Read Online Murder Misread by P.M. Carlson - Free Book Online Page A

about what time was
this?” Walensky asked.
    Bart frowned, but Anne
noticed that his hands were moving more steadily now. “I can only
guess. I’d say nine-forty.”
    Walensky’s light eyes move
to Charlie. “And did he find you, Professor Fielding?”
    Anne inspected Charlie. A
shy young fellow, no taller than Tal, earnest and eager to please.
He looked sorrowful too, like Bart, but without suffering the added
edge of nicotine withdrawal. Charlie said, “Yes, he came into the
office while Dr. Ryan and I were discussing my research. I
introduced them. We talked for a minute, he invited us to lunch,
then off he went. To the library, he said.”
    “ Did he give any
indication of his mood?”
    “ Like everyone says, he
seemed very happy. The lunch was to be a celebration, he
said.”
    Walensky peered at Maggie
Ryan. “Do you agree, Miss Ryan?”
    “ Oh, yes, he was full of
enthusiasm.” Maggie had taken Anne’s place by the window. The
lights played in her black hair, cool blue fluorescent glints from
the room, and a bright warm edging of sunlight. “I don’t know what
he’s like normally, but today he seemed very bubbly. He was jumping
onto chairs, quoting Cyrano, bragging about how much better his
wife could do it.”
    Anne’s heart squeezed
tight as a fist. What a ham Tal was. She could see him, swishing
his imaginary sword, telling them she could do Cyrano better. She
forced the image away and concentrated fiercely on Walensky’s
questions.
    “ And what time was
this?”
    “ Maybe a quarter to ten,”
said Maggie.
    “ He was going to the
library?”
    “ He said so. But when did
he talk to Nora?” Maggie asked.
    “ Must have been around
then,” Nora said.
    Walensky was dutifully
taking it all down. Probably none of it would help, Anne thought.
They should be out questioning people about the trails, about
strangers, about—but Hines was doing all that, she supposed. And of
course it was true that they ought to make sure it wasn’t somehow
connected with one of Tal’s projects, make sure it really was a
mugger.
    Nora added, “He brought me
a cup of coffee.”
    “ That’s right!” Cindy
exclaimed. “He popped back into the office for a cup of
coffee.”
    “ Coffee?” Walensky asked,
looking around.
    “ Right by the mail room
door.” Bernie Reinalter, eager to be of help, indicated the big
aluminum urn on a table by the door. Jars of instant coffee,
whitener, sugar, and tea bags were arrayed next to the urn, and
stacks of foam plastic cups.
    Cindy said, “He asked me
if I wanted any and I said I’d just had a cup. Well, he said, he’d
save me some champagne instead. And off he went again.”
    “ Did he usually bring you
coffee?” Walensky asked Nora.
    “ It was a sort of joke,”
Nora replied. She spoke flatly, but a tiny flutter at the corner of
her eyelid betrayed her tension. “I’d complained once after a
departmental meeting that women made up forty percent of the
department but they were asked to get the coffee eighty percent of
the time. Tal overheard and told me Anne had made almost the same
observation about her department, so he was going to bring me
coffee eighty percent of the time. Reparations, he called
it.”
    “ I see.” Walensky wrote it
down.
    “ He spilled it,” Nora
blurted.
    “ How do you
mean?”
    “ Well, I opened the door
for him. He came in past me and put it down on my desk, and was
explaining something—the lunch at Plato’s, I guess. And he made a
big gesture and knocked the cup over. He rushed around and mopped
up the desk and even the drawers. He used the Kleenex I keep on the
windowsill. Very thorough. He said he’d get me another cup, but I
said not to bother. He promised solemnly to make it up to me at
lunch. Then he picked up the bookbag and rushed out.”
    “ Was he sad?”
    “ No, no. I mean—he was
sorry for spilling the coffee, but he was still cheery. Exclaiming
about how lucky he’d been not to knock it on the stack of student
papers I