by Meg Cabot
Brett, at the air hockey table, snorts. “Would we be enjoying this excellent ganja if the Dougster wasn’t here?” he inquires, raising his beer bottle in the air like that guy in that play who held up the skull and said he knew him well. “Of course the Dougster is here. The Dougster is, in fact, everywhere.”
Cooper is staring longingly at the wide-screen TV, apparently unaware that I’ve just been called a babe—which, while still sexist, is a nicer welcome than I’d have expected, based on the signage outside.
Still, with my partner apparently in a trance, I feel it’s up to me to steer the conversation in a more profitable direction.
“Well,” I say. “Could you tell me where, specifically, I might find Mr. Winer?”
One of the guys in front of the TV suddenly swivels around and barks, “Christ, Scott, it’s a cop!”
Every joint in the room, and a surprising amount of beer, disappears in a split second, crushed under Docksiders or stashed behind sofa cushions.
“Cops!” Scott, the kid at the pool table, throws down his joint disgustedly. “Aren’t you guys supposed to announce yourselves? You can’t peg me for nothing, man, ’cause you didn’t announce yourself.”
“We’re not cops,” I say, holding up both gloved hands. “Relax. We’re just looking for Doug.”
Scott sneers. “Yeah? Well, you gotta be buyin’, ’cause in threads like those, you sure ain’t sellin’.” A number of snickers sound in agreement.
I look down at my jeans, then glance surreptitiously at Cooper’s anorak, which he has unzipped to reveal a Shetland sweater featuring a green reindeer leaping over a geometric design in which the color pink figures prominently, a sweater I happen to know he received for Christmas from a doting great-aunt. Cooper is quite popular with the more elderly of his relatives.
“Um,” I say, thinking fast, “yeah. What you said.”
Scott rolls his eyes and pulls his beer out from the ball socket in which he’d stashed it. “Outside and down the hall, first door on your left. And be sure to knock, okay? The Winer usually has company.”
I nod, and Cooper and I retrace our steps back to the FAT CHICKS GO HOME hallway. The maid is nowhere to be seen. Cooper looks as if someone has hit him.
“Did you,” he breathes, “smell that?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Why am I thinking they’ve got a slightly better source for their weed than Reggie?”
“Isn’t this part of the Housing Department?” Cooper wants to know. “Don’t they have an RA?”
“A GA,” I say. “Like Sarah. But in charge of the whole building, not one for each floor. He can’t be everywhere at once.”
“Especially,” Cooper says, under his breath, “when Tau Phis are obviously paying him not to be.”
I don’t know what makes him think that…but I’m willing to bet he’s right. Hey, grad assistants are students, too, and more often than not, financially insolvent ones.
The first door on the left is covered with a life-sized poster of Brooke Burke in a bikini. I knock politely on Brooke’s left breast, and hear a muffled “What?” in response. So I turn the knob and go in.
Doug Winer’s room is dark, but enough gray light spills from around the shade to reveal a very large water bed, on which two figures recline, amid a plethora of beer cans. The predominant decorating theme, in fact, seems to be beer, as there are piles of beer cans, bottles, and cases strewn about the room. On the walls are posters of beer, and on the shelves creative stacks of it. I, who like beer just as much as the next person, if not slightly more, feel a little embarrassed for Doug.
After all, drinking beer is one thing. Decorating with it is quite another.
“Uh, Doug?” I say. “Sorry to wake you up, but we need to talk to you a minute.”
One of the figures on the bed stirs, and a sleepy male voice asks, “What time is it?”
I consult Cooper’s watch—since I don’t own one—after he presses the button on it that lights up the face. “Eleven,” I say.
“Shit.” Doug stretches, then seems to become aware of the other presence in his bed. “Shit,” he says, in a different tone, and pokes the figure—rather sharply, in my opinion.
“Hey,” Doug says. “You. Get up.”
Mewling fitfully, the girl tries to roll away from him, but Doug keeps poking, and finally she sits up, blinking heavily mascaraed eyes and clutching the maroon sheets to her chest. “Where am I?” she wants to know.
“Xanadu,” Doug says. “Now get the hell out.”
The girl blinks at him. “Who are you?” she wants to know.
“Count Chocula,” Doug says. “Get your clothes and get out. Bathroom’s over there. Don’t flush any feminine hygiene products down the john or you’ll clog it.”
The girl blinks at Cooper and me in the doorway. “Who’re they?” she asks.
“How the hell should I know?” Doug says crankily. “Now get out. I got stuff to do.”
“All right, Mr. Cranky Pants.” The girl swings herself out of bed, awarding Cooper and me with a generous view of her heart-shaped backside as she struggles into a pair of panties that didn’t make it to the shrubs outside. Clutching a spangly-looking dress to her chest, she simpers as she wriggles past Cooper on her way to the bathroom, but gives me a narrow-eyed glare as she passes.
Well, same to you, sister.
“Who the hell are you?” Doug demands, leaning over and lifting the blind just enough to allow me to see that he’s built like a lightweight wrestler, small, but muscular and compact. In the odd New York College campus fashion of the day, his head is shaved on all sides, but rises in a spiky blond flattop at the crown. He appears to be wearing a St. Christopher medallion and little else.
“Hello, Doug,” I say, and I’m surprised when my voice comes out dripping with animosity. I hadn’t liked the way Doug had treated the girl, but I’d hoped I’d be able to hide it better. Oh, well. “I’m Heather Wells and this is Cooper Cartwright. We’re here to ask you a few questions.”
Doug is fumbling along his bedside table for a pack of cigarettes. His square, stubby fingers close around a pack of Marlboros.
That’s when Cooper takes two long strides forward, seizes the kid’s wrist, and squeezes very hard. The kid yelps and turns a pair of angry pale blue eyes up at the larger man.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he brays.
“Smoking stunts your growth,” Cooper says, reaching down and pocketing the cigarette pack. He doesn’t let go of Doug’s wrist, but subtly begins applying pressure to it, in response to the kid’s trying to pull it away. “And have you ever seen a photograph of a smoker’s lungs?”
“Who the fuck do you guys think you are?” demands Doug Winer.
I think about saying something smart like, Your worst nightmare, but I glance over at Cooper and realize that what we are, really, is an assistant hall director whose BMI is in the overweight range, and a Shetland-sweater-wearing private detective, neither of whom has ever belonged to a fraternity.
Still, Cooper could intimidate by his sheer size alone, and apparently chooses to do so, looming over the kid’s bed like a six-foot-three headboard.
“Who we think we are doesn’t much matter,” Cooper says, in his scariest voice. And that’s when I realize Cooper hadn’t liked the way Doug had treated the girl, either. “I happen to be a detective, and I have few questions I’d like to ask you concerning the nature of your relationship with Lindsay Combs.”
Doug Winer’s eyes widen perceptibly, and he says, in a high voice, “I don’t have to tell the cops shit. My dad’s lawyer said so!”
“Well,” Cooper says, lowering himself onto the pitching water mattress, “that’s not strictly true, Douglas. If you don’t tell the cops shit, they’ll have you arrested for obstruction of justice. And I don’t think either your dad or his lawyer is going to like that.”
I have to hand it to Cooper. He’s scared the living daylights out of the boy, and without even lying to hi
m. He is a detective…and the cops could arrest Doug for obstruction of justice. It’s just that Cooper isn’t a police detective, and wouldn’t be able to do any arresting himself.
Seeing the kid’s truculent expression go suddenly soft with fear, Cooper lets go of his wrist and stands back, folding his arms across his chest and looming quite menacingly. He manages to look as if he feels like breaking Doug Winer’s arm—and might still do it, if provoked.
Doug massages his wrist where Cooper grasped it, and looks up at him resentfully. “You didn’t have to do that, man,” he says. “It’s my room, I can smoke if I want to.”
“Actually,” Cooper says, with the same amiableness that, I’m sure, always misleads his less savory clients into thinking he was secretly on their side, “this room belongs to the Tau Phi Epsilon Association, Douglas, not you. And I think the Tau Phi Epsilon Association might be interested to learn that one of their pledges is conducting a lucrative business in dealing controlled substances from their property.”
“What?” Doug’s jaw drops. In the gray light, I can see now that the kid’s chin is peppered with acne. “What are you talking about, man?”
Cooper chuckles. “Well, let’s leave that aside for a while, shall we? How old are you, Douglas? Tell the truth, now, son.”
To my surprise, the kid doesn’t say, I’m not your son, the way I would have, if I’d been him. Instead, he sticks out his pimpled chin and says, “Twenty.”
“Twenty,” Cooper echoes, looking pointedly about the room. “And are all these beer cans yours, Douglas?”
Doug isn’t quite as stupid as he looks. His face grows dark with suspicion as he lies sullenly, “No.”
“No?” Cooper looks mildly surprised. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I suppose your fraternity brothers, the ones who are over twenty-one, I mean, which is the legal drinking age in this state, drank all these beers and left them in your room as a little joke. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the New York College campus a dry one, Heather?” Cooper asks me, though he knows the answer very well.
“Why, yes, I believe it is, Cooper,” I reply, seeing his game and playing along. “And yet, in this young man’s room, there are many, many empty beer containers. You know what, Cooper?”
Cooper looks interested. “No, what, Heather?”
“I think that Tau Phi Epsilon is perhaps in violation of that dry campus ordinance. I think the Greek Association will be very interested to hear about your room, Mr. Winer.”
Doug props himself up on his elbows, his bare, hairless chest heaving suddenly. “Look, I didn’t kill her, all right? That’s all I’ll tell you. And you guys had better stop harassing me!”
11
The “no” in “annotation”
The “um” in “circumvent”
The “err” in “aberration”
The “con” in “malcontent.”
“Rejection Song”
Written by Heather Wells
Cooper and I exchange astonished glances. The astonishment, anyway, isn’t feigned.
“Did anyone here accuse you of killing anyone, Douglas?” Cooper spreads out his hands innocently.
“Yeah, really.” I shake my head. “We were only accusing your fraternity of supplying alcohol to their underaged brother.”
Doug scowls. “You leave my fraternity out of this, okay?”
“We might be able to do that,” Cooper says, stroking his whiskered jaw thoughtfully. “If you could be a little more forthcoming with the information my friend here requested.”
Winer flicks a glance up at me.
“Okay,” the kid sighs, leaning back against the pillows of his water bed and twining his fingers behind his head so that Coop and I both have a great view of the tufts of blond hair beneath his arms. Ew. “What do you want to know?”
Ignoring the armpits, I say, “I want to know how long you and Lindsay Combs were dating.”
“Dating.” Doug Winer smirks at the ceiling. “Right. Dating. Let me see. She showed up at a rush party in September. That’s where I met her. She was with that girl Jeff Turner’s seeing. Cheryl Something.”
“Jeff’s a Tau Phi?” I ask.
“He’s pledging. He’s a legacy, so he’ll probably make it, if he passes his initiation. Anyway, I thought she was cute. Lindsay, I mean. I offered her a drink.” He shoots Coop a defensive look. “I didn’t know she wasn’t twenty-one. Anyway, things kinda went from there.”
“Went how from there?” I ask.
“You know.” Doug Winer shrugs, then shoots Cooper such a smugly superior smile that I feel hard-pressed not to launch myself at the guy, tear a hole in the water mattress, and hold the kid’s head in it until he drowns.
Not, of course, that I would ever do something like that. Because then I’d probably get fired.
“No, I don’t know,” I say, through gritted teeth. “Please explain it to me.”
“She gave me head, okay?” Winer snickers. “Fucking homecoming queen, my ass. And she was a pro, let me tell you. I never had it like that from any girl—”
“Okay,” Cooper interrupts. “We get the picture.”
I feel my cheeks burning and curse myself. Why do I have to respond like such a Goody Two-shoes to words like head? Especially around Cooper, who is already convinced I’m “a nice girl.” By going around blushing all the time, I’m just reinforcing the image.
I try to make out as if I’m not blushing, just flushed. It is warm in Doug’s room—especially since, judging from the sound of water coming from his bathroom, his girlfriend (or whatever she is) appears to be showering. I start unwinding my scarf.
“Never mind,” I say to Cooper, to show him I’m all right with the gritty language. To Doug I say, “Go on.”
Douglas, still looking smug, shrugs. “So I thought it’d be a good idea to keep her around, you know? For emergencies.”
I’m so surprised by the coldness of this that I can’t think of anything to say. Cooper’s the one who inquires, calmly examining his own cuticles, “What do you mean, keep her around?”
“You know. Put her number in the little black book. For a rainy day. Whenever I was feelin’ down, I’d give ol’ Lindsay a call, and she would come over and make me feel better.”
I really can’t remember the last time I’d felt so much like killing someone—then recall that only an hour or so ago I’d wanted to pummel Gillian Kilgore with almost the same intensity as I now longed to throttle Doug Winer.
Maybe Sarah is right. Maybe I do have a Superman complex.
Cooper glances at me, and seems to sense that I’m having a difficult time restraining myself. He looks back down at his fingernails and asks Doug casually, “And Lindsay didn’t have any complaints about this kind of relationship?”
“Shit, no,” Doug says with a laugh. “And if she had complained, she’d’ve regretted it.”
Cooper’s head turns so fast in Winer’s direction that it’s nothing but a blur. “Regretted it how?”
The kid seems to realize his mistake and takes his hands away from his head, sitting up a little straighter. I notice that his abdomen is perfectly flat, except where it’s ridged with muscles. I had abs that tight once. When I was eleven.
“Hey, not like that, man.” Winer’s blue eyes are wide. “Not like that. I mean, I’d’ve stopped calling her. That’s all.”
“Are you trying to tell us”—I’ve found my voice at last—“that Lindsay Combs was perfectly willing to come up here any old time you called and give you—ahem—oral sex?”
Doug Winer blinks at me, hearing the hostility in my voice, but apparently not understanding where it’s coming from. “Well. Yeah.”
“And she did this because?”
The kid stares at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that girls do not generally perform oral sex for no reason.” At least, no girl with whom I was acquainted. “What did she get out of it?”
“What do you mean, what did she get out of it? She got
me out of it.”
It was finally my turn to smirk. “You?”
“Yeah.” The kid sets his jaw defensively. “Don’t you know who I am?”
Cooper and I, as if on cue, exchange blank stares. The kid says insistently, “I’m a Winer.”
When we both continue to look uncomprehending, Doug prompts, as if he thinks we’re slow, “Winer Construction. Winer Sports Complex? You guys haven’t heard of it? We fucking own this city, man. We practically built this fucking college. At least the new buildings. I’m a Winer, man. A Winer.”
He certainly sounds like one.
And if this was the reason Lindsay Combs had been bestowing blow jobs so liberally upon this kid, I for one didn’t believe it. Lindsay hadn’t been that type of girl.
I don’t think.
“Plus, I gave her shit,” Doug admits grudgingly.
Now we were getting somewhere.
Cooper raised his eyebrows. “You what?”
“I gave her shit.” Then, seeing Cooper’s expression, Doug glances nervously in my direction, and says, “I mean, stuff. I gave her stuff. You know, the kind of stuff girls like. Jewelry and flowers and stuff.”
Now, Lindsay was that kind of girl. At least, from what I knew of her.
“I was even gonna give her this bracelet for her birthday—” Suddenly the kid slings himself out of bed, affording us a view I’d have preferred not to have of his snug black Calvin Klein briefs. He goes to a dresser and draws a small black velvet box from a drawer. Turning, he casually tosses the box to me. I fumble, but manage to catch it. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it now.”
I open the black velvet lid and—I will admit it—my eyes widen at the slender strand of diamonds lying inside the box on a bed of royal blue silk. If this is the kind of payback Lindsay was routinely receiving for her services, I guess I could understand it a little better.
Stifling a desire to whistle at the costliness of such a gift, I tilt the box at Cooper, who raises his dark eyebrows. “That’s quite a trinket,” he comments mildly. “You must have some allowance.”
“Yeah.” Doug shrugs. “Well, it’s just money.”