The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders (19 page)

“Should we wake him?” Ellis whispered.

Dean Holland slept with his head back against the ancient leather chair in his cluttered office. The dark-paneled walls were covered in framed degrees, certificates, and black-and-white photographs of classes, most of whom had observed at least their twenty-fifth reunion. His snore sounded like a twig caught in the spokes of a bicycle.

“Maybe we should make a noise,” I said.

“You could set off fireworks and he wouldn't hear it.” Blythe Cornelius, who had ushered us in, stood behind us with her hands on her hips and smiled at the old man.

“We could come back.” I glanced at Ellis, who looked at her watch.

“No, no. He'd be upset if he missed you.” Blythe lowered her voice. “Likes the attention, you know.” She touched him gently on the shoulder. “Company, Dean Holland. Somebody here to see you.” She introduced us, which was a good thing because the dean hadn't a clue as to who I was, even though we had spoken on several occasions.

He didn't seem embarrassed to be caught napping, but insisted on standing until Ellis and I were seated. “Now, what can I do for you ladies today?” he asked after Blythe closed the door behind her.

Augusta sat in the wide window seat that overlooked the main campus, now dreary with lengthening shadows as evening approached. She looked almost like a college student herself with her long loose sweater of dusty teal and crinkly broomstick skirt. Her necklace glowed softly with the colors of cranberry and gold as she threaded the stones through her fingers, and I found myself almost hypnotized by the motion until Ellis gave me a rude jab.

“Dean Holland, do you remember a girl named Carla Martinez?” Speaking in a loud voice, I told him what I suspected about the student who was killed by a fall from the Tree House several years before.

He nodded as I spoke. “Saddest thing,” he said with an appropriately morose expression. “Music student. Everyone was shocked, but we just assumed that was an accident.”

“There doesn't seem to be any account of a note left behind or a verse like the other girls got,” I said, “but that doesn't mean she didn't receive one. It might have been thrown away.”

The dean tapped the arm of his chair with a gnarly finger. “You phoned today? I'm afraid Mrs. Cornelius neglected to tell me.” He smiled. “But I always have time to visit with friends.”

Lucy Nan, you must not under any circumstances look at Ellis Saxon!
I glanced instead at Augusta, who gave me a “Don't you dare laugh!” look. Leaning forward so the dean might hear me better, I spoke a little louder. “Dean Holland, do you remember if there were any other student deaths that may or may not have taken place before Carla Martinez was killed?”

He cupped a hand over his ear and gave me an apologetic smile.

Ellis nudged me with her elbow. “What about the Jabberwocky verses?” she bellowed in what I call her “green witch” voice. Her early experience as a Girl Scout leader has honed her hollering skills to perfection. “Dean Holland, do you have any idea why anybody would use those particular verses? There must be a reason.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes and I prayed he wouldn't doze off again. “Jabberwocky. From
Through the Looking-Glass,
of course. This last girl who died, and the one before…” He straightened abruptly and opened his eyes. “There was a group once, if I remember correctly. Yes. Kind of a club—called themselves the Jabberwocks, I think. Something like that.” Dean Holland rubbed a white-whiskered chin. “Funny, I'd forgotten that. Wish I could remember…I'm trying to picture some of the girls who were in it…peculiar little bunch…”

“When?” I said, trying not to shout. “The year—do you remember the year?”

The chair squeaked as he rose and walked to the window, where Augusta stepped deftly aside. “Hazel Godfrey was housemother at Emma Harris at the time. That was back when we still had housemothers. Girls had rules and regulations, had to be in at a certain time. Anyway, I remember Hazel being somewhat vexed by this little group. Dressed in black a lot.”

“And when would that be?” Ellis asked.

The dean stepped easily around an obstacle course of stacked books, boxes of papers, and a bronze bust of somebody I didn't recognize. The worn green carpet was spotted with what appeared to be coffee stains and cigarette burns. Blythe had said he wouldn't let her touch a thing in there.

“Had to be sometime in the early or mid-seventies,” he said, wheeling about briskly, I thought, for somebody his age. “Hazel retired not long after that. Bought a little place in Chester to be near her daughter.”

“Do you know if she's still there?” Ellis asked, and the dean laughed. “Well, if she is,” he said, “she's darn near as old as I am!”

But Hazel Godfrey, we learned when we called the city hall in Chester, had died several years before. “Her heart,” I was told by the woman who answered the phone in the Records Department. “Her daughter Glenda was secretary at the middle school here for years. I think Glenda bought herself a condo in Charlotte after she retired.”

“Too bad we're not looking for information on Hazel's daughter,” I told Ellis and Augusta after relating the conversation.

“What about the college annual?” Augusta suggested. “Wouldn't they have some from that period in the library here?”

“Of course! And if that doesn't work, we can try the Alumnae Society,” Ellis said. “If only we had a name—just one name! It's a little awkward to call a perfect stranger and ask her if she wore black clothing and acted peculiar in college.”

We found a quiet alcove in the library to go through the stack of
Lantern
s, which is what Sarah Bedford calls its yearbooks, starting with the late 1960s, just to be on the safe side. After Ellis and I amused ourselves over the love beads, ironed hair, and ragbag clothing, we moved on to some serious scanning. The first book I examined was dedicated to Miss Henrietta Westfield, the retiring dean of women, beneath whose photograph it read: “Unto the pure all things are pure.” And when I looked at her formidable face I didn't doubt it.

“I'm sure she was a fine, upstanding person of great value to the college,” Augusta said in regard to our not-so-silent snickering. I noticed, however, that her mouth twitched as she said it.

“Augusta's right,” Ellis said. “Will you get on with it, Lucy Nan? We don't have time for this. Besides, the old bat's ghost is probably hanging around somewhere waiting to shove a bookcase on top of us.”

I set the heavy book aside. “Nothing here, anyway.”

“I think we should look for groups or clubs. They might have been organized.” Augusta looked closely at a photograph and turned the page.

We had worked up to 1974 before we found it, and then it was only a snapshot set at an angle on a page of similar informal photographs. The picture showed a black-clad group of seven girls in comical poses by the fountain in the commons. Each had a book balanced on her head; one was blowing a bubble; a cigarette dangled from one girl's lips, and another clenched what looked like a lily in her teeth. The caption gave no names, only the identifying line: “The Mad Jabberwocks.”

Augusta sighed. “There they are—at last!”

Ellis shook her head and smiled. “Silly things. Thought they owned the world. Remember that feeling?”

“Vaguely.” I examined the black-and-white photograph until my vision blurred. “Does anybody have a magnifying glass? I can't tell a thing about their faces.”

Ellis fumbled in her purse. “I've got one somewhere. Have you noticed the print in telephone books keeps getting smaller and smaller—not to mention menus and medicine bottles?”

But even with Ellis's magnifying glass the faces in the snapshot were too small to make out. “Do you think we'd recognize them in a class picture?” I asked.

Ellis flipped through the pages of the yearbook. “For all their trying to be different, they looked pretty much like everybody else—except for the girls with teased hair and preppy clothing. All we can do is copy a few names—like the class president and some of the more involved students who would be more likely to keep in touch.” She shrugged. “Guess our next move is the Alumnae Society.”

We began with ten names, which Ellis and I divided equally between us. The harried woman who runs the alumnae office was just getting ready to leave for the day when the two of us invaded her domain, leaving Augusta to browse through a few more yearbooks at the library. It took a few minutes of wheedling, but she reluctantly gave us the addresses we wanted.

It was dark by the time we started home, and Ellis stopped by for a glass of wine before going home to start supper. Augusta hadn't had any luck finding more pictures of the Mad Jabberwocks, she said, but a tray of fruit and cheese waited for us by the sitting room fire.

“Here's to the Jabberwocks!” Ellis said, lifting her glass. “We're getting closer now.”

“Which means you must be extremely careful, assuming the man the police arrested turns out to be innocent,” Augusta reminded us. “Londus Clack's death should prove that the killer isn't going to stop with college students if you get too close to the truth. He would have absolutely no compunction about getting rid of you as well.”

“I thought that was your job,” I teased. “Aren't you supposed to be looking after us?”

Augusta selected an apple slice and a piece of cheese from the tray. “You know very well I can't intrude in things like that,” she said with a slight edge to her voice. “I can only do my best to guide you, as I am doing now.”

“I know, I know. Don't get in an angelic flap about it, Augusta,” I said. “We'll be careful—I promise.”

Augusta considered that as she sipped her wine. “I wish you had promised that sooner. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't remind you that this killer—whoever that might be—is probably someone you know, and it's likely they're aware of what you're doing.”

Ellis stood as she drained her glass. “On that comforting note I'll take my leave,” she announced. “And I'm going to start calling the people on my list tonight. The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better!”

For supper Augusta served roast chicken, fresh asparagus with lemon-herb sauce, and a rice casserole, and I bragged on it so often she told me to stop. She was still miffed, I could tell, over my flippant remarks earlier in the evening.

“Augusta, I'm sorry if I upset you,” I told her. “Frankly, I'm frightened every time I set foot on that campus. I suppose that's just my way of putting on a brave front.”

“I'm not upset, Lucy Nan, I'm concerned about you—and Ellis as well.” She patted my hand. “Sometimes being frightened is not a bad thing.”

I put away the supper dishes, and while Augusta mended, phoned the first three people on my list. A man answered at the first number I reached and told me his wife was on a business trip and wouldn't be back until Friday. No one was at home at the second address, and the third woman said she didn't remember any Jabberwocks—mad or otherwise—and did well to remember her own name. I could hear what sounded like about five dogs barking in the background. I had a cup of orange-spice tea and a hot shower, and put the other two on the back burner.

Ellis phoned me at Bellawood the next morning as I was going over the December schedule with Genevieve Ellison, who heads the plantation's volunteers. “I've got one!” she yelled in her megaphone voice.

“One what?”

“One of the class of '74, you batter brain, and she actually remembers the Jabberwocks. I've got a couple of names right here. Want me to give them a call?”

“Without me? Are you kidding? Why don't you come by after I get home tonight? We'll call them together.”

“Better still, you come here—and bring Augusta. Bennett's investment club meets tonight—frankly, though, I think they just get together to eat and play poker. Come for dinner. I'll add water to the gruel.”

“I can hardly wait,” I said.