4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4 by Frederick Ramsay Page A

from her sleeve and blew her nose. She sounded like a kitten sneezing. The scent of lilies of the valley wafted toward Ruth from the cloth, which transported her back in time. She hadn’t seen a hanky up a woman’s sleeve since her maiden aunt from Muncie came to visit, and that was in a previous century.
    “President Harris,” she began.
    “For heaven’s sake, Agnes, we’ve known each other since God made dirt. Call me Ruth.”
    “Oh well, then that’s the thing you see?”
    “See? See what. No, sorry, I don’t.”
    “We’ve been together for all those years and this is the first time you’ve ever asked me to call you by your Christian name. I’m always Agnes. Agnes, do this, Agnes, do that. And I am happy to do it. I think you may be the most remarkable woman I know but—”
    “But I take you for granted, and just once in a while, you’d like to be taken into my confidence. After all these years. Is that it?”
    “I think so.”
    “Is that why you give me a hard time about Ike…Mr. Schwartz?”
    “That’s part of it. I guess.”
    “And the other part?”
    “Some poet said we should see ourselves as others see us.”
    “Robert Burns said something like that, yes.”
    “How does it look? I mean you are the president of the college, and you are acting like the naughty teenager you just said you weren’t. What were you thinking? Sneaking around with a policeman. ‘Shacking up.’ What do you imagine people are saying about you?”
    “Agnes, I—”
    “Gracious, I don’t care about your love life. I never have. Maybe in the past, I even envied you a little, but this is so…blatant. Don’t you see? You are not one of the girls…women…you are the president of the college.”
    Ruth sat, mouth open, in mild shock. Agnes rarely said more than a half dozen words on any subject. And, in this instance, she knew she had it right. One’s private life should be that. And when she labored, as a professor or as a department chair, she had one. But now, she was in the public eye twenty-four seven. No wonder…
    “Then there is the other thing.”
    “The other thing?”
    “I’m older than you, President Harris…Ruth, and grew up in south Baltimore, Pigtown. We…we had certain feelings about certain people.”
    “Certain people meaning Jews?”
    Agnes hung her head again. “I’m sorry. It’s just…well he really is a nice enough man, but with my being angry about everything, well, I’m a little…”
    “Pissed?”
    “Yes, pissed,” Agnes made a wry face that could have passed for a smile and rubbed her hand across the rough fabric on the chair’s arm, “and I just let those old feelings come out to hurt you, I guess. I’m sorry.”
    “Not sorry, Agnes. We should have had this talk a long time ago. And you are correct to tell me. I was so caught up in…well caught up will do…and I lost sight of things. Will you do me a favor now?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “The situation around here is going to turn into a zoo in the next few weeks. I need protection and I need a means of escape from time to time. Will you help me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Escape with Schwartz, Agnes.”
    Agnes gulped and smiled. “With the sheriff, for your protection. When things get zooey, you need your own personal cop. Is that it?”
    “It’ll do. Let’s you and me blow this joint and go out to lunch.”

Chapter 13
    Henry Sutherlin stretched, braced his shoulders, and mopped his newly shaven head. He had only three more sections to split into firewood. A light breeze blew across the yard and carried the sour odor of newly hewn oak along with it. The cord he’d already chopped sat neatly stacked against the fence. By fall, it would be dry and ready for burning. Lydell was particular about his firewood. He liked a twenty-eighty mix of soft and hard. Henry had carefully mixed the pine and apple with the oak lengths so that no matter how Lydell gathered his logs for the day, he’d get the correct combination.
    Henry