Too Many Murders(56)
Smith shrugged. “I have no idea. Ask them. In fact, if you’re so intimate with Myron, I’m absolutely astonished that you don’t know. Or is the intimacy just a Myron exaggeration? He’s such a dreadful leg-puller sometimes.”
“Ask him,” said Carmine affably.
And eat shit, you stuck-up clotheshorse! said Carmine to himself as he walked away. Your speech is as stiff as your back.
Next, he encountered Dr. Pauline Denbigh and the acting Dean of Dante College, Dr. Marcus Ceruski. They were busy devouring lobster patties, ecstasy written on their faces.
“Not in mourning, Dr. Denbigh?” Carmine asked, Smith’s snaky gibes still smarting.
She snorted, unabashed. “I look like a terminal cirrhosis in black, Captain, so no. Besides, I was dying to meet the new head of Cornucopia. What a victory for women!”
“Yes, it is, particularly as the decision was made purely on merit. Why don’t you try for Dean of Dante? That would be just as great a victory.”
“Chubb would give the job to someone from Mars first—if he had a penis and was a Chubb alumnus. I’m trying for Lysistrata when it’s built.”
“Isn’t it weird to build a college exclusively for women when all-male colleges are being held discriminatory?”
“Of course. We’ll have our share of men students, I’m sure. The real victory will be a woman-dominated administration. Chubb owes us that at least,” said Dr. Denbigh.
“What if your husband hadn’t been murdered? Or perhaps I should say, what would happen if your husband were alive at the time Lysistrata is finished?” Carmine asked.
“I would still have applied for the deanship. If John had refused to go with me, I would have divorced him. Lysistrata, I am assured, will not be hidebound in the matter of a married couple. Such rubbish!”
“How do you feel about the crumbling of time-honored customs and practices, Dr. Ceruski?”
He flushed, looked confused. “Ah—it’s really none of my business, Captain. Especially given that it’s hypothetical.”
Bestowing a smile on them, Carmine moved on. Could she have done it? An idea was stirring in his head, but it would have to wait until Monday … And this isn’t bad fun, his unruly mind was telling him as his eyes fed it information. Thank God my wife can look after herself and knows exactly why I’m here. Good Lord, a woman in a hat!
The next fish he caught in his net were actually two fish, according to M.M.’s astrologically inclined wife: joined at the hip, one swimming upstream, the other down. Dean Robert and Mrs. Nancy Highman. She was charming and in the Dean’s own age group. Their children were grown and gone from the nest, which made living in college at Paracelsus ideal.
“I hope you find out who killed that poor, unfortunate young man,” Mrs. Highman said, sipping a glass of white wine. “I had his parents to lunch—such lovely people! What can one do to ease their pain? Try to give them back the body soon, Captain! As for Bob—he just isn’t himself. Well, how can he be? I don’t know how word gets around, but every parent of every student in college knows about the bear trap. Trying to persuade people that none of the other young men is in danger takes up so much of Bob’s time! I don’t suppose you’d let us tell the parents about Evan’s blackmail?”
Who the hell told the Highmans about that? The Pughs? “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Highman,” he said gently. “That’s what we call sequestered evidence. If it became general knowledge, it would muddy the waters.”
She sighed. “Yes, I see.” Then she brightened. “Well, I do have some information that might help,” she said.
“What?” he asked warily, not sure how far she was prepared to go to ease the weight off Dean Highman’s shoulders.
“I was in that afternoon. Usually I’m not—I have a life class in drawing at the Taft Institute. But our instructor got sick, and it was canceled. I came down late for lunch, about a quarter after one. The foyer was deserted, but there was a fellow in a brown uniform going up the sophomore stairs. I only remembered him tonight after I got here because of that woman over there in the brown tabard with the glittery tapestry tunic underneath it—see? See her? It’s that huge pancake of a brown hat! The fellow was carrying something on his head, brown and circular—the brown cloth made me think of the cover on an instrument. It was bigger than the hat by far, but the hat jogged my memory. Isn’t she a fright? Why’s she wearing a hat to a formal affair? The fellow in brown had a tool belt and pouch like a carpenter, which is why I never thought to notice him.”