The Campus Murders (10 page)

So now Floyd Gunther, dean of men, had been murdered in an act that by the very violence of its savagery linked it inescapably with the beating of Laura Thornton. The dean had been lured to this dark oak behind the Bell Tower of the Music Building and his death—the “F.G.” in the salutation made it clear that the note had been intended for him. But who was “Lady G?” There had been a threat with teeth behind it in the note. What connection could there be among “Lady G,” the note, Gunther's murder, and Laura's beating?

He hurried back to his Ford and drove over to the Student Union; he remembered a row of telephone booths near the entrance.

He caught Sergeant Oliver at police headquarters and broke the news.

“Okay, Mr. McCall, you wait there,” Oliver said; McCall could tell nothing from his tone.

“I'm phoning from the Student Union.”

“I mean go back to the dean's body. Don't leave it till we get there.”

McCall returned to the scene of the murder, keeping well away from the body on the grass. He did not touch the hunting knife, although he knew it would yield nothing in the way of clues. It had a rough bone handle that would not take fingerprints, and it was a common knife purchasable anywhere for a few dollars.

Apparently there was the field to choose from in looking for Gunther's killer. Judging from the effigy-burning of the evening and from the scraps of conversation McCall had picked up on campus, the dean had been despised, resented, had become perhaps the focus of student bitterness in the disputes that were tearing Tisquanto State College apart. But bitterness to the point of murder? And a murder as sadistic as this? That might be the answer. A psychopath vents his psychosis according to its internal energies, not its chance object.

If things had been bad before, there would be hell to pay now. He could imagine Wolfe Wade's expression when he heard. And Governor Holland's.

Waiting for the police under the great oak, McCall yearned for a smoke … Dean Gunther had been acting peculiar. More strained than would be accounted for by the commotion on the campus. He was mixed up in something nasty—“Lady G's” note pointed to that. But what?

Some coed? If she had deliberately lured Gunther to his death, she had had a confederate. No mere girl or woman had wielded that knife. The blows had been delivered by a man's hand, either a powerful man or one made powerful by rage.

He heard sirens. Headlights slashed the night. Two police cars screamed to a halt before the music building. Feet pounded.

“Over here!”

And, of course, it was Lieutenant Long who led the pack, ferret-face pale, lips curling.

“Well,” Long said. “You certainly get around, McCall.”

McCall said nothing. The officers' flashlights converged on what lay on the grass. They moved over to the body.

“Tell me about it, big shot,” Long said.

McCall, chewing the lining of his cheek, related how he had come to find Floyd Gunther's body. The lieutenant read “Lady G's” note in the light of Sergeant Oliver's flash, muttered, “A setup,” then carefully pocketed it. McCall stood by, watching Dr. Littleton for the second time that night examine human wreckage.

“I can't tell much in this light,” the M.E. said, “but somebody sure vented a lot of spleen on this poor man. I'll have to haul him over to my morgue for a detailed examination. Oh, hello again, Mr. McCall. Busy night.”

“I want to talk to you at headquarters,” Long said abruptly.

He was glowering at McCall.

It was an unpleasant session, and it lasted a long time. Chief Pearson drifted in and out with malevolent detachment, keeping an ear on things. Long insisted on going over the same ground half a dozen times.

“You still haven't given me a good reason why, when this black boy came running into Gunther's house with his yarn about finding Laura, you didn't notify us on the spot,” the lieutenant said. “That was police business, Mr. McCall, and you damn well know it! No, instead you go shooting off down to the river on your own. I want to know why!”

“Because the girl might have been alive—as it turned out she was—and every minute counted,” McCall said patiently again. “At the back of my mind, I suppose, I was expecting Gunther or Mrs. Gunther to notify the police. I've told you all this, lieutenant.”

“I don't buy it,” Long said nastily. “It sounds fishy to me.”

“I don't give a damn how it sounds to you,” McCall said. “Look, I know you and Pearson dislike my charging in here on your turf, but I'm tired of being treated like a suspect in a lineup. You keep up these tactics, lieutenant, I'm going to phone the attorney general.”

Finally Long let him go. He returned to the Red Harbor Inn, changed to a fresh jacket, and headed for the hospital.

McCall found Brett Thornton outside a private room in the V.I.P. pavilion on the third floor, pacing. It was past evening visiting hours by now, and the shining corridors were deserted except for an occasional hurrying white uniform.

Laura's father was one of those bantam-sized men who make up for their lack of physical impressiveness by sheer glowering will. He had a bony, almost skeletal, face, all ridges and wales, with a blade of a nose and jet eyes as unwinking as a snake's. His mouth was a wound, and words shot out of it like pus.

“How is she, Mr. Thornton?” McCall asked quietly.

“Don't you know?” Thornton spat. “I thought this was what Holland sent you down here for.”

“It's been a busy evening, sir. The last report I had, your daughter was in a coma.”

“She still is. She's in terrible shape. Dying, for all I can tell! They don't know anything in this one-horse excuse of a hospital! I'm waiting for my own doctor now. What have you found out? Who attacked her?”

“We can't guarantee instant solutions, Mr. Thornton,” McCall said. “We're doing the best we can. It's not going to help getting angry.”

“I'll get anything I damn please! It's Holland whose policies have generated the atmosphere that allows a thing like this to happen. And I'll have his hide for it.”

“Do you hold him responsible for what's going on in California, New York, Paris, Tokyo? This student unrest is worldwide, Mr. Thornton. You know that. Naturally you're upset. Anybody would be. Is Mrs. Thornton with you?”

“She's home under a doctor's care. Everything's gone to hell. Christ, my baby girl.”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

Thornton ignored him. He sprang to the door of Laura's room, opened it a crack, peered inside. Immediately he was back in the hall.

“The same. She'll die, McCall. I feel it in my bones.” He began striding about, taking his frustration out on the inlaid linoleum. “It's these damned students! I warned Holland they were getting out of hand. But did he do anything?—kick the troublemaking Communists out of the college, for instance, as I suggested? Why, some of them are here on scholarships, for God's sake!” Thornton seized McCall's lapel. “Well, I tell you here and now, McCall, you'd damn well better pull this off. Or I'll make things so hot in this state for your governor that Antarctica won't cool him off!”

“I'll do my best,” McCall said.

Thornton glared. But there was no irony in McCall's tone. It seemed to mollify Thornton. When he spoke again it was more rationally. “Laura was obviously involved in something with someone.” He turned the glare on the door of her room. “The question is in what? With whom? Have you found out anything at all?”

“I just got here this morning, Mr. Thornton. I'm afraid not yet.”

Thornton turned on his heel, muttering. The door opened and Dr. Edgewit came out of Laura's room.

Thornton pounced. “Any change?”

“No change, Mr. Thornton. She isn't responding as yet. But she's not losing ground, either.”

“Isn't there a competent doctor in this hole?” Thornton howled.

“Dr. Madigan, our chief of staff, has taken personal charge. He's in there now, sir.” Dr. Edgewit plodded off.

McCall followed him, leaving Laura's father alone. He was thinking what a mercy it was that the governor had been unable to fly down. The mere sight of Sam Holland in this hospital corridor might have brought on a physical attack from Thornton and made headlines all over the state.

A young nurse crossed McCall's path, smiling at him. He paused to watch her crisp walk, listen to the swish of her starched uniform. After Thornton, it was a joy.

9

At the Gunther home a uniformed man stood at the door.

“Sorry. No visitors.”

McCall told him who he was.

“Oh. Then I guess it's okay, Mr. McCall.”

McCall went in. Another officer stood in the hallway, a heavyset older man. McCall identified himself and asked, “Where's Mrs. Gunther, officer?”

“Upstairs in bed. A doctor's with her.”

“Then she's been informed about her husband?”

The man nodded. “Worst case of hysterics I ever saw. She's under heavy sedation. They got a nurse up there with her, too.”

McCall made for Floyd Gunther's study. The light over the desk was still on. The shadows in the room hung heavier than before.

McCall stood there.

This was where Gunther would come when he wanted to get away from people (from himself?).

He began to prowl the study.

He finally settled on the desk. Nothing on top of significance. He checked the drawers, with their freight of folders pertaining to college matters and Gunther's duties as dean of men.

He had the bottom right-hand drawer open and was running through the folders there when he was struck with something. The drawer itself seemed short; it came little more than halfway out. It must be stuck.

He pulled, but it would not budge. He reached in and under the top of the drawer, felt around, and touched a steel bar. He jiggled it and thought he detected a slight sideward movement. He pushed the bar to the right as far as it would go and heard a click. He yanked, and the drawer slid out.

There was a rear compartment, which had a lid that was secured by a miniature padlock.

McCall glanced toward the door. He could not see the officer in the hall, but the man was still out there—McCall heard him clear his throat.

It wasn't much of a lock.

On the desktop lay a large lump of clear heavy plastic shaped to resemble a boulder. Protruding from the boulder was a little Excalibur, King Arthur's sword in miniature. Gunther's letter-opener. It was made of stainless steel, and McCall thought it would do. He drew it from its sheath and inserted it under the lid of the secret compartment close to the little padlock. He listened for the cop, heard nothing, and jerked. The lock snapped with a loud snap.

He heard footsteps and sat down in Gunther's leather chair. The police officer appeared.

“Oh. Yes, officer?” McCall said, looking up. From the policeman's position he could not see the open drawer.

“I thought I heard something break in here.”

“Break?” McCall said. “Oh, it must have been this letter-opener. I was sitting here thinking and playing with it, and dropped it out of my hand.”

The man stared at him. I don't give a damn if he buys it or not, McCall thought.

“I don't know if I ought to let you stay in here, Mr. McCall,” the patrolman said finally, in an uneasy voice. “My orders were—”

McCall gave him his coldest executive look.

The man backed off. “I guess that was out of line, Mr. McCall,” he mumbled, and went back to his post.

McCall raised the lid of the compartment.

There were some documents. He looked through them. Family papers, two wills, some insurance policies. But, beneath, an unmarked folder. McCall seized it. It contained three sheets of ordinary white typing paper. Their contents were typewritten, like the “Lady G” note.

They were threatening letters, all in the same vein. The last one was typical:

“
If you pull anything stupid, F.G., I'll expose you as a fornicator. The initial tumble in bed with our mutual friend's cooperation will make delightful news to the authorities. What happens to your hard-earned security then? So you had better see that everything goes without a hitch for me. I remind you again: Most of the world is made up of squares, and the square world does a real stomping job on faculty studs who diddle around with young coeds on campus.
”

The letter was signed “
Thomas Taylor.
”

Dean Gunther bedding coeds? Then the woman who had written the note that lured Gunther to his death was probably the “young coed,” the “mutual friend” whose “cooperation” had laid the original trap.

Blackmail.

No wonder Gunther had been nervous!

There was a photocopier on a stand in the corner, and McCall warmed it up and ran the three notes through the machine. The copies he tucked into his inside breast pocket; the originals he replaced in the secret compartment of the desk.

By whatever hand Gunther had come to his nasty death, the fatal attack had been a surprise to him. He had obviously considered himself safe from bodily harm, or he would have left a record of his fears in the most logical place—the secret drawer in which he kept the “Thomas Taylor” blackmail notes.

Whoever “Thomas Taylor” was—and that was a false name, McCall was certain, over which Pearson, Long, and Oliver could break their heads—he was undoubtedly the man who plunged the knife into Gunther's body so many times … Gunther's blackmailer-killer.

Queer … blackmail was almost invariably a matter of squeezing money out of the victim. The three notes signed Taylor suggested something else. “So you had better see that everything goes without a hitch for me.”

Whatever that meant, it did not suggest money.

McCall left. He had something solid to chew on at last.

He drove back into town and stopped in at police headquarters.