by Shawn James
Chapter 19
I’m imagining myself strolling on the beach in my favorite polka dot bikini when I look out and notice Sharon holding up her red pen. With the class over, I can resume my investigation into the mystery of how the stalker is getting into the dressing room to leave those threatening messages.
I come out of the zone, throw my robe on, and streak back into the dressing room. After I close the door behind me, I notice another note left on top of my bag. Looks like Marilyn’s stalker has struck again.
I pick it up the warm piece of paper and there’s another picture of the battered and bloody Marilyn above another threatening message in multiple fonts:
YOU’RE GONNA LOOK JUST LIKE THIS AGAIN AFTER YOUR NEXT ART CLASS
Something bumps against the exit door; I see the shadow of a pair of feet standing under the bottom of it. The stalker scurries away when they hear me rushing over; by the time I get the door open to confront them all I see is someone wearing a green T-shirt and a black North Face backpack rushing through the crowd of students. Looks like I was right to suspect the fanboy. Kyle is the stalker.
I go back to grab my bag to follow him and feel something greasy on my hands. I know my hands were clean when I came out of the studio, so this residue must have come from the door. Either the maintenance people really overdo it when they oil the locks around here or there’s something inside this door that doesn’t belong there.
I give the door a gentle push and it swings open with no resistance from the lock. When I give the door lock a closer look, I notice something green stuffed into the tab that locks the door and inside the notch where the tab rests. When I dig it out it’s some sort of oily green wax. I think I found the missing Casteline.
Now I know how Kyle got back in here to deliver these threatening notes. He wedged Casteline into the door to keep it from locking before class.
I could go to the campus police with the latest note and the Casteline as evidence of the stalking, but they’ll probably tell me that it’s still not enough to prove anything substantive. I’m gonna need a lot more evidence before I confront Kyle about why he’s harassing Marilyn.
I grab a wetnap out of my bag, wipe my hands and then get changed back into my clothes. Then I stuff the latest threatening note in my bag and take another napkin out of it to wrap the chunks of wax in it. Since I have about an hour and a half to kill before the noon class, I’ll head over to the computer lab to see how he’s making these notes.
Chapter 20
I push through the dressing room exit and hustle through the crowds of students over to the elevator banks on the west side of the building. After a quick ride up to the third floor, I find the Computer Center at the end of the hall.
I push past the tall glass door and stroll into the state-of-the-art computer facility decorated with blue Berber carpet, white Formica computer desks, comfortable leather chairs and more student art. At least two dozen of PCs are situated on the left side of the room while an equal amount of Macs are situated on the right side of the room. I find an empty terminal on the far side of the Mac section of the lab and have a seat in front of its big screen.
I take out my iPhone out of my cargo pant pocket and its USB cable out of my bag. Before I can plug it into the port on the computer, the redheaded girl with the spiky hair walks into the lab. When she meets my brown eyes with her green ones, she smiles and rushes over to have a seat at the empty terminal next to mine.
“Hey Isis.” She greets.
“Hey, I don’t know your name…” I greet back.
“Julia. I really loved drawing you yesterday. Are you going to be modeling for the rest of the semester?”
If I’m lucky and I bust this psycho this job will be over by the end of today. “I don’t know. They said they just wanted someone to fill in for Marilyn.”
“I’d rather see you in the studio for a little longer.”
Looks like I’m building my own fan club. “So you’re not a fan of Marilyn?”
“I like her face and all, but her body is a little too muscular for me. I have a hard time getting the lines of that six-pack of hers right.”
“Well, my muscles are pretty well defined like hers-”
“You’ve got some nice tone and definition, but the lines of your torso are a lot softer than Marilyn’s. Combine that with your slim build and you’re a lot easier to draw than she is.”
Looks like she has an eye for bodies. “You having a hard time drawing women?
“This is my first year drawing figures.” Julia continues. “I’d struggle with drawing the transition from Marilyn’s abs to her hips, but once I saw how they flowed with your body I finally figured out the trick to drawing them.”
I guess I really was needed here. “Glad I could help you out.”
“You don’t know how grateful I am. You literally saved my grade in that class.”
I smile on my small accomplishment as I turn to my computer, click on applications then click on the Font Book app. When the program appears on the screen, I pull the two notes out of my bag and move the pointer over the font box. Scrolling through the various letter styles I find all of them. These notes were definitely made on these computers.
Now to answer the big question and see if they were printed here. I stuff the notes back in my bag and wake up my sleeping iPhone. Then I go into iPhoto to bring up the picture of me and Marilyn in the lobby. An 8x10 print should let me know if these notes were printed here.
Before I can connect my USB cable to the computer, Julia turns away from her terminal and smiles at me. “You know you don’t have to plug your phone in to print.” She tells me.
“I don’t?”
“Yeah, all the printers here can print up stuff wirelessly here.”
Here’s something I did not know. “You can print wirelessly?”
“Yeah, your iphone should have AirPrint on it. With that, you can print anything from your phone by just pointing at one of the printers here.”
When at the Next School do as the Next School Students do. I’ll give it a try. “So how do I print from my phone?”
“Just click the iPhoto app, pick the picture you want and then press print. The printers here should detect your phone and print it.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Julia says.
I tap my iPhone screen and open up iPhoto. Then I choose the picture of me and Marilyn I took yesterday and hit print. When a prompt on my screen tells me that my picture is now being printed on NEXTSCHOOL PRINTER A, I hear the hum of a laser printer across from me room warming up. By the time I make it over to the station, an 8x10 print of me and Marilyn spits out of the printer and falls into the tray. I grab the photo and head back over to the desk where I left my bag and take the notes out of it. As I examine the new print in the light and compare it to the notes, I notice that the patterns of print dots on it aren’t the same as the ones on the notes. The picture definitely wasn’t made here.
Chapter 21
With the lead at the Computer lab a bust, I’m back to square one. Outside of a few threatening notes and some chunks of wax I’ve got nothing substantive to prove Kyle is Marilyn’s stalker.
I had hoped that the lead in the computer lab would’ve been the concrete evidence that would have let me wrap up the case against Kyle. Unfortunately, it’s turned into a dead end. I should have known something was up when I took the page off the laser printer. If the two pages I got in the dressing room were warm when I touched them, there was no way they were printed there. It took a good two minutes to get up here from the elevator. By the time the Kyle got downstairs to deliver his threatening messages they’d be as cold as ice. So how’d he print them?
My stomach growls as I ponder the answer to that question. I think I’ll head over to the student lounge I passed by on the way to the elevators downstairs to get the breakfast I missed this morning. All this sleuthing has made me hungry.
I wave goodbye to Julia, stuff the notes
in my bag, sling it over my shoulder and hurry out of the computer lab over to the elevator bank. After I take a ride back down to the lobby, I make a left and stroll into the student lounge. I get a tall orange juice and a cinnamon roll from the JavaStand and find a seat at a table in the center of the room. While I have my breakfast I sit and watch the students as they hang out and chat between classes.
Across the room, I notice the skinny blonde girl from yesterday’s art class sitting in a corner working feverishly on her iPad. She notices me looking at her and turns her eyes back to her screen. I guess she doesn’t want to talk right now.
Well, I’ve got my own classwork to do. I open up my bag and take out the photo I printed in the Computer lab and the threatening notes and put them on the table. While I’m trying to read between the lines of the terse messages, Brody hurries into the lounge carrying a bottle of water along with his portfolio. On seeing me, he rushes over to my table with an apologetic look on his face.
“Hey Isis, Er…I just wanted to say sorry about yesterday.”
“It’s okay Brody. I know Marilyn has her fans.” I say giving him a forgiving smile.
“I mean, I really respect your work, but Marilyn is really cool. She treats all the kids nice in class and gives us advice on how to draw her during the breaks.”
I might have given him some pointers on how to draw me if I had my robe yesterday. “So she helps you out?”
“Yeah. Thanks to her I’m getting better at drawing women for my comic. Wanna see?”
Sure.”
An eager Brody puts down his water and unzips his art portfolio. There’s an enthusiastic smile on his face as he takes out his art pages and hands them to me. In the dynamic panels of the Adventures of Majestra, a woman in a sleek leather costume is shown fighting bad guys in a stick up and taking them down. Wow. Who knew the big guy had so much talent.
“These are great!” I say as I read through his strip.
“You really like my comic?”
Like it? I love it. “Yeah, if it was on a bookstore shelf, I’d probably buy it.” I say handing the pages back to him.
“Thanks. I’m planning on publishing it as a graphic novel.”
“I’ll definitely buy a copy once it’s on Amazon.”
“Cool.”
As Brody stuffs his artwork back in his portfolio, he bumps the table and his bottle of water falls over on my notes. I frantically take my napkins and try to blot up the mess.
“I’m so sorry.” Brody apologizes. “I’ll get some more napkins-”
“It’s cool. It’s cool.” I tell him.
“You sure?”
“I’ve got it.” I say giving him another forgiving smile.
Brody heads over to the JavaStand to get a snack while I take my napkins and finish cleaning up the mess on the table. As I’m blotting water off the pages, ink from the threatening notes absorbs into the napkin, but not ink from the picture I printed out in the Computer Lab.
Thank you Brody.
Okay, now in addition to knowing that the notes weren’t made at the Computer Lab, I now know they weren’t made with a laser printer. Only ink from a crappy inkjet printer would bleed like this when pages from it came in contact with water. But how would someone get something as noisy and bulky as an inkjet printer into the dressing room? And where would they find a computer to hook it up to in there?
I’m pondering the answer to that question when Kyle strolls into the student lounge. He flashes a shy smile at me as he passes me by then finds a seat in the back across from the quiet girl and unzips his North Face backpack and pulls out a plastic container. While the students chat and socialize, he takes out the wax figure of a woman and resumes his work on sculpting her. I hop out of my seat and find out the story behind his project.
“Is she someone I should know?” I inquire.
“Yeah, it’s Marilyn.” Kyle answers proudly.
I study the lines of the muscles on the figure. If that’s what Marilyn looks like naked I can see why she has so many fans among these art types. With her cut stomach and toned legs she looks like she could be a superhero.
“She doesn’t pose for sculpting classes?”
“Nah.” Kyle replies. It’s a shame too. I have to take figure drawing classes just so I can see the lines of her body. She has one of the best figures on campus and only the figure study kids get to draw her.”
“You could always ask for a private session.”
“I asked her last semester and she turned me down.”
That could be his motive for stalking her. “Why doesn’t she do private sessions?”
“She says she’s not comfortable going to a stranger’s house. I mean, we’ve been working in the office together for six months, but she still doesn’t feel comfortable about fraternizing off campus.”
She’s probably trying to keep things professional. With her being twice the age of most of the kids here she could easily wind up being accused of some sort of inappropriate behavior running around naked in their homes. That’d jeopardize her free ride to that MBA she’s been working for.
“So you’ve had to work from your drawings?”
“Yeah.” Kyle continues. “I think I’ve got the lines of her body down in this action figure though.”
I know he’s got the legs and the arms correct from what I’ve seen. The kid has an amazing eye for anatomical detail.
“Action figure?”
“Yeah, I want to work for one of the big toy companies like Hasbro when I get out of school.” Kyle continues. “And the figures I’m sculpting are gonna be in my prototype portfolio. “I’m thinking of sculpting one up of you to go with her.”
Awww….I’m flattered. But that’s not going to stop me from busting him. “So you probably would have to use something like this to make your prototypes.” I say taking the napkin with the wax out of my bag.
Kyle’s eyes light up on seeing the chunk of green wax I drop on the table. “Oh man, Soft Casteline! Where’d you get it?”
“In the door of my dressing room.”
“Who’d put this there?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me. I saw you standing at the door of my dressing room this morning.”
Kyle gives me a serious look after hearing the accusation. “Dude, I know it wasn’t me.”
“But the guy who was at the door of my dressing room was wearing a green shirt and a North Face backpack like yours-”
“Whoever you ran into might have been wearing clothes like mine and a backpack like mine, but I can tell you for sure it wasn’t me.”
“But you were in the building this morning-”
“Dude, the sculpting studios are all the way up on the fifth floor in the east wing of the building.” It takes a good five minutes to get up there on a good day.”
“Maybe class ended early and you thought you’d get a show.”
“I doubt it dude. Figure Sculpt 202 doesn’t start until ten o’clock.”
And the Introduction to the Human Figure class I was modeling in ended at ten thirty. The clock read 10:22 when I ran into the crazy. So Kyle definitely isn’t the stalker.
“Sorry about accusing you of peeping on me.”
Kyle gives me a forgiving smile. “No problem. You gonna need this Casteline?”
I’m sure the stalker will probably have more this afternoon. I can spare this chunk for his artistic endeavors. “It’s yours.”
“Seriously, you should report that sicko to the Campus Police.” Kyle continues.
“I definitely am.” I say heading back to my table.
Chapter 22
I flop into the seat at my table and huff a sigh of frustration. As I look down at the water damaged notes, I wonder how I’m gonna solve this mystery. Right now I’ve got no suspects, no leads, and thanks to Brody, no evidence. The campus police aren’t going to be able to do much with a pair of illegible notes.
From what I’ve learned, all I know they used Casteline they got from
the office supply cabinet to keep the dressing room doors open so they could deliver their threatening notes. And from the note I got today I know is that they’re gonna strike today after the next class. But how do I tie it together into a sequence? How are they printing these notes if they’re not going to the computer lab?
I run answers through my mind as the quiet girl peers over her iPad screen and looks at me timidly. I flash her a smile as she reaches into her backpack and takes out some sort of device. She opens it up and slides paper into the tray. After she taps her tablet, sheets of paper begin feeding into the device. While her work finishes up, she walks over to my table and approaches me with a nervous smile.
“Hey.” She says quietly.
“Hey.” I reply back.
“I’m Jessica.” She says extending her hand.
“I’m Isis.” I say shaking it.
“I know. You must be really brave to stand up there in class with no clothes on.”
I don’t see where I’m so brave. Getting a little more comfortable in my own skin again, but not brave. But these artistic types see things differently than I do. “I’d think Marilyn is brave too-”
“But she’s a TV star. They’re used to being naked and stuff because they have to do it for magazines and movies and stuff. It’s not like real people like you and me naked-”
She must’ve seen Dark Ride when she was younger. “Are you uncomfortable drawing naked people?”
“Yeah. I’m just not used to seeing other girls’ boobies and their coochies. Or boys’ ding-a-lings.”
I want to laugh. But that would only exacerbate her anxieties. Now I understand why she was acting so oddly in class. I think I can assuage her fears about seeing other peoples’ naked bodies. “Hey, I’m still the same person with clothes on that I am with them off.”
Jessica cracks a smile after hearing that. “So you’re just as nice as you are now when you’re naked?”
I do everything in my power to keep myself from busting a gut. “Hey, you’re drawing the same person you’re talking to right now.”