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II
The First Wednesday
Death gives a face [to life] that cannot be exchanged.
Michel Foucault
January fourth was overcast and Charlie, despite his doubts about the wisdom of it, went to the department. When he got to the university he noticed the parking lot of his building was just as empty as the previous day. He was struck by the smell as soon as the elevator door opened. It was definitely worse. Jodie and Phoebe were in the main office talking with Amanda, who might have come in on her own or been called by one of the secretaries. Charlie entered the main office, nodded to them, and pretended to check his mail while trying to hear what was going on. Jodie was saying she thought they should go down the hall and check the offices because the custodian hadn't shown up on Tuesday and might even still be off for all she knew. Amanda was clearly uncomfortable. A painfully thin woman with an unfortunate tendency to dress like a parody of a tweedy academic, she was going on about people's privacy, something Charlie thought ridiculous since the custodians were in and out of the offices on a daily basis. She didn't want to open offices without what she called "adequate reason," and didn't seem to find the smell reason enough. Charlie left them to it and went to his office. He closed his door and in spite of the cold opened a window to freshen the air.
Charlie skipped a coffee break at ten in order not to go into the hall. He'd gone to the washroom earlier and found that the smell was really becoming a problem. At noon he went off for lunch and while in the hall thought that Amanda was going to have to do something. He wasn't thinking of an abandoned sandwich anymore, but of a squirrel or rat that had gotten into an office and died. Both Jodie and Phoebe had left and Charlie saw that Amanda's door, which she always left open when she was in her office, was shut tight.
At lunch Charlie mentioned the smell but no one picked up on it and he dropped the subject. They were soon into a discussion of the university's latest scandal. The administration had once again caved in when faced with student discontent. In this case a student who'd submitted an essay plagiarized from some web-site had claimed she had a dual-personality disorder and that she herself had been surprised when she found the finished essay on her desk. She'd turned it in assuming she'd forgotten writing it, but obviously her other personality had ripped it off the web. Most at the table found this incredible, though one suggested the university should charge her double tuition. Another suggested they should fail the other personality. But the woman telling the story, a professor in English, said that things had been made worse when the student forged her doctor's signature on a note claiming she did have dual-personality disorder. The instructor wanted to fail the student, both for the plagiarism and the forgery, but after dithering for a week the dean decided she should just be made to rewrite the essay. He claimed that the forgery wasn't an academic issue and that the student was disturbed enough that she might well believe she had dual personalities. There were groans all around.
After most had finished and left, Charlie talked for a while with a friend who'd recently lost his wife, and it wasn't until two-thirty that he returned to the department.
The first thing Charlie saw when the elevator door opened at the department was a police officer. The officer stepped aside as little as possible and stepped into the elevator as Charlie sidled by him. There were two other cops in the main office, one talking to Amanda, the other to Jodie and Phoebe. Down the corridor there was another cop and a woman in a white smock stood in front of an open door. As Charlie got closer he saw it was Barrett Wilson's office, located right in the middle of the corridor. As he passed them on the way to his office, the uniformed cop turned and asked Charlie if he belonged on this floor. Charlie answered he was on his way to his office and was told not to leave without letting one of the officers know.
As he passed by Charlie caught a glimpse through the half-open door of two more people wearing white smocks in Wilson's office, but couldn't see what they were doing. He did notice that there was now a strong antiseptic smell overriding the foul odor. What they'd found wasn't a rotting sandwich or a dead rat but a corpse.
Charlie called Kate and told her what had happened, warning her he'd probably be late getting home. Charlie assumed that the body found in Wilson's office was Barrett himself, and found himself wondering about his lack of emotional reaction. He'd never liked Barrett, and had had several run-ins with him, but of course he hadn't wished the man dead. Now he found he didn't feel much either way about Barrett being dead, if indeed he was.
He was pretty sure Barrett had a partner, but had never met her. He didn't think Barrett had any children. In fact, Charlie found it hard to think of Barrett being willing to parent a child he'd then have to care for. Well, it was too bad if he was, in fact, dead. Charlie's animosity toward Barrett had been personal at one level, professional at another. Personally, he'd found the man overbearing, arrogant, and incapable of speaking except in a hectoring tone. As someone had said, Barrett was a man who was often wrong but never uncertain. Professionally, the main problem he'd had with Barrett was methodological or, some might say, ideological. Barrett Wilson thought that how he did philosophy defined the discipline; he didn't tolerate other approaches. Additionally, in any academic argument, Barrett's basic assumption was that either his opponent didn't understand the issue or was just wrong.
"Dr. Douglas?" Charlie heard the question just as his door was opened by the cop he'd seen at Barrett's office door.
"Yes?"
"I guess you've figured out that we found one of your colleagues in his office. Can you tell me what time you came in today?"
"Uh, about nine-ten or nine-fifteen. Jodie and Phoebe, the secretary and senior secretary, were already here, of course. They were talking with Amanda, that's Prof. Rankin, the department head. I left for lunch just at noon."
"You noticed the smell in the corridor?"
"Oh yes; I noticed it yesterday."
Charlie internally kicked himself for volunteering that he'd been there the day before, but then it was no secret and Jodie or Phoebe had probably already mentioned it. The officer immediately confirmed this.
"Yes, one of the secretaries told us that you and they were the only ones here yesterday. The custodial staff didn't work yesterday, so no one found the body, but Dr. Rankin looked in the offices today when everyone left for lunch. She called us."
So it'd been Amanda who found Barrett. Probably thought it best to check the offices when no one was around. She'd let it go long enough as it was.
"Did you know Dr. Wilson well?"
"So it was him; that's his office you all were in, but I suppose it could have been someone else."
"If you'd just answer my question, Dr. Douglas."
"I knew him as a member of the department. I never saw him socially. Someone's bound to tell you, so I'll add that we didn't get on."
"Was there something personal between you?"
"Not really, other than mutual dislike. I don't know what it'll mean to you, but we had a profound difference of opinion on our discipline, on what philosophy is all about. But it was all literally academic. In fact, I don't think I ever spoke to him outside of this department, though I saw him around town occasionally."
"Are we going to find anyone who saw you two together away from the university?"
"No, you aren't. I wanted nothing to do with him."
"Okay; well, one of the detectives will want to speak to you. We're understaffed, so it may not be until tomorrow. You'll be in? And will you be staying till five?"
"I'll be in tomorrow, but the main office closes at four-thirty and I usually leave then."
"We're asking everyone who came in today not to leave until five. If the detectives don't make it by then, they'll contact you tomorrow."
Charlie waited until five, as did Amanda, Jodie, and Phoebe. The detectives didn't show.
Charlie got home about five-thirty. Kate got ready and they set off for Sandoval's a little after
six. The restaurant was sparsely attended when they got there, as they knew it would be. They preferred to eat early to avoid the crowd. They got their usual table and Derek, the waiter they knew best, raised his eyebrows a bit when Kate ordered an expensive Oregon pinot noir that Charlie especially liked but which they seldom had.
"Alright, do we jump right in or do you want to talk about what happened first?"
"Not much to say. What got me was that I felt nothing. I'm sorry Wilson's dead, in an abstract way, but I'm not going to miss him. What's bugging me now is how he came to die in his office, and over the holidays. He had to have been dead a couple of days for the smell to be as noticeable as it was. I thought he'd had a heart attack or something, but he was probably killed. Otherwise, why send detectives on top of the cops who responded to the call?"
"Killed? You mean you think Barrett was murdered in his own office?"
"Well, why else are detectives involved? Anyway, what was he doing in his office during the break? He never went to the department unless he had a class or office hours. Most of the time he'd go directly to his class and then left, and his office hours were a joke: one hour on Friday mornings."
"Do you think your difficulties with him could be a problem?"
"I can't see how; we had no contact outside the department, and surely no one would think that his worship of Kripke would drive me to kill him. I may not sympathize with hard-core analytic philosophy, but irritation is as high on the rage scale as I go."
"The police don't know that."
"I know, but let's not borrow trouble.
Charlie asked about dessert. Kate said he could buy her an apple crumble if he really wanted to. He agreed, but when Derek got to the table Kate ordered a Spanish coffee, so Charlie had a glass of port. Over their drinks they made a half-hearted effort to talk about the condo but soon gave it up.
When they got home there was a car carelessly parked in front of their house. A man and a woman stood near it and watched them as Charlie pulled up behind their car. The man looked like central casting's definitive plain-clothes cop, burly and rumpled; the woman was better dressed and could have been in business. The man addressed Charlie. "Dr. Douglas? I'm detective Bolster; this is detective DeVries. We need to speak with you."
Charlie led the way into the house and Kate invited Bolster and DeVries to sit down. Neither did until both Charlie and she sat down.
"I suppose this is about Barrett Wilson?"
DeVries answered.
"Yes, it is; we just have a few questions."
"I was told if you didn't get to the department by five you'd contact us tomorrow."
Both detectives ignored this and Bolster continued:
"I understand there was bad blood between you and Dr. Wilson."
"Hardly that. We had professional differences. I didn't know the man outside the department."
"I've been told that, but I know academic disputes can be very passionate."
"Let's slow down a bit; are you saying I might have had reason to kill Barrett? And was he in fact killed? I was thinking he might have had a heart attack or fatal stroke."
"No, Dr. Wilson was shot. Do you own a gun, Dr. Douglas?"
"Shot? No, I don't."
"Is it going to be necessary for us to get a search warrant?"
"You want to search for a gun? Now?"
"It would be convenient."
"You're welcome to search the house, as long as you do so without doing the damage I'm told the police routinely do."
Bolster stiffened but DeVries flashed the ghost of a smile. Bolster was about to say something when DeVries stood and took the edge off things by suggesting they get on with it. Bolster, reasserting himself, said that Charlie and Kate should stay where they were and would be called only if he or DeVries found a locked door or box.
Charlie ignored Bolster's order long enough to get a bottle of wine and two glasses. He poured as DeVries went into the kitchen and Bolster went upstairs.
Charlie and Kate's townhouse was small. The downstairs consisted of a longish living room and dining area and the kitchen. The upstairs was two bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms was used as study for them both. There were a couple of closets upstairs and a hall closet downstairs, and that was it. It wasn't too surprising, then, that in half an hour Bolster and DeVries were back in the living room. Charlie hadn't heard a lot going on and began to think the search had been more for show than not.
"Do you have an office, Ms. Douglas?"
"No. I'm a copy-editor. I work at home and I receive and return manuscripts on-line."
"What about out-buildings?"
"Sheds and such? No. Our backyard is very small." Charlie led the way to the back door, opening it and turning on the outside light. Five-foot fencing enclosed the tiny paved yard on three sides. On the left were some potted plants, on the right two garden benches; nothing else. Bolster grunted, and went back to the living room. Charlie followed.
Kate was responding to something DeVries had said.
"Me too. I'm a terrible pack-rat; I keep everything. Charlie can't stand it; he's forever tossing stuff and most of the time I don't even notice."
DeVries had her coat on and Bolster shrugged his on.
"What about your garage? And do you have a safe-deposit box?"
"No garage; we don't even have parking. As for a safe-deposit, yes, but it's just for the house deed and stuff like that. Are you going to want to see that, too?"
"Dr. Douglas, we must be thorough. We looked through your office earlier. It is university property, so we needed only your department head's permission. I would like one of us to meet you when the bank opens tomorrow."
Charlie agreed and told Bolster what branch. Bolster asked if they could have a quick look at Charlie's car. Charlie handed over the keys and watched as DeVries and Bolster gave the inside of the car and the trunk a seemingly cursory once-over.
As soon as the detectives left Charlie and Kate checked the house. Bolster had been a bit careless upstairs, leaving some drawers half-open and having moved a few things in the study. DeVries' excursion through the downstairs hadn't left a trace. He didn't think they'd expected to find anything. Kate and Charlie finished their wine and went to bed.
As Charlie slipped into sleep he wondered what Barrett had done to bring a killer to his office over the holiday break.