Murder at the Break
C.G. Prado
Copyright C. G. Prado, 2011
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I
The First Tuesday
People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do;
but what they don't know is what what they do does.
Michel Foucault
The break at Christmas was nearly three-weeks long. The second semester officially began on Tuesday, January third, but classes didn't start until the following Monday. Charlie Douglas arrived at the philosophy department of Meredith University that Tuesday at a little after nine in the morning. As he'd expected, the building was quiet, with only the secretarial staff in the various departments it housed. Few faculty members would be in till Monday, so he had his pick of parking places.
In the mid eighteen-hundreds, Avery Meredith made a disquieting amount of money manufacturing railway engines and founded a lavishly endowed, elite liberal arts college on a large tract of land in Kingsford, on the shore of Lake Ontario. Over the years, Meredith College acquired other faculties; first a law school, then a medical school. Next came a faculty of engineering, later one of education, and then the inevitable business school. Meredith was now a medium sized university offering undergraduate and graduate programs, but the university still took up only a third of the land it owned. The rest was upscale apartment houses and a shopping mall that added annually to Meredith's already fat coffers. That income, the well-invested endowment, and Meredith's stiff fees kept the university private, allowing it to spurn government funding with all its attached strings and problems. Meredith was able to maintain high admission requirements and demanding standards and its prestige meant that placing its graduates was seldom a problem.
Charlie started at Meredith in the late-nineteen-eighties, and he might have moved on after a couple of years, but he liked the quality of Meredith students and his wife, Kate, liked Kingsford's size and pace. Charlie had taught philosophy at Meredith for getting on to twenty-five years. His publications, supervisory record, and rank of full professor gave him an enviable position and he taught pretty much what courses he wanted to teach. His turning up early on the first day of term wasn't because he had anything pressing to do; it was more habit than anything else. At the moment, though, the question he faced was whether there'd be any takers for his second-term graduate course. Charlie's orientation in philosophy had always run counter to the department's analytic bent; he took seriously the postmoderns that his colleagues disdained. As a result, his graduate courses were attended by a small number of students, most of them more curious about the dark side of philosophy than seriously engaged by it. However, graduate students didn't have to preregister for courses, so Charlie wouldn't know if he had an audience until the next Monday afternoon at the weekly seminar's first meeting.
As Charlie expected, the only people in the department were the secretaries, Jodie Anderson and Phoebe McMillan. The long corridor was silent, with just the main office open.
"Happy New Year!"
"Oh, Dr. Douglas; you startled me! Happy New Year to you, too. Why ever did you come in today? Can't stay away? Well, to make it worthwhile, have one of these cookies. My daughter made them and they're great. Take a couple."
"Happy New Year, Dr. Douglas, and do have some cookies; they're delicious."
Charlie didn't let on that this was the first he knew about Phoebe having a daughter. The thought flitted through his mind that he really knew damn all about either of the secretaries.
Phoebe and Jodie were an interesting contrast; Phoebe was tall, blond, and fond of raunchy jokes; Jodie was short, dark, and very proper. The two ran the department office efficiently, carving up the work according to their talents rather than sticking to their tediously detailed job-descriptions. Charlie picked up a couple of cookies and thanked Phoebe. He was tempted to joke with Jodie about why she'd not brought something in but passed on it; his teasing efforts with her usually didn't work.
Charlie's office was at the far end of the corridor from the main office and elevators, a location he appreciated because of the quiet, and he now started down the hall. Halfway along he was struck by a foul smell that suddenly made the cookies in his hand much less attractive. He put the smell down to no maintenance over the holiday break and someone's having left half-eaten sandwiches in an office. When he reached his own office, he dumped his laptop case on his desk, put the cookies on a tissue, and went to the cafeteria for coffee, again hitting the smell about halfway down the hall. On his return from the cafeteria the smell was still there, and he hoped the custodian would turn up before he had to go down the corridor on his way to lunch.
The morning passed quickly while Charlie answered email and did what he could to finish a paper he'd been having trouble bringing to a satisfactory conclusion. He forgot about the smell, but ran into it again at noon on his way to the faculty club for lunch. He was going to mention it to Jodie or Phoebe, but the main office was closed. They'd obviously gone to lunch, and their office being next to the elevators, they probably hadn't noticed the smell.
Charlie took a seat at the club table, a long one seating eight on each side and one at each end and reserved for people on their own. That meant the mix of people changed from day to day despite some, like him, being regulars. Charlie liked lunching with people from different departments and faculties. He enjoyed the varied conversation, the humor that ran the gamut from subtle to embarrassing, and especially the wide-ranging expertise available to him over soup and a sandwich. He'd availed himself of it several times, getting useful information from engineers, pathologists, physicists, classicists, lawyers, and the occasional dean. Happily, it was rare for other members of the philosophy department to sit at the club table, which was just fine with Charlie. Today he wasn't surprised to find only a few regulars seated at the table. They were arguing about the university president's Christmas message, which was a model of corporate-speak and said nothing.
After lunch the smell in the department hall persisted. When Charlie went to check his mail in the main office at three o'clock he was about to mention the smell but Jodie brought it up first. She and Phoebe had noticed it returning after their lunch because it had reached the little lobby in front of the main office and elevators. No doubt one of the custodians would be putting up notices about not leaving food in the offices once they cleaned up whatever was causing the stink. However, four o'clock came and went without a sign of a custodian. When Charlie left the department along with the secretaries at four-thirty, he decided that the service staff had wangled an extra day through their union and that the smell would still be there the next day.
Charlie got home a little before five and found that Kate was out. He checked the kitchen but there wasn't anything going in the oven or on the stove-top, so he decided to do a couple of marinated salmon steaks and after checking that they had wine began collecting what he needed. Kate got home at five-forty-five and was clearly relieved not to have to cook. She explained she'd been trying to get the garage to wring another few months out of her barely running old Corolla.
"They just want to sell me another car."
"Your car is ten years old, it had high mileage when you bought it, you drive it hard, and you're always late for servicing. I'm surprised it's running at all."
"It's fine; it's just that they've got a two-year old Corolla there they want to sell. It's very nice, but you know how Toyotas hold their price. I'm just not willing to pay that much. So now they claim I need to replace the air-conditioner and a bunch of parts for the steering whoosis, to the tune of some twelve-hundred dollars."
"Actually, for AC and steering that sounds reasonable."
"Well, they started out at over fifteen-hundred, but I
told them I can do without the air; I certainly don't need it now. Anyway, they backed off a bit and said they'd use some reconditioned parts."
With this Kate went upstairs to change and Charlie began to grill the salmon. When they sat down to eat they talked a little about the news and about the pleasant time they'd had New Year's Eve. It wasn't long, though, before Kate raised what Charlie now thought of as The Issue, which was giving up their town-house for a condo.
Amanda Rankin, the department head, didn't seem to like Charlie's brand of philosophy, and since she'd become head his salary increments had been just adequate. Charlie and Kate weren't hurting for money, but buying a condo they liked meant paying more than they'd get for the house, plus there'd be a monthly fee and taxes would almost certainly be higher. On the other hand, a condo offered real advantages. Charlie simply couldn't make up his mind, so they discussed The Issue on and off. Friends had made the move from a house to a condo and expressed reservations. Charlie didn't know if he would just have reservations or real regrets living in what was, in effect, a very expensive apartment in a building run by others.
"You don't want to talk about it."
"Actually, I do; I just don't know what I want to do."
"Tell you what; tomorrow we'll go to Sandoval's and have a good bottle of wine, on me, and we'll talk. That'll give you all day to think about it. Okay?"
"Sounds like a plan. I really will think about it."
Charlie liked the idea, or at least the postponement and feeling relaxed after a good meal he opened a second bottle of wine for them to drink while they read before going to bed. He'd mentioned the smell in the department to Kate, but only in passing. It now didn't seem important. Charlie settled down with his glass of pinot and the latest John Sanford. Later, just before dropping off to sleep, he wondered if he might not stay home the next day. It might be better to wait till they did something about that smell.