“Did Alex hurt you in some way?”
“He wouldn’t hurt a fly. You know that, if you’re really a friend of his. He’s a nice harmless boy, and I don’t want to hurt him.” She added with conscious drama: “Tell him to congratulate himself on his narrow escape.”
“Is that the only message you have for your husband?”
“He isn’t my husband, not really. Tell him to get an annulment. Tell him I’m not ready to settle down. Tell him I’ve decided to finish my education.”
She made it sound like a solitary trip to the moon, one-way.
I went back to the Administration Building. The imitation flagstone pavement of the mall was flat and smooth, but I had the feeling that I was walking knee-deep in gopher holes. Dean Sutherland’s door was closed and, when I knocked, her “Come in” was delayed and rather muffled.
Dean Bradshaw was still with her, looking more than ever like a college student on whom light frost had fallen during the night.
She was flushed, and her eyes were bright emerald green. “This is Mr. Archer, Brad, the detective I told you about.”
He gave my hand a fiercely competitive grip. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. Actually,” he said with an attempt at a smile, “it’s rather a mixed pleasure under the circumstances. I very much regret the necessity of your coming here to our campus.”
“The kind of work I do has to be done,” I said a little defensively. “Mrs. Kincaid ran out on her husband, and some explanation is due him. Did she give any to you?”
Dean Sutherland put on her grim face. “She’s not returning to him. She found out something on their wedding night so dreadful–”
Bradshaw raised his hand. “Wait a minute, Laura. The facts she divulged to you are in the nature of professional confidences. We certainly don’t want this chap running back to her husband with them. The poor girl is frightened enough as it is.”
“Frightened of her husband? I find that hard to believe,” I said.
“She didn’t pour out her heart to you,” Laura Sutherland cried warmly. “Why do you suppose the poor child used a fake name? She was mortally afraid that he would track her down.”
“You’re being melodramatic, you know.” Bradshaw’s tone was indulgent. “The boy can’t be as bad as all that.”
“You didn’t hear her, Brad. She told me things, as woman to woman, that I haven’t even told you, and I don’t intend to.”
I said: “Perhaps she was lying.”
“She most assuredly was not! I know the truth when I hear it. And my advice to you is to go back to that husband of hers, wherever he is, and tell him that you haven’t been able to find her. She’ll be safer and happier if you do.”
“She seems to be safe enough. She certainly isn’t happy. I talked to her outside for a minute.”
Bradshaw tilted his head in my direction. “What did she say?”
“Nothing sensational. She made no accusations against Kincaid. In fact she blamed herself for the breakup. She says she wants to go on with her education.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to let her stay here?”
Bradshaw nodded. “We’ve decided to overlook her little deception. We believe in giving young people a certain amount of leeway, so long as it doesn’t impinge on the rights of others. She can stay, at least for the present, and continue to use her pseudonym if she likes.” He added with dry academic humor: “ ‘A rose by any other name,’ you know.”
“She’s going to have her transcripts sent to us right away,” Dean Sutherland said. “Apparently she’s had two years of junior college and a semester at the university.”
“What’s she planning to study here?”
“Dolly is majoring in psychology. According to Professor Haggerty, she has a flair for it.”
“How would Professor Haggerty know that?”
“She’s Dolly’s academic counselor. Apparently Dolly is deeply interested in criminal and abnormal psychology.”
For some reason I thought of Chuck Begley’s bearded head, with eyes opaque as a statue’s. “When you were talking with Dolly, did she say anything about a man named Begley?”
“Begley?” They looked at each other and then at me. “Who,” she asked, “is Begley?”
“It’s possible he’s her father. At any rate he had something to do with her leaving her husband. Incidentally I wouldn’t put too much stock in her husband’s Asiatic perversions or whatever it was she accused him of. He’s a clean boy, and he respects her.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Laura Sutherland said, as though I wasn’t. “But please don’t act on it precipitately. Dolly is a sensitive young woman, and something has happened to shake her very deeply. You’ll be doing them both a service by keeping them apart.”
“I agree,” Bradshaw said solemnly.
“The trouble is, I’m being paid to bring them together. But I’ll think about it, and talk it over with Alex.”
Chapter 6
In the parking lot behind the building Professor Helen Haggerty was sitting at the wheel of the new black Thunderbird convertible. She had put the top down and parked it beside my car, as if for contrast. The late afternoon sunlight slanting across the foothills glinted on her hair and eyes and teeth.
“Hello again.”
“Hello again,” I said. “Are you waiting for me?”
“Only if you’re left-handed.”
“I’m ambidextrous.”
“You would be. You threw me a bit of a curve just now.”
“I did?”
“I know who you are.” She patted a folded newspaper on the leather seat beside her. The visible headline said: “Mrs. Perrine Acquitted.” Helen Haggerty said: “I think it’s very exciting. The paper credits you with getting her off. But it’s not quite clear how you did it.”
“I simply told the truth, and evidently the jury believed me. At the time the alleged larceny was committed here in Pacific Point, I had Mrs. Perrine under close surveillance in Oakland.”
“What for? Another larceny?”
“It wouldn’t be fair to say.”
She made a mock-sorrowful mouth, which fitted the lines of her face too well. “All the interesting facts are confidential. But I happen to be checked out for security. In fact my father is a policeman. So get in and tell me all about Mrs. Perrine.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Or I have a better idea,” she said with her bright unnatural smile. “Why don’t you come over to my house for a drink?”
“I’m sorry, I have work to do.”
“Detective work?”
“Call it that.”
“Come on.” With a subtle movement, her body joined in the invitation. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. You don’t want to be a dull boy and make me feel rejected. Besides, we have things to talk about.”
“The Perrine case is over. Nothing could interest me less.”
“It was the Dorothy Smith case I had in mind. Isn’t that why you’re on campus?”
“Who told you that?”
“The grapevine. Colleges have the most marvelously efficient grapevines, second only to penitentiaries.”
“Are you familiar with penitentiaries?”
“Not intimately. But I wasn’t lying when I told you my father was a policeman.” A gray pinched expression touched her face. She covered it over with another smile. “We do have things in common. Why don’t you come along?”
“All right. I’ll follow you. It will save you driving me back.”
“Wonderful.”
She drove as rapidly as she operated, with a jerky nervousness and a total disregard for the rules of the road. Fortunately the campus was almost empty of cars and people. Diminished by the foothills and by their own long shadows, the buildings resembled a movie lot which had shut down for the night.