‘Usually, no. But whoever did this is setting Graham up for the fall, and, you know, hacking up old Bishop’s one thing but don’t blame it on someone else.’
I almost laughed. ‘Because they should just man up and admit to doing the world a favor?’ I suggested, and then felt a twinge of guilt for the comment. Just a twinge.
‘Well, there is that.’
‘How are the girls?’ I asked, changing the subject.
‘Asking more questions than I have answers to. But I think Bess and Alicia have finally figured out a way to keep Megan’s mouth shut.’
‘Duct tape?’
‘Blackmail, I think. Every time she starts to say something about Graham, Bess turns to me and opens her mouth. Says, “Daaaad …” And then Megan looks panicked and runs from the room.’
‘What do you think she did? Megan, I mean, that’s blackmail-able.’
‘God only knows with that girl,’ he answered.
‘You’ve checked that all the animals are OK?’ I said. We have acquired quite a menagerie: two dogs, four cats, a gerbil, a turtle and somewhere between eight and twenty fish, depending on who’s been found floating and been flushed.
‘They seem OK.’
‘Your wallet?’
‘In my pocket. With a few bucks. As usual.’
‘Well, keep an eye out for anything suspicious,’ I said. ‘Meanwhile, how’s the Weaver job going?’
‘Just some preliminary drawings and paperwork at this point. Won’t really get started until sometime next week.’
‘Are you going to have to hire some drafters?’ I asked.
‘Not right away, but maybe.’
I noticed Luna was stirring. I looked at the clock. It was almost eight. ‘Honey, I have to go. I think Luna might actually be getting ready to call Champion.’
‘When she’s finished, check in with Stuart, OK? Unless you’ve done that recently?’
‘No, I haven’t. And you’re right. He needs to know about our roofied theory.’
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
‘You’d better,’ I said with a smile. ‘Back atja.’
‘Afraid to say it in front of Luna?’
‘Goodbye!’ I said.
‘Say it!’ he said, laughing, while I hung up in his ear.
‘I got nothin’,’ Champion said in answer to Luna’s question. ‘Gotta get a warrant to get the class rolls from last semester. I’m going to see a judge this morning, but I wouldn’t put my hand over my ass waiting for it.’
‘I rarely, if ever, put my hand over my ass,’ Luna said.
‘Sorry, just an expression.’
‘No problem, I’ve heard it before. Listen, Nate, I’m thinking there’s a good chance the Pugh kid was roofied the night of the murder. I questioned him and he admitted that when he went to the cafeteria he left his food unattended for a moment and fell asleep early – for him. Which might be why he never woke up while all the killing was going on.’
‘Hum,’ Champion said. ‘You actually got him to admit that he might have been roofied?’
The sarcasm was not lost on Luna. ‘Look, you should have had him tested the next day but you didn’t,’ she said, letting her voice get hard. ‘It’s probably too late now to find anything in his system.’
‘We can give it a shot. But I doubt if we’ll find anything.’
‘Only because it’s Wednesday and he would have been dosed Sunday night.’
‘Or,’ Champion said, his own voice going hard, ‘he was never dosed at all and was pretty much wide awake when his roommate bought it. Or in a fugue state, as he’s already tried to imply.’
‘He didn’t imply that!’ Luna said, anger building. ‘I do believe it was your girlfriend Gretchen Morley who said the vic told her about the so-called middle of the night staring incidents.’
‘Look, Luna, gotta go talk to the judge,’ he said.
‘Fine!’ she said. ‘But call me. Let me know what’s going on.’
‘I don’t have to do that!’ he said.
Luna sighed. ‘I know you don’t have to, Nate. And I’m sorry I got hostile. It’s just this thing is hitting real close to home. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me in the loop.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ he said. Then, ‘Maybe you can come with me to the admin building if I get the warrant. Then we can try to tackle that Fuchs guy, the student adviser.’
‘When you get the warrant,’ Luna said.
‘Oh, yeah, positive thinking always works,’ he said and hung up.
I called Stuart Freeman as soon as Luna got off the phone with Champion and headed into the bathroom for her shower. Mine would have to wait. Stuart himself picked up on the third ring.
‘Law office,’ he said.
‘Stuart? It’s E.J. Pugh.’
‘Hey, E.J., what’s up?’
‘First, are congratulations in order for your assistant?’ I asked.
‘Yep. My first grandchild!’ he said proudly.
‘Oh, I didn’t realize Maggie was your daughter.’
‘Daughter-in-law. She came to work for me two years ago, my son came in, took one look and that’s all she wrote folks!’ he said with a laugh.
‘And mom and baby?’ I asked.
‘Both great. A boy and they named him after me. Sort of. My middle name’s Phillip. They named him Phillip Davis Freeman. Davis is Maggie’s maiden name.’
‘Well, that’s certainly a name you can see on a ballot,’ I said with a laugh.
‘Or a judge’s chamber door,’ he said. ‘Enough of that. You’re calling for more than an update on Maggie, I’m betting.’
So I explained to him the theory Luna had come up with – that Graham had been roofied, which was the reason he didn’t wake up during the murder of his roommate.
‘Hum,’ he said. ‘I like it. Heavy reasonable doubt. Any proof? Not that we need it for reasonable doubt, but I’m sure we’d both rather this never saw the inside of a courtroom.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, beginning to perspire at the very thought of such a thing. ‘We’re hot on the trail of proof now.’
‘You know, E.J., I need to tell you that you need to leave all this detective work to the police, right?’
I was quiet for a moment, listening in my head to the actual way he’d structured that sentence. Finally, I said, ‘I know that you need to tell me that.’
‘Then we’re on the same page,’ he said.
‘OK.’ I sighed. ‘Congratulations on your new grandchild and please send Maggie my best wishes.’
‘You got it. Keep me posted.’
‘I will,’ I said and hung up.
Graham made it to his seven a.m. class, and I got my shower, although between Graham in the next room and Luna in mine, the supply of hot water was zip to none. I knew Graham had another class at nine o’clock, with plans for a quick breakfast during the half-hour break. Then back-to-back classes until one-thirty. We’d planned for him to pick me up and go for lunch at that time. Meanwhile, my stomach was rumbling and I figured I needed sustenance to get me to that late lunch hour. I planned on having Luna drive me – and she could join me, no problem – to Threadgills, one of the older and better home-cookin’ establishments in Austin, for breakfast. Unfortunately, or really fortunately for the case (for my stomach, not so much), Champion called her and wanted her to meet him at the U.T. admin building asap. Seems the judge he went to was an old Aggie alum and more than happy to sign papers to serve on his old rival. In Texas, these things can last a lifetime.
So I was on my own with no vehicle. I walked to the small lobby where I’d seen advertised a ‘continental breakfast.’ Checking it out, I discovered some limp fruit, frozen waffles and a bagel that had seen better days. The restaurant next to the hotel had a sign saying it was closed for plumbing repairs (and I really didn’t even want to think about that!), so I checked my phone for other restaurants in the area. I finally found one only a couple of blocks from the motel. I’d only put on a
sweater to walk to the motel lobby, so went back to my room to get my coat. In south central Texas, anything under sixty degrees is considered cold. It was fifty-five with no sun shining and the weatherman had said it could dip into the high forties. I cuddled up in my winter coat and headed out.
Unfortunately, the couple of blocks to the restaurant meant walking very, very carefully along the feeder road to IH 35, one of the more dangerous stretches of highway in the state. I walked in knee-high dead weeds along the side of the road until I found the place: a Mexican restaurant that served breakfast tacos. And, to my delight, they were delicious. That might have been more to do with the fact that I was ravenous than to the cooking skills of the kitchen help. But I ate two, bending my diet a bit, and found an alternative walk – through business driveways and yards – to the motel.
Where I waited for any word. From Luna, from Graham, from Willis. At that point I would have welcomed a phone call from a customer service rep. I even turned on the TV, and for someone with a loathing for daytime television, that’s a good indicator of the tension and, let’s face it, boredom I was enduring.
At shortly after one p.m., I was awakened by the honking of a horn outside my motel room. As I arose, I was surprised I could hear the honking above the noise of ‘The Price is Right’ blaring on the tube. I opened the door to find Graham and his beat-up Toyota awaiting me. I held up one finger to indicate I’d be a minute, then went in the bathroom and splashed water on my face. It didn’t mess my makeup because in my rush to get to Austin I’d forgotten to pack any. But all I used it for mostly was to cover freckles, and my wintertime freckles weren’t as obnoxious as those of other seasons.
I tried to hand-press the wrinkles out of the clothes I’d been sleeping in and headed out the door.
‘What took you so long?’ Graham asked, revving the aging engine then putting it in reverse and going entirely too fast backwards.
‘Slow down!’ I said.
He just shook his head. ‘Where do you want to eat?’ he asked.
‘Threadgills!’ was my immediate answer. Their breakfasts were legendary but their lunches and dinners were fairly epic as well.
The newer Threadgills – the one that hadn’t been around in my college days – was much closer to the university, just over the river on the south side. The building had originally been a locally-owned cafeteria that catered mostly to the over-sixty crowd, but the conversion to the ‘Keep Austin Weird’ philosophy had been well done. Memorabilia from the old Armadillo World Headquarters adorned the place, like the piano Fats Domino played at a performance there, guitars signed by noted players, autographed pictures of all the blues, rock and roll and country stars who’d played there over the years. And of course, pictures of Janis Joplin playing with Kenneth Threadgill at the original Threadgills on Lamar, the one Willis and I would go to in our college days and bemoan the fact that we’d missed Janis by just a few years.
Even at one-thirty on a weekday afternoon, the place was crowded. Figuring being away from home meant calories didn’t count, I ordered the chicken-fried steak, the San Antonio squash, the black-eyed pea salad and the yeast rolls. Graham had pretty much the same but went for the jalapeno cornbread. We were sitting there awaiting our orders, drinking large glasses of sweetened iced tea, when Graham said, ‘Oh, crap, there’s Gretchen Morley.’ He nodded his head to the left and I looked.
‘Who’s that with her?’ I asked, noting the small, teenaged Asian girl with her.
Graham shook his head. ‘Don’t know. But don’t let her see us. She’s the type to make a scene.’ He turned to give the two a view of his back, but I wasn’t quick enough. Gretchen Morley saw the two of us, got up and left the restaurant, leaving her companion behind.
‘That was quick,’ Luna said as she and Champion left the admin office earlier that morning. It had taken little more than an hour to show the warrant, be sent to the right department and for a coed working off a student loan to check her computer and come up with the two Brittanys who had been in that one-hundred-seat auditorium the semester before. One was surnamed Johnson and the other Barber.
‘Aggie power at work,’ Champion said with a smirk.
Luna just shook her head. ‘At Texas Christian we were above such things,’ she said.
‘Bullshit,’ was Champion’s reply. Luna didn’t argue the point.
‘So which Brittany?’ Luna asked. ‘Did you get a description from Lexie Thurgood?’
He shook his head. ‘Did you?’
She cut her eyes at him but refused to respond.
Finally, Champion said, ‘I guess we could call her.’
‘She’s probably in class,’ Luna said.
‘Shit. So are both Brittanys, probably.’
‘Well, let’s at least find out where they both live,’ Luna suggested.
‘After we talk to that Fuchs guy,’ Champion said.
‘Oh, right! I keep forgetting about him,’ Luna said. ‘But I shouldn’t. He’s our most likely suspect so far.’
Champion gave her a look. ‘Except, of course, for the Pugh kid.’
‘Just don’t,’ Luna said, heading to the elevator.
Gaylord Fuchs’ office was on the fourth floor and about as big as your standard broom closet. Crammed inside were a tiny desk and chair, two bookcases bulging with books and papers and magazines, and one visitors’ chair.
They’d knocked on the door and been bidden to come in by a deep-throated voice. When they went in they found a man sitting tall in the chair behind the desk. He had dark brown hair receding at the hairline and a matching dark brown full beard. His eyebrows were dark and well groomed, and in such a perfect arch Champion wondered if they’d been plucked. He also had long black lashes over golden-brown eyes. He smiled when he saw them.
‘I’m sorry, I thought you were students,’ he said hopping down from what Champion now determined to be the adviser’s very high stool.
The Pugh kid’s comment that Fuchs looked like a ten-year-old was spot on: the man was maybe four foot two, with short legs and long arms. Champion wished the Pugh kid had mentioned the man was a little person. He held out his hand to Fuchs and said, ‘Detective Champion, Austin PD, and this is Detective Luna, a consultant.’
‘I thought y’all might be coming by. This is about Bishop Alexander, I presume?’ Fuchs said.
‘Yes. I understand you were his student adviser?’ Champion asked.
‘Yes, I was, and we were well into the second of the longest years of my life. Bishop Alexander was a pain in the ass.’ He grinned. ‘I thought I’d just get that out there right off the bat.’ Spreading an arm toward the one visitors’ chair, he said, ‘Sit, please.’ He walked around behind his desk and climbed up on his stool.
Champion indicated Luna take the chair while he remained standing. ‘We understand you had an altercation with the young man?’
Fuchs made a hooting sound. ‘Whoa! You could say that! I tried to beat the crap out of him but …’ he indicated his body, ‘… I couldn’t reach his face.’
‘This was at a party—’
‘At my house, yes,’ Fuchs said. ‘The asshole kept coming on to my wife and I ignored it for a while, and then he ran his hand up her skirt and pow, that was all she wrote!’
‘Sounds like the kid was a real creep,’ Luna said.
Fuchs was thoughtful for a moment, then said, ‘Really, he was more than that. I’d say he was pathological about his need for attention. Especially from women. The other students who were at the party weren’t that surprised about his behavior. I mean, a couple of them came up to tell me what he was doing. But my wife’s a very independent woman; she doesn’t need me coming to her rescue.’
‘Yet you did,’ Champion said.
Fuchs’ cheeks turned a little red. ‘Well, yeah, the Neanderthal came out in me that time. I mean, he touched her, for God’s sake.’
‘I can understand that,’ Champion said. ‘I’ve been married. A person just doesn’t do that, especiall
y right in front of the husband.’
‘Oh, yeah, it was a real “fuck you” to me. He wasn’t getting the classes he wanted and I think this was his way of telling me off.’
‘Did you ever visit Bishop in his dorm room?’ Luna asked.
Fuchs shook his head. ‘No, never.’
‘So if we were to fingerprint you, we wouldn’t find any matches in his room?’
‘Maybe on some papers or pamphlets I’ve given him over the years, if he’d lowered himself to actually keep any, but other than that, no.’ He held out his hands. ‘You got the ink, I got the prints,’ he said with a grin.
‘You’re not taking this very seriously, Mr Fuchs,’ Luna said.
‘Why would I? Personally, I hope you don’t find whoever did this. But if you do, don’t arrest them, just give ’em a medal. If anybody in this world needed killing, it was Bishop Alexander.’
‘That’s pretty harsh, Mr Fuchs,’ Champion said.
‘You know how many times that kid darkened my doorway? At least twice a week, sometimes three times a week. I’ve got one hundred and twelve kids I advise. I didn’t have time for him but that didn’t matter to that asshole. He’d actually push people out of the way to get into my office.’ Fuchs sighed. ‘So if you’re looking at me as a suspect, I don’t actually blame you, but I can give you the names of a bunch of kids he ran out of the office that might want to take a swing at him. And at that party, when he came on to my wife?’
‘Yes?’ Champion encouraged.
‘Almost all the kids were bad-mouthing him big time, some really angry about other things he’d done. So, put me on your list, but it’ll have to be as long as a roll of toilet paper to handle all the names.’
Luna stood up. ‘Thanks for your time, Mr Fuchs. And for your candor.’
Fuchs hopped down from his stool and held out his hand to shake those of both detectives. ‘If y’all need anything else, holler,’ he said and handed Champion a business card. ‘My home number’s on the back,’ he said. ‘I let all my kids have one.’ He sighed. ‘Which was a big mistake when it came to Bishop.’
After leaving Fuchs’ office, they went back to the clerk who had sent them to Records. She sighed long and hard but came up with addresses of the two Brittanys. One lived off-campus and the other lived in the B&B. Since the dorm was closest, they headed that way. The coed in the office of the dorm reacted swiftly to Champion’s badge and gave them the room number for Brittany Johnson. There was no answer to their knock on her door, so Champion took out a business card, wrote Please call this number asap on the back and stuck it between the door and the jamb, then they headed to the off-campus home of Brittany Number Two.
Student Body Page 9