Poisoned Pins (22 page)

I missed his answer. John Vanderson was frozen in the doorway to the dining room, regarding me with such panic that he appeared on the verge of an apoplectic attack. I smiled and wiggled my eyebrows at him. He stumbled out of sight Was this any way for a proper host to act?

“. . . little party at my hotel later,” the judge was saying. “A very select group, of course. I'll be absolutely heartbroken if you refuse, my dear.” He squeezed my hand more firmly. “I might have to hold you in contempt of court.”

“I wouldn't dream of missing it,” I said. After a brief struggle, I disengaged my hand. “Excuse me, but
I must have a word with Dean Vanderson. Why don't you sit right there on that cozy loveseat, and when I come back, you can tell me all about your clever decisions.”

I slithered through the crowd and into the dining room, where the glare from silverwear and crystal was enough to blind me momentarily. Dean Vanderson apparently had escaped through the door on the far side of the room, so I headed that way. The kitchen was a crowded, bustling place, and none of the staff responded to my question. I moved on, hoping I wouldn't find myself at the top of the basement stairs—or the bottom of the attic stairs. The room beyond the kitchen proved to be nothing more horrifying than a sunroom with windows that looked out on a landscaped yard and a swimming pool.

I was about to try the next door when “I saw Dean Vanderson in a corner, his head bowed and his shoulders drooping. I approached him as I would a wounded animal (although, of course, I value my extremities far too much to do such a thing), reasonably sure the kitchen staff would come to my aid if he flung himself on my admittedly alluring carotid artery. “We need to talk,” I said gently. “We can do it in private, or we can do it in front of your wife and your guests.”

“Shall we take a stroll by the pool, Mrs. Malloy?”

“I'm a competent swimmer,” I warned him as we went down stone steps to the yard. Azaleas and rhododendrons bloomed in studiously casual confusipn, and honeysuckle vines swarmed over the crumbling brick walls of an old well. I'd read too many mysteries not to take a quick look into the shaft. It was less than ten feet deep, the ground appeared undisturbed, and Debbie Anne was not cowering at the bottom.

“Were you on the guest list?” Dean Vanderson asked, having observed my detour with mild perplexity.

“No, and I'll fade away unfed as soon as you answer my questions. I'm not sure exactly how you're involved with the Kappa Theta Etas, but I have some
fairly plausible guesses that I will share with the police, if necessary. I don't know if they'll stand up in court, but they will cause you a great deal of trouble.” I halted at the edge of the pool and made sure no bodies were adrift near the drain. All I saw was a magnolia leaf curled into the shape of a devilfish.

He pulled together two aluminum chairs and gesr tured for me to sit. “Indiscretion may have occurred, but it was in the past and has nothing to do with the girl's death. I will admit I pushed you down this afternoon. Coming upon you so abruptly, I was startled and reacted without thinking. For that, I apologize most sincerely. I trust there was no serious damage?”

“I don't want to talk about this afternoon, Dean Vanderson. I want to talk about Jean Hall.”

He shivered despite the sunshine, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “Ah, yes, I hired her to run errands and do office chores. Her salary was in line with our tight budget, so as an added inducement, I arranged for her to sit in on some of the lectures in order to help her prepare for law school in the fall. Eleanor informed me of her accidental death. A terrible tragedy for her, for the driver, and for the sorority in general.”

“She was murdered,” I said bluntly.

“Do the police concur?” His pale eyelashes were almost invisible as he blinked at me. “Eleanor said they'd concluded it was an accident, caused by one of the pledges.”

“Who came here to hide.”

“Here? That's impossible. If she came here after the accident, Eleanor would have counseled her to turn herself in, even have driven her to the police station, and surely would have mentioned it to me. I have a position to maintain in the academic community, Mrs. Malloy, and the sorority means everything to my wife. Neither of us would jeopardize our achievements by harboring a fugitive.”

“John!” Eleanor called from the door. “What are you and Claire doing out there? In case you failed to
notice, we have guests. Judge Frankley is asking for you.”

I smiled at her, and in a low voice said, “Where shall we discuss the negatives—here or on the loveseat with Judge Frankley?”

He regarded me for a moment, as if assessing my alleged swimming ability should I find myself in the proximity of the drain. “Here, I should think,” he said resignedly, then called to his wife, “I shall be there shortly, dear. Just tell everybody there's been a small crisis at the law school that must be resolved before I leave in the morning.”

Eleanor didn't look convinced; I could think of no reason why she should. However, after a minute she nodded and disappeared into the house to appease her guests with cocktails, canapes, and little white lies.

Dean Vanderson was struggling to radiate judicial dignity, but he looked more like a small boy on the verge of tears, his mouth puckered, his eyes downcast, his porcelain forehead beaded with sweat. Patting him on the shoulder, I said, “Come on, you can tell me. If you cooperate, I promise not to go to the police.”

“Jean approached me last fall. I'd seen her at sorority affairs”—he cringed at his ill-chosen word—”such as luncheons and teas, but we'd only made small talk. However, on this particular occasion, a football brunch at the house, Jean asked me if she might make an appointment to elicit my advice about law school. She came to my office several times, always with catalogs and questions, and I was more than happy to offer her what assistance I could.”

“And also at the Hideaway Haven?”

He gaped at me, then managed to swallow what must have been a most unpleasant taste. “You appear to be well informed, Mrs. Malloy.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, accepting his compliment with a modest nod—and wishing it were deserved.

“I will not deny that I am aware of an establishment known as the Hideaway Haven. Whatever may have taken place there can be best described as a series of
perfectly harmless dalliances. My wife has become more and more involved with her volunteer work, her various clubs, and, of course, her Kappa Theta Eta responsibilities. Often she is exhausted by the time she arrives home. Eleanor is an attractive woman and an exemplary hostess, but when we manage to . . . retire together, she responds so distractedly that I suspect she's mentally making out guest lists or contemplating menus. I find this frustrating.”

I tried to keep the disgust out of my voice, but I may not have given it my personal best. “You have a beautiful wife, a lovely home, a respected position at the college and in the community. Federal judges drink martinis in your living room. Uniformed cooks crowd your kitchen. Students scribble down your opinions, and faculty members beg you for pennies to buy legal pads and paper clips. Why would you risk the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and ambition to have an affair with a student in a sleazy motel?”

“It's difficult to explain,” he said, wiping his neck. “It was flattering, you see. I've never been attractive. Eleanor married me for my family connections and my potential for success; I married her for similar reasons. When I was in law school, I became obsessed by the handsome young studs with their wavy hair, smoldering eyes, some as bright and disciplined as I, others less so but destined to succeed in their future endeavors simply on the strength of their physical attributes. I retreated into academia, where I could wage war on an intellectual level, but even now, when I address a class or interview applicants, I find myself . . .” He made a gesture with a taut white hand. “This is not the time to present the defendant's closing statement, is it?”

“I'm not the one with a houseful of guests, but I'm willing to acknowledge these psychological ravages of your past and move right along. You and Jean met at the Hideaway Haven. Someone took a photograph of you in the midst of this indiscretion and has been blackmailing you since then. How am I doing?”

He gave me an odd look, no doubt impressed by my acuity and acumen. “To some extent, you are correct in your suppositions, Mrs. Malloy. Approximately three weeks ago, a distressing depiction of activities that need not be detailed was sent to me, accompanied by a peculiar construction-paper cutout and a handwritten request that I make a private endowment. I was able to do so without undue problems. A second followed, and a third only yesterday. It became clear that I am to be hounded in perpetuity by a member of Kappa Theta Eta with the alias Katie. I've begun to dream of strangling that cat, of burning down the house, of penning a suicide note and disappearing into the wilds of Canada.”

I remembered Officer Pipkin's remark about cloistered nuns as I leaned back in the squeaky chair and crossed my arms. “But hasn't it occurred to you to confess and accept whatever punishment is meted out by your wife and the administration? Blackmail is a particularly nasty crime. Are you willing to allow the perpetrator to continue on her merry way? Aren't you committed to justice and all that stuff?”

“John!” Eleanor called sharply from the doorway. “Judge Frankley is still asking for you, and dinner is ready to be served. What can you and Claire be discussing that must be resolved while the quail toughen?”

“I'll be there in a moment,” he called back, waited until she was gone, and then gave me the look of a harshly chastised puppy who'd savaged a slipper. “I must see to my guests. I made a mistake, and it seems I am to pay for it. There's your justice, Mrs. Malloy.”

“But you do admit you searched the sorority house for the negatives of the photographs of you and Jean?” I demanded as he rose to his feet. “Did you search her purse, too?”

“After I ran her down in the alley?”

I stopped congratulating myself on the guile of my leading question. “Something like that,” I admitted with a shrug.

“Allow me to correct some of your hazy, unsubstantiated, and fallacious ideas. I did have an appointment with Jean Hall the night she was killed, and we met in the enclosed patio of a fraternity house that borders the alley. At that time, she acknowledged that she was the blackmailer and informed me that larger endowments would be required, although none so outrageous that I could not comply without arousing suspicion. Negatives were to serve as my receipts. She took one out of her purse and an exchange was made.”

“You're positive she had her purse with her?”

“Do try to listen, Mrs. Malloy. She took the negative out of her purse and showed it to me. Less than a minute later she put an envelope full of twenty-dollar bills into her purse.”

I attempted to envision the scene, but what flashed across my mind was not this icy entrepreneur in the patio but the bloodied body in the alley. And something was missing. “Was she wearing her sorority pin?”

“I was not concerned with her accessories, but I seem to remember thinking how ostentatious it was. Please do not quote me on that. In any case, I left her sitting on a bench, licking her lips in a disturbingly contented fashion. I never saw her again.”

“You drove by the house later. I saw you from my bedroom window.”

“After I'd had time to consider the situation, I decided to suggest to Jean that we terminate our contractual relationship with a single payment in exchange for all the negatives. I went by the house to propose it, saw the police cars in the alley, and went home. Only when Eleanor returned did I learn what had happened.”

“But now someone else is blackmailing you,” I said encouragingly (if one can use the term in that context). “You were searching the third floor, presumably with no success. How did you get in?”

“Eleanor has a full set of keys, in case an emergency arises that requires the immediate presence of a plumber or an electrician. I borrowed them from her
desk, and replaced them as soon as I was home.” He gave me a reproachful smile. “I'd intended to work my way from the top floor to the basement, but you had the pinched look of a police informant. I haven't found sufficient nerve to go back and continue my search.”

“Jean's room is on the ground floor.”

“I wasn't aware of that, but she wasn't the sort to put her damning evidence in her dresser drawer or leave it lying on her desk. She implied the negatives were hidden somewhere in the house. I am by nature a methodical man, Mrs. Malloy.”

“Who do you suspect has the photographs of you and Jean in the Hideaway Haven?”

“They're not of Jean and me, Mrs. Malloy.” Dean Vanderson replaced his handkerchief in his back pocket and looked down at me as if I were a sluggish student. “Earlier in the week I wondered if you had them, but now I see that you don't. I never said I'd had an affair with her. She merely arranged introductions to some of her nubile young friends who enjoyed the companionship of . . . shall we say, experienced older men.”

“She what?” I leaped to my feet so suddenly that I was in danger of an unscheduled swan dive. “She was pimping for you?”

“She merely arranged introductions,” he repeated patiently.

I battled to regain my balance in all senses of the phrase. “She arranged introductions to girls with whom you subsequently had sex? Her nubile young friends? At the Hideaway Haven with its porn movies and waterbeds? Why don't you tell me your definition of a pimp, Dean Vanderson?”

My words had been spewing out rather raggedly, but he seemed to get the gist of them. “Jean was providing a service, and until I conceded to the first blackmail demand, I'd given her nothing but avuncular advice and a part-time job. Actually, Eleanor suggested that. As for the girls, I often insisted on showing my appreciation for their youthful enthusiasm and lack of inhibitions.
One particular girl was so delightfully inexperienced and reticent in her attempts to be introduced into the sweet mysteries of love that I rewarded her most handsomely. I'm an educator and aware of the importance of positive reinforcement in learning situations.”