Addressed to Kill Read online

  “Oh yes.” If ten minutes on a restroom couch is enough, I said to myself. “I made the most of the morning, and thank you again. Enjoy the rest of your visit with Natalie.”

  “Yeah, I might just take a nap while she hits the outlet stores. Oh, the chief of police came by. Did she catch up with you?”

  “She sure did.”

  “Hmm,” Ben said, but I signed off before he could ask any questions and turned back toward the buildings on the south side.

  * * *

  The trees were bare of leaves, and the wind whipped through the few buildings on campus. I kept my head down and my jacket closed tight, and moved my scarf up to cover part of my mouth. Typical cold-weather walking in New England. A few yards down the path, I saw a figure coming from behind a tree, headed toward me. I lifted my head and identified Hank Blackwood, former member of the Ashcots, also with a scarf up to his chin. Odd. I thought Hank had retired from teaching as well as from the music group, as he’d reminded me this morning.

  “Cassie Miller, how strange to run into you here.”

  “I was thinking the same,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I was just visiting some of my old buddies. All us professors in the math department get together once a week for coffee and talk about the latest in math developments. You know, the new papers on group theory, conformal geometry, that kind of thing. I like to keep up on things.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, making a move toward continuing my walk. Hank turned from his own path and joined me.

  “It’s pretty somber around here today,” he said.

  “It is.”

  “Awful thing, huh? You’d think the cops would have cracked down on that gang by now,” he said.

  Hank was shorter than me by a few inches and therefore had to hurry to keep up with my stride. Not that I deliberately tried to make it hard for him to accompany me.

  “Gang?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m assuming it’s a gang doing all those robberies. I guess that’s the drawback of a small town, right? So few law enforcement personnel. Pittsfield, on the other hand, has three full patrol shifts, plus a detective bureau, narcotics, you name it. I told you I’m playing with a group of musicians there, right?”

  “Right” seemed the only appropriate answer, other than Too bad Dennis didn’t live in Pittsfield, which seemed to be what Hank was implying.

  Hank had run out of breath trying to keep up with me, I suspected, and paused on the path. He continued to extol the virtues of big-city life in Pittsfield. I looked at my watch and started walking again. “I’m on my lunch hour, so I’d better get moving.”

  “Oh, sure sorry. Well, good to talk to you, Madam Postmistress,” he said, with a slight bow.

  I winced. “You, too.”

  I stepped up my pace, berating myself. Why hadn’t I queried Hank? Because I didn’t like him very much? A little too pompous for my taste. Was this the short person syndrome I’d read about? People trying to make up for lack of height. It certainly didn’t hold for the petite chief of police, a good six inches shorter than me and most men, but in no way full of herself.

  This made me a triple failure as a good citizen or a detective: I hadn’t given Dennis the attention he should have gotten as a customer, I hadn’t fulfilled Sunni’s request to find out if Mercedes knew about Dennis’s letters, and I didn’t think of asking Hank a question or two. I had one more chance. Maybe something useful would come out of my visit to Patrick Henry Hall and the site of Dennis’s office.

  First, I needed some food. Sustenance would be required if I was going to keep from being a quadruple failure.

  7

  I’d been smart enough to remember the knife and fork symbol along with the dollar signs on the poster directory. Food and money—still two important resources for college kids.

  I stopped at the straightforwardly named Student Union Building. Maybe the naming committee had run out of heroes and heroines to honor, or maybe they’d come to a stalemate between Abigail Adams and Martha Washington and used a functional designation instead. A nice blast of hot air greeted me as soon as I opened the second set of doors and I stuffed my knitted cap in one pocket and my gloves in the other.

  An array of food aromas also hit me immediately and I knew I was in the right place. Or the wrong place, if it was gourmet food I was after. But all I wanted was a stopgap until Quinn cooked dinner this evening. I followed the scent to the basement level, where I grabbed a prepackaged turkey sandwich and chips and sat in a corner. On a better day I might have eaten while I walked, but that would have meant removing my gloves outside. Not an option today.

  It was noon and the cafeteria was crowded, the noise level high. I’d expected the cacophony in an area like this one, with high ceilings and linoleum flooring. I tuned in to the conversations closest to me. Listening for incriminating comments such as Professor Somerville was a bad teacher. I doubted it would happen. Even if a student letter writer were responsible for Dennis Somerville’s death—more likely to me than the North Ashcot burglar—it was beyond unlikely that I’d discover it on my quick visit to Dennis’s campus. On the other hand, the chief of police did ask me to investigate, I reminded myself. Sort of.

  I leaned a little closer to the table next to me, but all I heard were remarks about the worst spaghetti and meatballs ever, and the too-high price of a bag with six potato chips. Totally. I fared better leaning in the other direction when a young couple expressed regret over Dennis Somerville’s death.

  “It’s so hard to believe,” the young woman said. “I mean, I didn’t have him for a class or anything, but still.”

  “Yeah, well, it happens,” the young man answered, drawing in a noisy sip of something from a straw in a large paper cup.

  “It’s one of our faculty members,” the woman said, annoyed, as if to prod him into sympathy.

  “Yeah,” the young man answered, still no feeling in his voice.

  I tuned them all out and pulled out my phone. I found four messages, three from Linda. I was a failure not only as a postal employee and detective, but also as a friend. I’d underestimated the level of crisis Linda had reached. There’d been a time, when we worked together, that we would have cut out of the office and found a spot to talk for hours, until whichever one of us was hurting had found a way out of it. Now all we had were snatches of Skype and texts, and it wasn’t working. Add to that, it had taken me more than a year to return to Boston for a visit, attributable to the lack of confidence I had that I wouldn’t just stay there, and perhaps beg my ex-fiancé to take me back.

  I sent a quick text to Linda.

  so sorry. rushed all morning. skype tonight?

  To which she answered:

  yes yes yes.

  And another to Quinn.

  still safe on campus.

  To which he answered:

  how about pot roast?

  To which I answered:

  yes yes yes.

  I wondered where Sunni was, and whether she’d fared any better than I had. If I had any news, I’d have texted her, too, but I had to pass. I gathered my winter accessories and left the nameless building.

  On the way out, I noticed large framed portraits of one Samuel Whittemore (legend: Oldest Known Colonial Combatant in the Revolutionary War) and Colonel William Prescott (legend: Famous for “Do Not Fire Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes”) near the exit. I wondered if they’d been the last contenders for eponymous honoree of the building.

  * * *

  No other random friends or strangers intercepted me in my final approach to Patrick Henry Hall. This building was one of the originals, gray stone with arched stained-glass windows on the lower floor, as if it had started out as a church. According to the directory in the lobby, math and science classes were still held here and not in the newer Mary Draper Hall classroom building.

  My interest was o
n the third floor, the faculty offices.

  A matronly, older woman, probably sixtyish, was the gatekeeper to the floor, the kind of woman who had probably been at the job more than half her life and knew more than anyone else in the building. I hoped I could win her over and coax her into giving up a secret or two.

  A placard on her cluttered desk read GAIL CHAMBERS. She was surrounded by a computer and a variety of peripherals that seemed to have been squeezed into the space once occupied by a typewriter. No one else was around. In fact, the whole building seemed empty, except for some possible action in a closed-door classroom a few yards away. Gail peered at me over narrow glasses that hung on a beaded chain.

  “Is there something I have to sign for?” she asked.

  I started. What? Ah, the uniform jacket. I felt the gears spinning in my head. She’d seen the patriotic eagle patch on my sleeve, the emblem that carried the weight of the USPS. Should I or shouldn’t I?

  “Good morning,” I said, straightening my back, holding my leather purse in front of me as if it were an official sack of the USPS. “I was hoping to get into Dr. Dennis Somerville’s office for a few minutes.” Pleasant but official. Could I be jailed for this? I wondered. It wasn’t my fault that Gail thought I’d been sent by the postmaster general.

  She sighed. “Dennis,” she said softly, and shook her head. She looked up at me. “You know he passed away?”

  “I do, and I’m so sorry about that.”

  “A wonderful man.” Another sigh. Gail gazed into space for a moment, then came back. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have some business with him that I can help you with?”

  “No, thank you. If I can just pick up something that I’m sure is ready for me in his office.” Blah, blah, blah. Stumbling along. “I saw him yesterday.” Finally, a truth.

  “I don’t know what this world is coming to when you’re just minding your own business or protecting your property, and . . .” She trailed off. Apparently, there had been no update on the motive for Dennis’s death, and Gail believed that he was the victim of a robbery gone bad.

  “It’s terrible,” I said.

  Gail lifted her hefty body from an old wooden swivel chair that matched her oak desk. “I’ll walk you down there.”

  “If you can just point me in the right direction.”

  “It’s not a problem. It’s kind of a dead day around here.” She drew in a sharp, loud breath. “Oh no. What did I say?”

  “Maybe you should stay here and take it easy . . .”

  “I’m fine,” she said, starting the walk down the hallway. “The police have been here and took his computer, plus almost everything in the office except the furniture, so I don’t know if what Dennis left for you would still be there.”

  Neither do I. Sunni had beat me to it. Kudos to her for doing her job, though it meant I couldn’t look through files. But it was doubtful I’d have been able to circumvent a password, and I did feel a little better about what I was about to do.

  “I’ll just have a quick look,” I said, hoping she didn’t ask me to describe what I was looking for. “I’ll bet Dr. Somerville was a very popular teacher.”

  “Oh yes. But he was very strict, mind you. Not like some of the others who give out A’s just for effort, if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t, exactly, but I nodded anyway. We’d passed the one room with a class meeting and now walked by empty classrooms and offices and framed photographs on the walls of both sides of the hallway. Gail’s old-lady pumps clicked on the flooring all the way, her pastel sweater set reminding me of several I’d found in Aunt Tess’s closet.

  I wanted badly to ask Gail if she knew anything about the nasty letters Dennis had shown me. I had a feeling that nothing got past her. Except me, right now. I decided to take a chance and edge my way toward asking her if she knew of Dennis’s hate mail. She seemed a likely person for both students and teachers in the department to confide in. I thought back to the letters, closed up in envelopes. He’d given me a couple of sample phrases. Two that I remembered were “unreasonable homework assignments” and “tough grading policies.”

  “My niece tells me students these days are very vocal when they think a teacher is being unfair,” I began. “Like giving too much homework, or grading too strictly.”

  “Dr. Somerville was never unfair,” Gail said, bristling. I wondered if she’d switched from “Dennis” to put me in my place. She seemed like the kind of admin who considered it part of her job to keep the department’s dirty laundry in-house. Not a bad trait, except when I was the one needing the scoop. I mentally cut off the topic of student evaluations and started another one I was curious about.

  “I guess his regular group this morning missed him,” I said.

  “You mean the math and science discussion group?”

  I nodded. “I know a couple of the members.” Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t sound so . . . what? Unofficial?

  “The leader, Dr. Winston—he’ll probably take over as department chair—called everything off today, except for an advanced seminar that’s going on now. I sent a memo out last night to everyone, as soon as we heard the news.”

  “My mistake. I thought my friend Professor Blackwood had been here.”

  Gail laughed. “He still calls himself that, huh? No, he hasn’t been around.”

  “He’s not a professor?”

  Gail shook her head. “He never made it to that level. He retired”—she made quotes in the air—“under a kind of cloud.” She whispered this last part and seemed to wish she could take it back. “He still hasn’t cleaned out his office, though we send him constant reminders.”

  That made Hank a liar, even a double liar if he not only didn’t have a meeting but wasn’t a professor. I could have predicted that. He was the kind of guy who wanted to seem important. And smart, what with that geometry reference. I wondered why he’d bother; I wasn’t one who needed impressing.

  We’d reached Dennis’s office, a corner office as befitting a chairperson. My talk with Gail hadn’t gone well after opening remarks. I sensed that she was having second thoughts about accommodating me and planned to stay while I retrieved my alleged—what? Package? Envelope? I couldn’t remember what I’d called my excuse for being here. Some sleuth. I was on the road to fourfold failure. Or was it fivefold already?

  “Here we are,” Gail said, reaching for keys to unlock a half-windowed door that opened into Dennis’s office. “The police didn’t put tape up, so I guess they’re finished.”

  No tape, no foul, I thought. Anyone could enter Dennis’s office.

  “I don’t know why I locked it,” she continued. “Out of respect for Dennis, I guess.” I took that as a warning to behave myself around his things.

  Gail pushed the door open and held her arm across the glass pane while I walked in. I heard her heavy sigh. The blinds were down on both sides. Gail’s doing, I was sure. I couldn’t imagine Sunni or her officer darkening the room as they left. As I’d been warned, cables lay across Dennis’s desk where a computer should have been. A wire in-box was empty, as was a stack of trays with labels on the side. GRP THY. E&M. THERMO. MECH. LABS. I wondered what was missing from the empty trays, but I doubted I would have understood whatever had been in the slots.

  I walked toward a credenza under one of the windows, trying to look as though I knew what I’d come for. My stomach was queasy from the taste of mustard, potato chips, and an unidentifiable third flavor. Was it bad food or Gail’s cross-armed stare that was bringing on this discomfort?

  When Gail’s phone chimed a bland melody, I let out a deep breath and walked farther into the office, circling the desk and chair, then walking along the row of files. I didn’t dare open a drawer.

  Gail, standing on the threshold, wasn’t pleased with her caller any more than she was with me. I was more focused on finding something useful and didn’t hear too much of h
er side of the conversation. As near as I could tell, the issue was supplies for the math department.

  “I know it’s only February, but we had an unusually large incoming class.” Pause. “At least another case.” A pause and an annoyed sigh. “Well, you are certainly welcome to leave your office and walk across the campus to see for yourself.”

  I felt a wave of sympathy for the person on the other end of the call. On the other hand, I’d had my share of disagreements with administrative staff over supplies and budgets.

  During Gail’s pauses, she had her eye on me. I took out a notebook and pretended to be tending to the post office business I’d come for. Making note of the date and time, perhaps? Keeping track of my pickups for the day? It was anyone’s guess.

  While Gail was speaking, I busied myself taking photos surreptitiously with my smartphone. I could only guess at the correct angle to snap the furniture and artifacts. I aimed my phone as accurately as possible at the top of the desk, the front of each file cabinet, the tops and fronts of the bookcases, the large whiteboard, the small corkboard, and the posters and certificates on Dennis’s wall, all science-related except for one that featured a colorful guitar against a white background. I smiled at PHYSICS: IT’S THE LAW and barely understood PHYSICS TEACHERS HAVE POTENTIAL. I drew in my breath at PHYSICS TEACHERS HAVE PROBLEMS. Dennis had problems no one should have. I took a breath and photographed the view out each window, for completeness.

  I checked out the tchotchkes on the shelves and surfaces. A bust of Einstein dominated one end of a shelf that was cluttered with wooden and plastic puzzles of many degrees of complexity. Other items that the police weren’t interested in included seashells and a slide rule. I recognized the fancy ruler only because a high school boyfriend insisted I learn how to use it, since it was “so cool” and would come in handy someday. He’d been wrong.

  I aimed my camera at a Boston lighthouse snow globe similar to one I owned. I wished I could pick it up to read the name—was it North Shore or South Shore?—but I felt Gail would be on me in seconds. What I didn’t see were photos of any kind, and assumed Sunni had taken them.