The Grim Steeper: A Teapot Collector Mystery (19 page)

Enough pondering. She needed to
do
something, and talking to Vince Nomuro would be a start. From there she would track down Brenda Fletcher, and maybe take a little side trip to see if she could dig anything up on Heck Donovan, who she had not forgotten had a huge stake in keeping Mac MacAlister able to play.

She was gathering her resolve when someone behind her said, “Sophie, I’m so glad you came!”

Chapter 18

S
he whirled. “Julia!”

The professor stood in the middle of the hall clutching an armload of papers, holding a briefcase with three fingers of her left hand, her purse slung over her shoulder. She looked frazzled, and dark circles bagged under her eyes.

Sophie’s surprise turned to concern. She sped down the hall and took the professor’s briefcase off her hands, put one hand under her elbow and asked, “Are you okay? You look so tired.”

Julia glanced around at the students who eyed them curiously and straightened, sucking in a long breath, letting it out slowly. “I’m all right. This has taken a toll on me, I think. Are you here to meet Jason? He’s still with his class, and then I think he has a meeting with Dr. Bolgan. After that he has student meetings for an hour in his office in the arts building.”

“I’m not here to see Jason.”

Julia leaned in and whispered, “Are you investigating?”

“Do you have a minute to talk?”

She nodded.

Sophie guided her aside to a quieter spot. “You’ve been a good friend to Jason. I’m afraid for him; the police questioned him again last night, and he won’t tell anyone, but I know he’s scared.”

“Further to our conversation, I’ve been asking around, trying to see if anyone knows anything. Every single person I’ve talked to here at Cruickshank wonders the same thing; does the grading thing have anything to do with the murder?”

“Does anyone have an answer?”

“So far, no,” Julia said, shifting the stack of papers. “Because of all this nonsense, the department is making me check over all of Jason’s work, including his students’ lit essays.” She rolled her eyes. “Just what I need. I’ve got morning sickness, raging hormones, heartburn, constipation and extra work. I need to get off my feet for a minute; follow me.” Julia led her to a room at the end of the hall, a quiet retreat that she had needed a key to open. There were two couches facing each other across a low coffee table, a soft chair, a shelf with some magazines and a few potted palms.

“What is this?” Sophie asked, looking around.

“This is the reflection room. It’s for teaching staff who have reached their limit. This qualifies as a day I’ve reached my limit. I’m only surprised there isn’t a line to get in.” She paused and grimaced, scanning the restricted space. “It used to be a storage closet. I swear I still smell the ammonia fumes.”

Sophie smiled, but didn’t get what Julia wanted. “So what are we going to do to get to the bottom of this? Have you got any more ideas since we talked yesterday morning?”

She nodded sharply. “I most certainly do, but look who
I’m talking to! You’re the sleuth, Sophie . . . Gracious Grove’s very own Junior Marple! Now that you’re here I’m sure you’ll know exactly what to ask, and of whom. I’ll be your facilitator, right? Wait here. I’m going to get Vince Nomuro.”

“But Julia, what . . .” Sophie half rose from her chair in alarm. What was she supposed to say? How could she question a man she didn’t even know? But protest came too late; the professor had thrown her papers down on a chair and disappeared out the door.

The stack of papers slid sideways, so Sophie tided them. They appeared to be grading reports for various students, so she averted her eyes. None of her business. Unless . . . Julia said she had to check all of Jason’s printed-out student papers. She rapidly sifted through them and found one with Mac MacAlister’s name at the top and the class, which was, as Tara had mentioned, Literary Migrations. His piece was entitled “The Environment in American Literature.” She scanned it quickly; there was nothing interesting in it. His grasp of English grammar and spelling was shaky at best. Jason had given him a D, and there was a check mark beside the grade and Julia’s initials.

But what else she found in the stack gave her pause. There was a note. She scanned it quickly, a skill perfected from years of reading orders in her restaurant kitchen. It said, in part,

JM didn’t do anything, but I know who did. Ms. Dandridge, you should be very very carefull of all the cheets at this skool.

JM . . . Jason Murphy? And was that a threat toward Julia? Had she some accountability in the grade change, and did
someone know? She heard a noise in the hall and tucked the note back into the stack with a corner hanging out.

The door opened and Julia shepherded in Vince Nomuro, who frowned as he glanced around and then focused on Sophie. “What is this about, professor?” he asked of Julia.

“This is Jason’s friend, Sophie Taylor. Remember her from the tea stroll? Dean Asquith was killed on her grandmother’s doorstep and she’s trying to sort out what happened. I thought maybe we could put our heads together and come up with something, Vince.”

Sophie fumed. She had planned to tackle him in his office one-on-one, and hadn’t even figured out what she was going to ask yet. It was harder with a third party present. Julia watched her eagerly, her gaze shifting from Sophie to the registrar and back. It was like she expected Sophie to pull a rabbit out of her hat. Or ponytail.

“Mr. Nomuro, I know how upset everyone is about the dean’s murder. Can we talk about it for a minute?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Julia, what is this? It feels like an ambush.”

“Mr. Nomuro, it’s not, really,” Sophie said. “I’m just a concerned citizen, mostly because it happened right outside my grandmother’s tearoom,
and
because Jason is a friend. His name is being thrown around in this mess. I know he didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m sure you know that, too.”

“I still don’t understand why you’ve come to me.”

Sophie gave Julia a look and she appeared to get the hint, finally. “I, uh, need to see the main desk about some interdepartmental mail. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a few . . . in a while.” She closed the door behind her.

“Can you sit for a moment?” Sophie asked, trying to make her tone appealing and a little lost.

He sank into one of the overstuffed chairs and crossed one leg over his knee. He was neatly dressed in navy dress slacks and a navy blazer over a white shirt, with a diamond-patterned tie in blue and silver, fastened with a silver arrow-shaped tie pin. He adjusted his tie. “You have my attention, Miss Taylor,” he said, his diction precise and formal.

Sophie tried to remember what Brenda had told her about the man. She had implied that he was a college administrator almost by default. His first career course halted when he failed as a pharmacy student, so he turned to accounting. He was on her short list of people who could have changed Mac MacAlister’s grade. But more importantly, he was named as someone seen close by the tearoom late the night of the murder. What could she ask him that would conceal her true aim, to find out if he could have killed Dean Asquith?

“I’m sorry Julia hauled you down here, Mr. Nomuro,” she said, with all sincerity. “I don’t know her very well, but she’s been a good friend to Jason and stood by him through all the worry over the grading scandal. Until the truth comes out, he’s going to be suspected.”

“I believe in letting investigations take their course, Miss Taylor.”

“Please call me Sophie. That’s fine, but I do think investigations can go off the rail at any time for so many reasons. Anything we can do to streamline the process will help, don’t you think? Now that Dean Asquith is dead, what will happen to Jason? Do we even know what the dean was going to say? Was he going to name Jason as the grade changer, or did he have someone else in mind?”

“Why do you think I would know?”

“Your department collects all the data, such as grades.”

“True, but as we have discovered, there are holes in our
system we will have to plug.” He regarded her steadily for a moment. “Are you implying the dean was killed to stop him from naming the guilty party? That is patently absurd,” the registrar said, shifting in his chair, appearing agitated. “At most, Jason, or whomever, would be censured and their grading would be overseen for a while. As is happening in the interim, until it is sorted out. No one would kill over that.”

That was reaffirmation of what she had already heard. “But what if whoever did it, did more than just change one grade?”

“Multiple grade changes, you mean? Why do you say that? Have you heard anything? What are you implying?”

His alarm was palpable, and interesting. His complexion had become blotchy, his dark eyes dilated. He was the likeliest candidate for a grade changer, since his office would have last stab at it. However . . . Julia said it happened before she saw the grade, so, between Jason and Julia, it had been altered. The registrar would likely know how to do that, but why would he, rather than wait until he received the grades from the department head, Julia? There would be less potential for being caught after she had signed off on the mark.

“I’m trying to figure things out.” She tapped her foot on the carpeted floor, watching the registrar. “You were with Dean Asquith’s group the night of the murder. Did you notice anything? See any suspicious interaction?” She was thinking specifically of his argument with the dean at SereniTea, but didn’t know how to bring him around to discussing it, directly.

“I did see something, now that you mention it.” He glanced at her, then fixed his gaze on the fake silk flowers in a vase in the corner of the room. “It was at SereniTea. I had taken Dean Asquith aside to speak with him about a professional matter that I felt a need to discuss before his announcement.”

“Oh? What was that?” she interjected.

“That is incidental to my story.”

She clamped her mouth shut, not wanting to agitate or upset him, but if he was innocent of the grade scandal charges, he was probably taking that opportunity to plead his case with the dean.

He sat forward and interlaced his fingers together between his knees. “After Dale and I spoke, he walked away, while I stayed back to speak to that woman . . . whomever it is that Julia has running the place.”

“Kirsten Frawling.”

“That young lady has no idea how to run a tearoom. The place is a jumble of Eastern influences, or rather Western misunderstanding of Eastern influences. I wanted to correct her on several things. Though SereniTea’s use of fusuma—that is sliding panels—tatami mats and shoji screens to create washitsu—that is a Japanese-style room—suggests a traditional tearoom, everything else is a mess.”

Sophie stayed quiet.

Vince Nomuro retreated into himself for a moment, looking down at his navy slacks, pleating the crease by pinching it between his fingers, then said, “When I emerged from speaking with the young lady, who seems a scattered kind of person, not a good manager, I saw Dale speaking to, or rather arguing with, a young man, someone I recognized.”

Sophie drew her breath in to speak, but then made herself stay quiet. Vince Nomuro was the kind of person who was organized and methodical in his speech, and an interjection would throw him off.

“The dispute appeared heated, and even physical. He was arguing with Paul Wechsler, our systems engineer. He looks after all of our computer needs, designs programs and maintains our intranet. It’s a very important job. He should
have more help, but so far we haven’t been able to attract anybody to the other positions, so he fills in. He’s not paid half what he’s worth.”

This was getting interesting. Julia had said she saw Paul and the dean speaking outside of SereniTea and this was the confirmation! Sophie had seen Paul draw the dean aside later, near Auntie Rose’s, and understood the conversation to be about the grading, but the heated disagreement earlier? The registrar had stopped, and Sophie felt it was safe to ask, “What were they arguing about?”

“I only heard a few words. When Dale saw me he drew Paul away into the shadows and I was accosted by my assistant about something.” He glanced up at Sophie. “I know all the gossip, Miss Taylor. Sophie. I know that people say Paul is involved with Mrs. Asquith.”

“I’ve heard that from a number of reliable people,” Sophie asserted.

“What he and Dale argued about had nothing to do with Mrs. Asquith, I would attest to that. Paul said to him something like, ‘if you tell people that tomorrow, you’re going to look like an idiot’. Dale said, ‘you’re the one who told me’ . . . but that was when Dale moved Paul away and I couldn’t hear any more. I’m planning to ask Paul about that today.”

The reference to the dean’s Monday announcement must have been about the grading scandal, but did it mean that Paul had told the dean that Jason was the one responsible, or someone else? And did it come from Paul in his position as systems engineer? She had no doubt the college had been delving into the problem from a technical aspect since all grades were entered on a computer.

Though she wasn’t quite sure how. “Mr. Nomuro, how are grades entered by instructors and professors?”

“We have a content management system, of course. Our staff log on, give unique identification and hopefully log off when they are done.”

Sophie could see many problems with that, including what he implied himself, that if a staff member failed to log off, anyone using his or her computer might be able to change things without anyone being the wiser. “But the grade alteration would have a timestamp, or electronic fingerprint, right?”