A Little Class on Murder (15 page)

Burke pulled the pad on his desk nearer and glanced down at it. “All the little Indians are listed here.” He darted a sardonic look at Annie. “I’d like to turn them over to Mr. Justice Wargrave. That would cook their goose, wouldn’t it?”

Annie murmured to Max, “
And Then There Were None
by Agatha Christie.”

“If I could put them on an island for a week, I’d get some answers out of them,” Burke said confidently, “but I’m going to ask some damn sharp questions this morning and see what turns up. But you want to ask questions, too. Okay.” He tapped the list. “Moss. It’s power he wants. He doesn’t like my coming in and trying to run the department. I presume it’s the struggle for power that Kelly intends to write about. But it’s the rest of the faculty where it gets stickier.”

“Josh Norden?” Annie asked.

Burke shook his head impatiently. “Josh is a drunk. I’ve given him six months to get in a treatment program. But I don’t care how unhappy he might be with me, he would never have done anything to hurt Charlotte. Josh didn’t do it.”

“Sue Tarrant thought the story in
The Crier
was awful,” Annie volunteered.

Burke shrugged. “Sue’s emotional. It’s hard to read her, hard to know what might trigger an outburst from her.”

“Is there anything derogatory in Kurt Diggs’s file?” Annie asked, her voice cold.

“What’s your guess?” Burke asked.

“I’ll bet he trades A’s for sex.”

“You got it,” Burke replied.

Max looked at Annie curiously. “How’d you know?”

“His kind are legion.”

“I’ve had a lot of complaints, but I can’t pin anything on him.” The chairman added grimly, “But I will.”

“If some of the coeds have complained, why can’t you bring him before a board on a charge of sexual discrimination?” Max asked.

“Oh, it isn’t the ones he’s screwed who complain, it’s the other students in the class who resent the favoritism. Diggs is too smart to fool with any but cooperative coeds. At least not recently. But I put him on notice. I’m watching and I’m watching closely. Like I told him, one of these days some coed will decide the A wasn’t worth it and blow the whistle—or maybe he’ll make a mistake and throw a pass at a girl who isn’t having any.”

“So you’re cramping his style,” Annie observed with satisfaction.

“Trying my damnedest.”

“What’s your feeling about Frank Crandall?” Max asked.

Burke sighed. “Jesus Christ, what a fool! I told Frank to cool it with Georgia, and I haven’t seen them together lately, out if
The Crier
carries a story indicating his involvement with a student, the trustees will go berserk, and I sure as hell won’t be able to recommend him for tenure. Frankly, I’m about to decide against it anyway. Anybody should have better sense than Frank. Look at his damn marriage!”

“What’s wrong with his marriage?” Annie heard the stiffness in her voice. After all, she was really all for the institution of matrimony.

Burke shook his head in disgust. “Wrong with it? It should never have happened. The man showed all the intelligence and spunk of a subnormal woodchuck.” He ran an impatient hand through thinning gray hair. “Okay, Frank joins the faculty. Adrianne is the chairman’s wife. She drives poor Kenneth to a breakdown from all accounts, then when Kenneth dies, she moves in on Frank, who’s twenty years younger, and fastens on tighter than a wood tick. Frank, the dumb jerk, is too much of a gentleman to tell her to shove off, so she keeps calling him up. And I’ll admit she’s pretty sexy, if your taste runs to the front line of a fifties chorus. Anyway, according to Sue, the hungry widow got him in bed, then started making plans for a wedding and the benighted fool let himself be
bullied into it.” He gnawed at his lower lip. “But if that damn Kelly spills it all in
The Crier
, Frank is through.”

“Why doesn’t he get a divorce?”

“No guts. Adrianne will give him living hell and people like Frank hate scenes. Plus, he’s waited a little late insofar as his career is concerned. The trustees won’t have professors screwing coeds. If it comes out publicly, it will be a cold day in hell before Frank gets tenure here. And it could make it damn difficult for him to get a job somewhere else.”

“So we can be absolutely certain Crandall didn’t supply the information to Kelly,” Annie concluded.

“Not unless he’s really trying to self-destruct.” Burke glanced up at the wall clock. “And that pretty well wraps it up, as far as the faculty’s concerned.” He stood. “Check back with me this afternoon. Before that damn press conference. We’ll compare notes, see what we’ve found out.”

They were almost to the door when Annie paused. “Charlotte Porter. You said Kelly never asked you why she took the money. Do you know?”

“Yeah.” He reached out to the windowsill, picked up the twisted bar of steel and turned it in his hands, but automatically, without looking at it, and Annie knew this must be an habitual gesture when he was deep in thought. He gripped the angular bar at both ends. His hands clenched.

The end-of-class bell rang. Ten minutes to ten.

Burke glanced again at the wall clock. He thudded the bar back into place on the windowsill. “Yeah. I know. And that’s another decision I have to make before three o’clock. Charlotte died because half her secret was exposed. Do I keep my mouth shut, let people think she was some kind of venal thief, or do I tell why she did it?” A vein throbbed in his forehead. “Kelly’s a sorry little shit. I hate to see him getting away with his pose as a great investigative reporter uncovering malfeasance in office, braving the hostility of the department to unmask wrongdoing. Jesus, I’d like to have people understand about Charlotte.” He opened the door for them. “All right, you two find out what you can. I’ll do the same. We’ll huddle just before three.”

The first bell for ten o’clock classes sounded as they stepped into the hall, into a swirl of hurrying students.

Annie and Max parted company at the top of the stairs on the second floor, he turning toward the faculty wing, she heading for her classroom. She regretted a little that she couldn’t accompany Max on his rounds, but she didn’t really envy him, poking and prodding into strained relationships. She walked with a bounce, despite her fatigue (only three hours’ sleep after their late-night foray to rescue Laurel), because she was eager to get started with her class. Her surge of happiness was, of course, slightly tempered by the knowledge of the class’s composition. However, even Henny, Laurel, and Miss Dora couldn’t squelch her joy in holding forth about three of the greatest practitioners of all time. She began to review in her mind today’s topic, the contributions of Mary Roberts Rinehart to the genre in addition to her gift of the Had-I-But-Known technique, which had through overuse by less skillful writers fallen into bad repute.

Mentally making a list of some of those offending less skillful writers, she rounded the corner and stopped short. It was a scene guaranteed to strike terror to her heart, those three unmistakable figures deep in earnest conversation.

Miss Dora’s shaggy white hair rippled as she nodded forcefully, thumping her rubber-tipped cane for added emphasis. Today she wore a green velveteen dress with puffed sleeves and surely, from the circumference of the paneled skirt, at least two crinoline petticoats. A matching green pillbox hat topped her flyaway hair. She looked like an ancient but decidedly determined frog.

Henny gnawed on an apple. (Annie hoped to God she
liked
apples.) Gray hair spilled untidily to her shoulders from a lopsided, collapsing beehive hairdo. Somehow (was it the way she stood, the bulkiness of her sweater, the triple pleats of her gray wool skirt?) she gave the impression of bulk, because, of course, Sven Hjerson’s creator and Christie’s wry self-portrait, Ariadne Oliver, was a good-sized woman.

Not a line of fatigue marred Laurel’s magnolia-smooth complexion. Her shining golden hair was drawn back in a ponytail tied with a saucy lavender bow (anyone else her age would have had a crepey neck). She smiled winningly at Miss Dora and Henny, who appeared to be utterly captivated.

Dear God, what was Laurel putting them up to?

Annie broke into a trot.

Her mother-in-law spotted her and gave a coo of delight, as
high, sweet, and endearing as doves calling on a Carolina morning.

Annie steeled herself against the expected blandishments and was totally surprised and not a little unnerved when the trio exchanged brief, conspiratorial glances, proffered brisk good mornings as she approached, and, in tandem, turned to enter the classroom.

In growing dismay, Annie stared at the receding backs, at Miss Dora’s sheen of green velvet, Henny’s thick woven brown sweater, and Laurel’s fetching pink blouse. She
hadn’t
imagined it. The three of them—her own version of the conniving three sisters—had clearly been conferring upon some matter of substance and, just as clearly, had reached an understanding.

Annie paused in the doorway.

Miss Dora had reclaimed her seat in the middle of the front row, directly opposite the lectern. She might have been a queen at a state funeral, her posture was so regal. High-buttoned black leather shoes, planted firmly together, peeked from beneath the full skirt. Tiny gloved hands clasped the silver knob of the upright ebony cane. Black currant eyes fastened unwinkingly on Annie.

Henny didn’t take the seat she’d occupied during the first class. Instead, she dropped into the chair to Miss Dora’s immediate left and began to rummage in a capacious, dark purple knitted bag. Apparently, it served as a repository of aids for any and all roles Henny might play. In addition to a mound of apples and a paperback copy of
The Body in the Library
, a title Ariadne Oliver shared with Agatha Christie (Ariadne was the author of at least forty-six best-selling mysteries featuring her gangling, vegetarian Finnish detective), a perfect rainbow of pastel yarn and shiny ivory knitting needles poked out of one side. It seemed to Annie that the rearrangement was taking ordinarily nimble-fingered Henny quite a while. Could it be that Death on Demand’s most industrious fan was avoiding Annie’s glance?

In further proof of the newfound and unsettling chumminess on the part of these three students, Laurel darted to the
seat on Miss Dora’s right. But instead of sitting down, she dropped her canvas carryall, lavender-and-cream striped this morning, then swung about to approach Annie, her dark blue eyes alight with pleasure and satisfaction.

Annie braced herself.

The delicate scent of lilac, the gentle brush of lips against her cheek.

“My sweet, so pleased our little excursion last night wasn’t
too
tiring for you and dear Maxwell. Although, you do look just a
tiny
bit weary. That’s why I thought I would try to lift some of the burden.”

“Oh, Laurel, how thoughtful of you,” Annie cried insincerely, and, dammit, she was tired. There was the beginning of a dull ache at her temples. How could Laurel keep right on looking like an ever-younger Grace Kelly? “But I do have a full morning planned for us.” She gripped Laurel’s elbow and tried to maneuver her toward her chair. “It’s a help just knowing you are in place.”

With no effort at all, her mother-in-law slipped free of her grasp and wafted gracefully toward a large portfolio balanced against the lectern.

Annie followed, trying to avoid the appearance of a frantic lunge.

The other students were drifting into place. Class minimum was ten. Annie, as a last-minute replacement, had an enrollment of twelve: the young man with pink hair (Tim Wallis? Annie was still attempting to match names to faces); the
Crier
reporter with the long black braids, wound round her head today, and a Grateful Dead T-shirt (Mitzi Morrison?); the massive dark-haired fellow who
had
to play football (Mike Swenson?); the three middle-aged women with blue-white hair and patterned polyester dresses (Mrs. Goodrich, Mrs. Thompson, and Mrs. Fielding?); the stocky elderly gentleman with a scraggly white mustache and darting brown eyes (Fred Jones? Jessup?); and the slim woman in her forties with a tanned face, laugh lines, and a charm bracelet that jingled (Wilma Phillips?). The department’s least favorite student, Brad Kelly, hadn’t arrived. Annie devoutly hoped he wouldn’t.

She reached Laurel as she opened the portfolio. Lifting out five familiar watercolors, Laurel displayed them proudly.

“Ingrid helped, of course. Annie, they are so wonderful!”

Annie rarely found herself speechless. She felt a sudden prick of tears behind her tired eyes. How
thoughtful
of Laurel. Perhaps not in the best of taste. It could be considered self-advertisement, but, really, what harm could it do to display this month’s mystery book contest paintings from Death on Demand?

Not waiting for a response, Laurel was busy affixing them to the stippled plaster wall with masking tape. Fred—Jones? Jessup? smoothed his mustache and leapt to her aid. Annie felt sure that should Laurel be transported to the Sahara, to the
middle
of the Sahara, and left in lonely exile, a half dozen sheiks would undoubtedly charge up astride their camels within the hour.

The class members watched with interest, including Miss Dora, whose reptilian eyes digested each painting with awesome thoroughness. Henny, of course, was concentrating on the fourth one, with the beachy young man so out of place in the luxurious library. She had that look of teetering on the brink of recognition. Annie held her breath (God, what had she wagered?) then tried to hide a sigh of relief at her customer’s vexed headshake.

“Oh, thank you so much. How lovely that there are always strong handsome men to the rescue,” Laurel trilled as one of the watercolors almost slithered to the floor. Jones or Jessup, of course, caught it immediately and manfully slapped it against the wall, basking in the warmth of her approval.

It wasn’t, Annie almost pointed out acerbically, quite on a level with a rim shot in the last two seconds. But she restrained herself. After all, Laurel was certainly doing her best to make her daughter-in-law happy and the least Annie could do was to be a gracious recipient.