“She broke into his house,” Maria Antoinette said. “And got caught.”
They both shook their heads.
“So if you ask me, Chief Burke is barking up the wrong tree, hassling that poor Professor Rathbone,” Marie Antoinette continued, jerking her head toward where the chief was still talking to a stricken-looking Giles. “They should look at Carol.”
“How does killing Gordon help Carol find his hidden assets?” the Gypsy asked.
“If he’s dead, and they’re still married, she doesn’t need to worry about finding them, silly. They’re all hers now.”
“Unless he’s hidden them so well that no one ever finds them,” the Gypsy suggested.
Or unless she was the one who murdered him.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” Marie Antoinette exclaimed, and they both giggled. I suspected that however much they disliked Gordon they weren’t overly fond of Carol either.
I folded the chair and turned toward the house. I realized that I might have a very good chance of prying information out of Carol, since I probably had a good idea where Gordon had hidden his assets. Several times, while delivering things to the bin we’d rented at the Spare Attic, an off-site storage place, I’d run into Gordon coming from or going to a nearby bin. He’d looked anxious when he noticed I’d seen him. If I could find Carol, maybe I could trade her this information in return for the inside scoop on what she’d seen in the barn.
Of course, the ethical thing to do was to tell the chief what the two women had been saying and share my knowledge of Gordon’s storage bin with him.
Later. Assuming I could pry the chief away from his intense conversation with Giles.
“Damn!” I muttered.
“What’s wrong, Meg?”
I looked up to see that Dad had returned. Alone.
“Eric and Frankie—” I began
“Taken care of,” he said, waving genially.
“Fine,” I said. Giles was still talking to the chief. I shook my head and stuck a folding chair under each arm.
Giles was pointing toward the barn.
“Damn the man,” I muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Dad asked.
“Someone should tell Giles not to talk to the police without a lawyer,” I said.
“You think he had something to do with the murder?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t imagine him having anything to do with the murder, but I don’t think Chief Burke agrees. If Giles doesn’t watch out, he’ll get arrested.”
“Oh, dear,” Dad said. “He seems like such a nice man.”
“Very nice,” I said. “And he thinks Michael deserves tenure.”
“So do I, naturally,” Dad said.
“Yes, but you’re not on his tenure committee,” I said. “Giles is.”
Dad frowned.
“But I thought Giles was an English professor,” he said.
“He is,” I said. “So is Michael, technically. The drama department, being small, is technically a subgroup of the English department.”
“How odd,” Dad said. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
I sighed, and rubbed my forehead. The slight headache I’d been trying to ignore suddenly felt worse. I could have sworn I’d explained this to most of my family several times already. Maybe I’d just fretted about it so much that it seemed as if I’d told them.
“Depends on your point of view,” I said. “If you ask me, most of the English professors—the tenured ones, anyway—are stuffy, pompous bores. Of course, I could be prejudiced by the fact that they all look down their noses at their colleagues in the drama section of the department.”
“That must be annoying.”
“Worse than annoying,” I said. “Every year or two, they try to eliminate all but the driest and most academic of drama courses. Which would also let them eliminate all those déclassé theater people like Michael.”
“Oh, dear,” Dad said. “So Michael’s job isn’t safe?”
“Well, it is and it isn’t,” I said. “The college administration always reinstates the canceled classes—they’re too popular to kill. But while the administration wants the prestige of having an award-winning theater arts program and the fees the drama classes bring, they could care less if any of the faculty responsible ever get tenure. So far, in the past thirty years, not a single one has.”
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Dad said, staring at the house as if the connection between Michael’s tenure and our ability to continue paying the mortgage had begun to dawn on him.
“Doesn’t mean Michael would be unemployed if he didn’t get tenure,” I said. “He’d almost certainly be welcome to stay around indefinitely, as a lecturer or something. On a suitably tiny salary, with no benefits to speak of. That helps the bottom line almost as much as those popular courses he teaches.”