Particles of Murder (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1)

by Charlotte Raine

  “Okay, you know what I mean,” he says. “It’s not like his students could claim that he had used their lives for his story and get anything out of it…neither of the students in the books are even English students. In fact, from what I’ve read of both books, most of it does come from a plot that couldn’t have happened in their own lives. He just used their physical appearance, maybe their personality, and a few parts of their lives. It may have angered them, but I don’t think they could have done anything about it, so there’s no reason to kill them.”

  “Maybe he’s crazy,” I say.

  “You said you had been hanging around with him a few times,” he says. “Do you think he’s crazy?”

  I shrug. “I think he’s a little…off,” I confess. “Not in the criminally insane way, but he does seem to adore his students and he became quickly attached to me.”

  “Do I need to kick his ass?”

  “Look who’s talking about asses now,” I remark. “No. We’re not involved. I don’t need you to defend me.”

  “I thought that’s why you came to me in the first place.” He tilts his head. “Is there something more going on between you and this professor? You seem oddly defensive of him.”

  “I’m not defensive,” I say. “I just think…I will go question him by myself. For some reason, he trusts me, and he’s more likely to open up to me if we’re alone.”

  “He’s also more likely to hurt you if you’re alone.”

  “He won’t,” I say, though doubt sends tendrils of unease through my body.

  The next morning, I wait outside of John’s office. This will be the sixth day since Victoria was found dead, and the third day since Everett was killed. It’s been a long damn week.

  The door is closed and nobody answered when I knock, so I’m just wondering if his office hours are accurate on his door because he was supposed to be here five minutes ago.

  I look down at my leather work boots. My father used to hate that I wore these boots—not feminine enough for his ideas of gender roles. It’s strange how people’s impressions of us cause us to either let them control us or we rebel against them. It takes either a strong or stupid person to settle somewhere in between.

  I wonder if John can see that in me—that need to rebel, but also compromise—and if he’ll turn me into some two-dimensional character for one of his books.

  Minutes slip by. A few students and a professor walk past, a couple of them eyeing me with curiosity, but nobody questions my presence. Nearly eleven minutes have passed before John turns around the corner and approaches me.

  “Is there something new about the case or were you simply concerned about me again?” he asks, his eyebrows raised.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” I say. “Privately.”

  He nods, opening his office. I expected to see at least a hint of anxiety—anyone with even the smallest secret would get antsy—but he seems perfectly fine. His office looks completely normal as well—as if someone hadn’t died in it and it hadn’t been broken into and trashed.

  John sits down at his desk and I sit down across from him.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  I put his manuscript and his book on his desk. “I snuck into your office. And I read some of your books.”

  There’s a flash of confusion and maybe the slightest bit of anger, but his expression quickly returns to polite interest.

  “Did you like them?” he asks.

  “What I read was pretty good,” I say. “But I noticed some similarities between the characters and the two victims on campus…”

  “Does it surprise you that much if my students inspired me?” he asks.

  “They more than inspired you,” I say. “If I just had descriptions of your characters, what I would picture is the image of Victoria and Everett. They wear similar clothing—and Victoria’s character has a jerk boyfriend who belongs to a fraternity.”

  “What are you trying to say?” he asks. “That I stole their lives and wrote about them? They were simply inspired characters. Both those people interested me as individuals, so I created plots around them.”

  “How do I know that they weren’t angry about that?” I ask. “Did either of them read the books?”

  “Victoria read Insomnia Rites before the second semester of her junior year began,” he says. “She was a bit upset about some things being in there that she felt were a little too close to her own life, so I called my editor and had them taken out. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “What about Everett?”

  “I just finished it a little over a week ago,” he says. “My editor hasn’t even read it yet. So, no, he hasn’t read it.”

  I lean back in my chair.

  “If you want me to trust you, you need to tell me the truth,” I say.

  “I am telling you the truth.”

  I close my eyes. “Okay…what if that’s why the killer actually came into your office? He wanted your books? Maybe that’s how he chose his victims.”

  “Except Victoria was killed before the killer broke into my office, and this book and this manuscript are the only copies I have in this office,” he says, picking up the book and manuscript I had and sliding them closer to his side of the desk. “The killer clearly didn’t take them.”

  I open my eyes. “I talked to Dr. Pierce. There was something going on between him and Victoria, but I couldn’t figure it out and he’s angry at me now, so I don’t think I can get any more out of him.”

  “Do you want me to try something?” he asks. “If the killer is from this campus, we need to react quickly. Winter break starts in two weeks.”

  “I still don’t trust you,” I tell him.

  “I wasn’t even near Everett when he died!” he blurts. “How would I have killed him? You were there. How could I have done it?”

  “Wait,” I say. “Who was near Everett when he was killed?”

  The two students that always sat right beside Everett are part of the Rho Sigma Alpha fraternity—the same one that Victoria’s boyfriend is in. John had a class to teach, so I go back to the fraternity house alone. The same man with the disheveled blue hair—Alex—opens the door. He leans against the door frame.

  “How did I know you’d be back?” he says with a smirk.

  “Maybe you’re a statistician?” I ask. “I’m not here for you or Dominic. I need to talk to Brian and Daniel.”

  “You’ll come around eventually,” he says, walking back inside the house. I follow him into the living room, where Daniel and Brian—who I now vaguely remember from when I was jotting down the names of everyone in the class—are playing a fighting video game while Dominic drinks a beer.

  “I hope you’re not here to question me again,” Dominic says. “But if you are, I’m telling you right now that I want my lawyer.”

  “I actually want to talk to Daniel and Brian,” I say.

  Daniel glances up at me. There’s an explosion of sound on the TV screen and Brian raises his arms in triumph.

  “Oh! Who’s a little bitch now?” Brian taunts Daniel.

  Daniel throws his game controller at him, his face turning bright red. “Fuck you, you cheating piece of shit.”

  “It wasn’t cheating. You weren’t paying attention,” he says. “Just like you suck at paying attention in basketball. It’s amazing that Coach lets you stay on the team.”

  “Guys,” I interrupt. “I need to ask you about Everett Pine.”

  “Didn’t know him,” Daniel grumbles.

  “You were sitting right next to him.”

  “I sit next to a lot of people I don’t know,” he snaps. “I have three classes a day, most days of the week. It’s not like I made friends in every class.”

  “Why don’t you two sit next to each other then?”

  “We’re not fucking friends either,” Daniel says. “Besides, Brian is always late and there’s only enough desks for every student, so he gets whatever is left over…which is usually next to Everett.�
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  “Did people not like him?” I ask.

  Brian shrugs, setting down his controller. “It’s not that he wasn’t a friendly guy. He was a great person. It’s just, he was clearly the teacher’s pet. Dr. Zimmer practically glowed with pride every time Everett opened his mouth. It’s just a class to Daniel and me, but some of the other students aren’t happy that Zimmer shows so much…preference for him. For some of them, their writing is their life and when they see their life given less praise, they get hostile.”

  “Remember when Jen criticized Everett’s work for being too hyperbolic?” Daniel adds, his posture more relaxed. “Dr. Zimmer jumped to his defense so fast. She was not happy about that.”

  “Do you think she would have had a problem with Victoria and Everett?” I ask.

  Daniels snorts. “No. She wasn’t even there the day Everett died, and she got over it pretty quickly. She’s a good writer herself and she’s gotten a lot of praise from Dr. Zimmer, too. I don’t know if she even knew Victoria.”

  He turns to look at Dominic. Dominic shakes his head.

  “I never saw them talking, and Victoria didn’t mention her.”

  “Did anybody else show contempt for Victoria and Everett?” I ask.

  “I’m sure there were some other people jealous of their talents,” Daniel says. “I read Everett won that poetry contest. Maybe some of the losers were angry about it.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything else that connects Victoria and Everett?”

  Dominic stands up. “Victoria was the walking stereotype of a college poet—she spent an inordinate amount of time drinking coffee, she only bought clothes from thrift shops or made her own, and she listened to musicians that whined about an apathetic society. I loved her, but that’s who she was,” he says. “Everett—from what I could see—was an outdoorsman that bought from stores with the cheapest prices and I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t tell a Picasso painting from a Monet. They did not run in the same circles. The only thing they had in common was that they were both two of the best students in the English department. That’s it. So, how about you stop questioning my brothers and focus on that?”

  I force a smile. “I understand that you’re upset—”

  “Upset?” he asks. “No. No. You misunderstand the situation. I’m upset Victoria is dead, of course. She may have been a walking stereotype in her habits, but she was smart and she cared deeply about everything. But the fact that you’re here, playing detective, questioning my brothers…it just fucking pisses me off. You keep digging in a hole that isn’t going to reveal any artifacts. Why don’t you try digging somewhere else? I’m sure a pretty woman like you can get information better when you’re dirty anyway.”

  “Dominic,” Daniel says. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s really not,” he says before walking out of the room.

  I turn to the other three men in the room.

  “If any of you think of anything…” I say, grabbing a scrap of paper and pen off their end table. I jot down my number. “Just call me.”

  “What if we’re just lonely and want some company?” Alex asks.

  I shove the pen and paper to his chest. “Then I suggest you call your mother.”

  As I leave the fraternity house, I feel deflated. I was so quick to see Dominic as a suspect—and, even if I didn’t see him as a suspect, I saw him as a pompous jerk—I didn’t think about the range of emotions he would be feeling. No matter how callous he seemed, it would take a sociopath to not mourn the loss of his girlfriend.

  He had a connection with her. I may have not lost a lover to death, but I certainly know that feeling of constant falling after the connection has been cut. It’s not only the past that becomes distorted by what happened, but a hope for the future. I can’t blame him for lashing out.

  When I get back to the lab, Ed Bunt—the other forensic scientist—is peering into a microscope.

  “What are you looking for?” I ask.

  “Just seeing if there’s anything in this dirt that can’t be seen with the naked eye,” he says.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Not much. Fragments of organic material, but it’s too decomposed for me to figure out what it is,” he says. “It was in the senator’s shoes. It probably isn’t helpful at all, but if we don’t come up with something, the detectives will kill us. Stolz came by an hour ago. She asked me why you weren’t here. I told her you had a dentist appointment.”

  “Thank you so much,” I say, sitting down beside him on one of our steel stools. “I’ll owe you for the next few lunches.”

  “Where have you been going lately?” he asks. “I know it’s boring here, but you’ve always been reliable.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’ve just been sucked into a different investigation.”

  “The one with the two students from Tuskmirth college?”

  I nod.

  “I get it,” he says. “They were both young. But aren’t you curious if I found anything at that Pine boy’s death?”

  “I looked around his body before the detectives even got there,” I say. “I didn’t see anything. I remember you collecting some things, but I thought you were just following procedure.”

  “Well, I was following procedure,” he says. “And that’s when I found something you might find interesting.”

  He holds up a tiny glass container. I take it and have to peer closely to see the tiniest bit of white powder.

  “Guess where I found this?” he asks.

  “I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Well, that’s good since you’re a government employee,” he says. “Because this was found above his upper lip. It’s cocaine.”

  I let out a low whistle. “That’s a different image of this guy than what everyone else has been telling me. Everyone else told me he was the outdoorsy type with the heart of a poet.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first writer to dabble in drugs.” He puts the container down. “Detective Stolz and Macmillan went to the community police to ask if anyone around was dealing drugs. It looks like this all could come down to a drug that was manufactured badly.”

  “Could you tell that from such a little amount of cocaine?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “As far as I can tell, the cocaine is fine. But there wasn’t that much there—there could have been something else in it that wasn’t in the sample I managed to get. It’s lucky that I didn’t just find baking soda, but that probably won’t help the detectives. It’s pretty common to mix cocaine with it.”

  I nod. “This is a good lead. I know someone who might be able to tell me more than the police. The students seem to trust him.”

  “He sounds like the kind of guy who would sell drugs.”

  My phone vibrates. I glance down.

  Det. Roberts: Murder & robbery @ Contemporary Royalty jewelry store.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say, grabbing a latent fingerprint kit. “I promise I’ll get lunch for you tomorrow, though, all right?”

  He nods, and then I’m racing to the door.

  When I get off the bus, the jewelry store is still about three blocks away.

  With every step I take, I’m more certain that someone is following me.

  I keep checking over my shoulder, but there are enough people on the street that it’s hard to keep track of who is lingering and who is simply trying to walk in the same direction that I am.

  This whole case is making me paranoid. A silent, invisible killer. No traces. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I know people see things that they never thought they would see all of the time.

  Hurried footsteps sound behind me, but before I can turn around, someone slams me against the wall. Their gloved hand is over my mouth. Their fingers wrap around my neck. My attacker has no face—all their features are covered by a ski mask.

  They push down on my chin to force open my lips. I try to scream, but shock is still paralyzing me. They shove something into my mouth.
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  I slam my fist into their head.

  The person stumbles back. I clench my fists, raising them up near my face. I prepare myself, every muscle getting ready to fight my way out of this.

  The person runs.

  I take a few steps to follow them, but they’re running much faster than I could, weaving through groups of people who are too blinded by their holiday shopping to pay me any attention at all.

  I spit out whatever my attacker put into my mouth. It’s a strip of paper. Though it’s covered in saliva, it’s still easy enough to read.

  “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  A young woman rushes over from the other side of the street. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “I just saw you get attacked. I’ll call the police.”

  “I’m with the police,” I say. “They’re at the jewelry store, and I’ll go to them now.”

  She eyes me doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Thank you, though.”

  She walks away and I consider the note in my hand. The Great Gatsby. I should have paid more attention in English class. Is this supposed to be a threat? Or is this person just notifying me that they know I’m trying to find them?

  If they wanted to notify me, they could have found an easier way to send the message. This was just rude.

  I continue down the street, looking behind me every few steps to make sure the person isn’t coming back. Snow begins to flutter down, but I’m too distracted to feel cold. Does the killer consider me this much of a threat that he would physically assault me?

  Was the attacker male?

  I try to remember, but everything seemed to happen so quickly. They were wearing all black, which made them appear slim enough that it could have been a muscular woman or an average man.

  By the time I’m in front of the jewelry store, Detective Stolz is standing outside. I expect her to be angry that I’m not running to help her, but she takes one look at my face and takes several steps toward me.

  “What happened?” she asks.