A Most Inconvenient Murder

By Peter Helmberger

Myron Willgrubs is a pedantic professor at the Plattefield campus of a large Midwest university. When he discovers a body in Pilgrims Park, he calls 911, but for reasons of his own refuses to divulge his name and later denies making the call. Before the police arrive to investigate, John Olivier, a macho formerly with the Green Berets and now heir apparent to the campus chancellery, also discovers the body, which he knows is that of Carl Madewell. Olivier has been having a torrid affair with Carl Madewells wife Penelope. In what he tells himself is the Hoffa solution, Olivier removes the body from the park and stashes it in the freezer in his basement for later interment. When Penelope Madewell reports that her husband is missing, the police spring into action, thus bringing together a lovelorn detective, Patrick Delaney, and Professor Willgrubs niece, Emily Peterson, runner-up in the 1997 Alice in Dairyland beauty contest.

Several zany characters soon join the action, impeding both the police investigation and Detective Delaneys quest for Ms. Petersons affections. Old and senile, Hattie Ellie Guck was watching for blue herons in Pilgrims Park through binoculars when she saw a man dump a body in the trunk of his car (or was it the backseat? she later wonders) and speed away. Although she doesnt call the police, she does tell her crooked grandnephew, Elwood Smythe, what she saw. A loose cannon, Smythe swings wildly from one target to another in schemes of blackmail.

Underhanded and incompetent, Philip Moran is Plattefields most senior detective and Delaneys mentor. He longs to organize a SWAT team to wage war on campus potheads. He vows revenge when taken off the case by the Chief of Police.

Detective Delaneys old flame, Gigi Lamour, off to Hollywood to become a star, makes a porno flick and gets mixed up with the mob. She scurries back to Plattefield to marry Detective Delaney for both his money and his protection.

Having hated each other for years, Mabel Freitag and Sophie Gargano work in the outer office of the current chancellor. Both are secretly plotting to ensure that John Olivier becomes the new chancellor, each supposing the other will get the boot when Olivier gets the appointment. Both conceal evidence that Olivier has a motive for murder and is lying to the police.

The mystery is resolved when a psychopath, Sonny Zitsow, comes to Plattefield to kill Detective Delaney and is subdued by the most unlikely people in a most unlikely way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 19, 2001
• ISBN: 9781469108339

Peter Helmberger

Peter Helmberger was born in Perham, Minnesota. He has B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley. He has served on the faculties of Pennsylvania State University, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, he has launched a wildly successful second career, writing comic novels that earn royalties in the tens of dollars annually.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Plink, plink . . . plink.

When the first fat raindrops spattered against his bedroom window, Professor Myron Willgrubs decided to sleep in a bit. He turned on his side and reached for his wife Edna, but when his hand came up empty he remembered she was away visiting her sister in Eau Claire and wasn’t due back until later in the day. He sighed, put his wandering hand between his thighs, and drifted into a delicious half-sleep, snugly sandwiched between fragrant sheets, between padded mattress and downy quilt. He moved to cuddle himself as a thundershower rumbled over the town of Plattefield, over old trees, narrow streets, huddled shops, and those spacious houses of another day, houses wrapped in verandas; bulging with turrets and bay windows; and sugarcoated with lattice work, fish scale shingles, and vergeboards with fleur-de-lis patterns.

By the time the sun peeked over the rim of Dairyland, however, Professor Willgrubs was up and about. Some time after six, he exited the house with his little dog Spot who tugged at his leash, eager to lay claim once again to territory shared by the neighborhood hounds; most aggressively by an obnoxious Great Dane with the capacity and pressure of a fire truck, Spot would have complained had he the power of speech. As Spot did his utmost to contravene the territorial claims of his nemesis, Professor Willgrubs looked up and down the street where he had lived for more than twenty years. His eye was soon drawn to the tuberous begonias planted close to his own house. Still moist from the early morning freshet, they glowed brightly in the first cool rays of the sun. Ah, what a perfect day, he thought. What a perfect place to be. Professor Willgrubs thrilled to a sudden sense of rightness and order, as if a lark ascending, its keen eye on the lush meadow below where her ladyship sat fluffed on a nest of plump speckled eggs.

After twice-daily walks over a ten-year period, Spot was plenty smart enough to guide his master through all the turns required to get to Pilgrims Park, a lowland of wooded areas, patches of restored prairie, grassy playing fields kept neat and trim by the Plattefield Parks Department, and ponds where dabbling ducks upended for duckweed, tadpoles, and seeds. Once in the park, seeing no one around who might be disturbed, Professor Willgrubs unleashed his dog and threw him a stick.

Professor and Mrs. Willgrubs were excessively fond of British mysteries appearing on PBS, which explained why the professor thought it odd that during the whole course of his life, which had included a great deal of walking and playing fetch with a dog, it may be noted, he had not once encountered a corpse. Judging from TV, a walk in the English countryside, along a millpond or stream, say, or through the park of one of those great houses, would lead inevitably to discovering the moldering remains of play most foul. And he was well aware, too, that the rate of homicide in England was but a fraction of what it was in America, home of the free, the brave, and the well-armed. Professor Willgrubs had even wondered from time to time what might happen if he did discover a body, whether he might become involved in an investigation and prove to be a brilliant sleuth, an unassuming, quiet-mannered, super-intelligent, keenly-observing, rumpled and tweedy amateur: the male counterpart, say, to the watery-eyed Miss Marple on TV. But, as is true of nearly all of us, the most the peripatetic professor had ever come across in his wanderings were those pathetic, flattened creatures of the road with a bedraggled tail remaining sufficiently intact to evidence squirrel, cat, raccoon, or opossum without having to call in the likes of Inspector Morse or Adam Dalgliesh to settle the matter.

On that cool, fresh Sunday morning, Professor Willgrubs was unaware that his luck, if we may call it that, was about to change.

Having reached the north side of Pilgrims Park, he walked along Chickadee Avenue for a short distance noticing the strong smell of skunk. Eyeing a fresh kill on the road, he made a mental note before turning left and heading for home to call Dead Animal Removal. Crossing a footbridge humped over a quiet stream, he stopped midway to peer down at sunfish hiding in shaded water, mindful that his dog, thirty feet or so further on, was barking excitedly. In no particular rush he walked on to see what the matter was. The first clue that something dreadful was the matter was a pair of legs sticking out of tall grass. A drunk, Willgrubs supposed, and he rushed up to investigate. He leaned over the drunk in disbelief.

In clothes soaked with rain, the man lay on his back in a bed of squashed vegetation. His turned head revealed a half-opened eye resembling not so much a window to the soul as a gray pebble, opaque, unseeing, impervious to the rays of the sun. His skin was the color of ashes. One arm lay twisted beneath him; the other had been flung out with the palm of the hand turned upward. Professor Willgrubs grasped the exposed hand and tugged gently, as if preparing to the help the unfortunate soul to his feet. There was stiffness in the joints. Flesh as cold as the cold, cold ground sent a chill up the professor’s arm and down his spine. The hair on the nape of his neck prickled. When he straightened up, he was overcome by waves of nausea and dizziness; he nearly fell over. He nearly peed.

Great Scott, Spot, he cried, after steadying himself. This gentleman is deceased. We must alert the police immediately. He confined Spot to his leash and scurried for home. A serious problem came to mind as he reviewed his situation, however, a problem calling into question the wisdom of telephoning the police. If he called them, wouldn’t they seek his assistance in finding the body? Mightn’t they want to interrogate him? Ask if he saw anything suspicious in the park? Anything or anybody? There might be forms to complete. He would surely miss the train to Seattle, which would be a calamity. Oh, dear me, what to do? he dithered, brusquely pulling at Spot who had stopped to glare at a rabbit brazenly chewing leaves of grass. It occurred to the professor, conveniently, that other than where a body could be found, he really had nothing important to tell the police: that he might, therefore, reasonably call anonymously. The more he thought about this idea, the more he liked it. Thus did he strive to balance personal wellbeing against the welfare of the body politic. Thus did he create no end of difficulty for himself and the police. On the other hand, had he not chosen to call 911 anonymously, he might never have brought together his absolutely stunning niece, Miss Emily Peterson, and a lovelorn detective, Patrick Delaney. But now we are getting ahead of our story.

Professor Willgrubs unlocked the front door of his small house and went in. Unhooking Spot’s leash, he walked through to the laundry room where he filled the dog’s bowl with food and refreshed his water supply, gratified that he had already made arrangements for a neighbor to take care of his dog in the event his wife were delayed for some reason or other. Only then did he attend to his own needs, using first the bathroom and then repairing to the kitchen where he poured himself a small glass of blackberry brandy and sat at the kitchen table, hoping to still his shaking hands and jangling nerves.

As he sipped his brandy, he worried what his wife would think if she ever discovered what he was about to do. His colleagues at the university would be aghast. And what would the students say about his shirking his civic responsibilities? He shuddered to think. No one would understand the importance of his trip to Seattle by train and thence Vancouver by rented car, where he was to give a paper at the annual meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association. No one, except maybe his wife, would appreciate his fear of flying, which, if he missed the train, would be the only way he could get there on time.

Phone records can be checked! he suddenly remembered. Better to call from a payphone on the way to the train station. Better not to take chances. Better to . . . Oh, dear, dear me . . . His thoughts trailed off.

He came to himself by and by and remembered the dead skunk. Dead Animal Removal must have a number in the phonebook, he reasoned, forgetting that it was Sunday: that nearly all city employees would be off. Hadn’t he called about a dead raccoon some years back? Or was it a cat? No matter. There must be a number one could call. He got out the phonebook, found the number, and dialed. After listening to a recorded message and waiting for the beep, he left his name and reported the dead skunk, which made him feel better for having not reported the dead man.

Then he realized with a start that he was in a hurry. There would be no time for breakfast, not that he could have eaten anything anyway. He quaffed his brandy and set about the completion of his packing. Positioning toiletries in his shaving kit, aware of his shakiness, he decided to have another quick brandy before he left for the train station. The dead man in the park isn’t going anywhere, he thought. Hmm . . . Great Scott! Do you suppose he was murdered? The professor’s hands shook worse than ever.

While Willgrubs sipped his second brandy, peering out the window above the kitchen sink, again forgetting the clock, John Olivier stepped naked into the en suite bathroom of a colonial home not more than a half-mile away. John C. Olivier, formerly of the U. S. Army Special Forces, now professor and chair of economics, was the hands-down favorite to become the new chancellor of the Plattefield campus of the giant, sprawling University of Wisconsin System. In the nude his virility was beyond compare. Hair sprouted from everywhere. Tufts stuck out of his ears and nose. The backsides of his love handles were furry as a muskrat. The hair on his chest was thick as a bear’s, narrowing to a stripe running down over his flat hard gut like an arrow calling attention to his unruly member. Weighing two hundred and twenty pounds and standing six foot four in his stocking feet, John Olivier ate judiciously, pumped iron, jogged, skied cross-country, and annihilated his opponents on the handball courts at the UW-Plattefield gymnasium.

He let a noisy pee and rinsed and dried his fingers. He checked his face in the mirror and ran a hand over his stubbled cheeks, complacent in regard to his square jaw and rugged Hollywood looks and looking forward to a close shave when he got home. He ran his fingers through his thick brown hair a couple of times to spruce himself up a bit. John Olivier kept his hair closely cropped so he didn’t have to futz with brushing and blow drying and, god forbid, the sissy sprays and mousses men had begun using.

Returning to the bedroom, he began pulling on his clothes.

God, how I wish you didn’t have to go, said Penelope Madewell, loosely covered by disheveled bedclothes.

Sorry, babe, but the sun is up and I’ve got to haul ass, he replied.

Carl isn’t due back until tomorrow. We could have the whole day to ourselves.

And what might the neighbors say about the campus’s chancellor-in-waiting? Messing around with another man’s wife.

Oh, I’d keep the curtains closed and the door locked. I’d even unplug the phone. You’d be my love slave.

Speaking of Carl, when are you going to give him his walking papers?

Oh, soon, soon. All I need is a bit of courage . . . Maybe I’ll do it this week when you’re away giving your speech coddling multinational corporations. Penelope Madewell had hoped to get a rise out of her lover, but he merely grinned handsomely.

When dressed, he sat on the bed and straddled her with his arms. Looking down into her dark eyes searchingly, he murmured, Some night, huh? He flicked his bushy eyebrows for emphasis. Penelope ran her hands up her lover’s arms, delicately fingering his biceps. She loved his muscles.

Some night indeed! There had been first of all the rough and tumble sexual couplings that had kept the two of them awake most of the night. Then there had been an attempted burglary that was totally bizarre. At about half-past two, while John slept recharging his battery, Penelope heard a noise downstairs.

John, she said, giving him a poke. There’s someone downstairs! Listen!

Hey? What the hell?

Shh! There’s a burglar downstairs! Listen!

The two of them lay very still, hardly breathing. Just when John was going to say he couldn’t hear anything, he heard something.

Hand me the gun, he said to Penelope in a low voice.

The gun in question, a Lady Rossi ought thirty-eight, was housed in the top drawer of a nightstand on Penelope’s side of the bed. Ironically, her husband had given it to her for her protection when he was away. Penelope hated guns and had written several letters to the editor of the Plattefield Gazette, arguing caustically that the ownership of handguns by the civilian population should be outlawed. With each new slaughter of children by children and with each new incarceration as an adult of some seriously mixed-up teenager, she shot off another letter. Penelope kept the handgun in the drawer along with other stuff she didn’t really need or want, so that she never had to open the drawer and see the hideous thing. During a previous tryst, however, John Olivier had examined the gun at some length, checking to make sure it was loaded and working the safety catch. Taking careful aim at a cutesy figurine on Penelope’s dresser, a figurine of a maiden shooing a goose with a stick, just the sort of thing his former wife would have loved, he said, Pow! Pow! Got ‘em both. Putting the gun back in the drawer, he pronounced it a piece of shit.

You’re not going to shoot him, are you? Penelope whispered in alarm.

No, of course not. I’ll just fire a shot or two to scare the bastard away.

Applying standard techniques for discovering and destroying enemy snipers in the jungle learned while he was with Special Forces, with the stealthy movements of a cat, John slipped to the side of the door leading to the hallway and peeked out. Nothing. He snaked his way along the wall of the carpeted hallway to the top of the open staircase and peeked down. Nothing still. Holding the gun forward with both hands, he descended the steps one at a time, shifting his aim quickly from one direction to another, always keeping his back to the wall to minimize size of target. His big penis waggled menacingly from side to side in sync with the Lady Rossi pistol, as if posing a double-barreled threat to a possible intruder. When he saw the shadow of a man moving in the foyer, he fired a shot. The sound was deafening. John’s hand popped up from the recoil. His penis bobbed. Penelope shrieked. The intruder fell over, upsetting a small foyer table and lamp.

Holy shit, John thought for a brief moment. I’ve hit him. As he peered down through the spindles of the banister, a carnivore skulking behind the fronds of a giant fern, the intruder jumped up and ran out the front door without saying a word. Continuing his cautious descent, John made his way down the stairs and then crossed the foyer, being careful not to step on the debris left by the burglar in his hasty retreat. He eased himself out the door onto the front stoop and moved aside the foliage of a tall viburnum using the pistol. Under the light of a street lamp a half-block away, the burglar fled across the street into the shadows of Pilgrims Park. A big bastard, John thought, lifting the hot barrel of the pistol to his nose and sniffing the burnt powder. He grinned with satisfaction.

Climbing back into bed he said, I scared the bastard away and locked the front door.

What are we going to do? Shouldn’t we call the police?

I think we’d better keep the police out of this, don’t you? Considering our situation?

But what if he comes back sometime?

I scared the shit out of him. You’ll not have to worry about him again. Trust me.

Now, lowering himself to his elbows, John slipped a hand under the sheet. Take care of these babies till I get back, he murmured. He kissed her mouth tenderly. Well, I’m off then. He kissed her again. Good-bye.

Call me when you get back from your trip, she called to him as he walked out the door.

Will do, babe, he yelled back before clomping down the stairs.

He exited the house via the backdoor, looking right and left to make sure no one could see him. He hurried down a driveway lined on one side by overgrown shrubs and turned right on the sidewalk. At the end of the block, he crossed the street and jogged down a trail through Pilgrims Park; the same one used by the burglar, he figured.

What the fuck? he muttered when he saw legs sticking out of tall grass. Hurrying forward, he knew the man was Carl Madewell even before he bent over to take a closer look. An ugly welt above the man’s right ear looked as if a bullet had caused a contusion. He cursed in a low voice. I did hit the bastard after all, he thought. Grazed his skull. Maybe gave him a heart attack. Damn. But why was he acting like a burglar in his own house, for chrissake? Ah, so that’s it. He found out about Penny and me and had come around to catch us in the act. Damn.

He straightened up, put his hands on his hips, and looked about with a sharp eye. The park was deserted. He stared down at the corpse, trying to think what to do. Slowly, a triumphant expression spread over his face. He would opt for the Hoffa solution. He would make the cuckold disappear from the face of the earth. Getting down on his knees, he wrestled the stiffened body up over his left shoulder and jogged out of the park. On Chickadee Avenue, he unlocked the trunk of his car with his right hand and dropped the body inside, bending a stiffened arm and tucking in a loose leg so he could close the lid. Halfway down the block, he hit the brakes and swerved to miss a boy on a bicycle that shot out of nowhere. Carrying a gray sack of newspapers over his shoulder, the boy threw the driver a startled look and almost hit a board fence before disappearing down an alley. There was a thump, thump, as first a front wheel and then a back wheel ran over something on the road. Oh fuck, he said. A dead skunk.

On his way home he stopped at a fast food store to buy a Sunday New York Times, telling a sullen cashier to have a nice day. She couldn’t help but notice the big handsome lug who leaned toward her, caught her eye, and smiled engagingly. She gave him change for a twenty dollar bill and told him to have a nice day, too.

Then he drove on to an old but well-maintained red brick house, squarish and two-storied and sheltered under a high canopy of oaks and linden trees. Under the care of a Vietnamese gardener, the lawn was manicured to perfection: fertilized, watered, closely cut, and sprayed frequently for weeds. There were no flowers or shrubs. Much too informal for John Olivier’s spit and polish, nature required a stern hand. Wheeling his dark green Volvo onto the narrow driveway, John beeped the garage door open. Inside the car bounced with a squeal and sudden stop; the garage door came down with a bang. There, he thought, taking a deep breath. If anyone saw me driving about, I’ll say I went out to buy the Times.

He lifted the body from the trunk, carried it to the basement, and lowered it into an empty freezer. He plugged in the freezer and returned to the garage to retrieve the Times, which he then spread on the coffee table, glancing at the headlines.

John Olivier’s preference for minimalism, evidenced by the landscaping around his fortress-like house, was evident inside as well. There were no rugs on hardwood floors polished to a zenith. Except for pull-down shades, double-hung windows were free of adornments. Walls were painted in dark tones. Furniture was traditional and solid but limited.

John’s former wife had come to understand soon after she married him that his abhorrence for clutter extended to include her.

Shitty-assed babies growing into sticky-fingered children were out of the question, he explained repeatedly. His continued carping about the crowding and disarray of foodstuffs in the refrigerator, in fact, had been the main reason she insisted on having a freezer installed in the basement. She divorced him and now lived with her widowed mother in Green Bay.

After showering and shaving, Olivier dressed and walked to a nearby luncheonette where he drank orange juice and coffee, ate buckwheat pancakes, and flirted with a waitress he knew. He volunteered that he was going to Seattle to visit a brother who worked for Boeing. From there he was going on to Vancouver, he explained, where he was to give the keynote address at a gathering of agricultural economists. Satisfied that he could give a convincing and verifiable account of his morning’s activities, should the police ever ask for one, he returned home and packed his bags.

On the way to the garage he set his luggage down and opened the basement door. Sorry, old buddy, he called down the steps. I’ll find a place for you when I return. Some place where the woods are dark and deep. His sergeant’s voice echoed through the sparsely furnished home and faded away. He stood still for a long moment peering down into the darkness, listening to the freezer’s steady whir; then he was off.

CHAPTER 2

Professor Willgrubs pulled up to a curb close to a kiosk with a payphone. He looked around, hoping to see no one he knew as a means of detecting anyone who, more importantly, might know him. A few empty cars were parked in the lot across the street in front of a twenty-four-hour food store. Otherwise the shops and streets at the corner of Eighth and Monroe were deserted. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he lingered in the car, regretting his decision to call the police anonymously and ruminating on life’s slippery slopes. If he returned home now and called the police, telling them who he was, they might discover he had called earlier about a dead skunk. How would you explain that? he asked himself. How would you explain the delay in reporting a corpse in Pilgrims Park? No, too late to turn back now. Might as well do it and get it over with, he concluded. He sighed heavily, climbed out of the car, and headed for the phone.

Hello, came a nasal female voice from the other end of the line. This is the 911 Emergency Center. Your name, please.

There was a pause while Professor Willgrubs fought the impulse to hang up and run. He had at just that moment remembered a mystery on PBS where Scotland Yard caught a pedophile through identifying the man’s voice on a recorded phone message.

Hello? . . . This is 911.

Hello. I wish to make a report of a buddy, Professor Willgrubs said in the phonation of a mustachioed contralto, having decided at the last second to disguise his voice. He had meant to say body, but his thoughts were in a muddle; the blackberry brandy he drank to steel his nerves had thickened his tongue instead.

Oh? What’s she done? said 911.

Done? What’s he done? How should I know what he’s done? See here, with whom am I speaking?

This is the dispatcher at the Plattefield 911 Emergency Center. My name is Darlene, Darlene Darrympal, but my friends call me Deedee. Most of the officers, at least, called her Dingbat Darlene, but by whatever name, she made a bubble in her gum and popped it in Professor Willgrubs’ ear.

What was that noise? Was that a shot?

What noise? Oh, you mean my gum. I just popped my gum is all. What’s your name, ma’am?

I’m not a woman. I’m a man. And this is an anonymous call. (For a brief moment, the professor forgot himself and spoke in his normal voice.)

Huh? I’m supposed to get your name and address. Our training manual says that that’s real important.

Well, is it mandatory that I give my name in order to report an emergency? Should I call another number? Perhaps you would be kind enough . . .

Sir, is this an emergency? This is an emergency number, you know.

I believe it is an emergency. Yes, it is an emergency, definitely. You see, I’m calling about the body of a man.

Of your buddy? Good heavens! Is he dead?

Oh yes, quite dead. I thought the police should know about it.

Oh, the poor man. Were you very close to him?

What? Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, yes, very close. When I took hold of his hand, I got the shivers. Don’t you want to know where the body is located?

Yes, of course. Just a minute. I hafta get a pencil . . . Back again. OK, shoot.

The body lies just off a trail in Pilgrims Park. It’s about fifty yards from . . .

Pilgrims Park you say? Where is that?

It’s in Plattefield, on the western side of Plattefield. The body lies about fifty yards from Chickadee Avenue just beyond the footbridge over Lewis Creek. Do you have that, Miss?

. . . Chickadee Avenue. Then what? (There was another popping noise on the line.)

Yes, it’s just beyond the footbridge over Lewis Creek. Do you have that?

Lewis Creek? Oh, I think I know where that little bridge is. Me and my boyfriend Eddy call it Love Bridge. And the two of you were there when your friend died? How touching. I’ll let the officer in charge know right away. It was nice talking to you, sir. What did you say your name was?

There was a moment of silence on the phone before Professor Willgrubs hung up and ran for his car. As he sped toward the train station his glasses fogged up and he nearly missed the turnoff to the station’s parking lot.

Enjoying a cigarette on the station’s loading platform, the Amtrak agent looked up when he heard the squeal of brakes. He recognized at once both the dark blue Cavalier and the small pear-shaped man who disembarked and hurried toward the station with a suitcase in one hand and an attaché case in the other. Professor Willgrubs was one of Amtrak’s best customers. The agent stubbed out his cigarette in a window box containing several anemic geraniums and held open the door. The professor thanked him and said good-morning.

Hey, you almost hit the Amtrak parking sign, the agent said brightly.

Oh, sorry, the professor replied.

No problemo, the agent assured him.

At the counter inside the professor surrendered his driver’s operator license for the required photo ID and gave his reservation number for a roundtrip ticket for a standard bedroom compartment to Seattle. With a perfunctory glance, the agent satisfied himself that the man in the photo and the man before him were, indeed, one in the same. Both were light complexioned with big foreheads, small chins, and rounded heads ala Charley Brown. Both wore thick granny glasses that enlarged pale blue eyes to the size of saucers. As the agent poked at the keyboard attached to a computerized printer with his two index fingers, the professor took from his hip pocket a white handkerchief and cleaned his glasses. On the completion of their business, the men headed for the loading platform.

So, you’re going to Seattle, the agent said, trying to be friendly. Business or pleasure?

The professor didn’t reply, which the agent thought odd. In their previous encounters the professor had always been excessively chatty: a fount of trivia, a textbook of explication. The agent remembered as well (Who could forget?) that the professor moved in too close to you when he talked to you, thus invading your space. And it didn’t do a bit of good to step back because if you did he would simply step forward. Today, however, the professor seemed nervous and distracted, not in the least talkative. He was sweating, too: no doubt, the agent surmised, because he had been hurrying to get to the station on time.

Professor Willgrubs stopped in front of the box of geraniums and rested his luggage on the platform. He took off his suit coat and draped it over a white hairless arm bare up to the short sleeve of his blue dress shirt. The coolness of morning was giving way to the heat of the day.

Hey, you’re a gardener, the agent said to him, recalling conversations from the past. Any idea why these petunias are doing so bad? They look like crap.

Huh? the professor replied, turning to peer at the pathetic plants stranded in a mulch of cigarette butts, candy wrappers, bright pink gobs of gum, and the pull tabs from soft-drink cans. Well, for one thing, he replied, these petunias happen to be geraniums. He bent over and looked more closely. He moved trash to the side and poked a finger in the potting soil. Then he looked up at the sky. Ah, he replied, I’m afraid your . . .

Here comes the train, the agent exclaimed, no longer interested in making small talk. The geraniums (or whatever!) hadn’t been his idea in the first place. He had planted them at the behest of a decorator from the Chicago office, a frickin’ poof, the agent suspected, who came around now and then to complain about how he took care of the place. But the agent now had a man’s work to do: no fussing over posies for him. At the first glimpse of the train, he sprang into action, climbing onto and starting a small green tractor. Attached to the tractor was a wagon carrying two packages each smaller than a shoebox. Smartly, the agent wheeled the tractor in an arc, bringing the wagon to a stop ten feet or so from the tracks. He set the brakes, jumped off the tractor, and put on gloves, getting ready, evidently, to load the packages onto the train.

The Empire Builder came around the bend into full view: twin diesel engines with ten passenger cars following smartly behind. Activated by wheels of steel, motion sensors brought the arms of a nearby crossing gate down with a crash. Lights flashed; bells clanged. The Empire Builder snorted, warning everybody to clear out of the way because it was coming through no matter what. All eyes converged on the train as a handful of passengers shuffled cautiously forward in anticipation. As they boarded the train, the massive diesels growled and trembled with pent-up fury, as if great beasts tethered to a reed, waiting impatiently to be unleashed for still another charge across the land. The air was pungent with the hot breath of burning fuel. Waiting his turn to mount the steps into one of the sleek silver cars, the professor eyed the train with unabashed adoration, momentarily forgetting his troubles and wondering why on earth anyone would ever want to fly.

Ensconced in his compartment, he sat bolt upright by the window, holding fast to his attaché case. In a few minutes his eyelids drooped from weariness. His only wish was to get as far away from Plattefield as possible and to leave behind his manifold troubles. When the train jerked forward, his eyes blinked open momentarily and he remembered the strange conversation he had had with the 911 dispatcher. There was something decidedly odd about that conversation, he knew, but before he could quite put his finger on it, he nodded off again.

Carrying her notepad, Darlene Darrympal hurried through the Plattefield Police Station to a tiny room looking out on the public reception area through a bulletproof glass window, one of those windows with a push-under-and-through tray at the bottom and a voice-hole at the center covered by a stainless steel grid. Officer Wade Johnson broke off clipping his nails to hear what Dingbat Darlene was so excited about.

Hmm, he reflected on her none-too-coherent account. A dead homo, huh? He wondered why life always had to get so damned complicated and wished there were a detective on duty so he wouldn’t have to make a decision. I suppose I should call Moran, he muttered as much to himself as to Ms. Darrympal. He examined the progress he’d made on his nails as she hustled back to the emergency phone.

Wade Johnson didn’t want to telephone Detective Phillip Moran, the police department’s most senior detective. In his opinion Moran was a crusty old bastard. Johnson shared the view of a colleague who once said during the heat of an argument, You wanna know what’s wrong with you, Moran? Your head is screwed on wrong! Yeah, exactly, Johnson thought at the time, and he had thought so ever since. As a rule, Officer Johnson strove to have as little contact with Detective Moran as possible; he did not relish having to call him on a beautiful Sunday morning. His dillydallying paid off. Just as he was reaching for the phone, the department’s most junior detective, Patrick Delaney, entered the reception area through the street door.

Yo, Pat, said Johnson through the voice-hole. A happy guess-what grin was plastered on his face. We just got a report there’s a body in Pilgrims Park. You wanna go investigate or should I call Moran?

Oh, shoot, grumbled Patrick Delaney. I was just stopping by to pick up some trout flies from my office. I’m on my way to church. Well shoot, I’d better drive over there and have a look. I wouldn’t call Moran, though. It could be a hoax.

The two officers discussed Darrympal’s report of a body in Pilgrims Park and her conjecture that the two men involved (the one deceased, the other anonymous) were gay. Then Johnson buzzed Delaney through a security door into a large room broken up into a kind of rat’s maze of cubicles, with five-foot high dividers giving the officers a little privacy when they made calls, filled out activity reports, and interviewed suspicious characters. Delaney went to his cubicle where he rummaged around in his desk drawers until he found the right form, a clipboard, and a plastic bag of trout flies. His desktop junk included a photo of his parents on their fortieth wedding anniversary. From a second photo, a striking young woman with large dark eyes and black hair watched the viewer with an enigmatic smile. Her pose was theatrical and revealed a bare shoulder. Walking back through the reception area, Delaney heard Johnson say, Happy hunting. Without turning back, Delaney merely raised his right hand above his shoulder and waved good-bye. Good-bye or get lost: Johnson wasn’t sure which, grinning as he watched Delaney exit the station.

A strapping, broad-shouldered man, Patrick Delaney’s arms and legs swung wildly as he crossed the street, as if each limb had declared its independence from the others and was about to strike out on its own. For attendance at Sunday mass, he had put on a white shirt and tie. He was newly shaved. Although his sandy hair had been freshly washed and nicely combed, his pompadour had already begun to crumble in the face of unruly curliness. With baby blue eyes, a cleft chin, protruding ears, and a freckled boyish face, Patrick Delaney didn’t look much like a policeman. An overgrown boy chorister, was how Phillip Moran’s wife had once described him.

Everybody liked Delaney, though, and everybody knew he was pining with a broken heart. His laughter came readily, but not as readily as before his girlfriend upped and left him for an acting career in LA. Then, too, there was that certain sadness in his eyes that made the older women of his acquaintance (mainly the wives of the other detectives and those of his three older brothers) want to mother him, make chicken soup for him when he had a cold, or bring him a T-shirt when they returned from vacation. They conspired to find him a suitable partner, agreeing that Loretta Samuels wouldn’t have made him a good wife anyway; so it was just as well she had run off to California. And it was universally acknowledged among the eligible young women of his acquaintance that, being single, handsome, and a devout Catholic with a good job, Patrick Delaney must be in want of a wife and was therefore surely the rightful property of one or the other of them. They came vibrantly alive whenever he appeared on