Too Many Cooks

“No autopsy. The doctor who examined the body said Hale died of a broken neck, a tragic consequence of the fall. He estimated the time of death to have been between ten and midnight. And the medical examiner set it down as accidental death. But there really wasn’t any kind of an investigation to speak of. Most distressing.”

“All right,” I said, “let’s assume for purposes of discussion that there is a murderer. Care to nominate any candidates?”

Cortland squirmed in the red leather chair, and twice he started to say somethng, but checked himself. He looked like he was having gas pains.

I gave him what I think of as my earnest smile. “Look, even though you’re not a client—not yet, anyway—I’m treating this conversation as confidential. Now, if you have evidence of a murder—that’s different. Then, as a law-abiding, God-fearing, licensed private investigator, I’d have to report it to the police. But my guess is you don’t have evidence. Am I right?”

He nodded, but still looked like something he ate didn’t sit well with him. Then he did more squirming. The guy was getting on my nerves.

“Mr. Cortland, I appreciate your not wanting to come right out and call someone a murderer without evidence, but if I can get Mr. Wolfe to see you—and I won’t guarantee it—he’s going to press pretty hard. You can hold out on me, but he’ll demand at the very least some suppositions. Do you have any?”

Cortland made a few more twitchy movements, crossed his legs, and got more fingerprints on his lenses. “There were a number of people at Prescott who … weren’t exactly fond of Hale,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “I’d, uh, chalk a lot of it up to jealousy.”

“Let’s get specific. But first, was Markham married?”

“He had been, but his wife died, almost ten years ago.”

“Any children?”

“None. He was devoted to Lois—that was his wife. She was one of a kind, Mr. Goodwin. I’m a bachelor, always have been, but if I’d ever been fortunate enough to meet a woman like Lois Markham, my life would have taken a Byronic richness that … no matter, it’s in the past. As far as children are concerned, Hale told me once that it was a major disappointment to both him and Lois that they never had a family.”

“What about relatives?”

“He had one brother, who has been deceased for years. His only living relative is a niece, unmarried, in California. He left her about fifty thousand dollars, plus his house. I’ve been trying to get her to venture here to go through Hale’s effects—we can’t begin to contemplate selling the place until it is cleaned out, which will be an extensive chore. Hale lived there for more than thirty years.”

“Has the niece said anything about when she might come east?”

“I’ve talked to her on the phone several times, and she keeps procrastinating,” Cortland whined. “When I spoke to her last week, she promised that she’d arrive here before Thanksgiving. We’ll see.”

“Okay, you mentioned jealousy earlier. Who envied Markham?”

He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “Oh, any number of people. For one, Keith Potter.” He eyed me as if expecting a reaction.

“Well, of course,” I said. “Why didn’t I think of him myself? Okay—I give up. Who’s Keith Potter?”

Cortland looked at me as if I’d just jumped out of a spaceship nude. “Keith Potter is none other than the beloved president of Prescott.” He touched his forehead with a flourish that was probably supposed to be a dazzling gesture of sarcasm.

“Why was Potter jealous of Markham?”

I got another one of those long-suffering-teacher-working-with-a-dense-student looks. “Partly because Hale was better known than Potter. In fact, Hale was arguably the most celebrated person in the university’s history. And we’ve had three Nobel prize laureates through the years.”

I nodded to show I was impressed. “So the president of the school resented its superstar teacher. Is that so unusual? I don’t know much about the academic world, but one place or another I’ve gathered the impression that most colleges have a teacher or two who are often better known than the people who run the place.”

“Unusual? I suppose not. But Potter—excuse me, Doctor Potter—is an empire builder. His not-so-secret goal is to sanctify his name by increasing the endowment to Prescott, thereby allowing him to erect more new buildings on the campus. The edifice complex, you know?” Cortland chuckled, crossed his arms over his stomach, and simpered.

“I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but that’s not so unusual either, is it? Or such a bad thing for the university?”

“Maybe not,” Cortland conceded, twitching. “If it’s accompanied by a genuine respect for scholarship and research, uh, things that all schools aspiring to greatness should stress. But Potter desires, in effect, to upraise a monument to himself. That goal easily eclipses any desire on his part to improve the facilities purely for academic reasons.”