Murder by Candlelight (34 page)

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Chapter 19

It had been easier to reach Professor Calder
than Z thought. Besides giving lectures, weren't important people
like that always going to meetings? Having student conferences?
Maybe it was just luck that -- after another terrible night -- he'd
gotten through to the doctor right away. To Z's question about when
he could see Calder, the professor -- friendly kind of guy that he
was -- said how about noon? Though Doc Calder had then remembered
he was supposed to be having lunch with a couple of colleagues,
Calder said he'd have time to talk to Z afterward. The plan was for
Z to meet the chubby prof at Liberty's Hardware Cafe at
twelve-thirty, about the time the others would be leaving, Calder
and Z having the chance to talk in private after that.

Though Z had to have passed the eatery many
times, Z had never been to the Hardware Cafe, Calder saying it was
located on the square in Liberty.

Giving himself way too
much time but slowed by a traffic back-up caused by yet
another
new stoplight on
the approach to Liberty, Z spotted the narrow "storefront" cafe
just as Z's old watch was ticking its way toward 12:30.

Slowing to find a place to park on the busy
street, the sultry combination of August heat and humidity made Z
glad he'd worn his short-sleeved blue shirt. He'd also put on his
best tie (the pink-and-white-spotted one,) Z dressing up for his
meeting with Calder and possibly the psychologist's professor
friends.

A lady backing out, Z was able to slant into
a parking space less than a sweltering block away, Z walking back
along the sloped cement sidewalk south of the Liberty courthouse,
passing lightly dressed people who were shopping on their lunch
hour.

Just beyond an assortment
of stores, Z arrived at the Hardware Cafe to find it had
actually
been
an
ancient hardware store, now converted into a restaurant. Not much
of a surprise
there
.

The gold leaf sign in the left window said:
"Hardware Cafe and Gift Shop," the window display behind the
scratched glass matching the cafe's turn of the century look by
showing a high collar, button-hooked, yellowed, silk wedding dress
on a headless mannequin.

Taped inside the right window was a folded
out, plastic-coated menu; behind the glass, what looked like
antique tractor parts.

Following three middle-aged suit-and-tie-men
who had just jaywalked across the street from the courthouse, Z
stepped up on the stoop, the four of them pushing their way through
the door and into the people-packed eating establishment.

Inside, a glance showed that the place's
decor featured items that recalled the building's past, one wall of
the twenty-foot-tall anteroom still having its original
ceiling-to-floor pull-out drawers, an item of hardware wired to the
front of each ancient, wooden bin. Screws. Chisels. Ole-timey
garden tools. Drill bits for brace and bit, red devil scraper,
wood-handled screwdriver, rat tail file, eye hooks, hinges, hasps,
key-and-combination-Yale locks, nuts, and bolts.

A dark wood ladder was still hooked to a
metal track above, wheels fixed laterally to the ladder's bottom
legs so the ladder could be rolled to any location on the wall, a
"long ago" clerk climbing the rungs to extract the proper hardware
item from its repository.

The restaurant's dining room was a long,
narrow area featuring small, closely packed, walnut-stained tables
down the center, these tables flanked by cramped, purple-carpeted
aisles. To the outside, were deep, high-backed, black oak
booths.

On the anteroom's right, stairs rose between
polished brass banisters. Climbing to the gift shop above, was Z's
guess.

The foyer was so jammed with people it was
difficult to move, older folks sitting on straight chairs around
the area's edges, stylish young men and women standing, conversing
quietly while waiting their turn to be seated after earlier diners
had vacated their tables.

Doing as Calder had instructed him, Z sidled
past clumps of polite people -- a high percentage of men in ties,
older ladies in frilled-up luncheon dresses -- arriving at the
keypunch relic of a register, a pretty, dark-haired girl behind the
counter taking names, jotting them on a waiting list.

"I'm Bob Zapolska," he said when the girl
looked up to ask his name. "A Dr. Calder said to meet him
here."

"Oh, yes," she said, brightening. "Dr.
Calder said to look out for you."

It was clear that the young woman knew
Calder; remarkable considering the restaurant's large clientele, Z
thought. "I had his gen psych course last semester," the girl
explained.

No one needing to be cashed out at the
moment, the dressed-up young lady came around the "distressed
glass" display counter to lead Z past the screen into the dining
room.

Squeezing past waitresses in the narrow
passageway, not finding Calder, the girl began peering into booths
as she led Z toward the back.

A busy place, the Hardware Cafe, servers in
identical green tops above long, faded denim dresses, one balancing
a "temptation tray" of dessert delicacies.

Guiding Z down the left aisle, crossing
carefully at the busily swinging doors that gave waitresses access
to the kitchen, the young woman made a U-turn at the far end of the
people-packed center tables, to go up the right aisle.

Halfway back through the generalized gloom
of the restaurant's "atmosphere," Z thought he recognized Calder in
a booth to the left, the doctor on the outside, someone beside him
next to the wall, another man across the table.

Coming abreast of the
booth, Z was able to identify the lone man seated on the near side
of the table as Fritz Furlwangler. American history. Z had met the
gangly instructor once before, Z and Professor Calder having a
"business" lunch at the (now-defunct) Golden Corral on Oak, Dr.
Furlwangler joining
them
on that occasion.

"Here he is, Dr. Calder," the round-faced
check-out girl said.

"Thank you, Janet," the doctor said,
recognizing the girl with one of his big grins, the young lady
smiling adoringly before gliding off toward the front to attend to
her receptionist's responsibilities.

"Mr. Zapolska," Calder
said, now grinning up at
Z
, motioning Z to sit across the
table, Z having to wait while Professor Furlwangler slid
over.

With Z seated at last, Calder indicated the
man to the professor's right. "This is Jeffrey Carloss, political
science." Carloss was a mostly bald young man with quick eyes and a
sharp nose. "And this is ..."

"Dr. Furlwangler," Z said, nodding first to
the new man, then to the historian.

"What did I tell you, Fritz?" Calder said
with a chuckle. "Mind like a steel trap. Only met you once and
still remembers a handle like yours."

"A household name in Austria," Furlwangler
growled, pretending to frown.

The men were ... joking ... always a
surprise to Z to find professional men behaving like real people.
No reason, he supposed, that intellectuals should be serious all
the time. It was just that he expected people who knew weighty
things, to be "weighed" down by them.

Like Z, the others were in their shirt
sleeves, Dr. Calder wearing a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up,
Professor Furlwangler, a brown shirt and green vest, the other man
wearing what looked like a checkered golf shirt, red suspenders
over the shoulders. Another thing Z noticed, was that Z was the
only one wearing a tie.

The men were about finished with their
dinner, the table comfortably littered with food-crusted dishes,
plates and salad bowls, wadded-up, dark green cloth napkins, and
dirty silverware.

"How about joining us for dessert?" Calder
asked.

"No," Z said. Z wasn't hungry. Was never
hungry in the company of his betters.

"Me, either," the historian rumbled, rolling
his wrist to look at his watch, "though they make an apple cobbler
to die for. I've got to be shoving off if I'm going to make my two
o'clock meeting." Z had only seen Dr. Furlwangler once before.
Remembered that the tall, deep-voiced prof was rushing off that
time, too.

"Plenty of time," said the
third man, the man introduced as Professor Carloss. "But I'm going
to pass, too. Middle-age spread isn't the joke it used to be when I
was young." A man in his late thirties, he wasn't
that
old, Z thought. For
a college professor.

"I'm the nervous type," was Furlwangler's
gravelly response. "I've always got to be ridiculously early to
feel comfortable."

"Right," Calder agreed, using a pudgy hand
to brush back the shock of limp blond hair wisping his forehead.
When he nodded, light flashed from the flat, highly polished lenses
of his over-sized horn rim glasses, the thick glass magnifying
Calder's blue eyes.

The doctor wanting to leave, Z slipped out,
standing awkwardly in the constricted passageway, Professor
Furlwangler sliding out, unfolding his long legs to tower over
Z.

Bending down, sorting through the checks on
the end of the table, picking up his own, the gangly professor
turned to Z. Blinking his large brown eyes, the doctor took Z's
hand with a surprisingly strong grip, like the last time they'd
shaken.

"Nice to see you," the prof said politely,
releasing Z's hand after a quick pump.

Z nodded back.

A wave to them all, and the tall man was
striding off down the aisle, headed for the check-out counter in
front.

Z sat down again.

"You don't mind if we have
a little shop talk, first?" Calder asked Z, indicating the
remaining prof. "Before we have
our
talk?"

"No."

"It's just that I never get to see Jeff
anymore, now that he's switched to an afternoon schedule."

With that, Z caught Dr. Carloss giving
Calder a quick look that asked, do I talk in front of this
stranger?

"In confidence, of course," Calder said,
grinning over at Z.

"Sure," Z promised.

"Mr. Zapolska had been on campus a number of
times. He was instrumental in solving the case where the janitor
was murdered last year."

"Really?" The single word sounded like new
respect from the political scientist -- whatever a political
scientist was. Something to do with politics, Z guessed. "Zapolska?
Interesting name. Sounds eastern European."

"Polish. Just call me Z."

Carloss nodded.

"Sometimes, I think I
ought to get a
real
job, a man's job like Z, here," Calder said sadly, the plump
professor picking up his spoon and stirring what was left of his
tea, absentmindedly. "Not much adventure in lecturing on
psychology." He turned to Professor Carloss. "I'd never broken into
a building before I met Z."

"Broken into a ..!?"

"Not really," Calder said quickly. "Just
entered Bateman Hall after-hours. In the dead of night, actually,
when someone left the front door open. I was helping Z to
investigate the 'ghost light.'"

"
Ghost
light ...?"

"I'll have to tell you
about it sometime. For now, take my word for it that the life of a
P.I. is
considerably
more adventurous than ours."

There was a moment of silence.

"On that other matter," Professor Carloss
said, picking up the conversation where it had apparently broken
off at Z's arrival, "What I've got is a rumor, and you know what
rumor is worth."

"Right."

"I think it's common knowledge that
something -- someone -- is blocking your promotion to full
professor."

"So it seems," Calder said, sadly.

"What happens in the
Council of Deans is secret, of course, meaning only that no one
can
guarantee
the
leaks are accurate." Calder nodded, busying himself by poking his
tea spoon into the crushed ice that remained in his nearly empty
glass, his eyes down as if afraid that looking at Carloss would
stop his colleague from talking. "But the latest rumor, as I've
said, is that, while you're well-respected, you've made an enemy
who's stopping your promotion."

"Ashlock. I know, I've heard the same
rumor."

"Then there's nothing new I can add."
Professor Carloss took a deep, slow drink of coffee, tipping his
head back to drain the cup.

"What puzzles me," the psychologist said
with a shrug, "is trying to figure out what I've done to draw the
dean's fire. I've never even been on a committee with him. Barely
know the man." Suddenly, Calder looked up, directly across the
table where Z was huddled down, Z trying not to listen by
attempting to focus on a conversation from the table across the
aisle. Lawyers, he thought. Discussing a case. "Sorry to be taking
up your time with this, Z. Just a personal problem." Calder
brightened. "On the other hand, your being a detective, this may be
more in your line than mine. In fact, now that I think of it, you
know the dean in question. Cecil Ashlock. Vice Chancellor of
Incremental Augmentation Services."

Professor Carloss snorted. "Academia is fast
catching up with the government in the obfuscation of the language.
Administrative happiness is maximized when no one has the slightest
idea of what anyone else is saying."

"Immersing yourself in governmental studies
is making you cynical, Jeff," Calder said, smiling. "It's just that
titles impress some people -- the flashier the better.

The conversation derailed, Calder put it
back on track. "You've met the dean in question." He was addressing
Z again. "Dean Ashlock. He's the one I sent you to. The one who
hired you for that little matter earlier in the summer."