Murder in the English Department (12 page)

Chapter Twelve

‘SUICIDE?' REPEATED NAN,
not
loud enough to be overheard in the corridor. Had the police planted the story as a trap? Did everyone know he had been stabbed in the stomach? Perhaps they thought it was hara-kiri. She did not want to know any more than she did now.

Matt, always careful, closed the door of his office.

She waited until he sat down, his back to a seventeenth-century print of the River Cam in mid-afternoon. No maudlin dawns or sunsets for Matt, but a subtle three p.m. light, not unlike the colour of the Berkeley sky this grey January day.

‘Shhh,' said Matt. ‘I don't think it's come out in the papers or anything. I just heard one of the policemen talking to Augustine about Murchie's depressions.'

Matt stared out his window as he recalled: ‘Could it be suicide' had asked the tall cop. And Augustine, who knew the old bull best, had said, ‘Yes, he had been quite despondent lately.'

Matt looked back to Nan now, saying, ‘Hell, I feel like I'm in a game of Clue. …'

‘They haven't been around for two or three days,' interrupted Nan, ‘the police, I mean?'

‘No,' said Matt.

‘So they're taking the suicide idea seriously?'

A dozen familiar possibilities collided in Nan's mind. Did Matt suspect that Nan did it, and was he going to offer aid? Did Matt overhear her conversation with Marjorie? Had Matt committed the murder and … So much had happened in the last two weeks that Nan had begun to doubt everything she saw or might have seen on New Year's Eve.

‘This is just between us, you understand,' said Matt.

‘Yes,' nodded Nan, wondering whether she should stop him.

‘Murchie saw me with Enrico in the back corner of Le Croissant—I was giving Rico a little kiss—the week before the murder.'

‘Oh, Matt,' said Nan. Then perhaps he
had
done it. No, that was no motive. Besides, Matt had been giving a party.

‘And Murchie told Augustine,' said Matt, ‘But Augustine came up to me during the New Year's party and said he appreciated my “social discretion”. I think he meant my staying in the closet. He said my private life was my own bladedebladedebla.'

‘Did Murchie tell anyone else?'

‘No, apparently Augustine advised him to keep it quiet. But don't you see, it makes me a … at least in Augustine's eyes, I'm a suspect. And who knows what he'll tell the police, in the interests of a thorough investigation? Damn Murchie, he's more trouble dead than he was alive.'

‘I've begun to figure that out myself,' Nan said.

They fell silent and stared out Matt's window overlooking Sather Gate. Dozens of students coursed through the ornate arches, the relentlessly healthy blood stream of middle-class America.

As she watched Matt tugging on the edge of his trim beard, she awoke to the fact that he was, after all, her old friend. Of course he hadn't committed the murder—even if he were capable of the gymnastics of leaving his own party, sneaking into Murchie's office and escaping without a trace. Besides, there had been Marjorie's voice and the blonde woman running across the campus, and the scarf.

‘Well, look, if they're talking about suicide,' she said, ‘then the air will clear of all these awful suspicions.'

‘Yes,' nodded Matt, unconvinced.

‘That would be two blessings in one,' Nan said brightly.

‘Sorry?' asked Matt, cleaning his glasses of imaginary dust.

‘Well,' said Nan, ‘no one gets arrested and Murchie is dead all the same.'

Her friend looked very uncomfortable.

‘Come on, now.' Nan leaned forward confidentially, ‘You can't tell me you're not glad the bugger is gone.'

‘Quite honestly, Nan,' Matt said, replacing his glasses slowly, ‘I'm glad he's dead.'

‘I am.'

‘Then this office,' he answered hotly, ‘better be the only place you admit that.'

‘Oh, Matt.'

‘I'm serious, Nan.'

‘All right,' she said. ‘All right.'

‘Nan,' said Matt. He looked at her as if he were a stranger. Was he thinking that if she were foolhardy enough to talk like this, she might have been overwrought enough to kill Murchie? He must remember that she hadn't shown up at his party; he must remember her alarm when he had teased her about Murchie on the phone. No, no, he couldn't suspect her. At least not for any longer than she had suspected him.

‘Nan,' said this kindly, but distant man, ‘you simply can't go around talking like that.'

‘Of course you're right, Matt. I guess this has made me a little hysterical.' She realized she wouldn't need to confide about Marjorie now, not if everyone thought it was suicide. Not if everyone were willing to believe it was suicide.

‘And something else, old friend,' said Matt, looking more like his former self, intense and affectionate, ‘I do think you should drop this sexual harassment bit …'

‘What?' she gasped.

‘Now, with Murchie's death, with your mutual antagonism, well, you need to keep a low profile, Nan, at least until the tenure decision.'

‘Tenure,' she snapped. ‘I need you to tell me about tenure? A day doesn't go by that I don't think of the self-esteem, the financial security involved in tenure. I suppose you think I should get a good job at the Telephone Company.'

Matt looked puzzled. She ignored this.

‘All the work those women put into the campaign, and you expect me to drop out?' demanded Nan, relieved by the surge of anger. She felt clear, clean for the first time all week. ‘Why just yesterday
Marjorie Adams
apologised, saying she thought this was an important issue. Marjorie Adams, who has probably never used the word “issue” to refer to anything outside the New Criticism.'

‘I don't see how you can be so flip, Nan,' worried Matt.

Flip, was she flip? Yes, perhaps she was feeling a little lightheaded. Reckless to mention Marjorie like that.

‘Seriously,' Nan went on, ‘I don't know how you think we can shelve political movements until convenient times.'

‘Convenient,' Matt was angry now. ‘Nan, I'm the one who's talking political strategy. Can't you see that the department has had enough, well, enough emotional trauma this term. People will not be receptive … People will be
appalled
if you push your campaign now.'

‘First of all, it's not my campaign,' said Nan.

‘But you're identified as one of …'

‘And what does it have to do with Murchie?'

Matt spoke with more grief than exasperation, ‘Nan, this issue proves your enmity with Murchie. To put it simply, if people think he committed suicide, you should leave well enough alone.'

‘Well enough,' she said, damned if she were going to drop out of a protest that had taken two years to get moving. For all his sensitivity, for all his politics, Matt was still a man. God, she wished Amy were around. What a time for her and Warren to take their second honeymoon.

‘Women are being assaulted every day on this campus,' she said, wondering if he understood how much she was leaving unsaid.

Nan watched her friend's knuckles harden over a paperweight, whiter than the snow inside the glass ball, the River Cam during another season.

‘Listen, old pal.' Nan's voice was not quite her own, ‘We'll have to agree to disagree.'

By 6 p.m., she was
on the way
to Hayward. Usually she hated driving in the dark, but now she didn't notice it. Nothing would equal the darkness of the last week. It felt wonderful to be alone. After that fretful conversation with dear, protective Matt, this ride was feeling positively midsummer.

Suicide, thought Nan, fancy that, our poor guilt-ridden Angus Murchie so contrite about his crimes against woman that he would off himself. The sort of Miltonian morality you might pray for.

Enough of the callous act, she stepped on the accelerator. God, I
am
afraid. For me. For Marjorie. Why can't I bring myself to talk with her about it? The poor woman has probably been raped. All very well that she made a fast alibi and ran off to Matt's party. Quick thinking. But by now she must be writhing with anxiety. What
can
I do? She knows I know. Doesn't she? She knows as much of what I know as I know.

Why was there
nothing
she could do for Marjorie—or for Lisa. At least with Lisa, she was convinced of the diagnosis: Hayward Claustrophobia.

Hayward, she thought, where else can you go nowadays where people talk about neighbourhood spirit, fear of god and improved industrial parks in one conversation? OK. OK. Maybe I'm a snob. Maybe I'm effete and selfish. But I remember years and years as a girl feeling like I was drowning, trying desperately to surface. I had no idea what I'd find at the top, but I knew I couldn't breathe in that atmosphere. I understand what Lisa's going through. I remember the boredom and guilt and anxiety. I know people can suffocate, can die from that depression. Hayward is one thing for Shirley and Joe, who have all their hopes and friends there. But it's quite another for Lisa.

Of course she wouldn't mention Lisa's frustration to Shirley. She wouldn't revive the family feud. She would simply ask if Lisa might recuperate in her flat for a few days, as a change of scene.

‘Absolutely not,' Joe said,
as
Shirley cleared the supper plates. ‘You're absolutely not going back to school in that filthy town. Berkeley is probably where you caught this, this, whatever it is.'

‘Oh, Dad,' pleaded Lisa. She did look much better than Nan remembered from the previous week, but not quite well enough to wrestle with her 200-pound father.

‘Joe, don't you think …' Nan began.

Joe cut her off with a glare, proving, perhaps, that Joe did not think.

The whole evening had grown worse and worse, from tension to accusation to this terrible screaming.

‘But Dad,' Lisa tried again. ‘Dr Bonelli said school was a good idea. It'll keep my mind off things.'

‘Your mind just needs a good rest,' said Joe.

‘But what'll I do, Dad, sitting home all day?'

‘You'll be with your family,' he said, ‘where we can keep an eye on you. Don't you remember that a man was murdered on the same floor where your poor aunt has to work? That place is dangerous, Lisa, especially for a delicate girl.'

‘Oh, Dad, you make me feel like one of those old German mantle clocks, protected in a crystal dome.'

‘Not every girl is as lucky as you, miss, to have a family that really cares, that …'

Lisa ran from the room in an uncharacteristic display of temper, slamming the door. Nan considered how Lisa had become more and more irritable this year, dissolving her reputation as sweet young thing.

Shirley followed her daughter, nervously wringing the dish towel. She returned looking frightened. Joe had moved into the living room and turned on the TV too loudly.

‘Nan,' Shirley said finally, ‘I do believe you promised me a drink.' Her voice was tired, bearing none of the usual cheerfulness. ‘And all night long I've been thinking about those Kalúa Coma Comas that they do down at the Pelican Bay. How about it, sister?'

Nan had forgotten her desperate invitation of yesterday afternoon. Yes, she had planned to tell her sister. Tell her what? That Marjorie Adams had committed suicide on Angus Murchie? There was no longer any need for this sisterly confidence. No need for herself. Nan remembered the betrayal she had felt when, as a teenager, she had started keeping secrets from Mom.

The Pelican Bay was considerably more swanky than seven years before when they had come here to celebrate Nan's new job at Berkeley. Sweet, sentimental Shirley. Clearly, she was prepared for a long, intimate talk.

But what could Nan tell her? Still no new lovers. Nothing definite about the job. The menopause hadn't arrived yet. A few headaches, but nothing serious.

‘I hope things are OK at work,' said Shirley, as they slid into the coral naugahyde booth with a view of the San Leandro Marina.

Nan peered at the night, a quarter moon shimmering against the whitecaps, a few stars visible in the overcast sky. During the day, this was a salt water bog. But the night brought a flattering vagueness. And you could see most of the San Francisco skyline.

‘Work is hectic,' said Nan, in a stalling-for-time tone, ‘but the first week is always like this.'

The young waitress, bound in white satin and black net, handed them huge drink menus in the shape of pelicans.

Shirley, sensing Nan's disapproval, put her hand on her sister's arm and said, ‘Now, Nan, we're here to relax.'

‘Of course you're right,' agreed Nan. She read the list of rich cocktails: Chocolate Brandita, Bananacreamo, Tequila Fruitarama, and her stomach curdled. This reminded her of going to Gorman's Ice Cream Parlor with Shirley when they were kids. She hoped her sister wouldn't think her élitist for just ordering a brandy.

Shirley didn't even notice the order. Rather she was examining Nan's face. ‘Now tell me, hon, what's on your mind?'

Nan took a long sniff of brandy and gazed out at the shadowy shapes of sailboats rocking in their moorings on the rough January bay. What could she tell Shirley to warrant all this secrecy and confidence? Not about Marjorie, but about Lisa.

‘Lisa and I are not planning to be around for the Fourth of July,' said Nan, trying hard to avoid what she really wanted to say about Lisa.

Shirley dropped her straw in mid-slurp.

‘We're thinking of going off to India and Nepal for a long trip next summer. Sounds exciting, eh?'

‘India?' said Shirley.

‘The Himalayas. I have a friend in the department, you've heard me talk about Matt, anyway, he went there last year. Pretty inexpensively. Once you get the plane fare out of the way, you can move around India very cheaply.'