Coming Up Murder Read online

  Giles explained the sonnet-writing contest to Felix and Andy.

  “How quaint,” said Andy.

  This guy was starting to get on my nerves.

  “It sounds like jolly good fun,” said Felix. “I’d like to try my hand at a sonnet again. What do you say, Andy?”

  “There’s still time,” said Giles. “The deadline for submissions isn’t until ten.”

  Andy laughed. “Oh sure. Why not? We’re here, aren’t we?”

  I scowled at the little brass buttons on his navy jacket. But Andy’s arrogance went unacknowledged by Giles, who had invested a good deal in the month of activities. From the write-in, to the conference, to the garden, Giles had procured the money despite our college’s budget constraints. The First Folio’s security alone was a consideration. They had been lucky to find the ideal spot in the Harmony Music Museum. To make it all come together, he and Reed Williams had done a lot of legwork.

  “It was nice to meet you, Felix,” I said, intentionally slighting Andy. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

  “You, also,” said Felix.

  “Goodbye,” said Giles.

  I glanced at my office, deciding against stopping. It was after five, Lenny was waiting, and I had good news to report. I skipped down the stairs. Wouldn’t he be excited! He knew how much the book meant to me and how hard I’d worked on it. From medieval letter writers to authors of modern-day romances, each individual I discussed expressed herself in unique ways. In my mind, I had given a voice to the voiceless—women who weren’t considered serious writers but should be.

  I didn’t slow my pace until I reached Oxford Street, where apple blossoms perfumed the air with sweetness only spring could bring. I inhaled deeply. After months of harsh winds and snowstorms, the smell was intoxicating—which gave me a thought. Maybe I should pick up a bottle of champagne at Variety Liquors? A proper celebration called for champagne, and Lenny and I were fond of late-night cocktails.

  I was choosing between white or pink when a noise startled me. I turned to the white two-story on my right. Now for rent, the stately house had seen better days. The porch had been remodeled with cheap siding that made it curve like a bell, and the green-plaid couch sitting kitty-corner didn’t help its appearance. It was as flat and dirty as a floor rug.

  The noise came from Tanner Sparks, who had slammed the front door. A graduate student in the English Department, he had a lot going for him. While I didn’t have him in any of my classes, my colleagues raved about his scholarship and acting skills. He was starring in Hamlet, which opened tomorrow. Though I wouldn’t attend the play until this weekend, I knew he’d do well. Having seen him play Willy Lowman in Death of a Salesman, I knew he was a phenomenal actor. Until I saw it for myself, I could never have imagined the good-looking student as an aging salesman.

  “That girl is psycho,” he muttered, coming down the stairs.

  I kept my head down. I didn’t want him to know I’d overheard the personal comment.

  “Oh hey, Dr. Prather,” Tanner said.

  I looked up. “Sorry, Tanner. I didn’t see you. All set for tomorrow?”

  “I hope so,” he said. “I’m on my way to the theater now.”

  He was being modest. I knew how confident he was, and rightly so. He was giving me one of his suave smiles right now that made me forget I was years older than he was. “I’m sure you’ll be great.”

  “Are you going?” he asked.

  “This weekend,” I said. “I need to get tickets.”

  He started for campus. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the Shakespeare conference?”

  “For sure,” I said. “I’m looking forward to your panel.”

  “Thanks,” he said over his shoulder, quickening his pace.

  I was still standing in front of the house, a mournful shell of its glorious past. The upstairs windows reminded me of two eyes, the fringed shades beating back and forth in the half-open window as if blinking at me. With a little TLC, it might be restored to its original splendor, or someone could at least wash the brown dust off the white siding. But it was a rental, and student renters had different priorities: studying, partying, fighting. Somewhere inside, I heard a door slam. As I started walking, I told myself it was probably the wind. It wreaked havoc on the Great Plains. I looked back—just in time to see someone shut the shade.

  Chapter Three

  Thursday morning, I awoke to a loud meow in the face. With the warming weather, my cat, Dickinson, was spending more time on the porch, and she was ready to start the day even if I wasn’t. When I didn’t immediately respond to her request, she patted me lightly with her paw. I rolled out of bed with a groan, slid into the new Eiffel Tower slippers Lenny had bought me for Christmas, and followed Dickinson to the door. She was ten steps ahead of me. Since my porch was screened, I left the door open as I made coffee.

  It was just as well I was up early. Today was the Shakespeare symposium, and like Tanner, I was presenting. Others from the department were also presenting, and I didn’t want to miss their panels. The event would draw a good crowd from surrounding schools and communities. Everyone wanted to see Shakespeare’s First Folio, and today the Harmony Music Museum wasn’t charging admission. The exhibit was part of the larger Shakespeare Festival on campus. Felix Lewis’s keynote lecture would end the symposium on Saturday night, and several scholarly panels on the great bard were scheduled from now until then. I wondered when Andy’s panel was.

  I poured my first cup of coffee and walked to the porch. I was willing to bet he would come off just as pompous in his presentation as he had in conversation. I sat down crisscross in the comfy rocking chair. Considering the number of panels, Andy had some competition if he was going for the smartest-man-in-the-room award.

  A perfectly curled gray head came into sight, then a pink smile. It was Mrs. Gunderson, taking her dog, Darling, for a walk. Dickinson crouched low in the wide windowsill, ready to pounce. I stood and walked out to greet Mrs. Gunderson.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Gunderson.” Her name is Gertrude, I reminded myself. After living next to her for three years, I’d finally learned her first name but never used it. She was a widow in her seventies, so everyone called her by her married name.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Were you and Leonard out late?”

  Instinctively, I touched my hair. It must have looked a mess. “Yes, we were celebrating. I found out yesterday my book has been accepted for publication.”

  “That’s good news, dear,” said Mrs. Gunderson. Darling was kicking up his back paws near my tree. “I know how much you think of your books.”

  “They’re going to give me an advance,” I said.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what that means, but I’m glad to see you’re getting out more. At your age, the more dates, the better.” She scooped up Darling’s deposit. “Leonard isn’t going to wait around forever.”

  “What about you, Mrs. Gunderson?” I asked, sidestepping questions about my relationship with Lenny. “Do you ever think about remarrying?”

  She stood ramrod straight. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why?” I lifted my coffee cup, trying not to smile, but her indignant expression made it hard.

  “Some things are meant to be done only once, and marriage is one of those things.” She marched on toward Main Street, signaling that our conversation was over.

  * * *

  There were many reasons Harmony Music Museum was the perfect location to exhibit Shakespeare’s First Folio. One was it housed fifteen thousand instruments from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the same instruments Shakespeare’s own players would have used. Normally, there was an entrance fee, a small price to pay to see one of the best collections of instruments in the nation. But today, the entry fee was waved, and all the festivities were free and open to the public. As I walked up the steep ivory-colored steps, I realized what a great opportunity the festival offered for scholars and townsfolk alike.

  A volunteer pointed
the way to Shakespeare’s First Folio. The large room, which normally housed instruments, now held one of the most expensive books in the world. One copy had sold for three million dollars. I inched up to the display. I could be clumsy at the most inopportune times.

  Though many of Shakespeare’s plays were published in his lifetime, many were not. Theater companies purchased the handwritten scripts directly, which meant plays like Macbeth and The Tempest would have been lost if friends in Shakespeare’s company hadn’t had the plays printed in a collection after his death. According to one account, only 235 copies of the First Folio existed. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., owned 82 of them, and at this very moment I was looking down at our copy through a protective glass case. It took my breath away.

  “ ‘To be or not to be. That is the question.’ ”

  I turned to see Lenny behind me. “You’ve done your research.” The book was open to Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. It was cradled in a special holder, which according to the note, was built to take stress off the spine.

  “Nope,” said Lenny. “I got here thirty minutes ago.”

  I returned to the book, studying the intricate type. “I didn’t know you were so excited about the conference. You should have submitted a proposal for a panel.”

  “No way,” said Lenny. “I’m an American lit teacher through and through. They couldn’t pay me to read Shakespeare.”

  “Shhh!” I said, pulling him aside. “A comment like that could get you killed in here.”

  He smiled. “I’m confident you’d solve my murder.”

  We walked over to one of the wall panels provided by the Folger. It explained why we still read Shakespeare. I didn’t want to hear Lenny’s answer. He agreed with the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once famously said: “The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two hundred years.” It was time for a new kind of literature—Lenny would say American literature.

  “Have you met Felix Lewis or Andy Wells?” I asked.

  “Yes, they’re extraordinary chaps,” Lenny said in his best British accent. “And a wee bit uppity, too.”

  “Your accent is dreadful, but you’re right about Andy,” I said. “The kid is a jerk.”

  Lenny raised a dark eyebrow. “I don’t know if you’re old enough to call him a kid.”

  “Well, I just did,” I said, digging for the program the volunteer had given me. It had already found its way to the bottom of my book bag. “His panel starts at nine … on the second floor. Let’s go see if he’s as smart as he pretends to be.”

  “Okay,” said Lenny. “They have free coffee up there.”

  We walked toward the marble staircase. “I’m impressed. Usually, this museum doesn’t allow food or drink. They must be making an exception for the conference.”

  “They probably realized we couldn’t stay awake through the panels without it.”

  I gave him a sharp look. “I’m presenting.”

  He put his arm around me. “I know. And you’re going to be great.”

  A sign on the door announced the name of the panel. After grabbing coffees, we walked in. Four chairs stood behind a table at the front of the room, where a display of classical mandolins provided a gorgeous backdrop for the speakers. Andy sat at the table, as did Tanner Sparks and two other students. Thomas Cook, the moderator, was already at the podium.

  We scooted in near Reed and Giles. Felix was on the other side of Giles, and I gave him a wave before taking my seat. Reed was a tall man with a large nose. His legs looked too long for the chair, and I felt bad for the way he was folded up in the seat. Giles was talking to Felix about Andy’s paper. Felix was Andy’s committee chair just as Reed was Tanner’s committee chair. They both looked excited to hear their scholars present. I was excited, too. I’d seen Tanner act, but I’d never heard him present. Plus, I was curious about Andy’s chapter. Was his scholarship worthy of a contract with a big-name publisher? It remained to be seen.

  Wearing a classic navy suit, Thomas Cook began the introductions, his smart East Coast accent used to good effect. He was an English professor and the moderator of the panel, which meant he didn’t have much to do except look cool. It was the perfect role for him. Academic panels allowed each presenter about fifteen minutes, depending on panel allotment. The moderator introduced and closed the discussion and asked for questions from the audience. He also intervened if something went wrong. For instance, if Andy chokes on his donut and requires the Heimlich, he will need help from the moderator, I thought to myself.

  “What are you smiling about?” whispered Lenny. “Thomas’s new jacket?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered back.

  Much to my delight, Andy went first. He was a good speaker, but his chapter wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. We read Shakespeare because we still care about the universal themes in the work: jealousy, love, hate, revenge. It was interesting but hardly Macmillan-worthy. Smugly satisfied, I leaned back, now more inclined to enjoy the rest of the presentations. Tanner was up next. He began with Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace. Here we go again, I thought. Another rote topic. But the next words out of his mouth made me sit up and take notice.

  “The tome downstairs wasn’t written by a boy with a grammar-school education,” said Tanner. His eyes sparkled, and I wondered what he was up to. “It was written by the aristocrat and Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.”

  A wave of discomfort rippled through the room. Giles visibly shuddered. Lenny laughed. I’d heard this theory before, of course, just never in a roomful of English-literature scholars. Despite the visibly clenching fists, Tanner continued to expound the argument of his fellow Oxfordians, called such because they believed the Earl of Oxford, who received degrees at both Oxford and Cambridge and was a poet, wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. They didn’t believe a person from a modest background like Shakespeare’s could have written the works. The works had to have been written by someone who was well educated, well traveled, and moneyed. In other words, an author who had access to the material he was writing about. That argument led the first Oxfordian, J. Thomas Looney, who himself taught Shakespeare, to Edward de Vere. De Vere met all the requirements, and similarities had been found between his poems and one of Shakespeare’s longer poems. The major problem with the theory was the date of de Vere’s death—1604. A third of Shakespeare’s plays were written after that. Oxfordians suggested they weren’t written then but merely edited, because the real Shakespeare was dead.

  The mystery intrigued me, and I listened closer. Tanner was telling a story I hadn’t heard before, which didn’t mean it was new. I wasn’t a Shakespeare scholar—far from it. Prior to preparing for my presentation, I hadn’t read Shakespeare for several years. Tanner stood in front of the podium, making good use of the length of the room to make his point. His performance was mesmerizing, and I wondered how much of its appeal came from his acting skills and how much from his scholarship. I didn’t care. I just listened. I was a sucker for a good story.

  “And while being honored that day at court, Edward de Vere was toasted with the words, ‘Thy countenance shakes a spear.’ ” Tanner raised a hand holding an imaginary glass of champagne. He waited several seconds before continuing. “A nod to his skills at jousting? Perhaps. A recognition of his coat of arms, which included a lion with a shield? Maybe. Whatever the case, the name stuck, and the Earl of Oxford would write his many plays under a combination of that name—that pseudonym—Shakespeare.”

  Felix had heard enough. Red-faced, he whispered to Reed, “I can’t believe you’re going to allow him to spew this sophomoric garbage. What kind of hoax is this? We’re here to celebrate Shakespeare, not make a mockery of his authorship.”

  Reed, already uncomfortable in his too-small chair, looked more so. “The student has a right to his opinion.”

  “Opinion isn’t scholarship, Reed,” huffed Felix. “You know that as well as I do.”

  Now that T
anner’s presentation was finished, Thomas asked for questions from the audience. It was his duty as moderator; still, I kind of wished he hadn’t. Tanner Sparks was a student—albeit a grad student. I didn’t want him fed to the wolves in the audience.

  I raised my hand.

  “Professor Prather, go ahead,” said Thomas.

  “I don’t have a question,” I said. “I just want to commend Tanner for his academic courage. It couldn’t have been easy to assert such a thesis in a roomful of Shakespeare scholars. Good job.”

  “Courage,” growled Andy, who was seated at the table of presenters. Leaning forward, he looked ready to pounce. “I’d call it stupidity.”

  Lenny’s hand shot up like a rocket. He didn’t bother waiting for Thomas to call on him. “Don’t kid yourself. Tanner made some good points.”

  “It’s all right, Professor Jenkins,” said Tanner. He glanced at Andy, seated behind him at the table. “He’s just mad that I’ve blown the theories in his upcoming book out of the water.”

  “Rubbish!” Felix called out from the audience. “I’ve heard the same claims before from men older and wiser than you. Andy’s book is the work of a true academician, not a conspiracy hack.”

  “You haven’t heard his most controversial claim,” added Reed.

  “I’m listening,” said Felix.

  “The Earl of Oxford faked his own death,” announced Tanner, “and I’m going to prove it with his DNA.”

  Chapter Four

  If the Earl of Oxford had faked his own death, he was alive when Shakespeare’s later plays were written. The revelation, if true, would change the field of English literature forever. I was interested in how Tanner had obtained his DNA, and so was the rest of the audience. Unfortunately, Thomas Cook put a stop to the conversation, saying he had to move on to the next presenter to finish at the top of the hour. What he said was true. The last two scholars would have to rush their presentations. It wouldn’t be fair to ask them to prepare weeks in advance only to cut their time short the day of the panel. I understood the dilemma.