The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man Read online

  Copyright © 2009 by Alfred Alcorn

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First published in serial by Salon.com in 2001.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to:

  Steerforth Press L.L.C., 45 Lyme Road, Suite 208,

  Hanover, New Hampshire 03755

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Alcorn, Alfred.

  The love potion murders in the Museum of Man : a Norman de Ratour mystery / Alfred Alcorn. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-58195-237-7

  1. Aphrodisiacs — Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3551.L29L68 2009

  813′.54 — dc22

  2008044688

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  1

  It is with reluctance and foreboding that I trouble these pages with an account of a tragic, unseemly, and suspicious incident here at the Museum of Man. I say “reluctance” as I do not wish to serve as amanuensis to a nightmare. Nor do I wish to prompt iniquity with words. I would rather, on this lovely evening, sit back and gaze out of my high windows at the Hays Mountains, where I can see the first flares of autumn touching with scarlet and gold those rolling, mist-tendriled hills. But write I must. Because yet again I have a presentiment of evil uncoiling itself within the womb of this ancient institution.

  Let me start with this morning. Just as Doreen was heading down to the cafeteria for our coffees, Lieutenant Tracy of the Seaboard Police Department appeared in the doorway of my fifth-floor domain. Dapper as ever in charcoal suit, buttondown off-white oxford shirt, and plaid tie, the officer reminded me that he took his coffee black. The amenities of small talk attended to, the door closed, we got down to business.

  “I’m here to see you, Norman, about the Ossmann-Woodley case.” His tone indicated that he spoke off the record.

  “Ossmann-Woodley,” I repeated with a sigh, not entirely surprised. “I was under the impression, Lieutenant, that the case was too riddled with imponderables to begin an investigation. It’s most unusual, I know, and not a little embarrassing for the museum, given Professor Ossmann’s affiliation.”

  Thanks to the tabloids and those television programs devoted to the tawdry and the sensational (for which my dear wife, Elsbeth, has a decided weakness), much of the world knows that, just a week ago, Professor Humberto Ossmann and Dr. Clematis Woodley, a postdoctoral student, were found dead quite literally in each other’s arms; indeed, in an unequivocally amorous embrace.

  Foul play, other than double adultery — they were both married — has not been ruled out. In short, we have two corpses and enough circumstantial evidence to indicate corpus delicti. For instance, a security guard found them, not in some comfortable bed or even on the couch available in a nearby office, but on the floor of one the laboratories. There, judging from the disorder — an overturned chair, some smashed pipettes, and a terrified white rat running loose — their lovemaking had been spontaneous and energetic, if not violent. Rape does not appear to have been involved inasmuch as Professor Ossmann was a smallish man, a good two inches shorter and twenty-five pounds lighter than the formidable Dr. Woodley, who played rugby for Rutgers, albeit on the women’s team. Moreover, neither participant had disrobed in a manner suggesting premeditated lovemaking. Professor Ossmann’s trousers and boxer shorts were down around his ankles, and Dr. Woodley’s panties had been clawed off, but by herself, judging from the fragments of matching material found under her fingernails.

  Finally, both victims, if that is what they are, entertained a deep and abiding antipathy for the other. Professor Ossmann had blocked Dr. Woodley’s appointment to a tenure-track position a year or so back. Dr. Woodley for her part had taken to calling Professor Ossmann “Pip” to his face, “Pip-squeak” being the nickname colleagues used behind his back.

  I know the case in considerable detail, not only from the lurid and often inaccurate coverage in the Seaboard Bugle, but also from briefings I arranged between the SPD and important university officials in an attempt to keep the rumor mills from working overtime.

  The postmortems, done by the venerable Dr. P.M. Cutler, have provided only preliminary findings. The Medical Examiner reported gross inflammation of the genitals of both parties, who otherwise presented no signs of trauma or assault. Professor Ossmann succumbed to a coronary thrombosis while Dr. Woodley died of massive systemic failure when her blood pressure, for which she was taking medication, dropped below what is necessary for life. Curiously enough, according to Dr. Cutler, despite prolonged sexual activity, no evidence of ejaculate was found. Whether Dr. Woodley had experienced a physiological orgasm could not be determined with any certainty. Assays on blood chemistry, other bodily fluids, stomach contents, and organs are presently being conducted and should tell us a lot more as to what happened on that Friday night in early September when the lab was deserted except for those two.

  Sergeant Lemure, Lieutenant Tracy’s blunt-spoken deputy, put the matter in words of a characteristic crudity, which I will refrain from repeating here.

  The lieutenant regarded me closely. “Officially, Norman, it is a low-priority case because we cannot determine whether it’s a murder, an accident, or some kind of bizarre suicide pact. But something about this case reeks.”

  His remarks struck a chord, if nagging doubts can be said to resonate. Despite myself, I have acquired of late a knack for suspicion. It’s related, no doubt, to my work with the Seaboard police on what have come to be called the Cannibal Murders, which gained Wainscott University, the museum, myself, and others such notoriety a few years back. Indeed, the account of those grisly events that I kept in my journal at the time was subsequently entered as evidence in the case against the Snyders brothers. Published initially over my objections, it was well received in those circles devoted to the “true detective” genre.

  Moreover, I have found that working as a private sleuth — or a public sleuth, for that matter — sharpens one’s apprehension of those slight discordances that indicate the presence not so much of clues but of what might be termed “negative clues” — the dog that doesn’t bark. It makes one aware of anomalies within anomalies, life being full of the anomalous, after all. And this case, if a case it be, is loud with silent hounds.

  While I was thus cogita
ting, Doreen came in with the coffee. The dear girl had been offered a higher salary to go back to her old boss, Malachy Morin. But she told me she wouldn’t even consider it, calling the man “a serial groper.” She has a new beau and has finally ceased inflating out of her mouth those gaudy-hued, condom-like bubbles of gum.

  After Doreen had withdrawn and closed the door, I noted the obvious. “We have no real evidence of foul play. At least not until the lab tests come in.”

  The lieutenant lifted an eyebrow at the implied collaboration in the “we,” as though both realizing and acknowledging that we were once again, however unofficially, a team.

  “No real evidence, it’s true,” he said. “It’s as though someone got there before the bodies were discovered and tidied things up.”

  “Really?” I was somewhat taken aback. I had not been told of this before.

  “Yes, and there are a few other details you might be able to help us clear up.”

  “Well, I’m at your service, Lieutenant,” I said, trying to dissemble a shiver of excitement as my pulse quickened. The lieutenant’s request for assistance made real what had heretofore been little more than a premonition. Indeed, I have developed a keen predilection for the blood sport of murder investigation. For that’s what it is, at bottom, a blood sport. And deeper, in the darker reaches of my heart, I could also feel that strange craving for the reality of evil, if only for something to confront and vanquish.

  Lieutenant Tracy smiled. He has one of those smiles the scarcity of which makes it the more appealing. “I knew I could count on you, Norman. And also on your discretion. My visit here, strictly speaking, is unofficial.”

  I nodded. “What is it that I can tell you that you think will be of help?”

  “Could you tell me, what exactly was Professor Ossmann’s connection with the Genetics Lab?”

  His question made me frown. The Genetics Lab has over the past couple of years changed beyond all recognition. The Onoyoko Institute, suffering in the general stagnation of the Japanese economy and the blaze of bad publicity in the wake of the Cannibal Murders, has long since gone, replaced by the Ponce Research Institute. Though nominally nonprofit, the Ponce has proved an absolute boon to the museum. It has given us the wherewithal to resist persistent attempts on the part of the university to take us over on terms other than those ensuring the integrity and longevity of this institution as an actual public museum.

  I chose my words carefully in responding to the lieutenant’s question because, truth be known, I was not entirely certain what constituted the late professor’s connection with the lab. I cleared my throat. “Professor Ossmann, as you know, was a consultant at the Ponce, as the institute is generally called. He worked on therapies having to do with the cardiovascular system, which was his primary research interest.”

  As I paused, the lieutenant leaned forward. “You seem skeptical of your own description.”

  “I am,” I said. “This can go no farther than this room, but I’ve suspected for some time, Lieutenant, that Professor Ossmann was as much an agent provocateur for the university administration as an active consultant.”

  “In what way?”

  “He played an active role in the higher councils of the university. He served on the New Millennium Fund Steering Committee. He was on the somewhat controversial Benefits Subcommittee of the Faculty Reform Committee. He also served for a while as chair of the Steering Committee on Governance. In fact, it was during his tenure in that last position that he and I had one or two significant disagreements.”

  The lieutenant said nothing, but his listening appeared to intensify.

  “The same old story,” I said. “Wainscott wants to take us over. We, the museum, were the subject of a long report by Ossmann’s committee. My own Board of Governors rejected the report outright.”

  “How did he end up over here?”

  “We have a goodly number of consultants from the university who have contracts with the institute. It remains something of a sore issue between the university and the museum.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Money,” I said and smiled. “Lieutenant, I don’t want to bore you with the endless petty politics that go on in institutions of higher learning, but it’s clear to me now that the university is trying to get its hands on the museum for nothing less than the income it can derive from the research done in the Genetics Lab under the auspices of the Ponce Institute.”

  His brows knit in thought as I went on. “And they might have succeeded had we not had in our employ a canny young attorney named Felix Skinnerman who has been handling our affairs with Wainscott for nearly two years now. He has learned, for instance, that the university’s charter was amended during the heady days of the nineteen sixties to the effect that no faculty member can benefit directly from research, patents, royalties, and the like taking place under university auspices or on university grounds.”

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Why doesn’t Wainscott simply amend its charter?”

  I related in some detail how they could not change the clause without the unanimous consent of the Board of Regents — which, by charter, has to include three faculty members, one of whom reliably objects.

  “How does all this connect with Ossmann?”

  “It doesn’t really,” I continued, “except to provide the context for Ossmann’s activities in the lab.”

  “Activities?”

  “He was something of a troublemaker. He liked to object, to talk a lot about issues. He liked to speak to the press.”

  “But enough so that someone would want him out of the way?”

  “Perhaps. I mean, if he was about to blow the whistle on some shady dealings or some off-the-books research. Of course I may be mistaken. I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I feel like I’m offering you little more than wretched stalks.”

  The lieutenant smiled and rose to go. We shook hands. “That’s all any of us are doing right now, Norman, clutching at straws. But if you hear anything …”

  “Of course,” I said. “We will stay in touch.”

  I finished my coffee alone. The lieutenant’s visit reminded me anew that the unfortunate deaths of these two people, both estimable in his and her own way, have cast another shadow over the Museum of Man. While both were on the faculty of Wainscott University, they were, as biochemists, under contract to the institute directly and to the Genetics Lab indirectly. The shadow is real, darkened by the press, which has hounded me daily, all but accusing the museum of perpetrating a cover-up.

  Indeed, the university’s Oversight Committee, a claque of inquisitorial busybodies, has requested “in the strongest terms” that I attend a meeting to discuss “its concern with the unseemly recent events in the Genetics Lab.” I have responded to Constance Brattle, who still presides over the committee, reminding her that I have myself (for my own good reasons) remained an ex officio member. I said I would acquiesce to her request but only if it was clearly understood that where the museum was concerned, the committee’s involvement must remain purely advisory. I also stipulated that the press was to be excluded and all statements kept privileged. I reminded her that, as Director of the Museum of Man, I was as concerned as she in maintaining the high repute of both the university and the museum.

  Strange how, when you start to worry about one thing, it leads you to worry about something else. For instance, no one has heard for some time from Cornelius Chard. Corny, the Packer Professor of Primitive Ethnology in the Wainscott Anthropology Department, inveigled the museum into underwriting some portion of his expedition to the Yomamas. It’s a venture I tried to talk him out of. There’s been considerable unrest in the area, apparently because of logging operations.

  The Yomamas are a small tribe who inhabit an all-but-inaccessible plateau astride the Rio Sangre, one of the more remote tributaries of the Amazon. The tribe, according to Corny, are the last “untouched” group of hunter-gatherers left on earth. He also contends that they are the last people in the world active
ly practicing cannibalism. He has gone virtually alone to witness, as he puts it, the actual thing. He says he wants to refute once and for all what he calls, in questionable taste, “the cannibalism deniers.”

  Where he raised the majority of his funding, I don’t know. It’s one of those mysteries. He claims it’s a perfectly legitimate source that will in no way taint the objectivity of his research. His very protest makes me wonder. I do know he associates with some strange people.

  Through Elsbeth, who goes way back with Jocelyn, Corny’s wife, I have gotten to know the man better, perhaps, than I might have wanted to. He’s an advocate of anthropophagy and author of The Cannibal Within, among other works. I never go to dinner at their home without wondering what, exactly, it is we’re eating.

  I believe Corny organized his Rio Sangre expedition because, though he won’t admit it, he’s envious of all the publicity Raul Brauer has been getting for his book A Taste of the Real. Brauer, some people may remember, was involved in the cannibalism of a young volunteer on the Polynesian island of Loa Hoa back in the late sixties. His account was something of succès de scandale and is, I’ve been told, being made into a movie.

  Still, it’s a relief to get these things down on paper if not off my mind. Now I must brace myself for another meal out with Elsbeth and her friend, the food critic Korky Kummerbund.

  For the life of me I cannot see what Elsbeth sees in “the restaurant scene,” as she calls it. What is this cult of the gustatory that seems to have afflicted half the good people of Seaboard? What has happened to the days when one simply went to a restaurant of good reputation, ordered a recognizable dish and a decent wine, enjoyed it, paid for it, and left?