The Fever Cabinet, page 11
part #9 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
Francesca beamed at him, pushed away from his chest, and reached out to me again.
“I’m kinda surprised to see you back here, Professor,” Micah said as Francesca twisted around in my arms and leaned back toward him. “After everything that happened yesterday. I thought you’d wanna take some kinda leave or something.”
“Well I had paperwork to do,” I said, “and I thought it would be good to get back up on the horse, so to speak. I thought it would be safe, because apparently, I’m an idiot. Micah, why don’t you come in and sit down?”
He sat in my visitor chair with Francesca on his lap while I told him what had just happened over in Fiona’s office.
“Sounds like it was just one of the Konishi Construction guys,” Micah said. “They’re allowed to be in here, you know. Construction is behind schedule that’s why. They’re working overtime and weekends.”
“He was wearing one of those bright pink Konishi shirts,” I said, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean he was a real employee. Maybe he stole the shirt. Or counterfeited it. Or even found it at a thrift store. And who wears sunglasses indoors?”
“He must’ve had a key, but,” Micah countered. “Cause you said he was already in Professor Spencer’s office. We keep a log of everyone who has keys and you’re not supposed to copy ‘em. All the Konishi guys get ‘em, but.”
“If he was here for some innocent reason, why was he acting like that?” I asked. “Why prevent me from leaving the room? I think if Francesca’s crying hadn’t scared him off, he would’ve...I don’t know what he would’ve done, but it would’ve been bad.”
“Maybe he thought you were a suspicious intruder,” Micah pointed out. “He doesn’t know who you are, either, you know.”
“Me? I’m the least threatening person imaginable.”
Micah laughed. Francesca, still sitting on his lap, laughed too.
“If you could tell who was a criminal just by looking at ‘em, law enforcement would be a lot easier,” he said. “You can file a report if you want, Professor. Can’t promise it’ll go anywhere. It’s up to you.”
Francesca started to make discontented noises and act like she wanted to get down on the ground. I pulled a jingly butterfly toy out of my desk drawer and handed it over to her. She beamed and happily bashed the toy on my desk.
“Yes, I would like to file a report,” I said.
“It’s online,” Micah said, so I fired up my desktop computer, and Micah talked me through filling out the form. As I typed out my recollection of the incident, I realized how weak my story sounded. I had gone into Fiona Spencer’s office and found one of the Konishi Construction workers inside. He asked me what I was doing there—understandable. He eventually left. (I omitted the part about Francesca crying, of course, because I wasn’t supposed to bring her to work in the first place.)
“I think this thing is affecting me more than I realized at first,” I said when I had pressed the “submit” button. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’ve never met Fiona’s husband. Never even talked to him on the phone. I can’t imagine how much worse this must be for Fiona. Even for me, the thought of him cooking to death inside the fever cabinet, it’s so horrible. I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“They took the thing away you know,” Micah said. “It’s evidence, that’s why.”
“Come to think of it, that’s right. I didn’t see the fever cabinet in Fiona’s office. Good. I’m glad they took it. I’d hate for Fiona to have to look at it after yesterday.”
“I got some other good news too, you know,” Micah said. Francesca stuck one of the butterfly’s wings in her mouth and started to chew it.
“I’m here for good news,” I said. “What is it?”
“It’s not official yet, Professor, so don’t tell nobody, but the cause of death wasn’t the victim cooking to death like it looked like.”
Francesca dropped the butterfly toy on the floor. After Micah retrieved it and handed it back to her, I asked,
“How did he die? Here I’ll take her. And how did you hear about it?”
Micah handed Francesca across the desk to me.
“My cousin works at Mahina PD,” he said. “Remember you didn’t hear it from me. Don’t want to get nobody in trouble.”
“No, I understand. Of course.”
“I know what you mean, Professor, about not sleeping. It was making me sick to think about the poor bugga getting cooked alive, you know.”
“But you just said that’s not what happened,” I said. “Right?”
Francesca lobbed the butterfly toy straight at Micah. He caught it and handed it to her, which caused her to squeal delightedly.
“Yeah. So the good news is, he was already dead when they wen’ put ‘im in. Someone wen’ shot ‘im first.” Micah rubbed the back of his shaved head for emphasis. “That’s what my cousin said. Couldn’t tell me nothing besides that, but he heard someone else talking about it.”
“Well that’s a small mercy,” I said. “Listen, I know I’m probably worried about nothing, but do you mind walking us down to my car? I had a bunch of paperwork I was hoping to finish up, but I’ll just come in early tomorrow morning.
Molly: A Good Start
I MANAGED TO COMPLETE the Student Retention Office paperwork first thing Monday morning, thanks to a shortcut I cooked up for the dreaded Student Engagement Journal Entries. It involved a handwriting font, a random word generator, and some adjustments to my printer settings. No one in my department actually filled out the Journal Entries every week like they were supposed to, and I was fairly sure no one in the Student Retention Office actually read them, so I decided my solution should make everyone happy.
I even had some time to answer Pat Flanagan’s email. Pat and I hadn’t communicated much since he’d moved to Honolulu and taken a job at the weekly paper. I could tell he no longer found Mahina State University gossip particularly fascinating. And Pat’s new beat (Honolulu city politics) is so complex that trying to keep up gives me vertigo. But he was just assigned a feature on the history of the big Labor Day canoe race / biker convention that takes place on this island, so once again we had something to talk about. I’d actually been to the event, and he hadn’t, so I was able to give him a sense of the festive atmosphere. In his latest email Pat told me more about Mahina’s oldest biker club, which apparently is more like a civic association than anything else. The former wife of one of our trustees was one of the first women to ride with them, he informed me, and a current member of the club even owns a popular upscale bed-and-breakfast.
In my reply I told him about dropping Fiona off at her house with all the bikers hanging around her driveway. I was sure he’d enjoy meeting Fiona and her mother, I wrote, and I encouraged him to fly back and visit any time he liked.
So I started the day with a pleasant feeling of having pulled ahead of my to-do list. I’d just bundled up the Student Retention Office paperwork for intra-campus mail, when Fiona marched into my office and dropped her frail backside into one of my visitor chairs. No knock on the door, no may I come in, nothing.
I set the stack of papers down and gave her my full attention. I hadn’t seen her since we’d discovered her dead husband in her office the other day, so I assumed she was probably still feeling a little jangled. I wondered whether I should tell her about the guy poking around her office yesterday. Maybe eventually, but certainly not this minute when she seemed all stressed out.
“Molly, I’d like a word. In private. Do you have time right now?”
“Sure,” I said. “Do you want to close the door?”
“In a moment.”
Fiona pushed the chair back and went to the doorway.
“Mum?” she called out to the landing.
I’d seen Fiona’s mother twice before, but this was the first time I’d gotten a good look at her. To me she looked exactly like a character from a BBC mystery series set in the English countryside. Sensible, practical, and horsey (in both senses of the word). You were always surprised when she turned out to be the murderer. In my archetypal TV show, I mean.
“Hullo. I’m Harriet.” The woman reached across my desk and administered exactly the no-nonsense handshake I expected.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, and we all got seated. My first impression of Harriet had been completely off. Harriet was bare faced, and she wore her hair in a no-maintenance crop. But she was hardly a hobo. Her clothing was tailored to outlast fickle fashion. Her field coat was rumpled and had some burn marks around the pockets, but a new one like it would set you back a month’s rent.
“So...” I looked from Fiona to her mother and back to Fiona.
“She knows,” Fiona said.
“I do,” Harriet confirmed.
“About...Saturday?” I asked.
“Yes,” Fiona said with some asperity. “Mum knew Emmett was dead nearly as soon as I did.”
“Fiona’s office still smells of ham,” Harriet said cheerfully. “Quite upsetting, when you think about it. Fiona couldn’t remember, what was that thing called you found him in?”
“It’s called a fever cabinet,” I said. “This building used to be a medical facility and there’s still some old equipment lying around. They used it for pyrotherapy, which was basically raising the patient’s body temperature and burning out infections. I think it was invented by a doctor who noticed some of his patients who got malaria were cured of their syphilis. Sorry, that’s probably a lot more than you wanted to know.”
“Not a bit of it. It’s fascinating!” Harriet exclaimed. “How hot does it get?”
“A hundred and five degrees.”
“Fahrenheit or Celsius?”
I glanced at Fiona. She was staring at her lap, her mouth a tight line. She didn’t seem interested in hearing about the gripping history of this medical device.
“Fahrenheit,” I said.
“Is that all?” Harriet snorted. “Barely hotter than bathwater. You can hardly cook a person like a Christmas gammon at that temperature.”
“It was hotter than that,” Fiona said flatly. “I nearly burned my hand on it.”
I briefly considered sharing what Micah had told me—Emmett was dead when he was put into the device and hadn’t been killed by the heat. But I wasn’t sure Micah’s information was correct, and even if it was, Fiona might get upset I knew something about the case that she didn’t.”
“Why ever did you have the thing in your office to begin with?” Harriet asked Fiona.
“It’s not Fiona’s fault,” I said. “We completed her hire after the semester deadline so according to Facilities the office is still unoccupied and can be used as storage.”
“It looks a right tip,” Harriet said. “You should ask them to send someone in to tidy up.”
“I’ve been sending in requests for exactly that,” I said. “And actually, there was a guy in there yesterday. I don’t know what he was doing, but he was wearing a Konishi Construction shirt.”
“Finally,” Fiona said.
I decided Fiona didn’t need to know I’d reported the man to Security.
“So Fiona,” I said, “did you want to initiate your bereavement leave?”
She shook her head.
“Hardly worth it for the three days they give you. I’d rather keep myself occupied. In any event, I’m not here about the leave.”
“We need to find a lawyer,” Harriet said, “and we’re hoping you might recommend someone. I was going to take Clyde’s recommendation, but my daughter forbade me.”
“Clyde?” I asked.
“Not important,” Fiona said.
I looked from Fiona to her mother and back.
“Of course it’s your right to sue the university,” I said. “But it would be hard to find a lawyer who’s willing to take on something like that. Our legal department is really good at dragging things out—”
“Sue?” Harriet snorted. Fiona shifted uncomfortably next to her. “I’m not suing anyone. I’m about to be arrested for murder!”
Molly: Only Trying to Help
“I CAN RECOMMEND A LAWYER.” I pulled out a pad and started to write. “She happens to be a former student of mine, and she’s helped me out a lot in the past.”
“Helped you?” Fiona sounded incredulous.
“Yep. Despite my wholesome and inoffensive appearance, I actually have required the services of a criminal lawyer in the past. My grad school roommate came to visit, I took her to a Garden Society meeting, she, well, she died right there in front of everyone, and I was accused of her murder. Everything worked out in the end, I mean, here I am, not in prison, but yeah, it was a pretty stressful episode.”
“Never,” Fiona exclaimed.
“Well she’s Italian, isn’t she?” Harriet said to Fiona. “Bang tidy, the Italians, but a bit dangerous. If I were you, Fiona, I’d try a little harder not to get on her bad side, eh?”
“Molly, I do apologize for my mother,” Fiona said.
“No, it’s fine. My ancestry is Albanian, actually. Barda is an Albanian name. It’s more commonly spelled with an ‘h’ but my...never mind, it’s not important.”
I happened to know “bang tidy” means “attractive,” so Fiona’s mother had basically just deemed me sexy and dangerous. It was a welcome compliment in my book. Especially since just the other day, Emma had pointed out that because I lived in the suburbs and had a daughter, I was technically a suburban mom. That, for some reason, was far more upsetting.
“Is she expensive, this lawyer?” Fiona asked.
“She’s not cheap.”
“Money won’t be a problem,” Harriet said. “As long as this person can ensure I’m not sent up to death row, I’ll consider it money well spent. Not that I’m worried for myself, mind, but I imagine it would be terribly embarrassing for Fiona.”
“Ship has sailed, Mum,” Fiona muttered. “And Hawaii doesn’t have a death penalty in any event.”
“That’s a relief, then,” Harriet replied. “Well, I won’t pretend I liked Emmett, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have topped him given the right circumstances. I daresay, I’m parched. I suppose tea’s out of the question.”
“Honestly, Mum, this is hardly the—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I can make tea. We have a kettle.”
“I’ll make it,” Fiona said. I guess she wasn’t impressed with my tea-making skills.
“The kettle might be in the men’s room by now,” I said. “Make sure to knock first.”
Fiona stood up.
“Yes, I know.”
Fiona: Not an Abattoir
FIONA RETURNED WITH three brewed mugs of tea, to find Molly away from her desk, and Harriet about to light her pipe.
“Mum, put that beastly thing away. This is a no-smoking building.”
Harriet’s pipe paused in mid-air. She did some quick disassembly and tucked the components back into her coat. Another scorch mark, which Harriet seemed not to notice.
“Your department head seems a decent sort,” Harriet said as Fiona took her seat.
“Where is she?” Fiona asked.
“She went to get us some milk for the tea,” Harriet said. “This is rather a nice little office, isn’t it? Why does yours look like an abattoir?”
“Don’t be morbid. It looks like no such thing,” Fiona protested, but in fact it wasn’t hard to imagine blood being hosed off the green tiles and swirling down the drain at the centre of the floor. “I imagine it was an operating theatre at one time.”
“Operating theatre, abattoir, tomato, tomahto. A hundred years ago it was more or less the same thing, wasn’t it?” Harriet said.
“Got us some milk.” Molly entered, holding a little red-and-white milk container. She opened the spout and set it down on the desk between Fiona and Harriet. “Oh, Fiona, thank you for the tea. I just realized when I was walking back up here, I never had a chance to say to both of you, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Not much of a loss, let’s be honest,” Harriet said.
“Mother!” Fiona admonished.
“One of the boys found Emmett’s gun and topped himself,” Harriet said to me. “Emmett nearly got sacked but managed to worm his way out of it. Can’t imagine how the boy’s family feels.”
“That’s not fair,” Fiona retorted. “Naturally when there’s a tragedy, people want to find someone to blame. But it wasn’t Emmett’s fault.”
Harriet started to reach for her pipe pocket but stopped and poured a splash of milk into her tea instead.
“I supposed it depends on one’s definition of fault, darling. If Emmett hadn’t come to St. Aelred, the boy might still be alive.”
Molly cleared her throat.
“So anything I can help with besides the contact information for the lawyer?” she asked.
“You can tell my mother not to go round incriminating herself,” Fiona said.
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Harriet retorted.
“Why do they think your motive was?” Molly asked Harriet. “Do you know?”
“It’s probably because I caught him out with his bit-on-the-side and went spare,” Harriet replied.
“My mother confronted Emmett in a public place,” Fiona explained, because Molly looked confused. “She yelled at him—”
“Never yelled,” Harriet interrupted.
“I understand,” Molly said. “You had an argument with Fiona’s husband, and then he turned up dead. I can see how it looks bad. But I’m not a lawyer. Speaking of which, did you want her contact information—”
“I don’t see how it counts against me,” Harriet went on. “It should be the opposite, really. If I’d known he’d be getting murdered shortly, I would have pretended to be on the best of terms with him. I’ll tell you what looks suspicious, Fiona. You lying about your husband’s whereabouts.”
