Hangman's root : a China Bayles mystery Read online

  Dottie looked at me, then away. "I thought maybe you could just kind of handle this," she said slowly. "You could talk to him. You're a lawyer. You can get people to . . . stop doing things they shouldn't. Like threatening my cats."

  Now I was sure I was being used, and although I understood Dottie's motives, it made me angry. When I replied, I was terse.

  "A death threat is police business. They'll examine the handwriting, the printing, the paper. They'll look at everything before they attempt to decide who sent the three letters." I paused and looked her straight in the eye. "If there's any indication that Har-wick isn't the one who wrote them—" I stopped. I'd already made my point.

  "Okay, okay," Dottie growled. She scooped all three letters into the drawer and stood up. "There's something I want to show you." She took a camera off a shelf and checked the flash. "Come on. We're going to the basement."

  I stood up too, hoping I'd heard the last of that letter. However Dottie intended to take revenge on Harwick for catnapping Ariella and threatening her rescue project, framing him with a bogus murder threat definitely wasn't the way to do it.

  The basement of Noah's Ark was a warren of hallways, labs, and graduate student offices. The section where Dottie was taking me was apparently only used for storage and utilities. The hallway was so dimly lit that there was barely enough light to see the cracks in the cement floor and the water stains on the walls.

  "Not very pretty, huh?" Dottie said as we ducked under a steam pipe. "Just wait until you see this. " We had come to the end of the hallway. She produced a key from her pocket, unlocked the solid-core door, and pushed it open. "I came looking for the source of a bad odor in my office this morning, and I found this." Her sarcasm was scorching. "I wonder what the animal rights people will say when they get a look."

  The stench of animal odor, ammonia, and disinfectant hit me Hke a fist, and I took an involuntary step backward. "What is this place?" I asked, when I could breathe.

  "It's an animal holding facility," Dottie said disgustedly.

  The windowless room was dark and airless and smaller than my shop. Against one cement wall were shelves of caged mice, hamsters, rabbits, many of the cages caked with filth, urine and rust encrusting the wires. Along another wall were stacked dozens of cages of guinea pigs, with three and four animals crowded into a cage—over a hundred in all. Along a third wall were smaller cages housing frogs, lizards and other reptiles, even a few birds. Opened sacks of food pellets, trash cans overflowing with litter, and boxes of supplies were stacked along the fourth wall, some of them wet from a dripping pipe under a filthy scrub sink. A bag of apples had broken. Moldy fruit, much of it gnawed by rats, was scattered across the floor. A shelf held a litter of file folders and papers—animal records, I supposed.

  I looked around, incredulous at the dirt, the neglect, the wretched conditions. The sight dispelled any myths I might have held about how scientists treated their animal subjects. "God," I breathed. "This isawfulV

  Dottie stepped forward, aimed the camera at the bank of guinea pigs, and shot. The flash was blinding in the dark room. "It's worse than awful," she said, cocking the camera. "I assume that Harwick is holding the guinea pigs for his experiment. The rest—the frogs, the reptiles, the rodents—are headed for his vertebrate anatomy lab." She recocked and took a close-up of an open feed sack in which a dozen disgusting cockroaches were having lunch. "He insists on having students prepare dissections themselves, under his supervision. Which means starting with live animals."

  I frowned. "What else would he start with?"

  "Prepared specimens from supply houses. That's how most

  departments handle it." She bent over and took a shot of a cage that contained a huddle of white mice, the waste tray beneath overflowing. "Normally, only about a dozen cages are kept here. The number of animals here now is far more than the room can accommodate. They're not being cared for, either." She straightened, gesturing sharply, her anger building. "Look at this mess. The cages are unspeakable. Some of the animals have no water. The ceiling paint is flaking, the spigot leaks, the floor drain has backed up, and that vent up there in the ceiling is rusted shut. There's no air circulation at all, not even a—"

  The door behind us opened. "Who are you?" a high-pitched, tremulous voice demanded. "How'd you get in? What are you doing with that camera?"

  I whirled. The speaker was a slender, intense young man of twenty or twenty-one, in white tee and dirty jeans. His dark eyes had a look that bordered on panic, and the corners of his mouth trembled under a straggly brown mustache. His long, tapered fingers were closed around a pipe wrench. He raised it.

  I took a step back. The kid was scared, and sometimes scared people react violently. But Dottie stood her ground, wielding a natural authority that was far more intimidating than the pipe wrench.

  "/ am Dr. Riddle," she said imperiously. "I let myself in with a key from the chairman's office so I could document this mess. Who the hell arej/ow?"

  The young man stared at her uncertainly, his upper lip twitching. Then he turned to the sink, dropped to one knee, and applied the wrench to the trap under the sink with a surprising strength. "My name is K-K-Kevin Scott," he said, twisting the wrench as if he were wringing somebody's neck. "I work here." I wondered if he ever cursed the fate that had saddled him with a name he couldn't say without stuttering.

  Dottie's tone was caustic. "If by 'work here' you mean that

  you're responsible for this facility, you're doing a piss-poor job. There are at least a dozen violations of the USDA animal care code. Drainage, ventilation, lighting, sanitation, cage space, food storage—and that's not the end of it. An inspector would throw the book at you."

  Kevin stood up, blinking rapidly. His face was pasty and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. I couldn't tell whether he was scared to death of Dottie, overwhelmed by the presence of two aggressive-looking women, or borderline psychotic. He spoke with deliberate slowness, trying to control his nervous stuttering.

  "I'm only p-p-paid for t-ten hours a week. I've got to hold another job to stay in school, so I can't afford to spend extra t-time here. In t-t-ten hours, it's all I can do to feed, change the water, and clean the worst c-c-cages." He gnawed at his lip. "The c-c-cage washer broke down in January, right after I was hired. They haven't b-b-bothered to fix it."

  "Why doesn't the department give you more hours?" I asked. "And repair the equipment?"

  "You t-t-tell me." His glance flicked nervously to Dottie's camera, then to the cages and around the room. Clearly, he didn't want us here. Was it because he was ashamed of the mess? Or was there another reason?

  "The problem is the extra animals," Dottie said. "The guinea pigs for Harwick's experiment." Her voice held an undisguised note of triumph. "If it weren't for those hundred animals, you could handle the rest in ten hours a week, easily." She fixed Scott with a sharp look. "Couldn't you?"

  At the mention of Harwick, the boy's head jerked. His tongue darted out and licked at his mustache. His "P-p-probably" was almost inaudible.

  Dottie's eyes narrowed. "Does Harwick know about this situation? What about Castle?"

  Kevin Scott looked uneasy. "Dr. C-C-Castle has never been down here. I asked him to c-come, but he d-didn't have t-time. Dr. Harwick drops in every d-d-day or so."

  "Of course he does." Dottie was bitterly amused. "I'll bet Harwick comes down here every morning to make sure that none of the animals managed to get away in the night. But he doesn't stay to clean cages."

  Kevin's Adam's apple hobbled. "What are you going to d-d-do?"

  "Get Castle down here. For starters. If he doesn't repond, I'll go to CULAC. If that committee doesn't act, I'll get the USDA animal health inspector here." There was an unpleasant smirk on her face. "That'll make the good old boys move their butts."

  Kevin's eyes were apprehensive. "D-d-do you think you could d-d-do it without getting me in t-trouble? Like, this isn't really my fault, you know. I t-t-tried to t-tell Dr C-
Castle that something had to be done, but he said there wasn't any money to p-pay me to work more hours."

  I shook my head. In the hierarchy of things, student employees aren't very far above the lab animals. Unless I missed my guess, the boy hadn't tried very hard to wring more hours out of Castle. He was probably scared of losing what little time he already had. But Dottie wasn't afraid of the chairman. And she had leverage. I looked around. This place would give her a lot of leverage.

  "What about Harwick's grant money?" I asked. "If his grant bought the guinea pigs for his experiment, it ought to be paying for their upkeep. Why isn't it?"

  "Yeah," Dottie muttered. She backed up two paces and took a picture of Kevin Scott framed against a backdrop of filthy, overcrowded cages. "Good question. Why isn't it?"

  Kevin looked as if he'd like to yank the camera out of her hand but didn't dare. "I have to get to work," he said. His voice

  was shrill, and he tried again, bringing it down a notch. "I'm sorry to be rude, Dr. Riddle, b-b-but—"

  "We're going," Dottie said, taking one last picture. Kevin almost pushed us out the door, and I wondered again why we made him so nervous.

  Out in the hallway, I could still smell the stench of the holding facility, which seemed to have permeated my entire body. I felt as if I'd have to strip and stand under the shower for half an hour to wash it from my hair, my skin. But would I ever be able to wash away the ugly image of so many animals, crowded, un-tended, destined for a grim fate.^

  As we went up the stairs, Dottie was gleeful. "Boy, are they in trouble," she said.

  I didn't think she was talking about the guinea pigs. "Harwick and Castle.^"

  "Right. Violations of the Animal Welfare Act. When the USDA sees that mess, they'll shut it down. Which means that Castle will have to answer a lot of embarrassing questions and Harwick could even stand to lose his grant. You don't fool around with the USDA—especially with PETA barking at their heels."

  "PETA.^ But they're not involved with this."

  "Not yet." Dottie grinned mirthlessly. "But it'll only take a minute to step outside and put in a word with Amy Roth, their organizer. Maybe she'd even like to see that hell-hole down there, after the kid is gone, of course."

  I glanced at Dottie's face. I knew how much she hated Harwick. But I hadn't guessed that she was vindictive enough to turn the USDA loose on him. This was a side of her I hadn't seen. I didn't much like it.

  "I'm not sure it's a good idea to go public with this before you confront Castle and Harwick," I said cautiously. "They'll probably clean things up. They won't want to risk—"

  "Fuck them," Dottie said distinctly. "They knew about the

  L

  problem and they've had plenty of time to correct it. Vve got the whip hand now. And I'm not afraid to use it, either."

  Never again will I slam my dreams, I thought as we reached the first floor. Outside, I could hear rhythmic hand-clapping and shouts of "Save the Ark!" and "Hang Harwick instead!" The rally was still going on.

  Then, suddenly, the shrieking was inside the building. Rose Tompkins was running heavily toward us, arms outflung, skirt flapping around her plump knees, her Cabbage Patch doll mouth a crimped O of horror.

  "Help, help!" she cried hysterically. "Get help, quick!"

  Dottie caught the heavy body. "Get hold of yourself. Rose," she commanded roughly. "What's the problem?"

  An erect, gray-haired woman came out of an office. "What's going on here?" she demanded, scowling. "Rose, stop making that horrible noise! You're attracting attention to yourself."

  Rose was like a sack of flour in Dottie's arms. "He's dead," she moaned.

  My blood chilled. "Who's dead?"

  "Dr. Harwick," she cried. "He's hung himself!"

  Dottie stared, uncomprehending. "Dead? Harwick?"

  Rose moaned. "I saw him hanging there. It's horrible, horrible!"

  Cynthia Leeds, the soldierly senior secretary, took charge.

  "Stop babbling. Rose. Come into the office and sit down while I

  call Campus Security and the dean's office."

  Protocol, I thought. Everything had to go through channels. I

  put my hand on Rose's arm. "Where did you find him. Rose? Are

  you sure he's dead?"

  "In his office." Rose's eyes were closed. She could barely

  manage the words. "I went right up to him and touched his hand.

  It was . . . cold." Dottie made a comforting sound and tightened

  her grip as Rose sagged against her.

  "I'll go see," I said and stepped back. "Where is it?"

  "One-oh-five," Dottie said. "Across from my office."

  I turned to Cynthia Leeds. "When you call Security, tell them

  to come in by the parking lot entrance."

  "What's going on here?" A spectacled, long-haired male came

  up, carrying an armload of books. With him was a young woman

  with a box of test tubes. "Can we help?"

  I was already several steps down the hall. "Stand at the quad

  entrance," I ordered the startled man. "Don't let anybody into

  the building." To the woman, I added, "Ditto the parking lot entrance. When the police come, send them to Dr. Harwick's office."

  Dottie was handing Rose over to Cynthia. "I'll come too, China."

  "No," Cynthia said quickly. "You come with me. Dr. Riddle."

  Dottie turned her head to glare at Cynthia. "I don't have to take orders from—"

  But I was already on my way down the hall. I didn't want Dottie with me. I was operating on the same premise the cops would: the fewer the better where a death scene is concerned.

  Harwick's door was open. I stepped inside, nudging the door shut behind me with my heel, shivering, not wanting to see what I knew was there.

  His slight body, slender as a boy's, was suspended by what looked like nylon rope from a pipe three or four inches below the twelve-foot ceiling. His head was pulled sharply askew by the clumsy-looking knot, his face gray-blue, his eyes wide open and bulging. He was clad in brown slacks and a rumpled white shirt with a coffee stain on the pocket and the sleeves partly rolled up. The toes of his brown shoes dangled just below the edge of the desk. It looked as if he had climbed up, pushed the rope over the pipe, stuck his head in the noose, and stepped off to dance into eternity. Watch that last step, I thought irrelevantly. It's a doozy. I touched one hand, and shivered. He had been dead for some hours.

  I looked around. Two walls of the small office were lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves, but instead of books the upper shelves were filled with the gleaming ivory skeletons of small mammals displayed in a carefully graduated order and aligned a precise inch from the edge of the shelf, like art objects in a museum. Each was mounted on a black-lacquered block that bore an engraved plaque identifying the species in Latin— Procyon lotor, Lepus californicus, Rattus rattus. Lower shelves displayed fish and reptile skeletons, mounted with the same artful care and pride. The lowest were lined with gleaming jars containing transparent

  fluid and things that had once been Hving flesh. Everything was meticulously composed and orderly, even beautiful, and I couldn't see a speck of dust. I couldn't help contrasting the living animals downstairs, crowded, uncared for, inhumanely caged in their own excrement. Harwick's profession had been the study of the beauty and variety of living beings, but this multitude of artifacts seemed to hint at an almost pathological preoccupation with death. In this setting, his hanging body also seemed artifactual, and not at all out of place. Just another of the specimens, hung up on display.

  The desk Harwick had danced off was also neat. There was a grade book and a stack of student quizzes, tidily ordered. The one on top had a big red "F" printed on it—had Harwick killed himself in a fit of depression over some kid's performance? There was also an empty cup with a coffee-colored puddle in the bottom, reading glasses, a pipe, an ashtray made—naturally—out of a hoof.

  I looked again. The
ashtray was filled with ash and charred bits of paper. One of the "F" papers, burned because it was too awful to read? Or something connected to his suicide? A draft of a note, perhaps, or the note itself, written and then rejected. I looked up at the body, hanging like the straw man the demonstrators had strung up in the tree an hour ago, and the flesh prickled on my shoulder blades. Their demands had been met. Harwick's animal experiments were finished. Harwick was finished.

  I was facing the door when it was pushed open. An irate male said, "What's this I hear about—" The sentence ended in a gurgle.

  "Hello, Dr. Castle," I said.

  Frank Castle's "Oh my God!" was a bare whisper. He stared open-mouthed at the apparition hanging from the ceiling. He was tall and striking in a charcoal pin-striped suit, pale pink shirt, and tasteful gray-and-pink tie. There was no softness in his face, and his gold-framed glasses and carefully trimmed salt-and-pepper

  hair gave him the look of a man who demanded respect. Lines of control appeared like deep parentheses on either side of his mouth, and he had the wiry, disciplined look of a serious jogger.

  He closed his mouth with an audible gulp and looked at me. "Who are you?"

  "China Bayles," I said. "We met at Dr. Patterson's house a couple of months ago."

  "Oh, yes. The defense attorney" His eyes were once again engaged with the thing on the rope. "What are you doing here?"

  "Ex-defense attorney. Miss Leeds asked me to stand guard until Campus Security gets here." I spoke gently. "I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."

  He turned to me, jaw tightening, eyes suddenly fierce. He had remembered who was in charge in this building. " YouVe got a helluva nerve! Miles Harwick was my best friend! And this is my department! I ought to order you out." Involuntarily, with something close to fascination, his eyes skittered back to Har-wick's body. "How could Miles do such a thing?" he muttered to himself, as if he had forgotten about me. ''Here, of all places. The publicity—" He shook his head sharply, as if to clear it. "How could he involve the department in this?"