Murder at the Opera - Margaret Truman [82]
“He’s being charged with the Musinski murder?”
“He’s being told he’s being charged. We’ll see if that breaks him. I don’t know, Carl, the new forensic evidence is shaky. A good lawyer will poke holes in it like Swiss cheese. But it’s better than what we had before. Bring him in and we’ll see what falls
“I’ll send Willie and Sylvia, now that they’re off the Lee case
“Good, but tell Willie to go easy. I don’t need the threat of another brutality charge hanging over us
At one, Berry, Johnson, and Portelain sat in an MPD interrogation room with Edward Grimes, an adjunct professor of music history at Georgetown University. Grimes was, he claimed, thirty-six years old, but he looked older. He was of medium height, and deathly pale. Totally bald on top, he’d grown his hair long on the sides and back and secured it into a ragged ponytail, which only highlighted his baldness. He wore wrinkled chinos, sandals over white sweat socks, and a burgundy T-shirt with GEORGETOWN U on it in white. His rimless glasses were round, thick, and too small for his face. All in all, Berry decided, he was not a college professor out of Central Casting. He looked positively frightened as he sat across the scarred table from the three detectives. Johnson and Portelain had found him in his office at the school and brought him in without incident.
“I appreciate you coming in like this to talk to us,” Berry said pleasantly, as if welcoming a long-lost friend into his home.
“I don’t understand,” Grimes said. “This is very embarrassing. My colleagues saw me being led from my office by two detectives. I just don’t understand why I’m here
“Well,” said Berry, “we just wanted to ask you a few questions about Professor Musinski
“I knew it,” Grimes whined, wringing his hands. “I knew it. Why do you want to talk to me again about that dreadful thing? Professor Musinski was my friend. He mentored me. I loved him like a father
“I’ll be straight with you, Mr. Grimes. Or is it Professor Grimes?”
“I am a professor. Adjunct
“Not full,” Johnson said.
“That’s right. Next year. If things go well, I’ll be offered a full professorship. That’s why this is so terrible, bringing me here like this. What will they think of me at the school?”
“They won’t think nothin’ of you if you didn’t kill Musinski,” Portelain said flatly.
An anguished groan came from Grimes.
“Did you?” Berry asked.
“What? Kill Professor Musinski? Of course not. I swear to you I had nothing to do with it. He was revered. I loved him—”
“Like a father,” Johnson finished the thought. She was unsmiling.
“Yes. Why won’t you believe me?”
“It isn’t that we don’t believe you, Professor Grimes,” Berry said. “We want to believe you. But there’s new evidence that causes us to have some doubts
“What evidence?” Grimes asked. “What new evidence could there possibly be?”
“DNA,” Berry replied. “We’ve found some on the fireplace poker that killed the professor
“It isn’t mine,” protested Grimes. “It can’t be mine. You tested everything six years ago when it happened. You said you found nothing to link me to his death
“True,” Johnson weighed in, “but that was six years ago. We were looking for prints back then and couldn’t match the partials on the weapon with you or anyone else
Berry added, “But new and more sophisticated DNA tests now tell us that you had contact with that poker. Why would you have had contact with it?”
A small, crooked smile suddenly came to Grimes’ lips. “You’re lying to me,” he said. “Even if I had touched that poker, my hands wouldn’t leave any DNA traces
“Maybe you drooled on it,” Portelain said.
“Sweat,” Johnson added.
“Why would you be handling a fireplace poker in that weather?” Berry asked.
“Unless—” Johnson said.
“I probably touched that poker other times when I visited with Dr. Musinski. Don’t you understand? I did not do this!”
“Some of your colleagues at the school say you and Musinski didn’t get along too good,” Willie said, basing the claim on nothing.
“Who said that?