The Letter Killeth (20 page)

In graduate school it had dawned on her that she had joined something like the nunnery. Maybe a vow of chastity wasn't in prospect, but neither was anything like an ordinary marriage. Lucy was on track to becoming a female academic, and everything else in her life was presumed to be secondary to that. A few dates convinced her that the males were interested in arrangements and little more. Isn't that what feminism meant? And then on a fateful cab ride to campus she met Alan. He was driving the cab. When they got there, he got out, opened the door for her, carried her luggage to her door. He refused a tip and noted the address, and she went inside liking it that he had liked her.

He called. They arranged to meet. She didn't want her housemates to know. From the start, she felt like Lady Chatterley about it. He was smart but uneducated. They bowled; they went to sports bars; she watched more games on television than she ever had in her life. And they never talked about the fact that she was a graduate student in English. She loved it. He became her reality principle. Then, in a whoosh of romantic impetuosity, after she had passed her written exams and needed respite, they became lovers.

“So, when will it be?”

“It?”

“The wedding.”

He meant it. My God. “But I'm going to be a teacher.”

“I have an aunt who's a teacher.”

They got married. A civil ceremony. She moved in with him, not letting her friends know he was her husband. She was leading a double life. What would it be like if she dropped out of school and … And what? When she was with Alan that seemed possible, but then she was awarded a Fulbright to England. He just looked at her when she told him. She tried to explain to him what a coup that was, nobody got Fulbrights to England. It was the first time they really talked about her academic life. She tried to convince him they could go to Cambridge together. He kept on staring at her. So she had to decide. In her carrel in the library, she tried to convince herself that being the wife of a cabdriver was preferable to having an academic career, but she lost the argument. Only he wouldn't have been a cabdriver anymore. It seemed to be his argument to keep her. He said he planned to drive a semi on the interstates of the country.

What would Jane Austen have done? They didn't get a divorce, they just separated. Lucy went on her Fulbright, published several articles on Peacock, and was hired by Notre Dame. Confused hopes for the future began when Alan moved to South Bend. He could drive a cab anywhere. Raul came on to her relentlessly, but she managed to keep it all on the level of laughter. Until Pauline showed up at her office, hair to her shoulders, wearing a fingertip-length coat and a colorful scarf that hung to her ankles. She came in, shut the door, and asked what the hell was going on. Lucy had no idea what she was talking about.

“Raul. Don't think I don't know.”

“Sit down. What do you know?”

How do you convince a wife that you wouldn't take her husband if he came with the winning lottery ticket? In self-defense, she told Pauline about Alan. Like an idiot she wept while she told her story. Pauline sat looking at her with those beautiful big eyes that soon brimmed with tears. Then she told Lucy what it was like being married to Raul. Lucy felt a sisterly solidarity Hilda Faineant would not have understood. When Pauline got up to go, they embraced.

“What a scarf,” Lucy said.

“I bought Raul one, too.”

Of course Lucy didn't tell her about Raul's shenanigans with women students. She must know about that. But why had he invented an affair with a colleague to tease Pauline with? What a relief it had been to confide in Pauline about Alan.

*   *   *

Then weird things began to happen. There was the fire in Raul's wastebasket; his Corvette was firebombed. Lucy wondered if this was Oscar Wack's revenge. Oscar was the only colleague she had told about Alan. It was Oscar who brought up pogo sticks, saying wistfully that he'd had one when he was a kid. So she bought one for him, bringing it to campus early one morning and getting the cleaning lady to put it in Oscar's office. Surprise, surprise. Only the surprise had been on her.

For days after Raul's body was found, Lucy avoided the third floor of Decio. The memorial service for Raul was in the chapel in Malloy, and Pauline was tragically beautiful wearing a fedora, a black coat with a fur collar, and that many-colored scarf hanging to her knees like a defiant badge of grief.

“May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.”

At which words, Pauline whispered to Lucy, “He had no soul.”

5

The only English professor Mary Alice had ever liked was Lucy Goessen, and she had kept in touch with her, more or less, since switching majors. She had suggested doing a profile of Professor Goessen for
Via Media
but been dissuaded. “I don't have tenure.”

Mary Alice understood. Any connection with the alternative paper could have been the kiss of death with Lucy's colleagues. Mary Alice did cover the memorial service for Professor Izquierdo and afterward talked with Lucy, waiting until she was finished commiserating with the strikingly beautiful Mrs. Izquierdo.

“Come to my office,” Lucy said.

So they crossed over to Decio and took the elevator to the third floor. Before unlocking her door, Lucy stared at the closed door across the hall and shuddered. When they were settled with coffee, it was of Raul Izquierdo's death that they spoke.

“There are so many things about it that don't make sense.”

“Well, they've arrested the man who did it.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “So tell me what you've been doing.”

Lucy seemed skeptical about her enthusiasm for Roger Knight, giving a little cry when she heard he was lecturing on F. Marion Crawford.

“Good grief.”

“I know. But he can make anything interesting.”

Lucy had never met Roger. Maybe that would have to wait until she had tenure, too. Mary Alice felt she was gushing when she explained what Roger's courses had meant for her. And she mentioned that Roger had been a private detective, with his brother Philip. Somewhat to her surprise, Lucy didn't express shock at this.

“I'd like to meet him.”

“Oh, you should. I could set it up.”

Lucy hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

The following day, Mary Alice met Lucy in the library, and they walked through the parking lot east of the building to the village of graduate student houses where the Knights had an apartment.

Roger's size affected people in either of two ways, but Lucy's reaction was one Mary Alice understood. It made you want to mother the massive Huneker Professor. After the introductions, Roger sank into his special chair and then, realizing his guests were still standing, started to rise. They stopped him.

“If only I had behaved in a more gentleman-like manner,” he said.

“Mr. Darcy!” Lucy cried, and from then on the visit was a dream.

Listening to the chatter about Jane Austen, Mary Alice was aglow, having brought together two of her favorite professors to find that they were kindred spirits. Roger made popcorn and hot chocolate, falling snow was drifting by the windows, a Mozart piano concerto provided background music, it was wonderful. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the terrible events in Decio.

Roger said, “I know the detective in the case.”

“Your brother?”

“Oh, Phil is just an auxiliary. I mean Jimmy Stewart.”

Mary Alice described the memorial service and the beautiful Mrs. Izquierdo. “She was wearing the most colorful scarf. Long as a stole.”

“I've met the young fellow who is accused of the murder,” Roger said. “Did you know him?”

“He was a protégé of Raul's. What on earth he is doing working in campus security I just don't understand.”

“That is curious, about Mrs. Izquierdo's scarf.”

“Oh, they each had one,” Lucy said. “A matching set.”

Roger thought about it. “Well, that explains two of them.”

Philip Knight came in then, and Roger introduced him to Lucy, but Philip was preoccupied. He had just come from downtown.

“Anything new?”

“Henry Grabowski has confessed to killing Izquierdo.”

6

After the women left, Roger asked Phil to tell him all about it.

“He says he did it.”

“What led him to say that?”

“The widow showed up and asked to see him. Furlong put up a fuss, but Jimmy let them talk.”

“What was the point of the visit?”

“She said she wanted to see the man who had killed her husband.”

Ten minutes after Mrs. Izquierdo left, Henry asked to see Fauxhall, the assistant prosecutor, and confessed.

“Of course, Furlong will plead him not guilty, but Grafton the reporter was lurking around and he heard of it, so it will be public knowledge that the accused confessed to the crime.”

“What does Jimmy think?”

Henry's confession cleared up all kinds of loose ends. He had access to Izquierdo's office; that had been known for some time. The protégé had become progressively disenchanted with his mentor, particularly his boasting about all the conquests he made with women students.

“Is that true?”

“Oscar Wack says his colleague was an animal.”

“I suppose it could be established one way or another.”

“I doubt that Jimmy wants to get into that.”

“Of course not.”

In any case, fed up with Izquierdo, Henry had decided to act. The fire in the wastebasket in Izquierdo's office suggested firebombing the Corvette.

“He admitted doing that?”

“He told them to check out his car.” There were an empty gas can and lengths of rags in the trunk as Henry said there would be. He thought that would be a nice touch because of the threatening notes that Izquierdo had pasted together. Henry had delivered them, in his guise as campus security, all except the one to Oscar Wack. Izquierdo wanted to do that himself. It was Izquierdo's stoic reaction to the loss of his car that elevated Henry's efforts to a tragic level. The murder had been committed in the early evening. Henry was using Izquierdo's office; the professor showed up, chuckling about the fact that his jealous wife had refused him entry to his own house. Henry ceded the desk chair; Izquierdo sat, that long many-colored scarf around his neck. Henry stepped behind him, grasped the scarf, and used it to strangle Izquierdo.

“But no scarf was found at the scene.”

“He says he took it with him. For a lark, he tossed it into Larry Douglas's loft, with the result that we all know.”

“Until Mrs. Izquierdo came to the rescue. So much for the mystery of the three scarves.”

Phil opened a beer and checked the TV listings but didn't turn on the set. “So that's that, I guess. I'll have to let Father Carmody know.”

“I said it the first time,” the old priest said, when Phil telephoned him. “Thank God it wasn't a student.”

Phil nibbled at the remains of the popcorn and finished his beer.

Roger said, “You don't seem very happy.”

“It's all so neat.”

“Oh, I don't know. What about the pogo stick?”

“Larry Douglas looked into that. It seems it was bought by Professor Goessen.”

“The woman who just left?”

“I suppose Jimmy will talk to her. But what's the problem? The thing was hers, not Izquierdo's. At least she bought it. Pauline Izquierdo just laughed at the suggestion that her husband would have exercised with such a thing.”

*   *   *

It was the following day that Roger called Professor Goessen to ask her about the pogo stick. Her explanation removed any need to explain how it had got into Oscar Wack's office. Roger wasn't surprised when she confided in him about her estranged husband.

“What does it profit a woman if she gets tenure and suffers the loss of her husband?”

“Why can't I have both?”

Phil and Jimmy Stewart had begun to wonder, first separately, then together, about Pauline Izquierdo. It was her visit to Henry that preceded his confession that each of them found intriguing. Was it some kind of absurd gallantry, or had the sight of the widow brought on remorse?

“Gallantry?” Roger asked.

“The kid's a romantic. He reads poetry.”

“Ah.”

But Roger was thinking of what Henry had confided in him about his unsuccessful seduction of Mrs. Izquierdo, prompted by her husband. When Phil and Jimmy went off to a Notre Dame hockey game, Roger called a cab. He had to have a talk with Henry.

Half an hour later, a cab pulled up in front of the building and Roger, all bundled up, moved slowly out to it. The driver hopped out and came to help him.

“Thank you, thank you. Do you think I'll fit?”

The cabbie laughed. “You should see the size of some of my passengers.”

With an effort, and the help of the driver, Roger was wedged into the backseat, and they set off.

“The jail?”

Then Roger noticed the license displayed over the rearview mirror. Alan Goessen. His eyes met the driver's in the mirror.

“I'm going to visit a murderer.”

“The kid who killed the professor?”

“That's his story.”

“He performed a public service.” They stopped for a red light. Alan said, “You know, I met the guy, the professor. What a jerk.”

“How so?”

“I knew guys like him in the service. Real Don Juans, all they talked about was their conquests. Most of them fantasies.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“He was sitting right where you are. I drove him home from the airport one night.”

Roger remembered Lucy's story of how Pauline had come to her, accusing her of dallying with Raul. Hell hath no fury? But then came another thought.

“I know your wife, Alan. She's a brilliant woman.”