Death by Dissertation (26 page)

“I wanted to confront him, right then and there, and say all the things I never got to say all those years ago. I wanted to make him feel, or at least acknowledge, what I felt then.” He shook his head. “But when the time came, I couldn’t say anything. He practically dared me to say something, knowing that I wouldn’t. He was in control, as always, and I felt just as naive I’d been twelve years ago.”

“What happened after that?”

Dan closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. “Charlie ‘seduced’ me again, except this time, I knew exactly what I was doing. I just didn’t care. The rational part of my brain simply shut down. The next morning, though, I called myself all kinds of idiot, even while I sat by the phone, wanting to call him and wanting him to call me. Of course, he never called. At least, not that day. And I couldn’t get up the nerve to call him. When I saw him on campus, he was always friendly but distant.

“Everything was fine until the end of last semester,” he continued. “Foreign languages have always been my weak spot. I was desperate to pass the Latin exam. I had already failed it twice, and I was told that I could take it only once more, even though the rest of my work was outstanding.” He sighed. “I can handle Latin when I’m not under pressure, but that exam just threw me, every time. They had given me extensions, because I should have passed the damn thing before I got to the dissertation stage. They made allowances because of the rest of my work. But who ever heard of a medievalist who couldn’t handle Latin?

“I was desperate,” he repeated. “I went to the one person I thought could help me most, and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I asked Charlie for help, and he volunteered readily enough.” Dan now looked extremely uncomfortable. “This is going to put you in an awkward position.”

I had discerned what probably happened, knowing Charlie as I did. “I won’t betray your confidence over this,” I promised, hoping he would understand that I meant only his confession about the Latin exam.

Dan expelled a sigh of relief. “The language exams are given on the honor system, as you know,” he said. “Charlie sat with me at my carrel and dictated the translation to me.” He shook his head in reluctant admiration. “I think he looked up one word, the whole forty-five minutes it took him to dictate the thing. It would have taken me that long to wade through the first two or three paragraphs.”

Dan looked away from me. “Needless to say, I passed. Charlie made enough deliberate mistakes for it to seem realistic.”

“And once he had you safely through the Latin exam,” I supplied, no trace of emotion in my voice, “he blackmailed you, didn’t he?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The word blackmail reverberated in the small, stuffy room, though I hadn’t really made an accusation, more of an observation. Dan nodded in response.

“I should have expected something like that from Charlie,” Dan replied. “Knowing the other sterling qualities he possessed, I shouldn’t have been surprised by his taste for blackmail.”

Charlie’s motive for blackmail puzzled me. What could Dan have that Charlie wanted? Startled, I realized I had voiced the question aloud.

Dan snorted. “He got his kicks making people do things they didn’t want to do.” He scratched his head. “After he helped me with that exam, I didn’t hear from him for over a month. Then one day he called and said his place was a mess and he wanted me over there that evening to clean it up for him.” He laughed. “I thought at first he was drunk, and I told him so, but he just smirked and reminded me of what the department would do if they found out how I ‘passed’ my Latin exam.”

He sat up straighten “When I got there, the place was a wreck—purposely so. He had taken the time to make it as messy as possible. His roommate was out of town. It took me four hours to do the laundry, wash the dishes, make the bed, everything. He sat there reading the whole time, acting like I was just some person he had hired to clean his apartment.” Dan’s tone held a note of wonderment mixed with pain. “He was the coldest bastard I’ve ever known.”

His face paled, and again he gazed off into the distance behind me. “There were other things he had me do, things that I don’t want to go into.” He laughed again, and the bitterness in his laughter chilled me. “They didn’t do much for my self-respect. Cleaning his apartment and running menial errands for him were bearable, at least.” He clenched his fists, and his whole face tightened up. “There were more than a few times when I wanted to bash him over the head. You can’t imagine how humiliated I felt. But I thought, once I had my degree, there wasn’t anything he could do to me anymore, and I wanted my degree badly enough to put up with his power trip. He had me right where he wanted me, for the time being anyway, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it except bide my time.’’

“Until you could bash him over the head and get away with it?” I asked this gently, feeling compelled to do it, even though I knew how Dan would respond. If he had believed having his degree would take him beyond Charlie’s reach, he was deceiving himself. Or perhaps he was trying to deceive me, downplaying it, so that I would believe he hadn’t killed Charlie for that reason.

“No,” Dan replied tiredly, “I didn’t. But I wouldn’t mind shaking the hand of the person who did.” He turned to look me full in the face.

“Wouldn’t Charlie have gotten in trouble, too,” I asked, “if he admitted to the department that he helped you cheat on your exam? Why didn’t you try to bluff him? His position wasn’t any better than yours.”

“I didn’t have the nerve, and Charlie knew it. We might both have been expelled, of course, if he had told, but I couldn’t take the chance and force his hand.”

If Dan had stood up to him, I thought, chances were that Charlie, for once, would have been defeated. But maybe Dan was right. Maybe Charlie would have confessed, just to see what would happen. After all, he had money to fall back on if the situation blew up in his face. Dan didn’t.

Before Dan could say anything else, I posed another question. “What were you doing that morning in the grad lounge?” Since I had no idea of the time of Charlie’s death, I wondered what he could tell me.

“I was looking for the Stenton book.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve told you everything else, so you might as well hear the worst. The night before, I got a call at home about a quarter of eleven. It was Charlie, and he insisted I come over immediately to campus. He told me he was in the history grad student lounge and needed to talk to me right away. I was furious, because I was right in the middle of the final chapter of my dissertation, finishing some revisions Whitelock had suggested, and everything was going smoothly. I didn’t want any interruptions when the writing was going so well. When I told him that, he threatened me again and told me I didn’t have any choice.”

Dan paused. “You know, thinking about it now, maybe he was frightened. There was something strained about his tone while he talked to me.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I dropped everything and went to campus. I decided to stop by my carrel and pick up the Stenton book to take home because there were some references I wanted to check. It was about twenty after eleven when I got there. I remember glancing at my watch before I left my carrel.”

As I listened, I wondered what had really happened in the grad lounge that night. Surely, after he had denied any responsibility, Dan wasn’t going to confess to Charlie’s murder. “What then?” I prompted.

“I took the elevator instead of the stairs, and as I turned the corner after getting out on the fifth floor, I thought I saw someone down the hall, going away from me, but since most of the lights were off, I got only a vague impression. Anyway, the light in the lounge was off, and the door was slightly ajar.” He expelled a shaky breath. “I was so angry! I thought Charlie had called me over on a wild-goose chase. It would have been just like him to summon me for no reason, then disappear.”

He shook his head slowly. “I started to turn around and head to the elevator, but instead, I pushed open the door and flipped on the light switch."

I felt a chill across my shoulders. I knew just what Dan had found.

“He was lying there on the sofa,” Dan continued. “I thought at first he was asleep, but then I could see that he was too still. I went over to him and touched him. He was warm—but not breathing.”

Dan shuddered, and, involuntarily, I did too. The bright sunshine did little to dispel our image of the corpse.

“All I wanted,” he said, “was to get out of there as quickly as possible. I had seen the back of his head and knew somebody had killed him. I checked for a pulse and couldn’t find one. I didn’t want to be caught with the body. I turned off the light and got out. It wasn’t until I got to my apartment that I remembered the Stenton book. I must have put it down without knowing it. And by then, of course, the library was closed.” He grimaced. “One of the few times I wished that the history department wasn’t located in the library.

“I hardly slept. All I could think was that someone would find that book, checked out to me, and connect me with the murder. I made certain I was at the library the minute the doors opened the next morning so I could retrieve my book before anyone found the body. I took the stairs that open into the hallway right across from the lounge door. I saw nothing when I sneaked a look out the stairway door, so I stepped into the hallway. The door to the grad lounge had been pulled almost shut. I don’t remember if I closed it the night before. I had just gotten inside the room and found my book when I heard someone coming out of the stairway.”

He looked at me apologetically. “It was you, although I didn’t know that until it was too late. Not that it would have made any difference, I guess, because I was in such a panic. After you noticed Charlie, I pushed you to cover my getaway.” His voice trembled as he continued. “I grabbed the book and got to the stairs as fast as I could. Then, for the next hour, I stayed in my carrel and read, trying to pretend nothing was going on.”

“This person you thought you saw the night before,” I queried, my heart racing. “Do you have any idea who it was? Whether it was a man or a woman?”

Dan shook his head. “The light was too bad, although I do think the person was about average height. That was the only real impression I got. I was in too much of a hurry—and too annoyed—to pay much attention. I’m afraid.”

I hoped whoever it was hadn’t see Dan, because it was probably the murderer. Dan evidently had had similar thoughts, for he said, “When I had time to think about it, I concluded that stopping by my carrel probably kept me from walking in on the murder. Maybe it was more good luck than bad, although I might have saved Charlie’s life.” A shadow passed over his face, even though earlier, he had expressed little regret at Charlie’s death.

The silence lengthened. Dan was gazing at me intently, a question writ large in his face. For a few seconds I felt claustrophobic, uncertain what he expected from me and equally certain that whatever my response, it wouldn’t match his expectations.

After a deep breath, I spoke my mind. “I think you should tell the police what you saw the night of the murder.”

“I know that’s the right thing to do,” he replied candidly, “but I’m terrified about what might come out. If they find out Charlie was blackmailing me, and why, they’ll make me a suspect—not to mention the trouble I’d be in with the history department.”

“Dan, if they dig deep enough, they’re going to find it anyway, at least the fact that Charlie was blackmailing you.” There was just enough doubt in my mind that I wavered on trusting him. “I can’t tell you how I know, but I do know you weren’t the only person he blackmailed. If you go to the police of your own free will, they’re going to be less suspicious than if they have to haul you in for questioning when they discover you’re involved.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he admitted nervously, “but that doesn’t make it any easier.” He brightened, as a sudden thought struck him. “You know, I could tell them I had gone into the lounge that night to leave a note in someone’s box, saw the body, panicked, and ran, and they’d probably never know the difference.”

That gambit was so old, it was hairless, but I wasn’t going to tell him. “That’s your decision,” I replied in a neutral tone. “I can’t make you tell them the truth, but I think you should. You don’t know—maybe you saw something that will help solve the case.” I had no idea what that something might be, but the police needed to know.

He shrugged. “Maybe so.” He stood up, a look of regret on his face as he turned to me. “I know I’ve put you in a difficult position,” he apologized, “but I can’t tell you what a relief it is to talk to someone. I promise I’ll think it over and come to a decision soon, if you’ll give me at least until tomorrow.”

“Dan, right now I can’t promise you anything, despite what I said earlier. What you’ve told me is rather difficult to absorb, all at once. I need some time to think myself.” I shook my head. “I appreciate the fact that you trusted me enough to tell me all this. Ordinarily I would never betray your confidence, but this is an extraordinary circumstance, and I’m just not certain.” I took a deep breath. “But I don’t think it’s my decision, do you?”

“No, not really,” he replied softly. He looked at me, then got up, opened the door, and walked out of the study room.

Watching him weave through the narrow stacks on the way to his carrel, I ruminated on the previous day with Rob and Maggie. Remembering the strained expression on Maggie’s face when we talked about Dan, I wondered if she hadn’t already suspected something. Perhaps she had sensed Dan’s turmoil over his sexuality. Obviously he was still troubled; the relationship with Charlie had been difficult. No wonder the guy was confused. Perhaps that was why Maggie had backed away—wisely, it seemed now—from going out with Dan more than a couple of times.

If Charlie were still alive, I would have had great joy in telling him, at great length, just how disgusting and reprehensible he was. It was the living who suffered; the dead were beyond reach, at least beyond the reach of this world. The thought of demons tormenting Charlie in the netherworld gave me some satisfaction. The pain he had wrought in other people’s lives hadn’t died with him, but maybe he was finally paying for it.