Free Hangman's Root by Susan Wittig Albert Page B

looked around. Two walls of the small office were lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves, but instead of books the upper shelves were filled with the gleaming ivory skeletons of small mammals displayed in a carefully graduated order and aligned a precise inch from the edge of the shelf, like art objects in a museum. Each was mounted on a black-lacquered block that bore an engraved plaque identifying the species in Latin— Procyon lotor, Lepus californicus, Rattus rattus. Lower shelves displayed fish and reptile skeletons, mounted with the same artful care and pride. The lowest were lined with gleaming jars containing transparent

    fluid and things that had once been Hving flesh. Everything was meticulously composed and orderly, even beautiful, and I couldn't see a speck of dust. I couldn't help contrasting the living animals downstairs, crowded, uncared for, inhumanely caged in their own excrement. Harwick's profession had been the study of the beauty and variety of living beings, but this multitude of artifacts seemed to hint at an almost pathological preoccupation with death. In this setting, his hanging body also seemed artifactual, and not at all out of place. Just another of the specimens, hung up on display.
    The desk Harwick had danced off was also neat. There was a grade book and a stack of student quizzes, tidily ordered. The one on top had a big red "F" printed on it—had Harwick killed himself in a fit of depression over some kid's performance? There was also an empty cup with a coffee-colored puddle in the bottom, reading glasses, a pipe, an ashtray made—naturally—out of a hoof.
    I looked again. The ashtray was filled with ash and charred bits of paper. One of the "F" papers, burned because it was too awful to read? Or something connected to his suicide? A draft of a note, perhaps, or the note itself, written and then rejected. I looked up at the body, hanging like the straw man the demonstrators had strung up in the tree an hour ago, and the flesh prickled on my shoulder blades. Their demands had been met. Harwick's animal experiments were finished. Harwick was finished.
    I was facing the door when it was pushed open. An irate male said, "What's this I hear about—" The sentence ended in a gurgle.
    "Hello, Dr. Castle," I said.
    Frank Castle's "Oh my God!" was a bare whisper. He stared open-mouthed at the apparition hanging from the ceiling. He was tall and striking in a charcoal pin-striped suit, pale pink shirt, and tasteful gray-and-pink tie. There was no softness in his face, and his gold-framed glasses and carefully trimmed salt-and-pepper

    hair gave him the look of a man who demanded respect. Lines of control appeared like deep parentheses on either side of his mouth, and he had the wiry, disciplined look of a serious jogger.
    He closed his mouth with an audible gulp and looked at me. "Who are you?"
    "China Bayles," I said. "We met at Dr. Patterson's house a couple of months ago."
    "Oh, yes. The defense attorney" His eyes were once again engaged with the thing on the rope. "What are you doing here?"
    "Ex-defense attorney. Miss Leeds asked me to stand guard until Campus Security gets here." I spoke gently. "I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."
    He turned to me, jaw tightening, eyes suddenly fierce. He had remembered who was in charge in this building. " YouVe got a helluva nerve! Miles Harwick was my best friend! And this is my department! I ought to order you out." Involuntarily, with something close to fascination, his eyes skittered back to Har-wick's body. "How could Miles do such a thing?" he muttered to himself, as if he had forgotten about me. ''Here, of all places. The publicity—" He shook his head sharply, as if to clear it. "How could he involve the department in this?"
    I couldn't help feeling that Castle's question was an ungenerous response to a friend's last desperate act—if that's what it was. "You're afraid his suicide will reflect badly on the department?"
    "Naturally," he