He caught Sergeant Oliver at police headquarters and broke the news.
“Okay, Mr. McCall, you wait there,” Oliver said; McCall could tell nothing from his tone.
“I’m phoning from the Student Union.”
“I mean go back to the dean’s body. Don’t leave it till we get there.”
McCall returned to the scene of the murder, keeping well away from the body on the grass. He did not touch the hunting knife, although he knew it would yield nothing in the way of clues. It had a rough bone handle that would not take fingerprints, and it was a common knife purchasable anywhere for a few dollars.
Apparently there was the field to choose from in looking for Gunther’s killer. Judging from the effigy-burning of the evening and from the scraps of conversation McCall had picked up on campus, the dean had been despised, resented, had become perhaps the focus of student bitterness in the disputes that were tearing Tisquanto State College apart. But bitterness to the point of murder? And a murder as sadistic as this? That might be the answer. A psychopath vents his psychosis according to its internal energies, not its chance object.
If things had been bad before, there would be hell to pay now. He could imagine Wolfe Wade’s expression when he heard. And Governor Holland’s.
Waiting for the police under the great oak, McCall yearned for a smoke... Dean Gunther had been acting peculiar. More strained than would be accounted for by the commotion on the campus. He was mixed up in something nasty — “Lady G’s” note pointed to that. But what?
Some coed? If she had deliberately lured Gunther to his death, she had had a confederate. No mere girl or woman had wielded that knife. The blows had been delivered by a man’s hand, either a powerful man or one made powerful by rage.
He heard sirens. Headlights slashed the night. Two police cars screamed to a halt before the music building. Feet pounded.
“Over here!”
And, of course, it was Lieutenant Long who led the pack, ferret-face pale, lips curling.
“Well,” Long said. “You certainly get around, McCall.”
McCall said nothing. The officers’ flashlights converged on what lay on the grass. They moved over to the body.
“Tell me about it, big shot,” Long said.
McCall, chewing the lining of his cheek, related how he had come to find Floyd Gunther’s body. The lieutenant read “Lady G’s” note in the light of Sergeant Oliver’s flash, muttered, “A setup,” then carefully pocketed it. McCall stood by, watching Dr. Littleton for the second time that night examine human wreckage.
“I can’t tell much in this light,” the M.E. said, “but somebody sure vented a lot of spleen on this poor man. I’ll have to haul him over to my morgue for a detailed examination. Oh, hello again, Mr. McCall. Busy night.”
“I want to talk to you at headquarters,” Long said abruptly.
He was glowering at McCall.
It was an unpleasant session, and it lasted a long time. Chief Pearson drifted in and out with malevolent detachment, keeping an ear on things. Long insisted on going over the same ground half a dozen times.
“You still haven’t given me a good reason why, when this black boy came running into Gunther’s house with his yarn about finding Laura, you didn’t notify us on the spot,” the lieutenant said. “That was police business, Mr. McCall, and you damn well know it! No, instead you go shooting off down to the river on your own. I want to know why!”
“Because the girl might have been alive — as it turned out she was — and every minute counted,” McCall said patiently again. “At the back of my mind, I suppose, I was expecting Gunther or Mrs. Gunther to notify the police. I’ve told you all this, lieutenant.”
“I don’t buy it,” Long said nastily. “It sounds fishy to me.”
“I don’t give a damn how it sounds to you,” McCall said. “Look, I know you and Pearson dislike my charging in here on your turf, but I’m tired of being treated like a suspect in a lineup. You keep up these tactics, lieutenant, I’m going to phone the attorney general.”
Finally Long let him go. He returned to the Red Harbor Inn, changed to a fresh jacket, and headed for the hospital.
McCall found Brett Thornton outside a private room in the V.I.P. pavilion on the third floor, pacing. It was past evening visiting hours by now, and the shining corridors were deserted except for an occasional hurrying white uniform.
Laura’s father was one of those bantam-sized men who make up for their lack of physical impressiveness by sheer glowering will. He had a bony, almost skeletal, face, all ridges and wales, with a blade of a nose and jet eyes as unwinking as a snake’s. His mouth was a wound, and words shot out of it like pus.
“How is she, Mr. Thornton?” McCall asked quietly.
“Don’t you know?” Thornton spat. “I thought this was what Holland sent you down here for.”
“It’s been a busy evening, sir. The last report I had, your daughter was in a coma.”
“She still is. She’s in terrible shape. Dying, for all I can tell! They don’t know anything in this one-horse excuse of a hospital! I’m waiting for my own doctor now. What have you found out? Who attacked her?”
“We can’t guarantee instant solutions, Mr. Thornton,” McCall said. “We’re doing the best we can. It’s not going to help getting angry.”
“I’ll get anything I damn please! It’s Holland whose policies have generated the atmosphere that allows a thing like this to happen. And I’ll have his hide for it.”
“Do you hold him responsible for what’s going on in California, New York, Paris, Tokyo? This student unrest is worldwide, Mr. Thornton. You know that. Naturally you’re upset. Anybody would be. Is Mrs. Thornton with you?”
“She’s home under a doctor’s care. Everything’s gone to hell. Christ, my baby girl.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Thornton ignored him. He sprang to the door of Laura’s room, opened it a crack, peered inside. Immediately he was back in the hall.
“The same. She’ll die, McCall. I feel it in my bones.” He began striding about, taking his frustration out on the inlaid linoleum. “It’s these damned students! I warned Holland they were getting out of hand. But did he do anything? — kick the troublemaking Communists out of the college, for instance, as I suggested? Why, some of them are here on scholarships, for God’s sake!” Thornton seized McCall’s lapel. “Well, I tell you here and now, McCall, you’d damn well better pull this off. Or I’ll make things so hot in this state for your governor that Antarctica won’t cool him off!”
“I’ll do my best,” McCall said.
Thornton glared. But there was no irony in McCall’s tone. It seemed to mollify Thornton. When he spoke again it was more rationally. “Laura was obviously involved in something with someone.” He turned the glare on the door of her room. “The question is in what? With whom? Have you found out anything at all?”
“I just got here this morning, Mr. Thornton. I’m afraid not yet.”
Thornton turned on his heel, muttering. The door opened and Dr. Edgewit came out of Laura’s room.
Thornton pounced. “Any change?”
“No change, Mr. Thornton. She isn’t responding as yet. But she’s not losing ground, either.”
“Isn’t there a competent doctor in this hole?” Thornton howled.
“Dr. Madigan, our chief of staff, has taken personal charge. He’s in there now, sir.” Dr. Edgewit plodded off.
McCall followed him, leaving Laura’s father alone. He was thinking what a mercy it was that the governor had been unable to fly down. The mere sight of Sam Holland in this hospital corridor might have brought on a physical attack from Thornton and made headlines all over the state.
A young nurse crossed McCall’s path, smiling at him. He paused to watch her crisp walk, listen to the swish of her starched uniform. After Thornton, it was a joy.