Mains sighed and echoed my thoughts. “Poor kid. I’ll tell him. You guys get everything you can on Ms. Berwyck. We need this to stick.”
I cleared my throat. Mains looked at me. “You and Ina can go home. Stop by the station tomorrow morning to sign your statement.”
The crime scene techs wheeled out the body bag on a gurney. I looked away, but Ina followed them to the ambulance, peppering them with questions about chain of evidence and rigor mortis.
“I think it will be easier for Derek if I’m there when you tell him. That’s where you are going, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Does this include your sidekick?” He gestured to Ina.
“No.”
He sighed. “I’ll swing by your house on my way there. It might be pretty late.”
“I’ll stay up.”
Mains smiled, and I felt my shoulders ache.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Over two hours later, I watched for Mains’s sedan through my kitchen window in a dry set of clothes with my purple raincoat and dog-print puddle boots on. Templeton sat on the kitchen table, looking just as intently out the window. His plume of a black tail twitched anxiously across the oak tabletop. I ran a hand along his back, hoping to calm him, hoping to calm myself.
Headlights turned into the drive, and I was out the door before the car came to a complete stop.
“Are you sure you want to do this? It’s going to be tough,” Mains said as I fastened my seatbelt.
“I’m sure.” I wiped the rain from my face with the hem of my sweatshirt.
He backed out of the driveway. I hoped Ina was asleep, because I didn’t want to face her questions about this late-night meeting the next day.
We drove in silence until Mains turned onto Martin’s campus.
“He’s still staying in the dorm?” I asked. I thought Derek may have moved back to
Tess’s house by now to avoid another fight with his dormmates.
Mains nodded as he drove through fraternity row, which was quiet. It was a Sunday night, after all, and the majority of Martin’s students leaned more toward being bookworms than party animals. Along the row, the garish Halloween decorations were lit up with orange, yellow, and red twinkle lights. Some of the houses had so many of them, I wondered how the occupants slept. The rain made the experience even more surreal, blurring the lights into movement.
“Are you sure we can simply waltz into one of the dorms and talk to a student? The dorms are locked, and security will throw us out.”
“They can’t throw me out. I’m a cop, and I’ve already called ahead. Mutt has already woken Derek and taken him to the dorm office so we can speak to him in private and not disturb any of the other students.”
“Oh,” I said.
Derek lived in West dorm, named for one of Stripling’s early families and located on the east side of campus. Go figure.
Mutt waited outside when Mains parked in the handicapped spot. Mutt arched an eyebrow when we approached. “I could give you a ticket for parking there.”
“You could,” Mains agreed.
Mutt took a slug from the can of pop in his hand. “Ahh, were you out on a date? Nice to see you again so soon, India.”
I returned the greeting.
“I brought Ms. Hayes along because she knows the student.”
Mutt shrugged as if it was no concern of his.
Mains gestured toward the building. “After you.”
Mutt turned and led us inside without further comment. Stepping inside the all-male freshmen dorm, the first thing to hit me was the smell. It was a powerful mixture of dirty bathroom, feet, and bicycle tires. The bike tires were explained immediately, as there were half a dozen bikes chained to various pieces of furniture in the lounge.
I had a brother, so I recognized the scent of boy, but had never been subjected to the smell on that level. I covered my nose. Mutt laughed. “Little different than the smell of moldy books, isn’t it?”
“A little,” I agreed.
Mutt led us down a short hallway that held only three dorm rooms. As we walked by the rooms I heard the exclamations of video games being played inside. There was an animated version of gunfire followed closely by a curse word.
The last door on the hallway opened into an office. The room was crammed full with extra toilet paper, cleanser, and paper towels. It appeared the resident director shared his office with the janitor’s closet. And I thought my office was low-ranking.
Inside the tiny space there was a worn metal desk, much like my own in the library, a desk chair held together with duct tape, and two mission-style wooden chairs with stained cushioned seats. Derek, who wore a gamer T-shirt and sweatpants, slouched in the desk chair.
The one saving grace was that the RD had a window. It looked out onto the parking lot, but it was still a window, so that was something. I was starting to understand why the resident life staff was a revolving door of recent graduates. I didn’t think anyone could stand a place like this for long.
Derek blinked when he saw us step into the room. Mutt stayed in the hallway. There wasn’t enough room for his bulk. He said he trusted we had everything under control and was heading home for the night. Mains didn’t argue with him. If we needed anything, we could call the security Cub Scout on duty.
Derek stared at me. “What are you doing here?”
Mains sat on one of the stained seats. I sat on the other and tried not to think about the source of the stains. Mains put his elbows on his knees. “We are here to talk to you about Jerry.”
Derek shook his head as if coming out of a trance. “Jerry? What about him?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but Jerry is dead.”
“Dead?” Derek blinked. A shadow of pain crossed his face.
“He was killed this evening. We believe he was murdered, and we already have a suspect in custody.”
Derek swallowed several times before answering. “I can’t believe this. Is this for real?”
I looked him directly in the eye, ready for any signs I should get him some help. “Do you want me to call your uncle or aunt?”
“No. Uncle Sam wouldn’t care. He never liked Jerry. It’s too late to bother Aunt Debra.” He leaned forward as if to reach me, but the desk separated us, for which I was grateful. “It means so much to me you would come here in person to tell me.”
I could see the hero worship back in his eyes, and I wondered if I had done more harm than good by coming. Now that the case was over and Celeste was arrested for the murders, I wasn’t obligated to help Derek any longer. “I’m sure Debra wouldn’t mind under the circumstances. You shouldn’t be alone. It’s a lot to absorb in a short period of time.”
“I could stay with you,” he said.
I jerked back. “That . . . I—”
Mains came to my rescue. “That’s not a good idea.” He gave Derek a stern look.
Derek looked crestfallen. He took a deep breath. “You said you have someone in custody. Did that person kill my mom?”
“We are still building a case,” Mains said.
“So you think so.”
“Nothing about your mother’s case is certain yet.”
Derek turned to me, his eyes wide with wonderment. “You did it, didn’t you? You solved the case. I knew you would.”
“I didn’t really do anything, Derek,” I said, feeling horribly uncomfortable. “I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.”
“A lot,” Mains muttered under his breath.
Derek’s reaction wasn’t what I expected. I thought I would be coming into a situation of tears and gnashing of teeth, but he took our news with a strange amount of, well, I wouldn’t call it joy, but it was close. “Let me call your aunt.”
Derek looked at me. His expression made me shift in my seat. “No, no. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
Mains rose and pulled a card out his trench coat pocket. “Here’s another copy of my card. Call any time.”
Derek
took the card without a word.
“We’d better get going,” Mains said, and I stood as well.
Derek popped out of the desk chair. “I’ll walk you out.”
Derek paused at the dorm entrance. “I’ll see you at the library tomorrow, India. I’m working there in the afternoon.”
“It’s okay to take some time off to process everything, Derek.”
“No, no, I’ll be all right. The library is my favorite place.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
Mains and I drove the short distance back to my apartment in silence. I worried over Derek’s lack of a reaction to Jerry’s death. Was it possible he’d been afflicted by so much trauma in his young life that events like his stepfather being murdered weren’t worthy of tears? That was hard for me to believe, no matter what might have happened to him before.
“Do you have to do that a lot? Tell people about the death of a relative?” I asked Mains as he walked me to my front door.
He didn’t seem surprised by my question. “More often than I’d like.”
The rain had stopped, and the street glistened under the streetlight. Beads of water reflected the porch light as they rolled off the hats and foreheads of Ina’s leprechauns. I should have gone immediately inside my apartment. I could feel fatigue seeping into the marrow of my bones. I’d been up for over twenty hours, and my shoulders ached from the tension of the day. Tomorrow, I had to be at work bright and early in the morning. I hoped I didn’t have any classes to teach, since it was pretty clear I wouldn’t be on top of my game. I put my key in the lock, gathering the strength to turn it.
Mains broke the silence. “Derek has a thing for you.”
“I don’t know what to do about it,” I said, worry creeping into my voice. I’d been hoping I had imagined Derek’s extra attention. “He’s just a kid.”
Mains shrugged. “He doesn’t think so.”
“I feel so horrible for him. Do you know what happened to his dad?”
Mains nodded. “He hasn’t had an easy time.”
“I wonder what will happen now. Will he have to leave school? Will Debra or Lepcheck take him in? I suppose they don’t have to because he’s eighteen and of legal age, but one of them should look after him.”
“One of them should,” he said. His tone was quiet, almost hushed. “I imagine his uncle could pull a few strings to keep him at Martin and afloat until Derek gets his act together.”
“If he would.” I grimaced.
“You don’t have to help him because of your brother.”
“My brother?” I looked Mains square in the face for the first time since we’d left Martin. “What does my brother have to do with this?”
“He’s not here, and you need someone to protect.”
Was it true? I wondered. Was I helping Derek because he reminded me of Mark? Was he some type of weird brother surrogate as Mark was off globetrotting on his own? I’d always been Mark’s guardian.
“I’d better go in. We don’t want to wake Ina.”
He had a wry grin. “No, we don’t.” He leaned closer to me, and I felt my body tense up. “It was nice of you to come. I know it meant a lot to Derek.”
“He’s a good kid,” I said. My speech sounded short, as if I didn’t have enough air.
“It meant a lot to me too. It’s always hard to tell a family member that a relation has been killed. Thanks for sharing the burden.”
“You’re welcome,” I whispered.
“You know, you can’t really blame the kid for liking you,” Mains said, looking down at me.
“You can’t?” I asked.
He tweaked my ponytail, and the moment passed. I stepped into my apartment tired and confused, perhaps as confused as Derek.
Chapter Thirty
On the way to work the next morning, I stopped by the Stripling Justice Center to sign my statement. To my relief, Mains wasn’t there. I’d spent half the night wondering over the ponytail tweak and what it meant, and the other half worrying about Derek.
I slid behind the reference desk just as the library was about to open. Lasha was waiting for me. Lasha was a big black woman who loved to wear bright colors. She also loved to call people the nicknames she assigned to them. She called Bobby “Looker,” much to the appreciation of his already inflated ego. Even though I’d worked at the library for over four years, she hadn’t yet settled on a nickname for me. Instead she preferred to try out the names of developing countries.
She placed plump elbows on the reference counter. “Sri Lanka, a little bird told me you used the dumbwaiter as transportation.”
I remembered seeing Jefferson, the cataloger, when I exited the dumbwaiter last Thursday. My brow went up. “Some little bird?” Jefferson was a hulking man who looked like he was better suited for professional wrestling than cataloging for a college library.
She smiled as if she could read my thoughts. “Fine. A great big bird. Don’t do it again. You and Bobby give the students too many ideas for new ways to get in trouble. I’d much rather they get in trouble on their own. Understood?”
“Yep.”
“I also heard you had a bit of excitement at the festival.”
“You could say that, and there’s more.” I proceeded to tell her about Ina’s and my discovery the night before. “I’d be surprised if Derek comes in to work today. He said he would, but it’s a lot for a kid, for anyone, to deal with.”
Lasha nodded. “If he comes in, I’ll pull him aside and talk to him. Try to find out where his head is at. We can certainly get along without him for a few weeks.” She tapped the reference desk with her sharp nails. “Interesting to see Lepcheck involved in this.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
“No. He canceled last Friday’s deans meeting. Understandable, of course. You think he did it?”
“No,” I said.
“Me neither,” she said, sounding disappointed. “If he killed someone, it would be way off campus. There’s too much risk to his career here.”
I agreed.
After Lasha returned to her office, I pulled up the database containing the old issues of Stripling’s newspaper, the Stripling Dispatch. The paper came out three times a week and was too small to have its own morgue. So the back issues were housed in the Ryan Memorial Library. The library’s offering of space was another one of those community relationships of which Lepcheck was so fond.
First, I looked up the hit-and-run accident involving Derek’s father. The Dispatch had only started storing digital copies of its articles four years ago. Anything older than that was saved in clippings in the library’s basement. It wasn’t a place I went often if I could avoid it. The basement was dusty, dark, and smelled of rotting paper. Lasha had complained about it for years, arguing that the newspapers and journals stored there would eventually disintegrate if the temperature and humidity issues weren’t addressed by the college. So far, no one who could do anything about it had paid much attention.
Before venturing into the basement, I looked up any information the paper had about Victor’s death. There was his obituary, and then two weeks later, an article about Zach’s trust. The details of the trust weren’t listed, but it did name Tess as the sole trustee and noted that the other heirs, Debra and Lepcheck, were left out of the will.
Building my courage, I took my scrap of paper with the clipping’s numbers on it and told Andy, the student working at the checkout desk, I needed to go to the basement to pull a clipping.
He grinned. Andy knew how much I detested the basement.
The basement was off limits to library patrons, so I used my key to enter the stairwell. When I reached the bottom floor, the rotting paper smell hit me immediately. I wondered if the library could apply for a grant to get the humidity in the basement fixed. I made a mental note to mention the idea to Lasha next time we met.
The Dispatch’s morgue was in a small room behind the stairwell. That door was locked, too, but my universal key got me in.
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The clipping was right where it should have been. I knew this was thanks to our anal cataloger, Jefferson. I wouldn’t be surprised if he dreamed about alphabetizing things at night.
I decided to read the clipping while in the morgue, so that I wouldn’t have to make another trip back down to refile it.
I didn’t learn anything new from the article. It was just as AnnaMarie related. Seth Welch had been hit by an unknown driver while walking home from his office late at night. The article ended with, “Police are asking for anyone with any information about the crime to come forward.” Apparently, no one ever did.
A grainy photograph beside the article struck me. It was a picture of Tess, Seth, and a young Derek. It was a family portrait probably taken at one of the photo studios at the mall. In the picture, Derek was missing his two front teeth and grinning at the camera with a smiling parent on either side. Out of the smiling faces in that photograph, he was the only one left.
I filed the clipping back in its place. As I stepped out of the morgue, “Boo!” was shouted into my ear. I screamed and jumped three feet straight up. Bobby was bent over laughing at me.
“Jerk,” I said, after pushing my heart back behind my sternum.
Bobby gasped. “I—I couldn’t resist. Andy told me you were down here.”
“You know, patrons are going to think someone else was murdered on campus because of my scream.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “They’d never hear you down here.”
“That’s cheerful.”
“What are you doing anyway?” Bobby asked.
I told him about Derek’s father and the clipping, and then I proceeded to tell him about last night.
Bobby squinted at me. “If Mains has the murderer in custody, what are you doing wasting your time down here looking up an old crime?”
“I guess I was curious.”
“I, for one, am happy that Mains made an arrest. I don’t like the idea of you chasing after a killer.” He frowned.
Murder in a Basket (An India Hayes Mystery) Page 17