by Vivian Barz
“I’m not drinking too much, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, defensive, and even a little heated, not particularly relishing having his actions policed. He was also worried about potential eavesdroppers, being one himself. The last thing he needed was for people on campus to start quizzing him about his trauma and his band again. They’d finally, for the most part, lost interest in his tragedy. While he’d loathed the unwanted attention, what had irked him most was the entitlement they exhibited when meddling in his personal affairs.
“Of course I worry. You lost two of your closest friends and your band in one fell swoop. A year is not that long ago. It’s okay for you to still be upset.”
Thanks for the permission, Jake thought indignantly and then checked himself. Why was he getting so irate, and at Eric of all people? His friend’s concern was coming from a good place, and a sincere one. Unlike the countless others who’d offered their condolences, Eric had been right by his side in Washington when he’d lost his friends. If anyone on earth could truly understand his anguish, it was the professor.
“I’m all right,” Jake assured Eric with words he did not feel. Was he all right? Some days he wasn’t so sure. But what could Eric do about it—what could he? His friends were gone, and dead was dead. The killer had been apprehended as well, which was supposed to have made him feel better. It didn’t. Nothing did.
“You don’t sound all right. You sound annoyed,” Eric said with a disarming chuckle that teased a reluctant smile from Jake. “I just don’t want you filling your spare time up with booze, since you’re not playing shows anymore. You can’t only do homework and grade papers—you’ll go mental. You know, if you’re ever feeling lonely, I’m always up to jam. Can’t remember the last time I even saw drums.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” It also had been a while since he’d played his new violin, but this was mainly because making music made him feel sick to his stomach. Steering them back on topic, Jake said, “From what I’ve seen, Bryan has always acted more like a protector of women, not someone out to prey on them. And I believe him about him being the one who did the dumping. I’ve seen him interacting with Sam—at the time I didn’t know she was his ex, but I do now that I’ve seen her photo plastered all over the place—and it seemed like he was done with her, even if he still cared about her well-being. She was the one who always looked moony eyed over him; before I’d learned who she was, I’d always assumed she was just one of his groupies. He wasn’t lying; he does get a lot of attention as a bartender. He certainly has no shortage of offers.”
“Who do you think committed the murder, then? And what about the opiates?” Eric asked.
“I was thinking about that. Just because Bryan was the one who served her the drinks, it doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t have tampered with them once they were in her possession. It’d only take a second or two of her looking away for someone to drop something in her glass. Maybe she left it on the bar while she went to use the bathroom.” Jake shrugged. “Or maybe she really was a closeted heroin user.”
“I don’t know about that. A heroin addiction would be hard to disguise,” Eric countered. “Shooting up is not like sneaking a cigarette out the window when nobody’s looking.”
“Okay, I have to agree with you on that one. When we were on the road, we saw our fair share of junkies backstage—believe you me, there’s no such thing as a casual user. You’re either a heroin user or you’re not.”
Eric nodded. “You think someone broke in and killed her after Bryan left, then?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible. Bryan said he used her keys to let them in, but he said nothing about making sure the door was locked when he left. And, even if he did, it’s doubtful he would have locked the door and set an alarm, which means the locks could have been picked or a window could have been jimmied open. Maybe some creep spiked her drink at the bar, followed Samantha and Bryan home, and then broke in after he left, knowing she’d be blacked out. Or, maybe one person drugged her drink at the bar, and then an entirely unrelated person broke in and tried to assault her. I mean, stranger things have happened.”
Eric said, “Or, maybe Bryan has played us both, and he’s guilty on all counts.”
“Maybe. But I really don’t think so. What about this DOTE group? If she’d been hanging around with them as often as Bryan said, they might know something.”
“It’s very late 1990s or early 2000s, isn’t it—the idea of ecoterrorism?” Eric commented. “You don’t hear much about it anymore.”
“You’re forgetting, I was born in the nineties.”
“Oh, right. Way to make a guy feel old,” Eric said with a laugh. “When I was a kid, though, it was all over the news. What did they call it, when hard-core groups sabotaged companies they thought were bad for the environment? Ecotage.”
“Like setting test animals loose in labs, that sort of stuff?”
“Exactly. There was a big story in the early 2000s about a firebombing down in San Diego—I remember because I’d studied it in one of my classes as an undergrad. An ‘ecoterror’ group was angry that a housing development was being built, so they torched the whole thing. Caused something like fifty million dollars in fire damage. They even left a note saying they’d do it again if more developments went up. The FBI was involved in that one, since it was classified as an act of terrorism; they later offered a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward to anyone with information that would lead to the capture of the individuals who did it. I’m not sure if anyone ever came forward, though. With a group like that, you’d almost be afraid to.”
“They sound like a far cry from the Sierra Club,” Jake said.
“It was a popular thing to do in the media back then, label any environmental group that leaned toward zealous as ‘ecoterrorists’—though the arsonist group in San Diego was obviously dangerous. The whole notion became widespread overnight, it seemed, kind of like how ‘satanic panic’ got heat in the eighties. Everyone was talking about it, and it was the subject line for a lot of TV shows—I want to say that there was even an X-Files episode about ecoterrorists—until it just sort of fizzled out and people moved on to something else to obsess over.”
“You think these doters are like that—terrorist types?”
Eric lifted his shoulders. “I have no idea. You’d probably know more about them than I do. I’d never heard about the group until today. None of the students really talk to me about that sort of stuff. I think they see me more like a parent they’re afraid of judging them.”
“Those doters do sound a little nutty,” Jake said. “Though it could just be Bryan’s sour grapes talking. I’d still like to check out the group, maybe talk to some of the members.”
“You sure you want to get involved in this or with them? You might be causing yourself a whole lot of unnecessary grief.”
“I’m intrigued. And weren’t you just saying that I needed to find myself a hobby?”
Eric’s frown exasperated Jake. “I guess I should have clarified. I meant a hobby that would take your mind off doom and gloom, not immerse you in it. After all that you’ve been through . . .”
Jake gave Eric a warning look. “I don’t need to be reminded about what happened. I was there—and, unlike you and Susan, I was taken hostage and mangled in a plane crash. Head bashed. Bones crushed. Try forgetting that.”
Eric sighed. “I’m not downplaying your tragedy. That’s the last thing I’m trying to do. I just think it’s best that you sit this one out.”
“Why? You act as if I’m a child, like I need to go to the corner.” Jake was perplexed and caught off guard by his own flaring anger, yet he felt it anyway. His emotions as of late were like quicksand: peaceful on the surface, yet perilous underneath. Once he allowed them to take over and pull him down-down-down, he was no longer in control, as if they were an entity separate from himself. While his heart occasionally suggested that he might need to speak with a professional to help him deal with his trauma, his
head—the naughty voice that spoke loudest and meanest of all—told him to forget such nonsense, that what he really needed was a drink. He listened to his head more often than he’d realized until now.
Or, at least, more often than he cared to admit.
“I understand, Jake, that you’re a grown, capable man. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have suggested that you work with me here at the university.”
“So, what’s the issue?”
Eric shrugged, blew the air out of his puffed cheeks. “Honestly, I don’t know why you should back off, but I have a strong sense that you should. Maybe it’s because these doters sound like trouble waiting to happen. Also, with Sir Ass of Hole Williams getting involved, you might be rocking the boat unnecessarily. If you think he’s a pain now, try getting on his bad side.”
“Really? Because a couple minutes ago, you were acting as if you didn’t care what he thought,” Jake said, though he supposed Eric had a point. While he could care less if the dean was unhappy, he didn’t want to take on the aggravation of having to deal with him. “But, fine, okay? I’ll leave the doters alone.”
And Jake meant what he said too. But then that naughty voice in his head was speaking up again, asking when he’d started answering to other people. Wouldn’t it be more fun to do what he wanted?
CHAPTER 6
Susan jumped like a bomb had gone off as her personal cell phone started ringing on her desk. When she saw who it was, she mused that one might as well have. “Hello, Eric,” she said formally, if not a trifle frostily, once she picked up after letting it ring a couple times.
She nearly followed up with a polite question after she was met with a brief moment of silence—How are you?—but she decided against it. Although she’d been quite busy tracking down leads on Dov Amsel and Chung Nguygen, she was having a good day—a great one, in fact—and she didn’t want it potentially ruined by Eric telling her that he’d met someone new and things were just fine and dandy. To hear that would indeed make a bomb go off, all right, inside her head. And her heart.
“Hi, Suze,” he said and then laughed uncertainly. This made her feel a little better, knowing he was nervous too. “Hope you’re doing well.”
It wasn’t really a question about the state of her well-being, but at least he was making an effort. “Thanks, you too. What’s up?” Best cut to the chase, she thought, in case he was calling to argue about their breakup. Although, if she were to be honest with herself, some small part of her was hoping that he was. She missed him every day, though her pride would not allow her to acknowledge it.
No such luck. “I’ve got a question for you—legal stuff. Maybe it’s more like advice that I’m after.”
“Uh-oh, did you do something bad?” she asked in a tone that was . . . flirty, she realized with alarm. She instantly checked her emotions, telling herself to cool it. Not only was her flirting completely left field and weirdly misplaced, but she was also at work. Now was no time to be gushing over her ex like a love-struck teenager.
At any rate, he laughed, which lifted her spirits. “No, not me. I had a kid come into my office just a short while ago—Bryan McDougal. Are you familiar with the name?”
“Should I be?”
“I guess not. You probably investigate so many delinquents that the names all run together.”
“So he’s a criminal, then?”
“Maybe,” Eric said. “He’s suspected of murdering his ex-girlfriend during an attempted sexual assault. They found opiates in her system, and she was stabbed multiple times. He’s kind of . . .”
“What?”
“Hiding out from the police,” he confessed.
“God, and he was just in your office? Eric!”
“He, um, held Jake and me at gunpoint—”
“Seriously?”
“Don’t worry, it was a fake gun.”
“What the hell?”
He laughed dryly. “He wanted me to use my psychic mojo to see that he was telling the truth about being innocent. I told him my mind doesn’t work that way.”
Susan was wondering where it was all going, and why he’d decided to call her. She no longer entertained even the possibility that it was because he was missing old times. “Then what happened?”
“He jumped out the window when someone started knocking on my door. That’s how we discovered the gun was fake—he threw it at us before he took off running. I haven’t seen him since,” Eric said, sounding strangely calm for a man whose life had just been threatened—well, sort of threatened. She wondered if the fake gun fired fake bullets, perhaps made of candy. “So, now I’m calling you for guidance.”
“And you still haven’t reported seeing him?”
“No.”
“No?” Susan scoffed. “Then my advice is to hang up with me and call campus police immediately. Come on—you understand enough about the law to know that not reporting the incident could be viewed as obstruction of justice.”
He sighed. “I know, I know. I’ll call as soon as I hang up, all right?”
“An attempted rapist and a murderer—why are you even protecting this cretin? That’s not like you.” And it wasn’t. Eric was the smartest, most sensitive man she knew.
“Because, I think he might be telling the truth about being innocent. So does Jake.”
Susan trusted both Jake’s and Eric’s judgment, so she decided to hear him out. There were few people in her life she would have extended the same courtesy to. She listened as Eric outlined the conversation he and Jake had had with Bryan. At gunpoint.
“Bryan believes Samantha’s parents might be convincing the police that he’s guilty—he says they’ve always had it out for him. According to him, they’re extremely wealthy and have got a fair bit of political pull. He comes from a poor background, so he’s worried that he won’t have the financial resources to defend himself properly.”
“Still, it’ll look a hell of a lot worse if he continues hiding out.”
“That’s exactly what I told him. But then he had to go and jump out the window. Before you ask, I have no idea where he is.” Eric paused to take a sip of water. This, Susan knew, since he made a soft aaahhh sound at the end of his drink. It was one of the many idiosyncrasies of his she’d picked up on unconsciously. “The dean here at Lamount is also pressuring me to go to the police.”
“To tell them about Bryan holding you at gunpoint?”
“No, he has no idea about that. The guy’s a major jerk. Seems Samantha’s parents are pressuring him to get me to go to the police and tell them Bryan’s guilty. They want me to claim that I know he did it psychically. Funny, right, since Bryan wanted me to do the same thing, except with a claim that he was innocent. I told the dean that I wasn’t interested in doing his bidding, and he made some weird threat about me becoming his enemy.”
“Are you concerned about the threat?”
“Physically?”
“Yes.”
Eric snorted. “Not at all. The guy’s half my size and nearly twice my age. I doubt he could fight his way out of a wet paper bag. I don’t think he was threatening me that way, but more with what he could do to my career at the university. Petty politics.”
She asked, “So, this Bryan, he thought that you offering up a psychic defense would help his cause?”
“I guess so.”
To put a face to the murdered girl’s name, Susan ran a quick internet search on Samantha Neville as they carried on their conversation. She didn’t see too many results for her, barring a couple of social media accounts, but her parents were all over the place, mainly for their high-dollar business deals and involvement with nonprofit organizations. She clicked on a news article from a couple years back that had linked all three names, and then there on her screen was a photograph of the family that had been taken at a black-tie charity event benefitting cancer research.
Mr. and Mrs. Neville were close to how she imagined a wealthy San Francisco power couple would look. Though he was about ten years his wife’s
senior and nowhere as attractive, Mr. Neville, in a crisp, impeccably tailored tux, was handsome in a bland, white-bread sort of way. What he lacked in good looks he compensated for in charisma; shoulders squared and chin held high, he exuded the type of confidence that might be attributed to arrogance. Mrs. Neville, her strikingly pale skin and wheat-colored hair a stark contrast to her plunging deep-red ball gown, was a porcelain doll come to life. Her smile was tight, unnatural, and didn’t reach her eyes. Near them, but not quite at their sides, stood Samantha, her arms folded across her chest and her expression stoic. She seemed ill at ease in her matronly pale-pink gown, which would have been better suited for a woman three times her age.
Susan imagined that if she were to be trapped in an elevator with the trio, she’d struggle to find something to talk about with them.
Eric said, “Hey, here’s something a little off topic, but still related. Have you ever heard of an environmentalist group who call themselves Defenders of the Earth?”
Susan was surprised that he knew the name. “Sure, DOTE for short, right?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why do you want to know about them?” Susan was in full work mode now, her frustration over their breakup temporarily forgotten. While it was true that she was perpetually fearful of letting her boss and colleagues down, it was still behind her desk that she felt most empowered. Here, she was in control—she wasn’t just run-of-the-mill Susan; she was Special Agent Susan Marlan.
“Bryan said Samantha went a little screwy after she joined the group. He also said they might be dangerous.”
“I haven’t personally worked on a case with them, but someone on my team has,” Susan said. “He—Johnathan—and I have actually talked a lot about DOTE, since he came onboard around the same time I did, and they were the focus of his first cases. Doters have been becoming increasingly active in the community.”
“Which means more of a nuisance and a federal concern,” Eric deduced.
“Right.”
“And here I was thinking that ecoterrorism was a thing of the past.”