I gave him the finger.
An evil smile crossed Lance’s face, and I watched his lips form the words “Game on.”
Despite the chill that swept down my back, I knew this had totally been worth it.
* * *
The rest of Saturday wasn’t nearly so exciting. I spent a good part of it reading through the diary, but Rosemary’s emotional ramblings didn’t provide a lot of clues. All I knew about F was that he was good-looking and liked to go for midnight strolls in secluded places on campus, such as the cemetery and the tunnels. There was nothing to indicate how old he was or which magickind. He could be anybody.
By the time Sunday rolled around, I was so depressed from reading about Rosemary’s dreams and knowing they would never be fulfilled, I was determined to start filling in some of Eli’s suspect graph. I figured I’d read through the diary again and make a time line of when things happened. Maybe there was a pattern to the meetings.
After breakfast, which proved to be much quieter than the day before with no Lance present, I went to the library to find a quiet place to work. Selene did her musmancy homework in the dorm on Sundays, which required her to both sing and play various instruments while she practiced her music magic. I liked listening, but it was impossible to concentrate on anything. The music was too mesmerizing to ignore.
It was the weekend, so I expected to find the library deserted except for the librarian on duty, but when I walked by the row of computer terminals on my way to the study desks in the back, I heard someone typing. I could see the guy’s sneakers underneath the desk but nothing of his face hidden behind the divider in front of the terminal. At least, I assumed it was a guy, given the size of those feet, although you never could tell with magickind.
I spent the next forty minutes drawing up my time line. I started with the day Rosemary’s father had given her the ring—June 30. She’d written:
I can’t believe it’s finally here. I’ve waited so long. I’m finally old enough to bear the responsibility of my heritage as my mother did before me and hers before that. Mother says I’m too young to wear the ring, but Father thinks differently. He knows how important it is that I prove myself to the Magi. I know where my future lies.
From this, I finally accepted that the Keeper spell wasn’t new. Shame. It would’ve been easier to identify the item if it had been recent, and the regular use of black magic raised some troubling doubts about the magickind leader and his family.
Rosemary started dating F sometime between the eleventh and nineteenth of July, and they met regularly after that, always on campus. So the guy had either been living on campus through the summer or somewhere nearby. This meant I could eliminate any of the students who went home to other cities for the break.
When I finished the time line, I pulled out the suspect graph and placed it beside the list of dates. I stared at them, willing the answers to jump out at me. On the graph, I’d written F in the Name column below Frank Rizzo. I’d also placed a check in the Opportunity column since Rosemary had been on her way to meet F in Coleville that night. The rest were a complete blank.
For Motive, it was possible F had killed her in a fit of rage over the breakup, and then somebody else had come along and cut off her hand, but I doubted it. Too coincidental. It was more likely that F’s reasons for being in the relationship had been fake, judging from Rosemary’s reasons for breaking up with him. But who could it have been? What was he after? My head began to ache.
“Ugh,” I muttered, dropping my pen. It rolled and fell off the desk. “Too many questions I don’t have the answer to.”
“Do you always talk to yourself?”
I jumped so hard I almost fell out of my chair. I looked up and saw it was Paul Kirkwood. My pulse increased. Glancing at his shoes, I knew he’d been the person typing earlier.
I smiled at him, glad I’d worn a ball cap this morning to cover my polka-dot hair. “All the time, actually.”
“Hmmm. I imagine it makes for good conversation.”
“Do you live here or something?” I asked.
“Yep. I’ve got a cot in the librarian’s lounge. They let me use old newspapers for blankets and books for pillows.” He pulled out the chair next to mine and sat down. “Seriously, I’m just working on my senior thesis paper. Wanted to get an early start.”
I nodded, in awe of his devotion to schoolwork. I waved my hand toward my pen on the floor, summoning it with my telekinesis. To my surprise it flew up at once and into my outstretched fingers without a hitch. See, I can do magic without screwing it up, I thought. Too bad Eli wasn’t around to see it.
“So what are you doing?” Paul said, tapping the diary.
“Oh, um. Studying.”
His gaze took in the suspect graph and time line, and he raised his eyebrows. “For what?”
I blinked, at a loss for a response. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t see telling him the truth. I’d been sitting here trying to visualize myself as Veronica Mars, all smart and badass. But in reality, I felt more like Inspector Gadget with my go-go button stuck in neutral.
“This is about Rosemary, isn’t it?”
“How’d you guess?”
“It was either that or homework for a criminology class. Only Arkwell doesn’t offer any.” He brushed hair out of his face. I wished he wouldn’t do that. I liked the way it hung in his eyes. “Are you trying to figure out who killed her?”
“Trying being the operative word. I’m not having much success.” I said. Here was a guy smart enough for MIT, and here was me playing cops and robbers.
“Would it help if I told you the police have a suspect?”
“Really? I’ve been keeping an eye on the news but I haven’t heard anything.”
Paul leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk. “Well, it’s not like magickind are big on the virtues of freedom of the press.”
“No kidding. So who is it?”
He grinned mischievously, and I was momentarily stunned by how attractive he was. His high, prominent cheekbones looked almost exotic combined with his crooked nose and blond hair. Sexy combination. “Now, hang on a minute. This is top-secret information. I could get in trouble for telling you.”
It took me a second to realize he was joking. I leaned into him, lowering my voice to conspiratorial level. “I promise I won’t tell anybody. Cross my heart.”
Paul shook his head. “Not good enough. You’ve got to give me something in equal trade.”
“Like what?”
He seemed to consider the question seriously. “How about a date?” He grinned again, only there was something a bit shy and insecure about it.
My stomach flipped over, but I managed a smile. “Hmmm … well, that’s a pretty high price, but I guess I can do it.”
He winked. “You won’t regret it. How about next Saturday?”
“Okay.” I ripped off a piece of paper from the time line, jotted down my cell and dorm numbers, and handed it over. “Now spill,” I said, anxious to move on. I was afraid if we didn’t, he might admit he’d been joking after all. Or he might remember that he was a Kirkwood, and I was the daughter of Moira Nimue-Everhart.
Paul slid the paper into the front pocket of his jeans, and said, “Mr. Culpepper.”
I chuckled. “You’re kidding, right? Blaming the maintenance man—I mean you might as well say the butler did it.”
“You know he’s a Metus demon?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s my point. He’s too easy a scapegoat. Just because Metus demons get their power by feeding off others’ fears doesn’t make him the killer.” I knew I was being a bit defensive, but I couldn’t help it. Most darkkinds got a bad rap because of the parasitic way their magic worked. I might be a halfkind, but my magic came from my darkkind side.
“Yes,” said Paul, “except there’s the small matter of Culpepper lying about his alibi.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I thought he was fixing a problem in Flint Hall?”
“
He was. Except the Flint students have him leaving around midnight, and he didn’t report finding Rosemary’s body until after one. Claims he stopped by the maintenance garage to drop off some tools, but nobody believes it would’ve taken him that long, and it’s way out of the way. So what was he up to?”
“Good question.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking it over. Was it possible the F in Rosemary’s diary referred to Culpepper? I wondered what his first name was. Only, I couldn’t imagine him being the secret lover. Culpepper had to be at least thirty or older. He wasn’t necessarily bad-looking when he kept the demonish parts of his anatomy hidden behind a glamour, but he’d never struck me as attractive. Still, he did work for the school, making it a good bet he’d been on campus this summer. And attraction was subjective. Maybe Rosemary had a thing for scary-looking older dudes.
“Not only that,” Paul continued, waving a hand through the air, “but the coroner put her time of death somewhere in that time frame.”
“Hang on. How do you know so much about it?”
“My uncle’s a magistrate. All of the Magi are getting updated on it. I pay attention.”
“Oh. Right.” Maybe I should reconsider going out with him. Magistrate was one rank beneath consul—too much potential for my life to become a West Side Story parody. Then again, how often was I going to get a chance to date a guy who was both good-looking and smart? Not to mention, extremely easy to talk to. I was surprised at how relaxed I felt around him. It had been awhile since any boy had shown an interest in me. Thoughts of Eli tried to force their way into my brain, but I pushed them out.
Paul said, “And did you know Culpepper was a sniper in the Marines?”
“You mean like United States military?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, but that’s not surprising. A lot of magickind enlist.” The Magi Senate encouraged enlistment, especially to demonkind. It was an easy way for some of them to fulfill their magical needs without doing anything illegal. No doubt that had been the reason Culpepper had signed up.
Paul leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. “Well, yeah, but my point is he’s sort of a trained killer.”
“Maybe when he was fighting ordinaries. But Rosemary was magickind. How could he have done it?”
Paul shrugged. “I don’t know. But somebody did. The Will or no.”
“True.” I glanced down at the suspect graph, reading the column names for at least the hundredth time. I looked back at Paul. “So have the cops found anything on him?”
“Not yet. They searched his house and office but came back with nothing.”
I rolled the pen between my fingers, my thoughts churning. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Keeper spells, would you?”
“What’s that?”
Well, it had been worth a shot. “Never mind.” I wrote “Culpepper” in the Name column beneath F, then put a check mark under Opportunity. I set the pen down, feeling a thrill of both excitement and trepidation at my progress. Maybe I had a knack for this detective business after all.
Then again, maybe not.
9
Stakeout
Tailing somebody was a lot trickier in real life than in TV shows and movies. What with classes, homework, and a regular dream-feeding schedule, I could only spy on Mr. Culpepper in short bursts. Monday, I spotted him on the way to some repair job on campus and followed along behind him, hoping to catch him doing something suspicious. Just what exactly, I had no idea, but I figured I would instinctively recognize this suspicious behavior when I saw it. The next day, I walked by his office in the maintenance garage and saw him sitting behind the desk writing in the leather-bound notebook he’d been carrying the day before. Wednesday, I didn’t find him at all. Thursday, he was in the office writing again.
The notebook interested me. Why carry it around everywhere? It wasn’t like he could use it to fix a leaky faucet. But if Culpepper was involved in a secret love affair with a student, he might have chronicled it in a diary, too. And his first name was Faustus.
Finding out wasn’t too hard. The school’s directory listed the first and last name of all the faculty and staff, and I amused myself for nearly twenty minutes looking up the names of my teachers. Some of them were pretty funny, like Wilhelmina Norton and Ignatius Fritz, even Arturo Ankil.
I knew I needed to get a peek at that notebook, but didn’t have a clue how to do it. By Thursday night I came to the conclusion that I needed to devote a whole day to following him. I was tempted to ditch Friday’s classes, but Selene reasoned me out of it.
“Not worth the risk,” she said when I mentioned it during dinner.
“You don’t know that. If he is the killer, it’s totally worth it.”
Selene shook her head. “There haven’t been any signs about Culpepper in Eli’s dreams, right?”
“Well, no. Just more football playing, ice fishing, and Katarina.” I made a face.
“Then it’s definitely not worth it. I get you want to find the guy. I do, too, but those dreams are your best shot. And way less risky.”
“What risk? Worst-case scenario, I get caught ditching and end up in detention.”
“I dunno, Dusty.” Selene shuddered. “Culpepper gives me the creeps. People say he’s crazy. What if he hurts you?”
“How? He’s magickind. I’m magickind. Never the two shall meet.”
“Tell that to Rosemary.”
Ouch. Maybe I should have been spending as much time trying to figure out how she was murdered as why.
I let the subject drop as I caught sight of Lance holding up a piece of paper in my direction from across the room. Written across it in big black letters was Dusty 1, Lance 2. I sighed, catching the warning at once. A whole week had gone by without him retaliating, and I’d half-hoped he would be happy keeping things equal between us. But apparently he had another prank in the works.
“Better watch your back.” Selene obviously had come to the same conclusion.
I glanced at her, startled by her dark tone. “You don’t think he’d do anything really bad, do you?”
She took a drink from her water goblet, considering the question. “Depends on your definition of bad. I mean, he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you physically. He’s too much of a coward for that. But he’s not particularly concerned about hurting people emotionally.”
“I guess you would know?” I said, making the statement a question. Selene might be my best friend, but she was also the most private person I knew. She’d much rather talk about my troubles than hers. I’d never learned the real reason why she’d ditched the in crowd, although I’d gathered it had a lot to do with Lance.
“Yes,” Selene said, surprising me with that admission. I pressed her for more, but she refused to elaborate.
Still, I took her advice, and was extra cautious the rest of the night and all through breakfast the next morning. But Lance didn’t strike until psionics class. Distracted by Mr. Ankil asking me how the snatch-and-smack practice was going, I failed to check my seat before sitting down. A huge fart sound erupted from beneath my butt, followed by a smell so realistic it might as well have been the real thing. I leaped up, red-faced. I looked down at my seat and watched in horror as a whoopee cushion, one bewitched with an invisibility glamour, came into view.
Humiliation was too inadequate a word for what I felt as a couple of people laughed and even more snickered. I noticed Eli wasn’t laughing, though. He stood up and came over to me. He picked up the whoopee cushion and tossed it in the wastebasket, the action effortless.
“You all right?” he said, touching my shoulder. His hand was impossibly warm through my shirt. I shivered, the sensation far more pleasurable than it should be, considering how mortified I was.
With a feeble shrug, I brushed him off. “I’m fine.”
Later, it was my lingering humiliation, and the prospect of seeing Lance’s triumphant expression again, that prompted me to ditch gym class and tail after Mr. Culpep
per. Or so I told myself.
I spotted Culpepper walking across the Commons, looking suspicious. He usually shuffled along with a slight hitch to his step as if he had an old injury, but today he moved quickly, looking over his shoulder as if he expected something to attack him any moment.
I kept a fair distance between us as I trailed after him, staying hidden behind trees and buildings. After a while, he made a right down the path around Jupiter Hall, and my certainty that he was up to something increased. If he’d been heading for the maintenance garage, he would’ve turned left at Jupiter. But the faculty and staff town houses were this way—maybe he was going home.
Culpepper didn’t continue down the path toward the faculty housing, but made a left at the Lady of the Lake statue. A couple of turns later, we arrived at one of the side entrances into Coleville cemetery. I hid behind a building, and poked my head around to watch him. I wondered whether this was some kind of sociopathic behavior. Maybe he was returning to the scene of the crime to gloat over it. He didn’t have any work reason to be in there. There wasn’t a single mechanical thing in the entire place that might need fixing. Electricity was forbidden in the cemetery because of the animation effect—nobody wanted a bunch of corpses and skeletons milling around the gardens.
I followed after him, finding easy cover behind the trees, mausoleums, and statues. I had no idea how large Coleville was in terms of acreage, but Culpepper traveled so far into it the place began to feel as vast as Yellowstone Park. We were well off the main paths, but Culpepper moved with a certainty that suggested he came this way often.
Finally, he slowed down, and I ducked behind a headstone, crouching low and peering carefully around the side. I could just see Culpepper in the distance, standing in front of the door of a small, ancient-looking mausoleum. Whatever name used to be engraved above the doorway had long since faded. The edges on the building were chipped and crumbling in places. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing were haunted, but Selene had assured me time and again that ghosts weren’t very common. That was a good thing, because real ghosts were supposed to be far scarier and more dangerous than those reality TV shows made them seem.
The Nightmare Affair Page 10