out tonight. Can you cope with a pizza?”

“A pizza is fine. A bit later, though. Let me open a bottle of something good and we’ll talk a bit.”

Charlie, who favored California wines, decided the upcoming pizza demanded a red and went for a zinfandel-based blend a friend had put him onto.

“Okay, I know you don’t want me involved, but DeVries has asked for help. I want to fill you in on what I’ve learned; perhaps you’ll see something I’m missing. Kelsey was killed in what appears to be an unpremeditated way, probably by a man roughly his height. He was hit on the head with a bookend. He’s been connected only to an exchange student named McDermott. Kelsey was a mediocre student and didn’t take part in class discussions. Given the changes in dorm rules, pretty much anyone could have gotten in and out of Kelsey’s dorm room without being seen. The only odd thing is that one of Kelsey’s profs thought he was furtive or possibly very shy.”

“Maybe Kelsey was peddling drugs to other students and owed his supplier.”

“That’s one scenario. Drugs aren’t a problem at Meredith, but there’s undoubtedly some use and so there must be some suppliers. Anything else?”

“I’ve read about online cheating schemes where students are provided with essays for money. Maybe Kelsey was a source and screwed up.”

“I don’t know; I don’t see the money in something like that being big enough to involve someone killing Kelsey. I think it would be peanuts compared to drugs so not a plausible motive.”

“But if he was killed because of owing drug money or maybe skimming, wouldn’t the killer want him to serve as an example? The murder would’ve been premeditated.”

“Right; that’s a good point. Can you think of anything other than drugs?”

“A woman?”

“There’s been no indication that Kelsey was involved with anybody, though I was told his friend McDermott seemed interested in a female student named Kline.”