“TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY,
I SORRY BUT I CAN’T GO ON. NOW THAT MY WORKS IS OVER, SO AM I.”
The name signed at the bottom was “William Bennett Koocher, PhD.”
Winder stuffed the Xerox copy in his pocket and said, “This is a fake.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Joey, but it wasn’t only the voles that got him down. There were problems at home, if you know what I mean.”
“My goodness.” Winder whistled. “Problems at home. I had no idea.”
Chelsea continued: “And I know what else you’re thinking. Why would anybody kill himself in this…extreme fashion? Jumping in a whale tank and all.”
“It struck me as a bit unorthodox, yes.”
“Well, me too,” said Chelsea, regaining some of his starch, “until I remembered that Koocher couldn’t swim a lick. More to the point, he was deathly afraid of sharks. It’s not so surprising that he chose to drown himself here, indoors, rather than the ocean.”
“And the green shirt?”
“Obviously he wasn’t aware of Orky’s, ah, problem.”
Joe Winder blinked vigorously in an effort to clear his vision. He said, “The man’s spine was snapped like a twig.”
“I am told,” said Charles Chelsea, “that it’s not as bad as it appears. Very quick, and nearly painless.” He took out a handkerchief and discreetly dried the palms of his hands. “Not everyone has the stomach for using a gun,” he said. “Myself, I’d swallow a bottle of roach dust before I’d resort to violence. But, anyway, I was thinking: Maybe this was Koocher’s way of joining the lost voles. A symbolic surrender to Nature, if you will. Sacrificing himself to the whale.”
Chelsea squared the corners of the handkerchief and tucked it into a pants pocket. He looked pleased with his theory. Sagely he added, “In a sense, what happened that night in Orky’s tank was a purely natural event: Dr. Koocher became part of the food chain. Who’s to say he didn’t plan it that way?.
Joe Winder stood up, clutching the corners of Charles Chelsea’s desk. “It wasn’t a suicide,” he said, “and it wasn’t an accident.”
“Then what, Joe?”
“I believe Koocher was murdered.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. At the Amazing Kingdom?”
Again Winder felt the sibilant whisper from a valve letting off pressure somewhere deep inside his skull. He reached across the desk and got two crisp fistfuls of Chelsea’s blue oxford shirt. “I sorry but I can’t go on?”
Perplexed, Chelsea shook his head.
Joe Winder said, “The man was a PhD, Charlie. I sorry but I can’t go on? Tonto might write a suicide note like that, but not Dr. Koocher.”
Chelsea pulled himself free of Winder’s grip and said: “It was probably just a typo, Joe. Hell, the man was terribly depressed and upset. Who proofreads their own damn suicide note?”
Pressing his knuckles to his forehead, Winder said, “A typo? With a Magic Marker, Charlie? I sorry is not a bummed-out scientist making a mistake; it’s an illiterate moron trying to fake a suicide note.”
“I’ve heard just about enough.” Chelsea circled the desk and made for the door. He stepped around Winder as if he were a rattlesnake.
Chelsea didn’t leave the office. He held the door open for Joe Winder, and waited.
“I see,” said Winder. On his way out, he stopped to smooth the shoulders of Chelsea’s shirt, where he had grabbed him.
“No more talk of murder,” Charles Chelsea said. “I want you to promise me.”
“All right, but on the more acceptable subject of suicide—who was the dead guy hanging from the Card Sound Bridge?”
“I’ve no idea, Joe. It doesn’t concern us.”
“It concerns me.”
“Look, I’m starting to worry. First you threaten me with physical harm, now you’re blabbing all these crazy theories. It’s alarming, Joe. I hope I didn’t misjudge your stability.”
“I suspect you did.”
Warily, Chelsea put a hand on Winder’s arm. “We’ve got a tough week ahead. I’d like to be able to count on you.”
“I’m a pro, Charlie.”
“That’s my boy. So you’ll give me Orky by four o’clock?”
“No sweat,” Winder said. “Three hundred words.”
“Max,” reminded Charles Chelsea, “and keep it low key.”