Medieval Murders (9 page)

16

Early in the workday on Tuesday morning, Ray gingerly carried two large cups of coffee and a bag from the Boulangerie André from the parking lot into the medical center. With his precious load, he carefully negotiated the revolving door, took the elevator to the subway level, and made his way to the pathology department.

Dr. Gutiérrez turned away from her computer screen and looked at him.

“It’s a good thing I come in early. In most places you would have to wait a day or two for this.” She motioned to the screen. “This wasn’t in your jurisdiction, was it?”

“No, but I was at the scene. I’m interested in the case.”

Gutiérrez pointed at the bag.

“Coffee,” Elkins responded. “Coffee and dark chocolate croissants.”

“Good. The autopsy put me behind schedule. I’m an hour late for my morning snack. You joining me?”

“I’ll just stick with the coffee.”

Gutiérrez looked in the bag. “You better eat one, doctor’s orders.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to get fat.”

“Aren’t you still refereeing youth soccer?”

“Yes, running my butt off trying to keep up with the kids. And what I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t need any extra butt. So eat, you’re looking undernourished.”

Gutiérrez placed the croissants on some paper plates she pulled from a bottom desk drawer and passed Ray a paper towel to use as a napkin.

“These are great, Ray,” she said after consuming half of the pastry. “Now if we could get a decent bagel without having to go a thousand miles. Can we talk about the accident without ruining your appetite?”

“Sure,” said Ray.

“What exactly happened?”

“It looked like the Hendrickson ran a stop sign and slammed into the side of a truck. There was a fire. It was horrible. I left when things appeared to be under control. It was more than I could deal with.”

“Well, the victim was a bit broasted, but the body was pretty much intact. Maybe you couldn’t see it. The victim was decapitated. Probably never knew what hit her, or I guess in this case what she hit. Head’s in good shape. I talked to one of the EMT’s this morning who was at the scene.”

“Yes?”

“He told me when they removed the body, they couldn’t find the head. They looked around the accident scene, even in the ditches by the side of the road. Finally he found it on the floor of the passenger’s side, way at the front under the dash. Said it was sort of weird, head was down there and so was a bourbon bottle.” She looked up and gave Ray an amused smile. “Her blood alcohol was 0.23. Glad it didn’t boil off. We wouldn’t have been able to determine that,” she laughed at her joke. “So what’s your interest in this?”

“The accident was at the entrance to my sub. I was at the same party. I may have even been introduced to the woman. You know what it’s like at a noisy party.”

“Yes, been there. People talking at one another, but you’re often just guessing at what’s being said.”

“Here’s what’s special,” said Ray. “This is the second member of the English department to die in a week. At that blood alcohol level, what did you say, 0.23, how well could she function?”

“It depends, most of us wouldn’t be able to walk, but someone who is habituated to alcohol, they can handle it. During my internship I’d see people in the ER with this level or even higher, and you’d hardly know that they had been drinking. The human body is an amazing machine. It can adapt to almost any abuse, at least for a while. This woman, what’s her name?” She glanced at the screen. “Hendrickson, you can tell she was a hard drinker, had been for years.” She gestured with the pastry. “These are great, thank you.”

Elkins nodded.

“It’s the only place in town where you can get decent pastries or bread. Most of these flat-landers don’t understand baking. Their palettes have never gotten beyond Little Debbie.” She ate the last bit of the croissant, and then licked the chocolate off her fingers. “Who’s going to identify the body? Does she have family locally?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, this isn’t a job for the squeamish.”

“I’ll ask the department chair. He identified Bensen.”

“This one looks better than Bensen. Hairs a bit singed and one ear is rather crisp, and she has sort of a detached look on her face, if you know what I mean.” She gave Elkins a naughty-child grin. “You know what I’m really sorry about? That I encouraged you to eat the other croissant. But before you go...”

“Yes,” said Ray.

Gutiérrez pulled a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope from a file drawer. “Let’s do right arm, then left arm, and average the two.”

Ray submitted, knowing that a lecture would follow.

17

Reda Rudd stood at Ray’s office door. He waved her in. “Have a seat. Are you okay?”

“I guess I wanted to ask you the same thing. I saw you wander away sometime after the fire trucks arrived. I looked for you later and couldn’t find you.”

“I went home. It was all too much,” Ray said.

“That’s surprising. I assumed you had dealt with things like that when you were a cop. What did you tell me, Detroit?”

“Good memory. And I did see my share of death and mayhem. And at the time I coped with it. I think I may have had better defenses then. I was just doing a job, being a professional.” Elkins sat and rocked a bit in his chair.

“And now?” asked Reda.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had to deal with death and violence on a day-to-day basis for years. Perhaps I’ve lost my professional distance. Or maybe I’m just getting older, becoming increasingly aware of my mortality.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “When I saw you in front of Chesterton’s house, were you leaving?”

“No, I lost my date, the jerk. I came out to see if he was having a smoke. We’d had a thing about tobacco earlier in the evening. Anyway, I ran into Father Bob while I was looking for Gus.”

“How do you know Father Bob?”

“I’m sort of Catholic, or at least my family is. My freshman year I attended Mass from time to time. Haven’t seen him much since then.” She paused, “ A question, that woman you were standing with, Jane Arden, was she your date?”

“No, I had just been introduced to her. We went out for some air. Why do you ask?”

“After the crash, you just left her standing there. To be honest, Elkins, I thought it was sort of peculiar.”

Ray visualized the scene. “I really know how to impress a woman, don’t I? I should have checked on her later.”

“It was a chaotic scene. If you weren’t really with her, it’s probably no big thing. I had Arden my sophomore year, a survey class. She’s a smart woman, nice person, too.”

“Did you go back to the party?” asked Ray.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I went to find Gus. I wanted to go home. There were a whole lot of people on the inside who didn’t know anything had happened, but it didn’t take long for the word to spread. Then things were over rather quickly. Everyone left en masse.”

“Did you know Hendrickson?”

“I had her winter term last year for Southern Writers. A wonderful instructor, she had lots of interesting anecdotes about the writers we were studying. She really knew the material and the back-stories of the writers and their works. She gave us the impression that bourbon was a very important part of the creative process for most of these writers.”

“Did you know her outside of class?” Ray asked.

“After the final, we went to a bar, most of the class. That was the only time.”

“Did you see Hendrickson at the party?”

“I talked to her for a while early in the evening, and I saw her when I was standing with Father Bob. She stopped for a minute and joked with us. She said department parties reminded her of Polish weddings. It seemed funny at the time, but I have no idea what she was talking about.”

“How did she seem? Intoxicated?”

“I don’t think so. Her speech wasn’t slurred, she wasn’t staggering or anything.”

“Did she leave alone or was anyone with her?”

“She was alone. She waved at me as she walked down the driveway. You came out and then a few minutes later there was that awful crash.” Reda assumed her reporter’s tone, “We want to do a complete story on the accident. What can you tell….”

Elkins raised his hand to stop her. “You’ll have to talk to the Sheriff’s Department. They’re handling the investigation. You need to get to know the Sheriff, Jack Kackmeister. He’s a good guy and a graduate student of mine. I’ll tell him that you’re a real professional.”

“Thanks, Elkins. I owe you. You know, I had to interview Kackmeister last year when I was working on a story. I could hardly get him to say anything. Why are cops so damn paranoid about reporters?”

“You can probably answer that question. First, they have to be careful not to disclose anything that might ruin a possible prosecution. And second, so many cops have been done in by reporters—misquoted or had things taken out of context.”

“How about just CYAing?”

“There’s that and sometimes incompetence or corruption. You ran into that on your big story last year.”

“Yes. That was an education.”

“Oh, by the way, your date, a long-term relationship?” asked Ray.

“No, I just met him. I’m still recovering from a love affair that ended very badly.”

“So, who is this guy?”

“Gus, he’s new to the department, his first year. Got his degree from Northwestern, American Studies. I just met him a few days ago. We live in the same apartment complex. It was our first date, probably the last. I can’t stand guys that smoke. Did you ever smoke, Elkins?”

“I did, and I quit. I started again, and I quit. I think I’m beyond it.”

“Tobacco, how did you kick it?”

“Getting involved with a woman who hated it. I had to make a choice.”

“Good for you. Thanks, Ray.”

18

Sharon Anderson watched Ray get off the elevator and walk to the glass door that opened to the Chancellor’s office. As he approached her desk, she said, “You can go right in. Please know, he’s in a lousy mood.” She reached out and briefly held on to his hand.

“What’s going on?” Ray asked.

“There’ve been too many calls from the press. That sets him off every time.”

“Thanks for the warning,” said Ray. He knocked and waited a few seconds before he turned the handle and went in. Pearson was on the phone.

“The people from media relations will get back to you as soon as we have the complete story. Yes, it’s tragic to lose two members of one department, but I can assure you that it’s purely coincidental. There is nothing to those reports of discontent in the humanities faculty. That’s just pure bunk. People playing politics, nothing more.”

Pearson slammed the receiver down. “That’s the kind of bullshit I’ve got to put up with. The
State News
is running an editorial in this afternoon’s edition that the two ‘suicides’ this week in the English department are a symptom of the deteriorating morale in the university’s humanities faculty. They just faxed it over.” He waved a couple of sheets of paper in Elkins’s direction. “He, the editor, wanted a comment from me that they could include in tomorrow’s edition. Bastard. So what the hell is going on, anyway?”

“With Hendrickson?”

“Yes, who the hell do you think I’m talking about?”

“As far as I can tell, it was a traffic accident.” Ray dropped into a chair across from Pearson. “Hendrickson ran a stop sign and hit a truck. Her blood alcohol was more than 0.23. She was intoxicated.”

“Two in one week. You know how these play on the farm. Those good people pay high taxes so a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals at the state university can run around killing themselves or getting killed. You should go to the legislative hearings and beg for money from those SOBs. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. Stories about their kids or the kids of friends and neighbors who come here, God-fearing and with strong family values, and after four years they’re nothing but a bunch of fornicating drug addicts and drunks.”

“How you gonna keep’em down on the farm after they’ve seen...”

“What?” asked Pearson.

“Just a line from an old song that seemed to fit. What do you want me to do?”

“Can you get the sheriff to cooperate?”

“He’s a graduate and is currently working on a Ph.D. He will help in any way that is proper and legal.”

“A sheriff getting a Ph.D. What the hell’s the world coming to? Common sense and some muscle used to be enough. Now you got to get a Ph.D. to make up for a lack of it.”

Ray was about to interrupt. He kept reminding himself that the war was more important than the battle.

“This is what I want,” continued Pearson, “I want a good, clear statement from the sheriff that this was an accident. I don’t want the word suicide even hinted at in the statement. Be nice if you could leave alcohol out, too. Can you do that?”

“I can handle the suicide part. I don’t know where that came from. There’s nothing to suggest this was anything other than an accident. Hendrickson’s alcohol level is already public record. You can’t change the facts. The sheriff’s integrity....”

“Integrity hell, how about my integrity, how about the integrity of this school?

Elkins controlled his anger. “Is there anything else?”

“No. Just get that statement. I want our people to have a press release on this as fast as possible. They can add all the crap about what a wonderful scholar she was and make it look like the usual release when a faculty member dies.”

“I will get you an accurate statement of the facts from the sheriff.” Ray got up and left the office.

Sharon looked up and smiled, “I told you.”

“How do you take it day after day?”

Without hesitation she responded, “Yoga and breathing exercises, that and the positive energy that comes from the knowledge that chancellors come and chancellors go. Take care of yourself, Elkins. Don’t let the bad karma rub off.” She gave him a warm smile and reached to touch his hand again. Then, “Namaste,” she softly offered, placing the tips of her fingers together.