Murder, Most Academic

1

I WAS LATE AGAIN. I am never fully awake at nine in the morning, and in spite of my protests, the chair of my department kept assigning me to these early classes. It must have been his way of exercising power over an untenured young professor. I tumbled out of bed, and after a hurried shower, shave, and coffee, dashed out of my apartment. Fortunately I lived only five blocks away from the college, and I hurried along the damp streets hoping I’d arrive there only a few minutes after my students.

Policemen and couple of police cars and an ambulance were in the street in front of the classroom building. The body of a woman lay on the sidewalk like a crushed and twisted bird. I froze. Oh, my God, I said. It’s Susan!

A policeman turned and spoke to me. Move along now. There is nothing for you to do.

What happened here? That’s Professor Martinson! I cried.

Oh, so you know her?

Yes, I know her. What happened?

The policeman pointed up at the tower that housed the Social Sciences Division. One of four tall buildings that comprised Radisson College, it had outer walls of glass, and one of the panels was shattered. Shards lay all around Susan’s body.

Must have been an accident, I said.

Maybe, said the policeman. Or maybe she jumped.

No, no, she would never do a thing like that.

Upset by the sudden flurry of activity—photographers and the crew from the ambulance in white overcoats—I hurried to my office. The coppery scent of blood in the street had left me feeling faint, and I was in no mood to teach my class on the essentials of philosophy. I had my secretary cancel it. I took the elevator to the seventeenth floor to examine the window through which Susan had made her exit. The police were already there, but the officer in charge would not let me enter Susan’s office. I assured him that I was a professor in the college and a friend of Susan’s and would do nothing to hamper the investigation. Robin Summers, a colleague of Susan’s in the Socio-history Department, appeared in the hall just then and vouched for me.

How awful, she said. I just heard. How could it have happened?

Robin and I peered into the room. There were two men in civilian clothes inside. One of them was taking photographs while the other was looking in every corner and taking notes. Susan’s chair had been pushed away from her desk at an awkward angle, and many of her books were strewn on the floor. The glass window had a large, jagged hole.

Robin and I walked back to her office. I gotta run, she said. I have a class.

I cancelled mine, I said, hoping she would do the same and talk to me.

What’s the point? No, I have to take it. See you later. She ran to catch the elevator.

Next, I walked to the main office of the Socio-history Department. Susan Martinson had been its chair for a number of years. The department secretary, Becky Taylor, was inside with several others: her assistant, Vilma Perez; the secretary from the Philosophy Department, Monica Walter; and Leslie Warner, an assistant professor of socio-history. Warner had apparently just come in, since he was holding his attaché case. Becky was saying, No, no, I saw her walking by on her way to her office. She smiled and waved at me.

Didn’t she come in here at all this morning, then? I asked.

She used two offices, said Becky. Kept them separate, though. All administrative work she did here. She pointed to the big room adjoining the front office in which Becky and Vilma sat. All the class work she did in her own office, down the corridor. Kept her books there too.

So you saw her walking by here just before the accident?

Yes! said Becky and Vilma in unison.

What a way to go, Warner said. I spoke to her yesterday and she didn’t seem different in any way. I mean, she didn’t seem sad or distraught.

I left the group and walked over to Martinson’s office. The two policemen were about to leave, but a third officer had arrived. He was seated in Martinson’s chair and was going through the papers on her cluttered desk. Did you… find a suicide note? I asked.

The officer only glanced at me, nodded no, and went back to shuffling through the piles of papers. I studied him as he continued to ignore me. In his early forties, he was wearing gray slacks, a blue blazer with anchors on its buttons, a white shirt, and a crimson tie. His clothes fit him so perfectly that I guessed he’d had them made to order. Finally he looked up and asked me who I was.

Ramsay, I replied. Frank Ramsay. I teach in the Philosophy Department.

A professor? He looked doubtful.

Assistant professor.

So you think it is a suicide, do you?

No, no… I don’t know. Well, anything is possible, but Prof. Martinson is not the suicidal type.

What type was she, then?

Feisty, strong willed.

Then it must have been an accident, or… .

Murder? I finished for him.

Perhaps a student who didn’t get an A pushed her out?

I wasn’t sure whether he was mocking me or not. He had sounded a bit hostile from the beginning. I was trying to formulate a reply when Raymond Jenkins, the president of the college, walked in.

Hello, Frank, he said while looking at the officer.

President Jenkins, this is… I didn’t know the officer’s name.

Detective Klein, said the officer, and they shook hands.

What’s going on here? Jenkins said. This is a terrible blow to the college.

Yes, Klein said. I am sure it is. I don’t know what happened here. A chair was dragged across the floor, leaving marks, but there are no other signs of struggle.

Jenkins didn’t say anything, just walked over to the window. It was one of those wide designs that covered almost the entire side of the room and offered a striking view of the city. It had a rolled-up venetian blind that could be used to block the glare of the summer sun.

Klein spoke up in a clear, measured voice. Prof. Martinson must have had a class in the morning. She came in, sat down, and was getting ready for her class when someone pushed her out.

How can you tell? I was incredulous.

Jenkins turned and looked at Klein but didn’t say anything. He was notorious as a man of few words. He was a pure mathematician.

A trained detective can tell a lot by merely studying the scene of a crime, Klein said. Here there is enough behavioral evidence to show that the victim did not commit suicide but was expecting a normal day when she was interrupted. Her notes were on the desk, open, and a book connected to the subject of the notes was next to it. It too was open. To all appearances, she was getting ready to give a lecture. The detective, for some reason, was eager to explain himself. Perhaps he was intimidated by having both the college president and a professor watching his moves.

Jenkins finally found a word or two. Murder? Who?

I don’t know, Klein said. But I aim to find out.

It couldn’t have been an accident? I was finding it very hard to accept the possibility of a murder in our college.

Not according to my reading of this room, Klein said. I would like to talk to the members of her department as well as to the staff.

Jenkins nodded at me slightly, enough to let me know that I had been assigned that task. Detective Klein, he said. You can come and talk to me after you talk to the professors. He turned sharply and strode out.

I walked with Klein to the office of the Department of Socio-history and introduced him to Becky Taylor, the secretary. She was alone. I told Becky that Detective Klein would like to meet the other members of the department and that she should arrange it.

Only Professor Summers and Professor Warner are here, she said. At least, they will be after their classes are over.

I will talk to you first, Ms. Taylor, and then when they come back, I will talk to them, Klein said.

I went back to my office.

Prof. Martinson had a tenant living in her apartment, Vera Mason, a young graduate student at King’s College. I decided to call Vera and tell her the news. She was not at home. I left a message on the answering machine and called the Socio-history Department at King’s and told the secretary to give the message to Vera and to others in the department who knew Martinson.

Susan Martinson was a well-known and widely respected historian and had been chair of Socio-history for long time. I had known her quite well, having served on a couple of committees with her. She was a difficult person to categorize. Though committed to the feminist cause in all her scholarly work, she was deeply conservative in her social and personal life. Even in her scholarly roles, she was a stickler for standards of scholarship and decorum. Now here she was—dead by violence. Was Susan murdered, or had she somehow fallen against the window accidentally? Somehow the idea of a colleague being murdered right there in the college was a bit appalling.

I called Vera Mason again as soon as I finished my afternoon class, and this time she was home. She seemed terribly shaken, but didn’t have any new information to give me. Susan had not been depressed or upset about anything, she told me. Rather, she’d been upbeat and optimistic after learning that her latest book was ready for publication.

I went home and called Kay, my friend and companion, and invited her to dinner.

Are you cooking, or are we going out? she asked. She was a restaurant critic for a local weekly and was particular about what she ate. I was, however, indifferent to the niceties of cuisine and refused to indulge her fancies too often.

I am going to make some pasta, I said. Angel hair, pesto sauce, asparagus, and fruit for dessert.

Too much green. Get some carrots.

Okay, I said. See you around six.

She came bearing the evening newspapers and a bottle of Vermentino Pigato. Professor Plunges to Her Death said one bold headline, while the other, more sedate, merely said Professor Dies in Fall.

Tell me more, Kay said. She had met Martinson a few times and knew Vera very well, when she had worked part time at Kay’s magazine.

There is nothing more, I said. Everyone in the college is very upset. Everyone except the students. They are going about their business as if nothing had happened.

Was it an accident? Suicide? Then she answered her own question. No, she would never kill herself.

Why not? Everyone is capable of killing themselves.

Really? Frank, do you really think that?

I didn’t say anything for awhile as I maneuvered the pasta into the pot of boiling water. Then finally I said, "I didn’t say I thought that. I said that anyone is capable of killing themselves given the right provocation. In any case, the detective doesn’t think so. He analyzed everything in Susan’s office. I explained the detective’s reasoning to Kay in some detail. It is called gathering behavioral evidence. But this evidence could have been there from the past."

I drained the pasta in a colander. The carrots had already been steamed. I mixed the pasta with the sauce and took everything to the dining table while Kay opened the wine.

Who is the detective in charge of the case? Kay asked as we sat down.

Klein. A very suave and confident guy who dresses in a Long Island sort of way.

I know him! At least, I have met him several times.

Being a journalist made it possible for Kay to become acquainted with all sorts of people, even members of the local constabulary. He thinks Martinson may have been pushed, I said.

Who would want to kill her? asked Kay.

A disgruntled student?

Kay helped herself to more wine. Oh, come off it, she said. I don’t think that is plausible. No grade is worth someone’s life.

No? Some years back there was a student in California who shot his thesis adviser.

The pasta was good, this combination of delicate noodles, basil, parmesan, and pine nuts, along with Kay’s annoyingly obscure but delicious choice of wine. I do agree with you that a failing grade is not enough of a reason for murder. But then what? Betrayed lovers, abandoned companions? Or could it be envious colleagues?

I am sure that’s the line that Klein would follow, Kay said. What’s for dessert?

Nothing special—some canned peaches in syrup.

Canned peaches?

I have ice cream, of course, and…

No, I think I will skip it. The brief look of disgust that flitted across her face was unmistakable.

I opened the can and served myself some of the peaches. Can you put in a word to Klein on my behalf, since you know him? I asked.

A word about what?

I would like to work with him on the case. Give him information and analysis, bring a scholarly rationality to the inquiry.

A scholarly rationality? Why don’t you just say that you are curious?

It is not just curiosity. My quest is philosophical.

Don’t be so pompous. Why not stick to teaching philosophy and leave crime alone?

Philosophy is not just a set of principles that we present in classes and conferences, but an activity which aims at the clarification of thoughts and practices.

You don’t say.

Not I, but Ludwig Wittgenstein.

If you say so, she replied with a smile. She got up and removed the dishes and plates from the table.

Come to my graduate seminar on Wednesday and you will find out more about it.

Not on your life. That would be a kind of masochism, a philosophy class in the evening.

Will you speak to Klein?

Yes, if you really want me to. I will call him tomorrow.

We sat down to watch television. She cuddled against me on the couch. Soon, she fell asleep, her head on my lap.

2

I WAS UP EARLY THE next day even though I didn’t have a class on Tuesday mornings. I turned on the television for awhile and then tried to read a book. However, my mind would not focus on philosophy and I turned the TV on again. If one didn’t watch the morning talk shows on a regular basis, one would miss a great deal of insight into the workings of our civilization. The telephone rang. It was Detective Klein. I hear you have some information about the Martinson case that I can use. Kay Sheldon called me this morning.

I don’t have any information, as such, I said. "But I would like to talk