Free Murder is Academic by Lesley A. Diehl

“delete” key, removing the last two paragraphs I’d written and looked at Der. I was still miffed he’d abandoned me on our hike, and I was stuck here working while he got to do the fun stuff of sleuthing.
    “I asked for Withers’ cooperation on searching his car, and he gave it. Guess what we found in his trunk?”
    “I haven’t the foggiest.” I was interested in what Der had to say, but would have preferred he say it while the two of us sat on a block of ice.
    “Mud, lake mud. The same mud we found on Talbot’s shoes.”
    I could see where he was heading with this one, but I wanted to slow him down a bit before he arrived.
    “And his motive for the murder?” I didn’t want to appear smug, but he was about to trip over his police badge on this one.
    “Oh, motive. You read too many mystery novels. He was fired by Talbot recently. That isn’t motive enough?”
    “He could have been fired, probably was, but the official story is that he retired from his position. In fact, he did retire, was given a nice bye-bye package, and, as I understand it, a glowing letter of recommendation from Talbot for whatever position Withers might find interesting as long as it’s not here.”
    “You also told me that Talbot wasn’t one to keep his promises. In this case, Withers applied for a vice presidency in North Carolina. The letter of recommendation was glowing, but a follow-up phone call from the president there to Talbot was a little different. In a word, Talbot trashed Withers. Withers was informed he was out of the running the morning Talbot was murdered. Now how’s that for motive?” His turn to be smug.
    I chewed on my pencil, momentarily stumped at the question. After a few seconds reflection, I said, “Consider this. With Talbot dead, Withers will never be able to recoup the damage of that phone call. I would bet his move would be to visit Talbot and try to convince him to reconsider the call or, at the very least, promise not to do it again on the next round of applications. I don’t see Withers as the killer type. He’s more the blackmail type. I’d wager that he would pull out all the stops and threaten Talbot with some unsavory piece of history unless the president made good on his promise to help Withers in his job hunting.”
    Der’s smile of triumph dipped only a bit.
    “So you think a blackmailer, not a murderer. Maybe. But you’re right about one thing. Withers did go see Talbot. They met on the lake in the afternoon. I thought that was a pretty funny place for a rendezvous between the two of them, but it accounts for some of the time that Talbot was out of his office that afternoon. The pieces are beginning to fall into place, Laura, and I for one am only too happy to wrap up this case in such a short period of time.”
    “Okay, fine, and goody, but I have a few questions for you.” I swatted at a fly, missed and watched as the insect circled the room looking for a less wary target.
    “Such as?”
    “Did you find the murder weapon?”
    “No, but it’s merely a matter of time.” The fly chose Der’s nose as his helipad. Der brushed it off.
    “You told me Talbot’s car was in the parking lot in front of the administration building the next morning? How did it get there?”
    “I’m still working on that. But it’s pretty clear that Withers bumped him off at the lake, loaded him in the trunk of his car, dumped him at the construction site and then managed somehow to drive Talbot’s car to the parking lot.”
    “Good point, so then, there must be blood in the trunk of Withers’ car?”
    “Withers must have wrapped him in plastic. We’re still looking.” Der’s smile began to slide down his face a bit more.
    “You’re assuming Withers had an accomplice to help him get both his car home from the lake and Talbot’s car to the campus? Any ideas who that person might be? Maybe Tinkerbelle in this fairy tale solution?”
    Der’s smile disappeared and his lips, usually so full, were