Passport to Murder Page 2

  “I know you, Prather. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered possible bad-luck scenarios? You’ve read too many mystery novels not to.”

  I shrugged. “Some of the professors wouldn’t be my first choice in traveling companions, but I’d never wish anyone harm.” I shuddered, recalling my run-in with murder last fall. “I just hope Arnold Frasier, the chair of the Art Department, stays safe. I want him to be my guide at the Louvre.”

  “This just gets better all the time, doesn’t it?”

  “It does.”

  “I can barely endure art majors while I’m on the clock—let alone off.”

  “Well,” I said, “he’s not exactly an art major; he’s an art professor. And hopefully he will be so busy with other artists’ work, he won’t bother me about his own.” Artists could be more pretentious than writers, and that was saying something. I could think of several examples in the English Department.

  He pulled out a mug from his desk cabinet and rubbed it on his pant leg.

  I reached for my bag. “I do happen to have my to-go mug with me. You needn’t fill it all the way.”

  He was already pouring the coffee. “This is all right, I promise. I got it from my nieces for Hanukkah.”

  I took the #1 Teacher mug and smiled.

  “I’m just happy it isn’t another English classic,” he said. “For some reason, they think every English professor is into Shakespeare, even though I teach American literature.”

  I nodded. “I have my fair share of his plays.”

  “They come out in every color over the holidays. Anyway, I’ll be staying with my sister and her girls up in Minneapolis.”

  “Why not with your parents?” I asked, trying not to smile. I already knew the answer. Just as my trips home included a lot of not-so-subtle glances at the Catholic confessional times posted on the fridge, his would include somber walks up to the Jewish synagogue.

  Yet we both love our hometowns, despite our lack of desire to live in them, and our religions, despite our temporary lapses. Though I have no siblings and he just one sister, our families are a large part of who we are.

  “I’m actually looking to cash in on a little R&R this spring break,” Lenny said. “You know, if I stayed there, Mom would have my ass up to the synagogue on day one.”

  Although Lenny and his sister had not rejected Judaism, their parents were Orthodox Jews. From our conversations, I gathered that he and his sister didn’t practice their faith in the same way: they didn’t bother with kosher, and they exchanged small gifts during Hanukkah. When I asked him if this was ever a cause of tension between them, he replied, “Only when I’m home.”

  I took a sip from my cup. “You’ll be utterly feminized by the time you return.”

  He blew on his coffee; the steam came off in tiny gusts. “I’m planning on clocking a lot of time with Dora the Explorer.”

  “If you come back with a purple backpack, I’ll know the transformation was a success,” I said, laughing.

  “And if you come back with a beret, I’ll blame André,” he said.

  I dismissed the comment. “It’s only a week. How much harm can be done in seven days?”

  Chapter Two

  With Paris on my mind, it was hard to focus on my creative writing students’ stories, and during the last draft, I found myself wondering what shoes to pack, what the weather was like, and if I needed an electrical converter for my hairdryer. Although I was capable of vast compromise—as my employment had clearly demonstrated—I refused to go anywhere without my hair dryer and diffuser. Without these tools, my natural curls hung in great ropes that rivaled Medusa’s snakes. Of course, I could always resort to a beret, I thought with a smile. Certainly one would do in a pinch.

  I noticed Claire Holt, one of my brightest but also my most critical students, cross-examining a classmate whose piece we were considering, and it brought me back to the present. The format of the course was read, review, and respond. Before class, students read each other’s drafts, and then in class, we discussed them and the writer responded. Right now, Claire sounded like a lawyer and the writer a defendant. With her square glasses and aggressive stance, Claire looked the part.

  “I don’t know if we have sufficient evidence to categorize anything with just a few pages of work,” I said, cutting off Claire’s extended critique. “Why don’t you tell the class your plans for the rest of this story, Kat.”

  Katelyn—she preferred Kat—was a keen student, except when it came to her own work. Then words escaped her, and she faltered. Her hazel eyes turned gray, her fair skin grew pale, and she disappeared into her omnipresent hoodie. “I saw this mystery on the Hallmark channel….”

  A few students snickered.

  “What? It helps me relax,” she said, clearly embarrassed.

  “Just as watching CSI helps many of you unwind,” I said, silencing the students. “Go ahead, Kat. Continue.”

  “Anyway, after seeing the movie, I picked up one of the author’s other mysteries, and the plot blew my mind. I never saw the ending coming. And it made me think I could write something like that. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I said. “Never apologize for what you’re reading—or writing.”

  “Well, I don’t have a plot yet,” said Kat.

  The bell rang. “Don’t worry. Maybe you’ll find a plot over spring break,” I said with a wink. Kat was one of the students taking the trip abroad to Paris. “Have a good week, class.” Students began packing up their bags. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

  As the last students left, I hurriedly packed up my canvas tote. Historically, attendance the Friday before spring break was sparse, but I didn’t remember how sparse until only fifteen out of twenty-three students had taken their seats at nine o’clock. The rest were getting a jumpstart on their vacations.

  Walking out of my room and into the hall, I saw Jim Giles, the chair of the English Department, dismissing what looked like a full class of students. I shook my head. They had to be upper-level English majors. Why else wouldn’t they have cut class?

  I caught Giles’s eye and waved.

  “Are you ready for your trip tomorrow?” he asked, slowly packing up his worn leather satchel. It took him two minutes to buckle the front pockets. Giles never looked or acted harried, despite the fact that he led a group of habitually harried individuals. Just seeing him reminded me to pause at the end of a sentence.

  “I hope so,” I said, coming into the doorway. “What do you know about electrical voltages?”

  In his late fifties, Giles had a tall forehead with three horizontal wrinkles that couldn’t be hidden by his sweep of neat brown hair. I imagined they appeared after many years of questioning students. They rose in question now. “Please tell me this has something to do with a curling iron.”

  “A curling iron? God, no. A hairdryer.”

  His lips formed a flat smile. “Hairdryers are standard in most hotel rooms, I believe, even overseas.”

  “Have you ever used those things? Their airflow, when they work, is next to nil. Pss. Pss. Pss. And in between sputters, my hair grows curlier and curlier.”

  Shrugging into his corduroy blazer, he joined me in the hallway. “I’m afraid I’m rather ignorant of the airflow necessary to dry your hair… although I must say I cannot imagine it any curlier than it is. I do know that Pete’s Hardware carries voltage converters. My wife acquired one there last year for our trip to Spain.”

  “Perfect. As soon as I make that purchase, I will be officially ready for Paris,” I said.

  He zipped his satchel. “I was sorry to hear André didn’t recruit as many students as he hoped for this trip abroad. It certainly makes his case for a French major a little more difficult.”

  Last fall, the dean of Arts and Sciences had promised André that a trip would mean big things for the future of French on campus. But with several students not participating and two failing fall semester, it meant André would have that many more students to recruit nex
t year. His passion and good looks were convincing; that was certain. But the French language itself was difficult and unpopular. The Native Studies Department had a much easier time of recruitment with their authentic pow-wows and fry bread, not to mention the dense population of Native Americans in the state.

  “It is disappointing,” I agreed, “but it’s hard to predict what the future holds with regard to this trip. It could turn into a voyage that our new department takes every year. I can’t imagine students not wanting in on that.”

  Giles looked skeptical. “Some students’ idea of a successful spring break is a visible tan line. If I were you, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  I nodded. He had a point. Giles was the voice of reason for the entire department, and most everything he had ever told me had proven to be true.

  Turning to me at the end of the hallway, Giles stuck out his hand. “Safe travels, Emmeline. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  I shook his hand and smiled. “Thank you. Have a good week yourself.”

  “I will.” Giles proceeded out the door.

  I stood in the entryway of Winsor, one of the oldest buildings on campus, watching the students duck into classrooms and bathrooms and corners and anywhere else where they might have a two-minute conversation. It seemed to me, looking at their youthful faces, that everything they said was vital and had to be said right now. I loved that about them—their impetuousness. It made me feel alive or in the midst of something living. Despite the images of dead men and battles fought long ago hanging on the walls, these students lived in the moment, and a part of me lived in it, too.

  I continued out the doorway, across the courtyard, and toward Stanton Hall. The hour-long break between my morning classes left me the perfect opportunity to stop by the Foreign Languages Department and see André. When our fall semester plans for the Paris trip had derailed, André was rightly upset. I had tried to assure him that having faculty join in on the excursion was an even better outcome because of the student-to-teacher ratio, but of course he was disappointed anyway. I was disappointed. If enrollment didn’t increase soon, I might become a permanent fixture in the English Department.

  Stanton Hall was one of the campus’s loveliest buildings, constructed of the beautiful rose quartzite for which South Dakota was known. The first structure on campus, it was built in 1883, only to suffer a fire ten years later. It had been fully restored to its original beauty in the 1990s. As I hurried in the door, along with several students running late, I took a quick breath and admired the heavy walnut woodwork and rich cream walls. When the air warmed and the rains came, the cleaning crew would have their work cut out for them to maintain the sheen on the immaculate marble floors.

  I peeked through the beveled window of the Foreign Languages Department, noticing two female students and a lean man in his early thirties hovering around André’s desk. The scene was stifling. Unfortunately Kristi, the department secretary and my nearby neighbor, was nowhere in sight. She would have kept the visitors organized.

  “It’s quite a collaboration, isn’t it?” the lean man was saying as I walked in. “I’m so glad I get to represent Western State’s Paleontology Department. The director of the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris has given me full access, even to the rock collection said to have influenced Henri Breuil. I’m going to write an article on it that’s sure to get published.”

  His comment confirmed he was as young as I thought he was. All new professors were worried about gathering enough publications in time for tenure.

  “Yes, it’s extraordinary,” André said in his calmest voice, but if there’s one thing the French don’t do well, it’s calm. Little beads of sweat gathered above his dark eyebrows, despite the forced smile. “Tomorrow we will discuss it at length, I’m sure. Ah. Here is Em Prather. Meet Professor Dramsdor.”

  The man straightened and turned toward me. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” he said.

  His perfect porcelain skin made him look more model than paleontologist, and I wondered at his brand of sunscreen. It must have been SPF 50 or higher. His well-defined arms and worn cowboy boots were the only testaments to his field experience.

  “No problem,” I said, smoothing my hair. Several curls had escaped the high ponytail that bushed out on the top of my head.

  “I will let you get back to work, André. I can see I’m interrupting. I’m off to see Molly Jaspers in the History Department, if you could just point me in the right direction.”

  “I’d be happy to show you the way,” I said.

  André was relieved. “Thank you, Em. That would be most helpful.”

  “Right this way,” I said, opening the office door. The man followed behind. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name when we were introduced.”

  “It’s Nick Dramsdor, from Western State,” he said. He took my hand and shook it thoroughly. Unlike his smooth face, his hands showed signs of outdoor work and were heavily callused.

  “Emmeline Prather,” I said, “from the English Department. I’m going to Paris, too.”

  “Emmeline. What a beautiful name. What is it? French?”

  I nodded. We walked in step on the walking path. He wasn’t a tall man, and his strides were easy, his boots clicking softly on the pavement. “Yes, I’m named after my great-great-grandmother, who was French.”

  “I like old names; they seem… sturdier.”

  I smiled. “My dad rues the day my mother chose that name. He said it put a lot of foolish notions into my head early on.”

  He turned toward me. “And did it?”

  “It might have,” I admitted.

  He laughed. It was a pleasant sound. If I didn’t know he was a paleontologist, I would have guessed he was a cattle rancher. Western South Dakota had a lot of successful young ranchers who exuded confidence. I had met some of them when I presented at a conference in Rapid City. His self-assurance made him no doubt popular with the ladies.

  “So, how do you know Molly?” I asked.

  “Molly is a good friend of mine; she told me about the trip. As you can imagine, I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to research with her. She’s been invited to lecture at the Sorbonne.”

  Molly Jaspers was fairly well-known on campus for her work in land conservation across the state. She was passionate about leaving the Great Plains exactly the way we found them: grassy, arid, and undeveloped. If it was up to her, buffalo would still roam the greater part of the state, and we would all live in sod houses. She was vocal in her opinions, and not everyone liked the way she inserted them into conversation or meetings. No one could argue with her academic rigor, though. She had been invited to speak all over the country on environmental issues, and I appreciated her enthusiasm for the land; the state needed people like her to champion our natural resources.

  “I am excited she’ll be joining us,” I said. I shielded my eyes from the bright daylight. “It should prove to be a very good time.” I pointed toward Winsor. “You’ll find her there, in Winsor—that stone building with the turret. Go up the stairs. History is on the second floor.”

  “Thank you so much, Emmeline. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Nick.

  “Yes, I’ll see you then,” I said, turning back toward Stanton Hall.

  When I reentered André’s office, he was talking with the two girls who had been standing near his desk. Not only was his forehead beaded with sweat, but his cheeks were red with irritation.

  “I know you would like to bring Amber,” said André. “I would like that, too. But her fee would have had to been paid in full by January. Then there are all the necessary forms to be submitted electronically to Human Resources: the application, the insurance, the health clearance. She has no time to do any of that. This is something to think about for the future. She enrolls in the program, and who knows? The sky is the limit.”

  Amber frowned. “I told you, Olivia. I knew he wouldn’t let me.”

  Olivia frowned, too. “But Professor Duman
, Amber is serious about enrolling. I promise. And I thought those guys in our class failed?”

  André shrugged. “They did. Their spots went to faculty members, I’m afraid.”

  Amber looked at Olivia. “That’s what always happens.”

  I couldn’t help but break in. “When does it always happen? It seems to me nothing such as this has ever happened before because we’ve never gone overseas before. Now, excuse us, girls, but the bell is about to ring.” I spoke as if a great deal was riding on an event that happened every fifty minutes.

  André rubbed his temples.

  “It looks like you’re having a day,” I said, taking the seat across from his desk after the door shut behind the girls.

  “Oh, I am having a day all right. People coming in at the last minute. As if I could make a ticket for Amber magically appear when we leave tomorrow. This trip has been months in the making. What are these students thinking?” His usually smooth black hair was rumpled and his voice testy. The shirt under his classic black blazer, however, was still impeccably white.

  “They’re not thinking,” I replied. “Clearly it’s too late to get anyone a ticket.”

  “Précisément! I bought the tickets the moment I had the headcount. There was a special on airfares, and I couldn’t delay.”

  “The travel fee is incredibly low. You did an excellent job obtaining discounts.”

  “I worked very hard with the old connections instead of relying on the travel company many faculty use. It meant more work for me, but it paid off.” He took a breath. He was calming down. “You got Nick Dramsdor to History?”

  I nodded.

  “Thank you, Em. You are a big help. He comes in here talking and talking and talking about all the important things he does with his life. Right now I do not care. I have much to do before tomorrow.”