Cold Rain

Chapter 24

When Igot back to the farm Molly told me I had a few calls to make. I was curious at her ironic tone until she handed me seven messages: three from the television stations, two newspapers, my agent and Gail Etheridge. I called my agent first. Some folks in Hollywood, he said, were looking at Jinx for a TV series. Was I agreeable to the idea?

Sounded great, I said. We talked about things in general. How was I doing? What was I writing? I lied, as Walt had put it, like a villain.

When I finished with the call, I told Molly the good news. Over the years we had had enough heartbreaks and near misses to learn a bit of caution. I wasn’t about to start spending the big TV bucks, but neither was I as pessimistic as Molly. ‘Great. Does that mean if the deal comes through you can afford a lawyer?’

On the subject of lawyers, I decided I should probably give Gail a call. ‘You heard?’ I asked when she came on the line. I expect I evinced as much enthusiasm as a truant approaching his principal.

‘Molly told me. The reason I called was to tell you the university lawyer is stonewalling us. His exact words: ‘See you in court, Counsellor.’’

‘Johnna Masterson’s disappearance?’

‘I don’t think it helped.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said with a bit of strained confidence. ‘As soon as they arrest Buddy Elder for it, they’ll come crawling to us.’

‘Molly told me you’re practising law, David.’

‘The sheriff’s detectives just had some questions.’

‘What did they want to know?’

I ran through the interview in detail. Her silence ominous, I found myself making excuses before I got around to mentioning Kip Dalton’s request for a lie detector.

Once the excuses started, Gail lost her patience. ‘You gave them motive, David. They don’t care about your sexual harassment case. The flimsier the case against you the more sense it makes for you to be furious.’

‘At the university! Not Johnna Masterson. And I made it clear to them Buddy Elder was behind this. If he turned up dead, that would be a different story!’

‘Standard criminal behaviour, Professor. One slime ball points a finger at another slime ball. The more you tell them about Buddy, the more they like you for it.’

I tried to explain my strategy, but I didn’t get far.

‘I’ve got news for you, David. Even if I buy your theory that Buddy Elder is out to get you it doesn’t make sense. What did you do to this guy? Murder his parents? Why in the hell would he go to all this trouble?’

‘I insulted his short story.’

‘And I thought it was something big like cutting in front of him in the lunch line!’

‘It’s a little more complicated than just an insult, Gail.’

‘I’m going to tell you one thing, and then I’m going to shut up. Get an attorney.’

‘You’re my lawyer.’

‘If I’m still your lawyer, why didn’t you call me when they asked for a second interview?’

‘I probably should have.’

‘Probably?’

‘All right. I screwed up. So shoot me.’

‘How about I just sit in the audience while a penitentiary doctor sticks a needle in your arm?’

‘It wasn’t that bad.’

‘I expect it was a lot worse than you think. Look, David, I’ll represent you, if that’s what you want, but you’re going to have to think about hiring a trial lawyer at some point, and I’d say the sooner the better. This thing could get out of hand on us real fast.’

‘What are you talking about? You’re acting like they’re going to arrest me!’

Gail sounded tired. ‘Probably not until they find a body, but I wouldn’t count on it.’

‘They don’t have anything, Gail!’

‘You mean besides motive, means, and no alibi?’

‘I didn’t even see her!’

‘The cops aren’t going to believe Buddy Elder called you on Johnna’s cell phone, David.’

‘Why not?’ I looked at Molly who had sat close through the entire conversation. She looked more worried than Gail sounded.

‘They like their cases straightforward.’

‘How’s this for straightforward? Buddy kidnaps Johnna Masterson and forces her to call me on her cell phone. At midnight Buddy calls on the same phone and tells me the rumour is I’m about to get a letter of censure, and he sure as hell hopes nothing happens at the university to change their mind!’

‘This guy kidnaps a young woman and quite possibly murders her, and he calls you up so you’ll know he did it? That’s insane!’

‘Why not tell me? Nobody believes me!’ I looked at Molly. ‘Ever since that diary surfaced,’ I said, my voice rising, ‘no one has even considered I might be telling the truth!’

Gail answered with cool irony, ‘I wonder why that is, David.’

‘Dalton wants me to take a lie detector test on Monday. Maybe then-’

‘Whoa! You didn’t agree to take one? Tell me you didn’t.’

‘I said I needed to talk to my lawyer, but I think maybe I should!’

‘Quit thinking, David. It’s bad for your health! That thing about talking to your lawyer, that’s the perfect answer. Believe me, you don’t want to take a polygraph.’

‘It looks to me like the only way.’

‘You’re representing yourself again, Dr Albo.’

‘Okay. Point made. I’ll cancel it.’

‘Cancel what?’

I explained to Gail that Dalton wanted to schedule the exam, but I was free to call and cancel if she thought it was a bad idea.

‘David, why don’t you just confess?’

‘Because I didn’t do it!’

‘So why are you trying to get yourself convicted?’

‘We cancel the son of a bitch! What’s the big deal?’

‘Suspect refuses to take a lie detector.’

‘That’s what you want!’

‘I’m not going to refuse a polygraph, David. I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to demonstrate your innocence, assuming our conditions are met.’

‘That’s lawyer talk for refusing to take a polygraph.’

‘Damn straight it is,’ Gail snapped. ‘Those exams don’t measure truth or falsehood. They’re machines!

They measure how nervous you are. You’ve been framed for murder, if you’re telling the truth. That’s one hell of a scary situation. I mean, you could be going to death row if you don’t convince the police you’re telling the truth. Or look at it the other way.

Say you’re lying about something, some detail. Could be anything, something too embarrassing to admit – like a little sex in the office with your little stripper friend. You take the test and you’re going to try to beat the machine on that one lie. The results come back and you end up looking like you’re lying about a whole lot of things. Believe me, too much is riding on this for you to be calm!’

‘I’ll tell you what, you’re starting to scare me.’

‘That’s good. That means I’m finally getting through to you.’

Molly wanted to know about Tuesday evening the minute I got off the phone.

I ran through the thing in detail. When I had finished, I told her it was not as bad as Gail was making it out to be. ‘Gail defends scumbags. The scumbags are guilty.

The last thing you want to do with a guilty client is take a polygraph.’

Molly seemed hardly to hear me. ‘You’re going to listen to Gail?’

‘I guess.’

‘David -?’

‘I’ll listen to her!’

That evening we had dinner in the kitchen with the TV on. As we weren’t enthusiasts of the local broadcasts in the best of times, we didn’t know where to go or whom to trust now that the stakes mattered. By chance, though, I found Patty Storm on Channel 3.

Patty had been a student of mine during my first year at the university. Cute, ambitious, and possessing a remarkable degree of talent (in every sense of the word), Patty had quickly left English with an emphasis in creative writing and gravitated to journalism where, as she told me almost shamefully, she could make a living. I had seen her a couple times doing reports as I was surfing for something to watch, but I hadn’t realized she had worked her way up to a co-anchor position.

‘A former student of mine!’ I told Lucy and Molly cheerfully. ‘Let’s watch this. Patty’s all right!’

Johnna Masterson was still a second page story, but my name had come up as an individual sheriff’s detectives were interviewing. Patty Storm did not use the word suspect. Mostly the report was about the search for Masterson continuing. There was a touching plea from her parents.

Lucy looked at me suspiciously when the report was over.

‘Innocent,’ I said.

‘She’s pretty,’ Lucy rejoined.

‘Johnna? She sure is. Smart, funny, totally likable.

Personally, when I commit murder I like to do it to someone who deserves it!’

‘Don’t make jokes, David,’ Molly answered.

‘How well did you know her?’ Lucy asked.

I grimaced but I wouldn’t back away. ‘She was one of the women who filed charges against me at school.’

‘So what happened? Or is this not my business either?’

‘As long as we’re all living in the same house it’s our business,’ I said. I glanced at Molly.

‘Tell her,’ Molly said. ‘Tell her what you told me this afternoon.’

I went to the pantry and cracked open a bottle of bourbon. As I was pouring a couple of healthy shots over ice for Molly and me Lucy asked for one as well.

I got Molly’s nod of approval. Special occasion: her stepfather was coming clean.

‘We got a call on Tuesday night,’ I said. From there I went through the whole evening. I finished by explaining that I had something of a history with Buddy Elder because of some trouble at school, and I was fairly sure he was involved in this for no other reason than to hurt me.’

‘How could he do that?’ Lucy asked.

‘I think he might be trying to frame me for this.’

Lucy seemed uneasy. Molly was scared.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘It will blow over.’

There were some calls after dinner. A number of people from the university who had avoided all contact with me for the past two months suddenly wanted to know how I was doing. As per Gail’s instructions that afternoon before we got off the phone, I neither answered nor returned the calls.

At nine o’clock, Patty Storm, among others, left a message. She called me Dr Albo and reminded me of the class she had taken ‘a couple of years ago.’

She was working on a story and wondered if I could help her. Ten minutes later, she left another message. She had received information about Johnna Masterson’s disappearance. For the sake of fairness, she wanted my response before she went on again.

I was curious about her information, so much so that I thought about calling her, but I resisted the temptation.

Twenty minutes later we found out what she had.

Johnna Masterson’s disappearance now led all stories.

The intro music was different, urgent, not the typical stuff. This was breaking news. I checked the other two local stations. The story was upgraded there as well.

I went back to Patty Storm. She had the look of a reporter who knows she is on to something good, and I quickly realized I was the something.

‘Sources inside the sheriff’s department are investigating allegations of an affair between Professor David Albo and an unidentified freshman co-ed, who, along with Johnna Masterson, filed charges of sexual harassment against Dr Albo earlier this fall…’

‘This is not good,’ Molly offered quietly.

‘…suspended from his teaching duties as the investigation continues…’

‘Where did this woman get all this, David?’

‘…the last person to talk to Johnna Masterson on the night she disappeared…’

‘Gail told Dalton we aren’t going to play ball. This is the payback.’

‘…refusal to take a polygraph…’

They posted the university’s public relations photo of me. I had always liked the shot. It was about four years out of date, a portrait of a thirty-three-year-old man projecting confidence, training, scholarship, and just a touch of sex appeal. On television, I came off looking like an overbearing English prof with a hard-on.

‘…what some witnesses are calling a brawl at a local funeral home…’

Molly stared open mouthed at the screen. ‘Nice picture, huh?’ I asked.

‘…following Professor Albo’s arrest on felony assault charges stemming from an incident at The Glass Slipper, a local establishment featuring topless dancing…’

I snapped Patty Storm off mid-sentence.

‘I wanted to watch the rest of it.’

‘This stuff is important if you make it important,’ I said.

‘This stuff pushes prosecutors to try cases, David.

You can’t just ignore it!’

‘Watch me.’

Lucy came down the stairs, her face red, her eyes wet. Shaking her head, Lucy looked at me as if I had just violated her.

‘You saw it?’ I asked.

‘You liar!’

Molly and I both called out to her, but she headed for the back door and kept going.

As soon as she had driven off I looked at Molly.

‘How about another bourbon on the rocks?’

‘How about we forget the rocks?’

I got the good stuff out and our best crystal and poured us both three fingers’ worth. ‘To catastrophe!’

I said cheerfully. It was how we used to celebrate the purchase of broken down houses we thought we could resurrect.

Molly smiled at me suddenly as if we hadn’t a worry in the world. ‘To catastrophe!’