The Perfect Coed (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1)

by Judy Alter

  Brandy ran past Baker, the building she’d just left, and the business school and the administration building, headed for the patio outside the student center. She slowed when she found the patio empty and sat down on one of the iron chairs that were bolted to the textured concrete patio. With shaking hands she pulled out a cell phone and punched in numbers.

  “They found Missy,” she whispered. A pause and then, “In the trunk of a car. Dr. Hogan’s car. She’s dead.”

  Another pause. “Of course, that’s what I think. We have to be sure not to tell anyone, not anyone.” She tried to be firm but there was a quaver in her voice.

  Then, “Oh, God, will I have to talk to the police?” Whoever was on the other end of the line must have said she would, because Brandy said, “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  One last pause, and Brandy whispered partly into the phone and partly to herself, “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”

  She hit the “end” button, put the phone in her book bag, and ran into the union. Only once she was safely locked into a stall in the restroom did she give in to the tears that had been building. Then she sobbed and sobbed, not even trying to muffle her cries.

  * * *

  A plainclothes policeman approached Susan, who still stood clutching Jake’s arm. “Dr. Hogan? If you’ll just come with me…”

  With horror Susan realized he meant to take her away from Jake. She sent a look of panic toward Jake, who said to the officer, “Listen, Jordan, that’s not necessary. I’ll take responsibility for her and bring her downtown.”

  Jordan, whoever he was, did not look like a man who bent the rules. “It’s irregular,” he said. “We need to question her. At this point, she’s not under arrest.”

  Susan thought he stressed the “at this point” a little too heavily. Later she found out his first name was Dirk. It rhymed with jerk.

  “Come on,” Jake protested. “I know you have to question her, but Susan’s upset, and you and I both know she didn’t do this.”

  “I don’t know any such thing,” Jordan said. “It’ll take me about another hour out here. I’ll send an officer to escort her downtown. You can come on your own. And get your people to do something about this crowd.” He stalked away.

  Jake looked amused, whereas Susan thought he should be angry. “He giving you orders,” she protested.

  “He just thinks he is,” Jake said wryly. “Not much we can do about the crowd, except keep ’em at a good distance, and we’re doing that.”

  As the officer arrived to escort her downtown, Susan said, “Jake, my purse, my books… in my office.”

  He nodded.

  * * *

  Susan huddled in the back seat of the squad car, as much as she could, sure that every student was staring at her. The day had warmed considerably, but she was shaking and chilled. Above all, she was scared. All thoughts of tenure and classes and John Scott flew out of her mind as she relived the past, the day she’d found Shelley’s body and ended up at the police station, accused of murder.

  Questions raced through her mind. Why my car? It must be Missy Jackson, Brandy Perkins’ roommate. “Who is she?” she asked the officer, though she knew all along it would be Missy Jackson. She harbored a faint hope it was someone else, though she didn’t know how that would make the situation better.

  The officer drove, eyes straight ahead. “Not at liberty to tell you, ma’am.”

  Susan considered throwing something at him, but she had nothing to throw. And wouldn’t really have done it anyway. It was just a comforting thought. She shivered again.

  * * *

  Brandy Perkins lay on the bed in her room at the sorority house, but sleep was the last thing on her mind. She had finally pulled herself together in that bathroom stall, splashed water on her face, and hurried to her room—the room she had shared with Missy. Bolting up the stairs, she ignored the girls who sat in the lounge and nearly knocked one girl down the steps in her blind haste. Now she tossed and turned and her thoughts raced. Missy’s face appeared in front of her, and then that of a young man with outrageous red hair. Every time she saw him, she covered her eyes to make the image disappear. She couldn’t bear to look at Missy’s half of the room, and questions about Missy’s family haunted her. Would they come to Oak Grove? Would they expect her to know something?

  When the phone rang, she almost didn’t answer it. When she did, her fingers tightened around it. “Kenny?”

  Whatever he asked, she turned pale. “No, Kenny, not tonight. I can’t.”

  A little anger crept into her voice. “I can’t, Kenny. I’m worried about Missy.” Then she had a thought and added, “She’s sick. She’s real sick.”

  Kenny either didn’t know about Missy’s death or was pretending not to know, because he asked Brandy to have Missy call him. “Okay, I’ll tell her.”

  A pause and then Brandy said, “Yeah, sure, Kenny, next time.”

  She hung up the phone and began to sob again. Two hours later, when she woke up from a drug-like sleep, she thought, “I’ve got to get out of here. NOW!” Applying a hasty dab of lipstick and running a comb through her hair, she headed downstairs.

  News of Missy’s death had reached the sorority house. Girls stood in clusters in the hall and the lounge. For a moment when Brandy rounded the last landing on the staircase, all eyes turned toward her, but no one said a word and no one moved. Then, one by one, they came over to hug her, tears on their faces, empty words coming from their mouths. Brandy tried to thank them and to hug back, and suddenly it hit her again.

  “I’ve got to get out of here!” She bolted for the door, and the next thing she knew she was at the Green Lizard Lounge, an off-campus and supposedly off-limits place where students hung out. A smoky bar, the place catered to old men from the town in the daytime and the college crowd at night—high school kids too if they could sneak in. Nobody much checked IDs, just as they didn’t count how many beers any old man drank during the morning.

  Kids were just beginning to arrive, and Brandy chose a booth in the back where she could watch. She ordered a Coors Light and sat sipping it, trying not to think.

  Suddenly a young man appeared at the booth. He was tall and thin, with dark brown hair that hung in a shank over his eyes. “Hey, Brandy,” he said.

  Startled, she barely managed to answer, “Hey, Eric.”

  Uninvited he sat down. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I think I’m numb. Are you?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t believe it. Nobody told me. I just heard it on the radio. I can’t believe no one told me.” He didn’t mention that he’d been in the crowd around Susan Hogan’s car or that he’d watched Brandy bolt from the scene. His hand fingered a gold ring on a chain around his neck. It was the promise ring that Missy had given him.

  “Oh, God,” Brandy said. Then, with desperation, she realized she had to put on an act for Missy’s boyfriend. “I… I don’t know why anyone would do this to Missy. It had to be mistaken identity… or a random act. Nobody could be that mad at Missy.” She thought she might cry again.

  “And why Dr. Hogan’s car?” Eric asked, an intense look making his eyes shine. “I feel like I’m supposed to solve this.”

  Brandy shrugged. “Dr. Hogan’s a great teacher, nice person. Who would do that to her?”

  “I hear she’s sort of, well, a feminist and all that,” Eric said. “I never had her for class. Missy used to talk about what she learned in her… what was it? Women’s lit class?”

  “Yeah,” Brandy said. “Missy was impressed with her. I’m taking her women’s lit class now, and I like her a lot.”

  Eric rose suddenly. “I got to go. Missy’s parents are supposed to arrive early in the morning. Got to get myself together so I can help them.”

  “See you,” Brandy said and took a long pull at her beer. She hoped Kenny wouldn’t come looking for her.

  Chapter Two

  Susan’s interview with Dirk Jordan was predictable. He thought she was
hiding something—and was probably guilty—and she resented that he assumed she was guilty when she was a victim. She slowly realized that the only way she could convince this detective that she was innocent was to find the real killer herself.

  The non-speaking officer had delivered her to the basement police headquarters. All she saw were cubicles with the liberal use of wallboard and small rooms with closed doors. Susan knew the jail was upstairs. A few uniformed police officers wandered in and out of various cubbyhole offices, their faces serious. Some clutched sheaves of paper, and others looked like they didn’t know what to do with their empty hands.

  She glimpsed at least four desperate criminals, until she reminded herself that desperate criminals were fairly rare in a quiet town like Oak Grove. But in the narrow hall she had brushed against a man in an orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed in front of him. Her already testy stomach lurched at the smell of him.

  The policeman escorted her to a small room badly in need of new paint and fresh air. The smell of stale smoke mixed with the mustiness that hung over the whole area. The room validated every detective show she’d ever seen on TV. A scarred, wooden table with four metal chairs around it. A window that made her wish she’d tried to look in from the outside to see if it was one-way glass.

  Dirk Jordan came in shortly and greeted her warmly enough. “Dr. Hogan, thanks for coming in. I’m truly sorry about what’s happened.”

  “So am I,” Susan said, as she took his outstretched hand. Thanks for coming? As if she’d had a choice. She looked into eyes that were cold and distant. Then she studied him a minute. He was maybe ten years older and an inch or two taller than Jake. His nose didn’t turn sideways in his face, but she noticed that he held his left hand in an awkward position by his side.

  “Coffee?” he asked, but Susan declined. She realized that she hadn’t had lunch, and she didn’t think it was smart to put caffeine into an empty stomach. Her hands still felt shaky.

  “I’ll pass too,” he said, motioning for her to sit. He took a seat across the table from her. He meant to look casual, but she could see that the muscles in his neck were corded with tension. The hair on the back of Susan’s neck prickled.

  He wasted no more time on pleasantries. “We’ve identified the body as Missy Jackson, a senior. You knew her, I believe. How well?”

  Startled, Susan almost jumped. “Not well at all. She was a student of mine last year. I didn’t know her outside class.”

  “And what was your classroom relationship like?”

  Susan pondered that for a moment. “The same as it is with most of my students. I tried to encourage her to be an independent thinker. Sometimes she was… ah… very independent and other times she seemed very traditional.”

  “Her reputation is, I believe, above reproach.” Somehow his tone made it seem that he was questioning her evaluation of the dead girl.

  “I didn’t know her reputation or accomplishments when she was in my class.”

  “I don’t understand why her body was in your car,” he said, his eyes challenging her.

  “Neither do I.” Susan’s voice flared in anger.

  “The medical examiner tells me as a preliminary finding that the girl was killed Monday night. Where were you?”

  “In the library, until it closed at ten.”

  “Anyone see you? Anyone that knows you?”

  “Of course. The librarians know me.”

  “That can be checked.” He tried another tack. “Do you know Eric Lindler?”

  “Who?”

  “The dead girl’s boyfriend.”

  She shook her head in the negative. “But I wish I knew why he chose my car to put her body in,” she said.

  “We have no proof that it was Eric Lindler. We haven’t interviewed him yet.”

  She wanted to scream, “Don’t you think he should be first on your list, ahead of me?”

  “Whoever it was,” Jordan said slowly, “wanted the body found. That’s why it was in your car. Otherwise, anyone with half a brain would have dumped the body way out in the country someplace.”

  “Then that should rule me out,” she replied quickly. “If I wanted a body found, I wouldn’t be so dumb as to put it in my own car.”

  “Not necessarily,” he said, dismissing her protest. “If you don’t know why your car was chosen, have you considered it was because of your relationship with Jake Phillips?” His cold eyes stared, watching her every reaction.

  What else does this man know? “Why would that matter?”

  “If…” He paused to let that word sink it. “If you didn’t put the body in your car, perhaps someone else knew you would get instant attention from the campus police because of your relationship with Phillips.”

  “I don’t believe the campus police treat me any differently than anyone else at the school,” she said firmly.

  The questioning went on, always coming back to the question of why the body was in her car. Finally, Jordan said, “Dr. Hogan, your story has too many holes in it for my comfort. One more thing: have you ever been involved in a criminal investigation before?”

  Susan shook her head in the negative, but visions of Shelley lying curled in a ball blurred in front of her until she raised a hand as though to wipe the image away.

  “That can be checked. We’ll have to impound your car indefinitely. Here’s my card, in case you remember anything else. Please assure me that you won’t leave Oak Grove. I have no authority to order you to stay here, but it would look suspicious if you left,” Jordan said.

  Stunned, Susan managed to mutter, “Yes, sir.” She wanted to scream.

  Jake was waiting to take her home, and she fell into his arms gratefully. “He didn’t believe me,” she told him once in the car. “He thinks I know something I’m not telling.” She thought a minute and then asked, “What’s wrong with his left hand?”

  “Shot,” Jake said. “Way I hear it was the bullet severed some nerves. Jordan won’t talk about it, but they say it’s made him a tougher cop. It’s probably also why he’s in a small town and not on a big city force.”

  “Well, he thinks that somebody probably crashed into my car to pop the trunk open and then pounded it shut once they put… ah, her… inside.”

  “I’m not a detective,” Jake said dryly, “but they could have just opened the trunk from inside your car. I know it wasn’t locked, never is. So why would they crash into it?”

  “Nothing else makes sense,” she said, “so why should that?”

  Jake turned into the town square. “You hungry?”

  “Ravenous.” She’d have thought all that had happened would have killed any appetite she had, but she realized she hadn’t eaten anything since an early-morning bowl of cereal.

  They went to Subie’s Café on the square. It had the usual plastic-covered chairs with chrome and vinyl tables covered with oilcloth—what her mother used to refer to proudly as her “dinette set” when Susan was young. The salt and pepper sat next to a container of sugar and sweetener, with the ever-present bottle of ketchup that always made Susan wonder why restaurants didn’t feel the need to refrigerate ketchup like she did at home.

  What Susan loved about Subie’s was the collection of old pictures, maps, and memorabilia that hung on its walls—pictures of Gary Cooper and John Wayne, an ornate and aged sombrero, a 1950s map of Oak Grove. Overhead, an old porch swing was suspended from the ceiling and next to it was a tumbleweed. She always imagined they were all dusty, sifting bits of dirt onto her food, but it never bothered her.

  Neither Jake nor Susan looked at the menu. He would have chicken-fried steak, and she would have a hamburger with fries.

  The waitress came over, pad in hand. “The usual?” she asked.

  “Thanks, Margie,” Jake said.

  She turned toward the kitchen, then stopped and faced Jake, hands on her hips. “Is it true about them finding a body in a car on campus?” Indignation was written all over her face.

  “I’m afraid it is,�
� Jake said, and Susan held her breath for fear that it would come out whose car it was.

  “I tell you, Mr. Phillips,” Marge said, her voice rising shrilly, “them college students, they’re gonna ruin this town. Look at the way they hang out in them bars up on the edge of town of a Saturday night. Used to be a body was safe in her own bed, but now… I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think it’s a sign of a crime spree,” Jake said, fighting to keep a smile from his face and avoiding looking at Susan. “We’ll find out, I’m sure, that it was someone who knew this poor girl.”

  “What kind of a friend would do that?” She finally went away, shaking her head in despair.

  “Not going to be easy for the university,” Jake said. “The communications office is going to have a real PR job on its hands.”

  “So am I,” Susan said, “when word gets around it was my car.”

  Jake reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I’m as sorry as I can be, Susan, you got mixed up in this. I’ll do everything I can to get you out of it, but…” He shrugged, and Susan felt a sense of inevitability about everything that had happened and a helplessness about whatever would happen next.

  The chicken-fried steak was fork tender—wasn’t it always? Susan thought—and the hamburger thick and the good kind of greasy. Every time they ate at the café, they vowed never again because they were so stuffed and satisfied when they finished eating. But they ate there once a week or more. Sometimes, Susan tried to tell Jake about how her Aunt Jenny could cook chicken-fried steak that was as good as what he had just eaten, but he always said, “Don’t fool me, Susan. No one in your family could cook, or they’d have taught you.”

  “My Aunt Jenny can,” she said defensively.

  Jake pushed his plate away from him. “You ready?” he asked. “It’s been a long day.”