Hangman's Root (3 page)

Ariella, Lioness of God, champion of homeless cats. I had to smile. "It fits," I said, pouring champagne. "To the Ariella Foundation." We lifted our glasses and I took a sip, glancing over the fence, where I could see a house on the other side of the vacant lot. "What about the neighbors? How are you zoned?"

Dottie put her glass down and took a cigarette out of a pack on the table. "Falls Creek isn't incorporated, and there are no deed restrictions that would keep me from building or expanding." She lit a cigarette like a man, the match bent out of a paper matchbook, sheltered against the slight breeze with her cupped hand. "But that brings me to my question."

"A neighbor?" I guessed.

She leaned on her elbows and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke.

"Yeah. Miles Harwick. Over there." She nodded in the direction of the house I had seen. "He's also got the office across the hall from mine in the biology department. I don't know which is worse."

"Harwick. Isn't he the one who's been in the news lately?" For the past couple of weeks, the Pecan Springs Enterprise had been full of stories about some professor's animal research. There had also been a piece in the Austin American-Statesman, and a segment on the Channel 7 news.

"Somebody leaked the protocol of his latest experiment." Dottie's mouth was sour. "Next week he's planning to hang a hundred guinea pigs in a traction device that will suspend their hind quarters off the ground. After ninety days he'll slaughter them and measure the reduction in bone density. The results are supposed to prove something about the effects of weightlessness."

I frowned. "If I were a guinea pig, I'd rather have a different career. But if Harwick is learning something that's crucial to—"

"He isn't." Dottie exhaled sharply. "I'm not opposed to necessary, well-designed animal research, but this isn't it. What's more, I don't think our department ought to be doing animal research. The faculty was hired to teach students, not get famous doing exotic studies. That's why I'm against the animal lab."

I chuckled. "Castle's Castle?" I'd read about it in the paper. Frank Castle was the chairman of the biology department and the champion of the proposed science complex, which included a state-of-the-art animal lab that would cost a couple of million dollars—a big investment for a small college. A year ago, the administration decided to raze the old Noah Science Building— familiarly known as Noah's Ark—and start construction on its replacement. The Pecan Springs Humane Society immediately began to raise questions and the project was put on hold.

Dottie nodded. "Yeah. Castle's Castle. The Sierra Club and the Humane Society have joined forces against it. The greenies say the

complex will have a negative impact on the environment, and the Humane Society people argue that it will only encourage unnecessary experimentation, like this absurd study of Harwick's."

"What's wrong with the experiment? Other than the fact that it involves animals."

"It's stupid, that's what's wrong with it." Dottie was contemptuous. "The basic assumption is flawed. What can you learn about weightlessness in a gravity environment? Anyway, NASA's already done a number of long-term studies of astronauts. So the experiment is not only flawed, it's unnecessary. No reputable, caring scientist sacrifices animals to produce data that are of no use. I've already filed a complaint with CULAC."

"CULAC?" Universities are as bad as the government when it comes to coining acronyms.

"The Care and Use of Laboratory Animals Committee." She snorted. "A bunch of good old boys with rubber stamps—the 'You-approve-my-protocol-and-I'U-approve-yours' Club." She took a heavy drag on her cigarette. "They're studying my complaint. At least that's what they say. But that's so much bullshit. In the end, they'll come down on Harwick's side. Old boys hang together."

I studied Dottie. Annoyance, frustration, anger—it was all written on her face. I wondered if there wasn't something else behind this whole thing. "If the experiment is all the things you say, why is Harwick doing it?"

Her tone was dry. "If you're thinking it has anything to do with science, forget it. Castle made a new rule that everybody has to go after at least one grant every year. The ones who get outside money will also get the goodies—promotion, salary increases, a course or two off. The ones who don't, won't. And Castle and Harwick are buddies, of course. Castle will see that Harwick gets all the goodies he wants."

I had met Frank Castle several months ago at a faculty and staff reception at the home of Dr. Patterson, the chairman of the

criminal justice department, who also happens to be McQuaid's boss. Castle is a handsome man, and well dressed, which struck me as slightly odd. Most of the scientists I know don't much care about their appearance. Castle seems to care. In fact, I had the impression that, in general, appearance means a great deal to him, which is probably why he's pushing his faculty to get grants. The chairman whose department brings in the most outside money is the BMOC with the administration.

Dottie poured herself another glass of champagne. "You know, China, it's funny how people who make noises about Harwick and Castle get shafted. We get the extra committee assignments, more student advising, heavier class load, less travel money." She slugged the champagne as if it were Gatorade. "No, it isn't funny. It's sick. The whole damn department is dysfunctional."

I poured her another glass. "Have you thought of finding a new job? Women biologists are probably in demand these days."

"Actually, what I've been thinking about is hanging Harwick out to dry. Seeing that the bastard gets what he deserves." Dottie stabbed out her cigarette. "That's what I want to talk to you about, China. I need some legal advice."

I sighed and reached for a teacake. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer. Unfortunately, people ask about things I don't know anything about—tax law, for instance, or property law. I had to hire a lawyer when I sold some commercial property I inherited from my father, although I could have given you chapter and verse on the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.

But not anymore. It's been a few years since I lived the part, and I've been trying to forget my lines. My reasons for walking out were valid—and good. I was frazzled and weary, tired of never having time for anything but work, sick of living on the margin of life. I was afraid that as long as I thought of myself solely as a lawyer I'd never know who else I was. I'd given up believing that

our legal system actually worked to serve justice. But worst of all, rd given up believing that there was a difference between right and wrong. Fd bought into the notion that it was okay to advocate any position, right or wrong, good or bad. That every defendant, innocent or guilty, deserved the best defense that could be bought. After a while I began to feel like a hired gun, working for anybody who could pay. I could have gone into a different firm, or a different kind of law, but I was sick of the life as well. I've never been sorry I quit.

"What kind of legal advice?" I asked.

But Dottie wasn't listening. A gray cat had jumped up on her lap and was purring loudly. Picking up the cat, she stood and walked around the fence. She bent over to examine a spot behind the latrine area where a board had come loose.

"So that's how you got out," she said to the cat, annoyed. She pushed it through the fence. "Get in there and behave yourself, you hear.^" Holding the board with one hand, she turned to me. "China, would you mind getting the hammer and some nails out of the shed?"

On the shelf in the shed I found a paper bag of shiny spikes and the largest carpenter's hammer I had ever seen. The handle was as long as my forearm, and the head seemed half again as heavy as the one I owned. I carried it outside.

"Thanks," Dottie said. She took several of the large nails from the bag and stuck them in her mouth. With her left hand, she held the board in place and positioned the nail. I noticed the strength and thickness of her wrist. It had taken plenty of hammering to create a wrist like that. "About that legal matter," she said. With her right hand, she hit the nail dead on four times, sharp blows and terse words coming together. "Harwick's— sending me—hate—mail." One last blow. "Anonymously."

Why wasn't I surprised? "If it's anonymous, how do you know he's sending it?"

She propped the hammer against the fence and straightened up. "Because he's a dimwit. He uses the department's computer printer. One of the guide pins on our laser printer has worn a groove in the platen. It leaves a ridge down the left margin of the paper. His letters have the ridge."

"Why couldn't somebody else in the department be using the printer?"

Her laugh was harsh. "The printer doesn't do envelopes without a lot of fiddling, so he addresses them by hand. He must really be a knucklehead if he thinks I can't recognize that lousy handwriting after all these years of serving on committees with him."

I leaned against the post. "What do the letters say?"

"That if I don't stop opposing the lab I'll wake up one morning and find my cats dead. All of them." She looked bleakly into the cattery, where the animals were still making amorous fools of themselves over the catnip mice. "It wouldn't be hard for him to do it, either. He could put poison in their food or water. There's no way I can stop him, short of sitting out here day and night with a gun." She looked at me. "I was hoping you could help. What can I do?"

I put on my lawyerly face. "Rrst you prove that he wrote the letters. Then you take the letters to the sheriff. But it'd be a better case if he threatened3/0^, not just the cats. Has he done that?"

She pushed her mouth in and out, considering. "Not yet." She looked at me. "What if he actually comes over here and does something to the cats?"

"That's a different ballgame. Criminal mischief. Trespassing. Not to mention cruelty to animals, which can get expensive, if it's multiple counts. It's a Class A misdemeanor, two thousand dollars and one year for every—"

Behind me, the yard gate slammed open with a bang. When Dottie spoke, her teeth were clenched over her words. "What's on your mind, Harwick?"

I turned around. Miles Harwick was a short, slight man with a beaky nose and thinning hair artfully arranged to camouflage the gap between his receding hairline and his eyebrows. They were the bushiest eyebrows I had ever seen. His smugness pulled him to his tiptoes, roosterlike. Even so, he was a head shorter than Dottie, and his arms and wrists were as slender as a boy's. He made a noise that just missed being a crow.

"You can say goodbye to that orange cat of yours, Riddle. I caught it trespassing on my property a few minutes ago and—"

"Orange cat?" Dottie's raspy voice hiked up a notch.

"You know. Scrawny, one ear." The tip of Harwick's nose pulled down to his thin upper lip when he talked, and his eyes glinted under those eyebrows. There was something about him that suggested a frustrated libido, channeled into an immature and spiteful pettiness, like a little boy who banged his head on the floor when he couldn't get what he wanted. "It was in my yard, destroying the catnip plants I just—"

"Ariella!" The word was a roar. "You lured Ariella into your yard!"

The eyebrows were righteous. "Damn thing was tearing up my herbs. Deserved to be trapped." The eyebrows became fierce. "What's more. Riddle, I intend to trap every single cat that strays onto my property, so you'd better—"

"You turn Ariella loose this minute, Harwick!" Dottie said, her tone ferocious. "This minute, do you hear? She's diabetic. She has to have insulin every day."

"Not on your life, Riddle. The x\dams Count}^ animal control officer loaned me the trap. She told me I have the legal right to trap and dispose of every stray that comes on my propert}."

I didn't see Dottie pick up the hammer. But I saw her brandishing it, the sinews of her wrists like iron struts, and I instinctively stepped in front of her Harwick retreated while he tried to decide what to say next. I hoped it w asn't the wrong thing. If it

was, Dottie might lose whatever self-control was keeping her from braining him. The possible charges against her ran through my mind: threat of serious bodily injury, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, second-degree murder.

I turned my back on Harwick and grabbed Dottie's arms, wrestling them down. It took all my strength. "We'll get Ariella," I said. "But this isn't the way. Believe me, Dottie. You're not going to make the world any better by—"

"By bashing his bald skull?" Dottie struggled to pull free. "You bet I'll make the world better!"

I tightened my grasp on Dottie's wrists. I tended to agree with her, but now was not the time to say so. I gave Harwick my nastiest glare. "If you've got an ounce of brain you'll release that animal on the double. You're facing at least two criminal charges, and I can probably think of others."

The tip of his nose quivered. "Criminal charges?"

"Theft, since you've already admitted to knowing that Dr. Riddle is the cat's owner. And if you deprive the cat of medical attention, you'll face a cruelty charge."

The eyebrows were unrepentant. "You can't scare me with your threats."

"Then go home and wait for the sheriff," I said. "And while you're waiting, you treat that cat like she was your next of kin."

The nose went up and down while Harwick assessed his options. With one last glance at Dottie's hammer, he slipped through the gate. Safely on the other side, he gathered courage, like a little kid with one foot on the sidewalk, the other in his family's front yard. He raised his voice, taunting. "You'd better make damn sure your cats stay out of my yard, Riddle. Next time, I won't bother to tell you. I'll just get rid of them."

"Go to hell!" Dottie yelled after him, and threw the hammer. It missed his head by inches and shattered the garage window. Harwick turned tail and ran.

"Sonofabitch," I muuered, almost as angry at Dottie as I was at Harvvick. People who sling hammers at other people, regardless of the provocation, are liable to find themselves in jail.

Dottie dropped down onto the picnic bench. "I have to get Ariella back!" she said desperately. "Maybe I could—"