Conundrum (9 page)

“Will must have wanted to get Carey disoriented so he could push him over the balcony.”

The last comment came from Mack and the women stared at him.

“Isn’t tha
t what we’re talking about here—
who
pushed Carey over?”

“Well, yes, but Will as the murderer? I know he was
a complete jerk, but a murderer—
someone I slept with?”

Ellie put an arm around her. “We always said it had to be one of them. He’s one of our suspects.”

“Wait a minute,” Mack said. “Ellie, you said that if Jerry knew about the drugging plan, then maybe another of them knew as well. What if getting Carey to eat the brownie was the extent of Will’s involvement? What if someone else took advantage of Carey’s altered state and did the pushing? After all, someone’s now murdered Will. Isn’t it more likely that Carey’s murderer has killed again?”

“Otherwise, if Jerry was on the right track, and this second murder was to avenge Will’s drugging and killing Carey, there’s only one person we know who would take it on themself to act as Carey’s avenger…”

Iris looked pained.
“Yeah, me.”

Chapter 13

I
ris convinced a sullen hotel receptionist to phone up to the three rooms. There were many
reunioneers
milling about in the lobby, but no one seemed to need immediate attention, so Iris couldn’t understand why he was acting so beleaguered. The baby-faced youth dressed in a preppy uniform rolled his eyes after each fruitless call. Okay, she wasn’t technically a hotel guest, but she was trying to contact his guests. He didn’t know that they wouldn’t welcome her call. She’d threatened to round the reception desk herself before the clerk agreed to check their status on his computer screen. At least none of them had checked out.

According to the reunion schedule, if they were following it, the group would be attending what was dubbed ‘picnic on the lawn’ at GSD at noon, followed by a round-table discussion in the auditorium on “
Unmodernism
” led by Roger Barton, the class Boy Scout.

She left the hotel and raced to her Jeep just as a meter maid approached brandishing a ticket pad. Iris smiled triumphantly as she started the engine and squealed out into the congested streets of Harvard Square. She crawled along the dozen blocks toward the GSD, her eyes scanning for another parking place. She should have walked the mile from home or even fed the meter and left her car in the square.

The design of
Gund
Hall, which housed the Graduate School of Design, made no pretense of fitting into its context. Amid the brick Georgian architecture of the nearby quadrangles,
Gund
Hall rose as a stand-alone testament to 1960’s concrete Brutalism. The building resembled a giant football bleacher with each floor as a rising step. Outside, you entered the building by walking under the giant top step, which rested on tall, skinny columns, an entry that was more menacing than welcoming. Iris hurried through lobby and lunchroom to the back lawn.

She saw a long line of people snaking past Roger Barton, who was punching lunch vouchers and handing out book bags stamped with GSD emblems.

“Hey there, Iris!
We missed you this morning at the brunch,” he called to her gaily, unaware of her new status as a murder suspect.

As she filled out a name tag, she heard another voice behind her.

“Roger, have you seen G.B. anywhere?”

Iris half-turned to eye a well-built young man with a purposefully clenched jaw.

“I think he’s in the auditorium setting up for the symposium, Steve,” Roger gestured vaguely.

Iris bustled back into the building after Steve, but instead of following him straight ahead to the lobby she turned left toward the open studio levels. She raced up the open stairs two at a time and out the back of the second floor studio into a deserted hallway. After sprinting down its length, she tried to quiet her ragged breathing and cautiously pushed open the door to the
auditorium’s balcony. Ducking down to crawl as she reached the balcony’s edge, she heard Steve’s raised voice below.

“Why didn’t
you give me some notice? Please—
you made me look like a moron. I can’t prepare to cover one of your semiotics classes with no advanced warning.”

She could barely hear G.B.’s placating response.

“…
sorry
… it was a… yesterday… never… terribly…” he soothed.

Iris eased back onto her haunches. So, G.B. had blown off teaching his semiotics class the day before.
The day that Will was murdered.

“I just need you to understand. You put me in an awkward position.”

There was some more indecipherable conversation,
then
one of Piper Auditorium’s enormous doors slammed shut.

Iris backtracked to the hall and took the fire stairs up to the fourth floor administration level. The bulletin board she remembered was still hanging outside the Registrar’s office. She scanned the schedule for the architecture classes. Professor Broussard’s Semiotic class met on Fridays from one until three.
O-
kaaay
.
He’s definitely on the suspect list.

Pleased by her discovery, Iris descended to the first floor, prepared to unmask the secrets of the other suspects. She spotted her first quarry sitting on a spread of napkins which had been arranged on the patchy ground under a towering elm. Alyssa’s blue sweater and white pants stood out from the sea of black and grey architectural mufti around her.

“Hi, Alyssa.
Hello Adam. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk last night. Did you have to stay long with the detective?”

Alyssa eyed her warily and snapped “Will was our friend.” Adam silently glowered.

“And he was my boyfriend, remember?” Iris parried.

“Well, you’re the one the cops hauled off.” Adam bit off a piece of his roast beef sandwich with a smug look.

“They wanted me to identify the body. Will and I had both moved on with our lives. I didn’t even know the adult Will. But you guys must have kept in touch.”

Alyssa’s eyes gleamed meanly. “We went to his wedding the year after graduation. He married Rachel Allen from the Registrar’s office. But then, with kids and work, we all drifted apart. Our lives are so busy, you know. Or maybe you don’t know. You’re still single, right?”

“I can’t imagine who would want to kill Will,”
cuckolded husbands, jilted lovers,
Rachel, “
but it probably had to do with Will’s life in California. Still, it does seem odd that it happened back here in Cambridge,” Iris paused for effect, “so near the setting of Carey’s death 20 years ago, the last time this group was all together. I wonder if those two deaths could be
related?
After all, Will was the one who gave Carey that drugged brownie.” Iris was warming to her performance, trying to shake loose some reactions.

“What are you playing at, Iris—
you think you’re the cops?” Adam practically hissed. Then he stuffed his sandwich wrapper in a brown bag, got to his feet and stalked off. Alyssa scurried after him, turning back to glare at her. “This was supposed to be a fun weekend.”

“God forbid I should spoil the fun,” Iris returned.

She sat thinking for
awhile
then surveyed the lawn. She couldn’t see C.C. or Jerry, but spotted Patty Kim, a sweet woman who had been friendly with Carey, and wandered toward her.

“Hi, Patty.
What are you up to these days?”

“Oh, hi Iris.
I’m living in Watertown, working for Sasaki. I saw one of your houses in the Sunday
Globe Magazine
. I really liked it.”

Iris felt ashamed of herself. Other than Ellie, she hadn’t bothered to stay in touch with the few members of her class that she had liked. They chatted about Norman’s house and Patty’s three kids. Then Patty brought up the subject of Will.

“I saw on the news that Will Reynolds died on his way to the reunion. I’m so sorry, Iris. I know that you guys had been close.”

“It’s awful. I still can’t believe it. And the strange thing is that thinking about this reunion kept reminding me about Carey’s death.”

“
Ohhhh
, me too.
Poor Carey.
Being back here at GSD, I keep expecting to run into him.” She leaned in closer. “You know, I never believed that it was an accident. When the autopsy said that he was stoned, I knew that someone else must have been involved.”

“That’s what I thought too!” Iris said. “Ca
rey told me he never took drugs—
even aspirin. His system was too wired. I told that to the detective in charge, but he didn’t want to hear it. In their minds, if a student flew off a balcony, the kid was a druggie. End of story. I remember seeing his family at the funeral.
His parents and a sister live somewhere around here.
They all wore the same bewildered expression as Carey. It broke my heart. Patty, back at the graduation party, did you notice anyone following Carey into that bedroom with the balcony?”

“No, and I’ve thought about it again and again. I had gone to the bathroom after he and I were talking and he must have wandered in there then. God, I’ve wished I could redo those few minutes.”

“I know what you mean. And now there’s been another death. I keep thinking they must be related. But I don’t remember any connection between them, beyond Will remarking on how brilliant Carey was. Can you think of any?”

“Well, they were both in G.B.’s design studio that last term. You were in it too, right? I remember watching the last crit.
Everyone
else in that group, other than you, seemed to be bristling over all the praise he was getting. It was strange because they were all good designers too. If Carey hadn’t been in the same class, one of them would’ve been the class star.”

“Yeah, strange and tragic.
Listen, if you think of anything else, maybe something that happened during the party, would you please give me a call? I have a card here somewhere…” She fished one out of her purse.

People around them were getting up and moving into the building. Patty stood up and brushed the crumbs off her skirt. “Are you going in to hear the panel?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll catch you later, Patty. It’s been good to see you again.”

By now, most people had wandered inside either to snag a good seat in the auditorium or to look at the lobby-mounted exhibits of work by the reunion class. Iris headed for the lobby. Some foresighted administrator must have stored a sampling of presentation boards from back
then for precisely this purpose—
to flatter alumni into opening up their checkbooks.

The display brought back a flood of memories. The first presentation was of a Michael Graves
knock-off of a housing project—
a beautifully painted watercolor of a building that looked like a cartoon. While the structure itself was a half-baked pastiche of post-Modernist clichés, every tree and window mullion had been lovingly rendered. It was Adam’s. Iris
remembered how excruciating his final review had been, with one critic suggesting he stick to painting watercolors and
forget
about trying to become an architect. As little respect as she had for the guy, she had felt sorry for him.

Next to this hung a
board that was a total contrast—
a complicated slightly messy drawing surrounded by hand-written notes.
Carey’s project.
What
a juxtaposition
; No wonder Adam had been in such a sour mood out on the lawn. He had probably just looked at the show.

The assignment had been to design public housing, but Carey had designed an entire self-sustaining village. He had argued that low-income housing shouldn’t be ghettoized, but rather integrated into the entire town. She peered at one of the notes, remembering his loopy printing.

The hand-drafting and freehand-sketching must look quaint to students now, Iris mused. All drawings, even renderings were done on the computer these days. As she swiveled around to look for one of her own projects, she almost bumped into C.C. standing close enough to breathe on her.

“So, the cops let you go. Or did you tunnel out?”

“I’m out on good behavior.”

They eyed each other. Even dressed in baggy shorts and a ‘Design
will
Save the World!’ T-shirt, C.C. wore a mantle of authority like a fascist dictator or a gym teacher. All that was missing was a riding crop or whistle. How had she ascended the food chain with so little charm? For the first time, Iris wondered about her background.

“Carey was brilliant, wasn’t he?” Iris turned back to Carey’s board. “I’ll bet he would have accomplished great things if he’d lived.”

“He was quite the superstar,” C.C. agreed.

Someone jostled Iris on their way to the auditorium, so she stepped out of the circulation path, moving closer to the wall. She tried to picture the hefty C.C. sneaking up behind Carey on a balcony. If the drugs had kicked in by then surprise wouldn’t have been required in order to topple him over the edge. Then again, most people braced themselves reflexively when C.C. was around.
“So, the house in Lincoln.
Are you seriously interested in running it?”