going to come crashing down doesn’t mean that I can’t talk to religious people. And besides, I try to increase harmony in the world.”
“I never said you weren’t a good person. Being a good person isn’t the same as being a religious person.”
“Amen to that.”
“Turn right at the light.”
A few more turns and we were on the street where Ted lived, in the basement of a residential house. Donna had given me his address and told me that we were likely to find him home even on a weekend because he spent a lot of his time studying, although his routine would understandably have been interrupted by Elise’s murder. Tess spotted the house and we parked 100 feet past it. My recent experiences had taught me it’s a good thing to be somewhat devious when one is a detective.
I decided that Tess might add some leavening to my vulture-like approach (using her words) and so we walked back to the house together. The long driveway was asphalt, instead of the gravel of the Hoffmans’ driveway, and thus easy walking. Our walk took us past the house, itself, an older wooden model with odd shapes projecting from the walls, forming, I suppose, nooks inside where the inhabitants found sanctuary.
The door in the back was right where Donna had said it would be so I didn’t hesitate to knock on it. There was no doorbell. My knock was followed by silence for so long that I suspected Ted was not in residence, but eventually footsteps sounded behind the door and it opened.
The young man who looked out at us was tall and quite thin, with short, blondish hair and aviator-style glasses, which gave him a studious look.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, practicing my compassion, “but I knew Elise, and I wanted to express my condolences to you. I’m Lillian Morgan and this is my friend Tess.”
“Er, thank you,” he said, looking from one of us to the other. And then, as an afterthought, “Uh, won’t you come in?”
As he turned to lead us inside I detected a whiff of what might be alcohol on his breath. Did religious people drink alcohol? There were a number of steps going down to what was clearly the basement. I hung onto Tess, whose walking was somewhat wobbly under the best of conditions. We made it all right and followed Ted into a messy room with a few pieces of furniture and two small, ground-level windows, high up on adjoining walls.
“Do you want to sit down?” he asked, lifting a pile of clothes from an old chair and throwing them into a corner. I suspected this was his only room, except for a small kitchen and smaller bathroom that I could see through open doors.
I let Tess take the closest chair because it looked firm and she had the hardest time getting up. I sat on the couch, which I was sure had a hide-a-bed hiding beneath the pillows. Ted sat in a chair with a footrest, facing a television set that was broadcasting a basketball game. A lit lamp on a table beside him didn’t help much to relieve the gloom. Neither did the dim light coming in through the windows. An open beer can and a half-eaten sandwich sat on the table. He turned off the TV with a remote.
“So you knew Elise?” he said to me.
As usual, I was conscious of the possibility of digging myself into a hole. “I knew her slightly,” I said. “She was such a bright and beautiful girl. It’s such a shame what happened.”
“Who would do a thing like that?” he said.
He slurred his words a little and looked as if he might be close to tears. Maybe he had been drowning his sorrows.
“You can take comfort in knowing that she’s in a better place,” Tess said.
Ted looked at her for a moment and said, “Right,” as if he wasn’t completely convinced of that.
“Elise told me she had filed a charge of sexual harassment against one of the professors,” I said, plunging in.
He looked at me, not showing comprehension, and I wondered whether Elise had told him about the charge. Maybe Donna had given me the wrong scoop. I wondered how to extract my foot from my mouth and why I wasn’t home in my apartment reading Reader’s Digest.
Just as I was about to retract my statement, Ted said, “First that and now this. The whole world is going to hell.”
I hoped he wasn’t going to deliver a sermon, but he became quiet again. I said, “She also told me that she was going to withdraw the charge.”
“Withdraw the charge? Why would she withdraw the charge? The man abused her, sullied her, dirtied her. He’s probably the one who killed her. He should be the one to die.”
Uh oh. I had woken him up. “If she was going to withdraw the charge, maybe that meant she…she was mistaken.”
“No, there was no mistake. She definitely wasn’t a virgin.”
Tess and I looked at each other. What made him an expert on virgins? Unless the two of them… I said, “I know how you feel. Marriage is a sacred union and should be treated as such.” When he didn’t respond, I said, “It must have been awful for you. How did you hear about…Elise?”
“Mr. Hoffman called me at about 1 a.m. from her apartment. Of course I rushed right over there.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No, it’s only about a mile. I ran all the way. I couldn’t believe it was true. I hoped it was just a bad dream.”
“And you had been here studying the evening before?”
“I…you sound just like a detective.”
Now I had really woken him up.
“I’ll bet Detective Johnson asked you that question.”
“Yeah. I guess I was upset that he would consider me a suspect.”
“Did he say that you were a suspect?”
“No. He said Dr. Pappas had probably done it.”
“He said that to you?” Tess asked, astounded.
“Yeah. I bet he did it, too. That guy’s a dirty…skunk.”
I didn’t want to argue with Ted about Mark, so I said, “I heard that you and Elise were talking about getting married.”
“Who told you that?”
Woops. “Maybe I misheard. But you have been going together for a while, haven’t you?”
“Since September. I…wanted to marry her, but she hadn’t agreed. Sometimes I got the idea she thought I wasn’t good enough for her. But she who casts the first stone…I was willing to take her, in spite of her transgressions.”
Big of you. “What are you studying?”
“Right now, liberal arts.”
“And what do you want to do when you…graduate?” I almost said, “…when you grow up.”
“I plan to go on to graduate school and study to be a minister.”
Chapter 15
Mark and I arrived at the farm early because I wanted to be present when Donna got there. At first, Mark didn’t want to go, but I gave him the old “we’re all in this together” speech and he finally acquiesced. He hadn’t seen Sandra in over a week and it was time they talked to each other.
One of the devious reasons I had invited Donna was to attempt to strike a spark of jealousy in Sandra. If Sandra became aware of the fact that Mark had his groupies, she might value him more. I also wanted to come up with a plan of action that everybody in the family could agree on and I figured that Donna could make suggestions and would also stick up for Mark, in case Sandra or Albert had any doubts about him.
Technically, Mark was violating the rules laid down by Burt about not talking to anybody connected with Elise, but this was a family gathering and he wouldn’t be alone with her so I had justified this meeting to myself.
