“You’d have thought we meant to sell him into slavery.
“You’re not out of line. And I don’t mind at all.” He added, smiling, “Eugenia can be a bit… There’s no diplomatic way to put it, is there?”
Laura smiled back. “How did Vic come from such a family?”
“I used to tell her they must have found her under a cabbage plant,” he said. He’d forgotten that.
“Have you any influence with them?” asked Laura. “The father doesn’t seem unreasonable. I’m sure he’d see that it would be better for Kit to be in a familiar environment with children his own age.”
Kincaid shook his head. “I agree with you, but I’m afraid any intervention on my part would only prejudice them against your idea. Eugenia doesn’t care for me, to put it mildly.”
“I’d call that a sterling recommendation of your character,” said Laura, and this time the smile reached her eyes.
“Good,” he said, taking advantage of the opening. “Because I want to ask a favor of you.” He hesitated, not sure how far he should commit himself. In the end, he compromised, telling her what he wanted but not why. “It would help me to know how Vic spent her day on Tuesday. I’d like to talk to anyone in the department who saw her.”
“Those are the same questions the police asked.” Laura looked steadily at him.
“Yes.”
“You’re a detective, too. Vic told me. Are you helping the local police?”
“Not exactly.” He met her eyes. “This is personal.”
Laura held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded once, a signal of understanding. “I’ve got to run somethings to the printer”—she glanced at her watch—“now, as a matter of fact. But I’ll be back in a tic, and in the meantime, you could have a word with Iris—that’s Professor Winslow, if you remember, our Head of Department. And I think Dr. Eliot has a supervision finishing in about a quarter of an hour. You might catch him after that. The others are out for afternoon lectures, but then, they had heavy schedules on Tuesday afternoon as well, and probably wouldn’t be much use to you.” A model of efficiency now that he’d given her a direction, Laura pushed her chair back and stood up, then paused and plucked at the fabric of her plain, gray, long-sleeved dress. “I bought this yesterday,” she said. “I know mourning went out of fashion with the Victorians, but it felt right, somehow.”
“They understood the use of symbols,” said Kincaid. “We could do worse than to remember it.”
* * *
Iris Winslow didn’t question Kincaid about his motives. She rose from her chair behind the scarred oak desk in her office and held out her hand to him as he sat down. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said. Her sympathy, like Laura’s, seemed genuine, and he found it surprisingly hard to bear.
But Iris Winslow was both tactful and perceptive, and without waiting for him to respond, she talked of how much she had liked Vic and of what it had been like to work with her, so that he began to feel more comfortable— and even, after a few moments, as if he’d been given an unexpected gift.
“Thank you,” he said simply when she’d come to an end. “You’ve helped me fill in some of the blanks. You know I hadn’t seen Vic for a longtime until recently?”
“She spoke of you, though—oh, not at first, of course, but as we came to know one another better. She thought well of you.”
And he had let her down.
Dr. Winslow meant it as a comfort, he knew, and misunderstood his silence. “This has been too much for all of us,” she said, looking away from him, out the window that overlooked the graveled car park. “Vic’s death was shock enough, but then the police, this morning, saying she’d been murdered …” She shook her head slightly.
“I know it’s difficult—”
“No, it’s not just that. No one finds such news easy to accept under any circumstances. But for me, it’s tipped the scale. I’m tired, and I suddenly find I can’t cope with things in the way I always took for granted. I’ve decided to take early retirement.” She turned back to him and added, with a hint of amusement in her voice, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I haven’t said a word to anyone else.”
“I’m outside the loop,” he offered. “I can’t pass judgment or demand an accounting of the consequences.”
Dr. Winslow smiled. “Or perhaps I only think you’re too polite to do so.” She touched her forehead briefly, as if brushing at a gnat, and her brow creased. “Or perhaps it’s because you were close to Vic, and because of that I think you might understand. I saw something of myself in her, you see, and I suppose I had some unacknowledged wish that she might follow in my footsteps. And now it all seems rather pointless.”
“I can understand that,” he said, wondering if in Iris Winslow Vic had found a woman capable of giving her the sort of support and encouragement she’d never had from her own mother. He sensed that Iris’s loss was real and deep, not manufactured for the sake of drawing attention to herself.
“But your confidence does give me the right to express concern, Professor,” he continued. “And it seems to me that you’ve not even begun to get over the shock of Vic’s death, much less deal with the aftermath. Are you sure this isn’t a hasty decision?”
She adjusted one of the silver frames on her desk, but it faced away from him and he couldn’t see the photo it contained. “I’ve been thinking of it for quite some time,” she said. “And it’s ironic that Vic’s death has removed one of the reasons for my hesitation.” Giving the edge of the frame a final touch, almost a pat, Dr. Winslow looked up at him. “There’s no doubt that Darcy Eliot will be asked to take over my position—it’s well deserved and none too soon. But Vic and Darcy were always squabbling like naughty children, and I have to admit I feared for her position without my intervention. Now there’s no need.”
“Why didn’t they get along?” Kincaid remembered Vic’s veiled comments about problems with her colleagues.
