Rogues Gallery Page 3

  “Wait a minute,” Lynda said. “We don’t know exactly when the murder took place, but it could have been during that little set-to with Justin. That’s a very convenient distraction.”

  Oscar regarded Lynda. They had not always gotten along during his first year in town, when she had been news editor of The Erin Observer & News-Ledger, but that hatchet had been long since buried. “So, Teal, you think maybe the killer somehow caused Scrappy to yell at the bartender?”

  My beloved shrugged. “I’m just throwing it out there.”

  Oscar sipped his coffee. “Well, I’m not sure that Scrappy ever needed an excuse to start a fight, but it’s worth asking him about. We’ll start looking for him. He moves around a lot.” Translation: Scrappy had no permanent address, i.e., was homeless, apparently by choice.

  Looking through the guest list, we noticed that several names of attendees were missing, but they were all folks that Oscar’s people had talked to. Frank Woodford hadn’t bothered to sign in, for example.

  “I’ve already debriefed him,” Lynda said, “but he didn’t hold anything back from the readers. It’s all in his story, everything he saw.”

  That led to a discussion about which of the eighty-seven attendees should be contacted again.

  “Justin was rather shaken up last night,” Mac observed. “Perhaps in a day or two he will remember more. In light of our history, I would like to be the one to talk to him.”

  Their “history” included Mac’s efforts to save Justin from a murder rap, and then hypnotizing him to get some key information after Justin had almost been killed himself. As a side project, Mac - a champion cigar smoker - had also helped the young man kick the cigarette habit.

  “I’ll talk to O’Neill,” I volunteered. “He might know some gossip that would be helpful.” Like whether he’d killed Calder, for one thing. “Hey, I should talk to Popcorn, too. Maybe she saw something while she was watching the doors but it didn’t register with her last night.”

  Oscar studied the guest book, not looking up. “I’ll ask her.”

  “I’ll see her at work in the morning. You don’t have to make a special trip - ”

  “I won’t. We’re having dinner together tonight. Like I said, Mom won’t be home.”

  Mac raised an eyebrow, and rightly so. I’d often thought I detected sparks between my diminutive administrative assistant, a widow with a penchant for steamy romance novels, and Oscar Hummel, a life-long bachelor. They were about the same age. Go for it, Oscar! Kate and Lynda exchanged sisterly woman-looks.

  My brother-in-law cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Lillian Peacock not only found the body, she may have been one of the last persons to talk to Thurston Calder before the murder. Jeff and I overheard him lecturing her on her own painting style not long before the murder. Certainly she is worth a second interview.”

  Oscar slammed the guest book shut. “Okay, then, let’s have at it.”

  IV

  Lillian and Beryl Peacock lived in a brick Cape Cod home on Lindner Street about two miles from downtown. Beryl had grown up in the Chicago area, moved in with her grandmother while she attended St. Benignus, and stayed on after graduation while casting a wide net elsewhere for a job in the art field.

  Lynda and Kate had elected to stay behind at the house on Half Moon Street. I regretted their decision when Beryl opened the door and I saw the look on her face as she beheld the all-male trio of the police chief, Mac, and me on her doorstep.

  “What’s wrong?” she said. “Has something else happened?”

  Beryl looked like a frightened bunny rabbit, although I’ve never seen a rabbit in a tie-dyed T-shirt that looked like it was old in 1970. Her blue eyes were wide behind her rimless spectacles. With her strawberry blond hair pulled off her high forehead and braided, she looked too young to be out of college. She wasn’t wearing makeup.

  “No, no, nothing new,” Oscar assured her hastily. “We’d just like to talk to Mrs. Peacock.”

  “Grandma’s upstairs lying down. She’s still very upset by what happened last night. But come on in.”

  The door opened into a cozy living room, with a quilt above the mantle and a watercolor of a sunflower field moving in the breeze on the opposite wall. The sunflowers looked very professional, but I’d have bet it was one of her grandmother’s paintings. We sat down in matching wicker chairs.

  “She’s been so upset by what happened,” Beryl said, “and I feel awful. She didn’t want to show her paintings, but I pushed for it. Ever since I was little I’ve loved Grandma’s art. It inspired me. So when Ms. Hawthorne was talking about starting her gallery and a show of women’s art, I thought of Grandma.” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t talked her into it, she wouldn’t have found - ”

  “It’s not your fault, child.” Lillian Peacock stood on the staircase, her thin frame almost lost in a fluffy bathrobe. “You didn’t kill that man. I insist that you not feel guilty about it.”

  She finished descending the stairs. Oscar, Mac, and I stood up and each said something soothing and meaningless. Mrs. Peacock joined her granddaughter on the sofa. Again I was struck by the similarity of their features. Their eyes, for example, were the same shade of cornflower blue. But Mrs. Peacock must have been in her seventies, with cottony white hair. She reminded me of Miss Marple. Maybe she can solve this case!

  “So why have you gentlemen come to visit an old lady?” she asked, although she must have known.

  “We just want to ask a few follow-up questions about last night,” Oscar said.

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you. I haven’t thought of anything that might help. You said to call you if I thought of anything I forgot to mention, but I haven’t. Not that I’ve been thinking about last night. In fact, I’ve been trying hard not to.”

  “That is quite understandable,” Mac said. “Our intrusion is unforgiveable. However, it is also unavoidable. Jefferson and I observed you in conversation with Thurston Calder not long before you found his body. You may have been the last person to talk with him, other than the murderer.” Lillian shivered slightly and drew her fluffy robe around her more tightly. Her granddaughter hugged her.

  “May I ask what you talked about?” Mac said.

  “Talked about? Why, art, I suppose. What else would we talk about? It was an art show. I didn’t know the man, you understand.”

  “You were in front of one of your paintings,” I prodded. “He must have said something about it.” Actually, I know that he did because I heard him, but I don’t want to admit that I was eavesdropping.

  “Oh, yes, I remember now. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that he didn’t think much of my work. I wasn’t surprised. I’m sure my perspective was flawed and my composition hopeless. Heavens, I’m no artist. I have no training whatsoever. I’ve never taken a class or even watched one on PBS. I just picked up a brush.” Beryl started to say something, but her grandmother glared at her. “It was very kind of Beryl to suggest that I exhibit my work, but I was foolish to let her talk me into it.”

  That wrapped up Mac’s questions, but Oscar wasn’t finished. “Let’s go through the finding of the body again,” he said, “just so I’m clear.”

  A day after the murder, Lillian Peacock could still barely get the words out as she described her utter shock at the grisly horror that lay in the alcove in front of the restrooms. Just watching her relive the moment was hard. By the end, tears were streaming down her wrinkled face. She buried her head in Beryl’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry we had to do this, Mrs. Peacock,” Oscar said. “I hope we won’t have to trouble you again.”

  V

  “How was dinner?” I asked Popcorn when I got to work the next morning.

  “Oh, fine. I love meat loaf and mashed potatoes.”

  So that’s how we’re going to play it. Al
l right, Popcorn. If you don’t want to talk about your date with Oscar, I’m not going to pry. Just how long has this been going on?

  Popcorn followed me into my office with a cup of decaf coffee. She put the coffee on my desk and sat in the chair in front of me. Her blond hair looked freshly dyed and I hadn’t seen the white pantsuit before. Primping for Oscar? “Want to hear some gossip?” she said.

  “Am I allowed to say no?”

  “No. Thurston Calder wrote an extremely nasty review of Dr. O’Neill’s book, Walt in Dalíland: How Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí Changed Each Other. He called it, quote, ‘simplistic, naïve, and uncritical to the point of fawning over his two right-wing subjects,’ unquote.” Well, that was clear. “The review appeared in The Atlantic and got a lot of attention.”

  I lifted my eyebrows as I sipped the java. “You surprise me, Popcorn. I didn’t know you read The Atlantic.”

  “Not on a bet, Boss. Shirley Diebold told me. Dr. O’Neill’s admin. She likes him and she’s hoping he gets to strike the ‘interim’ off his job title. After Shirley found that review in an online search, she was worried that Calder would get the job. She thought he’d make Dr. O’Neill’s life hell. So she’s glad that Calder’s - ” Popcorn stopped dead. “I mean, she’s glad he’s no longer in competition.”

  Well, that was interesting. “Since you’re so connected with Shirley, why don’t you see if she can set up an appointment for me with O’Neill as soon as possible?”

  “Sure. What shall I say it’s about?”

  “Let him use his imagination on that.”

  Later that morning, Lynda sent me a text saying that the Observer was desperate for new angles on the murder to keep the story on life support. Good luck, I texted back. Today’s Observer piece, hastily written on Sunday by news editor Bernard J. Silverstein, was mostly a “Who Was Thurston Calder?” kind of story, with a few unmemorable quotes from the chief and Dante Peter O’Neill. The investigation of the crime was ongoing, and ditto the search for a new art department head.

  Popcorn managed to get me an appointment with O’Neill at eleven o’clock. I was outside his office about five minutes early and he motioned me in. Defying every stereotype of the messy artist, the place was about as chaotic as O’Neill’s pinstriped suit, rep tie, and button-down collar.

  “I know why you’re here,” he said as I sat down. You do? “I realize I shouldn’t have talked to the newspaper without clearing it through you, Jeff. But it seemed harmless to acknowledge to the paper that Calder was a candidate for department head and that the search process continues despite this tragedy.”

  I dismissed his concern with a gracious wave. “Your comments were fine. But what didn’t you say?”

  O’Neill allowed himself a half-smile, a wordless admission that he hadn’t volunteered anything to Ben Silverstein in their weekend phone conversation. “Calder was one of three finalists. It’s within the discretion of the search committee to reconsider one of the formerly rejected applicants if they aren’t happy with the remaining two.”

  “Do you think they will?”

  Hands up. “That would be pure speculation on my part.”

  “Okay, then, purely speculate.”

  “Well, my sources tell me that the committee will probably stick with the final two candidates.”

  “And you’re one of them.”

  He nodded. “I have that honor. My interest in keeping this position has been no secret on campus from the day I was appointed as interim head. I’m sure you know that.”

  He was buttering me up, but I didn’t deduct any points for that.

  “Tell me about the other hopeful.” Although I’d known about the search for a new art department head from day one, I hadn’t focused on the details until now.

  “She’s a very strong candidate - Dr. Sheila Dunfrey. Dr. Dunfrey works at a very small college in Maine, even smaller than St. Benignus, but she’s published a lot and is very well known in the field both as an artist and as an academician. She’s teaching in Italy this semester.”

  “Are you sure she’s there right now?” I said. “I mean, she’s not off for some Italian holiday or something?”

  “I spoke to her this morning to inform her about the situation here and she mentioned having a class tomorrow.” He frowned. “Of course, I was talking to her on a cell phone. In theory, she could have been down the street for all I know. You don’t think - ”

  “No, I don’t.” I smiled. “That would be a bit far-fetched. But I read a lot of mysteries, and I’ve written a few, too. That sometimes makes my mind go in devious directions that probably don’t mean anything. For instance, I can’t help remembering that you seemed awfully sure on Saturday night that you would never work for Thurston Calder. Those were pretty much your exact words.”

  O’Neill regarded me through his horn-rimmed glasses. Somehow it felt like he was getting taller than ever even though he didn’t move from his chair. I’m going to avoid the temptation to say he assumed an air of injured dignity, because he wasn’t assuming anything; it was the genuine article.

  “I wasn’t posturing,” he said. “I meant it. Confidentially, Jeff, I’ve had an offer from my alma mater to assume an endowed professorship at DAAP. I’d rather stay here at St. Benignus if I can remain department head and move the program forward, but if not...” He shrugged. “Well, the offer was a very generous one. Even without it, though, I wouldn’t have stayed if Calder had become department head. I suppose I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I simply had no respect for the man.”

  “Was that because of his charming personality or because of his poison-pen reviews - including the one he wrote about your Disney-Dalí book?”

  O’Neill was either puzzled or a very good actor. His eyebrows wrinkled behind the horn-rims. “What?”

  “I was referring to Calder’s scathing review of Walt in Dalíland that was published in The Atlantic.”

  The young academic shook his head. “If I read it, I don’t remember. I pay very little attention to negative reviews. Frankly, I find negativity a drain on creativity.” Hey, that’s good - even though it sounds like a line in a rap song. “No, it had nothing to do with that. Calder was thoroughly unsuited for any college campus, but especially a faith-based institution.”

  I stared at him blankly, trying to read between the lines when I couldn’t even find the lines.

  “Let’s not be coy, Jeff. I refer to the reason for his hasty exit from the Warhol Art Institute.”

  “His book on Andy Warhol?”

  “Hardly.” O’Neill emitted a grim chuckle. “I assumed you knew. Calder was forced to leave the Institute because of a tawdry affair with one of his students, a nineteen-year-old female. Apparently the Institute only avoided a sexual harassment lawsuit by reaching an out-of-court settlement. The business cost Calder his marriage as well as his job.”

  This sounded like one of those romance novels by Rosamund DeLacey that Popcorn is always reading. It could even have some bearing on the case, I thought. “How much of this is guesswork or gossip?”

  “None of it. Check The Chronicle of Higher Education around the time Calder departed the Institute. It’s all there. The story even mentioned the financial settlement, albeit without naming a dollar amount.” O’Neill turned his chair slightly to look out the window at the trees instead of at me. “Gossip, on the other hand, would be if I told you that this wasn’t an isolated incident and that Calder had a reputation for dalliances with young women.”

  “Well, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to spread gossip, and I certainly wouldn’t want to hear it. If all this was so public, how did Calder ever wind up as a finalist for head of our art department?”

  “That’s an excellent question, but you’ll have to ask the provost.”

  “Ralph?” I’m sure the name came out as an incredulou
s gasp.

  O’Neill nodded. “I understand from someone who would know that Dr. Pendergast insisted to the search committee that Calder be among the final three.”

  VI

  Ralph Pendergast, provost and academic vice president of St. Benignus College, has been the bane of my existence - and Mac’s - since his arrival on campus two years ago with a mandate to tighten up the ship. He hates bad publicity and my brother-in-law’s high-profile antics, especially when said shenanigans involve murder. Ralph seems to find homicide, however remotely connected to the college, just plain unseemly. Not surprisingly, he has closer ties to the board of trustees and to the business community than to the faculty or staff of St. Benignus.

  So I was turning over in my mind the news that Ralph had essentially forced Thurston Calder on the search committee, wondering if this mess contained a silver lining, when I got back to my office and found a surprising visitor waiting for me.

  Lesley Saylor-Mackie was sitting in the stuffed chair in front of Popcorn’s desk, chatting away with my administrative assistant as if they were old friends. Maybe they were, but Saylor-Mackie had never been in my office before. She was professionally dressed in a blue pinstriped suit set off by a simple red pin and an equally red Bakelite bracelet like the one that I’d seen in an antique store recently priced at three hundred bucks.

  She rose from her chair and we exchanged banal greetings.

  “Who are you this morning,” I said when that was out of the way, “Mayor Saylor-Mackie or Professor Saylor-Mackie, head of the history department?” Town and gown get along well in Erin, so the two titles aren’t usually in conflict. Still, I thought it would be good to get straight at the beginning whether this was a professional visit or a political one.

  “I wanted to talk to you about a press release.”

  Professional, then.

  “You’ve come to the right place, Professor.”

  We moved into my office. Instead of sitting behind my desk, I sat in a chair facing her. In about sixty seconds flat I figured out that the press release she wanted - about an upcoming lecture on James Rankin and the Underground Railroad - was all smoke and mirrors. This was the kind of thing I handled routinely without a personal visit from the head of the history department. I nodded politely, made reassuring comments about my ability to get the job done, and waited for her to come to the real reason she’d dropped by.