‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘And he’d probably frown on us listening in to her conversation with Graham.’
‘Say something stupid like entrapment. Which it isn’t!’ she said.
‘Absolutely not!’ I agreed again, frowning. ‘No such thing!’
Luna sighed. ‘So we wait. If what she has to say to Graham is nothing then we just let Champion know she’s in town and leave it at that. But if she’s got something interesting to say—’
‘We record it!’ I said, holding up my phone.
‘That will record a conversation?’
‘Yep,’ I said.
‘You know that’s against the law—’
‘For the police. Not for private citizens.’
She sighed again. ‘I’ve never been good at walking a tightrope,’ she said.
‘I’ll hold your hand,’ I assured her, and got a glare for my kind words.
We heard a car pull up and Luna moved to the window, peering through a crack in the blinds. ‘Beamer with a faux blonde inside,’ she said.
‘Probably her,’ I said and rang Graham’s cell. To him, I said, ‘I think she just drove up. Stick the phone under the pillow!’
‘Gotja!’ he said, and I could hear the rustle of the bedclothes as he tucked the phone away. Then, quite clearly, through the wall and the phone, we heard a rap on Graham’s door.
He opened the door and said, ‘Mrs Alexander?’
‘Ms Alexander,’ she said. She must have pushed past him because all of a sudden her voice was closer to the phone.
‘Please, ma’am, have a seat.’ There was another, slighter rustle of the bedclothes.
‘I need to talk to you,’ the woman said.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Did you get a chance to grab any of Bishop’s things?’
‘Ah, no, ma’am. I didn’t even get a chance to grab my thing—’
‘So the police have already searched the room,’ she said. Again, not a question.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Graham answered anyway.
‘When can you get back in?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe never. Ma’am, I need to tell you that the police consider me a suspect.’
She was quiet for a moment, then asked, very matter-of-factly, ‘Did you kill my son?’
‘No, ma’am,’ Graham said.
‘Good. OK,’ she said, and we could tell she’d stood up by the creak of the bed springs and the fact that her voice seemed slightly farther away. ‘Please don’t tell anyone I was here,’ she said.
‘Ma’am,’ Graham said, and we could tell he too was standing. ‘I’m not sure what it was you wanted to see me about.’
Ms Alexander was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘I think Bishop may have had something of mine. I would like to get it back before the police take it for some reason.’
‘Oh,’ Graham said, ‘I see,’ which he clearly didn’t.
‘Thank you for your time,’ she said as her voice dimmed the nearer she got to the door.
‘If there’s anything else—’ Graham started but she interrupted him.
‘No, of course not. Why would there be?’ And seconds later we heard her Beamer start up.
Luna and I looked at each other. ‘Whoa. What a piece of work!’ Luna said.
I picked up the phone and said, ‘Graham?’
‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘Aren’t you glad I’m your mother?’
There was a beat before he said, ‘Actually, yeah, I think I am.’
‘You did what?’ Champion shouted into the phone.
‘She was only here for a few seconds—’ Luna started.
‘Not the effing point, Luna! Jeez! You should have called me the minute she contacted the kid! Jesus H! What were you thinking?’ he stormed on.
‘If you’d rather yell at me then find out what she asked Graham—’
‘Goddammit, Luna!’ He sighed heavily over the phone line. ‘What did she want?’
‘She thought the vic may have had something of hers. She wanted in the dorm room was the impression I got. She was hoping Graham could get her in. Probably the only reason she spoke to him. She didn’t seem that concerned about her son’s death.’
‘Obviously not if she was talking to the Pugh kid!’ he said.
‘So I’m thinking—’
‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘Don’t think. When you think I get in trouble! So stop!’
‘What if,’ Luna went on, oblivious to what he said, ‘we have Graham call her back? Her number’s in his cell phone. He tells her that he has a way to get into the dorm room. And maybe he can help her …’
‘You’re treading on entrapment here,’ he said.
Still ignoring him, she went on: ‘Find whatever it is she wants. All she has to do is describe it—’
‘And if it’s something incriminating you think she’d do that? “Here, kid, go find the murder weapon for me then come stand here while I stab you so there’ll be no witnesses.”’
‘Or she goes with him—’
‘Entrapment!’
‘Not necessarily! If you’re in the room waiting for her, yeah. But what if you’re outside the door, just on your way in to check for something—’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know!’ Luna said, getting frustrated. ‘You can think of something to help, can’t you? Anyway, she walks out with the Pugh kid and something in her hand, and you, of course, can’t let her take anything out of the room as yet—’
‘So then I arrest both her and the kid. Not bad,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Luna said, back-peddling. ‘Just confiscate whatever she took and give them both a stern talking to.’
‘I’d really like to get that kid behind bars,’ he said.
‘If he’s helping you with the investigation? I know his mother well. She’ll sue your ass.’
He sighed. ‘Yeah, and there would go the dollar and a half I have left from the divorce.’
‘You wouldn’t want to lose that,’ Luna said, a smile in her voice.
‘Yeah, I wanna keep it to buy a lottery ticket.’
‘You never know,’ she said.
He sighed again. ‘Unfortunately, I do.’
‘OK, so she was a piece of work,’ I said to Luna, ‘but do you really think she killed her own son?’
‘I just want to know what’s so important that she needs to get into his dorm room to confiscate it before the police do,’ she said.
‘You think he took something that could incriminate her in some dastardly deed so she killed him to hush it up?’ I postulated.
‘And didn’t look for it while she was in there stabbing her son? With the knowledge that his roommate was out cold?’ She shook her head, reversing her position. It was something the two of us tended to do. ‘She would have searched thoroughly if that were the case.’
‘I don’t know,’ I continued, ‘it has to be bad on the psyche to kill your own child, so maybe she panicked and just ran.’
‘So you think it would be traumatic to kill your child?’
‘Well, duh.’
She leaned back on the pillows of her bed. ‘Not buying it. There’s something there, I grant you. But I just don’t think she killed her kid.’
‘Why? Because she’s so warm and loving?’ I said. OK, a little sarcastically.
‘What’s your problem with this woman?’ she asked.
‘You mean besides the fact that she was a rotten mother who raised a rotten son and didn’t seem to give a shit about him? Other than that, she seems like a peach of a gal.’
‘Rotten mothers don’t necessarily kill their children. If they did, we wouldn’t have so many rotten kids. And besides, some people manage to raise themselves up from abusive beginnings.’
Having just remembered that Eduardo, her husband, had been raised in an abusive household, I decided to shut my mouth. The fact that he’d spent twenty years in Leavenworth for killing his commanding officer – in self-defenc
e – was an argument against what she’d just said, but I thought it best, under the circumstances, to let it go.
‘So what did Champion say?’ I asked instead. ‘Is he going to do it?’
She shrugged. ‘He didn’t say no,’ she said. ‘He didn’t say yes either but he didn’t say no.’
‘And that’s significant?’
‘I believe so,’ she said with a hint of a smirk. ‘Let’s go talk to Graham, just in case.’
So we went to his room, knocking on the door, only to have it opened by a pretty young woman with lots of curly brown hair and big brown eyes. She smiled big and held out her hand to me. ‘You must be Graham’s mom,’ she said. ‘He looks just like you!’
‘I am,’ I said, smiling back. ‘And you are?’
‘Miranda Wisher. You know, the girl who left the evidence in your son’s room?’
The smile seemed glued to my face. She was certainly upfront about it. Maybe a little too upfront? Oh, yeah. A lot too upfront. On my list of things I didn’t want to know, that would be number one. So what was I supposed to say? Nice to meet you? Or, You did a good job cleaning up the mess? Or simply, Go away before I start to scream!
Luna saved the situation by moving past me into the motel room. ‘You need to make a statement to the detective in charge,’ she said to the girl in passing. Then turned to my son, who was on one of the beds on his stomach, a book in front of him.
‘Miranda’s helping me with tomorrow’s government assignment. She’s in the same class. The one I missed on Tuesday.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said, finally finding my tongue.
‘Can we talk about the problem in front of her?’ Luna said, never one to beat about the bush.
‘Oh, yeah, she knows everything I know,’ Graham said, smiling at the girl. I mean, young woman.
‘And anyone who thinks Graham could have hurt a fly, much less kill that obnoxious prick, Bishop, is out of their freaking mind,’ she said, sitting down entirely too close to my son.
Lighten up, I tried to tell myself. It’s not like they haven’t already done it. I had more or less doubted my twenty-year-old son was still a virgin, but having this evidence of it made me sad.
‘Well, your mom and I came up with an idea and I’ve put it before Champion. Now we have to wait and see what his decision is,’ Luna said.
Graham frowned, looking back and forth between Luna and myself. ‘Do I want to know?’
‘You’re instrumental to the plan,’ I said, ‘so yeah, you want to know.’
‘Are you going to get me killed or arrested?’ he asked.
‘Neither,’ Luna said. Then, to everyone’s chagrin, added: ‘I hope.’
Miranda Wisher’s head was swiveling from one speaker to the next, like a member of the audience at a tennis match. ‘Wait, now!’ she said. ‘Isn’t he already in enough trouble? What are y’all talking about?’
‘Does she really need to be here?’ Luna asked Graham.
‘Yes!’ Miranda said. Graham grinned at her, then said to Luna, ‘I doubt I could get rid of her if I wanted to.’
‘You got that right, buster!’ the girl said.
‘So what is it you want me to do that might get me killed or arrested?’ Graham asked.
We laid out the plan we’d presented to Champion shortly before.
‘Hum,’ Graham said. ‘I don’t see how I could get killed or arrested for that.’
‘If she killed her son, she might kill you, too,’ Luna offered.
‘Yeah, I guess there is that,’ Graham agreed. ‘But do you think she did?’
Luna used her head to point at me. ‘Your mother does,’ she said.
‘That’s only because she’s thought about killing all her kids at one time or another,’ Graham said, grinning at me.
‘It’s been a while,’ I admitted, ‘but don’t push me.’
‘So why would I get arrested?’ he asked.
‘I doubt you will. If Champion agrees to this, you won’t.’
‘What are the chances he’s going to agree?’ Graham asked.
Luna shrugged. ‘Fifty-fifty? No, probably more like sixty-forty. Or less.’
‘So what do we do if he says no?’ Graham asked.
Luna and I looked at each other. ‘We go to plan B,’ I said.
‘Which is?’ Graham asked.
I shrugged, and Luna said, ‘We’ll work on that if we need to.’
Nate Champion was thinking hard. He’d searched the vic’s room himself and found nothing that could incriminate the mother. To his knowledge, he had to admit. What if there had been something there that he didn’t recognize as incriminating? But asking the Pugh kid to get involved in setting up the vic’s mother was a stretch and a half, as far as he was concerned. Of course, the vic’s mother had been the one to approach the kid, so that would be just about the only way to do it.
He sighed and looked at the phone on his desk. He could just call Luna and get the ball rolling but he was still hesitant. Luna had been right about one thing: he hadn’t had the Pugh kid’s blood tested the morning the body was discovered. He probably should have done that. If the kid had been roofied, as the three of them claimed, then the chances were good he didn’t do it. And, other than the fact that his roommate was an asshole and he disliked him intensely, why else would the kid do it? Champion himself had had an asshole for a roommate his freshman year at A&M – Gordo Bacon. Gordo thought flushing heads was an Olympic sport. But Champion hadn’t killed him. He could admit, if only to himself, that he’d thought about it the third time his head had been shoved in the toilet, but he hadn’t done it. And as far as witnesses went, no one had ever seen Bishop Alexander get physical with the Pugh kid.
‘So what are you saying?’ he asked himself. ‘You no longer think the Pugh kid is your top suspect?’ He studied that thought. Had he taken the kid off his list? If so, who was left? The Morley girl, the one he thought of in his head as Pretty Poison. The Thurgood girl? He shook his head. She just didn’t seem the type. Maybe he should look at her further, but he wasn’t sure why.
Then there was the mother. The vic’s mother. Luna had told him what the Pugh kid had said about his knowledge of her relationship with her son – if he wasn’t lying. ‘Get off his case!’ he said to himself. ‘For just a minute. You can always go back.’ Taking his own advice, he delved more into the mother. The only relationship with the mother prior to the kid’s death seemed to be a financial one. She sent him money, he spent it and asked for more. Did she give it to him? Was that what she was looking for? Was she strapped and needed cash? But by what the Pugh kid had said, the vic spent every dime just as quick as he could. Surely, if he kept calling home for more, his mother would have to know that the likelihood of there being any spare cash lying around Bishop’s things was nil. So what was she looking for?
Sunday night had been the first night back in the dorms after winter break. So, had Bishop gone home over the break? Had he been with his mother? Had he seen something, heard something? Or merely taken something? From what he’d heard about this kid, he wouldn’t have any scruples about stealing, especially from his own mother.
Champion sighed long and hard and picked up the phone, hitting the redial for Luna’s cell phone.
‘So here’s the deal,’ Champion said to Graham. ‘You meet her in the lobby of McMillan Hall, you take her up the stairs—’
‘Hey, that’s four floors!’ Graham complained.
‘It’ll make it look more like you’re sneaking in,’ Champion said.
‘But she’s old, so—’ Graham started.
‘Your mom and I saw her from the window,’ Luna said. ‘She looked like a gymoholic to me.’
‘Very fit,’ I concurred.
‘Shit,’ Graham said under his breath.
‘Are we doing this or what?’ Champion demanded.
‘Yeah, yeah, we’re doing it,’ Graham said grudgingly.
‘So, OK. You take the stairs to your room. There will be a seal o
n the door. You can break it with a pocket knife or even a fingernail. You got a pocket knife?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I have a pocket knife,’ Graham said between clenched teeth.
‘Honey, if you don’t want to do this—’ I started but was interrupted.
‘No, no. It may be the only way to clear my name,’ he said, his eyes shooting daggers in Champion’s direction.
‘You got that right,’ Champion agreed. ‘So you break the seal, and this is important: no matter what she says, you go in with her, got that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what does he do once he’s in there?’ I asked.
‘He stands around and watches her. Covertly, of course,’ Luna said.
‘Then if she does find something and goes to leave, you make sure you see where she puts it. Whatever it is,’ Champion said. ‘It can’t be too big or I would have found it. Chances are she’ll stick it in a pocket or her purse or something. When you come out and see me, try to let me know where she put it. Got that?’
‘What? Point? Say “There it is”?’
‘Try using your eyeballs!’ Champion suggested. ‘Or your head. Try, if you can possibly do it, to be discreet.’
‘Whatever,’ Graham said.
I was beginning to have misgivings about this whole caper. How close to the legal definition of entrapment was this? What if she didn’t find anything? What if Graham didn’t see where she put it? Were they going to strip-search her? That would be a job and a half.
‘Where’s your phone?’ Champion asked. Graham held it up. ‘Make the call,’ he said.
Graham found the number from which the Alexander woman had called and looked at me. I nodded and he hit redial, putting the phone on speaker.
‘Yes?’ came the woman’s disembodied voice.
‘Ms Alexander, this is Graham Pugh, Bishop’s room—’
‘I know who you are,’ she said.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about what you asked and I think I have a way of getting into my dorm room.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m at the Four Seasons. It shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes to get here.’ She gave him her room number, told him to come up the service elevator and hung up.
Student Body Page 11