Murder Misread by P.M. Carlson Page A

could do
for her. Fuss over her. But hell, she’d better get used to that.
Everyone would fuss.
    The back door slammed,
then Walensky climbed into the front passenger seat next to his
driver. Seemed to be the same young fellow Anne had met on the
path, though it was hard to tell from the back of his neck. He
needed a trim, looked almost shaggy next to the captain’s neatly
clipped head. But Walensky’s gray short-sleeved shirt was
sweat-stained and wilting, she saw as he plopped one arm along the
top of the seat back. There was a scar on the back of his upper
arm, a long red line dotted on both sides with stitch marks so that
it looked like a ghostly zipper. And these sweating, scarred
fellows were supposed to catch Tal’s killer. God. She looked away,
out the window.
    Walensky said to the
younger man, “Library first, Pete.”
    The car moved smoothly
from the curb, passing a second Security car where Bart and Charlie
were being invited to climb in. Walensky swabbed his forehead with
a rumpled handkerchief, frowning at them, then glanced back at
Anne. “Sorry about that Hines fellow, Mrs. Chandler,” he said.
“Those city cops are clumsy as elephants.”
    “ It’s all right,” said
Anne.
    “ Those guys don’t
understand,” Walensky went on. “A campus community is different.
Where young Hines comes from, downtown, well, a little head-bashing
may be necessary. But up here on campus we’ve got a basically
law-abiding community. Strong feelings about politics, sure, but
even that’s cooled off in the last ten years. Anyway, that’s not
involved in a case like this. Get a lot more information with kid
gloves than bludgeons.”
    Anne felt far away,
looking down at Walensky as though at an insect, a life-form whose
little hungers and desires were pitiful compared to her own
enormous need. He buzzed on, “See, Hines is a real stickler for all
the rules. Doesn’t realize the rules are for a whole other class of
people. Now, your campus community, you don’t want to force things
into pigeonholes. These are bright people. You want to let them
make some connections. Let them think things through. Speed things
up in the long run.”
    “ Captain,” said Anne
bitterly, “just catch the killer, all right?”
    “ Sure!” He shifted on his
seat so he could see her better. “That’s what I’m talking about!
I’ll do my best, but that Hines—still, the guy who did it is
probably from downtown. Hines’s territory.”
    “ Maybe cooperating is
best,” said Charlie’s statistician pacifically.
    Walensky snorted.
“Cooperate? That’s a new word to Sergeant Hines. Muscle his way in,
is more like it,” he grumbled. “Here’s the library. Pull over,
Pete.”
    Anne’s eyes had wandered
to the statistician. She looked so familiar. Anne’s mind snatched
eagerly at the distraction: who was this woman? Charlie had said
Maggie something. That seemed to fit. But fit what? Something dim
in her memory. She watched her say good-bye to the student Dorrie,
who was climbing out of the car. Then Maggie pulled the door closed
and settled into the far corner, stretching lanky legs toward the
middle of the car. She glanced at Anne. Deep blue eyes in a
pleasant squarish face, a mass of feathery black curls. Anne saw
that face suddenly in black and white. Newsprint. Tragedy. She
blurted, “Jackie Edwards.”
    Maggie nodded. “You taught
one of Jackie’s favorite courses. French drama.”
    “ My god. You’re her
roommate!”
    “ Yes.”
    “ The one who caught the
guy.”
    “ I helped, yeah.” Sorrow
shadowed the blue eyes.
    Walensky had been leaning
out his window, giving some kind of instructions to the student
they were leaving. Now he turned to look at Maggie. “What guy? Wait
a minute—Margaret Ryan. Not the Triangle Killer?”
    Maggie nodded again, her
mouth grim.
    “ Christ,” said Walensky.
“Small world.”
    Anne remembered Jackie
Edwards. A lively, pert young grad student, full of promise and
enthusiasm. That