A Rare Murder In Princeton (27 page)

“Love it,” said Dodo.

When McLeod came back with two mugs of tea, Dodo had taken off her coat and hat and looked as fashionable as usual in a turquoise suit. She took her mug of tea and held it gratefully in both hands. McLeod sat down. “Now what did you want to talk about?”

“The murder, of course. You were so helpful to me last time, and I appreciate it.”

“Oh, Dodo, I wasn’t helpful at all. And I have to say you were wrong, weren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the last time you came over here, Philip Sheridan had just been killed and you were certain that Chester had done it.”

“Well?” said Dodo. “How do you mean I was wrong?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I never thought Chester would have killed Philip. And now Chester’s been murdered himself, so it seems clear to me that he didn’t kill Philip.”

“I don’t see it that way. Not at all. I think that somebody was so furious with Chester for killing Philip that this person killed Chester in revenge.”

McLeod pondered this for a minute. Could Dodo be serious? “Who is this somebody?”

“It could be anybody, couldn’t it? Anybody on the staff, that is. Jeff, or one of the other pages. Somebody in conservation. One of the curators. Fanny, Natty, Randall.”

“Randall?” she asked.

“Randall Keaton.”

“Oh, Buster.” McLeod was still at a loss. “It’s an interesting idea,” she finally said, although she thought it was an insane idea.

“Do you think I should tell the police?”

Dodo was crazy, McLeod thought. Demented. After the first murder she had asked McLeod if she should tell the police her suspicions of Chester. Now she was wondering whether to tell the police about her suspicions of everybody else. “If you think you should, then tell the police,” she said at last, thinking that there must be something she didn’t understand.

“Thank you so much. You always see everything so clearly,” said Dodo, getting up and reaching for the gorgeous coat. “And how’s George?”

“Fine,” said McLeod. “I don’t see much of him these days. He works very hard.”

“You must come over to our house again soon. We enjoyed you both so much. Thanks again.” And Dodo was gone.

She’s so crazy that she’s probably the murderer, McLeod thought as she rinsed the mugs out in the tiny kitchenette of Joseph Henry House. She could be a homicidal maniac. Except that Dodo did not have access to the vault. Then she had a thought: Chester could have let her in the vault. Dodo did go downstairs and she could easily have asked Chester to let her in on some excuse or other. She wished she had not thought of that possibility.

 

THAT NIGHT SHE waited up for George to come home. When he had called to say he’d be very late, she had decided to cook something that could be heated up whenever he arrived. A big pot of beef stew was the result. While it simmered, she built a fire and sat down to work on George’s sweater.

When George did appear, he attacked the stew, thanked her with his mouth full, and ate ravenously.

“I’m sorry you had to stay so late. Was it because of dealing with the press? I thought you were thrilled with the new communication man—Chuck Hammersmith. You said he could handle the press so well when Philip Sheridan was murdered,” she said.

“Chuck is good,” George said, with another mouthful impeding his speech again. “He’s really good. But the press was at its worst today. Television cameramen were demanding to see the vault, and we just couldn’t open up the place to the world. The print people were asking if the library was a safe place for people to do research, for students to use, for the staff to work. ‘Two murders in less than two weeks!’ they kept shrieking. Chuck sent the most troublesome ones over to me, and he dealt as best he could with the more reasonable ones.” He stopped talking and ate steadily.

“But you had a hard day, too, I know,” he said at one point between bites. “You found another body.”

“No, Jeff found it. But then I went down and tried to do CPR on poor Chester. It was pretty awful.” She tried to think of a bright spot and finally said, “I didn’t have to work late like you did.”

“Something else came up today that unnerved me,” he said, laying his knife and fork across his plate. “I think I’ll have a brandy. Want one?”

“Sure,” said McLeod.

“Let’s sit over here.” He led the way to the two armchairs in the bay window and handed her a snifter.

“What was it that unnerved you?” asked McLeod. “Was it about Natty?”

“Oh, you knew about it?”

“Buster Keaton came over to tell me about it. He was terribly upset. He wanted to talk to you but your secretary told him you were too busy to talk to him.”

“I was,” said George. “I could have called him back tonight or tomorrow, I guess. Tom had already told me about it. Talk about awful days. It’s been a super bad day for Tom and for the director of libraries. But Tom knows how much I like and admire old Nat. He does, too, of course.”

“What’s not to like?” asked McLeod.

“Exactly,” said George, and then added, “except that he’s a thief.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Oh, yes. He admits it.”

“This is the saddest thing I ever heard of,” said McLeod, and it did feel that way, in spite of the two murders.

“It is even sadder when you think about why he did it,” said George.

“What do you mean? Why did he do it?”

“For his wife. I think I told you that she had Alzheimer’s, and she’s in a very nice home. It’s incredibly expensive, and Natty just didn’t have the wherewithal to pay the bills.”

“What will he do now? And what will happen to him?”

“Nobody wants to prosecute him, but he can’t possibly stay on at Rare Books. It’s not final, but I think he’ll be allowed to retire. He’s past retirement age. And Philip Sheridan left him some money. Sheridan, it seems, knew about Natty’s situation and always planned to help him out. At least he can use the bequest to make restitution.”

“Poor Natty,” said McLeod. “We’ll have to have him over for dinner.”

“I knew you’d say that!” said George. “That’s your remedy for anything, but I guess it’s a good remedy.”

McLeod got up and began to clear George’s dishes from the table. When George tried to help, she told him she could do it and she would load the dishwasher and turn it on. “You must be exhausted,” she said.

“I am,” he said.

She lingered in the kitchen, thinking about Natty. Had he known about the inheritance from Philip Sheridan? And had Philip known about the thefts, and was that what the shouting had been about? It appeared that Natty did have a good motive for both murders. But he couldn’t be a murderer. If Natty had killed Chester, he would have had to do it just before she talked to him that morning—no, Natty couldn’t be a murderer. But then who would have thought he could be a thief?

TUESDAY WAS COLD and clear—and the snow was still there when McLeod looked out her bedroom window about seven o’clock on Tuesday morning. Gray crusts already topped the tall banks of snow along the street and on either side of the sidewalk.

McLeod sighed and thought about what she would do this day. She took a shower, dressed, and went downstairs to find George still at home, reading the paper and drinking coffee.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” he said. “You’re up early.”

“You’re here late,” she said. “It’s good to see you at home in the morning.”

“And to see you,” said George, smiling at her. “Chuck Hammersmith said he’d get in early today, so I’ll let him handle the first wave of media. Then I’ll stay late if I have to. What’s on your plate today?”

“I’ve got to plan my class for Thursday. But I thought since the streets look clear today, if it’s all right with you, I’d take those World War II letters around to the Murrays. The letters are from Big’s uncle to his, Big’s, grandmother. I don’t think Vincent Lawrence had any children, did he?”

“I have no idea.”

“Anyway, those letters are on my mind.”

“Didn’t you tell me that Big Murray told you to throw them out?”

“He did, but I thought I’d ask his wife. Somebody must want them.”

“McLeod, you took the treasure away without telling me. I don’t think you should give away anything else.”

“George, when I took that box of dresses over to the university, I had no idea what else was in it. One thing led to another.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have said that. But don’t give the letters away. They show how the treasure got here. If the treasure does belong to the Litzenburg cathedral, those letters will absolve us of any blame. Not that I think anybody’s going to blame you or me, but still—don’t give them away, for heaven’s sake.”

“You’re right,” said McLeod.

“At any rate, I’ve got to start the process of returning the things to Litzenburg. If I ever get a minute, I will.”

“Can I help with that?” asked McLeod.

“I’ll talk to the university lawyer as soon as I get time.”

“I’ll be happy to talk to Cowboy Tarleton about it, if that would be a help.”

“Why don’t you?” said George. “It would be a tremendous help to me.”

“And I’ll find out how to make contact with the right people in Litzenburg, too. Buster Keaton will know—that catalog of stolen art should have that, shouldn’t it?”

“Great.”

If I can’t take the letters to Mary Murray, thought McLeod as George went back to the newspaper, I’ll have to dream up some other excuse to go see her.

After George left, as McLeod was getting ready to go out, she decided that she could tell Mary she was going to write a story about the Murder House. No, that might put her off completely. She couldn’t just drop in—people didn’t do that anymore. Well, she’d telephone Mary and see if she could come by, and if she could, then she’d think of something on the way.

Mary Murray said of course she could come by. “I have to go to a meeting now, though,” she warned. “How about this afternoon?”

After they had settled on four o’clock, McLeod decided to go to the university and see Buster before she called Cowboy Tarleton. She walked up from the parking garage, all the way up Elm Drive, past the construction for the new residential college where the tennis courts used to be, past Dillon Gym, and on to the library. Rare Books was open, and researchers were at work in the Reading Room, even though the police were still around.

McLeod looked in Buster’s door.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “How did George take the news about Natty? Sit down.”

“He had heard it, of course—from Tom Blackman. And as you thought he would be, he was very sorry for Natty. And he doesn’t blame you for reporting him.”

“Good. I’m glad of that.”

“But you don’t really think Natty did the murders, do you?”

“He just seems to be the most likely candidate at the moment,” said Buster. “Of course, I’m not going to say anything like this to the police.”

“It does seem unlikely to me,” said McLeod. “Character means something, doesn’t it? Natty just isn’t capable of murder.”

“He was capable of stealing.”

“But think of why he did it,” said McLeod. “When you think about why Natty did it, it’s very hard to condemn him, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean, why he did it?” asked Buster.

“Because of his wife. She has Alzheimer’s and she’s in that expensive private care place and he didn’t have the money to pay for it.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Buster. “Still, stealing’s stealing, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” said McLeod. “And that brings me to why I’m here. George wants to know the address of the church—or cathedral—in Litzenburg. He wants to return the
Gospels
and the other things.”

“I thought George was going to give the
Gospels
to Princeton,” said Buster. “I was really excited about this new addition to our collection.”

“He says he can’t give it to you; it’s not his to give. It’s Litzenburg’s.”

“Return them to Litzenburg? That’s crazy. It’s been so long they probably don’t even know about them,” said Buster.

“They’re listed in that roster of stolen art,” said McLeod.

“They may have forgotten they ever listed it.”

“Well, as you say, ‘stealing’s stealing.’ ”

“Maybe sometimes it isn’t.” Buster did not sound convinced.

“You and George can get this settled,” said McLeod. “When George has time.”

“Who has time? With Natty gone, I have to do two jobs.”

“Are you the new director?”

“Of course not, but I have to do all the work. They’ll bring in some outsider who doesn’t know the first thing about rare books and we’ll have to train him. But for now, I’m doing the best I can. And the police are still around—it’s so disorganized. I thought we should close, but the powers-that-be vetoed that. Oh, well, we’ll manage.”