Monkey Puzzle Page 3

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘Then don’t tell me how to run my lungs,’ Stryker snapped, and started down towards the Department Office. ‘And tell the guy who goes for the Danish it should be cheese or apple.’

  ‘Prune would be better,’ Toscarelli said. ‘You gotta keep up your fibre, you know.’

  But Stryker was too far gone to hear.

  FOUR

  Kate Trevorne, jammed halfway up an exit ramp from the freeway, drummed her fingers on the wheel and glared at a fat woman in a station wagon who was trying to force her way into the line.

  ‘Sorry, Madam, my need is greater than yours,’ Kate muttered, putting her foot down and darting forward to close the gap. She ignored the irritated blare of a horn and, gaining the upper road, turned left and accelerated towards the faculty car park. Rolling down the window to insert her plastic card, she looked around and noted the few cars that were there. Some were covered with snow – others had been swept or blown clear. She picked out Pete’s Colt and Jane’s Lincoln, then turned into a space of her own.

  She switched off the engine and stared out at the back of the Science Building. A murder, right here on campus, right in the English Department. Aiken dead. It was unbelievable, but hardly the kind of joke Dan Stark was apt to play – so it must be true.

  So much for being safe here, she thought.

  Not that this was the kind of danger she’d thought she was escaping when she’d come back from her abortive foray into the crass and commercial world of advertising. She’d come back to recover from Tony, caught up with old friends who convinced her to stay, and had come down here to the university one fresh spring day to plead her cause with Dan Stark. Years before he’d begged her to stay on when she’d finished graduate school – but she’d caught the sweet scent of expense-account living. The stink had come later. She’d been back two years, now – and she loved it more than ever. The bustle and energy in the halls, the students struggling toward a degree and, with luck, a little wisdom.

  Had one of them killed Aiken?

  She got out of the car and nearly fell flat on her face. The night’s snow had fallen on frozen ground already coated with old snow and ice. Under the fleecy mantle of fresh flakes was a treacherously pocked and pitted landscape designed to bring down both the meek and the mighty.

  Kate had a feeling that what lay ahead in the English Department would be the same.

  As she crossed the wet street and picked her way carefully over the unswept paths, she wondered again what Richard was doing and thinking. She’d tried to call him at the fraternity house, but they said he’d already left. It would have been so much better if they could have talked it over between them. At least they’d been together last night. At least she needn’t worry about that.

  If only Dan had told her what time Aiken had been killed. But his voice on the phone had been tense, the words of explanation brief, as if someone had been standing over him, listening.

  Probably someone had been.

  The police.

  Her mouth tightened as she stopped and looked around the Mall. Two or three students were walking on the far side, their bright clothing labelling them clearly. Four more were having a snowball fight on the Mall, their shouts thin and bright in the icy air. So the police were back at Grantham. Oh, my children, may you stay untouched in the middle of the young day, laughing and free. The fuzz cometh, and you haven’t the least idea what that means, have you?

  But I do.

  I’m not the forgetting kind.

  She took a deep breath and forged ahead, walking the outside of Grantham Hall, hugging her shoulder-bag tightly against her body, ready to swing it if necessary. But no policeman barred her way into Grantham Hall, although there was a Campus Security Guard in front of the faculty lifts.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Miss Trevorne,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting for you upstairs.’

  ‘Are they indeed?’ Kate said, with a wry smile. ‘Obviously they didn’t have to drive in through the crowds heading downtown to the January sales.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’ The Guard looked as if he’d have liked to smile under different circumstances. He pushed the button and held back the lift door for her. She noted the name on his uniform, and paused.

  ‘Do you know anything about this, Mr Jackson?’

  ‘No, ma’am!’ he said, defensively. ‘I made my rounds at eleven, just like always, and there wasn’t nothing wrong then. I told them that. But you know cops – they don’t think much of us Campus Security people. Think we’re duffers and has-beens. If I’d seen anything, don’t you think I’d have reported it? Done something about it?’

  ‘I’m sure you would have,’ Kate said, warmly. ‘You caught those vandals last year, didn’t you?’

  He looked gratified. ‘Yes, ma’am, I did. You remember that, do you?’

  ‘Of course. Three of them, weren’t there?’

  ‘No – only two. But big.’ He hesitated. ‘And drunk.’

  ‘Do you think it was somebody like that who did this?’

  A uniformed police officer appeared down the hall, and Jackson’s expression became a little hunted. ‘I don’t know. I’m not supposed to talk about it, you understand. You go on up, Miss Trevorne – they’re waiting, all those smart cops.’

  His outrage was concealed with difficulty. Obviously the police had given him a hard time. Kate leaned forward and held the lift door open. ‘Jackson?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’

  ‘Up theirs.’

  He looked startled, then his face broke into a grin. ‘Right on, Miss. I forgot all about you and them others. You was – ’

  The lift doors closed on his memories, but left Kate with her own. She’d been trying to forget for a long time, had become staid and sensible, a member of the Establishment. But now she could feel it rising up in her again. They were still pigs, were they?

  Nothing changed.

  The doors slid back on the foyer of the English Department. Dan Stark was standing there next to a stocky, dishevelled man who seemed vaguely familiar. He wore a scarred leather jacket over baggy slacks, a long scarf trailing down over a shirt and a sagging pullover, and dirty sneakers. He needed a shave.

  But his eyes, when he looked up from his notebook, were alert, intelligent, and so direct they were unnerving.

  She felt violated by those eyes, as if he’d reached down her throat and plucked at her gullet. There was an air of suppressed energy in his stance that made her instantly wary – as if he were about to spring. His mouth was soft, but his voice was hard, with a metallic edge of annoyance.

  ‘Sorry – faculty only,’ he barked. ‘Didn’t that dumb guard downstairs even – ’

  Dan interrupted. ‘This is Kate Trevorne, Lieutenant, one of our instructors. She only dresses like that to lull her students into a false sense of identity.’

  ‘Oh, okay. You can go in.’ The blue eyes flicked back to his notebook. She was dismissed.

  ‘Go where?’ she asked, sweetly.

  ‘Conference room.’ His voice was bored.

  ‘Don’t I get a police escort?’ she asked. ‘I just love big strong policemen. They make me feel all gooshy inside . . .’

  ‘Now, Kate,’ Dan said, warningly. ‘Stop that right now.’

  Stryker had looked up again at the sarcasm in her voice. He seemed more startled than angered. Once more the blue eyes raked her from crown to boots, and she knew she’d been filed away under ‘Trouble’. Again.

  Lifting her chin, she glared at him. ‘Don’t hit me, officer – I wear contact lenses.’

  ‘Gee whiz,’ Stryker said, with mock amazement. ‘Do you? They hardly show. You should wear a sign around your neck, so’s we’d all be careful. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to those big, beautiful grey eyes, now, would we?’

  ‘Cop,’ she said. It was an accusat
ion.

  ‘Virgin,’ he snapped back, involuntarily.

  ‘Dear me,’ murmured Stark, as Kate whirled and marched down the hall, her hips flicking angrily from side to side in her tight jeans.

  Stark cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid Kate has rather an unfortunate attitude towards the police. It’s only bravado, you understand. She – ’

  ‘Not a bad ass, for a teacher,’ Stryker said, absently.

  ‘Yes. You see – ’

  ‘Then let’s get it on,’ Stryker said, following Kate down the hall.

  Buoyed along by her irritation, Kate strode down the hall. She’d almost forgotten how the real ones were. Dealing carefully with Inspector This or Lord That in the classic novels of detection had dulled her recall. This one brought it all back – the tear gas, the wagons, the shouting and the fists. Machines, that’s what they were. Destructive, mindless machines, fuelled by their own sense of power, protecting and protected by The System.

  She strode into the conference room and dumped her shoulder-bag on to the table. ‘Greetings, fellow suspects,’ she announced. ‘I gather somebody’s finally bumped off the old bastard.’

  Behind her, Stryker’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Did you say “finally”, Miss Trevorne?’

  FIVE

  Stryker stood at the head of the table and looked at the faces around it, one by one. He recognised some from his undergraduate days, although their features had been blurred by time. Once they had terrified him, held his future in their hands.

  They didn’t scare him now.

  If anything, they looked scared of him. All except those two at the end, of course. The Viking and the Virgin. He realised why she’d fooled him at first. The long straight hair had become short and curly, the big glasses obscured half of the heart-shaped face and hid the grey eyes with their attendant lines. Time has passed, lady, he thought. Only the ass was the same. That he remembered.

  And the guy next to her – still tall, blond, bearded and incredibly handsome. Was there a change there, too? Or not?

  ‘Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got ourselves a murder, here. I’m Lieutenant Stryker, and this is Sergeant Toscarelli. We’ll be in charge of the case, assisted by Inspectors Pinsky and Neilson over there. Normally I’d talk to each of you separately, but as there are so many of you, I thought this would save time. Any objection to that?’

  ‘Would it matter if there was?’ the Viking asked.

  ‘Who are you?’ Stryker demanded, looking down at his list.

  ‘Richard Wayland,’ the Viking said.

  Stryker met his eyes and his attitude head-on. ‘If you’d rather withdraw from the general discussion, Mr Wayland, I have no objection. We can go into your reasons later, down at the station, where you can make an individual and private statement.’

  ‘Like that, is it?’ Wayland drawled.

  ‘Wasn’t it always?’ Kate asked, scornfully.

  Stark spoke suddenly, his voice sharp and very angry. ‘Now the two of you are to stop that right now. This is a murder investigation, not a protest meeting. Aiken is dead. Horribly dead. We are grown-up people, not children, and we are going to behave like grown-up people. Is that clearly understood?’

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

  Kate, blushing, ended it. ‘Sorry, Dan.’

  ‘Can I trust you?’

  ‘Scout’s honour,’ Wayland drawled, holding up three fingers.

  Stryker, taking this in, realised it was totally foreign to Wayland’s nature to knuckle under. His tone of voice indicated that to one and all. He would be polite – as barely polite as possible – only out of deference to his boss. Kate Trevorne, on the other hand, looked truly contrite. The look that passed between her and Stark held affection as well as respect.

  ‘Now before we talk about last night,’ Stryker said, ‘I’d like to get all of you straight in my mind. Mr Rocheleau?’

  ‘Here.’ A man halfway down on the left raised a hand. He had a sad clown’s face, with quirky eyebrows, but his expression was benign and kindly. He’d been the one who’d winked at Kate Trevorne a moment ago. Next to him sat Jane Coulter, who answered Stryker’s call with a nod. He remembered her, all right. Looked like someone’s granny but had a mind like a razor, and had nearly flunked him out of Freshman English. She’d also taught him a lot.

  One by one he identified them, either through memory or by reference to his notes.

  Edward Pinchman was the old guy with two tin legs whose aluminium crutches leaned against his chair. Arthur Fowler, now Assistant Chairman of the Department, was bald and fussy. (He had flunked Stryker). Lucille Grey-Jenner was new. Sleek and elegant in her Italian knit two-piece, she looked out of place among the others. Then came Stark, small and watchful.

  Beside him was Mark Heskell, dimpled and gleaming.

  Frank Heath, a negro, came next. Tall and bulky with beautiful hands carefully folded on the table before him. Then another beard – Chris Underhill, Poet in Residence. He’d won the Rademaker Prize, but at present appeared to have slept in his clothes. He was struggling to light a pipe. His hands were shaking. All these were new to Stryker.

  At the foot of the table, one arm draped negligently across the back of Kate Trevorne’s chair, was Wayland. Nothing about him was new to Stryker – all very old news.

  Kate watched Stryker sorting them all out. He’s pigeonholing us, she thought. Flick, flick, flick, one by one we’re dropping into his categories. It’s not what he sees that worries me, but what he doesn’t see.

  When he looks at Richard does he see the gentleness and sensitivity hiding within? I doubt it. Does he see Jane’s uncompromising intellect as well as her sweet expression? Probably not. And what about Edward’s humour? I don’t suppose he’d guess a man with no legs would have such a wry, delicious store of laughter in him – or such a gift for teaching. Can he glimpse Mark Heskell’s conceit? Or Chris Underhill’s religious fervour? Or Lucy Grey-Jenner’s sexuality? Or Dan’s compassion? Or Frank Heath’s dignity and immense store of knowledge? Or Pete Rocheleau’s incredible ability to nurture a small sprout of ability into a vast tree of talent?

  No. And why? Because he’s a cop, that’s why.

  Cops only look, rarely see.

  Why should this one be any different?

  Stryker, alone at the head of the table, felt momentary weakness and exhaustion sweep over him. He glanced at Tos, and saw concern in his eyes. If he gave in now, he wouldn’t get another case for months, and that was certain. He’d have to hang on, he’d have to take hold of this and shake it until it rattled and the answer dropped out. If he didn’t make it now – ’

  ‘All right,’ he said, turning away from the table and walking to the windows that overlooked the inner courtyard. Grantham Hall was L-shaped, and the two arms protected a garden area of trees, benches and flower beds between it and Science Hall, some six hundred yards away. ‘At some time between eleven and one last night, Aiken Adamson was killed in his own office here in this building. The body was discovered this morning by the Security Guard making his normal rounds. The office was apparently searched, but at this moment we have no way of knowing what, if anything, was looked for or taken. He – ’

  ‘How was he killed?’ That was from Wayland.

  ‘He was stabbed.’

  A rustle of movement went around the table, and several of them drew in a sharp breath of shock. Then Wayland spoke again, his voice ironic and thin. ‘In the back, presumably. How very apt.’

  Everyone at the table looked away, as if embarrassed.

  ‘Stabbed?’ Pinchman quavered, his face quite pale.

  ‘To be precise, he was hit on the head, then stabbed several times in the chest with his own paper knife.’

  Stryker dropped the facts like pebbles in a pool, watching the ripples spread.

  ‘Fing
erprints?’ This was from Kate Trevorne.

  ‘On the knife? No. Lots of others around the office, of course. We’ll need to take your fingerprints later, for purposes of elimination. Obviously we would expect to find your fingerprints in a colleague’s office. It’s the odd ones we’re after.’

  ‘You left something out, Lieutenant,’ Stark said, pointedly.

  Stryker glared at him. He’d hoped to keep it back, but it was obvious if he didn’t tell them, Stark would. ‘Some time after death, Adamson’s tongue was cut out,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Oh, God.’ Lucy Grey-Jenner’s hand went to her own mouth, and lingered there.

  ‘Christ,’ Heskell said, in a husky croak.

  Stryker was watching them all, but the ripples hit no rocks. Their horror seemed genuine. He didn’t know what he’d hoped for – a sudden accusation, a pathetic confession? That was in books. These people knew books – did they know life? ‘We haven’t found the tongue yet,’ he added, conversationally. ‘Could be anywhere.’

  ‘Who so keepeth his tongue keepeth his soul,’ Underhill murmured.

  Arthur Fowler began to giggle, almost uncontrollably, his eyes widening in horror at what his mouth was doing. ‘Oh, God,’ he managed to say, and clapped his handkerchief over his mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Forgive me, it was just – ’ his voice wavered again, rebelliously.

  Stryker took pity on him. ‘It’s the shock, sir. It happens to a lot of people when they’re told of sudden death.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ Fowler wasn’t certain if he wanted to be connected with “a lot of people”, but he subsided.

  ‘Was he robbed?’ somebody asked. The voice had been soft, and Stryker thought it had come from Heath.

  ‘We think his watch and a ring were removed – and perhaps his briefcase was taken.’

  ‘Then it was robbery.’ That was Pinchman.

  Stryker shook his head. ‘I don’t buy it – although that’s apparently what the killer wanted us to think. Adamson’s wallet was still in an inner jacket pocket, and it had over two hundred dollars in it. There were also lots of small items left in the office that a thief would have taken because they’re easy to sell. A transistor radio, a quartz alarm clock, brass book-ends, a tape recorder, and so on.’