Murder Past Due (19 page)

“I don’t see why not,” Melba said. “He’s due at a meeting at nine-thirty, but he should have time to talk to you now. He got here a few minutes before you and Diesel.” She buzzed his office.

When Peter answered, Melba told him I needed to talk to him about something urgent. She listened for a moment. “Go on in,” she said, hanging up the phone. “I’ll keep an eye on Diesel.”

“Thanks,” I said. I got up, a bit reluctantly. I did not relish repeating all this to Peter, because he could be amazingly obsessive sometimes about the tiniest details. I might be in for an extended inquisition.

I opened the door and stepped into Peter’s office. “Good morning, Peter,” I said.

Peter looked up from his desk. “Good morning, Charles. I am most pleased to see you. There is something I feel I should discuss with you. I value your judgment, and I know you will offer sage advice.”

He seemed to have forgotten that I wanted to talk to him, but I knew there was no point in trying to divert his attention.

Suppressing a sigh, I sat down. “Tell me about it, and I’ll do my best.”

Peter stared at me, as if suddenly mute. As I watched him, beginning to grow concerned, his face reddened. Was he having some kind of attack?

“Peter, what’s the matter? Do you need a doctor?” I rose from my chair, ready to yell for Melba.

He waved a hand, indicating that I should sit down. “There is no need,” he said, his voice low. “I am simply embarrassed by what I have to tell you in order to solicit your counsel.”

“There’s no need to feel embarrassed,” I said. “I won’t betray your confidence, I assure you.”

“Thank you,” Peter said. “I know you are a man of honor.” He sighed. “And that is the crux of the matter. I fear that I have acted in a dishonorable manner.”

“How so?” I did my best to maintain a patient tone, but Peter could be maddeningly slow getting to the point.

“I refer to the matter of the phone call which we discussed yesterday,” Peter said.

“You mean the call from Godfrey? About his feeling too ill to attend the dinner in his honor?”

“Yes, that is correct.” Peter drew a deep breath. “I lied to you, Charles. There was no phone call.”

“No phone call?” I stared at Peter in disbelief. “Were you playing some kind of joke on Godfrey?”

“Would that were all it was,” Peter said, his face reflecting his pompous tone. “The message from Godfrey Priest was real enough. The method of delivery was quite different, I regret to say.”

Peter’s conversational style was giving me a headache. I yearned to grab him and shake him a few times, maybe knock loose some of the extra words so he would get to the point sooner.

“Then tell me how and when you talked to Godfrey.” That came out far calmer than I expected.

Peter grimaced. “I yielded to a base impulse. I have just cause to despise the man, though perhaps you are unaware of said cause.” He paused for a moment.

I didn’t want to tell him I already knew about his wife, in case he asked me for the source of my information. Melba wouldn’t thank me for snitching on her.

When I failed to respond, Peter continued. “Before I came to Athena College to assume the position as director of the library, I lived for many years in California. In Los Angeles, to be exact. I was also married then, and my former wife had personal ambitions centered upon writing for the cinema.”

I decided to speed things up a bit. “And somehow she must have met Godfrey and hoped to use his connections to break into screenwriting.”

“Yes, that is more or less what happened,” Peter said with a pained look. “Not content, however, simply to approach that detestable man for assistance and befriend him, my former spouse decided the only way to achieve her goal was to marry the man. After divorcing me first, naturally.”

“I see. One couldn’t blame you for not liking Godfrey,” I said, “though your ex-wife certainly bears a lot of the blame.”

“Oh, most definitely, the balance of the opprobrium lies with her,” Peter said. “But one cannot exculpate Priest. He encouraged her and, after all, he did marry her once our divorce was final.” He snickered. “The marriage lasted little more than two years, I believe.”

Time to steer the conversation back onto the right track. “We’ve established your reasons for despising Godfrey,” I said. “Now what about your talking to him and getting the message that he was too ill to attend the dinner?”

“Ah yes,” Peter said with a frown. “As I have mentioned already, I yielded to impulse and decided to confront the man. Having no wish to make an ass of myself in front of anyone else, I decided that the best place for such an affray was his hotel. There, one assumed, one could be assured of some privacy.”

“You went to Farrington House to talk to Godfrey,” I said, holding on to my patience because he was actually approaching the point. “What time was that?”

Peter considered for a moment, his head cocked to one side. “Around five-thirty,” he said. “Yes, I waited until I was through with my day here, which is generally around five or five-fifteen. Then I proceeded directly to the hotel.”

“How did you know where he was staying?”

“I was privy to the arrangements,” Peter said. “The president’s office consulted me, perhaps because the man was a writer. Had he been an alumnus of the athletic type, they no doubt would have consulted the athletic director.”

“And you knew what room he was in?” Things couldn’t have been more convenient for Peter, I thought. And surely Peter realized that his having gone to the hotel put him high on the list of suspects.

But with Peter one never knew what tortuous path his thought processes might take.

“Yes, I did,” Peter said. “That was indeed fortunate, because had I stopped at the front desk and asked them to ring and announce me, the man might well have refused to see me. Thus I decided the better plan of attack would be to knock on his door and gain admittance before he realized who I was.”

I had a sudden vision of Kanesha Berry questioning Peter. How would she handle his inability to get right to the point? She might arrest him out of sheer irritation.

“So you went up to his suite and knocked on the door?”

“Yes, I did.” Peter frowned. “But things did not proceed thenceforth in the way I had postulated. Godfrey did not open the door. I was forced to raise my voice slightly and entreat him to let me in. He refused.”

“Did he give a reason?” If Godfrey hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, why did he bother answering?

But at least I knew he had been alive at five-thirty if he had talked to Peter.

“He explained that he felt quite ill and that he feared it was some kind of stomach virus. He had no desire to inflict it upon anyone in case it was infectious. He intended to stay in his room until he recovered.”

“That was kind of him,” I said. But odd, I thought. The bug must have had a quick onset, because he had appeared perfectly fine when I had last seen him at my house.

“Perhaps. I inquired of him whether he had informed the president’s office of his illness, and he said he had not. He then asked if I would be so good as to do it for him. Then he excused himself, saying he had to rush back to the bathroom. Seeing no point in remaining there any longer, I went back to my car and used my cell phone to call the president’s office. I also called Melba and asked her to inform others on the library staff who were planning to attend, as one presumes she informed you.”

“She did,” I said. “You need to talk to the deputy in charge of the investigation even more urgently now. This will help narrow down the time of death.”

“I suppose so,” Peter said, obviously unhappy about the idea. “One has so little desire to embroil oneself in such a sordid happening.”

“I quite understand,” I said. “But still, one must do one’s duty.” I stood.

“Thank you for your forbearance, Charles,” Peter said. “I appreciate you hearing me out.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

I opened the door, ready to leave, when an unsettling thought struck me. Why hadn’t it occurred to me sooner? I turned and walked back to the chair and sat down again.

“What is it?” Peter asked.

“During the time when your ex-wife was pursuing Godfrey,” I said, “did you ever meet him?”

“Yes, a few times at parties,” Peter said. “Though I must say I quite often tried to avoid the man, finding him hideously conceited, with only one subject of conversation—himself.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Seven years ago,” Peter said. “Why do you ask?”

“When Godfrey spoke to you through the door at the hotel, did you recognize his voice?”

“What a peculiar question,” Peter said, clearly taken aback. “One simply assumed that one was talking to him because it was his room.” He paused. “I cannot be absolutely certain that it was indeed Godfrey I conversed with, given the circumstances. There is the additional fact that the man claimed to be ill, and I did detect what I thought was a note of strain in his voice.”

“But you can’t swear that it was actually Godfrey on the other side of the door?”

Justin hadn’t said anything about Godfrey’s feeling ill, and surely he would have noticed. It wouldn’t have been easy for Godfrey to conceal a stomach bug of some kind from his son if he had to rush off to the bathroom periodically.

“No, I cannot,” Peter said. “But if it was not Godfrey with whom I spoke, then who was it?”

“It might have been the murderer,” I said.

Peter turned so white I thought he was going to faint. I started to get up to attend to him, but he rallied enough to say, “No, thank you, I’m all right. Just a bit of a shock, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “It’s a shock to me, too. But the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to believe that Godfrey was already dead when you went to the hotel.” I kept my eye on him. If he was the murderer, he was putting on quite an act to convince me otherwise. I couldn’t see him as a killer unless he were talking someone to death.

The problem was, I couldn’t see anyone—at the moment—as a killer, but someone had murdered Godfrey.

“I must say, that is quite an unsettling notion.” Peter was slowly regaining some color—not that he had much to begin with, poor man. “To have been that close to the perpetrator of such a vicious act—well, the mind frankly boggles, as I am certain you can understand.”

“I can,” I said. “Now you have to tell the deputy about what you did. She’ll probably draw the same conclusion.” Or at least, she should, I amended silently. Kanesha might be a pain in the neck sometimes, but she was bright.

“Yes, I will,” Peter said.

“Good. I’ll leave you then,” I said, and once again I made it to the door. But the memory of why I had come down to see Peter surfaced, and I turned back.

“I forgot something,” I said as I walked back toward the desk. “We need to get the locks on the archive office and the storeroom changed right away.”

“What?” Peter looked alarmed. “What has happened?”

I explained tersely. Peter shook his head. “I shall certainly speak to Rick Tackett immediately,” he said. “This is a serious breach of our security. I wonder whether I should discuss this with the head of the campus police.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary just yet,” I said. “Getting the locks changed today, if at all possible, is the most important thing.”

“I shall see to it.” Peter sighed. “So many phone calls to make.” He brightened. “I shall have Melba make the necessary contact with Rick, however.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” I said. I knew Melba could probably get results from Rick faster than Peter could. “Good luck with Deputy Berry.” I thought a reminder couldn’t hurt.

Peter was picking up the phone as I left.

In the outer office Diesel was stretched out on the credenza behind Melba’s desk while Melba worked at her computer. She looked up when I shut Peter’s door behind me.

“You sure were in there a long time,” she said. “It couldn’t have taken that long, even with Peter, to talk about what happened.”

“It didn’t,” I said. “There was something else Peter wanted to discuss.” I threw up a hand. “And before you ask me, I can’t tell you. If Peter chooses to tell you, fine, but don’t ask me, please.”

Melba pouted for a moment, but she never could stay annoyed or angry with anyone for long. “All right, Charlie. Spoilsport.” She grinned at me. “I’ll get it out of Peter somehow.”

I smiled at her, not doubting for a moment that she could. “Come on, Diesel. Let’s go.”

Diesel sat up and yawned. Then he stretched for a moment before jumping down. He came up to me and rubbed against my legs.

“We’ll see you later.” I waved at Melba as I followed my cat out of the office and toward the stairs.

I had plenty to think about when Diesel and I were once again installed in our accustomed places in the archive office. While the cat settled down for a nap, I stared at the computer screen. I should have been checking e-mail, but instead I kept running a list of suspects through my mind:

Julia Wardlaw

Justin Wardlaw

Jordan Thompson

Peter Vanderkeller

Any or all of them could be lying.

For example, Julia could have seen Jordan Thompson
leaving
as she herself arrived, rather than the other way around. Peter could be lying about speaking to someone through the door, or it could have been any one of the others in the room when Peter came to speak to Godfrey. Justin could have killed Godfrey, run out of the room terrified by what he had done, and then sat on the bench in the square until I found him.

Then there was the unknown factor: Mr. X or Ms. X.

Godfrey seemed to have angered enough people in his life that there were probably others in Athena who might have wanted to kill him.

But how to find out who they were, that was the question.