4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4 by Frederick Ramsay Page A

light scotch.”
    Ike dropped ice cubes in two glasses and poured two fingers of scotch in one, added a splash of water, and fixed himself a gin and tonic in the other. “What happened to your hand?”
    “I stabbed it with a pencil.”
    “Suicide attempt gone wrong?”
    “Don’t be smart, Schwartz. It hurt like hell.”
    “You’ll have a little tattoo when that heals.”
    “What do you mean, I’ll have a tattoo?”
    “Well, usually when you push a pencil into your skin like that, some of the graphite is left behind and it shows up as a blue dot, a tattoo.”
    “Great. I’ll have something in common with my students at last.”
    “Your students have tattoos?”
    ‘”You wouldn’t believe.”
    “Where?”
    “As I said, you wouldn’t believe. The school’s nurse tells me there isn’t a single spot on a woman’s anatomy where she hasn’t seen one or more.”
    “You don’t have one?”
    “Is there any part of me you haven’t seen?”
    “Well…”
    “You see any tattoos?”
    “No, but it’s been nearly a week.”
    “That can be corrected. But first, I need this drink and we need to talk.”
    Ruth hoisted her glass, drank, and absently started popping the bubble wrap next to the clock. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the room.
    “You made coffee?”
    “Trying to stay busy. How’d your meeting go? Any substance to the rumors?”
    Ruth took a long sip of her drink, swirled the ice cubes around, and shook her head.
    “Who knows? I mean where there is smoke there’s fire, right? I don’t believe I said that. Any cliché in a storm, I guess. Actually, the head of the chemistry department said that at least forty times. It must have stuck in my head like a tune will, if you hear it often enough.”
    “I got stuck on A Pretty Girl is like a Melody one year and it took three months to get it out.”
    “How’d you do it?”
    “Cher.”
    “You replaced it with one of her songs?”
    “No, she appeared in a fantasy which stuck in my mind just as long, but I didn’t mind that so much. Speaking of tattoos…see, she would come into the room wearing this diaphanous…”
    “I don’t think I want to share that one, thanks. Anyway, since the rumors are coming from several sources, the guessing is this time they’re for real.”
    “If they are, what happens to you, Madam President?”
    “Good question.” She handed him her now empty glass. “Refill?”
    Ike fixed them each a second drink, being careful to go light on the liquor. They had some ground to cover first, and Callend going coed, might or might not be a part of it. He put the new drink in front of her. She snapped another row of blisters on the wrap.
    “I won’t know for another month, I don’t think. Board meeting is in May and I should have some sort of action before then. Lord, was it only last year that bunch shut down the art storage facility and we lost the Dillon Art Collection?”
    “Yes. The end of an era for the college, and the beginning of one for us. Am I sounding like Sixty Minutes?”
    “Not that good.”
    “Sorry. But it’s a fact. If we hadn’t had to work together on that who knows…”
    “I know. Okay. So, is that new?” She waved her hand in the direction of the clock.
    “It’s for you, for your office.”
    “It’s very nice, but I already have a clock in my office.”
    “I know, that plastic thing, it needs to be moved to a different venue. This one will look much better on the mantle of that fireplace you have.”
    She stood and bent forward to contemplate the clock. “It’s a present?”
    “Yes. For your office.”
    She studied the clock for a moment more, straightened up, and a half smile lit her face. “But a present for me?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “You realize this is the first present you’ve ever given me?”
    “No, that’s not right. I bought you a Christmas present.”
    “That doesn’t count. Christmas and birthday presents are obligatory. This is the first time you