“Show me exactly where you think you saw a body, Lorraine,” I directed with increasing trepidation in my voice. “We should call 9-1-1, but I'd like to verify what you saw before we…”
“It's a body. I know what I saw, Kellan,” Lorraine replied. Her voice was much calmer than when she'd first informed us what she'd seen. “Follow me.”
We all ran up to the second floor where ten or twelve oddly shaped offices—typically the center of many vocal professors arguing about who deserved the biggest space—resided. While there was no staircase leading to the third floor from the back side of the building, there was a narrow one in the front leading to a cozy library and open area for students working on a group project or a professor holding a special lecture session from time to time. Based on what Lorraine had told me on the walk over, my father recently commandeered the third floor during the renovations on his office. Since the top floor was only large enough for his furniture given the peaks of the slanted roof and the built-in library shelves, Lorraine sat in a central open area on the second floor between the two staircases.
My stomach twisted in pain. There was a good chance my father could be at the bottom of the stairwell. All three of us crossed through the second floor past Lorraine's desk and looked at the swinging door to the back stairwell. “Did you leave it open?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I thought I'd closed it, maybe I ran out and didn't pay attention. The body is inside. You have to step into the vestibule and look down to the right.”
I'd seen a few dead bodies before. It had never bothered me until I was called to the morgue to verify Francesca's identity that Thanksgiving. I still remember the fear moments before they lifted the sheet. I ultimately couldn't do it and stepped out of the cold and frigid room grateful to my father-in-law for taking on the responsibility of identifying her body. I had to be brave and determine if Lorraine was losing her mind or if there was any truth to what she'd seen. I tiptoed into the vestibule with my eyes closed, turned to the right, and felt my composure fade. I slanted my head at the angle I thought would align with the bottom platform and opened my eyes.
The way the body laid on the floor all tangled up was the most horrid part. Two legs were folded under the person's upper half, and the head was trapped between what appeared to be twisted hands and arms. That's when I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't my father, it was the woman I'd seen outside the library on the phone while waiting for my sister.
I guess I'd been quiet for too long. Maggie screeched, “What's going on, Kellan?”
I peeked my head around the corner of the wall and saw a shaky Maggie and Lorraine holding hands. “Yes, someone's down there. I can't tell if she's breathing.”
“Please go check, Kellan. She could be hurt,” begged Lorraine puttering with several pieces of costume jewelry on her wrist.
I nodded in their direction and walked down the steps. Something told me whoever was down there was already a goner. When I reached the bottom platform, there wasn't a lot of room to move around, but I stretched my nervous hand to the woman's neck.
“Is she alive? Should I call 9-1-1?” Maggie asked.
“No, I think she's dead. There's no pulse, but we need to call them anyway,” I responded.
Lorraine yelled back at me. “I'm on my way down. I'm well enough to assist.”
I could hear Maggie dialing the emergency line and explaining the situation on speakerphone. When Lorraine reached the final step and stood a few inches from me, she grabbed my elbow. “Can you turn her head? I think I know who it is.”
“I don't think that's a good idea, Lorraine. If she's still alive, we could cause spinal damage.” This wasn't the night I'd expected. I wanted something better than a boring retirement party where I listened to dull speeches and met my father's insipid friends and colleagues—not dealing with a dead body.
Lorraine leaned forward over my shoulders. I cautioned her to avoid the patch of blood on the stairs. The woman must have smacked her skull pretty hard when she fell to cause it to bleed like that. Just as I thought Lorraine was going to back away, she gasped. “Oh, my word! I do know her.”
I wasn't in the mood to comfort someone else over death right now, especially if they were friendly with the person. I merely wanted to give a statement and get out of there to find Eleanor. “Um, who do you think it is, Lorraine?”
“It's Abby Monroe,” squealed Lorraine with a series of “It can't be, it can't be” wails.
Maggie yelled to us from the top of the stairwell. “The ambulance is on its way. I think the cops are coming, too. I should call Connor.”
When I first heard her say Connor, my immediate thought went to my other former best friend and fraternity brother, Connor Hawkins. He and I had stopped chatting around the time we all graduated ten years ago, too. “Hold up, Maggie. Lorraine thinks she knows who this is.” Tonight was becoming way too creepy with all the coincidences.
“Yes, I'm certain. I couldn't tell from way up top but saw her at the party earlier wearing this same outfit. Dean Terry remarked how well that sapphire blue empire-cut blouse matched her eyes. And that skirt, Abby always wears pencil skirts,” Lorraine said pulling at her blonde curls nervously.
“Are you sure? I've been looking for Abby Monroe all evening,” I said.
Lorraine stood and shook her head. Based on the peculiar expression on her pale face, my news had confused her. “Why were you meeting her? Maybe we should wait for the cops upstairs. I feel a little weird standing so close to… you know… um…”
“The body?” I replied while shrugging my shoulders. Things were not going well since I'd returned home to Braxton. “I'll explain another time why I was meeting her.” As we both climbed the stairs to the second floor, Lorraine awkwardly smiled back at me.
When we arrived, Maggie threw her hand across her forehead. “Connor will be here any minute. He'd just gotten to the retirement party to wish your father well.”
“Um, Connor who?” Given the number of times I'd been surprised already that night with Maggie returning to Braxton, finding Abby at the bottom of a stairwell, and meeting the peculiar Myriam Castle, I had an inkling Maggie's Connor would turn out to be our Connor from years ago.
“Connor Hawkins. Don't you remember anyone, Kellan?” shot her somewhat sassy response. The drama of finding a dead body was causing everyone to be irritable and short-tempered.
“Did I hear my name?” boomed a deep voice from across the hall. A darker-skinned man a few inches taller than me walked past the central admin area and hugged Maggie. They whispered something and shared a particularly intimate connection.
Yep, it was the same Connor. But it was also an extraordinarily different Connor. This Connor obviously spent his day working out at the gym or popping steroids. “Is that really you?” I asked in puzzlement looking from him to the stairwell hiding Abby's lifeless body.
“Kellan, what are you doing here?” he replied wrinkling his brow and jolting his head sideways.
“Well, yeah, it seems kind of obvious being that it's my father's retirement party.” I hadn't meant to sound like a jerk, but I was a bit off-kilter given everything happening that evening.
“I know that, Kellan. I meant at Diamond Hall,” Connor said with an authoritative tone.
All I could think about was a desperate sense of loss surrounding me. Connor, Maggie, and I had been inseparable all throughout college. When Maggie and I'd broken up, he took her side and told me how stupid I was to let her go at the time. He and I had also lost touch that summer. I couldn't remember ever hearing what had happened to him after Braxton.
I responded, “Lorraine found the body and came looking for help. I guess I was the nearest person she could find.” Visions of Francesca's last moments plagued me. I couldn't think straight.
Connor now stood a few inches away from Maggie and Lorraine. He looked uncomfortable in his light tan suit and striped Braxton tie, but it was a powerful offset to his cocoa-touched skin. His mo
ther was from the Caribbean, and his father was a South African sailor on leave from the navy when they'd met. Connor had inherited the best features from both and was always considered charming and gorgeous by the girls who melted anytime they heard his accent. Back in school, he was in decent shape, but he could now pass for a twin to Adonis. “I can't believe you're here. And Abby is there. How did…”
Maggie tapped her foot and inserted herself into the conversation. “Although I'm sure you boys can't wait to catch up, maybe Braxton's crack security team could do a quick check on the body randomly hanging out at the bottom of the stairs?”
“It's Abby Monroe, the chair of the communications department,” Lorraine said.
“I'll go check. Are you sure she's already dead?” Connor added with a pointed stare.
I nodded. “Pretty certain. You're a security guard now?”
“No, he's your father's head of security for the college. Do you not know about that either?” sniped Maggie. The shock was beginning to overwhelm all of us.
I swallowed my tongue and pride at the same time. My parents had some explaining to do. “Let's not get into that right now. Did she trip over something and hit her head?” Nobody responded. As Connor descended the steps, I turned to Lorraine. “Are you okay? Did you know Abby well?”
Before she could answer, two more people walked across the second-floor office space. “Hey, I'm Maggie Roarke. You arrived quickly.”
A familiar, mid-thirties blonde woman in a pair of dark jeans, an ill-fitting tweed coat, and standard-issue beat-walking shoes responded, “I'm Sheriff Montague. There's been a report of someone falling down a flight of stairs?” She turned to her colleague, a male cop with a crew cut, a huge nose that must have been broken several times before, and a pair of furry earmuffs. “This is Officer Flatman.”
“I'm down in the stairwell, Sheriff Montague,” shouted Connor.
While the two newest arrivals followed Connor's voice to the body to discuss the situation, I thought about what Abby's death would mean to Derek's plans for the second season of Dark Reality. I should have called him right away, but I had no information other than she'd died. Then I tried to reach my father on his cell, but he didn't pick up again. I called my mother.
“Kellan, I've been looking for you for nearly an hour. Please don't tell me you left already,” my mother said in a shrill voice. She should have been an actress instead of Braxton's admissions director.
“No, I'm… outside. Is Dad around? I need to talk with him about something… important.” I didn't want to alarm my mother given how easily agitated she'd become since I'd arrived home.
“I was looking for him myself, but he got pulled into an urgent meeting and said he'd find me at some point tonight. You know your father, even in near-retirement, he still feels obligated to remain a workaholic.”
I mumbled something to my mom making it sound like I agreed with her and told her I'd be back to the party as soon as possible. I turned to Maggie and Lorraine to see what they were doing. Lorraine chatted on the phone with someone, but I couldn't determine who from her side of the conversation. Something about urgently returning a call that evening to discuss what she'd found.
Maggie sat on a guest chair opposite Lorraine's desk and fiddled with her earlobes. She'd always played with them when nervous or worried about something life-changing. “It's awful to know she fell down the stairs, and no one was here to help her. I hope she didn't feel any pain.”
I wished the same. I was about to reach out and wrap my arms around Maggie when Connor bounded into the room. “Okay, so Sheriff Montague asked me to tell you three not to leave anytime soon. She has some questions about the order of events tonight, but she's still finishing a cursory review of the body. It's definitely Abby Monroe. I saw her leaving Stanton Concert Hall earlier tonight about a quarter after eight while I was doing my nightly walk through campus.”
Lorraine perked up finishing her call. “Is she really… dead?” A trail of mascara stained her cheek.
Connor nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Candito. The coroner will be here in a few minutes, but I'd say she's been dead for just under an hour. I've seen a lot of this type of thing before.”
Connor's response made me curious what he'd been up to the last ten years. What was going on between him and Maggie? My concentration broke when Lorraine burst into tears. Maggie stepped over to comfort her.
Connor walked toward me. I didn't know whether to grab his fingers using our secret fraternity greeting or stand there in silence. I was grateful when he made the first move—a typical handshake, no double tuck and punch like the old days. “What a way to reconnect tonight, huh?”
“Yeah, feels like a nightmare. Over a professor falling down a flight of steps and dying,” I said.
Connor rubbed his temple. “Tragic, but it's worse than that. She didn't just fall down the steps.”
I thought I'd misheard my former best friend, but his panicked expression revealed I hadn't. “What do you mean? How can it be any worse than death?”
“It wasn't an accident.” Connor stared at me deliberating what he should and shouldn't reveal.
My eyes popped open like a deer caught in headlights. “Do you think she tried to kill herself?” I asked feeling both stupid and silly about the question, but I barely knew anything about the woman. If she'd hooked up with Derek, there was a good chance she was slightly off her rocker.
“No, that's not what I mean. Sheriff Montague wouldn't want me to say this, but the blood on the ground was from a deep gash behind Abby's ear. There were some metal flakes mixed throughout her hair in the middle of the wound.”
“Wouldn't that be from when she hit the steps?” I asked looking around the room with no particular intent other than edginess over being around another dead body.
“Nope. She had a giant egg on the front of her head where she hit the steps. The wound on the back of her scalp was a much harder blow. Plus, there's nothing on the stairs or the floor that has any metal. It's all solid marble. I'm fairly certain we're looking at a murder tonight, Kellan.”
Chapter 5
“Maybe your old man snapped his lid and killed that mischievous woman?” Nana D said as I scooped a forkful of cherry pie between my drooling lips. Given the cops had kept me on campus until two in the morning, I'd gotten minimal sleep. I was surprised to make it to Danby Landing on time.
“My father, Braxton's presidential killer! Wharton County News at eleven,” I spit out between bites with a boisterous chuckle. Nana D's had it in for my father for as long as I can remember, but she's equally as free with the barbs against my mother, her own daughter. “But you're not supposed to know it was murder. I don't think Sheriff Montague wants that released.”
“Listen here, I've got my finger on the pulse of this town. I knew before you it was murder,” taunted my five-foot-tall nana while dropping another piece of pie on my plate. “Eat up.”
“How's that possible?” Was she about to tell me she was psychic like Eleanor? All we needed was two of them in the family. Maybe they could get their own show like the Long Island Medium!
“I've got my ways. All part of my master plan. Keep up on the news, stay connected to hear all the gossip, or find out what's happening around town.” Nana D slurped her coffee while fastening her nearly two-foot long braid to the top of her head. She waffled between wearing her red tresses loose and tying them in a braid around the crown of her noggin—as she called it—depending on her activities for the day. It had to be dyed, but Eleanor's best guess was a henna rinse.
“Why'd you call her a mischievous woman?” I asked recalling the conversation I'd overheard about a student's grades when Abby had been inches away from me the night before.
“I never much cared for that tart. Sneaky type. Hassled with me over the price of a bushel of apples. I'm certain she filled her pockets with three extra grannies at the farmer's market last weekend.”
“What else can you tell me about her?” I asked after upda
ting Nana D on my reasons for trying to meet the late professor. “Anything bad enough for someone to want to murder her?”
Nana D loved her gossip and gave as good as she got when unearthing everyone's secrets. I don't know how she did it or who she bribed, but if there was information to be found, Nana D was the first in line. She's like the Mata Hari of the Americas, and I'm even certain she knows the dance. Nana D's been pushing her boundaries ever since my mother pressured her into semi-retirement from running Danby Landing on her own. In its heyday, the farm was the most productive, income-generating business in the entire county, but as the industry changed and the maintenance costs grew, she sold off parts to a real estate company who built Willow Trees, a senior citizen's residential complex. With the new freedom on her hands, she'd taken on the role of community watchdog ensuring she kept everyone in line. I swear she carried a stun gun just to watch people dance for her own pleasure sometimes.
“Murder's a funny thing, Kellan. Sometimes it's premeditated, but then again, there's the spur-of-the-moment killing when you can't control your emotions. I thought about killing your Grandpop a few times. Run him down with the tractor or stab him with the pitchfork while baling hay. In the end, it was always too much of a mess to clean up, so I let him live.” She snatched a piece of crust off the pie and dipped it into the cherry filling. “Mmm, I've surpassed myself again.”
She'd never really thought about killing my Grandpop. They'd been sweethearts since they'd fallen in love at thirteen at a drive-in movie theater. “That was kind of you not to kill him. I'd have missed spending all those summers with Grandpop if you offed him before he died of that heart attack.”
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