Monkey Puzzle Read online

  ‘You mean even after all that he wasn’t dead?’

  ‘Oh – dead within a few minutes, sure. They’re big wounds, but none hit the heart. They were delivered straight down. You have to go under and up behind the sternum or in this way between the ribs to really nail the heart.’

  ‘Straight down,’ Stryker echoed.

  Bannerman rocked back on to his heels and wiped his sleeve across his face. It was a long face, with acne scarring high on the cheeks, and the general aspect of a friendly horse. ‘I figure he was on his back when he was stabbed, okay? The last thrust went into the sternum – the breastbone – and stuck there. The killer had to rock it and pull hard to get it out, you can see the wound is different from the rest. In doing it he turned the victim over slightly. I guess the killer was getting tired by then. Slowing down.’

  ‘. . . “All passion spent”?’ Stryker asked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘No way of knowing. There are small men and big women – and he was unconscious, remember.’

  ‘Then why all the anger?’

  Bannerman shrugged. ‘You tell me. Maybe it started out to be one stab and then the killer snapped – got into a frenzy, kept going. It can happen like that.’

  ‘I know,’ Stryker murmured. ‘I’ve seen it happen.’

  Bannerman’s face was bleak. ‘You mean you’ve felt it happen. That’s how babies get bashed, and wives beat up. It’s very scary.’

  ‘We stop ourselves after the first blow. The killer didn’t.’

  ‘That might be the only difference between him and us,’ Bannerman said, starting to repack his case.

  ‘Anything else I should know?’ Stryker asked.

  Bannerman stood looking down at the dead man. ‘He was in his middle to late sixties, well-preserved and well-nourished, probably drank a bit too much.’

  ‘That wasn’t his only vice,’ Pinsky said. ‘Take a look at those pictures on the desk, why don’t you?’

  Stryker went over to the desk and picked up the sheaf of pictures that lay face-down on the blotter. Porn glossies. The usual thing – saucy poses with coy expressions, bums out, legs spread, hands busy, eyes inviting. He’d seen thousands like them. With one difference.

  These were all men.

  ‘Oh, swell, a daisy,’ Stryker growled, dropping the pictures back on to the blotter in disgust. ‘Is this the reason for the mutilation, you figure? Male homos often mutilate when they kill.’

  Bannerman shrugged again. ‘I wondered about that but they usually cut off the obvious thing, don’t they? He’s intact below. I never had one with his tongue cut out. Never before read of one, either.’

  ‘Maybe it was to keep him from talking,’ Neilson suggested, facetiously.

  ‘Funny,’ Stryker said.

  But he didn’t laugh.

  THREE

  Stryker was listening to Pinsky finishing his preliminary report when Toscarelli spoke from the hall. ‘Somebody’s coming.’ Stryker went out.

  Neilson looked after him and raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean to tell me that is the “Jumping Jack Flash” you guys kept telling me about? He doesn’t look so much to me.’

  Pinsky gave him a dirty look and Bannerman said, defensively, ‘He’s been sick.’

  ‘I guess,’ Neilson said, with a laugh.

  Donovan was putting his cameras away. ‘I’d be careful, kid,’ he said, mildly, ‘You’ll see him jump eventually – and if you aren’t looking, it could be on to your back. He doesn’t like sloppy cops.’ He had the satisfaction of making the kid blush as the brass knife slipped in its plastic bag and hit the floor.

  ‘It’s the blood on it – it’s slippery,’ Neilson protested.

  Bannerman nodded. ‘So’s Jack Stryker. Watch yourself.’

  In the hall, Stryker and Toscarelli watched with interest the approach of five foot nothing of icy-eyed lightning, whippy and fast-moving. It was a man, but it looked more like a grey-haired boy. ‘I’m Stark, the Chairman of the Department. I had a call from Campus Security. They said there’d been a killing here. Is that right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Stryker acknowledged, producing his identification. ‘I’m Lieutenant Stryker, this is Sergeant Toscarelli. We’ll be in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘In here?’ Stark demanded, looking toward the open door.

  ‘Yes. He –’ Stryker was too slow. Stark was past him and into the office before he could finish the sentence. Bannerman was kneeling again beside the body, unfolding a body bag. He and the others all suspended their activities momentarily, as if playing a game of statues.

  Stark stood over the body, looking down. His face seemed to tighten all over, but his expression remained neutral.

  ‘Well, sir?’ Stryker asked, coming up behind Stark. ‘Is it him?’ Meaning the man whose name was on the office door.

  ‘Is it he?’ Stark corrected him, automatically. ‘Yes, it’s Aiken. Obviously not suicide.’ His tone was dry.

  ‘Struck on the head, then stabbed repeatedly,’ Bannerman volunteered.

  ‘Indeed,’ Stark said blankly.

  Bannerman opened his mouth to go on. Behind Stark, Stryker shook his head violently, but Bannerman didn’t notice. ‘And his tongue was cut out,’ he continued. ‘Afterwards.’

  Stark stared at him for a moment, then turned on his heel and shot out of the door. Stryker caught up with him halfway down the corridor, when the small figure stopped in mid-step and seemed to shiver momentarily. ‘Did he say . . . ?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir,’ Stryker said. ‘He shouldn’t have said anything until the autopsy was complete, but . . .’

  Stark peered up at him. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, these details often . . .’

  ‘I’d hardly call that a detail, Lieutenant. Dear God, how Aiken would have hated the thought of his appearance being mutilated.’

  ‘Well, it won’t show with the mouth closed,’ Stryker pointed out helpfully, thinking of the funeral arrangements and trying to be practical. ‘They’ll make him look normal.’

  ‘He’d hate that even more,’ Stark snapped, and hurried on down the hall. He began talking fast, half to himself, making a lifeline of words to hold on to, stringing out small items of interest as if to keep himself afloat. ‘He has no family. We’ll take care of the arrangements. I’ll have to notify the Dean. And his lawyer. I think I’m currently one of his executors.’

  ‘Currently?’ Stryker asked.

  ‘He could go on and off people, like a neon sign,’ Stark said. ‘You never knew from one week to the next.’ They’d reached the foyer, and Stark’s glittering eye fell on the detritus left in the Faculty Lounge. He clucked, impatiently. ‘That looks debauched. I must do something about that before Monday.’

  ‘There was a party last night?’

  Stark shook his head. ‘Not what you’d call a party. This has been Registration Week, you see, and we have a traditional gathering at the end of it. Sherry and so on. Nothing wonderful.’

  ‘And how late did this gathering last?’

  Stark considered. ‘Most of them were gone by six. But we stayed on.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘My Assistant Chairman, Arthur Fowler, and the members of the Honours Committee. There were things to discuss.’

  Stryker got out his notebook. ‘Was Aiken Adamson one of the members?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the others?’

  Stark took a deep breath. ‘Aiken, Arthur and I, Pinchman, Rocheleau, Underhill, Heskell, Heath, Grey-Jenner, Trevorne, Coulter and Wayland.’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And they all stayed on – until what time?’

  ‘I don’t know, exactly. About seven-thirty or eight.’

 
‘What does this committee do, exactly?’

  ‘It’s a new thing we’re trying. Special programme for promising English majors – taking them out of normal classes during their junior and senior year and giving them intensive individual attention on a tutorial basis.’ Stark was becoming fretful. ‘I really must notify the Dean immediately.’

  ‘Of course,’ Stryker agreed. ‘And you can call the rest of them, too, while you’re at it.’

  ‘The rest of them?’ Stark demanded. ‘All of them? Do you realise there are over sixty members of faculty in this department, plus secretaries and student assistants? English is the biggest single-subject de –’

  ‘Take it easy.’ Stryker consulted his notebook. ‘I only want Fowler, Pinchman, Rocheleau, Underhill, Heskell, Heath, Grey-Jenner, Trevorne, Coulter and Wayland.’

  ‘On a Saturday? Some of them are the most senior and . . .’

  ‘I want to talk to them,’ Stryker interrupted, unperturbed. ‘I don’t care if they can recite Shakespeare backwards, went to Mass with Tom Eliot or split logs and infinitives with Robert Frost. This is murder, Dr Stark. These people stayed late, they were the last to see Adamson alive. Maybe one of them was the very last.’

  Stark was horrified. ‘You don’t think – surely you can’t think one of us . . .’

  ‘I don’t think anything, yet,’ Stryker lied. ‘I’m just a vacuum cleaner sucking up facts and impressions. That’s part of my job. One of them may know where Adamson planned to go after the meeting, or why he stayed on here if he stayed on here. Or why he-went away and came back, if that’s what he did. He might have said something to one of them, or been overheard saying something. He sure as hell isn’t going to tell me, is he?’

  ‘None of them is Catholic,’ Stark announced, abruptly.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Couldn’t have gone to Mass with Eliot.’ His eye brightened suspiciously. ‘We do have an Associate Professor on the faculty who claims to have made spiritual contact with William Wordsworth, though.’

  ‘Sounds daffy to me,’ Stryker said, straight-faced.

  Stark raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, very nice. Do you sup-pose . . . ?’

  ‘Call them. I want them here as soon as possible. Unless you think they’d find a trip to the police station more of an intellectual challenge?’ Stryker smiled at Stark. It was a charming smile, a warm smile, a salesman’s smile.

  Stark was neither charmed nor sold.

  He eyed Stryker, assessing him. Tough, he decided. And bright. And not easy to impress. Why should he be? Our authority extends only to the edge of the campus – his is everywhere. And authority does things to people. It’s done things to me, made me someone I never set out to become. But if I’m careful, if we’re all careful, and cooperative, there’s no reason why the entire matter shouldn’t be settled quickly and safely, with no harm done to the Department or the University. My God! The Dean will go berserk when he hears about this. He’s always looking for a chance to sit on English. The vote at the State Capitol is due in a few months, and we have a murderer loose on the campus. Hardly a qualification for State University status. Or funding – unless it would be as a disaster area. He’ll blame me, somehow. All my work, everything I’ve done, will be dust. Unless we can get it settled fast. Damn Aiken. Damn him.

  ‘Very well, Lieutenant, I’ll call them,’ Stark agreed.

  Toscarelli joined Stryker in the foyer as Stark went down to the Main Office to call the Dean and the members of the committee. Stryker sent Pinsky with him, then stared out at the traffic on the street below. It was heavier, now. The black asphalt glistened, and car wheels had begun to throw a dirty lace cover of slush over the brilliant white slopes of the snowbanks that lined the street.

  ‘This is not neat,’ Toscarelli announced.

  ‘I know,’ Stryker agreed. He told him about the meeting of the previous night. ‘Stark says they finished around eight. The victim could have left with the others or stayed on or gone out and come back. This place isn’t locked up until eleven, when Campus Security do a patrol.’

  Toscarelli snorted. ‘They say.’

  ‘Yeah.’ They reflected on the general unreliability of anyone who wasn’t a serving police officer.

  ‘Some nut could have come in, waited in the john until the patrol went past, then made his move.’

  ‘How could he know Adamson would be here, unless he had some kind of previous arrangement with him? And if he had an arrangement, why hide in the john?’ Stryker took out a battered silver cigar case, glared at it, put it away. ‘And why here? Say it was some kind of sex thing – I can think of a hundred better places than that office.’

  ‘Okay. Maybe it was business.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m only thinking out loud.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Stryker’s eyes fell again on the remains of the refreshments in the Faculty Lounge. ‘Twelve little professors had a party, and when it was over, one of them was dead. What’s the odds on it being one of them?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Toscarelli’s tone was derisory. ‘The guy was a fag, right? He had funny friends. Maybe he went out, found a pick-up, brought him back here and the guy changed his mind and stiffed him. Happens all the time.’

  ‘Uh-huh. All the time.’

  ‘Well, it does happen.’

  ‘Sure. In gay bars, known haunts. Not in universities.’

  Toscarelli was irritated. ‘Look, just because they’re so smart it doesn’t necessarily make them so smart, you know?’

  ‘I agree – that’s what I just said. I don’t buy the fag angle at all. It had to be something else.’ Stryker fumbled in his pocket. ‘Seal this floor off – nobody in unless invited. These are the invited.’ He gave Toscarelli his notebook to copy the names. ‘Next, send Neilson over to Records. I want class lists for all Adamson’s courses last year – and final marks. I want to know anybody he failed, or even gave a D notice. Then get on to Vice and get somebody to cover the gay scene to pick up what they can about Adamson’s habits, contacts, everything. Schuster is into all that, poor bugger – you should pardon the expression.’ He took off his tweed cap, rolled it up and jammed it into his coat pocket, re-discovered his cigar case, opened it, took one out and stuck it between his teeth. He began to search for a match. ‘Next I want –’

  ‘You’re not supposed to smoke,’ Toscarelli reminded him.

  ‘I’m working, for Chrissakes,’ Stryker protested.

  ‘The doctors . . .’

  ‘Stuff the damn doctors,’ Stryker growled, then looked away from Toscarelli’s reproachful glance. ‘Okay, I’ll compromise, I’ll give up matches, okay?’

  Toscarelli looked sceptical. ‘Until you forget.’

  ‘I won’t forget. Jesus, it was me that nearly died, not you, remember?’

  ‘Just so long as you remember.’

  ‘You should have been a Jewish mother, you know that?’ Stryker said, belligerently. ‘You probably were, in a former incarnation. Get off my back, Tos. I got a case here.’

  ‘You are a case,’ Toscarelli said.

  ‘Funny. Ha ha.’ Stryker made another circuit of the foyer, pausing at last before the painting. ‘God, that’s awful. Really awful.’

  ‘Anything else you want done?’ Toscarelli asked, ignor-ing the art critic. Stryker’s cigar jutted upward as he chewed it.

  ‘I want some coffee and a Danish. They’ve got good Danish at the Union.’ He whirled on Toscarelli before the big man could speak. ‘If I can’t smoke, I’ll eat, okay?’

  ‘Good. You should build yourself up, anyway. You’re due for your annual medical in two months. They’ll catch you at that.’

  ‘I’ll be fine in two months,’ Stryker snarled. ‘I’m fine now.’ He glared at the Faculty Lounge. ‘I bet one of those turkeys did it. I don’t think it was a thief, I don’
t think it was a fag, I don’t think it was a student with a grudge, I bet it was one of them. Feels like it already.’

  ‘You haven’t even talked to them,’ Tos objected.

  ‘Listen,’ Stryker said. ‘That office was searched – you saw the open drawers and the papers everywhere?’

  Toscarelli nodded, and Stryker continued.

  ‘None of the papers were under the body, but some were scattered over it. Now if Adamson had come back and surprised a thief, there would have been papers under him. God knows they were everywhere else. No – whoever did it killed Adamson and then messed the place up to make it look like a thief. But thieves aren’t that messy – not professionals. They don’t kill, either, come to that.’

  ‘They do if they’re hopped up.’

  ‘What would a junkie expect to find in a godamn professor’s office?’ Stryker wanted to know. ‘A first edition of Confessions of an Opium-Eater?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Tos asked, momentarily distracted.

  ‘A book.’

  ‘You don’t eat opium, you smoke it.’

  ‘It was a Victorian – oh the hell with it.’ Stryker was walking impatiently around the foyer in circles as he talked. The lab men, coming down the hall, skirted around him. Donovan raised an eyebrow at Neilson and jerked his head back at the pacing figure.

  ‘Told you,’ he muttered. ‘He’s starting to jump already.’

  ‘But I grant you the possibilities,’ Stryker went on, not seeing the technicians or even Toscarelli, but only his own sneakered feet below him as he moved around. ‘I will grant you the possibility of a fag killing, I will grant you the possibility of a psycho with a grudge, I will grant you the possibility of suicide if you want it. It’s wide open, sure it is. Have I ignored anything?’

  ‘Only my vast experience and sound counsel,’ Tos said. ‘I’ll bet you twenty it was an outside job.’

  Stryker’s cigar went up and his eyes glittered. ‘You’re on, fusspot.’