Summit Lake

by Charlie Donlea

  “Exactly. So what do you say?”

  “I’ve got finals next week. Then I’m going home for Christmas. Won’t you be gone by the time I get back?”

  “I’ll be moving, but not gone. I won’t be leaving until the end of January, so I’ll be in town for a while. We could get together when you get back from break.”

  “Okay,” Becca said. “It’ll be our farewell dinner.”

  “That sounds awful. Like we’re never going to see each other again.”

  Becca smiled. Professor Jorgensen had a crush. “You’re right. Our paths will cross again at some point,” she lied. Because unless she was accepted to Cornell, which was unlikely, she would probably never see Thom Jorgensen once he left GWU.

  They picked a Friday night, and much deliberation was applied to the strategy. Fridays saw less students on campus as most were out at bars and some traveled home, and there was very little chance a professor would be anywhere near Samson Hall. But most importantly, no one—professors, students, cleaning crews—would be back in the building until Monday morning, which granted time to fix any problems should something go wrong.

  It was midnight and cold when Brad inserted the mysterious key into the lock on the side entrance to the building—an entrance meant only for faculty. He smiled when the door clicked open.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jack said. His breath floated from his mouth in a white whisper that rode on the Potomac breeze and swirled around them.

  “You didn’t expect it to work?” Brad asked.

  “I don’t know what I expected.”

  “No turning back now, Jackie Boy.”

  “This is truly crazy.” Jack grabbed Brad’s shoulder before they walked through the door. “Are you sure you want to do this? Becca’s going to be fine for the final. She doesn’t need the friggin’ test.”

  “Let’s go, Jack. Stop stalling.”

  The hallways were dark, lighted only by auxiliary bulbs in the corners and an odd fluorescent light that remained permanently glowing. The floors shined, reflecting the subtle lights and smelling from fresh lemon wax. An hour earlier, Jack and Brad watched the last of the cleaning crew leave. They walked the hallways of the building now, looking in each lecture hall and behind any unlocked doors, making sure the building was empty. To be caught in the building after hours on a Friday night was no crime—there was a bulletin board that attracted students at all hours, and offered the latest news on updates and schedule changes and essay questions from the previous week. That was their cover should they be caught—they were in the building to get info from the mob board. The excuse was thin for a Friday night, but irrefutable should they need to present it to anyone in authority.

  After twenty minutes of searching, they agreed the building was empty. They entered the wing of professors’ offices, a straight hallway with opposing doors, each littered with the instructor’s signature beliefs or favorite quotes. Some were entirely empty but for the placard that gave their name, others looked like the refrigerator of a household with five grade-schoolers. As they approached the door of interest, its placard stated, PROF. MILFORD MORTON. Underneath was a cartoon of the president on all fours in a pigpen. The caption read, Once you step in it, you may as well roll around a while.

  Brad looked at Jack. “I hope that’s not metaphorical.”

  Jack shrugged as he looked at the cartoon. “We haven’t stepped in anything yet.”

  “We’re about to. Step, roll, and dunk our heads. But it’s us. We don’t get dirty.”

  They lifted surgical gloves from the medical school’s anatomy lab earlier in the week and slipped their hands into them. Neither had ever been arrested, and fingerprinting was not part of the enrollment process at GWU, but such precautions felt like the right thing to do. At the very least it filled them with a needed boost of adrenaline.

  The key worked a second time and Prof. Morton’s door opened without problem.

  “Holy shit, Jack. We’re really doing this.”

  “Let’s kiss and hug later. Find the damn test.”

  With a small flashlight they scoured the file cabinet in the corner and found in the third drawer a series of folders titled “Final Exam—Hard Copy.” There was a copy for each of the last six years. With shaking hands they each took three packets and skimmed them, quickly deducing there was very little difference between them aside from the essay questions at the end. They laid them all on the desk. Brad worked the camera on his cell phone while Jack turned the pages. They took photos of each of the eight pages of the latest test, and all the essay questions from the past six years. Brad checked to make sure the quality was acceptable and the questions legible. Seventeen minutes after they entered the office, they closed and locked the door behind them, threw the surgical gloves in a garbage can, and walked in the shadows along the side of the building and eventually out into the campus. Their hearts were racing and theirs hands trembled.

  It was cold and dark, two weeks before Christmas break. They never spotted a soul until they were three blocks away from Samson Hall when they saw a freshman couple, holding hands and heading back to the dorms.

  They were invisible.

  “So what was the big mystery last night?” Becca asked.

  They sat in a booth at Founding Farmers and drank coffee while they waited for their breakfast.

  “You had your little sorority thing,” Brad said. “We had our little thing.”

  “Oh,” Becca said. She looked at Gail. “They’re jealous.”

  Brad laughed. “Jealous? Of what?”

  “Our hookups last night,” Gail said.

  Out late, and now up early, Becca had her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore no makeup besides the gloss that coated her full lips, which curled into a smile at Gail’s tease. She looked, in her heavy GWU sweatshirt, both cute and stunning in the same glance.

  “You guys hooked up?” Brad said with a smile. “With Sig Eps?”

  Jack sat back in his chair and smiled while he sipped coffee. He looked at Becca over the edge of his cup. When she met his gaze, he slitted his eyes.

  “Are you listening to this?” Brad asked.

  “Listening, processing, storing,” Jack said, sipping more coffee.

  “Time out,” Gail said. “What’s the problem if I hook up with someone? I’m not dating either of you.”

  “And he was kind of cute,” Becca said, finally looking away from Jack. “For a Sig Ep.”

  “Shut up,” Gail said.

  “No, I’m serious. He just sort of had the man-boob thing going. But if he hit the gym he could take care of that.”

  This got Jack laughing, but Brad was still serious.

  “So you guys really did hook up?” Brad asked. Now he was staring at Becca.

  Becca pointed to Gail. “I went to bed after the social. Cinderella here strolled in at about three this morning.”

  Gail tried to hide behind her coffee mug.

  Jack was still leaning back in his chair. “I heard that’s the hardest place to lose weight. For a guy. In the chest.”

  Gail put her cup down. “Stop it.”

  “I’m not kidding. It’s called gynecomastia—large breasts on a man. And you can’t get rid of it through exercise because of metabolism or something. Read it in a fitness magazine. Men’s Life, I think. Because of the way blood flows to the pectoral region, when you exercise you’ll lose cellulite from the stomach, hips, butt—just about everywhere before you lose it from the breast.”

  Gail rolled her eyes.

  Jack held up his hand. “Wait a minute, Gail. I’m making a serious point here.”

  “Which is?”

  Jack’s face was stoic. “If this guy’s about twenty now, with significant gynecomastia, I’m thinking if this works out between you two, by the time he’s thirty he’ll be wearing your bras.”

  This got the whole table laughing, and Gail put her hand over her eyes. “His face was cute.”

  “Sure it was,” Jack said. “I�
�m just telling you what to expect in a few years.”

  “Okay,” Becca said. “So now you guys know how we spent our evening. I’ll assume no one really wants the specifics on what happened with Gail from midnight till three. So what did you guys do?”

  “Not much,” Brad said. Then he stopped and raised his finger. “Oh, we did break into ProMo’s office and steal a copy of the final exam for next week.”

  No one talked for a minute. The waitress came and set plates in front of each of them, refilled their coffees, and walked away. Jack and Brad let the silence linger as they stabbed their food. Becca leaned forward and quieted her voice. “You guys broke into Professor Morton’s office?”

  Jack winked at her.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she said. “Yes? No?”

  Jack wiped his mouth and leaned back again with his coffee. “Yes.”

  Becca widened her eyes. “No!”

  Jack shrugged his shoulders and looked at Brad. “Told you they wouldn’t believe us.”

  Gail shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  Brad looked at Jack with wide eyes. “No faith in us, Jackie Boy.”

  “You’re messing with us.”

  “No,” Jack said. “While you were messing with a Sig Ep, we were securing As for the four of us.” He took a sip of coffee. “You can thank us later.”

  “Prove it,” Gail said.

  Brad handed over his cell phone and went back to his eggs.

  “Holy crap,” Gail said as she scrolled through the photos with Becca over her shoulder. “How did you get this?”

  Jack let Brad tell the story, he seemed more proud of it.

  Gail shook her head when Brad was done. “How do we know it’s the same test he’ll give us?”

  Jack took a bite of eggs. “We don’t.”

  “But we looked back at the last several years of tests,” Brad said. “They were all on hard copy in his file cabinet, and none was much different. Except for the essay questions, so we took pictures of all those. So even if it’s not exact, it should be pretty damn close.” Brad looked at Becca. “I told you I’d come through for you.”

  Ten days later, the night before Milford Morton’s final exam, Becca sat with Jack in the quiet reference section of the library where they often studied. Brad and Gail skipped out early. With a copy of the final exam, there was little for them to study.

  Becca and Jack sat at opposite desks, which were isolated by wooden cubicles and offered privacy. Becca stood and peeked over the top of the desk to look at what Jack was reading. An open textbook sat illuminated by the desk lamp, several handwritten notebook pages next to him.

  “You’re not using the exam, are you?” Becca asked.

  Jack looked up. “Hi, nosey, how are you?”

  “Come on, Jack. I’m not as dumb as you think. How long does it take to memorize a stolen test?”

  Jack leaned back and embarrassingly spread his hands to reveal his study material. “You caught me.”

  “I don’t get it. I mean, I get it, you don’t want to cheat. I’m the same way but don’t have the will power not to peek. Plus, the whole slow infusion process, or whatever you call it, is a lost art on me. But why take the risk? Why break into Morton’s office if you’re not going to use the test?”

  Jack shrugged. “Brad got the key. He was excited, it got me excited. I don’t know, I guess I wanted the adventure.” He laughed. “I don’t really know why I did it, I guess so when we’re fifty we can tell good stories.”

  “You don’t even want to take a peek at the questions?”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Oh,” Becca said, placing her hand over her heart. “That hurts. Right in my ego.”

  Jack smiled. “I don’t think you really need it either, but that’s another story.” He waved his hand. “So what was the deal with you yesterday? Gail said you were upset about something.”

  “Oh, just girl stuff.”

  “You don’t get girl-stuff problems. Fess up.”

  “Richard stopped by.”

  “Again? That guy’s an idiot.”

  Becca didn’t say anything.

  “Have you asked him to leave you alone?”

  “We’re friends, Jack. And our parents are friends. I can’t ask him to leave me alone.”

  “First of all, he’s not your friend, he’s your ex-boyfriend. Second, your parents should support you on this. Every time the shithead comes around, you’re upset for two days. Plus, it’s finals week, so what’s the jackass doing here?”

  “Harvard finished last week and he was driving home. Just stopped by.”

  “Knowing you’d be upset for the rest of the week when you need to study. I’ve had it with this guy.”

  “It’s fine, Jack.”

  “What did he want this time?”

  “Wants to get together over Christmas break.”

  “Great. I hope you said no.”

  “I told him I was busy. Hurry up and finish cramming, I’m getting tired.”

  Becca sat back down behind her desk, out of sight. She put her head on her folded hands and closed her eyes.

  “I’m going to be another hour or so,” Jack said.

  “I’ll wait.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Kelsey Castle

  Summit Lake

  March 7, 2012

  Day 3

  Millie’s Coffee House sat on the corner of Maple Street and Tomahawk and was the only game in town for custom brews and homemade pastries. Set toward the south end of town, across from St. Patrick’s Church, the corner location featured a cobblestone patio scattered with umbrellaed tables in front of a glass façade. Inside, the smell of coffee and sweets filled the air. Kelsey also noticed the subtle aroma of pinewood burning in the fireplace, holding off the final remnants of winter that refused to release their grip on the first part of March.

  Large and welcoming, the cafe was decked in deep cherry-wood—from the baseboards to the thick ceiling beams. A redbrick, dual-sided fireplace sat in the middle of the coffeehouse with four leather chairs around it. Tall pub tables hugged the windows, while traditional cafe-style tables took up the floor plan. A shiny mahogany bar ran along the back wall, behind which employees donned red aprons while they whipped up coffee orders and dropped pastries onto plates for waiting customers.

  At the corner of the bar, a small group was in an animated discussion. When Kelsey heard Becca’s name, she sat down two stools away and randomly scrolled through her phone while she listened. An older, orange-haired woman, who Kelsey quickly noticed spoke with her eyes closed, sounded like she was on the defensive.

  “That’s not what I heard,” Red said, eyes closed and shaking her head. “I heard she dropped out of school and was up here in Summit Lake for two weeks before that night.”

  “No, no, no,” a younger man, mid-forties, said. “Where do you hear this stuff? She never dropped out of school. She came here specifically to study for an exam. She came here the same day she was killed, so someone obviously followed her. The question is who?”

  “Maybe some psycho spotted her on the road, you know?” This from a heavyset woman at the end of the bar. “Saw she was all alone and decided to follow her.”

  “Too random,” the forty-year-old said. “Not impossible, but, I mean, how would the guy know where she was going or that she wasn’t headed to meet someone else? Just too random.”

  “Well, that’s what the police are saying. Some stranger broke in and robbed the house blind. Killed Becca by accident.”

  “In this whole town, a random stranger picked a random house that Becca was randomly in on a random night when she would normally have been at school?” The forty-year-old shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that’s too . . . random.”

  “I still think it had to do with the girl dropping out of school,” Red said.

  The group let out a collective sigh. Listening for only a minute, Kelsey realized how far she’d gotten in just a couple of
days. As she put her phone away, Kelsey recognized the girl who walked from the kitchen behind the bar. She watched the morning falls with her yesterday. The girl delivered a breakfast sandwich to a waiting customer and greeted two others before she made her way back behind the mahogany bar. Pretty in that young way that took no effort, she had a bright smile that was perfect for a coffeehouse tucked into the mountains. With short, sandy hair, dimpled cheeks, and magnetism about her, it was easy for Kelsey to imagine this girl as the face of the establishment.

  “Hi,” Kelsey said.

  The girl looked surprised to see her.

  “Hey,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Good. Rae, right?”

  “Right. Welcome. What can I make you?”

  Kelsey glanced at the list of coffees on the wall behind Rae. “Caramel latte.”

  “Are you drinking this here or taking it to go?”

  “Here.”

  Rae glanced over at the gossip group. “Take a seat by the fireplace,” Rae said. “I’ll bring it over.”

  Kelsey moved from the bar and sat in one of the overstuffed leather chairs, then pulled out her notes on the Eckersley case. She scanned them as she waited for her coffee. Her research so far told her Becca Eckersley was a good kid from North Carolina who’d attended George Washington University on a partial academic scholarship and who’d elbowed her way into the law school of the same university. Straight as an arrow, never in trouble, and a thriving first-year law school student when she was killed two weeks ago. Kelsey thought back to her conversation with Commander Ferguson and wondered what sort of trouble Becca was in before she was killed, and what, exactly, a young law student might be hiding. From Commander Ferguson’s case file, Kelsey created a timeline of the day Becca was killed—from the time she left GWU in Washington, DC, to when she arrived in Summit Lake, to when she settled into her parents’ house on stilt row. Sometime that day, Becca came here, to this cafe.

  Rae delivered her latte and sat in the chair next to Kelsey. “I’m glad you came by,” she said.