Shadows on the Ivy (21 page)

It had been two days since she had visited Aura, Maggie thought guiltily as she headed toward campus and the Wee Care Center. Here she was thinking about adopting a child, and Aura was a little girl who needed her now and she hadn’t even found time to visit her every day.

The day-care worker held Aura’s hand as she led her toward Maggie. Aura was much quieter than she’d been Monday. Now she’d had the double shock of her mother being gone and of finding Tiffany’s body. Maggie wondered how much Aura understood, and how much she’d remember. Maggie needed to read a lot more books on child psychology before becoming a parent.

“Good morning, Aura,” said Maggie. “I took the picture you drew to your mommy.”

Aura brightened immediately. “Did Mommy like it?”

Maggie thought of Sarah, lying in the hospital bed, unconscious. “I’m sure she did, Aura. But she’s still sleeping a lot. I put the picture up where she would see it when she wakes up, though.”

“Tiffany is sick, too,” Aura said. “The policemen took her away. And then Tyler went away.”

Did Aura think someone was going to take her away? The events at Whitcomb House in the past few days had to be incomprehensible to a four-year-old.

“Tyler went to stay with his grandma and grandpa,” said Maggie.

“Will I go to stay with a grandma and grandpa?” asked Aura.

Aura had never met anyone she could call grandma or grandpa. But Dorothy was her grandmother. This morning Maggie didn’t want to think about what Oliver was.

“You’re not going anywhere, Aura. At least not now. You’re going to stay where you live, and Kayla is going to take care of you, and Heather, and Maria, and Kendall are going to be there.”

“That’s what Kayla said, too. She said Mommy would be home soon.”

“I hope she will be, Aura.”

“I’ll make her another picture today,” said Aura. “Will you come and see me tonight and get the picture and take it to Mommy?”

Maggie nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“I’ll make a special picture for her.” Aura turned to go back into her classroom, then turned back. “Would you like me to make a picture for you, too?”

“I’d like that very much, Aura.” Maggie’s eyes filled with tears.

“Bye-bye.” Aura disappeared behind the classroom door.

Maggie stood silently for a moment. Sarah had to get better. She had to.

For the second time that morning Maggie headed for her office. This time she was carrying photographs, safely tucked in a brown portfolio like those she used for prints, and notes for her nine-o’clock class. Thank goodness she’d kept the outline for today’s lecture at home; she wouldn’t have to hunt for it in the mess that was her office.

Claudia raised her head from the pages of a magazine and frowned as Maggie passed her desk. “I thought something must have happened to you, too. Your class is in five minutes.” She handed Maggie a pile of pink message slips and a chocolate Kiss.

“I know,” said Maggie.

“If you could be a flower, what would you be?”

“What?” Maggie looked at Claudia.

“It says in this article that most men want to be roses. With thorns. But women want to be all sorts of flowers. I can’t make up my mind whether I’d rather be a daffodil or a Johnny-jump-up. What would you like to be?”

“This morning—poison ivy! Maybe then everyone would leave me alone!” Maggie stuffed the messages into her pocketbook.

Claudia shook her head and handed Maggie three more chocolate Kisses. “The janitor wanted to clean your office last night, after the police were finished, but I was sure you’d want to go through all those papers yourself. I did convince him to leave you some cleaning supplies, though.” She moved aside and pointed under her desk to a pail filled with cloths, paper towels, and glass cleaner.

“Thank you, Claudia. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I didn’t even think of things like that, and I’ll need them. But not until after this class. I just stopped to get my messages.”

Maggie held tightly to the portfolio as she walked through the halls. She didn’t dare leave it in her office or her van.

Her van. If someone thought she had the photographs, would they search her van? The van that was full of prints! Maggie blanched, but kept walking. The faculty parking area was in a well-traveled area near the library, and it was morning. Too many people would be around for anyone to try to break into it now. And she had locked all the doors and windows.

Her “Myths in American Culture” class was waiting. Maggie put the portfolio down on the desk she was using and began. It was 9
A.M.
Wednesday. Life, and classes, had to continue.

“This morning we’re going to talk about the myth of the self-made man. It’s a myth closely related to the myth of America as Eden; as a place to begin. It grew out of the reality that, if there was not land for everyone here, then at least there was land for more people than there had been in Europe. And whereas in European societies position, power, and money were all primarily hereditary, in America inheritances were not as important.

“Of course, even some of those who sailed on the
Mayflower
had more money and position than others. But the illusion was that once you were on American soil, hard work could make up for any differences in birth.

“This myth was encouraged by politicians, who advertised the successes of Andrew Jackson, whose wife taught him to read, and then of Abraham Lincoln, who may have been born in a log cabin. And if anyone doubted the myth, then Horatio Alger’s stories proved it.

“Today the name Horatio Alger is used to describe someone who has risen from the bottom of society to a position of wealth and power. The real Horatio Alger was a writer and minister. During the Civil War he was the chaplain of the Newsboys’ Lodging House in New York City, a refuge for homeless boys who lived in Five Points and other slums in lower Manhattan. Many of these boys, some orphaned by the Civil War, some deserted by their families, tried to make their living selling newspapers. Alger wanted them to believe they had a future. That their destinies depended on their own actions, not on their current situations.

“Beginning in 1867, with the publication of
Ragged Dick,
Alger wrote action-filled books about boys who were on the lowest rungs of society with titles like
Tony the Tramp
and
Phil the Fiddler
and
Only an Irish Boy.
All his heroes are boys who are poor but honest and hardworking; they struggle against poverty and against temptation. And, inevitably, their efforts are recognized by older men who reward them by offering them economic and social opportunities. All of Alger’s young heroes achieve wealth and position and power. His one hundred and thirty books were bestsellers from 1867 until the early twentieth century, and one or two are still in print today. Over the years, more than twenty million copies of Horatio Alger’s books have been printed.

“A generation after he wrote
Ragged Dick,
Alger’s books were often used by the Social Darwinists of the Gilded Age—those who believed that the wealthiest Americans were examples of the ‘survival of the fittest’ doctrine—to justify that wealth. After all, Americans were self-made men, and only the most honest and hardworking could have made it to the top.

“At least, that was true in Horatio Alger’s books.”

Maggie paused. “Today we smile at some of those beliefs. We know, for example, that honesty is not always rewarded and dishonesty sometimes is. The robber barons of the Gilded Age proved that, and certainly we could all think of many more recent examples. And yet many of you or your parents or grandparents came to the United States with the same beliefs Horatio Alger had. That’s why you’re sitting here, in this classroom. You believe that if you work hard and prove yourselves, then you, too, can have a better job, and a bigger house, and, ultimately, a happier life. Am I right?” Maggie saw some smiles and nods around the classroom.

Certainly young mothers like Sarah Anderson and Tiffany Douglass would have fallen within Horatio Alger’s definition of “starting from the bottom.” Although, since they were single mothers, Alger would no doubt have dismissed any possibilities of success for them. Not only were they women (none of his books were about girls) but they were “immoral.”

“Let’s take the rest of this class time to discuss the idea of the self-made man—or woman,” Maggie continued. “Is it a myth? Or can a man or woman who starts with nothing, but who works hard, still find that America is a land of opportunity?”

Maggie’s office didn’t look any better than it had earlier.

She put down the papers she was carrying, dusted most of the fingerprint powder off her chair, and retrieved the plastic pail of cleaning aids from Claudia. She’d start by the door and work her way around the office. “Fall cleaning,” she muttered to herself as she wiped the top shelf of the bookcase nearest to the door and began dusting and replacing books. There was one good side to all of this: by the time she’d finished, her office would no doubt be cleaner than it had been before the damage. She hadn’t dusted these bookcases thoroughly for over a year.

After most of the books were off the floor and back in the first bookcase (and several volumes were rediscovered and piled in the corner to take home to read), she scrubbed spilled soda off the desk and floor, and out of the top drawer in her desk. The loose papers would take hours more to organize and file. She piled all of them, some stained with Pepsi and some not, on the guest chair where Tiffany had sat less than forty-eight hours before. It seemed so long ago. She hesitated, then plunged back into the cleaning. It had to be done. Her sanity, if not her job, depended on her putting at least part of her life back in order.

She put the Currier & Ives
Maggie
in a portfolio to take home so she could replace the glass and try to repair the frame.

The telephone didn’t ring, and no one bothered her. It was heavenly.

Over an hour later, when Maggie had finished about half the cleaning, Paul stuck his head in. “Hey! I told you I’d help with this! You started without me.” He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “So—what can I do?”

“You can clean the shelves in the bookcase on that side of the room,” Maggie said. “Claudia scrounged some Windex and paper towels. If you find any stray papers, put them on the chair over there. I’ll go through them later.”

“Aye, aye, captain!” Paul said as he tore some paper towels off the roll and headed for the designated bookcase.

They worked in silence for a few minutes. Paul spoke first. “I hope you had a peaceful evening last night. After everything that happened yesterday, you deserved one.”

Could he already know what had happened last night? Or, if he didn’t, then should she tell him? “I went out for a quiet dinner, but then later had a little excitement. A prowler tried to break into my house.”

“No!” Paul stopped dusting and looked genuinely concerned. “After what happened to your office yesterday? That can’t be chance.”

“The timing doesn’t sound coincidental, does it?”

“Did you call the police?”

“Whoever it was drove away before they could catch him—or her.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Clean up my office, teach my class this afternoon, and keep my eyes and ears open. I don’t want to fall into the same category as Sarah or Tiffany.”

Paul was silent. “This is tough for me. I’m new here, and I want to help. But…”

“But you don’t want to get your friend Oliver in trouble, right?” Maggie walked around the desk and stood next to Paul so their conversation wouldn’t be overheard. “Paul, if Oliver is poisoning students and burglarizing my office and home, then he’s not worth protecting.”

“Professor Summer? And Mr. Turk.” Detective Newton was in the door of Maggie’s small office, Detective Luciani behind her. “I’m glad you’re here. We need to speak with both of you.”

“Yes?” Maggie moved over, shifted some papers, and sat down on her chair. The cola she hadn’t yet cleaned off stuck to her skirt. Paul stood near the bookcase, still holding paper towels. Had the detectives figured out she had the photographs? Should she tell them?

“Professor Summer, your office was clearly the object of someone’s search yesterday, and we just found out you called 911 last night reporting that someone attempted to enter your home.”

“Yes.”

“We’re trying to make sense of the poisoning of Sarah Anderson, and then Tiffany Douglass, but we keep coming up with dead ends.” Detective Newton, as usual, was taking the lead questioning Maggie. Perhaps because she was a woman. Maybe Luciani questioned men. “Professor Summer, you knew both of the victims. And Mr. Turk, you’re a friend of the Whitcombs. Somehow the two young women and the Whitcombs seem to be linked in this investigation. We need to talk with both of you again.” She looked at Paul. “But separately. Mr. Turk, would you mind waiting for us in your office?”

Luciani closed the door after Paul. It was a bit too cozy with Maggie and the two detectives there amid the mess, but it was more private.

“Professor Summer, what do you have that someone is looking for?” Detective Newton looked directly at her with an intensity Maggie had not seen before.

Maggie hesitated only briefly. The police needed to know. Someone needed to find whoever had poisoned Sarah and Tiffany. “Yesterday I didn’t know for sure. But I do now. Tiffany visited me Monday afternoon, to talk about Sarah, as I told you earlier. I didn’t consider it anything out of the ordinary.”

“Did she know anything that might pinpoint who had poisoned Sarah?” asked Detective Luciani.

“No. Quite the opposite. She had no idea. We talked for a while, and then she left, and I did, too. I didn’t notice until yesterday that she’d left her briefcase here.”

“In your office?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it? Did whoever disturbed your office take it?”

“No. When I found the briefcase, I locked it in the desk drawer with my grade books. I came in early this morning, got it, and took it to my home.”

“You realize you should have turned it over to us,” said Detective Newton. “You knew that anything belonging to the deceased might be critical to our investigation.”

“But I didn’t know for sure, and…in any case, that’s what I did.”

“So the briefcase is now in your home.”

Maggie nodded. “But I opened it.” She didn’t feel ready to tell them she had broken into the briefcase. They would find that out soon enough. “I have the contents here.” Maggie handed the portfolio to Detective Luciani, who had come around to her side of the desk. Tiffany’s address book and appointment book were there. So were the photographs.

Luciani handed the rest of the papers to Newton, and they spread the photos out on a relatively clear area of Maggie’s desk.

One of the pictures showed Oliver Whitcomb, naked, holding a whip. Others showed Oliver and Tiffany, both nude, or close to it. In two of them Tiffany was tied to a bed with what looked like a red rope. In one she was handcuffed. The pictures showed two apparently consenting adults having bondage sex.

“Not pretty stuff,” said Luciani.

“That explains the bruises Kayla said she saw on Tiffany,” said Newton.

“And it would explain, graphically, why Tiffany might have been able to blackmail Oliver Whitcomb,” said Luciani, gathering up the photos. He put them back in the portfolio. “Professor Summer, you might be interested to know that the toxicology tests came back on Tiffany Douglass. She was poisoned by potassium permanganate, most likely mixed with red wine. Not the same poison Sarah Anderson ingested.”

“Potassium permanganate?” Maggie went white with shock. “Are you sure?”