Death in an Ivory Tower (Dotsy Lamb Travel Mysteries) (24 page)

While explaining, I drew the plastic one-gallon bag containing the plastic bottle from my purse. “From the dumpster just outside St. Ormond’s. I’ve touched the outside of the bottle but I haven’t removed the cap.”

“Have you touched the cap?”

I had to think. Had I? If I had, my fingerprints would be on the cap, and he wouldn’t know if I’d messed with the contents or not. “No. I haven’t.”

He handed the bag to the officer I’d been talking to. “Bag and tag this. Leave it in the bag it’s in and put the whole thing in an evidence bag.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I would have given anything to ask him if they were still questioning Georgina, but he wouldn’t have told me anyway.

“Phone call, sir,” the woman from the front desk stepped around her partition and announced. She directed this announcement to Child.

“I’ll call them back,” he said.

“I think you should take it now, sir. It’s Lord Attwood.” She spoke the name as if it should be preceded by trumpets. “He wants to report a missing gun.”

Chief Inspector Child took the call at the front desk, and I stood no chance of hearing any part of the conversation. But Lord Attwood was the brother-in-law of the Wetmores, and he was reporting a missing gun. I’m not one of those people who say
I don’t believe in coincidence.
I do. Coincidences happen every day, but the coincidence here was not that Lindsey was shot yesterday and Lord Attwood reports a missing gun today. The coincidence was that I was here when the call came in. I had no doubt that the former two events were connected. But how?

I dawdled, asking to use the bathroom before they ushered me out, but I only caught one more glimpse of Chief Inspector Child as he dashed through a door on the opposite end of the big room.

I raced back to St. Ormond’s, making calls as I went and letting oncoming pedestrians worry about the dodging. First I called Lettie and got the main number for the Radcliffe Hospital. I played touch-tone roulette with the recording until I connected with Keith Bunsen’s lab in the research wing. An assistant told me he wasn’t in. I talked her into giving me his cell phone number. No luck again. I left a voice message.

Screwing up my courage at the front gate, I turned right at the Porter’s Lodge, continued around to the garden entrance of the Master’s Lodgings, and banged the hefty brass knocker. Daphne Wetmore herself answered, barefoot and wearing leotards and T-shirt. “Come in, Dr. Lamb. Lovely to see you. You’ve caught me at my yoga.”

“Sorry. I can come back later.”

“Of course not. Do have a seat.” She padded over to one wall of the sitting room, where she punched a button on a small device, and the soothing white noise I hadn’t noticed until then stopped. “My sister introduced me to yoga. We took classes together. I find it helps manage stress.”

“Your sister, Lady Attwood?” I tried to guess where Daphne would sit so we would be at a comfortable talking distance apart, and decided on a well-worn slip-covered chair. “I’m worried about Georgina.”

“
You’re worried!
Why do you think I’m doing yoga in the middle of the day? I promised Harold I wouldn’t go to the police station. I talked to Georgina’s mother on the phone, but they don’t know any more than I do. Harold is busy with the closing ceremonies for the conference, and says he can only do one thing at a time. Says he’ll worry about Georgina when the ceremony is over.” Daphne curled up into a scattering of throw pillows on one end of a sofa, her bare feet beneath her.

“I came out this morning when they were taking her away,” I said. “I heard you say, ‘They think she killed that doctor.’”

“They think she
shot
her,” Daphne clarified. “The woman isn’t dead, and I heard they’re letting her go home soon.”

“That’s why I was taking care of her children yesterday. We came to your tea.”

“You did? I’m sorry. I was so busy, I didn’t notice everyone who was here. Did I talk to you at all?”

“I don’t think so, but Georgina was here, too. She helped me take care of the children, and she even went out to the hospital with us.”

“Wait! One thing at a time! Are you telling me Georgina actually visited the woman who was shot? In her hospital room?”

“No. Lindsey was still unconscious at that time in the ICU.”

Daphne paused a minute. “Okay. Here’s what happened this morning. Harold and I had just finished breakfast when Georgina came in. I gave her a cup of coffee, and then Harold had to leave. We talked for a few minutes, about nothing in particular. Then she got a phone call from the police and they said they needed to talk to her. Asked her where she was. Georgina told me she had no idea what it was about, but almost immediately the police were at the door. They asked her if she knew Dr. . . . Sorry. What is her name?”

“Lindsey Scoggin.”

“Georgina said yes, that’s the woman who got shot. She said, ‘I don’t know her but I’ve met her children.’ They said they needed to talk to her and it would be better to do it at the station. I said I’d leave them alone if they wanted to talk here, and they asked her where she was Monday night. She said she was at home. That’s when they told her she’d have to go to the police station with them.”

“And you haven’t heard anything since?”

“No.”

“Georgina told the police she was at home Monday night?”

“Yes.” Daphne’s eyebrows knitted. “Wait. When I talked to her mother, she said the police asked her where Georgina was Monday night and she told them she had spent the night with girlfriends.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh, is right!” Daphne’s hand flew to her mouth. “Why didn’t I notice that? If the police had already talked to her parents, they
knew
someone was lying. As you Americans say, ‘Houston, we have a problem.’”

“Daphne, I may be stepping out of line here, but I suspect Georgina is involved with Keith Bunsen.”

“Not possible! Keith is a dear, but he’s close to fifty and a nerd as well.”

“I’ve seen how they look at each other.”

“You mean how Keith looks at her?
Every
man looks at her as if he’d like to eat her up.”

“I could be wrong.”

“Her parents would go ballistic. He’s more than twice her age!”

“What would they say to a charge of attempted murder?”

Daphne paused, and I figured she was letting my words sink in. This was rather a lot to take in all at once. “Do you think she might have been with Keith Monday night, and she’s lying to protect him?”

“It’s worth considering.”

“But Dr. Scoggin told the police . . .”

“I don’t think Lindsey actually saw the shooter. I think she’s reacting to a photo she found in Dr. Bell’s desk.”

“Dr. Bell?”

“St. Giles Bell. He also does research at the Radcliffe.”

“At the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“And right after that she was shot? Where? In the parking lot? Surely not inside the hospital.”

“No. She wasn’t shot at the hospital. She was shot the next morning, coming out of her flat. Apparently, the shooter was waiting for her. Lindsey lives in one of those new developments north of the hospital.”

“Regency Flats?”

“Belle Glen, it’s called.”

“Same difference. Depressing little things, with their cheap little fake Art Deco doors and their postage-stamp yards. I wish city council would . . .” Daphne turned, as if she’d heard someone at the door, and surprised me with, “Do you mind if I call you Dorothy? Dr. Lamb seems so formal now.”

“Everyone calls me Dotsy—Daphne.” I’d given up explaining that I wasn’t a doctor. Her mind seemed to be wandering and, for the first time, I considered the possibility that Daphne Wetmore wasn’t all that bright. From the size of yards in the new housing to what we should call each other, her mind appeared to be not wandering but bouncing randomly around inside her cranium. I reminded her of Job One. “We really need to find Keith Bunsen. We don’t have to tell him what I just told you. We can tell him the police are questioning Georgina as to her whereabouts on Monday night. If I’m right, he’ll know what he has to do.”

Daphne talked me into a cup of tea. Determined to make sure I’d made my point, I followed her into the kitchen while she put on the kettle.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” I said. “You and Lady Attwood are sisters, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Daphne sang the word in the same note as the boiling kettle, then turned with a jerk. “Why?”

“Because I . . . I had to take something to the police station this morning and while I was there, they got a call. I heard the desk sergeant say it was Lord Attwood and he was reporting a stolen gun.”

“A stolen gun?”

“Right. And the policeman told me, yesterday, that the bullet they took out of Lindsey Scoggin was of an unusual caliber.”

Daphne let the cup she was pulling down from a cabinet crash on the floor. She ran straight to the library and to the glass case where Harold kept his antique firearms. “They’re all here, I think. And the case is locked.”

“Do you suspect the gun came from here?”

“No! Of course not. But when you said ‘unusual caliber,’ my first thought was of these. I suspect they’re all of an unusual caliber.”

“Does Lord Attwood also keep old guns?”

“He has a whole room full. I don’t know how he’d notice if one was missing.”

“Are you sure none of these is missing?”

“Well, look. They’re all arranged just so. If one was missing there’d be a space.”

“Unless the thief moved them to cover the space.”

“Still, there’s no reason to think my brother-in-law’s missing gun has anything to do with the shooting of Dr. Scoggin.”

“Coincidence? Is there any connection you can think of between Dr. Scoggin—or St. Giles Bell—and the Attwoods?”

Daphne paused a long moment, running her hands along the wood frame of the gun case. “I can’t think of any, but they have so many friends. Dr. Bell could be one of them.”

My cell phone rang. “Keith Bunsen,” I mouthed to Daphne. He was responding to the message I’d left. “Dr. Bunsen, you’re going to think me an awful busybody but I think you should know the police are presently questioning Georgina about the shooting of Lindsey Scoggin on Tuesday morning. There seems to be some doubt as to her whereabouts on Monday night into Tuesday morning. She told them she was at home but her parents say she was spending the night with girlfriends.”

“Where are they now?” Keith’s tone was grave.

“At the station on St. Aldate’s, unless they’ve . . .”

“Talk to you later. Thanks.”

I carried my empty cup back to the kitchen and was preparing to leave when Daphne asked me, “Is the woman from Glastonbury still in room three? Miss Beaulieu?”

“She was there last night. I haven’t seen her today.”

“Do me a favor, please. Let me know when she does leave. I don’t want to talk to her. I only want to know when she’s gone.”

In case I thought Daphne and Mignon were bosom buddies, I now knew better. I ventured a noncommittal, “Harold didn’t like having them here, did he?”

“No. He and the Glastonbury crowd don’t get along.”

“Still, it’s too bad, Fitzwaring dying so suddenly.”

“Indeed. And such a young man, too. But diabetes can take its victims without warning.” Still barefoot, she followed me to the door. “Such a horrible thing, and so common these days.”

“Do you know what he was planning to say in his address that day? He was going to announce that he had the actual bones of King Arthur.”

Daphne spluttered—a derisive hiss and guffaw combined. “Where did you hear that?”

“From Mignon herself.”

“And where are these bones?”

“At the lab where they do carbon-fourteen dating. Mignon is trying to raise the money to get them out of hock.”

“I can’t wait to tell Harold! He’ll love it!” The way she laughed told me she wasn’t giving the idea any serious thought at all.

“Apparently they’re from the right time period.”

“So are a lot of things.” She opened the door for me. “Thanks for dropping by.”

The Middle Quad was almost deserted when I crossed it heading for the closing ceremonies in Smythson Hall. A quarter of the group had already left and the rest were inside the hall. I was a bit late. I slipped into a seat near the back. On the dais, Harold Wetmore sat in the lone chair while a man I recognized as Pete, the audiovisual man, explained how we could purchase CDs of the various sessions. I scribbled the web address he gave us on a cash register receipt from my purse. Next, one of the porters gave us instructions for checking out of our rooms.

A minor commotion on the right caused heads in my vicinity to turn. Mignon Beaulieu was bundling her bulk along a row of listeners, forcing those she passed to shift their knees to one side. Finding two vacant seats together, she plopped herself into one and an olive-drab duffel bag into the other.

Harold Wetmore stepped up to the podium and tapped the microphone with one finger. The magnified thunk resounded throughout the room. “It is with regret that I bring this most productive gathering to . . .” Yada, yada. My mind wandered and I looked around the audience. Larry Roberts sat in the front row, nodding frequently, as I could tell from the back of his head. I couldn’t find Claudia Moss. Daphne wasn’t there either but, given her anxiety level, I figured she’d have returned to her yoga as soon as I left. I located Robin Morris and reminded myself to thank him for helping me with my library work.

Harold said, “It is now certain that one can hardly overstate the importance of sexual attraction and lure of palace intrigue to the Elizabethan psyche. We’ve been reminded of the tremendous influence the French had upon the mores of the English court. We’ve seen how the literature of France . . .”

I heard more rustling from my right and turned to look. Mignon was scrambling through the contents of her duffel, a drawstring pouch clinched in her teeth. People sitting near her looked irritated.

“But the greatest good that invariably comes from a conference such as this,” Harold droned on, “indeed one may argue that it, alone, is sufficient justification to hold such a conference, is the contacts one makes. We may read one another’s published work, we may confer by email or phone, but there is nothing like the bond one forms when sitting down and talking face to face. I’m certain that, when we go back to our respective offices and homes, we will continue to talk. By phone, by email, or . . .”