Breakthrough

 

“Unlike Sherlock Holmes learning of Dr. Watson’s engagement, I really must congratulate you, old boy,” Mac said. We were sitting in his study about an hour later. “And all this happened with Ms. Hall, presumably in her natural state, in your bathroom? And Lynda wasn’t jealous?”

“Apparently not,” I said. “I was almost insulted, but she said I didn’t look guilty.” That was strange, because I felt guilty even though I hadn’t done anything. “She also said my hair wasn’t messed up.” Later on it was. “And then she said, ‘Besides, it’s me you’re besotted with.’”

Mac smiled. Instead of lecturing me on Lynda’s bad grammar, he said, “What a remarkable woman is your fiancée!”

“I’ll say. When the hugging and kissing was over she wanted an interview with Quandra.”

Mac raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry. You saw Quandra - she was in no condition to give an interview.” Gerard’s bereaved assistant was now in the kitchen with Kate, and I hoped that the smell of food didn’t make her sick again. Lynda was off to taekwondo class with Triple M, who’d been waiting patiently for her in Lynda’s bright yellow Mustang. But first she’d given me a birthday present: her Italian grandfather’s wedding ring. I know nothing about the gent. He could have been a mafia don for all I know. Well, that would explain her tight lip about the family. Or was that ‘the Family’?

“But Quandra did tell me something important,” I said. “According to her, Fitzwater is broke.” I’d been chomping at the bit to share this bit of info, and the theory that it inspired. “His alibi is his wife. She could be in on it with him. Suppose she was the woman who called for Gerard on the night of the murder. It could have been a way to lure him into the room, where her husband was supposed to murder him. Fitzwater was agitated, it all happened fast, and he was expecting Gerard to come into that room. With all that, it’s not really so hard to believe he killed the wrong man, even if he realized his mistake immediately afterward.”

“Yes,” Mac said slowly, “that is within the bounds of credulity so far as it goes. In fact, however, Monica LaRue’s witness is not the only evidence that Fitzwater was in California at the time of the murder. What about the airline records showing he didn’t return until today?”

“That’s where it gets really cute,” I said. This is the part I was proud of. “We can assume that Fitzwater wasn’t just blowing smoke: The airline will back him up that he was on the plane. But airport security doesn’t take your fingerprints. They just compare your picture to your driver’s license. So Fitzwater found somebody who looks like him to make the trip in his place. Don’t try to tell me that’s not possible.”

“I would not think of it. And how did Fitzwater and his wife know that Peter was supposed to be in Erin that night?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Some kind of six degrees of separation thing - they heard it from somebody, who heard it from somebody else who lives in Erin, who heard it from one of us. That kind of thing happens all the time in real life, just not in fiction.”

Mac sat back. “Brilliant, Jefferson! Absolutely brilliant! You have concocted a theory worthy of Damon Devlin, or perhaps even the great Holmes himself!”

This was rare praise indeed.

“So you think I’m on to something?”

“By no means, old boy! Your scenario is merely brilliant, not correct. Neither the murderer’s accomplice nor the murderer called the Faculty Club that night and asked for Peter Gerard. In fact, no one did.”

There’s no use pretending I had any idea what he was talking about. I wasn’t supposed to. He was baiting me and it worked: I was hooked.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to explain, partner?”

He had the grace to look apologetic. “I have not had the opportunity to inform you that I finally received a response to my advertisement.”

The doorbell rang.

“Ah. That must be him now, almost right on time, which is quite surprising.”

Mac opened the front door on a young man I could best describe as looking like a flea market refugee. He was wearing a brown and deep-blue plaid shirt, brown buckle shoes, and denim jeans a size too big. The jeans were held up by suspenders, and on him that looked right. He was a little shorter than Mac, say five-nine, and lean. His hair was sandy and cropped so close to the head it almost disappeared, but it wasn’t shaved. Standing in the doorway he blinked at us through round glasses in clear plastic frames, reminding me of the little chick in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons.

“Oh, hello, Professor McCabe,” he said with the air of one constantly surprised by life. He had a soft, almost feminine voice.

“Lamont, a pleasure to see you,” Mac enthused, putting his arm around the visitor and shepherding him into the study.

His name, it turned out, was Lamont Miller. “Lamont is a former student of mine,” Mac said. “He is majoring in - what is it this semester, Lamont?”

“Psychology. But I’m thinking of changing.”

“Is there a course of study you have not yet majored in?”

“English, with a concentration in popular culture. I’d like to write a paper on British imperialism as seen in the 1960s television program Danger Man, known as Secret Agent in the United States. I’ve been considering the switch ever since I took your class in detective stories last spring. I think maybe I should be a writer.”

“Someday you may even become a junior.”

“Next semester. It’s taken four and a half years because of all the majors.”

“Congratulations,” I said, “but can we get to the part about the call on the murder night?”

“I was in no danger of forgetting it,” Mac said acidly. “When Lamont called me at the office today, I asked him to come here because I wanted to debrief him at length without being overheard. You see, it was Lamont who phoned that little room at the Faculty Club - the murder room - on the night that Rodney Stonecipher was killed.”

“But you said no one did!” I protested.

“I did not. I said no one called for Peter Gerard. Lamont, tell Jefferson what you told me when you called this afternoon.”

“Well, the phone number that was in your ad in The Spectator, I’m pretty sure I called it last Wednesday, the night of the murder.”

“You mean you’re not positive?” I said.

“I wasn’t trying to call that number. I was trying to call 2771, the information desk at the Muckerheide Center, but I got a wrong number. I couldn’t swear to it, I guess, but I bet I punched 2761 - the number that was in the ad.”

“And who answered?” Mac asked.

“It was a man’s voice, somehow familiar, but he didn’t identify himself. When I said, ‘Is this Information,’ he just said something like, ‘No, I’m sorry, it’s not,’ and hung up. He was polite, but not exactly chatty.”

“But the person who called when Hoffer answered the phone - he thought it was a woman - did ask for Gerard,” I said. “You must have called before or after that person. What time was your call?”

“Sorry, Mr. Cody, but I’m no longer into the concept of time.” He held up his wrist. “I don’t wear a watch. But it wasn’t early.”

“No, probably not,” I said. “You probably called after Stonecipher was already in the room. He must have answered - or else the murderer did!”

“Why didn’t we hear the telephone ring the second time?” Mac asked, presumably testing me.

“For the same reason we didn’t hear the struggle, if any, when Stonecipher was being killed. The door to that side room was closed and we were engrossed in conversation. When the phone rang the first time we heard it because the door was open and everybody was quiet - it was right after you incinerated Ralph’s twenty-dollar bill.”

“Most plausible,” Mac conceded.

“But why did you wait so long to come forward?” I asked Lamont Miller. “Professor McCabe’s ad has been running for days.”

“I didn’t want to get involved,” he said. “But I read in The Spectator today that the professor’s in trouble, and these murders seem to be part of it. I thought maybe if I told him what I knew it might help.”

“Lamont, I am deeply touched,” Mac said, the trace of a tear lingering in the vicinity of his right eye, although that might have been caused by smoke from the fireplace.

“Call me a party pooper,” I said after we’d ushered Lamont out into the gathering chill - if he were still into the concept of temperature - “but that doesn’t really help much, does it? All we know that’s new is that the killer is a man, presuming that’s who answered the phone. That narrows it a little. But we still don’t know who called for Gerard, and that seemed to be what you were so eager to find out. Oh, I forgot. You said nobody called for
Gerard.” I hadn’t really forgotten; I was trying to goad him.

“Jefferson, you stun me. Is it really possible you could have so completely misread young Lamont’s testimony? He just told us who the killer is, you yourself gave me a strong clue as to how it was done, and the why is not beyond conjecture.”

Sure. Piece of cake. “What in the name of Sherlock Holmes are you babbling about?”

“Tomorrow night I plan to conduct a little demonstration - Archie Goodwin would undoubtedly call it a ‘charade’ - that will make clear just what I am talking about, and will reveal the identity of the murderer.”

I shook my head. “I’m totally not getting what this is all about.”

“Illusion!” my brother-in-law thundered. “That’s what it’s all about, old boy. And I have been the biggest victim of it. Remember at the beginning when I said the death of Rodney Stonecipher was a locked room mystery? I was right. Paradoxically, once you understand that, there is no mystery.”