What could Delilah Mason possibly have done to inspire someone to murder her, and in such a grisly fashion?
The article only hinted at the grisly circumstances of her death but revealed that she had been found in the Séance Garden, under the huge “Witch Tree.” The journalist had apparently done their homework and drew parallels to the long-ago demise of Isabel Perles. Referring to the ghost tour, the article quoted Joel Aristide:“I warned the tour group of the danger of seeking out the spirits of the dead. That is always a risk, but one I believe is well worth it.”The article concluded by stating that anyone interested in learning more about the ghost tours, or spirits in general, could contact Joel Aristide and included his email address and website.
Huh.
Sigrid had called it: Joel had not hesitated to take advantage of the ghastly death of his alleged friend, Delilah Mason. That took a pretty cold heart, didn’t it? Harper recalled how Joel had sobbed as he spoke to the detective, seemingly as horrified by Delilah’s demise as the rest of them, if not more so. Apparently he’d gotten over it.What a guy.
She tossed the newspaper aside and went to take a shower.
People were so disappointing.
Harper stood in the faculty mail room sifting through the various items that filled her mailbox to overflowing: publishers’ book catalogs, newsletters from professional associations, flyers from student groups, reminders from the IT department of a campus-wide computer update next Sunday. The vast majority of these went straight into the recycling bin. She opened a large manila envelope and found a copy of the front page ofThe Monterey Heraldwith the article about Delilah Mason circled in red ink. Harper had not been named in the article; who on campus would have made the connection?
“Oh, Harper! I heard you were at the Perles Mansion the other night. On a ghost tour, of all things, wasn’t it?” came a voice from the hallway.
Harper steeled herself. It was her colleague Naomi, whom—in response to Harper’s confidential complaints—Tariq had nicknamed “Naomi the Nemesis.”
Dr. Naomi Ruger was a hard-core laboratory scientist who liked to compare herself to Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist who had befriended John Steinbeck and was the inspirationfor the character of Doc inCannery Row. But if Harper remembered the novel correctly, and she did, Ed Ricketts was a lot more open-minded than Naomi, who had little time for the humanities, even less for history, and none at all for Harper. Harper’s closest ally on the faculty, Gabe Ruiz, a popular and high-profile professor of performing arts and the college’s other “department of one,” informed Harper that Naomi had argued passionately against hiring her, insisting her research was unworthy of a serious scholar and lobbying in favor of hiring a chemical engineer instead. But Gabe had marshaled support in favor of expanding the humanities faculty and ultimately carried the day. Naomi took out her frustrations with passive-aggressive jabs at both Harper and Gabe whenever she had the chance.
Today Naomi was dressed, as usual, in a flattering silk dress and high heels that looked as if they had cost a small fortune, and her long blond hair was curled and sprayed. She was a few years younger than Harper and would have been quite fetching had her face not been frozen in a perpetual scowl.
Harper admired Naomi’s sense of style but loved that here in informal California she could get away with wearing simple slacks and jackets, and keeping her auburn hair in the same pageboy cut she had rocked since high school. Harper was the first to admit that her fashion sense lacked imagination, but she could live with that. And the less time spent in front of a mirror, the better.
“Good morning, Naomi,” Harper said politely. She knew Naomi would inevitably vote against her when she came up for tenure, but it behooved her to be professional. “Yes, it was a ghost tour. I lost a bet.”
Naomi leaned in closer. “Did you see the body?”
“She was still alive when I saw her. It was very sad. Traumatic, even.”
“Was she really…I mean, I hear it was gruesome?”
A physics professor entered the mail room, nodding pleasantly at Harper and Naomi.
“Are you asking for the gruesome details of how I found poor Delilah Mason?” Harper said loudly, and Naomi’s face turned red.
“No, of course not,” Naomi snapped. “I don’t have time for such nonsense.” She grabbed her mail and left.
“What’s her problem today?” the physics professor asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the communal coffeepot.
“Must’ve gotten up on the wrong side of the bed,” Harper replied.
Settling into her office, Harper opened her email to find a message from the dean asking to meet with her as soon as she came in. Her stomach clenched. Dean Willis was gray-haired and avuncular, a well-known scholar of presidential history, and had gone to graduate school with Harper’s advisor at Berkeley. But she had had limited interaction with him since she’d arrived. The only thing she knew about the dean personally was that he was a fan of hot-air balloons, and the only reason she knew that much was because he had decorated his office with color photographs of hot-air balloons with himself in the gondola.
Maybe he was going to invite her to go ballooning?Fat chance. She took a deep breath and went upstairs to the dean’s office.
“Go on in, Dr. Grae,” the dean’s secretary said. “He’s expecting you.”
“Dr. Grae! Thanks for coming by,” Dean Willis said from behind his expansive desk. “Have a seat, please.”
She sat and waited.
“How are you liking it here at Monterey College?” he asked.
“I like it very much. Wonderful colleagues, and the students are so engaging.” It was an exaggeration, because what else could she say?
“Good, good. Happy to hear it.” The dean paused.
“Is there a problem?” Harper asked, her heart beating faster.Am I getting fired…again?She had a contract, but without tenure she could be let go at any time.
