I jumped to my feet.
“Allan!” Sarah exclaimed.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, out of breath and breathing hard. “My last class ran overtime and I ran across campus to get here. Let me catch my breath and we can begin.” He dropped his six-foot frame into a chair.
This, obviously, was the boyfriend, Allan Gutmacher. He was dressed in the student style but instead of adopting the fashion of the nineties he dressed as if it were the late fifties, in a pair of grey trousers with a yellow shirt, a bit worn at the collar and cuffs, and a red, yellow, and blue striped tie. He wore a pair of heavy black lace-up shoes, the kind my father wears to bar mitzvahs. A blue two-button blazer, also a little worn, completed the outfit. Sure enough he was carrying the editorial section of the National Post, folded so that the sketch of David Frum peeked at us out of his blazer pocket. I don’t know why he thought that we were waiting for him. I thought Lemieux had made it clear he wanted to see people one at a time — not in groups.
“We’re almost finished interviewing Ms. Bloch. We’ll be delighted to talk to you next. Why don’t you wait outside?” Lemieux said, very politely. I sat down.
“Outside? Finished? Why didn’t you wait for me? You had no right to talk to Sarah without me.”
Sarah cringed. She cast him a quick look that plainly asked him if he had just arrived from some other planet, then said quickly, “Please forgive Allan. He’s being gallant or overprotective, or both, and both are totally inappropriate and unnecessary.” She pronounced the last three words very slowly and distinctly so that Allan would get a message.
“Unnecessary?” Allan sputtered. “Sarah, what did you tell them?” He noticed me across the table and demanded, “Who are you? You’re no cop.”
“But I am,” interjected Lemieux. “Please let me introduce my colleague, Sam Wiseman.” I stood up to shake Allan’s hand but he ignored me and I pulled back my arm and sat down again. I was beginning to feel about as useful and as bright as a jack-in-the-box. Lemieux turned to Sarah. “Thank you, Ms. Bloch. If there are any more questions we’ll be in touch.”
“Sarah, stay here. What did she say?” Allan demanded. “Did she tell you that Hilliard tried to molest her and should have been brought up on charges? Did she?”
“Allan,” Sarah said, with a warning tone to her voice. “I’ve told you, it wasn’t like that. Nothing of the sort happened. It was all a big misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding.” Allan literally spat the word. He had to use his hand to wipe spittle off his chin. “He was a moral idiot and should have been thrown out of the university. He was an animal. He had the values of a jackal.” For emphasis he whacked the table with the sketch of David Frum.
It was clear Allan could not take a calm view of Sarah’s brush with a professorial fling, even now that the man he despised was dead.
Gaston tried to restore order. “Please compose yourself, Mr. Gutmacher. Ms. Bloch already told us what happened.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Allan stormed, flinging himself violently back in his chair. “Sarah may want to make excuses for the guy, but —”
“That’s enough.” Gaston smacked the table. Obviously he was finding Gutmacher as much of a pain as I was. And I was beginning to wonder if he had been listening at the keyhole. He seemed to know what Sarah had said and he was prepared to contradict her. His breathless I-dashed-across-campus entrance could have been a fake.
Allan subsided a little under the force of Gaston’s anger.
“You’ll get your chance soon. If you can’t be quiet you’ll be asked to leave.” Gaston glared at Allan for a minute to make sure he got the point.
Sarah turned to Allan and said in sharp voice, “I told them the whole story. It was nothing, nothing happened and it’s in the past anyway. Let’s just drop it, OK?”
“Do you not believe her, Mr. Gutmacher?” Gaston asked Allan.
“I believe that Sarah told him where to get off. I’m not sure he didn’t try again. He had a reputation for always being on the make. I swear if he had tried anything with Sarah again I’d have …” Allan realized what he was about to say and shut up.
“You’d have … what?” Gaston asked.
“I don’t know. But something.” Allan shrugged, slouched even farther into his chair and, unable to meet Gaston’s eye, turned his head away and glared at me instead.
Well, well, I thought to myself. We now have suspects two and three. This was a very productive morning.
Sarah got to her feet. “Should I leave now?” she asked Gaston, pointedly ignoring Allan.
“No, please stay a moment longer,” said Gaston, in a neutral but still very courteous tone. She sat down again. I wondered why he was letting her remain; it wasn’t his usual practice. Maybe he wanted to observe see more of her interaction with her boyfriend. It was certainly interesting. “Tell me, Mr. Gutmacher, what time did you arrive here yesterday?”
“Yesterday? The usual, I guess. About eight-thirty. Sarah and I met at the subway, walked over to campus together and had a coffee here before getting down to work. Just like every other morning.”
That was an outright lie. We already knew that they had arrived separately. Allan was a lot less subtle than Sarah; she had prevaricated, carefully not saying anything untruthful. Her evasion and his lie told me that they had agreed to tell us that they arrived together as usual. But we knew he had got there first, and had had enough time to kill Hilliard before she arrived. I wondered whether Sarah was protecting Allan because he was the murderer, or because she thought he was the murderer, or because she thought he was a lunatic who would get himself in trouble for a crime he didn’t commit.
“And did you see anybody else or hear anything out of the ordinary?”
“No, we didn’t see a soul. Except Jane More, that is. She passed us in the hallway.”
“Fine.” Gaston smiled warmly, as if he was very pleased with them. “Thank you both. I needn’t detain you any longer. Here’s my card. Please call me if you remember anything and please give your addresses and phone numbers to my colleague so that I can get in touch with you if necessary.”
They both looked relieved that it was over.
They were almost out the door when Gaston stopped them. “There is one more thing. You were both here early on the day of the murder. Did either of you see Professor Hilliard’s computer, the one he carried around, anywhere? In the secretary’s office, in his office, in here, anywhere at all?”
Allan and Sarah looked at each other and then at Lemieux. “His computer?” Sarah asked. “Is it missing?”
“It is missing and I was wondering if either of you saw it.”
“No, we didn’t,” Allan said, speaking for both of them.
Sarah gave him a look and said, “I’m sorry. I haven’t seen it.”
Sarah and Allan would have been the perfect nineties couple — if Allan could get himself out of the 1890s and into the 1990s. They left quietly together and I had a feeling he was going to get some tutoring on how to treat a 1990s woman.
As the door closed behind them Lemieux looked over at me with a sigh of relief and a slight roll of the eyes. “Did you get the information?”
“Yes, I got it. And I put two more names on our suspect list,” I responded.
I tore the page with the Allan’s and Sarah’s addresses and phone numbers from the notepad, and passed it to Lemieux along with the page on which Sarah had written her girlfriend’s name and address.
“I’m not sure Sarah belongs on the list,” Gaston looked pensive. “She seems very self-possessed and I think she can handle herself. She just isn’t the kind that commits murder. Allan is another story. If he thought that Hilliard was harassing Sarah, and especially if he thought Sarah was still attracted to him, he might have tried to confront him. Things could have got out of hand. A jealous rage: it’s banal, but it happens all the time. We know that Hilliard was murdered but not that the murder was premeditated.”
“If Allan did it in a moment of passion why would he take the laptop?”
“To make it look like a robbery maybe? I don’t know. It seems that every time we try to narrow our list of suspects we expand it. Do you think Ms. Ford thought that she left her perfume at Hilliard’s?”
“Could be. Especially if she thought she left a bottle of the distinctive brand that could easily be traced to her. She must have known that Sarah recognized her perfume and so knew that Sarah knew she was in Hilliard’s bedroom. This is beginning to sound like the Watergate hearings: Who knew what and when did they know it?”
“Exactly. We’ll have to question Ford again, but first let’s see if Professor Miller-More is waiting for us.”
It turned out that Professor Jane Miller-More had declined to come to meet us. Arlene, looking annoyed, told us the professor had asked us to see her in her own office. She directed us to go out the door, turn left, the third door on the left; but if we got to the main entrance to the Elwitt Building we’d missed it, and we should retrace our steps. This time her office would be the fourth door on the right.
As we walked out I asked Gaston if he’d got that.
“Got it.”
“Good,” I muttered. I just hoped her name was on her office door.
It wasn’t actually that hard to find. It was only a few steps down the hall. The door was ajar. Lemieux knocked and then walked in without waiting to be invited. I was right behind him.
Startled, she looked up from her work. “May I help you?”
“I’m Detective Sergeant Gaston Lemieux, and this is my colleague, Sam Wiseman.”
We all shook hands and as we sat down she said to me, “You’re not from the police. I know you from the bookstore. You’re always extremely helpful.” She smiled as she said this in a deep voice with a bit of a rasp to it. Her eyes were the colour of dark brown corduroy.
“Yes, I’m discovering that I’m quite well known. I didn’t realize that I had so many friends.”
“Mr. Wiseman is assisting me in certain matters relating to the case — to the murder of Harold Hilliard,” said Gaston.
I was finding it difficult to pull my eyes away from Jane More. She was a small woman, five feet four inches or less, and perfectly proportioned. She wore her brown hair short, with bangs that came to her eyebrows. She wasn’t conventionally pretty but there was something very warm and attractive about her. I must confess that if I was in one of her classes I might find myself concentrating more on the teacher than on what was being taught.
“Isn’t it horrible?” she said, with real, deep sadness in her voice. “Harold murdered. God, I haven’t adjusted yet. I can’t believe he’s gone.” I realized that this was the first time I had heard anyone express any genuine feeling for the departed professor. Yet it didn’t seem personal. There was sorrow in her words, regret about the end of a life, but I could not detect any personal grief.
“Were you close?” Lemieux asked.
She paused a moment, looking carefully at both of us before she spoke. “At one time, we were very close. We even talked about marriage. But we drifted apart and I don’t think that Hal was really the marrying kind. He was a little obsessive about his privacy and independence.” I coud believe that, having seen his apartment. “He wasn’t good at sharing, either his space or himself. But there was a bond between us even after our relationship ended, and I remained fond of him. We saw each other regularly of course, here at work. I still expect him to come into my office with a coffee and some ideas to discuss. We both did French history. I guess I have to get used to talking about him in the past tense.”
She paused again, either because she had nothing more to say or because she didn’t want to say anything more, and stared at us.
I considered it rude to stare back so I looked around her office. It was smaller than Hilliard’s, her academic status being much lower. There was just room for the three of us. Gaston was sitting facing her and I was to her left at the corner of her desk. If a fourth person wanted to join our conversation he would have had to stand outside in the hall with the door open. Her desk was centred against the back wall and pushed forward so that there was just enough room for her chair. She could only back up so far before she hit the wall. The desk itself was standard-issue grey metal. There was a mass of papers spread over it along with a pencil cup, a telephone and a bottle of Naya water. To her right, our left, was a window that started about halfway up the wall. The window ledge served as a table; there were more papers and books stacked on it and in the corner, where the window ledge met the wall, a printer and laptop computer. Hers, I assumed and I almost blurted out something about the computer but I held my tongue as I figured that Gaston would ask about it at the appropriate time. Other than the window and the door all available wall space was taken up by bookshelves, and they were crowded with books and papers. Miller-More’s office was almost as messy as the murder scene — and she was still alive. I wondered what kind of household she and Hilliard would have had if they had married. She was as compulsively messy as he was compulsively neat. On the floor next to her desk on her left — our right — and directly in front of me was an old leather briefcase. It was open at the top and I tried to get a peek inside but all I saw was more papers.
If she meant the silence to be intimidating it didn’t work. Gaston seemed lost in thought during the break in the conversation. Finally he said, “We don’t meant to intrude, but there are questions we have to ask if we are to catch the murderer.”
Jane took a drink from her water bottle, regarded us neutrally and said, “Please ask your questions.” I gathered from her tone that she wanted to add, “and then get out of here and leave me alone,” but didn’t. Maybe I misjudged her but she seemed to have gotten over her earlier emotional reaction to Hilliard’s death. Whatever she was feeling when we first started talking to her was well under control now.
“You said you and Professor Hilliard were considering marriage at one time?”
“That’s right. But it didn’t work out. And then I met Fred —”
“Fred is Fred More, the dean?” I interjected so that Gaston would know who the players were.
Jane nodded and continued “… and we got married two years ago. It was two years in July.”
“But you remained on good terms with Professor Hilliard?” Gaston continued.
“Yes, of course. Hal and I were almost better friends than lovers even when we were together. He was a hard man to get close to emotionally but he was a wonderful friend and colleague.” She took a deep breath. “There was no animosity over our break-up. I guess we wanted different things out of life.”
“So you saw him frequently?”
“Oh, yes. At least three times a week. We would talk here in the department or we would have coffee together. Once in a rare while we would have lunch or dinner.”
“So you only saw him on campus, never at his apartment?”
“I don’t think I’ve been to his place since we stopped seeing each other, if you know what I mean. I didn’t think it would be right somehow.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Friday, certainly. We had coffee and discussed a book on French capitalism we had both read. He was writing a review of it for the French Historical Quarterly. I saw him briefly on Monday, just to say hello but not more than that.”
“You didn’t see him on Monday, the day he …” Gaston let the sentence hang to see how Professor Miller-More reacted.
“… died,” she finished the sentence for him.
She shook her head, then again stopped and stared, waiting for Gaston to continue. Most people are intimidated by silence and will say almost anything to keep a conversation going. I knew that Gaston liked to use silences to get suspects and witnesses to talk. The tactic didn’t work with Miller-More; she didn’t mind the pauses in conversation at all.
“That’s strange,” Gaston said. “Several people saw you walking out of the secretary’s office early on Monday morning. I was also told that you had lunch together the Friday before he was murdered.”
“Not together. We were at the faculty club at about the same time but I wasn’t with Hal. I was having lunch with my husband. It’s possible that I saw him in the morning when I went to the reception area to get a cup of coffee. That’s where the departmental coffee pot is kept, near to the offices of the tenured professors.”
“I see,” Gaston commented, but I wasn’t sure what it was that he saw. “I just have a few more questions. We have not been able to locate Professor Hilliard’s computer, his laptop. It may have been stolen. I was told it was small — about the size of that one.” He indicated the computer on the table under the window.
Miller-More turned her head to look at the computer and said, “Yes, his is almost identical to mine, but his was white.” Hers was black.
“So you know what it looked like?”
“Yes, of course. We live and die by our computers these days. Everything is on them. Our research notes, articles, even books and dissertations. And of course we all communicate by e-mail.”
“You mean you communicate with someone in the next office by e-mail?” Gaston was incredulous. Apparently he could not understand the virtues of technology. He would probably just go to the next office and talk to the person.
“Well, yes, sometimes, but not only the next office; all scholars from everywhere communicate with each other on the Internet. I correspond with historians all over the world; so did Hal.”
“Interesting. But you are telling me that you don’t know where Professor Hilliard’s computer would be, correct?”
“That’s right. I haven’t seen it.”
Gaston stood up and so did I. “Thank you very much for your time. I’m sure none of this has been pleasant for you. Can you tell me how to reach your husband? I have a few questions for him as well.”
“Fred? Why?” She looked doubtful. “I don’t think Fred will be able to help you. He and Hal didn’t have much contact, really, and his office isn’t in this building.”
“I understand that your husband is a dean. He may be able to help us with some of the practical aspects of Professor Hilliard’s life here. An overview, so to speak.”
“Well, if you say so. I’ll call him.”
She picked up her phone and dialled a four-digit number. “Hi darling, it’s me. I’m with a police detective. He’s investigating Harold’s death and he wants to talk to you, about departmental politics, I think, or … I don’t know what, really. I’ll get his number and you can call him back later. See you at home.”
While she was speaking into the phone I took another look around the room. I had a better view of things standing than I did sitting at the corner of her desk. Like Hilliard she had a lot of books crammed into her office. Unlike Hilliard, she didn’t seem to keep her collection in any particular order. A fat volume on the table against the wall. looked familiar.
She hung up and looked sheepishly at us and said, “Voice mail.” We needed no further explanation. Gaston took out a business card and gave it to her, after writing his cellphone number on the back.
“Do you have the complete Cambridge History of England” I had wandered over to have a look, and immediately my eye had lighted on a single volume of that interesting series. I picked up the book and showed it to her.
Jane Miller-More turned and held out her hand for it, almost peremptorily, as if I had no right to touch it. I gave it to her and she folded her arms over it, holding it to her chest as if it was precious. “No, I don’t, “she replied.
“That’s a coincidence. There is a volume in that series missing from Professor Hilliard’s office.”
Jane relaxed and smiled very slightly. “Who are you? The book police?”
“This is no laughing matter, madame,” Gaston informed her. “Anything and everything associated with the victim is important until the murderer is apprehended.”
“Yes. Of course. Well, you’ve found the missing book. This is Hal’s, or I should it was Hal’s. It’s mine now, because I spilled coffee on it. He wouldn’t take it back so I had to buy him a new one. He was fastidious about his books. He barely cracked the bindings when he read them. In fact I ordered it at your store,” she said looking at me.
“Oh,” I said noncommittally. I didn’t want to let on that we already knew that she had ordered the book from Dickens & Company.
“Isn’t it a little out of your field?” Gaston asked. “I thought your speciality was French history?”
“It is. I’ve been assigned to teach the freshman survey course next year, you know, history from the primeval slime to the present time, and I need to brush up on all the areas which are not my speciality. That includes sixteenth-century England.”
“That would include Henry VIII, wouldn’t it?” Gaston asked. He was slipping into his book-loving persona.
“It sure would. The students always love that period. They’re used to movies and mini-series and they’ll really enjoy Henry and his wives and his Lord Chancellor, sort of a sixteenth-century Dallas.”
“Ah yes, conscience versus expediency. Things haven’t changed much, have they?” I could see that Gaston was ready to sit down and have a discussion about British history.
Jane Miller-More looked at her watch. Gaston might have been warming up to a good chat about the past but she obviously had things to do.
We thanked Professor Miller-More again, expressed sympathy for her loss and left her office. I almost added that I hoped that she would be spared future sorrow but I wasn’t sure that was appropriate.
Between her office and the front entrance of the Elwitt Building there was an alcove with two chairs in it and a narrow window. I stopped and sat down in one of the chairs and asked, “Did you come too the same conclusion I did?”
“And that conclusion would be …?” Gaston inquired, taking the vacant chair.
“That she killed Hilliard.”
“Are you certain?” he asked, teasing me.
“Well, look at the evidence. Hilliard is bashed on the head. He realizes he’s dying and in the second or so he has left of consciousness he grabs the special order form knowing that the book named on it will be found in the murderer’s office. It’s like pointing a finger right at her,” I explained.
“Well, it’s certainly suggestive, but inconclusive. We need a lot more evidence to convict someone of murder. But you’re right, it does point a finger at her. But, as you know, I’ve learned not to form to conclusions until I’ve interviewed all the suspects and all the witnesses and gathered as much evidence as I can. We haven’t done that yet. And I still think the secretary is holding out on us. She seems a lot more suspicious than Professor Miller-More. We may have reason to suspect the professor but we know that the Ford woman is lying to us about something. Believe me, witnesses who lie make me a lot more suspicious than those who spill coffee on books.”
Hah! I thought. You just like the professor because she’s read as many books as you. I also knew that Gaston was the expert and, of course, I respected his judgement.
“Let’s take one step at a time,” he said, getting up, and as we walked down the hall to the entrance area Gaston’s pocket began to ring. There was a time when I would have considered a ringing pocket to be odd, but not now. So many people carry cell phones around that once-quiet places such as restaurants and bookstores are now a cacophony of ringing pockets, brief cases and purses. Gaston answered his phone and listened, restoring the hallway of the Elwitt building to its academic quiet.
I could only hear his end of the conversation in French but after an interminable string of oui-non-ouinon-c’est possible he told someone to have someone else available at the deceased’s apartment at ten the following morning.
“We’ve found the cleaning woman, Betty Smith,” he said to me, folding his cellphone and repocketing it. “I want to interview her tomorrow morning at the Professor’s apartment. An idea just occurred to me. Let’s have a final word with Madame Ford.”
We turned and walked back to the history department.
We found Ms. Ford at her desk.
“What do you want now?” she asked in exasperation.
“A final request before we leave. Because you were on the scene of the murder, you are extremely important to the investigation. I’m sorry to impose on you further,” Gaston was being elaborately courteous and anyone but Arlene would have been glad to help such a gracious person. She, however, continued to look frosty. “But would it be possible for you to meet us at Professor Hilliard’s apartment tomorrow morning? I hope that would not be inconvenient.”
“Of course it’s inconvenient. I have a job. I can’t just go waltzing off whenever I feel like it, can I?”
“I understand. But I still have some questions for you and have to do a last survey of the apartment before we release it to the deceased’s family and it will be easier for me if I can meet with you as I finish up there. I can speak to your boss and explain that I am causing you to be absent from work due to a police investigation and that we appreciate your co-operation.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll take care of it myself. When do I have to be there again?”
“Ten-thirty would be fine. Do you have the address?”
“Of course I have it. I gave it to you, remember?”
“Yes, of course,” Gaston said. “I’d like to see Professor Michaels on my way out. Please tell me where his office is.” She gave us directions and we followed them to Michaels’s office. Luckily he was in. His office was, if anything, even smaller than Miller-More’s. If what I had heard was correct Michaels would soon be moving, but out rather than up.
He didn’t appear to be very happy about our visit. But you can’t say no to a cop so he invited us in. “Arlene mentioned that you might be coming back to haunt us. I have a class in half an hour but I’m all yours until then. But I don’t think I can tell you any more than I told you the other day.”
“There is one more thing,” Gaston said. “I’ve come to understand that Hilliard wrote an unfavourable review of a book you wrote and that this could hurt your career.”
“Who the hell told you that?” Michaels exclaimed, almost shouting.
“I ask the questions,” Gaston informed him. “It doesn’t matter who. Is it true or not?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard rumours to that effect but I haven’t seen the review. You have to understand something. Most of my colleagues hate me. They think I’m too ambitious and not respectful enough so they take every opportunity they can to chip away at me, especially the older ones.”
“So you’re saying that there was no negative review — that it’s just that your colleagues don’t like you? Is that correct?” asked Gaston.
“What I’m saying,” Michaels spoke slowly, barely able to restrain his anger, “is that I don’t know if Hilliard wrote a negative review or not. It wouldn’t matter anyway because I can show dozens of good reviews to counter his bad review — assuming it exists. He’d end up looking foolish, not me.”
“But surely a bad review coming from you own department is bad for your career.”
“I’m telling you that there is no reason to assume that even if he wrote such a thing, and there is no guarantee that it would be published. Maybe he wrote a critique and showed it around the department but couldn’t find a journal to publish it. You’ve got to understand universities. People rarely attack you directly. Everybody tries to pretend that they’re your friend. But then they damn you with faint praise. Things like ‘let’s help poor so-and-so with his writing or his research or his teaching or whatever.’ It looks like they’re being supportive but what they’re really saying is that you are incompetent. And that’s how they treat me. But it’s not going to work. My reputation outside this department is too good for them to destroy.”
“I see,” said Gaston noncommittally.
“I hope you do,” said Michaels. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” He stood up and we preceded him out of his office.
“I may want to see you again,” Gaston called after Michaels, who was already stamping off to his class. To me he said, “What was your impression of his colleagues? Were they damning him with faint praise as he suggests?” We talked as we walked to the door of the building.
“Not Sally Howard. She seemed genuinely surprised by what Schwartz and Edwards said. But those two did seem kind of patronizing. Appearing to want to help when they really didn’t.”
“Hmm,” Gaston agreed. “This place seems to be quite a nest of vipers, no?” and with that we left the building.
We paused at the Roddick Gates, the Sherbrooke Street entrance to the McGill campus, before going our separate ways.
“What’s your plan for tomorrow morning?” I asked.
“You’ll see tomorrow. Meet me at the professor’s apartment at nine-thirty.”
I had no idea what was going to happen except that it involved the cleaning woman and Arlene Ford. I wondered if I was going to witness the unmasking of a murderess. My voyeuristic side was excited by the prospect. I did not like Arlene Ford and I was looking forward to seeing her get what she deserved.