On the way upstairs McCall said, “Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No. You was the first I saw after I found her.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“I’ve seen her around the building. She’s one of the students. I don’t know her name.”
A few minutes later McCall heard the sirens, and wondered why they were being used. It had always struck him as a sort of warning: here come de judge.
Sergeant Oliver and his harness bull team stamped into the tower room, followed by the ubiquitous Dr. Littleton.
“It happened within the past hour or so,” the M.E. said from the floor. “Did you take this rope off her neck, Mr. McCall?”
“Yes. I thought she might still be alive.”
The M.E. was peering at the marks on the dead girl’s throat. “Well, I’m pretty sure she was choked before she was strung up here. There seem to be fingermarks under the rope marks. My guess is she was at least unconscious at the time she was hanged, maybe already dead. I’ll be able to tell better on autopsy.”
“Some bloody bastard is sure on the loose,” Oliver muttered. He walked over to the body and stared. Then he dry-washed his hands and turned back to McCall. “Any ideas, Mr. McCall?”
“No.”
“You say you talked to this girl in the place where she lives?”
“Not much more than an hour ago, sergeant.”
“How’d she seem? Nervous? Something on her mind? Anything, for chrissake?”
“I can’t honestly tell you,” McCall said with a shrug. “I thought there was something queer about her, but I’d never talked to her before so I can’t say if it was her usual manner or not. She did cut our talk short, saying she had to dash over here to a singing lesson. You might find out if she ever took it.”
It turned out that she had not. Her teacher’s record noted Patricia Reed as absent for her lesson.
“Then she lied to you,” Oliver said.
“Or something sidetracked her when she got to the building.”
“Don’t you have any notion what’s going on, Mr. McCall?”
McCall shook his head. That elusive something was still gnawing away...
“And all in the middle of these nutty kids and their battle plans! They’re gathering their forces like an army. I think they’re set on taking over the administration building. The lieutenant’s about fit to foam at the mouth. So’s Chief Pearson. I can’t say I blame ’em, what with what’s going on.”
“Have you ever questioned Patricia Reed officially, sergeant? In connection with anything at all?”
“No. This is the first I’ve heard of her.”
“If you want me I’ll be around here somewhere.”
“The lieutenant might want you. He bites his lip half through every time your name’s mentioned.”
“Tell him I’m on his side, will you?”
The photographer and fingerprint man were hurrying up the stairs as McCall went down. Outside, the morgue wagon was just pulling up. A crowd was beginning to gather before the music building. The tussle before the administration building was dying down as the word spread; students were streaming across campus, banners discarded.
Well, McCall thought, whatever else your murder accomplished, Pat, not the least is that it broke up an attempted invasion and vandalism of state property.
That might well have led to the callup of the National Guard.
In her office Kathryn Cohan immediately said, “Something’s happened! What is it, Mike? You look awful.”
He told her.
She moaned, “That poor girl. I heard sirens, but they’re so common on campus nowadays... This is unbelievable. It must be some maniac.”
“All murder is off the beam, Katie, but that doesn’t help much.”
“There’s an administrative meeting at McNiel Hall. You should hear them. I’ll be over later.”
“I’ll look in. Won’t stay, though, I’ve got to stick to this. I want a kiss.”
Katie looked around. “So do I.”
He leaned over the desk and kissed her on the mouth. As he did so the door opened and Dean Vance burst in.
“What,” the Dean said, “have we here?”
She shut the door and set her ample back against it.
Kathryn Cohan’s face resembled a strawberry.
“Well,” McCall said, “you’ve found us out, Dean Vance. Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know where you’re going,” Ina Vance said, striding across the anteroom, “but me, I’ve got work to do, damn it.” She stopped at her private office door and winked at her assistant. “Nice going, Katie. Your looks and my brains and I’d have had him where I wanted him yesterday.”
She slammed her door.
“Well!” Katie gasped. “The old bag.”
“So you see,” McCall grinned, “you never know about people.”
18
The meeting was in progress when McCall entered the auditorium. He recognized the man talking onstage as John Snyder, the English professor he had questioned about Dennis Sullivan.
He took a seat halfway down the aisle. There was no one near him. They were all seated in the first four rows, probably administrators, heads of departments, and other personnel responsible for carrying out administrative policy.
Campus police guarded every entrance.
“...nothing is settled, nothing will be settled, until we take a last-ditch stand.” Professor Snyder’s left cheek twitched. His fist made little frustrated assaults on the lectern.
“John?” A woman rose in the first row. “We’ve just learned there’s been another murder on campus.” She was a broad-shouldered woman in a pale blue dress. She waved a sheaf of papers. “It’s a student this time, Patricia Reed. I think you have her in one of your classes. She was — it happened in the Bell Tower. Mr. McCall, the man Governor Holland sent up here from the capital, found her. She was hanged!” Her voice rang with horror and defiance. “How much longer can we allow this bloodbath to go on?”
Snyder tightened his thin lips. “The fight is really becoming personal. These psychos will stop at nothing!”
“What do you mean personal?” someone called out.
“I mean, we’re dealing with people who will stop at nothing to get at us. Oh, there’s honest rebellion. I recognize that. But there’s this barbarism, too. Responsible protest can be tolerated. But they’ve turned this campus into a shambles!”
A thin, taut woman came halfway out of her seat. “You know they’ve repeatedly asked for meetings with the administration on a give-and-take basis and been treated like children caught stealing cookies—”
“They’ve had their chances—”
Other voices chimed in, and soon the auditorium was in an uproar.
McCall listened for a while, then he slipped out of his seat and made his way out of the place. Wherever the answer lay, it was not going to come from people like these. President Wolfe Wade, stung by something the thin woman said, had come out angrily for the expulsion of all dissident students, out of hand. McCall made up his mind: one of his first recommendations to Governor Holland was going to be the replacement of Wade. He was the perfect college administrator — for the 1920s. Unfortunately, time had marched on, leaving Wade far behind.
He passed through the swinging doors into the foyer, crossed the gloomy lobby, and stepped into the sunshine. A few students were hanging about outside. They had not been invited to the meeting, even these worried-looking ones. It seemed to him that what the situation cried out for was student representation as a matter of right, the beginnings of a responsible dialogue, a meeting of minds on a level of mutual respect. The way things were going, Tisquanto State College was headed for holocaust.
Meanwhile, he had murders to challenge. Dean Gunther. Pat Reed. The near-death of Laura Thornton — if she was still alive.