Death by Dissertation (10 page)

“No,” he replied. “I found it in his desk.”

“Well, calm down and tell me about it.” I tried to soothe him but didn’t have much luck.

“I was looking through Charlie’s desk, trying to find an address book or something with his parents’ address and phone number in it, and couldn’t, so I started looking through the files and found a folder labeled ‘Will.’ I thought I should turn it over to Charlie’s lawyer, if he had one.” Rob paused and took a deep breath, making an effort to calm himself further.

“In that folder I found an envelope that said ‘For Rob.’ I debated a while, but I figured if it had my name on it, I could open it, right?” He looked to me for assurance, and I nodded.

“So I opened it, and this is what I found.” He thrust the paper at me, and I took it.

“Dear Rob,” I read aloud, “if you’re reading this, it means that I’m dead and gone.” I looked up, not appreciating Charlie’s slightly macabre sense of humor, and Rob nodded wearily. “But don’t worry about me. I’ve taken care of you, and if you’re careful, you’ll never have to worry about money again. Just open the large manila envelope in this folder, and follow the instructions enclosed inside. With all my love, Charlie.”

“Wow,” I said. “So what did you do with the will?” I tried not to think about the implications on that piece of paper.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said grimly, “because it wasn’t there! The folder was empty, except for the letter. Then I looked all through Charlie’s desk, but there was no manila envelope.”

“Good lord! Do you think the person who broke in last night took it?”

“It’s possible,” Rob replied. “One of the desk drawers wasn’t quite shut when I started looking, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. Charlie may have done something with it, instead. Who knows?”

“Did Lieutenant Herrera look through the desk yesterday?” Maybe that was the simplest explanation.

He shook his head. “No, but I thought he would at some point. Now it’s too late.”

“What could someone want with Charlie’s will?” I asked.

“To get me in trouble!” Rob said, his head in his hands. “This is it. If Charlie left me a lot of money, then Herrera will be convinced now that I killed him for it. What am I going to do, Andy?”

In the face of his panic, I forced myself to focus. “Look,” I said, putting a hand on his arm to get his attention. “Just because Charlie might have left you some money doesn’t mean you’re automatically suspect. The police have to prove that you knew Charlie was going to leave it. Did you?”

Rob was calming down, listening and considering what I’d said. “No, I didn’t, but if a copy of the will was just sitting there in Charlie’s desk, the police will find it hard to believe that I didn't know about it.” He took another deep breath. “How many graduate students have wills, for heaven’s sake? Why should I think Charlie had a will, or that he would have left me anything?”

“You’re right, Rob,” I replied. The idea of a will did seem a bit weird, but if I came from a wealthy family, maybe I’d think differently. With the exception of my cousin Ernestine, no one in my family had much of anything to leave, beyond a few pigs and the odd chicken or two.

“Since Herrera didn’t go through Charlie’s desk yesterday,” I said, “why don’t we hide this letter here, in my place? That’s one piece of evidence linking you to the will that we can produce only if we have to, and we can keep it safer over here.”

He leaned away from me on the couch, watching me closely as he spoke. “Are you sure you want to do that? What if Herrera finds out? You could be an accomplice.”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get in any deeper, but seeing his distress, I didn’t have the heart not to help him. “Why should Herrera even think I’d have such a thing? It won’t be a problem, I promise you. And by the time he finds out about any will, he’ll have arrested the murderer, and it’ll all be moot, anyway.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

I forced myself to face him directly. “It’s okay, Rob. Now, let me put this away somewhere.” I brandished the piece of paper before trudging upstairs. I stuffed it into a box in the rear of my closet. I couldn’t imagine the police, or anyone else for that matter, digging through the junk in my closet to find it.

Downstairs once more, I motioned for Rob to follow me into the kitchen, where I offered him something to drink.

“How about some coffee?” he asked. “I can’t do Diet Coke until around lunchtime.” He indicated the can in my hand.

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t drink the stuff, and I figured he was better off making his own. My roommate was a coffee drinker, so I pointed him to the coffeemaker and the coffee.

While Rob waited for his coffee, I sipped my Diet Coke and thought about Charlie’s will. Obviously, Rob’s friendship had meant more to Charlie than Rob had realized. Who knew, though, why Charlie would have left him something in his will? And the Good Lord only knew how much it would be. Could be in the millions, if Charlie meant what he said in that letter. Had it been merely Charlie’s way of thumbing his nose at his family? Or had he genuinely appreciated Rob’s friendship? Maybe Charlie really had been in love with Rob.

The groaning and grinding of the coffeemaker brought me into the present.

“Thanks, Andy,” Rob said as he poured himself a cup.

“It’s only coffee,” I said, deliberately misunderstanding.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He sat down across the table from me. He took several sips of his coffee, and I waited. “Yesterday and today, I’ve asked a lot of you, presuming on an old friendship. If I could go back and do some things over again, believe me, I would, for your sake, if not for mine. But we can’t go backwards, and I can’t erase the past. Maybe we can go forward, though?”

I turned to look out the window, not wanting to acknowledge the question in his eyes. “We’ll see, Rob. Let’s just get through this mess, and then we’ll see. We should concentrate for now on who killed Charlie, and why.”

“You’re right.” Rob, suddenly brisk, drained his coffee cup and set it down on the table. “Now that I’m calmer, I’ll go home and get some work done, gather my stuff together for later. I guess the police aren’t going to come breaking down my door for a few hours yet. What are you going to do?”

Without giving much thought, I answered, “I’m going to campus to get some books I need. I’ll be home again in a couple of hours, then I’ll help you bring your stuff over.” I hesitated. “Are you going to be okay?”

He smiled, holding my gaze for what seemed a long time. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

With that, Rob departed, and I headed for my car, trying to get my breathing back to normal. I couldn’t believe he still had this effect on me.

I wasn’t sure what I would accomplish on campus, but I couldn’t face reading that book on medieval English law. There were other books I had to work on, but they were in my carrel in the library. I was taking two readings courses for the semester, in addition to my once-weekly seminar, so most of the time my nose was buried in a book. (Otherwise known as Heaven, to the masochistic species known as Graduate Student.)

Something about a book teased at my memory. I shrugged it off. Whatever it was, it would come to me. For now, I could concentrate on other things. At the very least, I might hear something interesting on campus, and I could chat for a while with my advisor, Ruth McClain.

Twenty minutes later, I knocked on Ruth’s office door, on the fifth floor of the library. After hearing “Come in,” I opened the door but stopped abruptly and began to make apologies, for she already had a visitor.

“No, please, it’s quite all right,” the visitor said as she stood. “Ruth and I have finished our business, and I’m afraid I was just wasting her time chitchatting.”

Ruth’s visitor was Margaret Wilford, whom I had seen with Selena and Azalea the night of Dr. Farrar’s lecture. She wore a charcoal gray business suit and carried an expensive-looking leather briefcase. Her blonde hair, which she wore in a fashionable short cut that highlighted a strong, attractive face, gleamed in the fluorescent light of the office.

Ruth stood up also. “Margaret, I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk before the big day. I’ll see you then.” She shook hands with Margaret, who smiled at me in a vaguely friendly fashion, though I could see her attention was focused elsewhere.

Once Margaret had gone, Ruth motioned for me to take the recently vacated seat and made herself comfortable in her chair.

At forty-two, Ruth McClain, thin, attractive, and passionate about her subject, made the study of the Middle Ages a joy. Her blue eyes lit up and her voice conveyed her enthusiasm whenever the conversation veered toward anything in which she was interested—and her interests were wide-ranging. In the five years she had been a member of the history department, she had won two teaching awards, and her classes were always full.

Ruth and I had quickly established an unusual rapport. I felt I had known her for years. She was comfortable enough with me to indulge in a little discreet gossip from time to time, and I appreciated her obvious concern for my well-being and my progress in my studies. She was the kind of mentor I had hoped for when I entered graduate school, and I was extraordinarily lucky to be working with her.

“Is Margaret Wilford one of your students?” I asked, because I really didn’t know that much about the woman.

“Yes, she took a couple of my seminars several years ago,” Ruth answered. “Margaret is defending her dissertation next week. She’s one of the dwindling number of Julian’s students.” She paused uncomfortably at the segue. “How are you?” she asked. “From what I hear, you had a pretty horrid shock yesterday.” Then she shook her head. “I shouldn’t force this on you right now.”

“No, it’s okay.” I smiled. “I don’t mind talking about it.”

“Then I must admit to a certain curiosity.” She smiled back gently. “I wasn’t that fond of Charlie, but it’s difficult to imagine a reason for killing him.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. I saw him that night, you know. I came over to the library after Dr. Farrar’s lecture, and then I went upstairs with Maggie McLendon to check my mailbox. Charlie and Rob Hayward were in the lounge, and Charlie was acting completely in character, of course, so my last words with him weren’t exactly friendly.”

“Few people ever exchanged friendly words with him, myself included,” Ruth contributed wryly. “He wasn’t a man who engendered neutral reactions. I’ve never met a person who seemed to enjoy being malicious as much as he did.” She shook her head. “It’s a pity, his talent wasted like this. He had the intuitive gifts and the flashes of inspiration that it takes to make a first-rate historian.”

“We sound like were writing a eulogy.”

“Not a very comforting one, I’m afraid, to anyone who truly liked the man,” she said, the shadow of sadness drifting across her face.

That was one of the reasons I liked Ruth. Even when she didn’t particularly like someone, she nevertheless had the charity to feel compassion.

She continued. “As much as most everyone disliked him, I still can’t imagine why anyone would murder him.”

This was an issue I had to skirt carefully; although I trusted Ruth, I couldn’t share with her speculations on Charlie’s possible blackmailing activities just yet. But because I needed all the information I could get, I steered the conversation in a different direction.

“In this case,” I said carefully, “the police may be more concerned for a while with opportunity, rather than motive. At least, that’s the way it often happens in the police procedurals.” Since Ruth was as devoted a mystery reader as I was, I had no doubt she understood the reference. “I think the murder occurred at some point before the library closed at midnight. There aren’t many people around here late at night, and whoever did it could move around with little worry about being noticed.”

She agreed. “That night was certainly a good choice, if this was planned. With the reception for Ms. Bladen”—a reference librarian who had retired after forty years of service—“and Elspeth’s lecture, most of the history faculty and graduate students were on campus. And, as distasteful as the idea is, the murderer must be someone we all know. The coincidence would be too great for it to be a complete stranger. I guess I’ve read too many mysteries to think otherwise.”

“That’s what I think, too,” I answered. “Everyone up here on the fifth floor knows everyone else’s habits pretty well, and Charlie often stayed late in the library. The killer didn’t have to take much of a chance on finding him here.”

Ruth shivered. “I might have been here myself.” Her office wasn’t far from the graduate lounge. “I work here several nights a week, often until eleven or eleven-thirty. I may revise my habits for a while until the murderer is caught.” She frowned. “Julian and Elspeth are here late as often as I am, but Elspeth would probably never notice anything.”

“Have you talked to Dr. Whitelock lately?” I asked casually.

“Oh, yes,” she answered, grimacing. “In our faculty meeting this morning, you should have heard Julian’s tirade against campus security for allowing such a thing to happen. He seemed genuinely upset. I doubt he was actually fond of Charlie, but Charlie was the most talented student he’s had in a while, and that must have counted for something. There was something odd, though, about the relationship between Charlie and Julian,” Ruth continued in a reflective tone. “Lately, Julian seemed almost afraid of him for some reason. If this were a Patricia Wentworth scenario, I’d say that Charlie was blackmailing him.”

My stomach did a quick dance. What could Ruth know?

“Of course, it’s sheer fancy on my part,” she continued before I could respond. “Charlie may have had a malicious wit and a razor-sharp tongue, but that doesn’t mean he had criminal tendencies.” She shrugged. “The last few days, Julian has seemed... well, I suppose apprehensive is the best word. I’d have expected him to be crowing over his new article in the
Medieval Quarterly
, but he hasn’t said a word about it to me.”

For the first time, she noticed that I was finding little to say; she couldn’t know the effort I was making to remain aloof, especially after she mentioned Whitelock’s article. “You’re not chiming in on cue, you know, to agree that I’m letting my imagination run riot. Do you know something I don’t?”