Read 4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4 for Free Online Page A

her bonnet about you and—”
    “It’s not in her bonnet.”
    “What? Oh, I see. Well, time heals all wounds or something like that.”
    “In her case, I think Groucho Marx had it right, ‘time wounds all heels.’”
    “Look, I’ll talk to her, okay? Let it go. Now, why are you here?”
    “I came to see Leon Weitz and while I was on the premises, I thought I’d drop by and see how the college’s beleaguered President was doing and…” The clock on the mantle started its strike cycle and pinged away. “You should get a better clock.”
    “What’s wrong with my clock? It was a going away present.”
    “I know, but it looks silly on that shelf. You have this beautiful fake Georgian office and then you put a piece of abstract clock art on the mantle.”
    “Well, it’s the only clock I had that belonged in an office, so there it is. When did you take up interior decorating, anyway?”
    Ike put his hand on his hip, bent one knee, lifted an eyebrow, and looked over his shoulder at her. Her eyebrows, in turn, descended into a sharp V. “Don’t you dare, Schwartz, you know how I feel about stereotyping.”
    He straightened up and grinned. “You are so easy.”
    “Smart ass. You have thirty seconds to finish whatever you came to say and then I’m calling Agnes in here to escort you to the door and out of the building.”
    “Dinner and a movie?”
    “What time? Wait a minute, what movie?”
    “Your choice. I’ll pick one up at the rental store, grab some Chinese take-out and meet you at your place at…six thirty?”
    “You pick it, but no macho war-is-beautiful flick. I’m not in the mood to see The Dirty Dozen again. And why is it always my place? What are you hiding in that apartment of yours?”
    “It’s too small to hide anything. We could go to the A-frame. That suit?”
    “Much better. My faculty has enough trouble without you chowing down in the president’s house every whipstitch.”
    “Not chowing down, I think. Chowing down is not the problem.”
    “No, I guess not, unless that’s a euphemism for—”
    “It isn’t, at least as far as I know. So, you have other problems in the halls of academe?”
    “Maybe. I have a meeting tonight to discuss a rumor making the rounds that the Board of Trustees is going to move we go coed, maybe by merging with some well endowed, but land poor college up the road somewhere.”
    “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
    “I know, but later would be better. If you’re going to change the whole personality of a place, it needs to be thought through. Otherwise you get…what’s the academic equivalent to oatmeal?”
    “I dare not say. You may have taught there at one time or another. A degree mill that grinds out academic oatmeal. Nice metaphor. And you’re right. Some thought ought to be given to where the board wants this new entity to go, before they just throw open the gates and assume that what works in a single sex institution will work in a coed one.”
    “Well, at least we agree on that. But you are not on the board and so that message may not be heard.” She sighed and frowned. “I don’t know how long the meeting will last. How about I just meet you at your A-frame and we skip the dinner?”
    “You remember how to get there?”
    “I remember. And I’ll bring an overnight, in case it snows.”
    “It doesn’t snow in the Shenandoah Valley in April.”
    “Well, it may just snow somewhere, Wyoming maybe, you never know. Now, go away before I call Agnes.”
    Ike left the college’s main building and walked to his car. Two students passed by and smiled a greeting that barely disguised a knowing look and a glance at the President’s office window. His police car had become a fixture on the campus and, Ike guessed, exacerbated Ruth’s problem relationship with him. The townsfolk would have the same feelings if her Volvo were seen parked on the street near his apartment.
    They could not ignore it any longer. They’d decided to wait,