Chapter 20
Spring semester started in the middle of January, and gradually, at about the same rate as the air turned warm and the leaves began to emerge, Chris's emotional state began to normalize. She stopped being afraid to be alone in her office. She began to recover her sense of humor and her faith in her colleagues, most of whom suffered their own torments as a result of the deaths of two of their number and the incarceration of a third.
The Department of Drama, forced to replace a senior faculty member, coalesced gracefully around the leadership of the director of the Division of Fine Arts, covered two classes as best they could and cancelled the third. Enrollments, amazingly, did not drop significantly. After the mid-term exam period the drama faculty began the search for a permanent replacement for McCarty. In the Art Department the search for a new sculpture professor was well underway. Life began to feel like it would return to normal.
When word spread that the first important Picasso in the state was a fake, Howard Randall was safely back in New York. The Camford Times reporter who called him seemed to think he was as surprised as everyone else and noted that Randall was having his whole collection appraised "to determine whether other works of art had been replaced."
At the last Division of Fine Arts meeting of the year, Chris was able to announce the awarding of the first Richard Bjornson Scholarship, funded by the sale of eight of his Do-Nothings. She also announced to excited applause that Howard Randall was giving Midstate University a major Matisse, another Picasso and a promise to include the museum in his will. She didn't share with them that the gift was by way of apology and, not inconsequentially, a way of getting a real tax break. Nor did she mention the verification of authenticity Randall had agreed to before Midstate would accept the paintings.
The meeting was stuttering to a close when Antonia Westphall stood and declared that by unanimous consent of the division faculty, she was relinquishing the last half of her year of custody of the "Forgot to Duck" award in favor of Chris. "No one in the division could have come closer to disaster and survived than you did," she said. "We're thinking this should be yours permanently under the circumstances."
Chris stood open mouthed. "Well, really I wouldn't want to deprive future disaster averters from their proper acknowledgement," she stammered.
"Deprive us! Please!" yelled someone from the back of the room, and everyone laughed long and hard.
As a result the decrepit stuffed duck—scruffy feathers, new silver medallion and all—stood on the bookshelf behind Chris's desk. It was not likely to become her favorite piece of memorabilia.
That same week the state's attorney and Colin McCarty reached a plea agreement. In return for a full confession and a plea of guilty, he would be sentenced on two counts of second-degree murder rather than first-degree, capital murder. McCarty apparently saw the wisdom of accepting two consecutive terms in prison over a lethal injection. The odds of his seeing freedom again were zero. Chris read all this in the newspaper one May morning just before graduation. She cried with relief.
Hjelmer Ryquist appeared in Chris's office doorway that afternoon. A surge of emotions and memories nearly lifted her out of her chair when she looked up. It had been a long time since she'd seen him.
The first thing out of her mouth was, "Nobody's dead, are they?" Then she shook her head and started over. "Hello, Hjelmer. It's been a while."
He laughed at her gently. "No one's dead that I know of, Doc. How you been?"
"Better. Busy."
"I thought I'd stop by and treat you to a latte. I'm hooked on'em and I don't get over here often enough." He waited while she handed a stack of papers to Charlie who, with significant waggles of the eyebrows, let Chris know it was nearly time for his break.
The three of them walked across the campus. Crocuses and daffodils were long gone; late tulips were fading and being replaced by irises and peonies. They passed the bronze effigy of President Sanford James (1975–1982) who was sporting a mortarboard perched jauntily on the back of his head. It was held in place with an inelegant strip of duct tape. No one commented on it, though Ryquist turned to get a second look. The rest of the walk to the museum was a pleasant one full of mild breezes and the scent of freshly turned earth. That aroma was replaced twenty-five feet outside the entrance to the museum by the smell of freshly ground coffee.
"Shame to go inside," said Ryquist.
"The acting director thinks so too, so they are about to open a sidewalk café around the side. Should be ready by the time summer school starts," Chris said.
"She doing okay filling in, Doc?"
Chris nodded. "She's doing very well, Hjelmer. Wouldn't surprise me if she gets the job for real."
They went in, ordered and sat at a table near the windows. Ryquist filled them in on what had not appeared in the Camford Times. "The plea agreement probably saved McCarty's life." Ryquist stirred his coffee. "That okay with you, Doc?"
"That's too bad," and "Of course," came simultaneously from Charlie and Chris respectively. Chris continued. "I'm not an eye-for-an-eye person, Hjelmer. I just want him out of everyone's life forever."
Charlie agreed, though he said he'd have been happy if McCarty had gone to trial and been sentenced to death. "It would be appropriate."
"What can you tell us that isn't common knowledge, Hjelmer?" Chris asked. "I have to report to Pansy tonight and she'll scold me if I haven't pumped you."
"How's Pansy doing? She been traveling?" Ryquist asked, diverted momentarily from the justice system.
Chris laughed. "My peripatetic parent has remained in Florida, getting the strength back in her knee since she left in January. She's planning a trip to New Zealand in November, and she wants to be in shape. She says the Kiwis are serious hikers."
Ryquist smiled and nodded. "So what would you and Pansy like to know, Doc?"
"Everything," Chris and Charlie said simultaneously.
"Like, why did he choose such an arcane weapon?" Chris said.
"He had a tiff with Page the same day he happened to see Bjornson experimenting with that E-M system. McCarty walked by just as he plugged it in. Bearings nearly went through the ceiling. Bjornson stood there cursing and McCarty asked him what happened. He told him he'd wrapped too much wire around the rails. That gave McCarty the idea. He figured he could pin it on Bjornson because he knew Bjornson and Page were more than casual acquaintances."
Chris was amazed. "How on earth did he know that? It's not as if he's ever been tuned in to the gossip channel." This was a tidbit of which she had been unaware, in spite of being literally at the center of the action in the Division of Fine Arts.
Ryquist shrugged. "Saw them together a few times, I guess, put two and two together."
"He didn't spend a lot of time wandering the halls," Charlie said. "I'm surprised he happened to see Bjornson doing anything. I mean, he came to check his mail once a day at two o'clock and that's it, as far as I know."
Ryquist sipped his coffee. "He said there were plumbing problems in Drama and everyone was forced to use the johns in Art."
"Of course," Chris nodded as the displeasure of Drama faculty and students experiencing that inconvenience came back to her.
Charlie said, "I forgot that! It went on for weeks. Nobody was happy about it over there."
Chris leaned in. "But it isn't exactly child's play to make one of those things. How did he manage it?"
"McCarty said he told Bjornson how much he liked his stuff and asked if he would demonstrate things for him, so Bjornson showed him how it worked one night. Said he came back several times to use the john and kept his eye out. When the studio was open and Bjornson wasn't in sight one night he pinched a tube that was almost ready to go. He said it didn't have enough wire on those rail things to really put out a shot so he modified it."
Charlie frowned. "I don't really get what that means."
Chris explained. "How tightly wound the wire is on the rods determines how strong the magnetic fie
ld is, which determines the muzzle velocity. The more the merrier, as it were."
Ryquist continued. "He figured that Bjornson would be the most likely candidate for her murder once we scoped out what did her in. To make sure, he pinched that sculpture and hid it in the wood scrap bin near Bjornson's office."
Charlie asked, "If he was so hot to pin it on Bjornson, why didn't he just leave the weapon where you'd find it?"
"He says his 'sense of drama' wouldn't let him make it too easy. He figured Bjornson would be too smart to do dumb things like that. He assumed we'd get to him eventually. McCarty told Page they needed to talk about the meeting of some committee he was on, that he had some serious inside info that she needed to hear right away. It couldn't wait, but they couldn't be seen together. He told her to clear everyone out of the museum as soon as possible and he'd tell her that night.
"After he took Bjornson home, McCarty went back to the museum through the tunnel from the parking garage, toting his little toy. He dropped the E-M gun off in the sculpture exhibit, plugged it in where it'd be handy, and found Page in her office."
Chris stopped him. "He made one with a trigger?"
Ryquist nodded. "Bjornson showed him how. Anyway, they started the argument about the museum and the Division of Fine Arts all over again. They went at it for a bit and she got pretty hot." He looked at Chris. "McCarty says she called you with him standing there and that almost queered his plan. But she didn't say anything about him or what she wanted to tell you, so he figured he'd do it. He says he waited until she got really riled up. Then he turned his back on her and walked out and up the stairs to the main floor galleries. She followed him, mad as a wet hen from what he says, and he just kept going until she was where he wanted her. Then he just picked it up, turned around and plugged her."
"Good lord!" Chris breathed.
"He says he just pointed it at her and closed the circuit. He got her with one shot. He had a pocket full of bearings. Said he was prepared to zing her as often as it took, but he got her in one."
The three of them were silent for a moment. Ryquist offered to get refills. Chris and Charlie waited in silence until he'd returned.
As she stirred sugar into her second latte, Chris asked, "So what was the point of setting up the fake fall?"
"He just wanted to throw some dust in our eyes the way he figured Bjornson might do. He didn't want us to really think it was an accident, of course."
Chris summarized. "So he thought the little hints he planted would point to Bjornson."
"Yeah, and he almost made it work." Ryquist shrugged. "He's smart and determined. He's also got balls the size of melons."
Chris gasped. "Did Walter do that?"
Ryquist laughed. "No, no. I meant that figuratively, Doc. I mean he's pretty fearless." Ryquist ticked items off on his blunt fingers. "He killed her, set up the fictitious fall, got all the papers on her desk and her keys out of her office. He went to her apartment and searched it for any reference to his unfortunate episode in New York, took a stack of files just to be sure, returned to the museum and returned her keys, neat as you please."
Chris shook her head. "From the sound of it he's very lucky the prosecutors offered him a deal. It seems like such a clearly premeditated act."
"He is lucky. We were able to make him see how lucky. The judge will make sure he doesn't ever see the light of day again."
"And Bjornson?" Charlie asked.
"Bjornson blacked out that night at the opening pretty much, but McCarty says he did remember eventually how he got home. Bjornson must have thought they were pals because McCarty liked his work or something. Anyway, he says Bjornson said something about Page that sounded like he knew way too much so McCarty decided to plug him too."
"He told me Richard was about to pull a prank on him. Is that true?" Chris asked.
"There was a prank in the planning stages, McCarty says. He says he doesn't know how it was going to work, but apparently he got wind of it and plugged Bjornson before it could come off. He won't say what he thought it was going to be about."
Chris couldn't keep the amazement and disbelief out of her voice. "He won't say what the joke was about? What could possibly be worse than admitting to two murders? He's so embarrassed he'd rather go to jail forever than tell?"
"He knows he's going to jail forever anyway, so he doesn't see any reason to compound his suffering, as he says."
"Richard was a world-class practical joker," Charlie said, smiling ruefully. "He really did know how to get to a guy."
Chris nodded, then looked at Ryquist. "Tell us how he killed Richard."
"Simplicity itself. You weren't the only one who heard Westphall yelling at Bjornson, Doc. He figured it would be a great time to do it. He brought his toy to the office that Sunday night, went down the hall to the Art Department large as life, marched right into Bjornson's studio with it in his hand and said he had something to show him. He said Bjornson thought they were going to run a test. McCarty plugged it in and told Bjornson to set up a target. When he turned his back, bingo." Ryquist made a shooting gesture and sat back with his hands in his lap.
"What did he do with the weapon?"
"Took it apart and threw the parts away in various dumpsters around campus."
After a bit of silence, Charlie asked, "So why'd he try to kill my boss?"
"He saw his file out on your desk. It was there twice when he came for his mail. Figured you were looking into things." Ryquist shrugged. "That's all it took."
"Pansy says that once a person has crossed a line, they never quite come all the way back," Chris said on reflection. "I think he was going crazy."
"Well, that may be, Doc, but the insanity defense sure wouldn't work in this case. There's too much premeditation for him to convince a jury that he couldn't tell right from wrong or that he acted on an irresistible impulse."
Chris mused. "Was he a sociopath all along and we just didn't see it?" She looked into her coffee mug and found no answers there.
Later that night after reviewing everything she'd learned that day with her son during dinner, Chris called her mother to share the latest on the "big case," as Pansy insisted on calling it.
"I tell you, Teensy, I am the hit of the bridge club. My information on the murders even trumps pictures of grandchildren." Pansy laughed with real relish.
"I'm glad it's working so well for you, mother," Chris said with more than a trace of exasperation.
"You don't know these biddies," Pansy said. "If I told them what I'd done with Quentin I think they would faint collectively."
"What did you do with Quentin, Mom?"
"I spread his ashes on the thirteenth hole."
"The club gave you permission for that?"
"Never asked."
"Mother!" Chris gasped. "You didn't!"
"Did so. By all reports he spent a lot of time in that water hazard. Besides, it was time he stopped following me everywhere."
Ends
About the Author
Nora Barker started her professional life as an artist, a printmaker, who taught at a middle-sized Midwestern university for more years than she cares to admit. Born in Wisconsin, raised in the Dakotas and Minnesota, she’s lived her whole live among hard-working Scandinavians. Following their example, she couldn’t just stop working when she retired so she took up her other creative love, writing. Visit www.norabarker.com to see other titles in the series coming soon.
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