“Hi, Emily? It’s Laura Murphy at Upstate College.” We exchanged pleasantries, talked over our work and made promises to be in touch on a more regular basis.
“I could use some help from you,” I said.
“Sure, anything. What can I do?”
I explained about the murder and that I wanted any background information on Marie Becca that Emily might be able to unearth at Barnett.
“Barnett is a small college, but that was over a year ago. I’m not familiar with the name so I don’t think she was in any of my classes, but I’ll check old rosters from last year. Meantime, I’ll discreetly ask around here and get back to you.”
I thanked Emily and hung up.
Now, how could I find out who Ryan’s friends were? I’d have to begin with the frat house. The person most likely to know was the person I least wanted to ask—Adam Stokes. Maybe I should begin with someone else, perhaps Ralph or Martin, the guys on the Pledge Committee. I rang the house, hoping that someone other than Adam would answer. The voice who said hello was not Adam’s, nor anyone’s I recognized. I asked for Ralph first. He wasn’t in. I then said I’d speak with Martin.
“Hey, Martin, some woman for you,” I heard the guy at the other end of the line yell out. The receiver hit some hard surface with a clonk and I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I hung up and called again.
“Uh, I just called and wanted to talk with Martin.”
The process was repeated once again, the voice yelling for Martin, the receiver being thrown down, and the waiting, waiting, waiting.
Damn. I decided I’d have to make a trip into town and pay a visit to the house again. The chances were I’d run into Adam, but I wasn’t getting anywhere fast this way. I grabbed the walking stick I used on some Adirondack hikes and limped out to the SUV, stepping lightly on my left foot.
My appearance at the fraternity house was met with little enthusiasm. It was clear the brothers recognized me and felt my presence could spell trouble for them. The young man who greeted me as I entered the house said he thought Martin was sleeping.
“Could you just go look?” My level of frustration was increasing by the second. He shrugged, climbed the stairs at tortoise speed and appeared several minutes later followed by Martin who, indeed, looked as if he just got out of bed. He wore rumpled gray sweats, his eyes were red-rimmed, and he was blowing his nose as he stumbled along the hallway. He paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at me.
“It’s you. Now I’m really sick.” His voice had the tonal quality of a Canada goose.
“I’d like us to have a friendly little chat. How about you come on down here.” At this point I waggled the walking stick at him. “And we can talk in the frat office?”
“I don’t think Adam would like our using his office.”
“I don’t really care what Adam would like. I’d like a few words with you, either here or I call Detective Pasquis, and we do it at his office.”
Martin descended the stairs and followed me to the office. I lowered myself into the chair behind the desk and plopped my injured foot onto the desk’s surface. The foot ached, and when I hiked up my pants leg, I could see the ankle was swelling again.
“Who were Ryan’s friends, other than Adam?” I said.
“I really can’t think of anybody. He hung out with a few guys here, but he wasn’t really in with any one guy.”
“What about someone who wasn’t in the fraternity. What about a girlfriend?”
Martin let out a snort. “A girlfriend? I don’t think so. Who’d be interested in ole Ryan?”
“And outside the fraternity?” I said.
“We don’t really hang out with guys outside the fraternity,” Martin said. He sneezed again and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Oh, yuck. I took my foot off the desktop and began to rummage around in the desk drawers hoping to locate a tissue. Instead, the bottom drawer produced a more interesting object. A key chain to which was attached a tiny stuffed bear.
Before I could react to this find or pursue my line of questioning with Martin, the door to the office opened, and Adam entered. His lips twitched, and I could see his facial muscles contract as he ground his teeth in anger.
I rose and moved with the help of the walking stick from behind the desk. The stick caught on a section of loose carpet, and I went down, sprawling at Adam’s feet. He looked at me for what seemed like several minutes before he reached out his hand and said, “Looks as if you already injured that ankle, Dr. Murphy. You should be more careful. Next time it could be the leg or,” he paused, “something more serious, like your neck.”
The similarity of his words to those uttered by the hit-and-run driver propelled me into action. Refusing his hand, I struggled to my feet and moved beyond him to the door. I dangled the key chain in his face.
“This was in the bottom drawer of your desk, but it hardly seems your style. I believe Marie Becca had one of these.”
His eyes registered a moment of doubt, which he tried to cover quickly with his usual insolent smile.
“There’s even a key attached to it. I wonder if it’s to Marie’s car.”
He produced a sound in his throat. I could have sworn it was a growl. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Martin inch toward the door.
“Stay right where you are, Martin,” I said.
“Get out of here, Martin, and close the door,” Adam said.
Martin looked as if he would burst into tears any minute. “Please.” His voice came out as a squeak, and he looked pleadingly at both Adam and me.
I did not want him to leave but knew he was more likely to follow Adam’s orders than mine. I prepared to bolt out of the door after him and planned to throw my stick behind me into the room to slow down Adam should he choose to pursue me. A familiar voice from the hallway saved Martin from making a choice.
“Is Dr. Murphy here?” said Der in a loud voice.
Chapter 16
I fidgeted on the examining table, sorry now that I allowed Der to transport me to the emergency room. It was true that the ankle was swollen even more than before I took the fall on the office rug in the frat house, but I saw no reason why visiting the ER couldn’t wait until after Der questioned Adam Stokes about the key chain. Der knew I would want to be there when he interviewed Stokes, but instead I was trapped in this little cubicle waiting for another doctor half my age.
“Dr. Murphy, I see we’re back again for a visit.” It was the young doctor of the other night. “I hear you reinjured the ankle in a fall?” He ran his hands over the area and poked at the ankle. “Does that hurt?”
“The whole damn thing hurts. So cluck your tongue at me, advise me to ice it and stay off my feet, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Just to have you ignore all my advice? You weren’t supposed to be on your feet so that you could trip in the first place. I think we need to X-ray again just to be on the safe side.”
I groaned, knowing I was about to spend the rest of the afternoon in the hospital.
I dug my cell phone out of my purse on the way to X-ray and contacted Der who had returned to work after he left me.
“How are you doing? You all right? I was just going to call you,” he said.
“Don’t lie to me. You weren’t going to call. You were only too glad to have me out of your hair so you could have Adam all to yourself. How selfish of you. I track down the clues, and you just dance in at the end to claim the credit. They’re going to take some more pictures of my ankle. I’ll be here for hours, just hours, maybe overnight.”
“Take a breath. You didn’t miss much. I’ll tell you all about it when I pick you up.”
“You’re going to pick me up?”
“I dropped you off, didn’t I? I also called Guy and told him about your second accident. You didn’t even call him and tell him about the first incident with the hit-and-run.”
“I didn’t want him to worry. I thought I’d explain about everything when I see him again.”
“Dr. Murphy,” the nurse said, “we’re ready for you now.”
“Gotta go.” I hung up.
I was back in the examination room with the doctor when Der popped his head into the cubicle.
The doctor seemed relieved to see him. “I’d appreciate someone helping me explain to Dr. Murphy how important it is for her to stay off this foot. The pictures showed a hairline fracture, probably the result of this last fall, which, if she had followed my advice, would never have occurred because she wouldn’t have been on her feet.”
“Save your breath, doc. All you can do is tell her. She does what she wants,” Der said.
“The next time you fall on this and do more damage to it, we’ll have to cast it.”
I looked up at the doctor. His name tag said Donaldson. I felt as if I were being reprimanded by a stern parent. Not bad for a child doctor.
I tried my best to look contrite for a moment, only a moment. “Can I leave now?”
Dr. Donaldson rolled his eyes. “It’s as if she hasn’t heard a word I’ve said, Detective. How do you deal with her?”
Before Der could suggest something that would aggravate me, the nurse returned with the wheelchair and a pair of crutches. I looked at them in horror.
“What are these for?” I said.
Dr. Donaldson smiled. “When you need to move around, you use these. But for the most part, you stay put for a good week or so. I’ll see you after Thanksgiving.”
“What about driving my car?”
“Not for the near future. I want that leg and foot to stay elevated and…”
“I know, ice it, blah, blah, blah.”
*
True to his word, Der drove me home with my SUV following, one of Der’s men at the wheel. True to my nature, I grumbled all the way about the crutches, about my ankle, about the doctor, but particularly about Der’s action, or lack of it, with Adam Stokes. I caught the culprit with Marie Becca’s key chain in his possession. The very least Der could do was to arrest Stokes. This he did not do.
“Laura,” he said for the third time on the drive home. “What would I arrest him for and on what basis? Surely not murder. Having her key chain is not proof of murder.”
“He threatened me. Arrest him for attempted murder.”
“He did not threaten you. He was not happy that you confiscated his office and was using it as an interrogation room. He frightened you. You’re understandably shaken with your fall and all.”
“He acted menacing. Arrest him for menacing.”
“Menacing has a specific legal definition. It doesn’t fit in a case where someone is looming over someone else and one person insists he’s helping the other up and the first says she’s being menaced.”
“So arrest him for looming.”
“There is no such crime as looming, Laura. Say, did you take one of Dr. Donaldson’s painkillers before we left the hospital?”
“If you’re saying I’m drugged and that accounts for my behavior, you’re wrong. I’m acting perfectly reasonable given the circumstances.”
We pulled into the drive, leaving room for the officer to maneuver my SUV alongside and into the garage.
“Thanks,” I said to the officer as he handed me the keys. “Come on in and I’ll make coffee.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but there should be a trooper car coming along any minute to pick me up. Here it comes now,” he said.
I struggled a few steps with the crutches down the walkway to the door, finally thrusting them at Der and limping the rest of the way. Der said nothing, merely shook his head.
Sam greeted us joyfully at the door, eager to run out into the snow for a pee. She turned her head questioningly to see if either of us was in the mood for play. Getting no indication we were, she uncovered a snowy stick and began to carry it around the yard, dropping it periodically for a chew, running off and then returning to chew again.
“Sam needs a good romp out there after being penned up all day. I’ll let her back in soon. Coffee?” I threw my coat onto the hook beside the door and headed for the kitchen cupboards.
“Sit down, Laura. I’ll make it, and then I’ll fill you in on my talk with Adam Stokes, your loomer.”
His attempt to joke me out of my bad mood failed, but I complied with his request, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table and grimly eyeing him as he put together our coffee. Once the coffee brewed, we both headed toward the living room. I sat on the couch and watched while Der rebuilt the fire in the stove. Outside the window I could see Sam still exploring the yard for additional sticks, which she dropped in a pile beside the kitchen door in anticipation of someone throwing them for her later.
Der handed me my cup once the fire was going and settled next to me on the couch. I was eager for him to get to his conversation with Adam.
“I asked Adam to meet me at headquarters after I dropped you at the hospital. I thought a more formal setting, like my office rather than his, might shake his tongue loose. He told me that he found the key chain under Ryan’s bed after Ryan disappeared, that he thought it belonged to Marie Becca, and he took it and hid it in his desk so that Ryan wouldn’t get into trouble.”
“Supposing this is all true—which I doubt and so do you—how did Adam know that the key chain was Marie’s?”
“He said he saw Ryan with it, that Ryan and Marie were friends. He implied that they might have been more. Adam said that Ryan often used her car. I guess I can check that one out by asking around.”
“Ask around and see if Adam was in her car also,” I said.
“Adam confessed that he thinks Ryan left because of grief over Marie’s death, but how about this? I propose Ryan killed Marie in a fit of rage when she rejected his amorous advances—she saw him only as a friend. His conscience and his guilt got the better of him and he ran.” Der attempted to prop one of his feet on my coffee table, but I shoved it off with my good leg while I plopped my bad ankle on the space I forced him to abandon.
“It fits, but it’s not true. Ryan’s call to me indicated that he knew something about Marie’s murder and he was scared. He was going to run. If he were guilty of her murder, why leave me that message? It doesn’t fit and we both know it.” I slammed the coffee mug down on the table.
“To throw you off the track?” said Der.
“Adam Stokes is a liar. He’s a good liar because I think he mostly tells the truth and leaves out vital facts. I’ll believe that Ryan and Marie knew each other, but I suspect that Adam also knew Marie. There’s a lot about Marie that we don’t know. I need to visit her best friend, Lainie, again. We need Marie’s schedule of classes and whether or not she worked on or off campus. Do you know if she had a job?” I said.
“Yeah, she was part of the student work-study program on campus and was assigned to the Art Department. I talked with the secretary there and found she was with them for several weeks. The Department liked her work, she was reliable and always on time,” Der said.
“I know the secretary of the Art Department well. I’ll get in touch with her for a chat.”
“Sure, go ahead. I don’t think you’ll find out anything more than I did, but if you do it by phone and stay put here, I’ll be more than happy to support your snooping.”
“That’s why you brought me in on this case. Because you like me and I’m a good snoop,” I said. In my own house, snug, warm and safe in front of the fire, I felt my good spirits return. The scotch I snuck into my coffee helped some, too.
“I like you because you’re smart. I tolerate and use your nosiness,” Der said. He, too, seemed in a better mood. “I’ve got to go now. You have a lot of work to do anyway.”
“Oh, you mean that manuscript that’s weeks overdue.”
“No, I mean the phone call you need to make to Guy to explain yourself.”
“Oh, right.” There was little enthusiasm in my reply.
Der grabbed his coat from the kitchen. “Don’t get up. I’ll throw a few sticks to amuse Sam.”
> I could see Der and Sam in the yard, Sam running full speed after the sticks, which Der lobbed into the air and out toward the lake. I must have nodded off for a moment because I was awakened by a blast of cold air from the outside door.
Der stuck his head in the door and called, “Here’s Sam. She’s all tuckered out and ready for dinner.”
Sam trotted over to the couch and put her head in my lap. Clearly Der dried off her paws, but the hair under her belly was still damp from the snow and it dripped on the uninjured ankle and down onto the floor.
“That’s cold, Sam. Drip on the other one. Maybe it’ll reduce the swelling.” Sam lowered her body to the floor, curled up at my foot, and settled in for a nap. A nap might be nice, but I couldn’t put it off much longer. I had to call Guy. Der was right, although I’d never admit it to him. I lifted myself from the couch and hobbled over to the phone in the kitchen.
He picked up on the first ring. “I was worried sick about you. Der called and told me about your ankle. I should have heard about the hit-and-run from you, not Der.” He paused. “I hope you’re staying off that foot. A second injury to the same area could be serious. Are you sitting down now, have it elevated, icing it?”
“Of course, I’m following the doctor’s orders. Why would you think otherwise?” I asked, standing at the kitchen table, balancing on one foot. Oops. I pulled out one of the chairs, careful not to make a noise that Guy might hear over the line, and sat down on it, bracing my injured foot on a rung of the nearby chair.
“I know you very well, and I’m sure you’re taking this whole thing too lightly. Aside from your injury, which I’m certain you are not treating as directed, someone is trying to do you harm.”
“Yeah, that’s a little scary, but as I told Der, it means we’re getting close to something or someone. I’m encouraged.” About everything except this damned ankle. It began to throb and ache. “Could you hold on a minute? Just getting some ice for my foot,” I said, pouring a shot of scotch over the ice cubes I’d dropped into a glass.
Failure is Fatal Page 14