The Rise of the Red Queen

by Bourne Morris

  I busied myself for about half an hour with paperwork before Nell came in. “Mark Froman is here. Wants to see you.”

  Oh, wonderful. Another tough meeting. Just what I needed. No doubt Froman would want to talk about the shooting. And he did.

  Froman stood in my office doorway looking even taller than usual. Instead of the thousand-dollar suit he had worn the previous time, he was wearing jeans and work boots and a denim shirt that made his shoulders look particularly broad.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Red. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to change into a suit and tie, but my best mare had a bit of trouble birthing a foal this morning and I had to stay with her.”

  “How’s the mare doing now?”

  “Oh, fine. She’s a good breeder normally. Just taking her time this morning. Foal’s a bit spindly, but I think he’s healthy.” He sat at the table this time, avoiding the slender chair in front of my desk. I moved from my desk to join him.

  “What brings you here, Mark?” As if I didn’t know.

  “The shooting, of course. What’s the latest?” I had to make an effort to conceal my impatience. Once again, Mark Froman acted as if he was entitled to first party information no matter what the subject.

  “Well, as it stated in the paper this morning, George Weinstein is at a hospital in San Francisco pending spinal surgery, and Larry Colman has been released on bail pending a trial for assault with a deadly weapon.”

  Now it was his turn to be impatient. He waved his hand dismissively. “I know all that. What I don’t know is what you are going to do about Coleman. I mean, when you’re going to fire him.”

  “Larry’s a tenured professor, Mark.”

  “Yes, but you can fire him for cause even if he is tenured. Considering the man shot a colleague and seriously wounded the fellow.”

  Nell entered with more coffee. Mark looked up at her. “Any raw sugar around here?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake.

  Nell cocked her head to one side. She was used to arrogance. “Just regular white,” she said, and turned on her heel without waiting to hear what was sure to be another request.

  “Hmm. Females around here are a little touchy this morning.” Obviously Nell and I and his slow-laboring mare were all lumped together in his mind.

  “Very few academic units carry gourmet condiments,” I said. “And we’ve been very busy and very sad at this school today.”

  He sipped his coffee and eyed me over the rim of his mug. “About firing Coleman.”

  Again, I practiced patience. “If Larry Coleman is convicted of a felony, he will automatically be terminated by the university. That’s our rule. But until then, he is presumed innocent, and he claims self-defense.”

  “You were there. Was it self-defense?” How the hell did Mark Froman know I was there? Oh yes, friends and informants in the Landry Police Department.

  “I wasn’t there the whole time, and that’s all I can say about it now.”

  Froman pushed himself away from the table with a grunt I’m sure was meant to indicate his displeasure with me. Oh well. One more opponent to my getting the dean’s job probably didn’t matter, since I was sure the provost was opposed. “You’re a stubborn woman, Red Solaris. Thanks for the coffee.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He stood once again in my doorway, one hand on the frame, his head almost touching the top of the frame. He smiled. “And you’re one beautiful woman. We should have dinner sometime. I’ll show you around my property.”

  “I understand you have quite a lot of property.”

  “My dad bought half the county, and then after old man Lassiter died, I bought half of the other half.” Froman laughed. “I mean it, Red. I think you and I could have a good time.”

  Lassiter property. Jesus. I worked hard on a smile back. “Thank you, Mark. But I don’t think I’m your type.”

  His smile dimmed. “You’re right about that. You’re not my type. I like a smart woman, but I like a woman smart enough to follow good advice.”

  “You mean follow instructions.”

  “Maybe so. See you around, Red.”

  Lassiter property in Froman’s possession. I had to follow this up. But how? I called Sadie.

  “I need to know more about Froman. How can I find out?”

  “Well, I suppose you could try his ex-wife, although I don’t know how much she might be willing to tell you. Why do you need to know more about him?”

  “Oh, Sadie. He’s so pretentious. But for some reason, he quizzes me all the time about everything. I have to figure him out. Particularly because he just said something that suggests he might know about my missing student and I need a way to follow up without his knowing.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. I’ll give you Diane’s number in Dallas. I haven’t talked to her in years, so I don’t know if it will still work, but you could try.”

  The former Diane Froman, now Diane Peterson, picked up on the third ring, and didn’t seem the least bit reluctant to discuss her ex-husband.

  “What’s that idiot done now?” She had a lilt in her voice that suggested she enjoyed hearing bad news about Mark Froman.

  “Ms. Peterson, I don’t know for certain, but did you ever know him to become involved with a student?”

  She expelled a breath so loud I could hear it. “Are you kidding? Listen, Dean Solaris, I found him with a cheerleader in a motel room six months after our wedding. And I doubt she was his first student, just the first one I found.”

  “Were there others?”

  A pause. “Not that I knew of, at least not while we were married. Cocktail waitress, yes. Our attorney’s wife. And, believe it or not, once our attorney’s seventeen-year-old daughter. Needless to say, no longer our attorney after that. But the cheerleader was the only college student I discovered.”

  So Froman liked them young.

  Diane Peterson must have read my mind. “Dean Solaris, he liked them young and old and in between. The man thinks of himself as a great seducer. He’s sure he can talk any woman into anything.”

  “Do you think he would force himself on a woman?”

  “Christ, no. Mark’s no rapist. He prefers to persuade his conquests. Took him two years to lure me into his web, but he got me. Man’s all patience and persistence. Then, of course, once he’s gotten you into bed, gotten you to fall for him, he gets bored and looks elsewhere.”

  “That must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It was. But I’m over it now. And glad to be home and happy in Dallas. I never much cared for his ranch.”

  “Did you know anything about the land he purchased?”

  Another pause, this one longer. “I thought you were interested in his sexual exploits. Not his business.” Her voice was lower and the lilt was gone.

  “Only in land he might have purchased while you were married.”

  “Sorry. I know he bought land, but I don’t know anything about it.”

  Jamie

  She failed to find another way to escape. She searched through every inch of the house that was available to her. She tried again to work on the door to his room, hoping she would find his satellite phone. Nothing. She was once again seriously considering setting the house on fire that night so he would have to let both of them out. Wouldn’t he?

  She thought about pretending grave illness. She would put soap in her mouth and writhe around on the floor, alternately screaming and foaming. Unless he wanted her to die, he would have to take her to the hospital. Wouldn’t he?

  She would attack him with the skillet. Try to bash him hard. Not knock him out, but just hurt him badly enough for him to know how desperate she was, even willing to risk his violent retaliation, major injury, even death. He would have to take that seriously. Wouldn’t he?

  Midafternoon found her sitting in the parlor staring at
the biblical verse on the wall. Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection.

  Maybe that was her way out. Submitting to him. After all, she wasn’t a virgin. She’d known lovers in college. She could pretend long enough for him to drop his guard. And then one night after he had satisfied himself and fallen asleep…

  The thought made her nauseated.

  No, shouted every bone in her body. That was what he wanted, what he had been hoping for all along. She was not going to let him wear her down, exhaust her into capitulating to him. She would rot in that house before she would ever let him put his hands on her.

  But meanwhile, she would pretend. She would soften him up. Maybe to the point where he would let her outdoors, untethered. He would watch her but all she’d need would be a minute outside the house.

  Chapter 28

  Shelby Vane’s office was on the top floor of the Mountain West College of Agriculture, a wide, sprawling building on the newer part of campus away from the quad. Instead of the classic brick of the journalism school and its sister buildings in the center of campus, the Ag college was modern steel and glass. Even the elevator I rode had an outside glass window so you could see the treetops and the mountains beyond as you rose to the top floor.

  I had not telephoned ahead. I hoped Shelby would be in his office, but I wanted to surprise him. Maybe if I flustered him a bit, he would impart more information about his family’s ranch lands than he would if he had time to prepare for my questions. The Ag school website listed his office hours as three to four p.m. I hoped I wouldn’t have to compete with too many of his students for his time.

  He was alone, leaning far back in his chair, his boots on his desk, muddy soles to the doorway, eyes closed.

  “Hi Shelby. Sorry to disturb your nap.”

  He jolted awake, surprised at my sudden entry. “Afternoon, Dr. Solaris,” he stuttered, awkwardly righting his large body and moving from behind his desk to shake my hand.

  He indicated a chair in front of his desk. “I wasn’t asleep. I just wasn’t expecting you. What brings you to the Ag school?”

  I sat forward on the edge of the chair, my back straight, my eyes level with his. “Well, I have an odd request. I hope you don’t mind a few questions about your family.”

  “If it’s about my brother, I don’t answer those questions anymore.” His big face took on a sour expression.

  “No, Shelby, it’s not about your brother, and it’s not about any of the committee issues either. And my name is Red. The formality-hating journalist, remember.”

  His features relaxed. “Yeah, I’ve heard your nickname at the school is the Red Queen.” He leaned on his desk. “Okay, Your Majesty. How can I help you?”

  “I’m interested in a piece of ranchland your family acquired some years ago, land that used to belong to someone named Lassiter.”

  Shelby leaned back in his chair again and put his big hands behind his head. “Hmm. You must mean the five acres on the south side of our ranch. Not great property, but my Dad always wanted it for the water rights and the grazing. We ran more cows in those days.”

  “So your father bought the land. When?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “My question involves a problem I’m having with a student, and it would really help me to know some of the history of that particular piece of land.”

  A shrewd look crossed his face. “Would your inquiry have anything to do with a policeman who bothered my mother yesterday? Tall black guy.”

  No way to avoid answering that. “It would. The tall black police officer is from Las Vegas. He and I are investigating a student problem that is connected to the name Lassiter and some land that Lassiter owned.”

  “Did Lassiter do something wrong? He’s dead, you know.”

  “That’s what we want to find out.”

  “Well, I’m still not sure how your student problem connects to my ranchland, but I’ll tell you what I know. My dad approached old man Lassiter years ago before I was born and asked to buy those five acres. At first Lassiter refused. Wouldn’t say why. A few years later, he offered the land but at such an outrageous price, my dad refused. Then we heard Lassiter sold it to a developer who went belly up. After Lassiter died, Dad finally bought the land from the developer at a decent price. Not a very exciting story, but that’s it.”

  “Are there any buildings on that land?”

  “An old shed for hay storage, but nothing else.”

  “Would you mind if the police and I took a look at the shed?” Shelby’s eyes narrowed and he shifted his bulk in his office chair. I knew immediately my blunt request was a mistake.

  “Okay, you better tell me what’s going on that you need to come on my property with police.”

  I cast about in my mind for the best way to gain Shelby’s cooperation without alerting him to my real purpose. “As I said, we are concerned about someone named Lassiter and some property he once owned.”

  “Did something happen on that property?”

  Now it was my body shifting in the chair. “We don’t know.” Oh, God, this was not going well. “We’re just checking out whatever we can, and we found that name in the land records.”

  “I see.” He sucked his lips into this mouth and his eyes narrowed again. “You’re being very obtuse, Red.”

  “I have to be, Shelby. Student privacy is a big deal with me.”

  “I understand. I’ll consider your request as a favor to you. But I’ll need some time to think about this, and to talk to my mother. She’s very suspicious of police investigations since my brother’s ordeal and I don’t want to upset her.” He rose from his chair. “I’ll let you know, Red.”

  At dinner that night, Joe had that look on his face that meant he disapproved of my taking risks talking to large men with muddy boots. “What makes you so sure this guy Shelby couldn’t be involved with Jamie’s disappearance?”

  “I can’t imagine it.” But the truth was I could imagine it. Big guy. Work clothes. Boots. Shelby Vane fit the vague description of the suspect. “I mean, of course it’s possible, but Shelby seems like a gentle guy and he did say he would think about it.”

  An hour later, the phone rang.

  It was Shelby. “I’ve talked to my mother and she says you can look at the shed, but she wants me to be with you when you do. So that means early morning before my first class.”

  I held my hand over the receiver and told Joe.

  Then, “Shelby, thank you. Early morning is fine. There will be three of us—the girl’s grandfather, one other police officer, and me.”

  “Come to the house at six and I’ll take you to the shed.”

  Jamie

  The man came home later than usual and brought Chinese take-out with him. The food containers were white with no writing on them, but the bag listed a Chinese restaurant in Reno. He had bought her new clothes at Macy’s and she knew that was in Reno. He must work in Reno during the day. So this place must be in northern Nevada, and that meant she was still in the same part of the state as Mountain West University and what she knew would be her grandfather’s search area.

  She dished up the fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and cashew chicken into separate dishes. The bag also contained chopsticks and soy sauce in packets. She laid it out on the table and waited for him to come downstairs to the table.

  He walked into the kitchen, and as he passed her standing near the sink, briefly touched her shoulder. “Smells good,” he said, seating himself.

  He seemed in a good mood so she smiled at him and he nodded in response. Take it slow, she thought. Her conversion had to be credible. He had to believe she was coming round to his point of view. He had to believe she could care for him. Make friends, persuade him to trust her enough to let her go outdoors. That was the plan.

  He handled the food well with chopsticks. That was interes
ting. Manicured nails. Business suits. Could use chopsticks skillfully. The more she observed of him, the more she wondered how he was a working rancher at night and a businessman by day. And if he was a real rancher, he was also a cosmopolitan rancher. She wondered what more she could learn if she could get him talking again.

  “I know you said you didn’t want to talk about Alice anymore, but I do want to know more about her. I think if I did, I would be better able to understand how to adjust to these surroundings.”

  He paused, chopsticks holding a bit of chicken in the air. “What more do you want to know?”

  Jamie cautioned herself. Proceed smoothly. Ask him nothing that reminds him of the day he and Alice were caught in bed, the day Alice left. “If she was much younger than your father, why do you think she married him?”

  The man put down his chopsticks and drank from his glass of beer. She noticed that when he drank beer at night, it was always expensive Japanese or German beer, and he always poured the beer from a bottle into a glass. Another clue, perhaps. “My father was what you might call house poor but land rich. I think Alice hoped she could persuade him to sell some of his land and build her a new and much grander home than this one. I think Alice always wanted more comfort, more luxury, than living here provided.”

  “And what did your father say to that?”

  “He used to say that living simply was the right way to live, the Christian way to live.”

  “And how did Alice react to that?”

  “She eventually gave up on the bigger house idea and began to campaign to sell the land so we could move away and live in a city like San Francisco.”

  Jamie smiled. She adored San Francisco. “And did your father think that would be living in Satan’s playground?”

  The man smiled a small bitter smile. “He didn’t say that exactly, but you’re close to the mark.”

  “So it wasn’t always a happy marriage.”