“She says the probability of an untreated gunshot wound getting infected is very high.”
No shit, she wanted to say. Instead, she told him, “Let’s go back to the profile.”
He hesitated long enough to let her know he wasn’t happy about letting someone else change the subject. “What’s the sequence of events?”
Lena tried to wrap her brain around the question. “We already went through what happened to Allison. With Jason, I guess the killer came into the dorm, moved the cameras, stabbed him, then left.”
“He covered Jason’s body with a blanket. He knew there would be a lot of blood.”
That was new. “Where was the blanket?”
“I found it in the bathroom at the end of the hallway.”
“You should check the drains, the—” She stopped herself. Will would know to do all of these things. He didn’t need her help. “There were four questions for the profile, right?”
“The last one is, you have to ask yourself who would have done these things in this order for these reasons.”
“Allison was killed before Jason. She could’ve been a warning that Jason didn’t heed.”
“Jason was holed up in his dorm room. We don’t even know if he heard about the murder.”
“So, the killer is antsy, worried that the message hasn’t gotten through.” A thought occurred to her. “The suicide note. The killer left it as a warning. ‘I want it over.’ ”
“Right,” he agreed, and she assumed he’d figured this out a while ago without telling her.
Still, she said, “It would make sense that the killer would be angry with Jason for not taking Allison’s death as a warning. He was stabbed at least eight or nine times. That speaks to a lot of anger.”
Will looked up at the sky. “Rain’s let up.”
Lena sat up in the seat, sliding the gear into drive. She rolled the car slowly forward. The road was still flooding. Streams of water gushed back toward Main Street. “Both Allison and Jason were students. They could be mixed up in something to do with the school.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. A grant. There’s all kinds of government money going in and out of there. Defense spending. The engineering school works on medical devices, nanotechnology. The polymer labs are testing all kinds of adhesives. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“Would a grad student have access to the money?”
She thought about it. “No. The doctoral candidates might, but the grad students basically do shitwork around the labs and the undergrads can’t wipe their own asses without getting permission. I used to date a guy who was in one of the master’s programs. They’re not involved in anything remotely interesting.”
They had reached Jason Howell’s dorm. There were two black vans parked outside. They each had the GBI logo on their doors and CRIME SCENE UNIT emblazoned in white on the sides. Despite herself, Lena felt excited, like a bloodhound who’d caught a scent. The sensation quickly faded. She had spent countless hours at this school studying for a degree that she would probably never get to use. At best, her education would go toward being one of those annoying people who point out everything they get wrong on CSI.
Will looked at his cell phone. “I need to make a quick call to my partner, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” Lena parked the car. The rain was still pounding down, and she bolted from the car and ran up the steps, holding down the hood of her jacket with both hands.
Marty was sitting inside reading a magazine. She knocked on the door. He jerked up his head, his glasses tilting on his nose. He buzzed her in with his card.
He said, “You look bad.”
Lena was taken aback by the comment. She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling a damp that hadn’t come from the rain. “It’s been a long day.”
“For you and me both.” Marty sat back on the bench. “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”
“Anything happening?”
“They got three men upstairs. Two more went over to the parking decks. The guy in charge, he’s got a handlebar mustache like he’s outta the circus. He found some car keys up in the room and drove around clicking the alarm until it went off.”
Lena nodded her approval, thinking the guy was pretty smart for a circus freak.
Marty admitted, “I never checked the parking decks. He was parked on the third level by the ramp.”
Lena gave him a pass. “I never checked the decks when all the kids were gone, either.”
“Uh-oh. Here he comes.” Marty reached over and pressed his key card against the pad.
Will pushed open the door, stamping his feet on the floor. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Mr. Harris, thank you for giving us your time today. I’m sorry we’re taking you away from your family.”
“Demetrius told me to stay here as long as you need me.”
“Can you tell me who was on shift last night?”
“Demetrius. He’s my boss. We’ve been switching back and forth so we each get some time off for the holiday.” He put down the magazine. “He doesn’t remember anything, but he’ll be happy to talk to you whenever you want.”
Lena thought there were more important things for Will to work on right now. “Marty told me that one of your people found Jason’s car over in the deck. They’re looking at it now.”
Will smiled. She could almost feel his relief. “That’s good. Thank you, Mr. Harris.”
He offered, “Demetrius is at the office pulling all the security tapes for you. I can drive you over if you want.”
Will glanced at Lena. Staring at videotaped footage for hours on end hoping to find two seconds of a clue was the kind of mind-numbing work that could make you want to put a bullet in your head. Lena wanted to be at that car combing through the carpet fibers, looking for traces of blood or fingerprints, but there was no point.
She volunteered, “I’ll go look at the tapes if you want.”
“It’s not going to be fun.”
“I think I’ve had enough fun lately.”
Lena sat in the interrogation room at the police station where she had talked to Tommy Braham two days before. She had rolled in the television cart with the old VCR and newer digital equipment that they sometimes used to record interviews. The film from the campus security cameras was a combination of both—digital for the outside cameras and regular VCR tape for inside. Demetrius, the chief of security, had given her everything he had.
As far as Lena knew, she was the only person in the station right now except for Marla Simms, who never left her desk, and Carl Phillips, who was back in the cells working as booking officer for the night. Carl was a big guy who didn’t take a lot of crap off anybody, which was why Frank had stuck him with booking duty. Carl was incredibly honest. Frank was doing everything he could to keep the man away from Will Trent.
Lena had already gotten the story from Larry Knox, who gossiped like a woman. She knew Carl had protested kicking out some of the more talkative prisoners in the cells after Tommy’s body was found. Frank had told Carl to leave if he didn’t approve, and Carl had taken him up on the offer. The only prisoners Frank hadn’t let go were either comatose or stupid. Top among this last designation was Ronald Porter, a twat of a man who’d beaten his wife so many times that her face had caved in. Frank had found a way to bully Ronny into keeping quiet. He was trying to push Carl around. He was lying to Will Trent. He was hiding evidence, probably postponing the delivery of the audio from the 911 tape. He thought he was blackmailing Lena.
The old man had a lot on his plate.
Lena rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her vision. The room was stuffy and hot, but that wasn’t the problem. She was pretty sure she had a fever. Her hand was already sweating through the fresh Band-Aids she’d found in the first aid kit. The flesh underneath was raw and hot. She had heard from Delia Stephens that they were going to wake Brad in the morning. Lena would go over first thing and find a nurse to take a look at her injury. She�
��d probably need a shot and have to answer a lot of questions.
There would be worse questions tonight. She would have to tell Jared what was going on. At least part of what was going on. Lena didn’t want to burden him with the whole truth. And she hadn’t laid herself in front of an oncoming train for nothing. Losing Jared on top of giving up her badge was the kind of sacrifice she was not willing to make.
Lena turned back to work. The videotapes she’d been watching for the last two hours ranged from tedious to boring. She should’ve just gone home but Lena felt a weird sense of duty toward Will Trent. He’d made her into a reluctant Cinderella. Lena figured it would take until midnight to watch all these tapes, around the same time her badge turned into a pumpkin.
She had found the good stuff early on. According to the time code, last night at eleven-sixteen and twenty-two seconds, the fire door at the back of Jason’s building was opened. Lena was familiar with the layout from her own days with campus security. The dorm, the cafeteria, and the back of the library formed an open U with loading docks in the middle. The school didn’t let students use the area as a shortcut because a kid had fallen off one of the docks several years ago and broken his leg in three places. The resulting lawsuit had been a hard blow, and they’d blown even more money putting in xenon lights that lit up the place like a Broadway stage.
The camera over the exit door recorded in color. The light coming through the door when it was opened showed xenon blue. Then the camera jerked and showed the ceiling with a pie-shaped wedge of blue light cutting the darkness. The door was closed, and the ceiling went dark.
At eleven-sixteen and twenty-eight seconds, a figure came into the second-floor hallway. The camera wasn’t night-vision equipped, but the light from the open dorm room picked out the form. Jason Howell’s clothes were bulky, the same as Lena had seen when the kid was lying dead in his bunk. Jason looked around nervously. His movements were panicked. He had obviously heard a noise, but he dismissed it easily enough. At eleven-sixteen and thirty-seven seconds, he went back into his room. From the sliver of light in the hall, she could tell he’d left his door slightly ajar.
The killer took his time climbing the stairs. Maybe he wanted to make sure Jason was caught truly unaware. It wasn’t until eleven-eighteen on the dot that the second-floor camera tilted up. The killer wasn’t as adept this time. Lena imagined he’d slipped on the stairs. The camera had only tilted slightly, at an angle rather than straight up, and she worked the pause until she caught sight of the tip of a wooden baseball bat. The rounded end was easily distinguishable, but the Rawlings logo gave it away. She recognized the lettering style from her softball days.
At eleven-twenty-six and two seconds, the xenon light once again flashed against the first-floor ceiling as the exit door opened. The killer had taken roughly eight minutes to end Jason’s life.
Marla knocked on the door as she walked into the room. Lena paused the tape she was staring at—the digital film of the empty parking lot in front of the library. “What is it?”
“You’ve got a visitor.” Marla turned on her heel and left.
Lena tossed down the remote, thinking Marla Simms was one person she would not miss when she left this place. Actually, now that she gave it some consideration, Lena could not name one person in town she couldn’t live without. It seemed odd to feel so detached from a group of people who had comprised her world for the last several years. Lena had always thought of Grant County as her home, the police force as her family. Now, she could only think about how good it would feel to finally be rid of them.
She pushed open the metal fire door and walked into the squad room. Lena stopped when she saw the woman waiting in the lobby, instantly recognizing Sheila McGhee from the picture Frank had taken out of Allison’s wallet. They had all been sitting on a bench in front of the student center. The boy Lena now knew was Jason Howell had his arm around Allison’s waist. Sheila sat beside her niece, close but not too close. The sky was deep blue behind them. The leaves had started to fall.
In person, Sheila McGhee looked thinner, harder. Lena had thought from the photo that she was local town trash, and now she guessed Sheila was the Elba, Alabama, version of the same. She was the sort of stick thin you got from eating too little and smoking too much. Her skin hung limply from the bones of her face. Her eyes were sunken. The woman in the photo had been smiling. Sheila McGhee looked like she would never smile again.
She nervously clutched her purse in front of her stomach as Lena approached. “Is it true?”
Marla was at her desk. Lena reached across and pressed the buzzer to open the gate. “Why don’t you come back?”
“Just tell me.” She grabbed Lena’s arm. She was strong. The veins along the back of her hand looked like braided pieces of twine.
“Yes,” Lena confirmed. “Allison is dead.”
Sheila wasn’t convinced. “She looked like a lot of girls.”
Lena covered the woman’s hand with her own. “She worked at the diner down the street, Mrs. McGhee. Most of the cops who work here knew her. She was known to be a very sweet girl.”
Sheila blinked several times, but her eyes were dry.
“Come back with me,” Lena offered. Instead of leading her to the interrogation room, she went into Jeffrey’s office. Oddly, Lena felt a sudden pang of loss. She understood that somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d thought that in ten, maybe fifteen years, she’d rightfully have this office. Lena hadn’t realized the dream was even there until she’d lost it.
Now wasn’t the time to dwell on her own broken dreams. She indicated the two chairs on the other side of the desk. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Sheila sat on the edge of the seat, her purse in her lap. “Was she raped? Just tell me right out. She was raped, wasn’t she?”
“No, she wasn’t raped.”
The woman seemed confused. “Did that boyfriend of hers kill her?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lena sat down beside her. She kept her hand in her lap. The skin was hotter than before. Every heartbeat shot a throb through her fingers.
Sheila said, “His name’s Jason Howell. She’s been seeing him a couple of years. They weren’t getting along lately. I don’t know what was going on. Some kind of disagreement or something. Allison was torn up about it but I told her to just let him go. Ain’t no man worth that kind of misery.”
Lena flexed her hand. “I’ve just come from the college, Mrs. McGhee. Jason Howell is dead. He was murdered last night.”
She looked as shocked as Lena had felt when she’d heard the news from Marty. “Murdered? How?”
“We think he was killed by the same man who murdered your niece.”
“Well …” She shook her head, confused. “Who would kill two college students? They didn’t have a dime between them.”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Lena paused, giving the woman time to recover. “If you could think of anybody in Allison’s life, a person she mentioned, maybe something she’d gotten mixed up in that she couldn’t—”
“That don’t even make sense. What could Allison do to anybody? She never hurt nobody.”
“Did she ever tell you about her friends? Talk about anybody in her life?”
“There was that Tommy. He’s retarded, got a thing for her.” Realization dawned. “Have you talked to him?”
“Yes, ma’am. We cleared him of the crime.”
She kept clutching the purse in her lap. “What about that landlord? Seemed like he had a jealous girlfriend.”
“They were both in Florida when the crime was committed.”
Tears moistened her eyes but didn’t fall. She was obviously trying to think of someone else who could have done this. Finally, she gave up, taking a short breath and letting it out between her lips. Her shoulders slumped. “None of this makes sense. None of it.”
Lena kept her own counsel. She had been a cop fo
r fifteen years and she had yet to work a murder case that made much sense. People always killed for the stupidest reasons. It was depressing to think that life held such little value.
Sheila opened her purse. “Can I smoke in here?”
“No, ma’am. Would you like to go outside?”
“Too damn cold.” She chewed at her thumbnail as she stared at the wall. The rest of her nails were chewed to the quick. Lena wondered if Allison had picked up the habit from her aunt. The girl’s nails had been painfully short.
Sheila said, “Allison had a professor she was mad at because he gave her a bad grade.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Williams. She’s never made a C on a paper in her life. She was pretty upset about it.”
“We’ll look into that,” Lena told her, but she’d already talked to Rex Williams. He’d been in New York with his family since Saturday afternoon. A call to Delta confirmed his alibi. “Did Allison have a car?”
Her eyes shifted to the floor. “It was her mama’s. She kept it in Judy’s name because the insurance was cheaper that way.”
“Do you remember the make and model?”
“I don’t know. It was old, held together by spit and rust. I can look it up when I get home.” She clutched her purse as if she was ready to leave. “Do you need me to do that now?”
“No,” Lena told her. She was fairly certain Allison drove a red Dodge Daytona. “Did you talk to your niece much on the phone?”
“Once a month. We got closer after her mama passed.” A look crossed her face. “I guess it really is just me now.” She swallowed hard. “I got a son in Holman stamping out license plates. About the only thing he’s ever done right in his life.”
She meant Holman State Prison in Alabama. “What’s he in for?”
“Being stupid.” Her anger was so palpable that Lena resisted the urge to lean back in her chair. “He tried to rob a liquor store with a water pistol. That boy’s been in prison more days than he’s been out.”
“Is he affiliated with a gang?”
“Well, who the hell knows?” she demanded. “Not me, that’s for sure. I ain’t talked to him since they sent him up. Washed my hands of it all.”
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