The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6)

by Mike Markel

  “Mr. Albright, are you aware that Professor Rinaldi was murdered?”

  A hint of a smile appeared on his face, but he did not reply.

  I held his gaze. “You want me to ask an officer to bring you over to the ER?”

  Richard Albright looked at me for a few seconds. “Am I free to go?”

  “While you’re here, let’s have you file a complaint about the guy who threw the bottle at you.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “You sure?”

  Richard Albright just looked at me.

  “You change your mind,” I said, “you let me know.”

  Ryan arranged for him to be driven back to campus or wherever he wanted to go. Five minutes later, Ryan caught up with me in the detectives’ bullpen.

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  He gave me a smile. “What exactly is it you don’t like, Karen?”

  “Albright not pressing charges against the guy who threw the bottle.”

  “What would Jesus do?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s not Jesus. He’s a biker thug, which is why he would press charges. If he’s not planning on breaking the kid’s legs.”

  “Want to interview the kid?”

  I thought a second. “No, I want to do this quietly. Let’s figure out who the kid is.”

  Chapter 15

  Ryan and I were in the chief’s office, briefing him on the rally and our questioning of Richard Albright.

  “So what’s the damage?” the chief said.

  “Two injured: Richard Albright, cut up on the face by the bottle, and his friend, Ronny, broken wrist when Albright pulled him off the other guy.”

  “The other guy wasn’t hurt?”

  “No, we brought him in, put him in Holding. We’re giving Albright a few hours to decide whether to press charges for assault.”

  “He didn’t already?”

  “He said no. He’s turning the other cheek. The one that’s not cut up.”

  “And the broken wrist—I take it that guy’s not pressing charges against his buddy Albright, correct?”

  “That’s right. It was just an accident. Besides, if you take a look at the feed of Albright in Interview 1—not that many people on campus would press charges against him.”

  “How much of this did the networks get?”

  “They got the whole speech, including the bit about how it was good that Virginia Rinaldi is dead. Not sure if they got the bottle flying, but they got it hitting Albright, and they were all over the fight.”

  “Did they interview Albright after the incident?”

  “No, Ryan and I pulled him aside and took him in.”

  “Where are we with the university? Have you briefed them?”

  “There were some suits at the speech, but I didn’t recognize anybody. I know Mary Dawson—”

  “Who’s she again?”

  “Dean of students. I didn’t see her there.”

  “All right, you want to brief her? I’ll call President Billingham, tell him we’re on top of this, and that you’ll communicate with her, okay?”

  My phone rang. I pulled it out of my bag. The screen said “Dawson, Mary.” I hit Speaker and held up my finger to tell the chief I’d just be a second. “Yes, Dean Dawson, I was just gonna call you, fill you in on that rally.”

  “I appreciate that, Detective Seagate. But there’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

  “Sure, go right ahead.”

  She paused a second. “I’d rather not do it on the phone.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can we swing by in ten minutes?”

  “That would be terrific. Appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” I ended the call.

  The chief said, “Any idea what that’s about?”

  I shook my head, then turned to Ryan. He shrugged. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Ten minutes later we were in Mary Dawson’s office. Normally, Mary Dawson looks chipper, glad to be able to help, happy to be alive. But now she looked rattled and upset. “You ever tempted to get in your damn car and just drive away?”

  I reached for a sisterly smile. “Tempted? Done it six or eight times.” I paused. “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head. “First, tell me what happened at the rally. I’ve got four TV stations want to interview me. I need to get a straight story—and I want to hear it from you two.”

  I turned to Ryan, who filled in the details, starting with Albright’s line about how it was good that Virginia Rinaldi was dead.

  “Jesus Christ.” She looked down at her desk and took a deep breath. “That son of a bitch.”

  Ryan sketched in the rest, including that we were holding the student who threw the bottle.

  “This is just incredible,” Mary Dawson said. “Virginia loved publicity, but this would have made her sick. To have that student—” Her hands, resting on the edge of her desk, began to shake. She looked down at them when she heard her fingernails scratching on the surface. She balled her hands into fists. “I’m sorry, I need to get this under control.”

  I pulled a card from my shoulder bag, wrote my home phone on it, and handed it to her. “Mary, here are my numbers. Give me a call, any time. I’ll fill you in on where we are with charges. You know, the legal stuff.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate that.”

  I let it sit for a moment. “Did you say there’s something else you want to talk to us about?”

  Her eyes closed slowly, and her shoulders slumped, as if I’d just reminded her of something bad she had managed to forget. “Unfortunately, yes, there is.” She took another deep breath. “I have learned that there was a party last night—at one of the fraternities. Alpha Phi Sigma.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This was what she didn’t want to tell me over the phone?

  “The theme was ‘Bye, Bye Virginia.’”

  “As in Virginia Rinaldi? Was it Richard Albright?”

  She shook her head. “No, it had nothing to do with him. He’s not in a fraternity. It was some immature jerks. They’re mostly traditional-age boys.”

  “What do you mean, the theme was ‘Bye, Bye Virginia’?”

  “From what I gather, there was a banner, some dipshits made little speeches, then it became just another party, with lots of beer, porn on a widescreen. The usual.”

  “What did Virginia Rinaldi do to piss off these guys?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I’m not exactly sure.”

  Ryan said, “Dean Dawson, you said ‘from what I gather.’ How did you hear about this party?”

  “We got a call this morning from a pay phone in the Student Union Building. It was a female. She said she was a student. She’d been to the party but left right away when she saw the banner about Virginia. Later she talked with another girl who’d been there. She said she thought I ought to know about it.”

  “But she didn’t want to identify herself?” Ryan said.

  “Correct.”

  Ryan said, “Have you heard anything about a student appearing in a pornographic video, on the Internet?”

  “Well, yes, I’ve read about that in a few of the—”

  Ryan interrupted. “A CMSU student.”

  “Oh, my God.” Mary Dawson’s hand came up to her mouth. “You’re not serious.”

  “That’s what Richard Albright told us less than an hour ago,” I said. “That was the big announcement he was gonna make—before he got hit in the face with the bottle. He said he was gonna do what he could to remove her.”

  “Like it was a cancer,” Ryan said. “Those were his words.”

  “This is unbelievable.” She put her head in her hands.

  “Listen, Mary,” I said, “we don’t have any proof this is true, but I promise you, we’re gonna devote the resources to figure out what happened to Virginia Rinaldi—see if Richard Albright had anything to do with it.”

  “And the porn video?”

  “If a crime was committed, we’ll throw everything we h
ave at it—and we’ll do whatever is necessary to protect this girl. You have my word on that.”

  “This is a nightmare. Albright’s speech will be viral by tonight. If anyone took any video of the fraternity party …” She just stopped. “This is going to set us back ten years.”

  “Mary, we’re gonna stop by that fraternity now, see if we can figure out what happened last night.” Ryan and I stood. “If there’s anything you should know about, we’ll be in touch right away, okay?”

  Mary Dawson rose from her chair, but she looked wobbly. “Thank you, Karen.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I’m just losing it. Detective Seagate, Detective Miner.”

  I smiled. “‘Karen’ is fine. We’re on the same side here. We’ll be in touch.”

  Ryan and I left Mary Dawson’s office and hurried back to the parking lot. “Give me a second,” Ryan said when we got inside the Charger. He opened up his briefcase and pulled out a folder of papers that Mary Dawson had given us yesterday with the transcripts and contact information for the students in Virginia Rinaldi’s course. Then he swung the cruiser’s laptop to face him and logged on. He hit some keys, looked at some transcripts, hit some more keys.

  Finally, he looked up at me. “Two students from Virginia’s course are members of Alpha Phi Sigma: Zach Gilcrist and Martin Hunt. Hunt is the president of the chapter.”

  “Were they at the meeting we had yesterday in the sociology department?”

  Ryan pulled his seating chart out of the folder. “Not Zach Gilcrist. But Martin Hunt was. He was the one who made the wiseass comment about Krista being upstairs—where the bedrooms are—when she was arguing with Virginia.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Can you give me directions?”

  It took us two minutes get to Alpha Phi Sigma, on Melvin Street. A nondescript three-story brick with white columns on the front, the building looked like it dated from the forties or fifties. On the second floor was a wide balcony, cluttered with old couches and soft chairs, spanning the house.

  As Ryan and I walked up the broken-brick path to the entryway, four or five guys on the balcony gave us a wary look, as if we might be from the university or, worse yet, from the national headquarters of the fraternity. I stopped and retrieved my detective’s shield from my bag and made a show of hanging it around my neck. The guys on the balcony got up slowly, to show us they weren’t scared, and headed inside the house.

  Ryan knocked on the front door. I heard a TV on inside. A dweeby guy opened the door. I introduced me and Ryan and said we needed to talk to Martin Hunt. Dweeb said Hunt was inside. He ushered us in and led us to a small room off to the right, where four young guys were playing cards at a cheap round dining table. They stopped and stared at us. Martin Hunt looked a little confused, as if he couldn’t quite place who we were.

  I tapped my shield. “I’m Seagate. This is Miner. From yesterday?” I saw a flash of recognition, then fear, in Martin Hunt’s eyes.

  It took him less than a second to recover and flash us a big smile. The three other guys were looking at him. “You want to give us some privacy?” he said to them. They left.

  “You mind?” I pointed to one of the chairs.

  “Please, sit.” He gestured to the chair, then repeated it for Ryan. He was a good-looking boy: strong features, thick hair, the fashionable two-days’ stubble. His arms beneath his T-shirt were well-defined. I could see he spent some time in the gym.

  “We need to talk to you about the party last night.”

  Martin Hunt put on a solemn expression to show he was going to take us seriously. I already disliked him from the meeting in the sociology department. Now I wanted to hit him.

  “How can I help?”

  “Most of your parties have themes?”

  He put on a thoughtful expression, as if he was thinking about whether “most of” was accurate. “Often, we have a theme related to where we are in the semester, such as ‘Back to the Grind’ or ‘Last Party Before Finals,’ that kind of thing. Sometimes we do a seasonal theme, such as–”

  “What was the theme of last night’s party?”

  He seemed a little taken aback that I interrupted. “We called it ‘Bye, Bye Virginia.’” He held my gaze.

  “What the hell were you going for there?”

  “It was a reference to the death of Professor Rinaldi.”

  “Yeah, I got that. What I’m asking is, Did you intend it to be incredibly insensitive, or are you so stupid—”

  Ryan interrupted. “What Detective Seagate is asking is, What kind of statement were you intending, what with the professor having died about twenty-four hours before?”

  “That’s a legitimate question.” He nodded his head. “We weren’t her biggest fans.”

  “Why is that?” I said.

  “Because she was patronizing and controlling. The way she treated women.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She treated women like they needed to be told what to do.”

  “For instance?”

  “She wanted to impose her ideology on them and deprive them of their right to make their own decisions.” He ran a finger over one side of the stubble above his lips, then the other side.

  “What kind of decisions?”

  Martin Hunt was settling in to an argument he must have had in class—or at least one he had thought about. “Everything: their roles in the workplace, marriage, sex, everything. She treated women like little girls.”

  “You didn’t think it was wrong—so soon after she died, at a beer party, for God’s sake—you didn’t see anything wrong with that?”

  He smiled. “We think she would have approved. She was into honesty. That’s what we learned from her: Tell it like it is.”

  “And that’s what you’re doing right now, with us?”

  “Absolutely. We’ve got nothing to hide.” He held the smile.

  “Do you ever charge anything for people to get into your parties?”

  “Just the guys, for the beer.”

  “Anyone under twenty-one ever get in?”

  “We ask them if they’re twenty-one. If you mean, do we card people, the answer is no. These are private parties. We’re not required to do that.”

  “Open to anyone?”

  He nodded. “Open to any girls.”

  “Can you give me a list of people who were here?”

  He laughed sarcastically. “Did you go to college, Detective?”

  Ryan put his hand on my arm, then said, “Mr. Hunt, was there any pornography shown at the party?”

  “I think there was,” he said. He scanned the ceiling as he searched his memory. “Yes, I think there was.”

  “Could you tell us about that?”

  “It’s traditional. Just some DVDs we have.”

  “Could we see them?”

  “They’re commercially available DVDs we bought.”

  “We’d like to see your setup.” Ryan wasn’t asking.

  “I’m not really comfortable showing you that.” He paused. “You don’t have a search warrant, do you?”

  Ryan rose a few inches out of his chair and edged it closer to Martin Hunt. The boy looked uncomfortable for the first time. “We just want to see the DVDs, Martin. Like you said, you’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “All right.” Martin Hunt stood and stretched his torso, one muscular guy preening in front of another. “Come with me.”

  He led us back toward the entry foyer of the fraternity, then into a big living room with four mismatched couches in leather and cloth, as well as a bunch of recliners. All of the furniture was arranged in a semicircle around a huge flat-screen and a DVD player sitting on a desk. He gestured for us to take a look at the half-dozen DVDs neatly stacked in their cases.

  Ryan went over to the DVDs, opened up a few of the cases, and read the printing on the disks. Then he stepped around to the side of the TV and looked at the tangle of wires coming out of the back. “There a room behind this wall?”

  “Laund
ry room. Two washers, two dryers.”

  “Mind if we take a look?”

  “About that search warrant …”

  “Really, Martin? You don’t want us to see the two washers, two dryers?”

  “Search warrant.”

  I walked up close to Martin Hunt. “I’m going to count to five. If you don’t let us into that room, we’ll go back to headquarters and get that search warrant. While we’re waiting for it, we’ll get the sniffer dogs to go over every inch of this shithole looking for illegal drugs. We’ll contact the newspaper and the networks first, of course, because the public has a right to know how their tax dollars are spent. We’ll meet with the university, see if you’re right about not having to card people. We’ll get in touch with the national, tell them about your party last night and our visit today. Then we’ll see where it goes from there.” I put my finger in his face. “You want me to start counting to five, Marty?”

  Grim-faced, he led us out of the room, down a little hall, and into the laundry room. An old computer sat on a small table against the wall. Wires led into some kind of box hanging on the wall.

  “Mind if we borrow the computer, Marty?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Of course,” I said. “You can say no. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Ryan had the computer box under his arm as we headed back out to the street.

  “Just a second,” I said. “I want to take a look in that alley.” We walked over to the alley that led behind the house, where a dozen cars were parked. Seven kegs sat on pallets next to a green dumpster. I walked over to it, lifted the lid, and looked inside.

  I took out my phone and called in to headquarters. “Robin, this is Seagate. I’m at Alpha Phi Sigma.” I gave her the address. “There’s a dumpster here. It says Montana Trash. I need you to arrange to have it brought in to headquarters. Have it catalogued. Send a uniform here right now to make sure nobody tampers with it.”

  “Cool,” Robin said. “What are we looking for?”

  “There was a party here last night. Theme was ‘Bye, Bye Virginia.’”