A Little Class on Murder (13 page)

“The crash, Laurel.” Max spoke with the patience of a son who had endured years of Laurel’s side excursions from the topic at hand.

“Oh, yes. Such a lot of noise. That startled me. Then I heard someone running. Oh, if I’d only had a flashlight.”

“Georgia didn’t use hers?” Annie asked.

“Oh no, it was as dark as a cave. No light at all.”

Max leaned closer to his mother. “Running footsteps? Was it Georgia?”

Laurel didn’t answer directly. “I felt someone pass me and so I ran in the opposite direction, toward the front of the building. And
that
door was just closing as I reached it. So that means there were two people, one going out the back, the other out the front.”

“You didn’t see anyone but Georgia?” Annie demanded.

“It wasn’t Georgia who threw that blood. I
know
it,” Laurel said determinedly.

Of course, Laurel was committed to the proposition that love must prevail.

“Love must prevail,” she said staunchly, echoing Annie’s thought. But was there an uncertain quaver in that lovely, husky voice?

A furnished apartment with all that implied. Lumpy cushions on the shabby brown couch, a rickety straight chair with a missing rung, a rocker with peeling red paint. No rugs. Mustard yellow linoleum flooring that dipped precariously in the center of the tiny living room. A smell compounded of ingrained dirt, must, and frying oil, with an acrid overlay of something burned.

The whiny-voiced landlady complained, “Who’s going to get her stuff out, that’s what I want to know.”

“She was paid through the month, wasn’t she?” Annie asked sharply.

A grudging nod.

It was hard to picture Charlotte Porter in these dispiriting surroundings. The few, very few, lovely pieces in the room were in stark contrast to their setting. An English silver tankard, ornately embossed. A Delft covered jar. A pair of Irish crystal decanters.

Obvious poverty, missing money, the remnants of past glory. The equation didn’t figure.

The landlady shuffled impatiently, her laceless scuffed sneakers squeaking against the floor. “This is it. Living room, bedroom, bath, kitchenette. She did it in the bath. You want
to see?” She gestured at a closed door with an ill-kept hand, her fingernails cracked and once-red polish peeling. “Nobody’s cleaned it up. They let the water out, but the tub’s stained. Guess they think I can do it. Shit cops.”

“I’m not sure what we want to see,” Max replied. “We’d just like to look around.”

Unfriendly brown eyes looked Max up and down, spared a brief glance at Annie. Bony shoulders shrugged beneath a dirt-stained sweat shirt. “Look all you want. I got work to do. Bring the key down when you’re finished.” Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked across the floor. She paused, a hand on the knob. “Don’t take nothin’.”

As the door closed behind her, Annie looked across the dim room at the bathroom door. “Max, I don’t like this.”

“I know. But there’s something damned funny here. Charlotte Porter sold her house and almost all her belongings last year, moved into this dump, and then she still stole money. Where did it go? What for?”

So she helped him search, except for the bathroom. It didn’t take long. The single center drawer in the unpainted wooden desk that sat in a corner of the living room held a checkbook with a balance of two hundred and seventy-three dollars. Recent bills, marked paid. Church envelopes. An address book. An insurance policy. Beneficiary, James Edward Martin, grandson. His name was crossed out and above it, in a shaky handwriting, was inscribed, “Chastain College Department of Journalism.” Both the upper and lower drawers on each side were full of personal correspondence, neatly tied packets divided by years. In recent years, the letters were all from Jimmy Martin. There was a gap at the back of the drawer and the last packet carried the date of 1986. In the tiny bedroom, the bed was neatly made, although the thin blue cotton spread was wrinkled at one side. A large red leather photograph album lay propped up against the pillows. As if someone—Charlotte Porter?—had sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the scrapbook. Max thumbed through it in silence, Annie looking over his shoulder. Only a few pictures of Charlotte Porter. As a young woman she had indeed been
beautiful, with a fine bone structure and a radiant smile. In her middle years, the radiance was gone but good humor remained. She always appeared very genteel: high-necked blouses with ruffled collars, small pearl earrings, a self-effacing smile. As Max flipped the heavy manila pages, the faces in the other photographs became familiar. A girl with curly brown hair growing to adulthood. Then wedding pictures. A young woman with a toddler, then a little boy, later a teenager. Soon there were no more pictures of the mother but many of the boy. Playing baseball. In a school play. Smiling proudly at high school graduation. On a college campus. Grinning and shading his eyes from bright sunlight on a sunny day at the beach. The inscriptions:
Jimmy in Little League, Jimmy in the senior play, Jimmy graduating from high school, Jimmy at college, Jimmy in California
. The pictures were dated. The last date was October 5, 1986.

No pictures after that—and somewhere around that time Charlotte Porter fell on hard times, sold her house and her belongings, and took money that didn’t belong to her.

The bedroom revealed little else, dresses neatly arranged in the tiny closet, cotton gowns and underclothing in the rickety bureau. But in the kitchen, they discovered the source of that smell of burning, a mound, a large mound of ashes in the rust-stained kitchen sink.

Two sets of dried bloody footprints led from the crimson-stained door of the student newspaper offices. Several student desks ranged down the center of the hall, blocking off the vandalized area. Yellow police tape marked the scene.

Henny crouched beside one distinct set of footprints. She looked up at their approach.

“Two women. One in sandals. Estimate size five to five and a half, triple A. The second in Reebok tennis shoes, size seven.” She gave Max a commiserating glance. “I understand the Chastain City Jail is holding a pair of women’s shoes—pink sandals—in evidence.”

“Laurel was—” Max swallowed “—just passing by.”

“Of course,” Henny said cheerfully. “A ship in the night.”
She rose, but her glance lingered on the scuffed, splotched, and smeared hall floor. “One interesting point—the sandals overlap several Reebok prints.”

Annie nodded sagely, but made no comment. Let Henny pirouette here, if she could.

She could. But she wanted Annie to play the game.

“The deduction is obvious, of course.”

Annie wasn’t to be drawn, but Max fished.

“What deduction?” he asked immediately.

Henny smiled smugly. “Reebok stepped into the blood first, followed by the sandals. So, Reebok threw the blood.”

Max frowned. “Maybe. But the vandal should have known there was a mess and avoided stepping into it at all.”

“You’re positing a third person in the hall last night?” Henny asked.

“Laurel thought so,” Max said.

Annie couldn’t resist joining in. “Or the sandals threw the blood but waited to move until passed by the Reeboks.”

Max gave her an “
Et tu, Brute
” look.

To divert him, Annie said quickly, “But why blood?” She looked at the sticky door. Blood spatters trailed down the white frosted portion of the door. Slimy dark streaks marked the lower wooden panel. On the cement floor, long, slender slivers of glass lay among clumped pieces. “And whose blood?”

“Don’t you suppose it’s a warning? A hint to that rather vigorous young editor that the future does not bode well for him if he doesn’t desist his rash exposé? As for whose blood—” Henny sighed. “Rabbits, I’m afraid.” Her sharp nose wrinkled in distaste. “Animal research is all very well, but it does give you the creeps. Nice fluffy white rabbits injected with viruses, and blood samples taken daily.”

Annie hated to boost Henny’s already considerable ego, but she had to ask, “Henny, how did you ever discover that?”

“My dear,” and her favorite customer was supplanted by Miss Marple, “everything is usually quite simple, if you look at it properly. Blood in vials. So obvious, those long slivers of glass so peculiar to test tubes, you know. And we’re on a campus. Research. I checked with the security office and there
was another break-in last night, though not reported until this morning. The biology department. Very simple.”

Annie nodded slowly.

Max looked thoughtfully at the unmistakable evidence, the long slivers of glass that had shattered on impact with the door. “But that implies pretty specialized knowledge, Henny. To know about research going on and be able to pinpoint the location of the blood.”

“Anyone on campus could have known.” She reached into the apple-stocked pocket of her baggy cardigan (à la Ariadne Oliver) and drew out a small notebook. Flipping it open, she said briskly, “Series of articles on research into viruses transmitted through blood ran in
The Crier
last month. Written by Brad Kelly. Photographs by Georgia Finney.”

The notebook snapped shut with finality.

The wooden stand that was filled twice weekly with copies of
The Crier
stood empty, in mute support of Henny’s statement that all the copies of the infamous edition had disappeared. The next issue wouldn’t be out until tomorrow, but the students drifting slowly into the building for nine o’clock classes obviously knew of Charlotte Porter’s suicide. There were occasional brief and somber exchanges, sidelong glances at the vandalism, and a generally funereal air.

Max held the door of the main office for Annie. She hung back.

“I think we should talk to Georgia Finney first. Of course, she’s already had hours to concoct a story and get rid of those Reeboks.”

Max smiled kindly. “Naturally, your mind is attracted to the sanguine, but obviously Georgia’s the last person we need to talk to.” He held the door wider.

Annie nobly resisted the impulse to kick him heartily. “How can you say that? She’s in it up to her neck.”

“In what up to her neck?” Max inquired blandly.

“Why, the vandalism, of course.”

Her spouse gave her an encouraging nod. Unfortunately, it
reminded her of Laurel’s similar nod during her first class period. Annie’s brows drew together in a stormy frown.

He further compounded his problem by saying patronizingly, “But do we care about the vandal?”

“Don’t we?” she snapped.

“No. Our task is to discover who spilled the beans to Brad Kelly, boy exposé artist. Obviously, the vandal is wreaking vengeance for the exposé and trying to prevent any further disclosures—ergo, the vandal is not the bean dropper.”

Max nudged her gently on into the anteroom of the department office. The lights were on, but the secretary’s desk was empty. He glanced around.

Annie considered his explanation. She gave a grudging nod. “Okay, I see your point. But we still have to get those charges dismissed against Laurel.”

“No sweat,” he said absently, peering over the counter at the door leading into a second office. “Henny’s got it figured right. Georgia threw that blood. The fact that Mother’s footprints overlap hers makes that clear—and the cops will have to admit it. So we can concentrate on the important problem: Who played Deep Throat to Kelly.”

The phone rang. It was cut off in the middle of the third peal.

“Burke must be in his office,” Max said, reaching for the swinging gate.

“Do you think it’s all right for us to burst in on him unannounced?” Annie asked.

“Miss Dora said we had carte blanche. And she’s a trustee.” He strode through the inner office to the second door.

Annie followed. She wondered how impressed Burke would be at their commission from Miss Dora. (Max’s, actually. Annie considered herself unofficial to the core.)

Max knocked.

It took a moment, but when Burke yanked open the door, the chairman gestured energetically for them to enter. “Take a seat. Be right with you.” He returned to his desk and picked up the phone. “So there’s no way?”

They settled into the red leatherette chairs facing the desk.

Two framed yellowing front pages hung on the wall behind Burke,
The New York Times
street edition of December 8, 1941, and
The Washington Post
extra on May 7, 1945. Full bookshelves covered three walls. On a window ledge sat a battered shell casing, a bent and twisted bar of iron, and a scorched brick.

Burke hunched over the phone. The sleeves of his green-and-white striped shirt were rolled up to his elbows. Nicotine-stained fingers gripped a pen tightly. He began to write on a white pad. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. So, I can’t kick his ass off the paper unless I can get him suspended. What’s the school policy? … Right. Well, he’s no dummy. You can bet he won’t do a damn thing that could get him in trouble. Okay. Thanks, Counselor.”

Hanging up, he looked at Annie and Max. “What can I—”

The phone rang.

Burke slammed his hand against the desktop in exasperation and his pad slid sideways. “Damn girl. Hell of a lousy morning for her to call in sick. Sure, everybody’s upset about Charlotte, but we’ve got to keep going.” He started to reach for the phone, then shook his head irritably, and flicked a switch on the console. “I can’t answer the damn phone all morning and get anything done.” He grabbed several hard candies from a former ashtray. “Sometimes I think I’ll just start smoking again. Candy rots your teeth.” He popped some in his mouth, offered the candies to them. They shook their heads. His speech a little impeded, he said, “All right, now, what can I do for you?”

Max stood and held out his hand. “I’m Max Darling. I have an office on Broward’s Rock, called Confidential Commissions. People with problems sometimes ask me to help out. Miss Dora Brevard has hired me to find out who’s supplying Kelly with his information.”

Burke stared at Max for a long moment, then reached out and vigorously pumped his hand. “Sure, you’re Annie’s husband. The two of you solved that murder during the house-and-garden tours.” Wry amusement glinted in his bright eyes. “Made a lifelong friend of our rather heavy-handed chief of
police, Harry Wells. Yeah. I know who you are.” He waved Max back to his seat. “Miss Dora’s got a good idea. And if you find out who the snake in our bosom is, I want to be the first to know.”