“You mean a song lyricist?”
“Yes. As I was telling Dr. Morgan, I wrote a bunch of songs for a musical review presented by Citrus Heights College last fall.”
“Some of which were sung by Elise,” I said.
“How long had you two known each other?” Albert asked.
“Since the beginning of the last school year, when Elise was a freshman and I was a sophomore. We both lived in the dorm, but we became friends because we had common interests. And then we decided to get an apartment together for this school year.”
“I would guess that the demand for lyricists is not great,” Sandra said, not unkindly. “I’ve written some poetry in my time and I can tell you that you can’t make a living as a poet.”
Donna sighed. “How true. Of course it’s also difficult to make a living as a singer, but Elise sang with a rock group last summer-a Christian rock group-and was going to have the lead in our May musical. At least she was getting some recognition.”
“Mark has written some poetry too,” Albert said.
“Yes, but Mark can do everything,” Sandra said, “so he doesn’t count.”
Sometimes it did seem as if Mark could do everything. “Donna brought a book of her compositions with her,” I said. I had asked her to do that. “Perhaps she can read some of them to those of us who are on dish duty.”
Before she had a chance to do that the conversation shifted to the murder. Fortunately, we had all finished eating. Sandra told Winston to go play with his car in the family room where she could keep an eye on him but he wouldn’t follow the conversation. He sat in the plastic car, supplied car noises with his voice and power with his feet as he practiced steering and driving forward and backward. He would be asking for a real car in another few years.
Donna retold the story of how she had found Elise. Although she had told it a few times already it was still traumatic for her and she had to pause to avoid being overcome by emotion as she recalled the events of that evening. Sandra gasped when she heard about the amount of blood on Elise and the bedclothes, Albert looked grim and Mark pressed his lips tightly together.
“We know Mark couldn’t have done it,” Sandra said when Donna had finished. “He knows how to pick locks.” The looks she got prompted Sandra to continue, “Well, you picked the lock of the apartment of that woman at Silver Acres last year.”
“I asked him to,” I said, quickly, “and before Donna gets the impression that she has fallen into a gang of thieves let me add that we were trying to solve another murder.”
“Did solve another murder,” Albert said, “but remember that you said you were going to retire from being a detective.”
I had promised with my fingers crossed, but to keep the peace I said, “All I’m doing right now is trying to help Mark.”
“According to the newspaper accounts,” Sandra said to Donna, “you must have just missed the murderer. Elise hadn’t been dead long when you got there.”
“No,” Donna said. Then she blurted out, “I may have seen his car.”
We became suddenly quiet, waiting for her to say more.
“As I went up the walk to the door of the apartment I saw…I saw a car pull away from the curb and drive away. The driver seemed to be in a hurry.”
“Had you seen the car before?” Albert asked. “Do you know what make it was?”
“It was dark, of course, and I didn’t get a good look, but…I don’t think I’d seen it before. It was a compact, but I’m not sure what make it was, either.”
“Another reason it couldn’t be Mark,” Sandra said, “is because he doesn’t own a carving knife. Or any other knife, for that matter. In fact, he didn’t own much of anything when he moved in with me.”
It sounded as if Sandra was trying to protect her turf-meaning Mark-from Donna. That was good news to me. If this kind of talk bothered Donna, she didn’t show it.
Albert and Sandra wanted to know about other possible suspects because the papers hadn’t yet mentioned anybody as a suspect. Donna and I gave a description of Eric Hoffman. From what she said I gathered that Donna liked him. Albert didn’t wish him well since he had placed Albert’s license plate number on his website, but we couldn’t come up with any reason why he would kill his daughter, unless she had been the Shooting Star.
I had promised Donna I wouldn’t tell Mark that Donna was the Shooting Star so I didn’t participate in the speculation about Eric Hoffman’s motive. Donna didn’t say anything, either.
We also talked about Ted, Elise’s boyfriend. Any reason that he might have for killing her was probably connected with her virtue or lack thereof, which might in turn be connected with the harassment charge against Mark. Donna soft-pedaled this, for which I was grateful since I didn’t want to upset Sandra. But we ended up without a prime suspect.
On that note we cleared the table and started to wash the dishes. Donna went out to her car and came back with her book of compositions. She read us several of her poems and song lyrics. I was pleased to hear that they had both rhyme and rhythm. I am not a great fan of what passes for poetry these days.
When I commented on this, Donna said, “As I mentioned before, I think my talents are best suited to writing song lyrics. And in general they have rhyme and rhythm. I write limericks too. Here’s one…oh my God, I can’t recite this one.”
I had seen Donna blush before like she was doing now and I guessed that the limerick was about Mark. She didn’t turn the page fast enough and Albert put his hand on it and read the poem over her shoulder.
“It’s instructive,” Albert said. “Let me read it out loud.”
“I’ll die,” Donna said, but somehow he took the book from her hands and read:
A physics professor named Mark
Had always been scared of the dark.
Said Elise, “‘It’s not dire,
Marky boy, light my fire.
We’ll banish the dark with my spark.
Everybody looked uncomfortable, so I said, to cover the silence, “Why did you use Elise’s name?” before I realized I probably shouldn’t have said anything.
“Because ‘Donna’ wouldn’t scan,” Sandra said, dryly.
Donna recovered her composure enough to say, “Elise was always saying, ‘Dr. Pappas this, Dr. Pappas that,’ as if she owned him. After all, I was taking a course from him too.”
“Do all of your students go bonkers over you?” Sandra asked Mark.
“Only the smart ones,” Mark said.
Elise’s funeral was Monday. Although I wanted to talk to her father, and her mother, if possible, this wasn’t the day to do so. I didn’t go to the funeral. Since I wasn’t a friend of Elise or her family, I didn’t think it would be appropriate. Mark didn’t go, either; Burt Brown had specifically told him not to.
I read a number of poems that I had copied, with Donna’s permission, from her book. Albert had recently purchased a new-fangled printer for his home computer that also acted as a copier and a fax machine so I made the copies on that. One of the poems went like this:
Each morning you wake with a smile.
Love came; soon you’ll walk down the aisle.
In school you excel,
Show business, as well.
Egad! You’re becoming a trial.
I suspected that Donna had written this poem for Elise, although it had no heading. However, it seemed to fit her. I assumed it was written tongue-in-cheek. The one thing that puzzled me was the use of the word, “egad,” a word that my grandfather might have used.
I stared at the poem for a while and then figured out what Donna was doing. When Tess came by to go to pool aerobics class with me I showed her the poem, saying, “Here’s a test for you, Tess. A test for Tess. Look at this poem, which was written by Elise’s roommate, Donna, and tell me how we could tell she wrote it for Elise, assuming we didn’t know anything about her.”
“Lil, you know I can’t do puzzles,” Tess complained.
“At least it’s not a math puzzle,” I said, knowing that Tess hated math puzzles. “It’s a word puzzle. Word puzzles are not my strong suit, but I figured it out so you should be able to.”