Not that I blamed Lynda, for she was only a news editor doing her job, but how could she do this to me? I crumpled up the first section of the newspaper and threw it across the room at a bookcase, where it knocked over the perfidious woman’s photo.
Well, that didn’t help matters, even if it did feel good. I had to concentrate on the murder and solve it myself. That was my only chance to limit the journalistic feeding frenzy to a few days. I sat in my armchair and tried to think.
In any good detective story, the killer would be just about anybody who hadn’t been seen wearing a deerstalker. And it could be that way. It wouldn’t have taken much for somebody to borrow one for an hour or so as a sort of slight disguise or protective coloring. But I couldn’t help thinking of Noah Queensbury. He’d been dressed in that particular headgear every time I’d seen him. And he’d had an argument with Matheson shortly before the murder. How did I know he was telling the truth when he said they’d been arguing about Sherlock Holmes? Maybe it was something a lot more serious.
But would he really kill somebody? As loony as he seemed, Queensbury was a surgeon.
So was Jack the Ripper, most likely.
The Indiana Jones theme song interrupted my reverie. At least this time I was awake. Reluctantly, I answered the phone with, “Hello, Ralph.” I plowed on before he chance to say anything. “I’m sorry about the Observer story, but you know there was no way to keep the college out of Matheson’s murder.”
“Murder? Oh, yes, most regrettable. But what your friend Ms. Teal did with that story about the presentation of the Woollcott Chalmers Collection was even worse.”
“Huh?” Blindsided and scrambling to figure out what he was talking about, I quickly un-crumpled the paper. Spreading the relevant page in front of me, I once again looked at the photo of the distinguished Woollcott Chalmers and the un-constipated Ralph Pendergast. The story with it was heavy on adjectives that indicated what an honor this was for St. Benignus College to be the recipient of the collection. Lynda had written it, as well as apparently helping Ben with his page one murder story. “What’s wrong with it? I couldn’t write a story that positive.”
“No doubt,” Ralph’s dry voice dripped acid. “But if you had interviewed the provost perhaps even you would have quoted him in the story, not McCabe.”
I sighed.“Whose picture is with the story, Ralph?”
He conceded that his was.
“That’s worth a thousand words,” I said. “College official meets enthusiastic contributor. We’ll get permission to put that picture on the website and reprint it in the alumni magazine and in the next fund-raising brochure. It’s dynamite.”
“Do you really think so, Cody?”
“Scout’s honor.” I’d never been a Scout, but Ralph didn’t know that. He was mollified enough about the Chalmers Collection story to start worrying about the murder again. I promised I’d stick close to the situation all day and do any damage control that might be necessary. By the time Ralph hung up I congratulated myself that I’d avoided another royal ass-chewing.
That happy thought was marred by one of the less pleasing of the sounds that punctuate my life. Vroooom! Mac’s ancient Chevy was tearing out of the garage below me. I looked out the window just in time to see the tail fins disappearing down the road. The Chalmerses were leaving for the second day of the symposium. Mac again would preside over the day’s rather limited activities like a royal duke while he expected me to do his leg work, damn him anyway.
Even worse, I was going to do it.
I called Lynda to enlist her help - I figured she owed me for the morning I’d had so far - but got no answer. Today being Sunday, maybe she was at Mass with her cell phone turned off. I’m not Catholic, but I should have been in church myself, praying my way out of this. (In case anybody is worried about my sister and brother-in-law, who are Catholic, they hit the 5:15 p.m. Mass in the chapel the night before.)
Or maybe Lynda was somewhere else. Should I send her a text: Where the hell are you? Better not. She would not react well.
As I disconnected the call I looked around for my notebook with Mac’s list of suspects - casually at first, then with a growing concern. After a minute of that I realized I must have left it in Mac’s study last night. I put on a jacket, picked up my wallet and keys, and went out of my apartment, locking up behind me. With the McCabes gone to the colloquium and the three McCabe children all staying overnight with friends for the weekend, there was nobody to let me into the house. Fortunately I have my own key, which I used.
The notebook was on the small table where I’d thrown it in a pique last night. I stuck it in my pocket and left the study, heading out of the house. Then I stopped, frozen.
I’d heard something - I wasn’t sure what, but something, a noise in an empty house where there should have been no noise.
Chapter Twenty-Three - Personal Space
With stealth and caution I passed through the hallway toward the guest suite at the back of the house, where the noise had appeared to originate. Down these mean streets a man must go...Along the way I picked up my nephew Brian’s baseball bat from the kitchen. It was only aluminum but it felt comforting in my hand. I held it like a club.
Outside the suite, added on by the previous owners for the wife’s parents, I paused. My stomach was one big mass of knots and my heart was pounding in my ears from the adrenaline rush. I wiped sweaty palms on my khaki slacks.
Strangely, from this close up the noise in the suite sounded like water running in the bathroom.
Should I knock first and give the traditional “Who’s there?” or should I barge right in, bat at the ready? WWMD - What Would Max Do?
Opting for the element of surprise, I tightened my grip on the bat with my right hand and pushed in the doorknob with my left. And I walked in.
The empty bedroom was large and bright, with sun pouring in from a window overlooking a spectacular view of the Ohio River. There were two dressers opposite the bed (one of them with a mirror), a clothes tree draped with clothes, a couple of modern lamps and a captain’s chair. At the far end of the room, to the right of the big window, was an alcove that I knew led to a small sitting room with a TV and several bookcases.
The dresser with the mirror was clearly Renata’s domain. Across the top of it were spread all the tools of the womanly arts - a hair brush, a jewelry box, a wig, and a tray full of lipsticks, eye shadows, powders, and other elements of witchcraft. The other dresser top was blank by comparison; it only held a set of keys, some spare change, and a large container for pills marked off by the days of the week.
I had gotten about that far in my visual survey of the room when I heard the gasp, a sharp intake of breath behind me to the right. I jerked around, simultaneously swinging the bat into position for action.
And saw Renata Chalmers.
She stood in the doorway of the guest bathroom, her deep brown eyes dilated in surprise. Her right hand was on a middle button of her green and white blouse, as though she’d stopped dead in the act of dressing. The pale pink of a lacy bra was just visible. Okay, I noticed; I couldn’t help it.
For a long moment, with her eyes fixed on me, I felt like a butterfly mounted on a pin in somebody’s collection. The room was hot and my mouth was dry and this should have happened to somebody else, like maybe Ralph Pendergast.
“Jeff!” Renata said at last. Her eyes traveled down to the bat in my hand. “What are you doing in my room? And with that thing?”
I let my right hand and the bat drop to my side. “I thought I heard a noise,” I said lamely.
“I pretty much always make a noise when I take a shower.” The temperature of her voice was just this side of frigid. Her hair was damp from the steam of the shower and the Victorian ringlets from last night were gone. She buttoned her top two buttons as I avoided her eyes, certain that my face must be turning the color of her underwear.