MURDER AT MARKHAM
—A Southern Mystery
First in the Sheila Travis series
Author: Patricia Sprinkle
Reissue Edition
5.5"x8.5" Trade Paperback
Retail: $15.95US; 198pp
ISBN 978-1-62268-129-7 print
ISBN 978-1-62268-130-3 ebook
LCCN 2017952772

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MURDER AT MARKHAM
—A Southern Mystery
First in the Sheila Travis series
Author: Patricia Sprinkle

Chapter One

This side of the street was still clinging to winter, piles of grimy snow oozing down the sidewalk. Sheila Travis anchored her purse more firmly on her shoulder and strode to the other side, where a small green wooden shed glowed in sunlight and a grizzled old man with a grin sold papers.
    Chicago in February was nothing like she had been warned. She had come armed with coats and heavy suits against sub-zero temperatures. Instead, ever since her Monday arrival, capricious Gulf breezes had startled the city with blue skies, sunshine, and balmy air. Children trooped to parks for muddy games of tag. Teenagers shot baskets on improvised courts. In the Loop, sweatered shoppers exchanged grins as they hurried between Marshall Field's and lesser establishments. Even bus drivers smiled.
    Here in the Hyde Park neighborhood—enclave of liberal thinking dominated by the University of Chicago and her somber satellites—Sheila dodged a red Frisbee and stepped aside to let a student in shorts jog virtuously past. Overhead the Rockefeller Chapel chimes tolled eleven. Another hour of winter reprieve.
    "Paper, lady?" All but two of the old man's teeth had long since departed, leaving him an enchanting jack-o'-lantern smile as he peered up at her over his counter.
    She could never resist a newspaper, especially these past weeks. But she hesitated, considering her choices.
    "What you looking for?" he quavered, gnarled hands poised above his wares.
    "I may need to find a job." Her eyes scanned his counter.
    He reached for the largest paper. "Then it's the Tribune you want. Best classified in the nation."
    She fumbled in her purse for American coins, brought out a Japanese one by mistake.
    "You from somewhere else?" he inquired, one bushy brow cocked.
    She nodded. "I was. I've lived in Japan most of my life, but I've come home now. My husband died last November." Why, she wondered, was she saying this to a stranger? Was she going to become like other women who lived alone, women who bared their souls on buses for lack of someone at home to talk to?
    The old man didn't seem to mind. "Seems like it happens to everybody sooner or later, don't it?" he said in candid sympathy.
    She nodded, her smile returning. He was so delightful, with his red-veined cheeks and faded blue eyes, that she was tempted to linger—almost.
    "Not now," she told herself firmly, tucking the paper under one arm and giving him a nod in farewell, "you've got an interview."
    As she climbed the worn stone steps of a university building, she warned herself not to pin too many hopes on Dr. Wilcox. He'd been very helpful in launching Tyler into diplomatic circles, but what could he have to offer a widow with a sixteen-year-old degree in history whose only accomplishments were dressing well, listening well, and running a complicated embassy household with a modicum of grace and ease? By the time she entered his office, an office stuffy with years of wool jackets, stale pipes, and prestige, she was trembling slightly, braced for rejection.
    Dr. Wilcox, however, leaned back in his huge leather chair and heard her out. Then he puffed a couple of times on his meerschaum pipe and considered the green ceiling above his head. "You don't want to return to Japan?" He carefully matched his buffed nails to form the skeleton of a ball. "With all the uncertainty about trade agreements these days, we badly need people with your social skills. I know it would be hard at first, but to abandon fifteen years of work . . ."
    "Tyler's work, Dr. Wilcox," she interrupted.
    He sighed deeply. "Such a loss. Few men possess that vision and charisma. Tyler Travis was a legend in his own time."
    Sheila suppressed a wry smile. Was it Time, or Newsweek, that had first used that cliché in Tyler's obituary? It always reminded her of an after-shave that Tyler would have despised.
    Firmly she brought the subject back. "But Tyler was the diplomat-I was basically a housewife. Except for entertaining, I was seldom involved in what he was doing. And I'd prefer to remain in America for the time being—Chicago, if possible. I have the loan of an apartment in Hyde Park this semester, and I'd really like to find something . . ." She bogged down. "Interesting" and "challenging" were inadequate words to convey the yearning she'd felt for a couple of years. "Something that's mine," she wanted to scream, "something I accomplish as myself, not as somebody else's wife!" Dr. Wilcox would probably dive beneath his desk in dismay.
    He misinterpreted her silence. "Surely Tyler's pension is adequate. Would he want . . . I mean, do you really need to work?"
    "It's precisely what I need," she said, more forcefully than she'd intended. "Not for the money, but to keep busy," she added. "Tyler's dead, Dr. Wilcox. The question now isn't Tyler, it's me.
    That had come off well. Her voice hadn't even trembled through those oft-rehearsed sentences, and they brought a flicker of compassion to the man's eyes. He ran one manicured hand over his thick gray hair and stood. "Excuse me for a moment. I've just remembered something . . ." He strode out of his office and returned in a moment with a scrap of paper in his hand.
    "Markham's looking for someone. You've heard of Markham?"
    Sheila nodded. Who hadn't? Markham was to diplomatic circles what Juilliard was to music.
    "And Eleanor Quincy? I think you knew her several years ago?"
    "Yes, she was in Japan for a couple of years. We played tennis together sometimes."
    "Well, after Jake died, Eleanor was Administrative Assistant to the President at Markham for five years, until she went to work on the White House staff last November. They haven't replaced her, and I heard last week at the Quadrangle Club that they are looking. I don't know what the job entails, exactly, but it might be right up your alley."
    Meaning, Sheila thought wryly, that it's been filled by embassy widows for the past hundred years. She kept her eyes on her lap so he couldn't see her eyes. "It sounds interesting. Whom should I see?"
    In less than ten minutes she was on her way.
    The building she sought was so plain, so nondescript, that she almost missed it. The only sign of prestige was a heavy door, probably oak under its years of weather and student palms, beside which a brass rectangle said, simply: MARKHAM.
    She checked her watch. Thirty minutes before her interview to fortify herself with coffee and a peek at the newspaper she still carried. As she retraced her steps toward a coffee shop she remembered, a sudden gust off Lake Michigan made her hug her elbows across her chest and wish she'd worn a coat over her suit. She thought longingly of her folks in Montgomery, and Aunt Mary in St. Petersburg. Could she really stand Chicago's cold?
    As suddenly as it had come, the wind died and the sun bathed her again. With it returned her resolve. She would not give up, until she had spent some time proving Sheila Travis could take care of herself. And Hyde Park, where she had the offer of an apartment until June, was as good a place as any to try.
    Passing a plate-glass window, she wrinkled her nose at the gawky woman loping along in reflection beside her. "Giraffe," she mocked herself gently, "the only giraffe in captivity with frizzy black hair."
    Ten minutes later, chewing a bagel and sipping muddy coffee, she opened her paper. "Only a peek at the front page," she promised herself. But her hunger for American news made her read every word, turn inside to continue the predictable stories of bribes in high places, battles between the mayor and city council, whines from the school board that it could never meet payroll all year, and violent crime.
    Crime? How horrified Dr. Wilcox had been to read that one item in her folder when he consulted it. Almost as horrified as Tyler had been each time it had happened.
    "You have been involved with the Japanese police?" The professor's voice had been hushed on the last word, like a small boy voicing a forbidden obscenity. She'd been torn between vexation and an almost irresistible urge to laugh.
    "Not as a criminal, Dr. Wilcox. Surely it must say somewhere there that I was called in to help once or twice because I knew the people involved and was fluent in Japanese."
    "Three times." His finger had actually marked the place. Remembering, Sheila smiled.
    "What you finding so funny?" She looked up from her paper to meet the rheumy gray eyes of a man at the next table. "Same old stuff," he muttered. "Can't tell what year it is anymore by reading the paper." His gray-stubbled jowls hung over his collar, his middle hung over his belt, and his bottom hung over his chair. Sheila found him endearing, extended her smile to include him.
    Encouraged, he expanded his theme. "And look at the ads." He jerked his doughnut at the paper. "Get-away Florida vacations, luggage, and furniture. You know why they sell them together? Luggage to take on your trip and furniture to replace what gets ripped off while you're gone." He grunted, heaving himself out of his seat. "Good talking to you." He lumbered off, fumbling in his pocket for change.
    Sheila smiled at his back. Hello, America, she thought fondly. Resolutely she stood and headed back to Markham.
    The president's secretary had a thin yellow face and black almond eyes behind round spectacles. Sheila spoke automatically. "Gomennasai."
    The woman's eyes rounded like her glasses. "Was that Japanese?" Her accent was thoroughly American.
    Sheila flushed. "Sorry, it was habit. I've lived in Japan most of my life. Both my parents and my husband worked there."
    The skin around the woman's eyes crinkled with delight. "Really? I'm third-generation American. Just think! Anyone would think you were American and I was Japanese, when it is almost the other way around!" As she took in Sheila's long body, white skin, and very curly black hair, her eyes sparkled so merrily that Sheila found herself smiling back.
    "You are Mrs. Travis? Your husband was Tyler Travis?" She scarcely waited for Sheila's nod before she went on. "My name is Yoshiko Furutani. The president will see you in just a minute. Please have a chair."
    When Sheila was seated, Yoshiko typed for a moment, then turned to ask, "Did you know Eleanor Quincy?"
    "Yes, she and her husband were in Japan several years ago."
    The tiny woman beamed. "And now you are considering coming to us. Isn't that wonderful! Eleanor did a marvelous job—hosting visiting dignitaries, coordinating special events, that kind of thing. She was also a sort of liaison between our president and the students. He's away a lot, and . . ." She lowered her voice confidentially. "Eleanor was a sort of aunt to them."
    Sheila repressed a shudder. Aunt to a horde of students was not precisely what she had been looking for in a job. The little woman was still chattering on. "In two weeks we are beginning a very important lecture series to commemorate our one hundredth year. I've been wondering who was going to make sure things run smoothly—finalize travel arrangements and meet planes, arrange for hospitality, coordinate the secretaries who'll have to type the manuscripts . . . and now, here you are!" She almost bounced in her chair.
    "I don't have the job yet," Sheila reminded her. "I don't know much about academic institutions."
    "Oh, don't worry about that. We're not really an institution, we're like a great big family. And President Dehaviland will be delighted to add you to the family."
    "Dehaviland?" Sheila spoke involuntarily. "John Dehaviland?"
    Yoshiko nodded. "Yes. Do you know him, too?"
    Years of experience kept a mask of pleasant surprise on Sheila's face, but mentally she wrinkled her nose. "Just slightly." Only mentally did she add, by personal choice.

copyright ©2018 Patricia Sprinkle

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