The Campus Killer (Detective Ali Ryan Series Book 1)

by Andrew Hess

  My eyes were glassy as a tear broke free; running freely down my cheek. “That’s Amanda’s floor.”

  He bit his lip hard and reached for my hand. I was shaky. For the first time since joining the force, I was afraid of what I might find waiting for me.

  “Let’s go Ali,” he said; taking me by the hand and leading me through the glass doors.

  We entered the first floor lounge; finding plush grey and purple couches lining the walls with wooden tables scattered around the room. It was just as I remembered the day I helped Amanda move in.

  Chills ran through my body as we waited in front of the cold steel elevator doors.

  “What the hell is taking so long,” I muttered.

  The elevator seemed like it was taking forever to drop from the third floor to the first. It took two minutes before the elevator started moving towards us, but felt like an hour had passed. My eyes were glued to the tiny red number above it as they flickered from three to two before finally reaching the first floor with a high pitched ding. The doors slowly pushed aside; revealing a young tan petite brunette in black yoga pants and pink tank top.

  “Amanda,” I gasped while throwing my arms around her. I hugged her tightly; tighter than I ever had before. “Thank god you’re alive.” I didn’t want to let her go.

  “What the hell is going on,” Amanda asked as she wrenched herself free. “There’s police everywhere.” She glanced at the Lieutenant at my side and realized I couldn’t answer.

  The Lieutenant watched us from the corner of his eye as he boarded the elevator. “I see you found your sister Detective.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You have ten minutes to drop her off at her room and meet me upstairs.”

  “You want me on the case?”

  “You wanted in on it; now it’s yours.” The elevator doors closed before I could reply, but I understood why he sent Rodney ahead of us.

  I led Amanda to one of the couches. “I don’t have much time. A girl died from an overdose or alcohol poisoning.”

  “And you thought it was me?”

  “Not until they said your dorm and your floor.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I-I don’t know. You need to go back to your room and stay there. Don’t open the door for anyone but a uniformed officer, Rodney or me. Do you understand?”

  “But you said it was…”

  “I know what I said, but I want you safe just in case. Promise me you’ll stay put.” Amanda nodded her head profusely as I put my arm around her again.

  Chapter 7

  I felt relieved knowing Amanda was all right; even better once she was in her room with an officer standing guard. But she couldn’t be my focus; not now. I had a job to do. I jogged from Amanda’s room on the third floor to the opposite end; the side that faced the lake. As I ran down the corridor and reached the elevator, I saw a tall black man in a police uniform ducking under the yellow crime scene tape.

  “Wait for me,” I shouted as my sneakers squeaked across the tiled floor in the hallway.

  Rodney stood and stared at me from the doorway shaking his head. “Ali, you’re not supposed to be here. The Lieutenant will have my ass for it.”

  I came to a halt on the opposite side of the tape. “What are you gonna do; arrest me?”

  Rodney smiled. “I will if I have to.” He reached behind him and pulled out his handcuffs; dangling them in the air. “Who knows; you might like it.”

  I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks as they turned a bright shade of pink. I stood on my tip toes to get a look at the room, but Rodney was too tall to see over him. I ducked down and found a pale thin woman sprawled out on the bed.

  “Any word on who the vic is,” I asked.

  Rodney put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Relax Ali, it’s not Amanda.” His voice was soothing; comforting; unlike the Rodney I’ve known for the last few years.

  I patted his hand gently. “I know. We found each other downstairs a little while ago. She’s back in her room; waiting for you to question her.” I glanced inside the room again. “You gonna tell me who the victim is or do I have to play mind reader?”

  Rodney grabbed me by the shoulder; directing me away from the room. He checked the corners of the hall nervously. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “But you’re gonna because I’m your favorite partner.”

  Rodney scowled at me. “You’re my only partner.” He looked over his shoulder again. “According to her roommate, her name is Rachel Walker. She’s a junior; originally from Brooklyn.”

  “Cause of death?” I could see in Rodney’s eyes he was struggling to comply with the Lieutenant’s orders while being a good friend and partner to me. “It’s okay, he sent me up here to check out the crime scene.”

  Rodney watched me from the corner of his eye as he grabbed his radio to call it in. Within a minute he had the confirmation he needed.

  The victim died from a combination of alcohol poisoning and choking on her own vomit. The paramedics said her airway was filled with it.”

  “Any word on how much she drank?”

  “A little thing like that; shouldn’t have taken that much to get her drunk. She’s easily ninety pounds; if that.”

  I kept glancing at the room. We knew it was an open and shut case; death by drinking, but something in my gut told me to check it out for myself.

  “Let me guess; you wanna go in,” Rodney said.

  I gave him a half smile before pulling the yellow tape over my head and entered the dorm room.

  Chapter 8

  There was no time to waste. Like it or not, the crime scene had been contaminated before any officers arrived; even if it was an accident. There was no telling what the roommate touched or moved since Rachel came back to the dorm.

  I looked at the lifeless body thinking Rodney was right. Rachel Walker was a very thin woman; almost sickly looking. I think ninety pounds was really stretching how much she actually weighed. Her bones were visible underneath her skin which had questions flying through my mind.

  “Let me borrow your notepad,” I said to Rodney as I took mental notes of the area surrounding the body; finding the pillows scattered on the floor. “Did anyone move these?”

  Rodney shrugged his shoulders as he handed me his spare notepad. “Her roommate said she found them like that on the floor when she came in last night.”

  I stepped over the pillows and stared at the young twenty year olds face. Her coal black hair was still tied back in a ponytail lying peacefully on the bed. Rachel’s head was pushed back with her chin pointing to the ceiling. I knew she had been moved and pictured her roommate waking up to find Rachel not breathing; desperately trying to resuscitate her as she frantically called for help.

  My eyes scanned the room. “Did any of the officers or paramedics find any liquor or beer bottles in the room?”

  “None that were reported,” Rodney replied.

  “Then how’d she get back here?” I turned towards Rodney who had a distant look in his eyes. I snapped my fingers in front of his face.

  “Come on Ali, this is a simple case; just let it be.”

  “Think about it Rodney. Rachel is a stick and drank enough to have alcohol poisoning. She would have to be drinking somewhere close to her room to get back here on her own.”

  An officer passed by the room as I called Rachel’s whereabouts from the night before her death into question. He poked his head in the doorway.

  “I don’t know if it helps, but there was a RM scheduled to watch the front doors last night.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Can you find out who and tell them I’ll be down in a few minutes? I have a few questions for them.”

  “Has anyone interviewed the roommate?”

  The officer flipped through his notepad. “Uh, her name is Nicole Sherman; claiming she came back around two this morning and found Rachel in bed already. She found her like that when she woke up and called 9-1-1 immediately.”

/>   Rodney cupped a hand to his face and shook his head from side to side. “Stupid college girls.”

  “Office Johnson,” I shouted.

  “What? They are. The girls knew they were going out last night. How do you not check on your roommate when you get back to the room?”

  “Maybe they were too drunk to notice,” the officer chimed in from the doorway.

  Rodney snapped his head towards the officer; glaring at him as if to say who asked you. “When I worked as a bouncer, I saw a lot of things I wish I didn’t. Girls would go in the clubs as a group to get trashed. Some were a hot mess that we kicked out before they passed out on the floor. Others left hours later; hanging all over some random guy they just met.”

  I clapped my hands together. “That’s it!” Rodney’s story helped me realize how Rachel got back to her room. “She had to have either met someone or knew someone at the party that helped her back to her room.”

  I climbed over the pillows and examined Rachel’s body a little closer. Her clothes were still intact. Rachel had a wrinkled black v neck blouse, but there were no stains. My eyes ran down to Rachel’s legs. Her tight blue jeans had dark brown and green spots around her knees; showing us that Rachel had fallen at some point during the night.

  “What’s the matter,” Rodney asked.

  “Something’s not right.” I grabbed a pair of white gloves from the officer and rolled Rachel onto her side; noticing the bed was still made. “If you came back to your room after a night of drinking, what’s the first thing you’d do?”

  The officer stared at the ceiling; considering what he would do. “Probably grab something to drink, climb into bed and call it a night.”

  “But how?”

  Rodney and the officer shook their heads trying to understand what I was asking. “Guess I’d kick off my shoes and pull the covers over my head.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Huh; how is this important,” Rodney asked.

  I pointed to the black ballet flats on the bottom of Rachel’s feet; showing the grass and mud caked onto the bottom of them along with the perfectly made bed. “Someone was definitely with her last night.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. Drunk people do weird shit all the time. She was probably too drunk to care about it and passed out as soon as she got on the bed.”

  “Yeah but…”

  “But nothing Ali. You’re reading too much into it. She drank too much and choked on her own vomit; case closed.”

  Rodney and I stood at opposing sides of the room. Rodney believed this was a clean cut open and shut case, but I strongly felt there was more to the story.

  “You’re entitled to your opinion, but I want to catalog her bedding and clothes. We need a thorough search of the room and a full set of tests run on the body.”

  Rodney’s eyebrows inched closer to his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be off today?”

  “You should know by now. I’m never off duty.”

  Chapter 9

  I placed Rachel’s shoes into an evidence bag while Rodney surveyed the room with one of the officers. I ducked under the yellow tape and headed down the hall to the study lounge; finding the victim’s roommate sitting inside with an officer standing guard.

  The officer opened the door for me; allowing me to come face to face with a chubby girl with long black hair. She was dressed in pink and white pajama pants with a pair of pink fuzzy slippers dangling from her feet.

  “Morning,” I said as I pulled up a maroon chair across from the girl. I extended my hand. “I’m sorry for your loss Miss…”

  “Sherman, Nicole Sherman,” the girl replied as she reluctantly accepted my hand. Her cheeks were covered with dry tear marks.

  I wanted to find a way to give her closure; to tell her we would catch the person responsible, but we didn’t know anything more than Rachel’s cause of death.

  “Can you tell me about Rachel,” I asked somberly.

  “We met two years ago during our freshman orientation. We ended up being neighbors and didn’t like our roommates very much.”

  “Why not,” I interrupted.

  “They were messy and loud. I couldn’t sit in my own room to study and needed to get away from my roommate. It took us two and a half months to switch and get the rooms set up.” Nicole’s eyes welled up with tears as she continued to recount her first year living with Rachel.

  “What was her major?”

  “She started in the English department, but opted to switch her major after the first semester and started studying psychology. She loved learning about people and what made them tick. She liked trying to diagnose people too.”

  “Did she do that often?”

  “Every day,” Nicole laughed. “It was one of her favorite things to do outside of watching TV and movies. We’ve spent afternoons just sitting by the pond or on a bench near the Lecture Hall watching people as they walked passed; guessing what their deal was.”

  It was an interesting story, but I wondered how many people would’ve been annoyed by a stranger judging them. “Did Rachel have many friends?”

  “She had a few, but a lot of people didn’t get her sense of humor.” Nicole stared at the door longingly.

  “Was she with those friends last night?”

  Nicole let out a deep sigh. “They all wanted to go to the Summer’s Over Party on Oakwood.” Tears streamed down her face. She shook her head and wiped away them away. “I don’t even think they know she’s dead.”

  I flipped through the notepad and pushed it towards Nicole; placing the pen at her folded hands. “Write down their names and where to find them. I’ll see to it one of our officer tells them so they don’t hear it from the rumor mill.”

  Nicole took the pen; writing five names on the paper as tears drop from her face. “I think that’s all of them.”

  I placed my hand gently on Nicole’s and wrenched the notepad from her tightly gripped fingers. “I’ll have one of the officers locate them immediately.”

  I opened the door and alerted one of the nearby officers to take the list and tell them about Rachel Walker’s death. I glanced back at Nicole; finding her rocking back and forth in her chair.

  “Do you think I’m a bad person,” Nicole asked. “I mean for not checking on Rachel when I came back last night.”

  I could see the worry on her face. “No. Things like this happen. But out of curiosity, how often did Rachel go out to party?”

  “She never really went out during the weekdays, but would find a way to sneak a drink or two into the dorms. She only went out Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights”

  “Did she usually have a lot to drink?”

  “I never really counted. I know she has at least one or two before going out and then a few at the bar.”

  “Has Rachel ever brought a stranger back to the room with her after spending the night partying?”

  “No never.”

  “Has she ever needed help getting back to the room?”

  “No. Why are you asking me this?”

  “Someone helped Rachel back to her room last night. I’m hoping they can tell us more about what happened last night.”

  Nicole sat with her mouth hung open as tears streaked down her cheeks; dripping onto her pink and white sweatpants.

  “Do you think someone could’ve helped her,” Nicole asked.

  “I don’t know, but that’s what I want to find out.” I gently patted Nicole on the top of her back; knowing there was nothing more I could do for her.

  Chapter 10

  Mark watched from the men’s bathroom on the third floor as officers abandoned the crime scene. They had their hands full of brown paper and clear plastic evidence bags; filled with Rachel’s notebooks, backpack, clothes and shoes. There were still a few officers lingering around; patrolling the third floor. One in particular, a tall muscular black man, was going door to door questioning the residents regarding their whereabouts from the night before; hoping someone remembered seeing Rac
hel. Little did they know the man they were looking for, the last person to see Rachel alive, was a mere twenty feet away.

  “Hey kid,” a tall thin officer called out to Mark. “What are you doing out of your room?”

  “Sorry, didn’t know it was against the law to take a leak.”

  The officer snapped his head back towards Mark drawing his nightstick from his belt. He pointed it at Mark’s chest. “I suggest you cut the attitude and get back to your room before you find yourself in some real trouble kid.”

  “Am I under arrest for something?” Mark waited for a reply but the officer just glared at him. “That’s what I thought. Then, I’m free to come and go as I please.”

  “Not until you’ve answered a few questions. Now, go back to your room or else I will escort you there myself.”

  Mark put up his hands in defense. “Questions about what?”

  The officer looked back at Rachel’s room with sadness in his eyes. “I can’t go into details, but there was a death here last night.”

  Mark bounced on the balls of his feet trying to look at which room it was. “Who died? How?” He peered around the corner and saw the yellow tape. “Was it one of the girls down the hall?”

  The officer sized up Mark suspiciously. “Do you know a Rachel Walker or Nicole Sherman?”

  “Names don’t ring a bell,” Mark lied. “Why?”

  “Miss Walker passed away this morning in her sleep. We’re just checking if anyone saw her come in last night.”

  “That poor girl,” Mark shielded his face with his arm; pretending to cough as he smiled maliciously. “How did she die?”

  “That’s still under investigation.” The officer reached around for his notepad and pen. “Did you happen to see either of them come home last night?” The officer looked up and found an empty spot where Mark was standing. He opened the bathroom door, entered and kicked open the bathroom stalls.

  Mark hurried down the hall; passing the study lounge. He stared at the girls inside. One was a tall beautiful woman in sweatpants and t-shirt with long curly brown hair; jotting everything the other girl said.