C Corwin - The Cross Kisses Back

“You’re the one with the steel trap mind, Maddy. Was anyone within a hundred miles of Kent State mysteriously poisoned in the last three years?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“And what college student carrying a full load, and working part-time, and getting loaded, and trying to get laid, would have the time to frame Sissy James? Find out she was a former member of the Heaven Bound Cathedral who’s having an affair with Buddy Wing’s old protege? Who has a secret child in Mingo Junction? Who she visits every Thanksgiving? This is Kent State we’re talking about, not Yale.”

“If it’s that far-fetched why are we even wasting our time going to Kent?”

“You got me.”

We were going to Kent State, of course, because the regular presence of strangers backstage at the cathedral would be an important part of Aubrey’s stories on the murder. She’d explore the two possibilities: one, that the real killer was someone everybody knew; two, that the real killer was someone nobody knew. She’d play it straight, not trying to identify possible suspects, not even hinting at possible suspects. But everyone reading her series would know who all the possible suspects were. And everyone would come to the same conclusion: The Hannawa police were too hasty in accepting Sissy James’s confession.

We drove through downtown Kent to the campus. Except for a few black squirrels and a few summer students, the campus was empty. We parked in a visitor’s lot and walked past the slope where on that horrible spring day in 1970 the Ohio National Guard had turned and fired. We followed a sidewalk trimmed with beds of red geraniums to Taylor Hall.

Inside we waited for twelve minutes for Dr. Cooksey to come out of his office. He was a tall, overweight man of fifty. He was wearing faded tan Dockers and a white polo shirt. He was not happy to see us.

The walls of his office were covered with glossy publicity photos of network news reporters and anchors. All were upside-down. Perhaps to show his students what a daring iconoclast he was. Perhaps so they wouldn’t feel in awe of the on-air stars they’d encounter once they graduated and went to work at some dippy little station like the one in Hannawa.

Anyway, Dr. Cooksey was not happy to see us and told us so: “I shouldn’t even talk to you. It can’t possibly do my students a lick of good.”

I quickly turned to Aubrey, to see how she was reacting. Her eyebrows were raised. She was tapping her chin with her pen. Behind her on the wall was a grinning upside-down Dan Rather. “A story goes where a story goes,” she said.

Dr. Cooksey leaned back in his chair and neatly inserted his fingers under his armpits. “But do you have a story, Miss McGinty?”

She ignored his question and asked the first of hers. “How many years have you been sending students to the Heaven Bound Cathedral?”

“I told you on the phone, seven or eight.”

“I was hoping you’d looked it up.”

“Eight.”

“And Elaine Albert came to you with the idea?”

“That’s right. She’s who you should be talking to, you know.”

“I would if she’d talk. Maybe you can put in a good word?”

“Not going to happen.”

The hostility between Aubrey and the professor was simply chilling, and embarrassing. I know there’s a natural animosity between print and broadcast people, but this was so nasty and personal. It was like Jerry Falwell and Larry Flint discussing celibacy on one of those cable talking-head shows. No respect whatsoever. No hope in the world of finding common ground.

“Do you know how many of your students were working there the semester Buddy Wing was killed?” Aubrey asked.

“Three, four, maybe five.”

“Any chance you could find out for sure? Maybe give me their names?”

“Look, Miss McGinty. This thing isn’t an official intern program where I get personally involved. All I do is post a flier that part-time jobs are available at the cathedral. The kids make the contact themselves.”

“Doesn’t the cathedral ever call you for references?”

Dr. Cooksey was losing and he knew it. “Sometimes.”

“That semester?”

“Can’t remember.”

Aubrey wrote that down and underlined it several times. “You can see how these quotes are going to come out, don’t you?” she said. ‘Cooksey refused to say.’ ‘Cooksey said he couldn’t remember.’”

“Quote whatever you want,” the professor said. “But I do not keep a written record of those kind of calls. If Elaine, Mrs. Albert, calls about a student who’s applied for a job, I check my grade book and attendance sheet and offer an opinion. I don’t keep a record.”

Aubrey, to her credit, wrote down his explanation. “So, what did you think when Buddy Wing was poisoned? You had three, four, maybe five students working there, after all.”

He smirked. “You mean did I warn my students not to kiss any Bibles while they were over there? Naturally we talked about it in class the next week.”

“Did any of them happen to tell you where they were backstage when he toppled over?”

“Gee whiz-I just don’t remember any of those conversations.”

Aubrey closed her notebook and put the cap on her pen. “Do you ever personally go to the broadcasts, to see how your students are doing?”

“I went a couple of times. Years ago when they first started hiring my kids. But I haven’t been there for ages. I sure wasn’t there the night Wing was poisoned, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

When Aubrey stood up her hair swept across the Dan Rather photo, almost knocking it off the wall. “I wasn’t getting at that. But thanks for the lead.”

We left Taylor Hall and retreated through the red geraniums. Aubrey couldn’t stop laughing. “Did you ever meet a bigger dickbrain in your life?”

“I’ve been around a long time-I’m sure I have. But he’s right up there.” I saw a tuft of wiry grass growing up through the mulch and stopped to yank it out. “You’d almost think he was covering up for one of his students, wouldn’t you?”

“What he was covering was his own tookus.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t think he killed Buddy Wing?”

Now Aubrey laughed at me. “Remember when we first got there? And he said talking to us couldn’t possibly do his students any good? What he meant was that talking to us couldn’t do him any good. These professors are bunny rabbits, Maddy. Frightened little bunny rabbits. Their courses are their cabbage patches. And protecting the cabbage is what it’s all about.”

I found a second tuft of grass in the geraniums. Before I could find a third, Aubrey locked her arm in mine and steered me toward the parking lot. “Any idea how you’re going to get the names of his students?” I asked.

She looked at me like I’d just told her I believed in Santa Claus. She pulled her notebook from her purse and flipped it open to a page marked with a paper clip. “Marcie Peacock, Amy Kamm, Zack Zimmerman and Kiralee Presello.”

“Good gravy, why’d you drag me up here if you already had their names?”

She gave me several reasons: “To get some background. To get some color. To get some good quotes. To see the dickbrain squirm.”

“That last one seems a bit personal.”

“You bet it does,” she said. “Newspaper people have a moral responsibility to strike a blow against television whenever we can.”

“You’re not serious-”

We’d reached the car. She fumbled in her purse for her keys. “Only half serious. This is the biggest story I’ve ever covered, Maddy. I have to be thorough. And careful.”

We drove a few blocks to a Wendy’s. I got a salad. Aubrey got a baked potato and chili. “So, where did you get the names from?” I asked.