“You’re saying that what he told me…
“Is nothing more than a pathetic fantasy. John is a brilliant scholar and has published hundreds of articles in the most prestigious journals across the country. He successfully argued in front of the United States Supreme Court on two occasions. There’s a rumor afoot that the new wing of the law building will be named after him.” She paused to allow me the opportunity to gasp in awe, but I managed to restrain myself. “Five years ago he began to develop a few mild eccentricities-nothing too bizarre at first, but later they became more obvious. I eventually took him to the medical complex in Houston, which diagnosed a degenerative neurological disease that impairs him both physically and mentally. He functions well most of the time, but every now and then he does or says something that has absolutely no basis in reality.”
I considered this for a moment. “He sounded perfectly normal when he told me about his assignations at a motel. I didn’t demand details, naturally, but he seemed to have a vivid memory of… what took place and with whom.”
“He sounded perfectly normal when he explained to our daughter that he’d joined a convent and henceforth was to be called Sister Beatrice.” She shook her head and sighed. “Thus far, we’ve been lucky that these episodes have been isolated and have occurred outside the university community. But to tell a virtual stranger that he… Well, it’s clear he’ll have to submit his resignation as soon as he returns home.
Trying not to envision Dean Vanderson in a fetching black habit, I said, “Then he had no assignations with sorority girls at the Hideaway Haven and Jean Hall was not blackmailing him?”
“Oh, Claire, I knew you’d understand!” Eleanor replaced the handkerchief in her purse and once again rewarded me with a dose of sisterly sympathy. “You’ll be relieved to learn that I’ve decided to close the Kappa house for the remainder of the summer. Winkle, Rebecca, and Pippa have been told that they must be out by six o’clock today, and they were looking at the classified ads and calling various apartment complexes when I left. It will be inconvenient for me to drop by every day to supervise the remodeling, but I’ll just have to do it.”
Although I was cheered by her news, I wasn’t ready to dismiss Dean Vanderson’s revelations as the ravings of a neurological degenerate. “If your husband wasn’t being blackmailed, why was there a pink paper cat in his office?”
“You were in his office?” she said, politely incredulous. Since I hadn’t exactly arrived at the law school with a search warrant, I bypassed her question and said, “Yes, and I found a cat hidden under a computer It looked like your basic blackmail note to me: terse, ominous, slightly obtuse. I came to your house last night to ask him about it.”
“How odd,” she murmured as she found a gold compact and made sure her mascara had not dribbled down her cheeks during her less than histrionic confession of her husband’s disability After she’d flicked off an invisible speck, she snapped the compact closed. “Unless, of course, he wrote it as additional proof to himself that he’s not only virile and sexually insatiable, but also an actor in some dark soap opera unfolding around him. He’s become childlike these last few years, and this is the sort of thing that would appeal to his need to see himself as anything other than a pale, plump, middle-aged law professor.”
I did not leap to my feet, point an accusatory finger at her, and utter words to the effect that John had no access to pink construction-paper cats. “And you have a drawerful of the things at home?” I asked in a resigned voice.
“I keep them in a carton in my study, along with the correspondence with National, confidential reports from alumnae, and the endless files. You and I seem to wage the same battle not to drown in all the paperwork, don’t we?” I nodded as she stood up. “There is one thing more I must beg of you, Claire. It’s terribly important that what I told you not become a topic of gossip. John is not well, and were his reputation to be tainted by lurid and unfounded accusations, it might kill him. I can trust you, can’t I?”
I assured her that she could, escorted her out to the street, and resumed my seat at the counter. I now was withholding from the authorities enough information to alphabetize it and publish a set of encyclopedias. On the other hand, the fact that John Vanderson had not carried on with sorority girls and therefore had not been blackmailed was not likely to overwhelm anybody
The afternoon dwindled along, as did my attempts to put a lot of seemingly unrelated tidbits into tidy little compartments. No one called to threaten me or my child, and no one called to inquire if I was meddling in an official investigation-if there was one. The police were satisfied with an accidental death and a fugitive who would appear sooner or later Although I could vindicate myself with the revelation that Ed Whitbred and Arnie Riggles had indeed prowled in the bushes outside the sorority house, I could find no other reason to tell anyone. With the house closing, Winkle would have to find an apartment for the summer, and she and her hairy Don Juan could daily in a more routine fashion. John Vanderson would resign from his position at the law school and perhaps occupy his time writing fiction. No doubt the New York publishing house that purchased Nebras qué would be enthralled by juris-imprudent porn. Caron would throw her sixteenth birthday party for the benefit of her fellow inmates; I would celebrate my fortieth birthday alone, toasting myself in the mirror while monitoring the ravages of menopause.
It was a splendid foray into self-pity, and I was enjoying myself enormously as I walked home late in the afternoon. As I went past the soon-to-be-vacant sorority house, however, I realized there was a minor glitch in Eleanor’s explanation of her husband’s peculiar behavior He had been on the third floor several nights ago. I tried to tell myself he was engaged in a fantasy, playing detective rather than cowboy or astronaut, but my arguments failed to convince me. He had been there, just as he had stopped at the curb the night of Jean’s death. Eleanor might wish desperately to believe her husband was delusional, that what he’d told me was nonsense-but she could be wrong.
Miss Marple-Malloy was back in business- I hurried home, found the directory, and called Ed Whitbred. “I presume you heard about Arnie,” I said without wasting a precious second of sleuthing.
“Winkie told me,” he said. “She’s upset about the house closing, but I think she’s better off getting away from those leeches. This morning she and Eleanor had a major row over the chapter-room key. Winkie swears her key has been in her possession since the last meeting of the semester, back in May, and Eleanor finally conceded that saintly Jean Hall must have made a duplicate.”
“Will Winkle keep her job?”
“She thinks so. I told her I’d help her look for an apartment, so I’d better-”
“Did you have the film from Arnie’s camera developed?”
“I dropped it off at the drugstore on Thurber Street, but I forgot to pick it up after work. How about I bring it over tomorrow when I-”
“That’ll be fine, Ed. Happy hunting.” I hung up, then went to Caron’s bedroom to see if there were any messages concerning ball or impending court appearances. All I found were dirty glasses, a crumpled potato-chip bag, fuzzy dishes under the bed that might lead to a Nobel Prize in biochemistry, and her calendar The last item indicated that Gretchen was slated to have her palette adjusted within the hour
Idly speculating why Caron’s friends had relented, I made a drink and wandered to my bedroom to stare at the Kappa Theta Eta house. The shadows from the scaffold resembled long diagonal bars across the weathered surface. The effect was fittingly sinister.