Murder in the English Department (15 page)

‘Enough,' laughed Shirley. ‘Enough silliness. Pour yourselves some beer and go relax in the living room. Daddy will be out of the shower in a minute.'

‘In less than a minute, my little butterball,' said Joe, pinching his wife on the ass, then hugging her.

Nan felt the same uncomfortable urge she had had twenty-five years before, to pry his arms apart and rescue her sister. In the intervening time, she had come to admit that Shirley was happy, that Joe was a decent man, that they lived in a different world with different choices. But she did wish Joe wouldn't act as if he owned Shirley.

Perhaps reading her mind, or at least chastened by the expression on her face, he said convivially, ‘And how is the prettiest professor west of the Rockies?'

‘Fine, Joe, fine,' said Nan. I will behave, she said to herself. I will behave.

‘So how does it feel to be a Grand Jury witness?' he went on.

‘Happy that the interview is over,' said Nan, hoping to detour the conversation.

‘We were worried about you,' said Shirley, her eyes watchful. ‘It's so scary, thinking there's a murderer on the loose.'

‘Ah, Nan can take care of herself,' said Bob, ‘She's a smart broad.'

‘Who are you?' asked Lisa as she walked in, ‘Humphrey Bogart, Jr? Watch your sexist language, brother.'

Shirley looked at Nan. Nan shrugged, then smiled quickly to Lisa. Lisa put up two fingers in the old peace sign.

‘Pax familias and all that jazz,' said Lisa.

‘Amen,' said Nan, touched by this unanimous complicity to celebrate Shirley's birthday peacefully.

Each of them made an effort to observe the evening the way Shirley wanted it. Friendly and low key. Conversation was restricted to family memories—Christmases, birthdays, vacations.

One thing they did not discuss tonight was Lisa's illness. Lupus, thought Nan, staring at her niece across the dinner table. It could be Lupus. Or just anaemia. Or tension. They did not talk about it. But privately this evening, Lisa had whispered to Nan that she would be back in school spring quarter. And, later, in the kitchen, Shirley had confided to her sister that Lisa's vacation from college next quarter would do her the world of good.

Those lines from
To the Lighthouse
crossed Nan's mind again, ‘And Rose would grow up and Rose would suffer so … Choose me a shawl, for that would please Rose who was bound to suffer so.'

After dinner, Nan looked around the oak table at Lynda, Tom, Debbie, Bob, Lisa, Joe and Shirley, wondering again what bound her to them. It was more than years. Tonight she had again noticed with pleasure how much Lisa resembled her. The high cheekbones, the deep hazel eyes. Also the gestures—the tense strength in her jaw, the wide-awake way she listened to people. And Shirley—with every visit Shirley reminded Nan more of Mom. Nan could not keep her eyes off Debbie's stomach. She had even bent down to feel the kicking and hiccoughing of the forthcoming generation. Would the high cheekbones and the hazel eyes survive? How much of Nan would be passed on?

Lynda brought in the cake. Lisa and Tom carried the presents. Shirley could barely sit still while the others served. Her skin was slightly pink from the champagne, and her eyes were moist.

‘Ah, Mom,' teased Tom, ‘you're not going to cry.'

‘Oh, no,' Shirley began, ‘not at all …'

‘You leave her cry if she wants,' said Joe.

‘It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to,' sang Lisa.

‘Oh, enough of this,' laughed Shirley, ‘enough!'

Nan watched, smiling. Inside her smile she wondered whether Shirley was a person, distinguishable from her family. An individual. Then she wondered if perhaps Shirley hadn't made a better choice than her own—about individuality, about loneliness.

On the way home, Nan confided to Isadora how different her own birthdays were. She had spent the last three August 24ths dining with Matt at Chez Panisse. ‘Much as I love the escargots and the pâté,' she confessed, ‘it's not the same as a Hayward party.'

How had Nan and Shirley grown so far apart? They were equally bright; brought up by the same mother's love. Nan knew her sister would do anything to save her life—give up a kidney, fight for her place in the fallout shelter—even though they irrevocably disagreed on the purpose of that life.

‘Enough sentimentality,' Nan scolded and turned on the radio. Then she heard herself whispering, ‘You know, Isadora, if I ever tell the real story of New Year's Eve, it will be in that living room in Hayward.'

Chapter Fifteen

AMY TOLD NAN NOT
TO WORRY
. She spoke with clear, lawyer's confidence. At least one other person from the English Department had been called back by the Grand Jury, she had learned. The DA probably had no further evidence, but he had to make this last show of thoroughness.

At first, Nan hoped that the other witness might be Matt. They could support each other, talk it over afterwards. Afterwards. How Nan longed for afterwards. But the other witness wasn't Matt. Nor was it Hammerly, nor Augustine. She wouldn't ask further. No sense advertising her appearance before the entire faculty. Testifying to the Grand Jury wasn't the kind of consulting that won you tenure points.

Amy assured her that it would be a brief appearance, that it would all be over Thursday evening. Nan was relieved because Lisa was arriving on Saturday. She wouldn't bother to tell Shirley about the Grand Jury, no use worrying her for nothing.

As Nan and Amy reached
the third floor of the courthouse that evening, Nan spotted a familiar figure walking away from them.

‘Mr Johnson,' she called, half in surprise, half in greeting. She was reassured to see someone she knew.

Mr Johnson turned slowly and raised his hand in response. ‘Hello, there,' he began.

Then the attorney, a large black man, pulled down Mr Johnson's arm and ushered him along the corridor.

Inside the stuffy courtroom, Nan regarded the now familiar faces of the Alameda County Grand Jury. During the last week she had often wondered about them, wondered what kind of job the thin, older woman had, how many children the red-haired man had. She felt easier with them now, not completely comfortable, but more
familiar
, the way you get used to strangers on a long train ride.

When she looked around at the faces, she expected a reciprocal familiarity, but found, instead, a formal coldness. She tried to ignore this by imagining them as nervous students on the first day of class.

Some of the questions were the same as last week.

So were the answers.

‘I spent New Year's Eve with my family in Hayward,' said Nan, thinking of civil war sanctuaries and borrowed kidneys.

Then the District Attorney's mouth hardened; his voice seemed to come from somewhere else, as if he were a ventriloquist's dummy.

‘We have other evidence, Miss Weaver,' he said.

Nan could not imagine where he had got his ‘other evidence'. So, instead, she wondered how she could get him to call her
Dr
Weaver.

Of course she had nothing to fear, she told herself. She had committed no crime. Well, perhaps she had withheld evidence. But they couldn't give her the death penalty for that.

‘I said, Miss Weaver, that we have other evidence,' the DA repeated.

‘Oh, do you?' answered Nan with more indifference than she thought she could muster from her fevered body.

‘Someone has testified to seeing you at Wheeler Hall the night of the murder, Miss Weaver.'

Nan's eyes had that faraway look that Lisa's often got. She wasn't too far away, actually, just out in the corridor watching Mr Johnson walk jerkily away from her. So he
had
been at Wheeler Hall all night. He had seen her light under the door earlier that evening. Of course he would be asked to testify. He might even be a suspect. Everyone knew that Angus Murchie had once referred to the quiet, omnipresent Mr Johnson as ‘the Big Black Shadow'. One of the professor's unfortunate alcoholic slips.

Nan imagined that Mr Johnson's good lawyer had advised him, ‘This is no time to protect her. You've got a family of your own. And a white woman has extra defences. Don't you be a fool, Clarence Johnson. Don't you go putting yourself on the line for some white woman professor.' The black man against the feminist, thought Nan, a final irony Murchie might have enjoyed.

‘We would like to know a little more about the whole evening, Miss Weaver,' said the DA. ‘Did you see Professor Murchie?'

Nan requested a chance to leave the room and consult with her attorney. ‘Consult' was a difficult word, since she had told Amy nothing about New Year's Eve. The fewer people who knew, the better, she reminded herself once again.

When Amy heard the question and Johnson's evidence, she blew up. ‘Listen, Nan, we'll have to ask for a recess.'

‘No,' Nan said firmly, ‘there's nothing to discuss. I just want to take the Fifth Amendment.'

‘What do you mean, “nothing to discuss”,' said Amy, looking around the corridor to make sure they were alone. She lowered her voice, ‘Nan, buddy,
we have to talk this out
.'

The argument lasted fifteen minutes. It was Amy's argument as she demanded various pieces of the puzzle. Nan remained silent. Finally, the birdlike clerk emerged and cleared his throat in their direction.

Nan waved to him politely. ‘Just a minute,' she said. Then she turned back to Amy with finality, ‘I just need to know if I can take the Fifth Amendment with a Grand Jury.'

‘No, you can't. But you can do anything else you like,' said Amy, more furious than Nan had ever seen her, ‘including getting yourself another lawyer.'

The District Attorney expressed profound disappointment with Miss Weaver's unco-operative stance. If she spoke, he assured her, she would be given unconditional immunity.

As he droned on, Nan stared at the display board with the forensic skeleton of Angus Murchie, an ‘X' over the stomach.

‘The evidence you give cannot be used against you, Miss Weaver,' he said kindly, slowly, as if she were deaf or stupid. ‘We're just trying to get at the truth.'

‘I understand that,' she said stiffly. ‘But I'm afraid that I have nothing to add.'

‘Did you see anyone on campus that night?' he asked.

‘I did not say I was on campus,' Nan answered.

‘Were you on campus?' he persisted.

‘I have already testified,' she said, ‘that I spent New Year's Eve with my family.'

The DA tried several other questions until it became apparent to everyone that Nan had nothing to say, nothing to say at all.

When Nan finished her testimony and walked out into the hallway, it was with a very different spirit from the week before. Then she had had Matt and Amy to talk to. Tonight she would be alone. She felt terrified, as if the nightmare were becoming relentlessly more real by the hour. She tried to push aside her fears about her impending murder trial and conviction. She was surprised to see Amy leaning against the wall.

‘Hello,' she waved soberly to her friend and counsel.

‘Bye,' said Amy briskly. ‘I just stuck around to see if you saved your neck.'

‘I can explain,' Nan began.

‘No, no, not now.' Amy cut her short. ‘We have a lot of talking to do before we make another public appearance together. But right now, I've got to go home and work on an appeal for another less lucky client already in jail in Santa Marta.'

Walking to the bus stop, Nan thought about Amy's client at Santa Marta and for the first time imagined herself there. No, it wasn't possible that she would be implicated. No, of course not. She was just getting timid about protecting Marjorie. Her mind rocked between faith in the power of her innocence and doubt in the fairness of the legal system. She swallowed the panic rising in her gut and tried to re-enter the normal world.

The bus ride did her good. The aisle was crowded with people and their everyday troubles: a black woman with four kids and two big bags of groceries; a blind couple, who almost fell on top of each other when the harried driver jolted to a stop. As the bus dodged in and out of traffic from Oakland back to Berkeley, Nan remembered that the Grand Jury was, after all, just another investigation. It was Mr Johnson's word against her own. In the dark. He couldn't have made a definite identification. Without any evidence, they would have to conclude inconclusiveness.

The next morning Nan arrived at Wheeler Hall just in time to dash up to room 205 for the discussion of Joan Didion. Once again it was hard to concentrate, and she found herself staring at the peeling ceiling. She felt closed in by the old beige room, confined by the expectations of her students. Was it the heat of the novels—the humidity of Boca Grande and the aridity of
Play It As It Lays
? Was it Didion's ominous symbolism—rattlesnakes and terrorists?

Nan heard herself speaking. She paused for half a second to hear what she had just said. It made sense, all right. She was probably giving a passable lecture. They could not know her stomach was bleeding with panic.

Outside, the sky predicted one of those cool, intermittently rainy February days. The air was the colour of boiled rice. And they all sat waiting for the answer from her. Maybe it was Didion's fault. Her tenacious sense of morality promised some distinction between good and bad. One expected …

All these students, Nan thought, all of them expected something from her. Normally, she thrived on this. But today she thought how a few people took the class because, as she once heard a student whisper, she was ‘a notorious feminist'. Some people took the course because ‘Women Writers' sounded like a mick, or a ‘Mickey Mouse Course' as they used to say in the sixties. Some students took it because they wanted her to be their friend, mother, confidante, model. And some students took it because they were interested in the topic. At least she suspected that some took it for that reason.

Lawrence Craigmont was one of the mick students. Nan knew she should have discouraged him that day he sat in her office cleaning his fingernails with his IBM card. Since the beginning of the course he had insisted on comparing each writer to a male author. He took up miles of space and left it empty, rambling for minutes in the classroom, unaware of the ten others waving their hands in frenzy. He came every week to office hours. Rarely did he have any important questions. Perhaps he came because someone had told him you have to be visible to get a good grade, or perhaps because he regarded them like hospital visiting hours and thought Nan would be glad of the company.

Craigmont raised his hand.

‘Yes,' said Nan.

‘Is the rattlesnake a phallic symbol?'

‘What brings that to mind?' asked Nan.

‘Well, you know, it's long and pointed and injected threat into Maria's life.'

‘Perhaps the rest of the class would like to comment,' said Nan. ‘What do you think of Lawrence's point?'

As with most of Lawrence's points, the class could only think to change the topic.

Today's session felt like one of the longest hours of her life. The only thing that carried her through was the promise of a walk among the eucalyptus in Tilden before she went home. She would leave the grading until tomorrow morning and head straight up to Wildcat Canyon after class.

Waiting outside Nan's door
was
Marjorie Adams.

‘The Road to Constantinople', Nan mused to herself as she considered Marjorie's chartreuse turban and matching silk dress.

‘May I speak to you for a moment?' asked Marjorie.

‘Sure,' said Nan, ‘Come right in.'

Nan sat down and pointed to a chair, indicating that Marjorie should also take a seat.

‘I understand that you testified before the Grand Jury last night,' Marjorie said.

‘Yes.' Nan was taken aback that the younger woman was, herself, bringing up the murder case. She searched Marjorie's face for worry. She did detect a trace of tension under the muted green eye shadow. ‘Thank god it was brief,' said Nan, wondering if Marjorie could tell she was hiding something. ‘But it's over now. Why do you ask?'

‘Oh, just to commiserate,' said Marjorie nervously. ‘It's hard on everyone, this constant probing.'

‘Yes.' Nan was still waiting for her student to take the lead.

‘I don't want to keep you,' Marjorie began. ‘If …'

She regarded Nan intently, as if trying to communicate through telepathy. What would she say if she weren't so afraid of silence? That she knew Nan knew? That she appreciated her protection? That she had killed in self-defence? It was self-defence, wasn't it, Nan wondered. It was Marjorie, wasn't it?

‘Oh, don't worry,' Nan looked at her watch. ‘My next appointment is flexible.'

Marjorie sat straight on her chair. ‘I came to discuss something of which you're already aware,' said Marjorie.

Nan noticed that the younger woman looked—was it timid?—for the first time in their acquaintance. And Marjorie had deep lines under her eyes.

‘I want to tell you what I plan to do,' Marjorie continued more confidently.

Nan nodded and extended a package of chewing gum. ‘I wish I had something stronger to offer than Trident gum.'

Marjorie smiled wanly, graciously waving aside the hospitality. ‘I've been quite upset since Professor Murchie's death,' she said. ‘We had become, well, friends, during the last quarter, as you may know.'

Nan was edgy. Jumpy. Just what was Marjorie doing, she wondered, auditioning for the demure debutante in a Walter Pidgeon movie? How could she stop the film and shake the girl into real life? Then she remembered she wanted to know as little as possible. Just last night at the Grand Jury, she had learned the value of limited information. If the DA had pulled out her fingernails, she could not have revealed all the circumstances of Murchie's murder.

‘So my therapist,' Marjorie was continuing, ‘suggested that I take a break, get a change of scene.'

Nan nodded sympathetically. Perhaps Marjorie hadn't seen her that night. But where did she think Nan had found the scarf?

‘I wanted to explain this,' said Marjorie, ‘because you have been so helpful on the thesis. And I wanted to ask if I might mail sections of the thesis for your consideration.'

‘Of course,' Nan replied calmly. Of course, she thought, this was the wise thing to do. However, Nan was angry at Marjorie Adams. She resented her leaving. She felt like she was holding someone else's baby.