by C G Cooper
“Aloha, Mikayla.”
She led him toward the window. The view through the glass was nothing spectacular, just a parking lot, a few evergreens, and low hills rolling to the horizon. The snowed-over landscape looked barren and cold.
Mikayla shivered, a lovely convulsion of energetic muscles. “I love the snow when it first falls. But I could do with three months of winter instead of six. Did you hear about the blizzard due next week?”
He’d been too involved with his research to even look at a newsfeed, but if it had been anyone else asking, he would have lied. With Mikayla, though, he felt an unfamiliar urge to be as honest as possible. Maybe it was memories of his ex-wife, Sharon — regret fought with nostalgia as he noted similarities in the women’s style — that made him want to treat her differently. Maybe it was just that he’d been riding a desk so long he wasn’t confident in his ability to lie. Either way, he felt compelled to tell the truth.
“I’ve had my head in the sand ever since I found out I’d be coming here.”
“Get ready. The weather guy on Channel 7 says it’s a forty-percent chance, but with me here it’s a hundred-and-one. I haven’t missed a blizzard since I came north. My first winter in Seneca was the coldest on record. Some of my students took to calling me Ice Queen.”
“I can’t imagine that with your sunny disposition.”
She beamed. “They got over it.”
“Where did you live before?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. She was so attractive in person that he hadn’t initially connected her with the grainy photo in her dossier. As soon as he had a name, though, the framework of her story had come back to him.
A Virginia native, Mikayla had completed her freshman and sophomore years on a partial scholarship to Yale before a scandal involving a married professor forced her to leave. Her Master’s in Literature came from the University of Virginia, where she’d enjoyed fleeting fame as the captain of the women’s lacrosse team.
“I was a Wahoo,” she confirmed. “UVA. After grad school I taught World Lit for a few years. Then Schuyler came calling. The weather isn’t exactly balmy in Charlottesville right now, but at least we didn’t have to deal with the lake effect snow.”
“Sure,” said Mac. He took another sip of pineapple juice. “Seventeen, by the way.”
“Huh?”
“That’s the answer to your next question: how old I was when I saw my first snow.”
“Was I about to ask that?”
“You were,” Mac confirmed. “Girls from the mainland always do. Even when it’s not snowing.”
“Is that what I am to you? Just a girl from the mainland?”
He set his drink on the windowsill. “Back home, my cousins say stateside girls are the thing.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“From them, it is,” he said. “We’ve got some fly wahine, women, back home. They all know how to cook, too.”
Mikayla folded her arms. “I’m feeling less complimented, not more.”
“Let me explain. Tutu was an island girl. She showed me how to make Poi. If you want, I can cook for you sometime.”
“And Tutu is…?”
He scratched his chin. “Grandma. Granny. Ol’ lady who brought me up.”
“Aren’t we all?” she said. “Okay. I’ll meet you halfway, island boy. I’ll cook for you, just to prove a point. But you have to take me dancing first.”
Mac’s heart thudded in his chest. He couldn’t say if he was more excited by his success or in dread of the crowded nightclub her suggestion conjured in his mind. But as much as he wanted to be honest with Mikayla, he hated the thought of disappointing her more.
“Uh, sounds great,” he said.
“It does sound great,” she agreed. “I’ve got this thing I do Fridays. How ‘bout tomorrow night?”
“I’m wide open,” said Mac. It was amazing how comfortable he felt with her. His love life over the past five years had been a series of interesting starts and stops, none lasting more than a few weeks. There’d been plenty of dry spells, too, when he had concentrated all of his attention on getting out of the office and back into the field.
“Listen,” she said, “I’ve got class in five minutes. It’s a ten-minute walk.” She held up her iPhone. “Pose for a picture?”
He drew himself up to full height. Mikayla had to hold the phone above her head to get the shot.
Apparently satisfied with the take, Mac saw when she scrolled to her Contacts app. “What’s your number?”
He paged through his own phone’s settings. “Sorry, new number.” He showed her.
She dialed.
“Aloha,” he said.
“Hello.” She hung up. “I didn’t hear it ring.”
“Topic for another time. You’ve gotta get to class.”
“I do.” She smiled mischievously. “I’m lucky the kids like me so much. It was nice to meet you, Mac.”
Unable to help himself he said, “You have no idea.”
Chapter Seven
When Mikayla was done floating from the room, Chandra approached Mac, grinning like a matchmaking aunt.
“I’m glad you made a friend,” she said.
“Me too.”
He expected her to draw him along to their next engagement, but the luncheon had dissipated while he was distracted. A third of the attendees had drifted through one door or the other, including the Jarralds and Emma’s winking beau.
“Did you manage to eat anything?” said Chandra.
“You know? I—”
A screech that might have come from a diving bird of prey sounded in his right ear, then his left. He covered both ears, hoping the noise was feedback that would soon go away. It only got louder. Chandra said something, but he couldn’t make out her words.
Abandoning his idea of blocking the sound, he hit the home button on his phone, brought up the Bluetooth controls for his hearing aids, and killed their speakers. The screeching cut out immediately, replaced after the briefest respite by the low whine he’d carried at the back of his head ever since his last day in Iraq. By comparison, it was a welcome, calming sound.
With the aids blocking his ear canals, he could only make out vague rumblings over his brain’s phantom noise. He held up a finger to make this clear to Chandra and slowly raised the volume of the aids from zero to just below normal. The screeching, whatever its source had been, did not return.
Sounding more rattled than she needed to be, Chandra said, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I mean yes. No worries. Hearing aids went crazy for a second. They’re fine now.” He frowned, wondering if he’d have to take time out to get them serviced. Seeing Chandra’s reaction to the frown, he inverted it into a smile. “Really, I’m okay. And you’re right. I didn’t eat. Think I’ll grab a sandwich.”
“Yes!” said Chandra. “Grab two.” Evidently her fight-or-flight response was wired directly to her mothering instinct. “I’ll send you home with leftovers. Michelle!”
He watched her barrel through the door into the kitchenette. Crossing to the table, he hunted down a turkey sandwich on rye. Complete with mustard, Swiss cheese, and cranberries, it was nothing at all like Tutu used to make, but he appreciated the chef’s ingenuity in trying to squeeze Thanksgiving dinner between two slices of bread.
Well, Thanksgiving dinner minus the pumpkin pie.
He was chewing thoughtfully when a professor by the name of Everett, who had rambled on earlier about his plans to install new heaters in the greenhouse, saw him idling and started over. Mac braced himself for an attack of fatal boredom, but before Everett could cover the distance, a voice from out in the hall said, “Gwendolyn, darling! I adore that dress.”
The voice wasn’t especially loud. Still, somehow it penetrated. Like monks responding to a prayer bell, Professor Everett and every other person in the room turned to face the doorway.
Mac was already looking that direction so he didn’t have to move. He sa
w a woman’s hands clasping another woman’s shoulders. The hands, he guessed, belonged to the speaker. The shoulders belonged to Gwen Aycock, sandwich girl Michelle’s aunt from earlier. A darting face kissed Gwen on both cheeks. The hands withdrew, Miss Aycock left, and the owner of the voice stepped into the doorway.
She was petite, slender, and would have presented a very ordinary silhouette, aside from the exceptional definition of her well-muscled thighs. She was outfitted like an equestrian dressage competitor: black boots, cream leggings, and a checked-tweed blazer with a scarlet pocket square over a white turtleneck sweater.
Braids of strawberry blond hair were piled under a fedora patterned to match the blazer. A spray of peacock feathers decorated the fedora’s band. As she paced across the hardwood floor, she slapped a riding whip into her palm, the thwack of the whip punctuating the stomp of her boot heels.
A less self-possessed person might have looked farcical in that get-up, but she didn’t. There was an air of elegance and control about her that reminded Mac of a six-figure call girl he’d met in Bahrain. The call girl had been about to retire at the sprightly age of thirty-two, having stashed away more cold cash than all her oil prince boyfriends could snort up their noses in a month. This woman was a good fifteen years older, but she gave up nothing in aplomb or sex appeal.
“My goodness,” she said. “Am I overdressed?” She spoke with the most effortless mid-Atlantic accent Mac had ever heard. “You must be the guest of honor.” She stopped palming the whip to point it at his chest. “Aloha, darling.”
It should have been funny, the way she seemed to think she could fix him in place with her gaze. He would have laughed, if he hadn’t been frozen to the spot.
“On behalf of our humble university, thank you for taking time out from protecting our nation’s interests. I’m sure teaching, or whatever it is you’re doing here, will prove much more productive. One does wonder how the clandestine service will cope without you around to shift the heavy bookcases, but never mind.”
She shouldered the whip and spun on her heel, apparently finished with her speech.
With an effort, Mac found his voice. “Sorry—” he said, intending to ask her name.
“Don’t be, darling,” she said, turning back. “I’m not here for an apology. One can’t blame a serpent for slithering.”
“What, uh, what do you mean by that?”
“Was I too, uh, subtle? How disappointing.” With clomping steps, she narrowed the distance between them, standing so close that he could smell the peppermint on her breath. “I’ll dumb it down. You’re a spy, dear. That’s the vernacular among hoi polloi. A curiosus, in Latin. Core collector in the clandestine service. I admire the way persons in your line of work operate, mind, how you fight your little wars.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Who knows how many great big wars you’ve spared us, hmm? Or how many you’ve caused. What I’m curious about is why you chose this moment to inveigle your way into our little family. We’re barely ten days after the loss of one of our own. How do you account for that coincidence, Professor Mahoe?”
“Call me Mac,” he said. “And you are?”
“Unimpressed.”
Chandra emerged from the kitchenette, balancing a stack of Styrofoam boxes. “Anne!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“One doesn’t like to be predictable,” said the so-called Anne. “As it happens, I was just leaving. The gentleman and I have finished our chat, though if there’s anything you’d like to add, Mac, do ring me. I’m in the book.”
“You would be,” he said.
She grinned, all teeth, and twirled her whip in the air. “Tally ho, darlings,” she said, and sashayed out.
Not even Chandra moved to spoil her exit.
Chapter Eight
An apologetic Chandra drove Mac’s sedan down the hill.
“I never should have left you,” she said. “If we had left a few minutes earlier—Ah! That woman.”
She’d been going on like that since they’d left the reception, pausing when Mac assured her he wasn’t offended, only to affirm her regrets when she thought of another strategy that might have avoided the confrontation with Professor Anne Keyes.
“She’s a force of nature,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. If her talking is the worst thing I have to put up with—”
“It won’t be,” she said. “You’ll find strong opinions. People are hurting. To some, your presence has all the markings of grinding salt into our gaping wound.”
Mac nodded. “I appreciate the effort you put into getting me here.”
“I would do anything to see justice done.”
They drove on in silence. Around a bend, a row of new townhouses came into view.
He said, “You, uh, you know I’m not here to investigate Tiffany’s death directly.”
She hunched her shoulders. “I knew her, Mac. So did Anne, as you’ve probably guessed. She took classes with half the professors you met today. A quiet girl. Respectful. But ambitious, with an indomitable will. The sort of young woman I hope will take my place in the world.”
He considered his answer while she pulled into the parking lot in front of the townhouse. The first space on the left was occupied by a pile of plowed snow. The other eleven were empty.
Chandra pulled into the second space and put the car into park. She didn’t look at him.
“I’ll find the killer,” he said. The words weren’t the ones he had meant to say, but he believed them as they came out.
The look Chandra gave him was stern and unyielding. “Don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“You’ve done plenty already.”
She carried in the leftovers while he lugged his duffel bag and laptop. The gun case would keep until he was alone. They entered the townhouse all the way on the left, Unit 8A, through the back door, which opened on a mudroom. Leaving their snowy boots beside the water heater, they walked into the kitchen.
The front door was visible at the end of a short hall. There were two ways into the living room, one through an opening off the hallway, the other a diagonal route over the kitchen linoleum to where the carpet began. Mac carried his duffel up the stairs at the back of the living room and came back down. Chandra had put the food away.
“I hope you will be happy here,” she said. Her optimistic tone had returned, all trace of the vulnerability she’d shown in the car forgotten.
“It’s great,” said Mac. “Thank you again.”
“I’ve asked the grounds staff to open up the access road that climbs above the source of Banner Creek. It lets out to the highway after a few miles. Not exactly rapid transit, but you won’t have to cross our bridge again.”
“Thanks,” he repeated.
She held out her hand. “Your people say aloha for goodbye, I believe. Mine say khuda hafiz.”
“Khuda hafiz,” he said.
“Aloha,” she said.
After giving her a five-minute head start on her hike up the hill, Mac put his boots back on and opened the back door, intent on retrieving the gun case. A woman with thick, curly hair stood with one foot in the snow and one on the concrete of his back patio. He almost drew back inside the townhouse, resisting the urge to turn his body and make himself a smaller target.
“Boxer?” asked the woman.
“The cable’s all hooked up,” he said, giving his side of the passphrase.
“I still need to check your router,” said the person he now knew to be Tentpole.
He stepped back and motioned her inside. “Take off your boots, please. I don’t wanna mop.”
“Sorry I made you jump,” she said, following him into the kitchen. Beneath her coat she wore the uniform of a university security guard. “The power’s gone to my head.”
“What power’s that?”
She handed him the badge that had been clipped to her belt. It identified her as Lynn Pace, Chief of Campus Security.
He whistled. “They cal
l you ‘Chief’ around the office?”
“It’s more an alcove than an office, but yeah.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “I thought we better meet face-to-face, at least once. Security and you suit-and-tie types don’t do much socializing.”
“Shame,” he said, joining her.
“Ain’t it? I won’t keep you long. I’m supposed to be asleep right now, and I mean to get back to it. Since Washington didn’t clear the budget for a third set of eyes, I’m on call 24-7.”
He decided not to confess that it had been his idea to nix the third man in favor of working with the reporting detective from the New York Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
“I’m not complaining, mind you. This is a cush assignment. I get a lot of coding done.”
“What are you working on?” Mac asked.
“Auto-release scripts to hack the new YouTube algorithms. Get some ad money back in the pockets of my favorite vloggers.”
“Are you one of these vloggers?”
“No. I work undercover,” she replied.
“Shh. The walls have ears.”
Lynn laughed and pulled up an app on her phone. She held it up for Mac to see. It was a recording app of some kind with the playback on pause.
“Press it,” she said.
He tapped the button. The phone’s speakers played a recording of his voice saying, “The walls have ears.”
“Cute. I guess if I want privacy—”
“You should look into a new line of work. Also time travel. Privacy means not doing anything you wouldn’t want the PTO to know about.”
“I’ll keep it in mind when I shop for booze.”
Lynn yawned. “That’s an idea. I’ve got a bottle of vodka back at my place. Shouldn’t take much to knock me out.”
“Always a pleasure to work with a professional. When are you officially back on tonight?”
“Twenty-one hundred. You’re due to meet Detective Gardner at twenty-one-thirty outside the East stairway. Actually, make that inside. Wind chill puts temps in the single digits. Bundle up, Boxer.”