Murder in the English Department (7 page)

So Angus Murchie was dead. The thought actually gave Nan a terrible pleasure. For auld lang syne. Such a spiteful, petty, supercilious man. She had not realized just how much she hated him. Surely, he had been a constant irritant during these last seven years here. She had imagined him as an annoying fly. But actually, he was a corrosive termite, burrowing into her dignity, a relentless threat. This death was a curious relief; she felt as if an unknown tumour had been removed. Angus Murchie is dead; long live John Milton. Deep in her conscience, Nan knew she was a dreadful person.

Suddenly she felt panicky, remembering she was a woman out alone tonight. One violence would not protect her from another. She looked around carefully, trying not to remember that eerie whistle from ‘Dial M For Murder'. The campus was sparsely occupied. And the other moving shadows seemed as timid of contact as she. Odd how you had to make an exaggerated gesture of walking to the opposite side of the road to show goodwill or harmlessness. In the fifties, Nan and her girlfriend Sally used to take three a.m. walks along Strawberry Creek just for the hell of it. Ten years later, when she returned here for graduate school, people would whisper about the dangers of campus under darkness. She did not believe them. Not until a friend had been raped up by the Campanile at dusk. Now Nan was startled by the sight of two cops walking together through Dwinelle Plaza. She looked away and quickened her pace. A cold wind blew up towards the hills, and Nan held her coat around her. Of course there would be twice as many cops for New Year's Eve.

Approaching Wheeler Hall, she walked through the light pouring from Angus Murchie's window, an odd beacon in the darkness. And another light streamed toward the Campanile. Was it her own lamp? Her heart stopped. Had she been so stupid as to leave it on? No, of course not, it was Mr Johnson's. He must have arrived late tonight. Good enough. He would be a reliable undertaker. No doubt by morning, at least, he would check Murchie's office. Then the police would come, also the reporters.

Nan wondered about Marjorie Adams. It had been her voice? Of course it had been. She hoped that Marjorie Adams was well on the way to Kabul by now, or at least to the family estate in Maryland. She was not the kind of woman—not with that sterling silver spine—to fall apart. She was a bright one, a survivor.

Nan intended to go straight home to finish her bottle of brandy, a lease on the first night's sleep of the new year. Instead, she found herself turning up Ashby Avenue and heading for the Warren Freeway to Hayward. The Alameda County hills were peaceful at night, like so many sleeping, naked women. ‘The sun to me is dark and silent as the moon,' recited Nan. This was the quote Murchie had tacked on the bulletin board outside his door, from ‘Samson Agonistes'.

No, she would not be sad; she would not grieve over this terrible man. She sped through the dark. If she tried hard she could ignore the shopping centres and tract homes. All these electric lights might be stars shining against the blackness.

Chapter Six

SHIRLEY'S LIVING ROOM WAS
congested
with smoke and loud laughter and Barbra Streisand music. A stranger had opened the door to Nan. Probably he wasn't a stranger, this heavy-set man in the orange and black checked slacks. No, he was probably a neighbour of many years, some native son of the Golden West, proud citizen of Desert Palms Estates, whom she had met at a dozen barbecues. Nan nodded cordially to him. Remembering the dark red stain on her dress, she buttoned her sweater securely and joined the party.

‘Well, if it isn't her highness, gracing us with the royal presence,' said Joe, leering from his position on the dance floor, his arms tightly around someone's wife.

Nan smiled wanly.

Shirley turned from the drinks table, smiled at her sister and nodded reproachfully to her husband.

‘Hi, Nan,' called Shirley. She tried to hide the surprise behind her delight at Nan's arrival.

‘What'll it be?' asked Shirley as she walked over to her, ‘Red or white wine?'

Nan gave her a quick kiss.

‘You haven't got anything stronger, have you?'

‘Sure, Nan, wine's what you usually want, but …'

Noticing her sister's concern, Nan said, ‘I'm just a little shook up from the drive. Crazies on the road tonight.'

Nan walked into the clean, bright kitchen, her eyes following the flowers on her sister's swishing polyester ass. Their old family kitchen on Kelly Hill had felt safe like this, a dispensary for food and other care. Until Nan was in high school she assumed everybody kept their bandaids and merthiolate in the kitchen cupboard. Tonight, for some reason, Shirley reminded her of Mom. Mom leaning across the linoleum table, listening to ten-year-old Nan confess to the blood dripping between her legs. Mom's face had betrayed shock at such physical force in one so young. But she soon recovered, reassuring young Nan that this was the most natural thing in the world. The blood made Nan a woman. Now would Shirley tell her that the blood on her dress and Marjorie's scarf was the most natural thing in the world? Would she be absolved of another wound she did not inflict?

Nan glanced at her sister and realized that they had been sitting silently for some time, through several glasses of brandy.

‘Look, I'm sorry,' said Nan. ‘I didn't want to spoil your party.'

‘Don't worry about it,' said Shirley. ‘If I hear “The Way We Were” one more time, I'm going to parcel post a bomb to Barbra Streisand.'

Nan smiled at Shirley's unlikely contempt.

‘So you don't want to talk about it?' asked Shirley.

What did her sister mean? Nan panicked. Blood. Rape. Wounds. Screams. Murder. Nan's mind had been spinning. Terrified, she caught herself. What had she revealed to Shirley? She must lay off the alcohol. But searching Shirley's face for the horrors of the murder story, Nan found nothing but the simple, reliable concern she had always known.

‘Nothing to talk about really,' said Nan, feeling wretched because Shirley must know she was lying.

‘Listen,' said Nan, reviving. ‘We've gotta go back in there. This is your party. I'm fine.' she patted her sister's hand and noticed for the first time in years the similarity of their short, stubby fingers. She had always observed the differences between them.

‘I'd like to have some company,' smiled Nan. ‘Honestly.' Nan sat on the old brocade couch and watched the twisting and bobbing for another half-hour, or maybe it was two hours. She wasn't keeping track of the time, but she was counting the brandies. Five should do it. She watched the couples dance, saddened by their sagging bodies. Arrogant, Nan reprimanded herself. They were all younger than she. Young. Nan did still feel young, young in the sense of fresh, in working order. Young enough for tenure. Younger than these middle-aged people who were unashamedly losing form. Lisa was young in the sense of unformed. These people were…five brandies.

She would have to take a pile of aspirins and say her prayers if she was to avoid a hangover tomorrow. She needed to be in good shape to play with Lisa. Lisa, maybe that's why she had driven here tonight despite her intention of going home, to check on Lisa. Sweetly, Nan bade good night to Shirley. She ignored Joe who was locked in an embrace with someone whose name she couldn't remember. Looking in on Lisa, she found her sleeping peacefully. Then she curled into one of the twin beds in the boys' old room.

Something failed
—either the aspirins or
the prayers—because the New Year dawned on Nan with a stunning headache, a raw stomach and, ultimately, the blazing memory of what she had tried to bury. Just last week after reading a series of articles in
The Chronicle
about women alcoholics, she had realized she would have to make a resolution. The very word resolution reminded Nan of the night she had just tried to drown. Now she was weighted to the bed with a heavy fear. But hold on, maybe it had been a nightmare, one of those wish-fulfilment dreams turned technicolor by the brandy. Angus Murchie, huge in his stillness as a beached walrus, bleeding into his precious teal blue Persian carpet, his spirit already descended. Angus Murchie forever silenced. The nightmare dissolved into dawn as Nan reached over the side of the bed and pulled out a green and pink silk scarf from her purse. The dark red marks shot a hollowness through her chest. She must talk to someone before she went crazy. Matt. She would call Matt. But even as she stuck her head into the hall for the phone, she was relieved to see Lisa chattering away, barefoot in her nightgown. The child looked so well. What did the doctors know?

Lisa put her hand over the receiver and called, ‘Morning, Nan. I'll be right off the phone. You ready for our big day?'

Nan nodded and returned to the bedroom. She would wait to call Matt until her head was clearer. Meanwhile, she would have to borrow some walking clothes. She rummaged through the drawers and found a T-shirt and jeans outgrown by the boys years before.

Coffee helped. And the first day of this New Year was blessed by the absence of Joe, who had an even worse hangover and was still in bed. This meant that Nan had the newspaper to herself.

Of course
The Daily Review
wouldn't carry anything about the murder. Too much news on the low riders arrested for drunk driving in Union City and the pregnant beauty queen who was refusing to forsake her title. No space for a man killed in Berkeley. Maybe he had not yet been found? Maybe it had all been a nightmare? Maybe he was killed by someone else? Could Marjorie have left the scarf on her visit last week? Perhaps on the day when Angus had interrupted their discussion of Murdochian art and passion? Were the spots ink, perhaps, or some less violent blood?

Lisa was in fine spirits, eager to go hiking somewhere off Crow Canyon road. Crow Canyon. Niles Canyon. Wildcat Canyon. Grizzly Peak. Nan loved these Western names as much as she loved the gullies and ravines and wooded hills themselves. She was never completely at ease with the landscapes in Jane Austen or George Eliot. Nor did she ever fully appreciate the pathetic fallacies in British romantic poetry. Too many lacy trees and elegant ponds. Nan was much more at home among the giant sequoias on the edge of the ocean. Maybe she should have become a forest ranger. The open spaces might have preserved her from the neuroses of Wheeler Hall. Crow Canyon had been her favourite hideout as a teenager, when she had to escape the stuffiness of the Kelly Hill house. She would hitch a ride to these wild hills, listen to the bickering scrub jays, collect pockets of bay leaves for Mom, yell at the top of her lungs and send her voice rising high above the redwoods.

This New Year's day was hot and dry. Nan imagined that she and Lisa were walking in a sauna with a window. Their conversation had an easy unevenness—tense discussion, family gossip, companionable silence. Usually Nan delighted in the meditative friendship. Today, however, she was encased in the pain of last night and the alcohol she had taken to numb the pain. She felt riddled by memories of the sudden death of Angus Murchie and the tenuous life of Lisa. Silence was unbearable. She began to chatter, to move the conversation to a safe, incessant pace.

‘So what do you think of this forties revival in fashion?' asked Nan, grasping for something to talk about.

‘Well, I like the shoulder pads and the platform shoes,' said Lisa. ‘But I can't stand that red lipstick.'

‘Yes, I have a student who wears it.'

‘Oh yeah?' said Lisa, ‘the really smart one who looks like all the movie stars? Mildred or Mary Anne?'

‘Marjorie?' said Nan as calmly as she could. ‘How did you know?'

‘Oh, you talk about her a lot, about how bright and disciplined she is. She sounds a little screwy to me.'

‘Do I talk about her?' asked Nan, unnerved. She groped for another topic, ‘Are you still planning to major in rhetoric?'

‘Yes,' said Lisa, confused because they had discussed this just last week. ‘And then grad school in community organizing. I don't want to give up on a family, but I want it to be a partnership. Do you know what I mean?'

Marvelling at the certainty in Lisa's voice, Nan did not answer right away.

‘Of course Dad still wants me to drop school and get a job making computer chips.'

Nan laughed.

Lisa looked up quizzically.

‘
My
parents,' Nan recalled, ‘wanted me to get a safe job at the Telephone Company.' She paused, her voice trailing off, ‘Maybe they were right …' Puzzled, and slightly disturbed by her aunt's behaviour, Lisa interrupted the conversation.

‘Say, isn't that a marsh hawk?'

The dark bird, soaring with precision into the high, blue distance, restored them to the silent hills.

Nan watched her niece carefully, studied the resilience in her. Yes, this Lupus was a false alarm.

She hated to say goodbye to Lisa that afternoon as if, in leaving her, she was deserting all that was good and wholesome in the world. Hopefully they would see each other on campus in a few days, if Lisa were well enough for school.

For the first time in
her life
, Nan felt a weight descending on her, suffocating her, as she drove from Hayward to Berkeley. Always, she had felt the weight going in the
other
direction. She turned on the radio, automatically turning the dial for KCBS. KCBS reported the latest murders every hour on the hour. But, according to KCBS, the peace had been disturbed only twice this holiday weekend. An angel had been stolen from a crêche outside Grace Cathedral. And an arson attempt was made at a high school in San Jose. Nan remembered Wheeler Hall in flames during some student protest years before. Now she imagined Wheeler Hall blazing to the ground with the body of Angus Murchie, world famous Milton scholar, charred beyond recognition.

‘Oh, Christ!' Nan said, and hearing her own voice, she felt less crazy. ‘I'll call Matt as soon as I get home.'

It was a quiet night, little traffic on the road. Hot, cold, Nan wasn't sure. She switched off KCBS, and it was quieter still.

Before she opened the third lock on the door, she could hear the phone ringing.

It was Matt.

‘Oh, Matt, I was just going to call,' Nan began and then paused, registering his cool silence. He must know about Murchie. He must be phoning to tell her.

‘What's the matter?' she asked hesitantly.

‘Well, I give a New Year's Eve party and practically the whole department shows except my best friend,' his voice had recovered its humour now.

Nan was silent.

‘Listen, pet, I'm not really angry. I'm sure you were off on some wildly important romance. Tell me, who was it—Francie or Claude?' he teased. ‘Or perhaps Angus Murchie.'

‘Angus Murchie?' Nan faltered.

‘Of course I was relieved that he didn't show up,' said Matt. ‘But strange, eh? It was just his sort of party, with all the booze and the women, and his wife out of town.'

‘Yes,' said Nan quietly.

‘Well,' Matt persisted, still teasing, ‘I must say I was put out not to have my date there. Why do you think I give these parties except to appear acceptably heterosexual to the outside world? You and me, babe, we make terrific gossip.'

‘Listen, Matt, there's something I have to tell you …'

When Matt was wound up, there was no stopping him. ‘Now they're all talking about me and Ms Marjorie Adams.'

‘Marjorie Adams,' Nan said blankly.

‘What is it, love, are you playing straight woman tonight? Angus Murchie. Marjorie Adams. You know these people. They're part of the Grand Drama of Wheeler Hall.'

Nan realized that it would probably be more productive to listen, not that she had any choice.

‘When did Marjorie Adams arrive on the scene?' she asked.

‘Oh, lord, who knows; we all hit the drink pretty early and began whirling and dervishing about ten o'clock. Everyone dancing with everyone. And do you know, Nan baby, I believe that Armand, the new graduate student doing Chaucer, might well be a pooftah. Have you considered that enchanting possibility?'

‘Did Marjorie seem OK?' asked Nan before she thought.

‘Nan Weaver, what is this? Have you turned den mother again?' sniffed Matt. ‘Yes, she was fine, a little Ophelia-like, all that blonde hair hanging down like a palomino …'

But, Nan wanted to interrupt him. How could she have been at your party? It
was
Marjorie Adams she had seen running across campus, wasn't it?

‘Marjorie did seem a little skittish,' Matt continued. ‘About something she lost. Manic actually. I told her to go home and sleep tight and she'd probably find it under her pillow if she were a good little girl.'

Nan was stunned at Marjorie's gall, running away from Murchie's corpse, slipping into a New Year's Eve party. It was Marjorie she had seen running across campus, wasn't it?