Monkey Puzzle Page 10

  ‘No,’ Stryker said. ‘But I bet it’s damn tiring, running back and forth between the two of them.’

  Heath looked at him in some surprise, and then, slowly, began to chuckle. ‘Damned women.’

  ‘Ain’t it the truth?’ Pinsky said. ‘I got four daughters, myself.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Heath said, sympathetically.

  ‘So you were here together all Friday night?’ Stryker asked.

  They both nodded. ‘I came directly here,’ Lucy said. ‘Frank went home, made sure his mother was settled, then came out for his run. She sleeps a lot, you see, and has no clock in her room. As long as he’s there when she wakes up in the morning, she’s happy.’

  ‘But what – ’ Toscarelli began, stopped, looked around and started again. ‘What if she needs something?’

  ‘The nurse is there.’

  ‘Nurse?’ Stryker asked. ‘You didn’t mention any nurse when you made your statement.’

  Heath shrugged. ‘I didn’t figure you’d check.’

  ‘We always check,’ Stryker said, severely. ‘She’d have said you went out.’

  ‘I told you I went out. Jogging.’ Heath reminded them. ‘Came in around four a.m., and the nurse was asleep, or I hope she was, anyway. She’s none too young, herself, come to that. I can be real quiet when I want to be. Wild kid with a boss-man momma and four kick-ass brothers and sisters learns to be real quiet about sneaking home, believe me.’

  ‘How the hell can he afford a place like that?’ Pinsky wanted to know, when they were back in the car.

  ‘You heard him – three years of pro football. Don’t you remember him with the Packers?’

  ‘I don’t get much time for football,’ Pinsky said, morosely. ‘They’re always watching soaps and crap like that.’

  ‘He probably invested his money – check it out, will you, Neilson?’

  ‘I already did, as far as I could on a Sunday,’ Neilson said. ‘She’s got some money, too – and they both earn good salaries with no other expenses but themselves.’

  ‘Heath has his mother.’

  Neilson snorted. ‘According to my sources, she can pay her own way. Mr Heath’s momma was one of the busiest madams in town, once upon a time. That house she lives in a mile or so from here had quite a reputation. She was called Mama Jubilee, I think.’

  Tos swerved the car slightly. ‘Jeez, even I heard of her. Blacks only, and she meant it, I remember that.’

  ‘She was really fussy,’ Neilson agreed.

  ‘Apparently still is,’ Stryker said.

  ‘Blacks think we walk funny,’ Pinsky mused, reflectively. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Well, that sets up their alibi, anyway,’ Tos said.

  Stryker shook his head. ‘If Grey-Jenner is willing to live as his mistress in secret, it’s hardly going to strain her to lie for him, is it? A jogger at midnight is pretty anonymous, especially if he wears one of those tracksuits with a hood. It’s only two miles to the campus, if you cut through the alleys. He’s a big man, and I think he’s an angry man, but he keeps a tight rein on it. He’s under pressure. Suppose Adamson found out about the two of them – said he’d talk. What do you suppose someone like Heath might do to him?’

  ‘You’re not crossing them off?’

  ‘I had crossed them off. Now I’m putting them back on.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Let’s get something to eat, then head for the Hills. We can drop in on Professor Coulter on the way. I want to return her mitten.’

  FOURTEEN

  Professor Coulter’s home was a small New England style redbrick house set behind a long tidy garden, its shrubbery round-shouldered with snow. The front path had been cleared, and at the side they caught sight of a shovel being wielded rhythmically by a short stocky man in a hunting cap and dungarees. Leaving Pinsky and Neilson arguing about Heath in the car, Toscarelli and Stryker rang the bell. It was answered by a roundabout little person reminiscent of Binnie Barnes, all ruffles and flutters.

  ‘You must be Mrs Feather,’ Stryker said, removing his cap politely. Something about the house or the woman herself made it seem the right thing to do in this year of 1935. ‘I’m Lieutenant Stryker. Is Professor Coulter in?’

  ‘Oh, my – please – come in,’ whispered Mrs Feather. ‘She’s working, you see.’ This was, apparently, something akin to direct conversation with God and all his archangels. ‘But if it’s very important – ’ She gazed at him and saw that it was. ‘I’ll tell her. Just a moment.’ She turned and started down the hall, then glanced back and gave a tremulous smile. ‘The mat . . .’

  They dutifully wiped their wet shoes on the mat and, after a moment, Mrs Feather scurried back and said that ‘Jane’ would receive them. She led them to a room at the rear of the house, book-lined and made cosy by a real fire. What they took at first to be a fur rug in front of it moved suddenly and revealed itself to be a huge dog. It stood up and looked into Stryker’s eyes.

  ‘It’s all right, O’Bannion. Friends,’ said Professor Coulter from her desk, and the dog returned to its position by the fire. She put down some papers she’d been checking and smiled at them. ‘Irish wolfhound. Supposed to be bred to be the companions of kings. I often wonder what he makes of being reduced to looking after two old pussies like Milly and me. Have you come to arrest me?’

  ‘Not just yet,’ Stryker smiled. ‘I really . . .’

  ‘What a pity,’ she interrupted, getting up and coming over to them. ‘I’ve always wanted to be arrested at home. I was arrested in Syria, once, for taking photographs. They were merely of a Hittite grave, but I neglected to notice the military airfield behind it. I was held in protective custody in Crete during a local uprising. And spent two days, once, in a Tunisian prison – most unpleasant – but never at home. It would have been interesting to compare procedures.’

  ‘I’m sure if you put your mind to it you could manage a small crime,’ Stryker grinned. ‘But I’ve only come to ask you about your mittens.’

  ‘Mittens?’ she asked in an astonished voice. ‘Mittens?’ Even O’Bannion raised his massive head in some surprise and fixed Stryker with a quizzical look.

  ‘Well, one mitten, actually.’

  O’Bannion put his head down again, bored.

  Mrs Feather appeared in the doorway, bearing an enormous silver tea service and a plate of biscuits on a tray. ‘I thought . . . tea . . . I thought perhaps . . . the cold . . . afternoon . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, Milly . . . very kind,’ Jane Coulter said, indicating the low table beside the fireplace. ‘Sit down, gentlemen, please. Let us be civilised.’

  They sat gingerly on the fragile sofa while she placed herself opposite and poured out the tea. Mrs Feather, after proffering plates, napkins, etc.’ sat down on a small, distant chair and picked up some petit point. Her large eyes watched them, as her needle flickered, in and out, in and out. Stryker looked around. It was a remarkable room. Every available surface was covered with things. Photographs in little silver frames, statues, rocks large and small, icons, photographs in big silver frames, brassware, carvings, dolls, pots – objects of every conceivable description. It was the room of a magpie – cluttered, claustrophobic, but fascinating. It occurred to him that merely the dusting of them must have kept little Mrs Feather on the verge of exhaustion.

  ‘Now, about this mitten,’ Jane Coulter said, briskly, when the cups had been distributed. In Tos’s hand the fine china looked like something from a doll’s tea set.

  ‘Yes.’ With difficulty, Stryker put down his cup and produced the fur-backed mitten he’d retrieved from Adamson’s car. ‘This one . . .’

  ‘That’s Kate Trevorne’s,’ Professor Coulter said. ‘Not mine.’

  Stryker stared at her in surprise. ‘But I saw one like it fall from your pocket on Saturday morning, in the conference room.’

  ‘Indeed, so you did, but not exact
ly like it.’ She turned to Mrs Feather. ‘Milly, fetch my mittens from my coat pocket, will you?’ She smiled at them and sipped her tea until her companion reappeared bearing the mittens. Jane Coulter took them from her and Mrs Feather retreated to her chair and her embroidery. ‘There, you see? Mine have brown leather palms, Kate’s have red. Ergo, that is probably one of Kate’s – or someone else’s – but not one of mine. Where did you find it?’

  ‘In – ’ Tos began.

  ‘The faculty car park,’ Stryker finished.

  ‘I see. Well, I find it extraordinary that you’d come all this way just to return my mitten. Very kind.’

  ‘Actually, we were on our way to Professor Adamson’s house.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So it wasn’t a special trip, after all.’ She seemed faintly disappointed.

  ‘He lived not far from you,’ Stryker observed. ‘Were you friends?’

  Her eyebrows went up. ‘Friends? Aiken and I? Impossible. He had no friends on the faculty, as you must have gathered by now. He was popular enough with the students, he made it his business to be, for he required adulation. But as to his relationship with us, well – ’ She leaned forward. ‘We were rivals, you see.’

  ‘Rivals? You mean for tenure and so on?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that. We both had full professorships and tenure and at any rate, were rapidly approaching retirement. No, I meant academic rivals, Lieutenant. We live for two things in our profession; the possibility of encountering and encouraging a promising student, and the fight for stature in our chosen fields of expertise. To maintain that stature, we must publish, as often as possible. Books, articles, and so on. I, myself, have managed to keep my head well up, I’m not shy to say it. I’ve worked hard, and I deserve it.’ Her smile softened what might have sounded like arrogance.

  ‘You’re brilliant, Jane,’ murmured Mrs Feather. ‘You always were.’

  ‘No, I’m a worker,’ Dr Coulter said, half-turning on the sofa to correct the point. ‘Brilliance is not enough, Milly. But Aiken thought it was, you see.’ She turned back to the men. ‘That was his fault, his abiding fault, in fact. He thought that if you said something well, or cleverly, it hid the fact that it was claptrap. He was shallow, surface glitter only. The man never delved for anything in his life. He lived off others.’

  ‘You mean he took other people’s work?’

  Dr Coulter looked alarmed, as if perhaps she’d gone too far. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said. ‘But he . . . took advantage.’

  ‘Of who?’

  ‘Whom,’ she said absently, putting down her cup. ‘I prefer not to name names, of course, mostly because I can’t remember them. But, over the years, I think he dipped into more than one student’s research and turned it to his own advantage.’

  ‘Hardly a crime.’

  She looked slightly disappointed in him. ‘Not in your terms, perhaps, but certainly in ours. I’m not saying he wasn’t clever, but that he thought cleverness was enough. Indeed, that it was all. It isn’t.’

  ‘Did he steal work from you?’

  ‘From me?’ She was astounded. ‘He wouldn’t have dared. And, anyway, our fields were entirely separate. No, I found him unpleasant but manageable. He preferred weaker targets. If you measure friendship by concern, then Aiken was not my friend. Had he been in trouble I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help him. To his credit, I suppose, I’d have to admit that he’d have been astounded if I had ever done so.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Jane, You are the kindest of women,’ came Mrs Feather’s dutiful whisper from her corner.

  ‘Thank you, Milly.’ Professor Coulter accepted the tribute graciously, but gave the two policemen a wry, amused look. ‘Nevertheless, I felt no kindness towards Aiken, and I will not pretend to have done so. He could be amusing, occasionally, of course. He was a witty man.’

  ‘If you were asked to name his murderer, who would spring to mind?’ Stryker asked.

  She looked at him a long time, without speaking, then sighed, heavily. ‘I can see your difficulty, Lieutenant. Instead of one or two suspects, you’ve got a plethora. Most people, if pressed, would rather let Aiken’s murderer get away than be instrumental in convicting a friend. A lot of people would even find it excusable that a friend could be driven beyond endurance to that final, terrible act.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make it excusable,’ Tos said. ‘Killing is wrong.’

  ‘But surely you’ve killed in the line of duty?’ Dr Coulter said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Do you consider that wrong?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Tos said, evenly. ‘We all do. It’s always a last resort.’

  ‘Perhaps Aiken’s killer found it a last resort, too.’

  ‘Maybe. But I don’t expect he sleeps easy on it, any more than we do,’ Stryker said, standing up. ‘Thank you for the tea, ladies. I’m sorry to have barged in like this.’

  ‘I wish I could have been more help to you,’ Jane Coulter said, then added, ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘What is it, ma’am?’

  ‘Well, I just realised, about Kate’s mitten. You don’t connect it with Aiken’s murder, do you? I’d hate to think I’d led you to think that she was . . .’

  ‘It’s all right, don’t worry about it,’ Stryker reassured her. ‘We only found it and thought it was yours, that’s all.’

  ‘Shall I return it to her?’

  ‘No, I’ll do that,’ Stryker said.

  ‘Because I’m certain Kate . . . I mean, she would never . . . ’ For once Jane Coulter seemed out of countenance.

  In front of the fireplace, O’Bannion stirred, pricking up his ears at the sound of her voice, its change in tone. Slowly, he began to rise.

  ‘Don’t give it another thought,’ Tos said, quickly.

  ‘Ah. You’re very kind,’ she said. O’Bannion subsided, but instead of closing his eyes he kept them open and fixed unwinkingly on the two men now edging toward the door. ‘I wish you luck in finding Aiken’s killer.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I expect we’ll need it,’ Tos said, with a very, very big smile, and a last furtive glance at the dog.

  ‘What’sa matter,’ Neilson asked, when they returned to the car. ‘Did she get away from you?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Tos growled. ‘She’s just a nice little old lady, don’t be so fast with your mouth.’

  ‘Sooorreee,’ said Neilson, giving Pinsky a look.

  ‘She reminds me of the people who milk rattlesnakes,’ Stryker said, unexpectedly, and they all looked at him in surprise. ‘She called Adamson “manageable” – but everyone else either hated him or was afraid of him or both. Not her. He didn’t worry her one damn bit.’

  ‘With a dog like that, why should she worry about anyone?’ Tos asked. ‘She probably didn’t have any reason to be scared of him.’

  ‘Or maybe she had a reason not to be scared,’ Stryker said.

  ‘Same thing,’ Tos said, dismissively, starting the engine.

  Neilson looked at Stryker thoughtfully. ‘No, it isn’t.’

  Stryker looked at his watch. ‘We’re late,’ he said. ‘I hope the lawyer hasn’t given up on us.’

  Adamson had lived in Lakeside Hills, on a meticulously cleared curving road from which only occasional glimpses of sprawling ranch-styles or upright mock-Georgian outlines were possible through the trees, or at the far end of gravelled drives.

  In the city, filthy slush spattered the drifted, thrown, or shovelled snow – but out here all remained deep and crisp and even. It was a land of banker kings and advertising agency princes, and an unlikely setting for a college professor.

  When they finally located the mailbox bearing Adamson’s name, they found a car had preceded them up the drive. A two-tone grey Rolls was waiting before the closed garage doors. Pinsky drew up beside it, and stopped the engine of their own sedan, which barked and hiccoughed before finally accep
ting defeat. A small, dapper man got out of the Rolls. Lieutenant Stryker? ‘I’m Roger Stewart.’ He extended a perfectly manicured hand, sans glove. ‘I live nearby, so I got elected for duty.’ Stewart’s clasp was warm and strong, as befitted a senior partner of one of the city’s most prestigious law firms, but surprising in one of his light stature. Handball, Stryker guessed. Uptown Athletic. At least twice a week.

  ‘I expected a junior clerk to be stuck with this.’

  ‘Would have been,’ Stewart agreed, with a brief smile. ‘But Adamson was an old and valued client – and, as I say, I live nearby. Do you have his keys?’

  Last rites, Stryker thought, and produced them. They went across the wide patio of the mock-Colonial house, their city shoes squeaking in the powdering of snow that had been blown under the overhanging roof. The sky was pale, and the air was much colder out here. Their breath hung in the stillness. A few birds made their contribution, and a bush beside the entrance gave a tentative creak and rustle in a momentary current of air. Otherwise the key in the lock was the loudest sound around.

  As the door swung open, stale warm air came out to envelop them, bearing the smell of good furniture and good polish, but nothing remotely human. No cooking odours, no soap recently lathered in the shower, no cigarettes, no aftershave, no sweat.

  Nobody home.

  Stewart went in and they followed, stamping the snow from their shoes on to the black and white tiles of the entrance hall. ‘I think Professor Adamson had a daily housekeeper during the week, but no-one living in. No living family, either.’

  They moved to the archway that opened on to the sitting-room. No doubt about it, Stryker thought – this had been a rich man’s house. The walls were a pale robin’s egg blue, the carpet a dark bronze overlaid with Oriental rugs. Much of the furniture was custom-made, the rest antiques. Stryker, whose parents had been antique dealers before their joint and premature death on a buying trip to Europe, touched an inlaid tabouret and thought of them. They’d left him little but a few pieces of furniture, memories, and a knowledge he’d never been aware of acquiring as he grew up, so gently had it permeated his mind. It was there with him now, in his eyes and fingertips, and he knew something was wrong. College professors just don’t have this kind of money.