A Little Class on Murder (26 page)

Emily Everett. Short on luck. Very short.

The oh-so-familiar husky voice surprised Annie, it carried so well. But Laurel always managed to be heard.

“Mr. Kelly,” came the throaty call. It would make almost any man immediately envision a South Sea island, swaying palms, languorous music, and other idyllic images not easily described in the media.

Annie studied her mother-in-law. For God’s sake, how did she do it?

The magic touched Brad Kelly. He lost his haunted, tense look and managed a wan smile. “Yes?”

“A young man such as yourself, so eager to play a role in determining public policy, so devoted to the pursuit of truth, I feel confident you are acutely observant.”

Kelly tried hard to appear acutely observant.

“Tell us more about Emily Everett. How was she dressed when she came to your office?”

“Dressed?” Astonishment lifted his voice. Then, awkwardly, he tried to explain. “Emily didn’t—she wasn’t—she always wore the same kind of thing, great big dresses. Emily was—she was fat.”

“Was she carrying a large bag?”

Kelly’s brows drew together. “Yeah.” He spoke slowly.

“Yeah. She was. This great big damn thing, kind of a striped canvas.”

“Was it large enough, Mr. Kelly, to contain an explosive?”

Annie had a skittery feeling down her spine. Like mother, like son.

Kelly didn’t say anything for a long, long moment. Then he shook his head impatiently. “That doesn’t make sense. I mean, even if she was bananas enough to blow away
The Crier
, she sure as hell wouldn’t have planned on being there!”

“A curious thing about bombs, Mr. Kelly. I’ve been doing some research.” Annie heard Laurel’s soft, husky voice with a definite sense of unreality. It was like hearing Little Red Riding Hood discuss guerrilla warfare. “So often it’s the maker who gets blown away. A car bomb goes off and it turns out the driver and passenger hadn’t intended to still be in the vehicle. Bombs have an ugly habit of exploding unexpectedly. And you’re certain she had the bag?”

A frenzied thumping and Miss Dora’s voice rose in a determined screech. “Irrelevant. Immaterial. Young man, the crux of the matter: why did Emily Everett come to you? Why not to Mr. Burke?”

Kelly gripped the lectern again. “Look, I don’t know why she did anything. All I know is what she told me, that she thought she knew who dumped on the faculty and she wanted to see if she was right. But since I didn’t know, I couldn’t help her.”

“Perhaps it’s the age-old answer,” Laurel offered dreamily. “A handsome young man. A young woman attracted to him even though she lacks physical charm and grace. It isn’t only the beautiful who fall in love.” Her lovely Grecian profile reflected the essence of tragic love.

“Oh, now wait a minute,” Kelly erupted. “I hardly knew her.”

“Oh now, Mr. Kelly, you’re so modest about your kindnesses,” Laurel trilled. “I’ve heard from some of the girls who knew Emily that she thought you were quite wonderful, a knight in shining armor, a perfect example of journalism’s finest.”

Kelly’s face flushed a bright crimson. “God, I just tried to be nice to her. Poor old thing. She wanted to be a reporter, but, my God, you can’t look like that and get a job. I told her
to think about free-lancing. She could’ve done that. I mean, she might have had some problems with interviews but a lot of stuff can be done by phone or mail. Oh, hell, she was pathetic.”

Laurel beamed, “Ah, but you were kind to her, Mr. Kelly. No doubt that is why she came to you—in addition, of course, to her hope that you could confirm or refute her identification of the individual responsible for leaking the information from those files.”

Kelly shook his head vigorously and his ears continued to flame.

Miss Dora’s white hair fairly flapped in indignation. “Irrelevant. Immaterial. What did the young woman know? That’s what we must determine. Mr. Kelly, did nothing she said give you any idea at all as to the person she suspected?”

“No idea,” he said quickly, positively.

Annie looked at him closely. That tone was so positive. He’d expected that question, been prepared for it, planned to sound forthright, conclusive, convincing.

Was it a lie? Did he have some idea? But, if he did, he most certainly didn’t intend to share it. Why did she suddenly have a bone-deep sense that Brad Kelly had stage-managed beautifully today, that he had presented himself in the best possible light, and that he knew a good deal more than he planned to admit?

He stood so stalwartly behind that lectern, his pale face composed and serious.

A rustle at the far left of the auditorium and Henny stood up, gesturing for attention with a balaclava helmet. “Mr. Kelly, do you have any idea who may have killed Burke? Or who put the bomb in your office?”

“None.” He slammed a balled fist against the lectern and his papers flew to the stage floor. “But I intend to find out. I’m going to ask questions and poke around and tell everybody what I discover. That’s what good reporters do. And I’m a good reporter.” He took a quick breath, then half turned to confront Moss with a jutting jaw. “And as a beginning, I think it’s time the Department of Journalism told some hard truths.
What else is in those personnel files that rightfully should be made public? What kind of quarrels are tearing this department to pieces? Do we have faculty members who aren’t doing their jobs as they should? What’s in these files? I demand that they be made public! Now!”

Moss stepped forward. “There is always in journalism a fine line, a very fine line, between the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy. Men of good character differ strongly on this matter. Some would support the efforts of our young editor, others oppose him.” Those thick lips still curved in that half-smile. Did Moss see the world always with sardonic amusement, or was it a trick of musculature? Blandly, without the least appearance of discomfiture, he added, “In this present instance, the question turns out to be academic. Those files have disappeared.”

Moss led the way up the back stairs of the journalism building. Even these steps had a fine film of dust. “It’s safe enough. The building will be reopened Tuesday, but it has to be cleaned first and they want to do some bracing before students are permitted inside.” He unlocked his office door and waved them to seats in front of his desk. He took off his suit coat, tossed it carelessly over a coatrack, then settled at his desk. His short-sleeved shirt revealed heavily muscled forearms. It would take a tough customer, like Rob Kantner’s PI, Ben Perkins, to take him on. Moss leaned back at his ease in his oversize brown leather armchair. His office was all oversize leather: the couch, the chairs, even a dark brown footstool. The massive furniture emphasized his powerful physique. He was an intimidating man in a background intended to reinforce that image.

Max, of course, Annie was pleased to note, wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

Nor, she assured herself, was she, although she did find overlarge people discomfiting.

But Moss was on his good behavior today. He even managed a genial smile as Max finished speaking.

“I certainly will do everything in my power to be helpful to Miss Dora.” His tone was agreeable, but Annie realized she
found him even less likable when he was attempting to charm than when he was openly contemptuous as he’d been at that faculty meeting held in response to the revelations in
The Crier
. Sensing her hostility, he fastened heavy-lidded blue eyes on her. His half-smile widened. “You look a little skeptical, Mrs. Darling. How can I convince you of my good intentions?” A rumble of deep laughter. “You are, I suppose, an ardent feminist, and I must assume you took umbrage at the meeting when I twitted dear Sue a bit.”

Annie opened her mouth to attack, but twisted her lips into a polite smile at Max’s warning glance. After all, she wasn’t here to engage Moss in combat.

“Actually, we’re hoping for a frank appraisal of your colleagues,” Max said encouragingly. “This isn’t the time for tactful responses.”

“I’m not known for those.” Another rumble of laughter.

“So you won’t mind if we take a hard look at your faculty—starting with you. Are you Deep Throat, Professor Moss?”

He was still genial. “Funny you should ask. That’s the first thing Burke said to me when we talked Thursday. I’ll give you the same answer. No. But I wish I’d thought of it. I’ve never seen so much excitement generated about this department. As we say in advertising, any public notice—even critical—is better than none. And I would enjoy a public discussion of where this department should go. Burke meant well, but he was living in another age. He was a throwback to the era of Floyd Gibbons and Webb Miller. Those were the days of typewriters and Western Union and extras. Those days are gone. We need sophisticated approaches to marketing and to news gathering. But you young people aren’t interested in hearing about the philosophy of journalism education.”

“Not unless it supplied the motive for murder,” Annie said sweetly.

For an instant he stared at her with cold blue eyes, then he laughed robustly. “I can’t rule it out, but I’ll tell you now, I didn’t bash his head in. I might have enjoyed it, but I didn’t do it. As a matter of fact, Sue Tarrant can vouch that I left R.T. alive and on the warpath. She was coming in as I left.” A
feline smile lifted the corners of his full lips. “And I’d say she was looking for a fight.”

“Burke was on the warpath? Trying to find out who leaked the information from the files?”

“That’s what he said.” There was the faintest inflection on the last word.

Annie pounced. “Do you have any reason to doubt his sincerity?”

“Not altogether. But I will say that he is—was—the newcomer to this faculty. He was determined to change the direction of this department. He had no great affection for any of us. And although he did decide quickly to permit Charlotte to make restitution, I was never convinced that he cared about her personally. I felt, rather, that he saw the shortage as just one more problem but not a major one, not central to his task, and that he made his decision solely on the basis of what would be most helpful to him. A scandal would not have helped.”

“Then why would he feed the information to Kelly?” Max asked.

“Perhaps he’d changed his mind at this point. Perhaps he decided it would be more helpful to his campaign if he got rid of Charlotte, named her replacement, thereby picking up support within the faculty. Or perhaps he intended to reveal all the circumstances of her theft at the news conference which didn’t occur and thereby cast himself in a rather heroic stance, protector of a loyal faculty member who had committed a crime because of an intolerable personal tragedy. And, of course, he could continue feeding information to Kelly that would embarrass the rest of us.”

“You can come up with a lot of maybes, when he isn’t here to defend himself,” Annie said tartly.

“Oh yes, I’m good at that,” Moss said amiably. “On the other hand, I can equally easily believe that he was not responsible, but that he discovered the informant’s identity and it caused his death.”

“In that event, who do you think leaked the information?” Max asked.

Moss frowned. “I would assume, Mr. Darling, that what I say will be held in confidence. I should be very unhappy to pick up the local newspaper and read any report of this discussion.”

“The local newspaper will not hear about any of this from us,” Max assured him. “But I don’t know what the local police intend to reveal.”

A relaxed headshake. “I don’t believe they intend to reveal much of anything. They have made their arrest. And, in passing, I might say I’ve had that young lady in class. I find the proposition that she is a violent murderer to be absurd. But, back to your question. My candidate for your villain is the same now as when Burke and I talked. I’ve always felt that Kurt Diggs likes to live on the edge. Garrison’s cautious. Norden’s out of control. Crandall’s a fool. Now Sue,” he said ruminatively, “Sue’s a dark horse. Hot-tempered, perhaps a little unstable. Perhaps Sue. But of them all, Kurt’s the one with a wild streak.” He stroked his chin, but his massive fingers didn’t quite hide his salacious smile. “I understand he was tried for rape and acquitted when he was in the military.”

“Would that have been in his personnel file?” Annie asked.

A shrug of those bulky shoulders. “I have no idea.” He held up a meaty hand when Annie started to speak. “Although I was on the personnel committee, I certainly wasn’t cognizant of every piece of information in every file.”

Max poised a pen over his notebook. “What can you tell us about those missing personnel files?”

“Not much more than the fact that they’re missing. I went through the offices with a police lieutenant this morning. Now, I don’t know what was in Burke’s files. I couldn’t help them there. But the minute we got to the middle office, I knew there was trouble. Those files are kept in a locked closet which can be opened by a master key or by a key on a bunch kept in the secretary’s desk. In Emily’s desk. By the way, her keys were there. I suppose any faculty member would have known about her keys—but no faculty member would have needed them, because we all have master keys. In any event,
the closet was open—and it shouldn’t have been. I checked immediately and the current personnel files are gone.”

“What do the police think?” Annie asked.

A supercilious glance. “I’m not in their confidence.”

Annie decided Moss would have had his head bashed in years ago if he’d been foolish enough to keep an iron bar handy.

Max hurried to forestall an outburst. “What do
you
think?”

Moss didn’t answer directly. “That door was closed when I left Burke’s office shortly after ten. That is no guarantee, of course, that the files were in there. But I think it’s likely that the door was left open when the files were taken. I would assume that happened at some point after I left and before the explosion.”

“Do you think the murderer took the files?” Annie asked.

Those sardonic blue eyes looked amused. “Isn’t that what we are supposed to think?” He shrugged. “But what else is there to think? And what good does it do anyone to remove those files?”