The first number kicked into a male voice: Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back if I feel like it.
Obviously not her parents. After the beep, Decker said, “This is Detective Peter Decker from Greenbury Police. Call me back as soon as you can.”
The next number also went to a voice mail, but this woman on the message was soft-spoken and sounded older. Decker tried to be as gentle as he could. “This is Peter Decker from Greenbury Police. If someone could please call me back as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it. Thank you very much.”
He hung up the phone and thought about the case. He had to give kudos to Mike. The captain wasn’t territorial. He wanted a quick resolution: to do justice for the victim, to put the town at ease, and to do a good job.
Decker picked up the receiver to make a third call just as McAdams walked into the station house. The two of them exchanged looks. Tyler sat down at his desk and said nothing, fiddling with paperwork while wearing a hound dog face. The kid wasn’t much older than Hannah and something about Tyler’s expression brought out the parent in him. He hung up the phone and tried to keep his face neutral. “You okay?”
McAdams looked up and then he looked down. “Yeah, fine. What do you need?”
Decker crossed his arms and regarded him until the kid looked up again. “Tyler, first times are the hardest. Almost everyone gets a little sick when you see something like that. Nothing wrong or embarrassing about it. But should something like this happen in the future—which is very unlikely here—this is what you do. You grab a nearby bag and place it over your nose and mouth to try to slow down your breathing. Sometimes that works. If not, and you have to throw up, you throw up in the bag, not in the toilet because there might be forensic evidence in there and you don’t want to contaminate anything. Then afterward, you wash your face with cold water and go back and do your job. No one will say anything because we’ve all been there, okay?”
“Yeah . . . yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”
“No problem. So take out a notebook and let me bring you up to speed. Let me get everything out before you ask your questions.”
Decker recapped his conversation with Captain Mike Radar. The kid was silent but he did take notes. “I have the victim’s phone bill. I’m going down the list, trying to find her parents so I can do a notification. That’s a lousy job even for someone experienced, so I’ll do that.”
He slid the phone bill across his desk over to McAdams’s desk.
“This is last month’s phone bill so it’s out of date, but right now it’s all we have. What I’d like you to do is to go down the numbers and find out what matches to what. If you find her parents, give the call to me. As soon as I make the notification, we’ll go to Littleton and start interviewing friends and acquaintances to see if we can get a feel for who she is—”
“Sorry for leaving, Decker. That was really unprofessional.”
“It’s past history, Tyler. Let’s just move forward because we have a lot of work—” His cell rang. Decker looked at his phone window. “This may be the parents. Hold on.” He depressed the button. “Greenbury Police.”
“I’m looking for a Peter Decker.”
A woman’s voice. He said, “This is Peter Decker. Who am I talking to, please?”
“This is Karen Bronson. What’s going on?”
“Are you related to Angeline Moreau, ma’am?”
“I’m her mother. Is Angeline in trouble?”
The expected panic. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, ma’am. There was an incident in her apartment. I’m very sorry, but Angeline is deceased.”
The wailing was immediate. Over the phone, Decker heard a male voice asking what was wrong. Then the female voice screaming, “Angeline is dead!” Then there was a lot of shouting and even more voices followed by sobbing. No matter how many times Decker did this, it never, ever got easier. It always made him sick in his gut.
The man came on the line. “Who is this?”
“Detective Peter Decker from Greenbury Police. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Are you positive it’s her?”
Decker paused. “Sir, I’ll tell you everything I know, but it would be better to do this in person. Who am I talking to?”
“Jim Bronson. I’m Angeline’s stepfather. You didn’t answer my question.”
“I know. We don’t have a positive ID because of the condition of the body. We may have to do a DNA test. I can get a twenty-four-hour turnaround if you bring me her toothbrush or hairbrush.”
“So it’s possible that it isn’t her?”
The expected hope. “Yes, it’s possible. But we’re proceeding as if it were her. Because we found her in her apartment with ID on her. I’m so sorry, but I do need to talk to you and it would be helpful to talk in person. Where are you located? This looks like a Florida prefix.”
“It is. We’re on our way as soon as I hang up. God, can’t you tell me anything?” He lowered his voice. “Murder?”
The wailing in the background had intensified. “The coroner does the official ruling . . . but it looks like a homicide. We can get into the details face-to-face. I know this is very difficult, but did Angeline ever speak to you about having any problems up here?”
“Angeline is an A student.”
“I’m thinking personal problems. Maybe she had a beef with another student or a teacher?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m in a fog right now.”
“I know this is hard, but could you ask your wife? Anything you could give us in this very early stage of the investigation might help.”
“God . . . hold on.” Decker heard muffled conversation and the woman shouting no, no, no. Jim came back on the line. “She can’t think of anyone.”
“Did Angeline have a boyfriend?”
“Uh . . . uh . . . what the hell was his name? Karen, what’s the name of the boy that Angeline was dating?” A female voice and then he came back on the line. “She was dating Lance Terry. He had been her boyfriend for several years, but they broke up a while ago.”
“Do you know who broke it off?”
“Hold on.” A moment passed. “Karen said that she did. No problems afterward supposedly.”
“Is Lance Terry a student at Littleton?”
“Somewhere in the colleges.”
Decker said, “Okay . . . what about friends?”
“Hold on.” A pause. “My wife says that her two closest college friends are Julia Kramer and Emily Hall. I can’t believe—” He choked up. “I really have to go. Do you have a number where I can reach you?”
“I’ll give you my cell. Feel free to call it twenty-four/seven if you think of anything else or even if you just want to talk.”
“It’ll probably take us a while to get up there . . . God, I don’t even know about flights at this time of night. I need to call the airlines. If we drive out, we won’t get there until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“No problem. Just call me when you arrive. And if you drive, please drive carefully. Don’t worry how long it takes. I’m not going anywhere.” Gently, Decker hung up the phone. “I’ve got some names for you, McAdams: Julia Kramer, Emily Hall, and Lance Terry. Two friends and the ex-boyfriend.”
McAdams pushed the phone bill back across to Decker’s desk. There were three circled numbers. “The 917 belongs to a male voice . . . no identification in the voice mail. The 314 belongs to a girl named Emily and the 310 belongs to Julia. Not many calls but a ton of texts going back and forth. No one talks on the phone anymore. I’d probably be better off texting them if you want to talk to them.”
“Do it. Then let’s get out of here.”
McAdams looked up. “Where are we going?”
“To Littleton College to talk to Angeline’s friends.” Decker regarded Tyler’s stunned face. “I’ll do all the talking. Y
ou just take notes and listen. I want you along because a younger person might inspire the kids to talk a little more.”
“So I’m like your secretary?” When Decker glared at him, McAdams reddened. “I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry. Can I use my iPad to take notes?”
“As long as you don’t get distracted and start looking up mustached babies who dance the tango.”
“Is that a real YouTube?”
Decker rolled his eyes. “Let’s go, Harvard. See what was going on in Angeline’s life. Because right now, we don’t have a clue about her death.”
STEPPING OUT INTO the frigid night air, the two of them began the slow trek in ankle-deep drifts toward the colleges. Academia sat about a mile away: a pleasant walk in the daytime. But as the hour got late, the damp air seeped into the bones and stiffened the muscles.
McAdams’s phone beeped. “It’s a text from Julia Kramer. She wants to know what’s going on.”
“Tell her we’re on our way. Ask her where we should meet.”
“That doesn’t answer her question.”
“And in not answering her question, we say a lot, don’t we.”
“True that.” McAdams texted her back. They walked for another minute in silence until his phone beeped again. He read the text aloud. “Come to my dorm. Maple Hall, 4D. What’s going on?”
“Tell her we’ll be right there. Don’t tip her off. I want to read her face when we get there and break the news.” Decker tightened his scarf and rubbed his hands together. “Tyler, ask her if she has a roommate? We may want some privacy.”
“Sure.” The kid’s hands flew over the pop-up keyboard of his smartphone. A minute later, he said, “Angeline Moreau. Why? . . . Okay, then. What should I text back?”
“Tell her we’ll be there in ten minutes,” Decker said.
“Done.”
“It looks like Angeline has an official dorm room on campus. The apartment is officially registered in her name. Is she paying for the off-campus place or is someone else footing the bill?”
“Should I write that down as a question?”
Decker smiled. “I was thinking out loud, but sure write it down. And write this down as well. Did her parents know she was living off-campus? Probably not. Why would they continue to pay the college for her room and board? And if she was mostly living off-campus, it might explain why Julia, her roommate, wasn’t worried when Angeline hadn’t shown up after the weekend.”
“It’s only Monday night,” McAdams said. “Maybe Angeline didn’t have class on Monday and she is a senior. Maybe she goes away for the weekends. Maybe she has a boo who goes with her.”
“By boo you mean boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“That brings us to another question. If Lance Terry is out of the picture, does she have a current boyfriend?”
“I still don’t know who the male voice is. Maybe he’s the new guy in town.”
“Could be. Mike, Kevin, and Ben are combing her apartment and the complex for any information they can dig up. But there still may be something in her dorm room that can help us out.” Decker held up a package. “Hence the gloves and evidence bags. Don’t touch anything without latex fingers.”
“Don’t you need a warrant or something to search the room?”
“First off, she’s dead and that changes everything. Second, the dorm is the school’s property. If I need it, someone can surely grant me permission in these circumstances.”
“Does the school even know about the homicide?”
“Mike has contacted the school. And the school should know it’s in its best interest to keep this very quiet.”
“Are we going to keep it quiet?”
“Depends on how cooperative Littleton is.”
“Are you going to threaten to expose this if they don’t cooperate?” A pause. “And if you do that, isn’t that the definition of blackmail?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Decker said. “Blackmail, besides being against the law, is a very loaded word.” He smiled to himself. “I prefer to think of it as . . . leverage.”
THE FIVE COLLEGES of Upstate were not all built in a day. Duxbury was the oldest and most elite was originally founded as a men’s college but went co-ed fifty years ago. It most closely resembled the prototype of an eastern college: imposing limestone buildings, a magnificent brick and stone library with stained-glass windows, and of course the stadium where the five colleges played football among themselves. It took up the most real estate, leaving the other four colleges as stepsiblings. Clarion—the women’s college—was built forty years after Duxbury. Morse McKinley was erected in the postwar boom in the late 1940s when brick and concrete and straight lines were all a building needed to look modern. Now it just looked like a big dingbat apartment house. The smallest of the colleges was Kneed Loft and was nicknamed Nerd Loft because it specialized in math, science, and engineering. The architects more or less gave up on this one. It was way more bunker than building, but it didn’t stop the college from turning out brilliant students, most who went on to graduate school or government labs.
The last college was Littleton, noted for its artsy teachers, its spacey students, and its clear-cut agenda of social activism. It was considered the only college composed of co-eds who cared. It prided itself on being different. The students had palpable disdain for Morse McKinley and its greedy Wall Street ways. They were way cooler than the robotic dweebs of Kneed Loft, and of course, they were much less pretentious than the snobs at Duxbury. Clarion didn’t even factor into its equation.
Ten years ago, Littleton underwent a massive successful campaign to retrofit the college and turn it all green—from solar energy that ran the generators to the organic food in the cafeteria. Now it almost seemed like an aggie school with its numerous outdoor gardens—dead in the wintertime—and its four greenhouses happily providing tomatoes and zucchini squash to the cafeteria for its vegan entrées. The school’s four main buildings had quilted roofs of thatch reed intermixed with solar panels that frequently had to be wiped down from the snowfall.
The dorms were recycled brick boxes, nondescript, interchangeable, and named after trees. The door to Maple Hall was locked. McAdams was about to text Julia that they were in front of the door, but then a student came running up to the door, swiped her card, and all three of them stepped inside. She bounded up the stairs and left them in the lurch.
The place was a sty with overflowing garbage cans and various jackets, hoodies, boots, and other articles of clothing strewn chockablock. It was also unbearably stuffy, stale, and smelly as well as loud and cacophonous. Anyone who could study or sleep in these environs was a freak of nature.
McAdams took off his parka, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “This brings back memories and none of them good. And Dad wonders why I’m not rushing to do it all again.” He turned to Decker. “Did you go to college?”
“Of course not—because as you well know all cops are cretins by law.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Jeez!”
Decker smiled, took off his coat, and started climbing stairs to the fourth floor. “FYI, I’m a lawyer. Passed the California bar and everything. And I hated every moment of it.”
“That I can understand. The law’s an ass and so are lawyers.”
“So why are you going to law school?”
“Good question, Decker. What law school did you go to?”
“Some unaccredited job in L.A. I went at night and worked LAPD during the day.”
“So where’d you go to college . . . undergraduate?”
“I didn’t go to college. I had completed my training at the police academy and I guess that was good enough for my law school—that and full tuition.”
“You went into LAPD academy directly out of high school?”
“No, I worked Gainesville police for a while. I was bo
rn in Florida. And no, I didn’t go directly into the academy out of high school. There was this little glitch called the Vietnam War. Uncle Sam had first dibs.”
“Oh . . . right.” A pause. “Did you go overseas?”
“Of course.” Decker gave a mirthless laugh. “We weren’t given choices, Tyler.” He reached the third floor and paused. “I was drafted and went into the infantry. First time out on a mission, I saw the kid about twenty paces ahead of me step on a mine and blow himself up.” He wiped his forehead. Man, it was hot. “Welcome to the jungle.”
McAdams fell silent. “I don’t like it when people pry into my life so I guess I shouldn’t be prying into yours.”
“I don’t mind. Curiosity is a good feature for a cop.”
“So can I ask what happened?”
“I survived. That’s what happened.” He shrugged. “It was a little more than that. I’ll tell you how I survived and then we won’t have to talk about this anymore.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Buddy, it’s no secret. Within a short period of time, like you, I figured out how to work the system. I knew I’d wind up dead if I stayed in the front lines. A guy six foot four isn’t built for guerrilla warfare. So I asked to be transferred into Medics because of my height disadvantage. It wasn’t an unreasonable request. Plus I was an EMT in high school so I had some experience. I knew it was a long shot but nothing ventured, et cetera. Three weeks later, after days and nights of routinely seeing body parts flying through the air, I was transferred. Medics wasn’t an easy division and it wasn’t safe. We were the first called in when the fighting broke out. We were transported in choppers and we were always getting shot at. And, yes, we did get hit and have to land more than a couple of times. We even crashed, but there are crashes and then there are crashes. I was lucky.”
“I suppose that’s one word for it.”
“It’s the only word for it. Luck. And let me tell you, it was better than crouching in the dirt and shooting at Cong because I was actively doing something worthwhile. I saw a lot of horror, but I helped save a lot of lives.
Murder 101: A Decker/Lazarus Novel (Decker/Lazarus Novels Book 22) Page 10