The Campus Murders

12

He drew up to a four-storied brick building with a patchy lawn in front and three diseased elms. The building looked dirty and old, like a skid-row derelict. It was only two blocks from Floyd Gunther’s house. The contrast in neighborhoods was depressing.

Someone was playing Bach as rendered by the Swingle Singers. Well, that was one thing in the joint’s favor.

About to mount to the porch, McCall glanced over a rusty iron railing and saw a door under the porch marked “1.” Number one was Perry Eastman’s apartment.

Basement affluence.

He went on down. The Bach became louder. Dirty windowpanes were darkened further by heavy drapes. He heard laughter that sounded hysterical.

There was a brass knocker on the door in the shape of a naked girl. McCall lifted the girl and rapped her backside against the panel.

“Entrez!” a man’s voice said.

McCall opened the door and stepped into a cavern-like place, shadow-filled from candles that burned everywhere. One huge brass candelabrum before a yellow-brick fireplace was taller than McCall. Posters covered the walls; a heady incense filled the room, but it did not entirely blot out the acrid odor of marijuana. The incense was curling lazily from a brass Indian urn on the mantelpiece, at least five sticks’ worth. The pixillated Bach was coming out of a cheap record player.

“Bet you’re McCall. Sure. I saw you in the dean’s office. So you’re here in my pad. So be it. The moment of truth, eh?”

Eastman, who was on his spine in a cracked red leather chair, wavered to his feet. He looked more than ever like a slat, and he was in the same pullover and tight jeans he had worn the day before. He badly needed a shave, and his long hair had not felt a comb for a week. It occurred to McCall that he might have been up all night.

Eastman took a step toward McCall, bowing. He almost fell. He was obviously high. McCall quickly glanced over by the chair. An ashtray held a smoldering butt that, from the odor, was marijuana. And from the looks of his eyes he might also have been using crystals, or methedrine. McCall did not admire speed freaks. They were notoriously unreliable and might explode like land mines. “I’ve seen the papers,” Eastman said. “Gunther... it’s a crusher, man. Y’know? The dean wasn’t a bad deal, just square. And this business of Laura and Lady G and all. It grabs you, doesn’t it? I mean, we have so much to contend with at ’Squanto, we hardly need murder and beating up on chicks. Do we, Mr. McCall?”

Eastman was tripping, all right. He spoke and moved dreamily. He stepped over to the mantel, took down huge round sunglasses, put them on.

“Now I can see you, Mr. McCall. Won’t you sit down?”

There was a chair, and McCall sat down. Eastman kept moving as if he were wading through surf.

“You no doubt want to know all about me, and why not? What is more absorbing than the study of man? Essentially, Perry Eastman — that’s me — deals in truth, Mr. McCall. The basics. A, B, and C. The foundation that props us, the motivations that afflict us. Truth is a mighty hard thing to come by. You ever really try to dig it, Mr. McCall? Prolly you’re the type who might dig me. But it’s a fact, people don’t dig that even when we think we’re speaking truth we’re glossing it over. What does McLuhan say? I forget. The hell with McLuhan.”

McCall said nothing.

“Why, you ask? Because if you deal in truth you never have a hangup. And who needs hangups? Not I, sir!”

He kept speaking dreamily, drifting about the dismal room, peering at McCall as if through smoke. The record player suddenly turned itself off.

“I knew Laura Thornton, yes,” young Eastman said. “I just winked behind my shades, Mr. McCall. Of course, you couldn’t see it, so it wasn’t effective, but I winked just the same, and that makes me secure.”

“You feel secure?” asked McCall.

“You bet. This is a happening. If it could be on a stage, it would prolly be very entertaining.”

“How well did you know Laura?”

Eastman waved a coy finger. “She thought Damon Wilde was such a great guy. The faithful swain. Horse-balls, Mr. McCall. All the time he’s sleeping with Veronica Gale. C’est à rire. She never wised up.” He stepped closer. “I’m going to give you a fat tip, Mr. McCall. You better watch out. The people here don’t like the way you’re sneaking around. Just a tip, Mr. McCall. Take it any Way you like.”

“Thanks,” McCall said. “Dean Gunther got rather tough with you, didn’t he, Perry?”

“Now, now, there you go, Mr. McCall. I liked Gunther — sometimes. Besides, do I look like the killer type? All that blood discourages me.”

“Who had it in for Gunther? Hated him enough to kill?”

Eastman threw his head back in a spasm of laughter. It lasted only a moment. “Everybody had it in for Gunther. Even me a little. He was a clot.”

“I thought you said you liked him.”

“Dichotomous, y’know? I disliked him, too.”

McCall had begun to detect a wariness under Eastman’s dreamy exterior.

“Did you kill him, Perry?”

“Straight to the nitty-titty, I’ll give you that. No.”

“Where were you last night? Around nine?”

“Oh, wow.”

“Come on, Perry.”

Eastman flapped his arms. “I was right here in my pad. Believe it, man. All alone, too, meditating.”

“Do you get down to the river much?”

“Where the lovebirds go? You’re trying to pin me down, McCall. I don’t like it.”

“You ever take Laura down by the river?” McCall asked patiently.

“No, sir.”

“You wouldn’t beat up on a girl, would you, Perry?”

“Me?” He laughed again. “That’s funny. My mother raised me to respect womanhood, Mr. McCall. No, I wouldn’t.”

“You stick pretty much to yourself, don’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Well, maybe.”

“How about girls generally? You pretty successful?”

“I’m normal, if that’s what you mean.”

“How about Laura? Did you make her?”

“As a gentleman,” began the boy, swaying.

“How about Laura, Perry? You can cut out the cute routine. I want answers.”

Eastman moved over to the leather chair and fell into it. He pushed the sunglasses up and stared at McCall with his muzzy eyes. “I’m through talking to you. Take off, fuzz.”

“I could turn you in for smoking grass.”

Eastman did not reply. His eyelids had come down, and he lay sprawled in the chair as if he had fallen asleep.

“I’ll be seeing you, Perry.”

Eastman began to snore.

McCall left, frowning. It was not that he had expected more from Eastman than he had got out of the others. He had long since realized that, whatever lay behind the beating of Laura, no one was going to make it easy for him to find out. Rather, they all seemed to project a general air, as much of mockery as of evasion, as if they were all enjoying a secret joke at his expense.

One thing had emerged from his otherwise unproductive talk with Eastman: the student had almost nakedly threatened his personal safety. The second threat in two days.

Somebody was afraid of what he might find out.

But why? He was getting nowhere. Didn’t they know that?

McCall drove slowly along the coils of the road winding through the campus, bound for the administration building. He parked and made his way to the entrance, stepping around broken glass. Workmen were already busy repairing windows. The college must spend a fortune in glass, he thought.

For the first time McCall was troubled with a premonition of failure. It was pretty early in the game to be feeling that! But there it was. He had still to find a lead. Each person he had questioned seemed to be withholding something. Perry Eastman’s leering, fogged manner lingered. Damon Wilde had cut it short, abruptly gone his own way. And Dennis Sullivan had been laughing at him. They all resented him. Was it because he was over thirty?

He entered the offices of the dean of women with relief.

“Well, Mr. Investigator.”

Kathryn sat behind her desk, dark glasses on her absurd nose, hair burning under the fluorescents. The office was beautifully peaceful, and he thought how lovely she looked. He felt again a ridiculous itch to run his hands through her hair.

“Busy?”

“Not very. I’m all alone.”

That seemed fortuitous. He wondered. Was it a come-on? But then he approached the desk and looked for the answer in her face. It was solemn and friendly, nothing more. He decided to let it go with a fatuous “I’m glad.”

For some reason that made her flush slightly. “Getting anywhere, Mike?” she asked, glancing at her typewriter as if it contained something earthshaking.

“I’m not even going backward. Dead center, Katie.”

He was moving around the side of her desk, and she turned her swivel chair — quite naturally — toward that side. He felt a thickening in his throat. By God, it’s like the first time. Her knees were crossed and he could see almost all the way up a noble thigh. There was the faintest frown between her eyes, a certain innocent air of expectation.

“Katie?”

“Yes?” she said, raising her head. She had to do that, because he was leaning over her.

He kissed her. His arms went around her and his right hand closed over her breast.

She pulled away, smiling.

“Just what,” she asked, “are you investigating, Mr. McCall?”