The Perfect Coed (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1)

by Judy Alter

  Jake, still occupied with the Sunday paper, wished he could disappear. Susan made a strangling noise when she saw a man behind Aunt Jenny.

  Aunt Jenny gathered her courage and said, “John, this is my niece, Susan Hogan.”

  Susan turned so that she could hold out her hand, but John Jackson was staring at her.

  “Susan Hogan?” he asked. “The one who’s all but indicted for killing that girl?”

  Red spread across her face as Susan said, “I guess that’s me.”

  He stared at her a long time, as though measuring her. Finally, he asked, “You do it?”

  She stared back and saw a man she could respect and trust. “No, sir, I did not.”

  “Didn’t think so,” he said, “but they’ve sure got to pin this one on someone quick. You watch yourself, girl.”

  Before Susan could say any more, Jake rose and came forward to introduce himself. When he said, “Jake Phillips, sir, pleased to meet you,” the older man replied, “Judge John Jackson, son, and it’s my pleasure.”

  Susan stood with her mouth open. Where had Aunt Jenny found a judge? And why had she brought him home with her? All of Susan’s worry and anger at Aunt Jenny’s lateness disappeared.

  Judge Jackson stayed for a cup of coffee. When Jake offered him a shot of bourbon, he grinned and said, “Wish I could, son, but it’s a mite early in the day for an old man like me.” Jake had his coffee straight too.

  The four of them sat on Susan’s deck and talked about everything but the murder, for which Susan was glad. Judge Jackson told them that Aunt Jenny was the first woman with an ounce of sense who had come to the senior class in two years, and he couldn’t resist asking her to Sunday dinner. He hoped Susan wasn’t too angry.

  “Oh, go on with you,” Aunt Jenny said, blushing and making a gesture as though to push away his flattery.

  Susan assured him it was all right. “Aunt Jenny disappears sometimes,” Susan said, “and I worry about her.”

  “I’ll try to see you have no more cause to worry,” the judge said gallantly. Then he sobered, “I expect you’ve got enough to worry about anyway. If I can help you, girl, you let me know.” He fished in his pocket and produced a dog-eared business card that had simply his name and phone number.

  “Thanks,” Susan said, taking the card casually. She didn’t expect to need the advice of a retired judge.

  After the judge left, Jake looked at Aunt Jenny a minute and then asked her, “Where is your car? Did you forget it at the church?”

  Aunt Jenny shook her head firmly. “I did not forget it. I left it there on purpose. I had my own reasons.”

  Getting Judge Jackson to meet me, Susan thought and was for a moment amazed at the scheming nature of her supposedly dithery aunt. “Aunt Jenny, tell us about church.”

  “The seniors class was disappointing,” her aunt said. “Several old couples, three overweight women who banded together and stared at me, and one lone man who seemed to be sleeping through the lesson on the Minor Prophets. I sat next to him, as far as possible from the three women. Every once in a while, the man nodded, as though agreeing with the discussion leader, and at least twice he stared at me.”

  Susan sighed. Aunt Jenny’s version of the story was long-winded.

  “I decided he was not asleep but merely listening with his eyes closed. He looked fairly tall, though hunched down in his chair as he was, I couldn’t tell for sure. His hair was silver gray, the kind that must have once been coal black and turned gray nicely, not like mine that simply turned sort of watery yellow-gray. I thought he looked like a nice man to know.”

  “The beginning of a romance,” Jake said dramatically. “Go on. Tell us the rest.”

  “Jake Phillips, it’s not a romance. He’s simply a nice, interesting man. And being a judge… well, I thought I should explore.” Then she hastily added, “Because of Susan, of course.”

  But Susan caught her unconsciously fluffing her hair.

  “After the class,” Aunt Jenny went on, “he reached out a hand to welcome me. Told me his name, and I screeched because I thought he was related to that poor dead girl.” Her face turned red. “Everyone who was about to leave the room turned to stare at me.”

  ‘“And?” Susan asked. “Tell me he’s not.”

  “No. He said, ‘That girl? What girl?’ Then finally, he said, ‘Oh, the coed that was murdered. No, no relation. Common name, that’s all. Why?’ I didn’t want to tell him so I just said she’d been on my mind. And when he asked my name, I didn’t want to tell him the last name because I figured he’d identify me with Susan and it was too early for that. He asked me to sit in church with him, and I was glad for the company.”

  “So church was out at noon,” Susan said, “and you didn’t get home until after two.”

  Aunt Jenny positively beamed. “After the benediction, he suggested lunch at Luby’s Cafeteria on the highway. He said he always gets turkey on Sunday, so I got turkey, though I really would have preferred roast beef. Over dinner, he told me that he had lost his wife of fifty-two years some eighteen months ago and was still trying to learn to live alone. But when he told me he’d been a state court judge for thirty years, I really paid attention. He may be of help to you, Susan.”

  Jake took Aunt Jenny to retrieve the car.

  When she came back, Aunt Jenny said, “Oh my, I haven’t even thought about supper.”

  “Steak,” Jake said. “I’m on it.” And went to the grocery.

  Chapter Ten

  Ellen Peck was at Susan’s house Monday morning when two uniformed officers came, unannounced but not unexpected, with a search warrant. They were followed by Dirk Jordan, who apparently arrived in a separate car. Susan had intended to go back to work that day but the expected search of her house made her postpone her return to campus one day. She called Mildred in Dr. Scott’s office and told her she wouldn’t be in for one more day.

  “You just take all the time you need, Dr. Hogan,” Mildred said in a voice that dripped with imitation sugar.

  “Who does she think she is, giving me permission?” Susan ranted aloud, though no one was around to hear or to answer the question.

  Ellen had arrived waving a copy of the Daily News, the student newspaper. “Today’s paper,” she said, shoving it at Susan. “I figured Jake probably never reads it and wouldn’t bring it to you.”

  Centered on the front page right under the headline was a picture of Susan lying trapped under the moped. In the background a few students could be seen hanging around, and Seymour was kneeling by Susan. Jake was nowhere in sight. A boldface cutline read, “English Prof Crashes.” Susan groaned. “So much for not telling Scott how I broke my ankle,” she said.

  “Oh, he guessed immediately,” Ellen said without much sympathy. “And nothing stays secret on a college campus. You know that.”

  “I guess,” Susan said, staring morosely at the picture. “The photographer got there pretty quick. Looks like he beat Jake, but I didn’t see him—or her. I guess my mind was pretty well occupied with my leg and getting out from under the damn moped, but still…”

  “That’s how the Daily News operates,” Ellen said cheerily. “Never there when you want them, always when you don’t want them. And they never get the facts straight, unless you particularly don’t want them to. Then they’re eligible for a Pulitzer.”

  Susan grinned a little, appreciating Ellen’s attempt to lift her spirits. She wondered how much Ernie Westin had to do with the picture getting on the front page of the paper. He was, she remembered, friendly with the journalism professor who directed the student newspaper.

  “I taught your women’s lit survey class Friday, and just to impress them I took roll. Brandy Perkins was the only one absent.”

  Susan made a note to check on Brandy. She was worried about the girl—even without knowing that Jake, too, was worried. Meantime, to Ellen, she said, “Great. If you’d take it again today, I’ll be back in full swing tomorrow. Got to get this search thing o
ver with.”

  “What search thing?” Ellen asked, just as the front doorbell rang. Ellen went to answer it, looking out through the glass front door as she crossed the living room. “Susan, what are policemen doing here?” she called out.

  “That’s the search thing,” Susan answered, hobbling behind her. “Jake told me Saturday they’d gotten a search warrant to go through my house and my office. Won’t Scott love it when they show up at the English department?” Her light tone masked a deep sense of fear. She knew they wouldn’t find anything, but the invasion unnerved her.

  “A search warrant!” Ellen’s voice was angry as she went to the door and opened it. She stood, hands on her hips, looking at an officer who towered over her.

  “Susan Hogan?” The man’s voice was tense. “Got a search warrant here.”

  While Ellen gestured in her direction, Susan said, “I’m Susan Hogan. Show me the warrant.” She wouldn’t know any more after looking at it than she did before, but she felt she ought to demand to see it.

  “Officer O’Donnell, Oak Grove Police Department, ma’am. Need to search the premises, ma’am,” he said, handing her the paper. “Lieutenant Jordan will be right here.”

  Susan pretended to read, though the words swam in front of her eyes. She pictured strange men pawing through her underwear drawer, cataloging the outdated prescriptions in the medicine chest, laughing at the leftovers Aunt Jenny had put in the back of the refrigerator. “Go ahead. Try not to disturb anything.” She fought to keep her voice level.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll be careful, but we’ll need to ask you to step out of the house.” He looked at her crutches. “You need help, ma’am?”

  “No. I can make it by myself.” Susan was too proud to accept the offered hand.

  O’Donnell handed her the crutches and mumbled, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Dr. Hogan.”

  Ellen said, “Let’s go have a cup of coffee. My treat.”

  By now, one officer was busily moving things about in the pantry, and the other was searching the refrigerator. Susan wanted to ask if he really thought he’d find a baseball bat in the refrigerator.

  Just then, Aunt Jenny emerged from her room where she’d been making the bed. Susan had forgotten about her aunt.

  “What’s going on here?” Aunt Jenny demanded, her voice rising into the near-hysteria range. “Get out of my icebox!”

  O’Donnell looked at Susan. “Can you take her with you, please, ma’am?”

  Aunt Jenny planted herself between the deputy and the refrigerator. “I am not going anywhere. What are you people doing?”

  Susan hobbled toward her aunt, realizing too late that she’d forgotten to warn the older woman about the search warrant. “They’re searching the house. They have a warrant.”

  “Why ever would they want to do that?” Aunt Jenny demanded.

  “They’re looking for the baseball bat that killed Missy Jackson,” Susan said as patiently as she could.

  O’Donnell threw Susan an alarmed look. Suspects were not supposed to have such specific knowledge about what the police were looking for.

  “Well, my goodness, why would it be here? That Lindler boy has it.” Aunt Jenny picked up the kitchen towel and began to wipe at her perspiring forehead, even as O’Donnell turned to stare at her in disbelief.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but how do you know this person… Lindler… has the baseball bat?” The words were barely out of his mouth when O’Donnell was cursing himself for giving away official knowledge.

  Aunt Jenny fixed him with a stare. “I just know,” she said.

  “Ma’am, if you have knowledge you’re not sharing with the police…” His tone was not threatening, but still a threat hung in the air.

  Susan gave him what she hoped was a withering look. “She means she knows by intuition. It’s what her heart tells her.”

  “Oh.” The man was humbled but not so much that he didn’t turn to Aunt Jenny and say, “Now, ma’am, if you’d just go with these ladies…”

  She clutched the kitchen counter, as though they’d have to drag her from it. “I am not leaving this house while you people are invading my niece’s privacy. We may sue. I have a friend who’s a judge.”

  Susan said a silent prayer of thanks that Jake was not here for this scene. And she bet that Judge John Jackson would have been more than a little disturbed if he knew his influence was being dragged—well, almost—into things.

  The second officer, who apparently took orders from O’Donnell, looked to him for instructions and direction. Just then Lieutenant Jordan strode into the house.

  “What seems to be the problem here?” he asked briskly.

  “Well, sir…” O’Donnell was reluctant to admit he was having difficulty making three women, one of them elderly, obey his orders. “They… this one”—he jerked his head toward Aunt Jenny—“refuses to leave the house.”

  Jordan shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay, let them stay.”

  “I need to sit down,” Aunt Jenny announced. Her face was so red—with indignation, Susan supposed—that even Jordan was alarmed. He helped her to the couch and pulled up the footstool for her.

  “You just sit there and relax, ma’am. We’ll be out of here as soon as we can.”

  “I still want that cup of coffee,” Ellen announced with determination.

  “Me, too,” Susan said. “You fix it.”

  And so the three of them sat in the living area—the two younger women sipping hot coffee and the older one fanning herself with a copy of the journal of the Modern Language Association she’d picked up off the coffee table. The officers were silent, not talking much to each other and certainly not banging and slamming drawers and doors as Susan had imagined. Still, it seemed they were in the house forever.

  Suddenly Jordan strode into the room. “Dr. Hogan?” His voice was businesslike.

  When Susan turned to look at him, she saw that he was holding a baseball bat. “Where’d you get that?” she asked, her voice rising into a squeak.

  “Back of your closet. It’s got blood on it… and some paint that looks like it came from your car.”

  “That’s absolutely impossible,” Susan said. “I do not own a baseball bat, never had one, and there was not one in the back of my closet.”

  “Susan,” Ellen asked, “when was the last time you looked in the back of your closet?”

  “Well…” Susan chewed on her answer. Sometimes things piled up in the far corners of the closet, and she didn’t get to them for weeks at a time. “I don’t know… not since the murder, I guess.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Susan wondered if she’d incriminated herself somehow. What she meant was that someone could have hidden that bat at any time since Missy Jackson’s death, and she’ have never known it.

  “Dr. Hogan, you’ll have to come down to headquarters with me.” Jordan’s voice was crisp and authoritarian, and Susan thought she detected just a bit of smug satisfaction in it. “You’re entitled to representation, if you want,” he added, his tone implying she shouldn’t want it.

  “Representation?” Susan muttered. “I guess I better call Jake.”

  “No!” Aunt Jenny interrupted dramatically. “Don’t use your one phone call on Jake. I’ll call Judge John Jackson.”

  Susan looked at her in amazement. “You can’t do that. And besides, I want Jake to be there.”

  Just as Aunt Jenny said smugly, “John said to call him anytime you need help.”

  Jordan looked at Aunt Jenny. With obvious dismay, he asked, “Judge John Jackson?”

  “That’s right,” Aunt Jenny said vigorously. “The judge!”

  Jordan groaned inwardly. Judge John Jackson was a known stickler for hard facts. Circumstantial evidence never got anywhere in his court. And he could be obstinate, drawing out an argument, challenging the police on every little detail. If he’d said it once, he’d said a thousand times that it was his job to protect the little people. Susan Hogan, Dirk Jordan thought, is no
t one of the little people. She’s an educated, sophisticated woman and for some reason she’s killed a young girl. I have to find out why, and that old coot Jackson is going to get in my way. “Why don’t you invite them both,” he said to Susan. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a big party.”

  As Susan was led out of the house, she asked Jordan, “Aren’t you going to handcuff me?” Her tone revealed both fright and anger.

  Jordan ignored her, but O’Donnell answered, with a note of apology in his voice. “Please, Dr. Hogan,” he said, “don’t make this any more difficult for us than it is.”

  Jordan looked at O’Donnell and, in true detective-novel style, said, “Cuff her, if that’s what she wants.”

  “Sir, she’s on crutches!” was O’Donnell’s plaintive reply.

  Susan ignored Jordan and hobbled behind Officer O’Donnell to his car. She rode to police headquarters in the squad car with the two officers, while Jordan followed.

  Thank heaven they’re not blaring sirens and flashing lights! Susan thought. Ellen and Aunt Jenny were behind in Ellen’s car, and Jake met them at the station. By then Susan was feeling lightheaded from shock.

  “Susan, don’t say a thing,” Jake cautioned. “I’ll call a lawyer.”

  The worry on his face almost consumed her, and she reached for his hand. “Aunt Jenny has called Judge Jackson. He said he’d be here as soon as he could.”

  Jordan came out of a doorway down the hall where he’d briefly disappeared, saw Jake and ignored him, saying to Susan, “Right this way, please, Dr. Hogan.”

  “She’s got counsel on the way here,” Jake said quickly, stepping in front of Susan as though to shield her. “She won’t talk until he’s here.”

  Jordan gave Jake a disgusted look. He’d been hoping this would be an open-and-shut, over-with-quickly situation. It was obviously getting more complicated by the minute.

  Just as Jordan had dreaded, Judge John Jackson got in his way big time. “You can’t hold my client until you have clear evidence that is the bat used in the murder… and even then it’s circumstantial. There are any number of ways it could have gotten into her house.”