The Love Potion Murders In The Museum Of Man Part 11

Again, there seemed nothing out of place. The table and chairs were as they had been. And just the merest whiff of that distinctive odor I could not place. Until, in making a thorough search of everything in the room, I came across evidence that it had recently been a venue for a meeting. In the wastebasket I found eleven folded pieces of paper marked with Y's and N's, evidence of a vote. Someone had also thrown away a withdrawal slip from one of those automated money-dispensing machines with an early-November date.

Mort said nothing when I told him I wanted to leave the room exactly the way we had found it. He nodded knowingly when I said we were to tell no one about what we had uncovered. Driving home I entertained little fantasies of placing a hidden camera or a microphone in the room, though I had little idea of what I might learn thereby.

22.

I received a call today from Mr. Freddie Bain, the restaurateur. He was in quite a state about the news of Corny's death, which appeared in the Bugle Bugle this morning. When I tried to fob him off on the Wainscott public relations people, he turned peevish. "Mr. de Ratour, they are the ones who told me to call you. Please, can you tell me who told you of Professor Chard's death?" this morning. When I tried to fob him off on the Wainscott public relations people, he turned peevish. "Mr. de Ratour, they are the ones who told me to call you. Please, can you tell me who told you of Professor Chard's death?"

I told him about Henderson's visit and his contact with Fernando and that the State Department had received reports to the same effect.

Who was this Henderson? Where might he be contacted? Was he reliable? I answered as best I could. I gave the man a post office box number for Henderson in Manaus and told him that was all I had.

"Are you sure there was no doc.u.mentation?" he asked, his voice edged with insinuation.

I replied ambiguously, saying that final confirmation was awaited, but that it seemed the worst had happened. I hung up finally in bemus.e.m.e.nt. It was almost as though the man knew about the tape Corny had sent back. I made a mental note to call Jocelyn to tell her not to let anyone else know about it.

Prejudice, as the Reverend Lopes has remarked, is like excrement: We tend to think of our own as less offensive than that of others. I try to keep Alfie's dictum in mind when it comes to my feelings regarding members of the legal profession. Not all lawyers, to be sure. When I catch myself wanting to send the whole lot of them to the wall, I stop and recall the good ones I have known. Not many, actually, but a few. I tell myself that it may be something genetic, something over which they have little or no control. I remind myself that in the past members of the de Ratour family have married lawyers or even gone to law school. But that was at a time when it was considered something of an honor to join the profession.

I bring this up because of what happened today when I finally met with the princ.i.p.als of the date rape case that came before the Subcommittee on Appropriateness. After several futile calls, I informed them each that I was a.s.sisting the Seaboard Police Department in a matter that their case could have a bearing on, and that our conversations would be off the record and strictly confidential. Pulling one of my own teeth would have been easier.

Ms. Sp.r.o.nger told me they would have to consult "their" attorney, a use of the plural possessive I didn't pick up on immediately. I increased the pressure at that point, letting them know my requests to see them sprang from the Ossmann-Woodley case, now considered a murder investigation, and involved some urgency.

My action const.i.tutes a transgression of the rules of the subcommittee. Indeed, the whole point of that body is to avoid involvement with the police or the legal system unless absolutely necessary in conflicts between members of the community. I didn't really cavil with myself on the point. If these young people had been exposed, however inadvertently, to some kind of potion being concocted in the lab, then we needed to find out about it. Still, I was somewhat surprised to learn that a lawyer had become involved; that the rules had already been bent if not broken.

It perplexed me even more that they insisted on meeting me together. For my purposes it made little difference except that important information can be garnered from the differences that inevitably arise in separate accounts of the same incident.

At the appointed time, I made my way over to Sigmund Library, a modern, faceless building of gray granite that exudes an air of futility. We met in the Rex Room, named for a donor, I'm sure, as there seemed to be donor plaques on everything. The room is one of those small, nondescript s.p.a.ces that all libraries seem to provide and which few people seem to use.

You can imagine my surprise when Mr. Jones and Ms. Sp.r.o.nger arrived in the company of Ariel Dearth. I could not completely conceal my chagrin at seeing the ubiquitous lawyer, but I dissembled my reaction enough to get through the obligatory introductions and handshakes. Mr. Jones wore chinos and a short-sleeved, open-collared jersey, and I could not but note again the musculature of his arms and shoulders. Ms. Sp.r.o.nger sported denim overalls, and for a moment I thought she might be a member of the maintenance staff. Mr. Dearth wore a contentious expression and one of those tweed hunting jackets with a leather patch at the shoulder, fitting attire for a predator, when you think about it.

"Are you their counsel?" I asked after we, the mobile, had sat down at a stark table and Mr. Jones had pulled his wheelchair up to it.

He appeared to think my question over, perhaps consulting the lawyer within. "I am," he said.

"In what capacity?"

"We're suing the university," Ms. Sp.r.o.nger announced.

"Bobba...," Mr. Dearth started.

She bridled. "Just because we've hired you doesn't mean I've like given up my First Amendment rights."

Mr. Dearth nodded perfunctorily and turned to me. "I want to know, Mr. de Ratour, what gives you the right to threaten my clients with a police investigation?"

"Because, Mr. Dearth, it's a fact, not a threat."

"And you know it's strictly against the rule of the subcommittee for any member to contact disputants privately without the consent of the Chair."

I had to suppress a laugh. "You mean you had the consent of the Chair to solicit these good people as clients?"

"That's privileged information."

"I'm sure it is." I turned to the disputants. "Are the grounds on which you plan to sue the university also privileged information?"

"We -" Mr. Jones started.

"That's privileged," Mr. Dearth said.

"We're victims of an inst.i.tution that like created a working atmosphere in which people like want to rape one another." Ms. Sp.r.o.nger spoke with what seemed like pride.

"Ms. Sp.r.o.nger..." Mr. Dearth twitched his nose in frustration.

"How much are you suing the university for?" I asked.

"We haven't settled on an amount," the learned counsel said emphatically.

"We're not concerned with the money part of it," Ms. Sp.r.o.nger added with a touch of indignation. "It's a way of like sending a message."

"How much is the message going to cost the university?"

"Is this germane to your interests?" Mr. Dearth asked.

"Five big ones." A large smile lit up Mr. Jones's handsome face.

"Five million dollars!" I repeated, incredulous.

"Five big ones each." Mr. Jones seemed to be enjoying his freedom of speech.

"Have you settled on a contingency fee?"

"I advise against answering that question."

"Is it thirty percent? Forty? Fifty?" Fifty?"

The disputants were nodding.

I turned to Mr. Dearth. "Have you no shame, sir?"

He shrugged. "It is a long shot."

"It's a way of like effecting social change," Ms. Sp.r.o.nger said, as though in defense of her attorney.

"I suppose making lawyers rich through this kind of extortion is a form of social change," I said.

Mr. Jones leaned back and laughed. "Makes lots of change, anyway."

"What have we got to do with what happened to those professors?" Ms. Sp.r.o.nger began immediately, speaking as though she had been accused of something.

"Perhaps nothing," I said, Investigator de Ratour now, professional to my fingertips. I paused for effect. "And perhaps everything."

Sitting across the table from me, she in a chair and he in his wheelchair, they exchanged glances at my words then looked to their attorney.

I thought this curious, as curious as their insistence that they meet with me together.

"What are you saying?" asked Mr. Jones.

I shook my head. "I don't want to prejudice any answers you might have to my questions."

"They are not prepared to answer any questions until they know what they are." Mr. Dearth spoke with great solemnity.

I kept the obvious rejoinder to myself, as I know Lieutenant Tracy would have. I nodded sagely. "It's quite simple," I said. "First, as you stated in your statement to the subcommittee, you ate lunch together on the day of the incident."

"You don't need to answer that," Mr. Dearth put in.

"That's true," I said, "since it has already been established. "What I need to know is what food or drink you shared just prior to the incident that you brought before the Subcommittee on Appropriateness."

"You don't need to answer that," Mr. Dearth said.

I started to gather up my notes, making as though to rise. "In that case, I am turning the entire matter over to the police." I turned to the disputants. "That, of course, will be to Mr. Dearth's advantage as he will be able to bill you for the hours of interrogation that are sure to ensue and at which he will insist on being present. And that may well adversely affect your quote unquote case against the university."

They glanced at each other. "We shared your rice, Bobba," Mr. Jones said.

"As your attorney...," Mr. Dearth began.

Ms. Sp.r.o.nger waved him off with a frown. "I don't see what harm there is in the truth." She turned to me. "I'm like on a whole-rice diet. I had plenty for both of us."

"And you had a half of one of my tuna fish sandwiches," the wheelchair marathoner said.

"That's right. My diet allows for like a small amount of wheat gluten."

"Did you cook the rice yourself, Ms. Sp.r.o.nger?"

"Oh, yes. I use only organic rice."

"And none of it came from a Chinese restaurant, from a takeout place?"

"No."

"And the tuna fish sandwich?" I asked, turning to Mr. Jones.

"Ditto. My wife made them for me. Right out of the can." He shrugged. "I mean with mayo, salt, pepper, and some chopped chard."

I winced. I had begun to get the empty feeling of drawing a blank. I took one last stab. "In your preparation of your respective lunches, did you at any time leave them unattended?"

Ms. Sp.r.o.nger shrugged. "I like put my rice in the microwave. But I wasn't gone more than a few minutes."

"And there were other people in the area?"

"Lots of them."

"Any strangers?"

"None that I recognized."

I frowned. "You mean you saw no one you didn't recognize."

"Yes."

"And what did you have to drink?"

"I got a c.o.ke from the machine in the staff room," Mr. Jones said.

"And I like have my water." Ms. Sp.r.o.nger held up the quart-sized bottle I had seen her drinking from at the subcommittee meeting. Apparently she's one of those people who carries a nippled container with her everywhere, like a child still on the bottle.

"How soon after you shared your lunch did the incident occur?" I asked.

"Actually, we hadn't quite finished," Ms. Sp.r.o.nger replied.

"But almost."

"Mr. de Ratour," Mr. Dearth said with an ominous voice, "I am going to report your behavior to the university authorities."

"Feel welcome to, sir," I responded and turned back to the library employees. "Can you tell me exactly how the feeling came over both of you?"

They were both clearly embarra.s.sed. "It just came over us," Mr. Jones said. "Big time."

"Me, too," Ms. Sp.r.o.nger said. "It was like a compulsion."

"Who first suggested that you retire to the closet?"

"You really don't have to answer that question. In fact, I advise against it very strongly." Mr. Dearth had grown visibly agitated during this time.

For my part, my irritation at what Mr. Dearth was attempting to do with these two young people had grown to indignation. But I kept my voice calm. "Actually, that's not really a question pertinent to my purposes. What's really important is that I ascertain that the only food you ate during that shared lunch came from home."

They both nodded. Mr. Jones asked, "What are your purposes?"

"Very good question," I said. "It's one your attorney should have brought up at the beginning." I paused to let that register. "It's possible that somehow, somewhere, you ate food that had been doctored with a very powerful aphrodisiac. We're not sure, but it may have been a mild form of whatever it was that killed Professor Ossmann and Dr. Woodley."

Ms. Sp.r.o.nger grew pensive. "Actually..."

"We doubt very much anything like that happened," Mr. Dearth said forcefully.

"Because that would exculpate the university." I turned to Ms. Sp.r.o.nger. "You were about to say something?"