“What’s wrong, Mike?”
“Nothing,” he said, coming out of his trance and squinting a bit as if he were in pain. The slow breath he blew through pursed lips created the faintest breeze in my hair. “I just never thought nausea could be sexy.”
Mike dropped me at Langley with a promise to deliver my keys back later. I secluded myself in my office, where I slipped one of my quick-dissolving migraine remedies under my tongue and then waited for my computer to boot up. I was typing a quick e-mail to Shannon when my phone line lit up and I answered it without waiting for Rita.
“Hey, sweetie,” Shannon said in a breathy whisper. “Another fucking murder over there and Vince is bleeding from his fangs.”
I could picture Vince sticking another pin in my voodoo doll.
“. . . so is this an unbelievable coincidence or what? You find yourself a nice, quiet little job and put all the blood, guts, and grime of the AG’s behind you, and, hello? Holton students start dying like grounded sea turtles! Are you an unlucky bastard, or what?”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence, Shannon.”
“Meaning?”
“Maybe Carlyle expected this. Maybe he knew the murders would continue. That’s why he wanted me here. There’s a kid I’ve been talking to—a student. He thinks Carlyle wanted me as a cover. What’s there to cover here—besides these murders—that the other assistant deans weren’t already handling?”
“You’re getting employment counseling from a snot-nosed kid?”
“I know. I shouldn’t be talking to the students. Carlyle wanted him to write about my shiny new position in the school paper—some propaganda about me being an ex-prosecutor and coming here to clean house—but he seems more interested in playing Sherlock Holmes. The kid’s like a bloodhound, and I think he’s trustworthy.”
“ ‘Trustworthy student’ is an oxymoron. And how would Carlyle know the murders would continue unless he were the killer or an accessory?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not, sweetkins. I’m just pointing out how ridiculous you’re sounding.”
“After Cummings is processed, I want you to make me copies of the autopsy, lab, and toxicologies. Everything you’ve got. And don’t even breathe an objection. You owe me. I took the hit for all of us.”
“Your wish is my command.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Babel
OTHER THAN HAVING MY keys dropped off to me by messenger, Mike disappeared for the rest of that murderous day. I waited until the next morning and then sniffed out his office in the basement of Langley by following the stale odor of moldy limes—a.k.a. his aftershave. I found him sitting quietly at his desk reading the Providence Journal with the lights off.
“Hey, babe,” Mike said without looking up. He flung the paper on the floor and extracted a tiny pad from his breast pocket. “I was just getting ready to ring you up. New case. We’re having a problem with this girl, a sophomore. Let’s see now.” He flipped forward a few pages in his pad.
Exhaling audibly, I flopped into a chair. “Hah. Just like that, eh? This place doesn’t skip a damn beat.”
Mike tucked his pad back in the shirt pocket, stood, and pushed his door shut. He returned to his seat, leaned over the vacant lot of his desk, and looked me square in the eyes. “Not even an eighth note of a beat, and if you’re smart, you’ll keep your foot tapping to the rhythm.”
“There’s a serial killer doing Holton coeds and we’re discussing the next disciplinary case?”
McCoy shifted in his chair like he suddenly needed a fresh dab of Preparation H. “Do you have a death wish or something? We have to look as if we’re taking care of daily business around here or Carlyle will boot us both out.” He was practically lying across the top of his desk now, close enough to grab me by the throat. “So before you start spouting your mouth all over the place about a serial killer on the loose, let’s wait a day or two and see what the evidence drags in so it won’t look like we’re doing the investigation. Comprende?” He bolted upright and pulled his damn pad out again. “Now, can we get back to this case before the staff meeting?” He looked at his watch. “ ’Cause you’ve got to be there in approximately fifty-two minutes.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. Another tough nut in the party-mix bowl of my life.
He winked, and then smiled at me. He waited until I smiled back at him. I smiled back at him. Because the only thing worse than giving in is continuing to fight a lost cause. And fighting with slippery and charming Mike McCoy, I was beginning to realize, was always going to be like catching the wind.
He riffled through the pages of his notepad. “Okay then . . . Mila Nazir. A Pakistani princess, literally and figuratively. A real pip of a girl. Took an exam with cheat notes written on her upper thighs. When the teacher caught her and asked to see the notes, she screamed assault and kicked him in the b—, ah . . . crotch area.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “In a school where students beat professors, a few murders must seem pretty humdrum.”
“Whatever you do with Nazir, clear it with the boss first, huh?” He popped up out of his chair, scratching his backside. “Now, you’ve gotta go, but remember, I’m never far if you need me—no matter what you have in mind.”
As miffed as I was over our earlier impasse, Mike’s smile still made me go a little soft in the knees. I rose slowly from my seat, not wanting it to appear that I was following his command, and as I was crossing his threshold, he said, “When are we having lunch again? I’m so hungry.” I didn’t bother with a reply.
Back upstairs at my office I found Rita standing in my doorway. She wished me a good morning in Swahili and then zipped dryly through a list of potential calamities.
“There is a girl in my office going through many tissues. She will not tell me her name but I believe it is Emily Barton, and although I am not a psychiatrist I think she may be hysterical. You have two calls from the attorney general’s office, but these are your social friends, am I right? Miss Eckert was here just to see if you were in, but I think she did not really need to speak with you although she looked angry. But she always looks angry. Shall I continue?”
“Give me five minutes and send the crier in.”
Rita tapped her watch face. “Staff meeting in thirty minutes.”
I returned the call to the AG’s and asked for either Laurie or Shannon. Vince got on the line.
“I’m giving you the heads-up. Carlyle scheduled a press conference tomorrow and I’m coming. Carlyle knows nothing about my showing up, so don’t tell him. Understand?”
“Why’re you telling me?”
“Meloni, do you think for one minute Carlyle hired you for your talent? He hired you to get to me. Your resume in his in-box was like manna from heaven. He must have chuckled at his good fortune.”
“I never sent him a resume.”
“You tell me why he suddenly needed you in his stable. To get to me, that’s why.”
“You are an egocentric paranoid, Vince. As if Holton fabricated an administrative position and put me in it, just to get to you. Do you hear yourself?”
“You know nothing about that place and the shit that goes on there. Nothing. Trust me on this one and don’t let Carlyle sucker you in.”
“Fine,” I said as we slammed phones down simultaneously.
I composed myself from Vince’s call, and in the remaining minute or two before Rita sent in the crying student, I pulled up Emily Barton’s rap sheet. Not surprisingly, her background was similar to Melinda’s and Lisa’s, and, for that matter, Jeff Kendall’s: Money and several Holton alumni flowered their family trees.
Emily had graduated from Pomfret School with a shockingly low GPA of 2.5. Considering Pomfret’s “extrayear postgraduate study program,” I was surprised they’d even graduated her with her class. Must have been the embossed Crane wrapper she was delivered in at birth.
There was a soft knock at my door. I took a deep breath and re-sported my ja
cket. “Come in,” I said.
There stood a model-thin girl about five five with a light bronzed skin tone. Her mahogany-hued hair fell like a glossy waterfall around her shoulders, and, like my sister Cassie, she could probably have swept the floor with her thick natural eyelashes. She wore no makeup.
“I have to talk to someone,” she said. “And I apologize. I don’t have an appointment.”
“Come on in.”
The girl sat without further formalities, and as soon as I returned from closing the door after her, she broke out in a barrage of tears. She was actually choking before I had the sense to interrupt her. But at Holton I could never be sure whether student emotion was real or the ingenious performance of a very clever kid.
“I’m so sorry,” the girl said. “But I’m having a hard time with all this.”
“This?”
“I think I was raped and no one at this school seems to care.”
“You think?”
“I know I was drugged, and when I woke up, my panties were gone . . . and I sort of knew I’d had sex . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I broke in. “Are you Emily Barton? My secretary seems to have recognized you.”
She nodded. “Dr. Becker told me to come see you. She said this would be confidential, right?”
“Of course.”
“The night before last, some students from Reese House were at an off-campus party and this guy I dated a few times followed me outside as I was walking back to my dorm through Patterson Park. I pushed him away. And then he yelled at me. ‘You stupid bitch,’ he said. ‘Who do you think you are?’ ” She began crying again. “I’m scared.”
“And you were drugged at this party?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’d had a beer with Lisa before I got there.”
“Lisa Cummings? Where was that?”
“Her apartment. We were studying for a psych exam. She told me about the cafeteria incident that Mike made such a big deal over.”
“Mike?”
“McCoy. Head of security.” She tilted her head at me, anticipating my next question. “He likes the students to call him by his first name.”
“What time was that—that you were with Lisa?”
“Around eight. She said she was tired of studying, but she was getting fidgety. I think she wanted to do some coke. I left. We were supposed to meet back up at a party—I didn’t want to go alone—but she never showed—”
“Where was the party? Riverside Park Apartments, wasn’t it?”
She hung her head and sniffled again. “I’m not saying any names—”
“Who’s the guy, Emily? Who’s the guy who followed you out of the party?”
“I can’t say. It’ll get worse if I do.”
“If you don’t give me his name there’s nothing I can do.”
“Talk to him privately? If I make a formal complaint against him . . . I’m afraid of him. If he’s angry enough, he might hurt me. And everyone will say I enticed him, brought this all on myself.”
Yes, it’s difficult to be as beautiful as Emily and not be the subject of “unwanted advances.” I looked at her shapely legs stretched out in front of her from under a denim miniskirt, the taupe leather ankle boots with a two-inch princess heel, her flesh-colored skintight sweater and chocolate leather cropped jacket. As a prosecutor, how many times had I heard from rape defendants: The bitch was asking for it.
“Emily, girls are getting murdered at this school and you’ve got some important information that we should make public.”
“You’re so wrong. This guy is no murderer—”
I pounded my fist on my desk and screeched, “What do you know about murderers? Mommies have chopped limbs off their newborn infants, so stop telling me how to do my job and tell me his goddamn name so I can stop him!”
At my outburst, Emily popped from her chair and Rita tornadoed through the door, missing Emily by a hair. “Babel is falling?” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
Emily looked at me. Flickers of contempt were drying her tearstained eyes. Screaming at her was the wrong tactic. It had pushed her farther away. I was a thick-skinned prosecutor used to dealing with slippery witnesses, guilty defendants, and lying defense attorneys, and I was treating Emily like a defendant—degrade and assault, put her on the defensive so she’d talk.
I stood from my chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.” But without another word she walked around Rita and out the door.
Rita waited a few calming seconds before announcing to me that I was late for Monday morning’s rescheduled staff meeting. She sagely suggested I cool my heels and get my general marching orders from Carlyle regarding the Emily Barton matter (orders which I’d have to follow since I seemed to have few other options).
I gathered my notes on the previous week’s student miscreants and headed to the conference room twenty minutes late.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Locked and Cocky
CARLYLE WAS SITTING AT the head of the conference table with Byron to his left, Tripp Hoven and his evil twin Chad to his right. Mitsy’s smile was the sole welcome as I pulled out a chair and took my seat. After maybe a millisecond’s glance at me, all the players retargeted Ken, their tongues visible as if he were doling out communion wafers.
“Marianna, before you arrived this morning we were making our way around the table with departmental updates. Byron was giving us a quick rundown on our newest pledges.”
Was I hearing this right? A student had been murdered the day before and we were opening the meeting with the newest pledges?
Byron made a big show of flipping her notebook closed. “Do I really have to repeat it, sir?” She beamed at Ken like a friendly chow begging for her bowl.
“Not necessary,” Ken said. “Marianna”—he cleared his throat—“how are you doing? Anything to report?”
I cleared my own throat and swallowed hard. My hands trembled a bit as I opened my pad and ran down my list of perpetrators and moral degenerates—one plagiarist, one drunk and disorderly, and a miserable cheating bastard (on some multiple-choice quiz in an elective health-care class). All in all, a calm week in the general population at the Holton Correctional Institution, except of course for the recent butchering of Lisa Cummings. Ken displayed little interest in my harangue, so I had to assume the families of my ne’er-do-wells were penny-pinching, underendowed coupon clippers.
Or just perhaps Ken was preoccupied with those two bodies bleeding on his doorstep. “Ken,” I said, “I met with Emily Barton this morning. She claims she was date-raped by another student.”
Ken sat up. “Did she give you a name?”
“Not yet.”
“Then we’ll wait and see what happens. May I remind you, Marianna, you aren’t supposed to be digging up dirt. I’d prefer that you throw some on the already burning fires around here.”
The rest of his team bobbed their heads up and down like epileptics.
“We should forget a student who claims she was drugged and raped? Lisa Cummings was raped and murdered Sunday night. A month ago she was weaving around my office like a drunken sailor and it wasn’t from booze. Melinda Hastings was also raped and murdered and she had cocaine and GHB in her blood. Do we not suspect a connection between these rapes, murders, and drugs—”
Carlyle popped out of his chair. “I will have no more talk of drugs in this school. Do all of you hear me?” He looked around the table.
Byron smirked. Chad and Tripp avoided his stare like brain-damaged genetic twins. Mitsy remained drawn and stone-faced.
Then he refocused on me. “Marianna, prior to your late arrival this morning, we spoke briefly of this newest tragedy and again I stressed the importance of minimizing the damage this is having on the school. Let’s remember this incident was also off-campus. Miss Cummings was found without so much as a piece of lint on her connecting her to this school—”
“That conclusion may be a bit premature—”
“Miss
Melone, I’d like to go over this with you in more detail, so please meet me in my office after this meeting.”
I calmly closed my legal pad and nudged it gently forward on the table with my fingertips. Ken turned his head to Mitsy and then, with the lethargy of a tortoise, turned it back to me. Either he was stretching a very sore neck, or looking to vent emotional steam en route to his final words to me:
“And, henceforth, we will abstain from any reference to drug use,” he said, his voice purring threateningly like an idling chainsaw.
I raised an imaginary hand. “You mean like put our collective heads in the sand and hope that no more bodies show up buried there?”
“What did you say?”
I admired the way Carlyle controlled his rages. There was little doubt he wanted to strangle me. His right eye twitched in two-second intervals. I thought of how Vince Piganno would have deported himself after one of my particularly sarcastic attacks. Vince would have thrown a pencil at me, or a legal pad, or a fifteen-pound marble paperweight, or whatever alternative missiles were within arm’s reach. We assistant AGs all expected such outbursts from him. Par for the course. Comes with the territory. Were complaints ever lodged against the boss? No freaking way. The word from fallen comrades on the outside (of which I was now one) was that the results were a dishonorable discharge, a paltry two-week severance check, and a lifetime enemy of an impugned and pugnacious Pig.
And here was Ken Carlyle, whose face was registering only the slightest flush.
“Ken,” I said, “how exactly should I deal with students in trouble? Ignore them? I should have done more for Lisa. Maybe just being in a drugged and weakened state made her more vulnerable to a murderer. I feel guilty about Lisa.”
Oh brother, had I gone out on a shaky limb. Trying the emotional tack with Carlyle, and exposing honesty to these anemic vampires, was like hooking up a Kohler faucet to my carotid artery.
And I’d uttered the dirty D word again.
Carlyle’s eyes were protruding ever so slightly from their sockets when Mitsy’s warm, soft voice deflected his attention. “Marianna, you’ve been with us too short a time to be feeling responsible for any of this. And please bear in mind, Melinda Hastings was murdered before you began work here.”
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