All The Pretty Dead Girls

by John Manning

  “And they need the sheriff for that?” Wally grinned. “She’s probably just off having a good time.”

  “I don’t think so. Her bike was found by a delivery man this morning outside the front gate.” He lowered his voice. “Blood everywhere.”

  “Jesus,” Wally said.

  “You gonna get cooking the order?” Rosie said, sticking in her nose.

  “Some girl got murdered up at Wilbourne,” Wally told her in a harsh whisper.

  “Now we don’t know that, Wally.” Miles gave him a face. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” He looked over at Rosie, a thin woman in her late thirties who might have been pretty once, but now seemed dry and brittle. “But I want people to be on their guard if we’ve got some attacker running around out there.”

  “No body?” Wally asked.

  Miles shook his head.

  “How they taking it at the college?”

  “Well, you know how they get up there about them girls. They act like it’s a convent and every girl in there doesn’t have red blood flowing through her veins.” Miles sighed. “We’ve got the state forensics team heading up there, so I gotta be off.”

  “Take a few minutes and eat something.” Wally coaxed. “Be easier to get through the morning with a full stomach, you know.”

  “Nah, I’ve been dawdling as it is.” Miles shook his head. “I’ll be back in later before I go into the office. I’ll have my breakfast then.” He stood and picked up the coffee. “Just didn’t have the stomach for eating a lot of grease after seeing all that.”

  “Given the circumstances,” Wally said, “I’ll forgive you for calling my food greasy.”

  Miles grinned and gave him a thumb’s-up sign. Then he was off.

  Wally watched as he drove off. Miles waved as he backed out of his spot, turned on his flashers, and headed off down the road at a steady clip in the direction of the college.

  Somewhere in his mind, Wally seemed to recall another incident at Wilbourne a long time ago. He’d have to ask Marjorie later if she remembered what it was.

  For some reason, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking all morning as he fried eggs and toasted bread.

  14

  “This is the last time I’m telling you to get up, Billy!” his mother shouted from the doorway. “You get out of that bed right now or you’re going to be sorry! I mean it!” The door slammed behind her hard enough to shake the house.

  Sixteen-year-old Billy Honeycutt yawned and sat up in bed, stretching his long arms out overhead as the yawn deepened. First day of school, he thought, a smile starting to creep over his face. First day of my senior year in high school!

  His mouth tasted sour and his shoulder-length blond hair was standing up in every direction from his head. He kicked off the covers and stood up, stretching up to his full six-foot-three height, feeling his back crack just a little bit. That felt good. His muscles were a little sore, and there was a big bruise on his right shoulder from football practice. He grabbed a pair of underwear out of a dresser drawer and walked into the bathroom adjoining his room. Stepping out of his underwear, he stood naked in front of the mirror flexing his arms. Years of weight training for football and baseball had thickened and strengthened his body, and Billy was proud of it.

  He smiled at himself. There was a patch of blond hair in the center of his chest, and a trail of blond down stretching to the thick patch at his pelvis. He brushed his teeth and washed his face and checked to see if he needed to shave. Nope. He’d shaved yesterday morning before church; every other day was usually enough. He also didn’t need to shower; he’d taken care of that last night before bed. His mother had made it a requirement before agreeing to let him work at the McDonald’s down near the highway. “You aren’t getting into my nice sheets all covered in grease and smelling like onions,” she’d said. “You need to shower every night after you get home from work.”

  Billy knew he was a good-looking guy—the way the girls at school fawned all over him, it’d be kind of hard not to notice. That had started back in grammar school, and he’d never once lacked a date or a “steady’ girl at any time—unless he chose not to have one. Every so often, he’d break up with whomever he was seeing just to be alone for a while—to see how many girls showed interest in him. He was rarely disappointed. He started humming to himself. He wasn’t thrilled about going back to school, but it was his senior year. Syracuse, Colgate, and Boston College had shown interest in him already. If he had his way, it would be Boston—even if it was a Catholic school. He liked the idea of being a college student in a big city like Boston—the other colleges were in towns he didn’t think were big enough. He’d only been to Boston once, but he loved everything about the city, even though his eighth-grade history class had been forced to spend the day at historic sites. Yes, if Boston College wanted him, that’s where he was going.

  Billy smiled to himself. The first day of school also meant no more two-a-day practices, and he sure hated those.

  He smudged some gel into his hair and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts, heading back into his bedroom. The sight of his mother sitting at his desk almost made him jump out of his skin.

  “Mom!” Embarrassed, Billy grabbed a pair of jeans off the top of the pile of dirty clothes just outside his closet door and pulled them on. “What are you doing in here?” He buttoned the fly and shifted from foot to foot.

  She was barely five feet tall and almost as round as she was tall, and her face was set in a hard-looking line. “I need to talk to you.”

  Panicked, he started running through options in his mind. Did she find the bag of pot in the wheel well in the trunk of my car? Did she find out Heidi and I have been doing it? Did she find my pack of condoms? She couldn’t know we went out drinking Saturday night…what is this about?

  “Do you know a girl named Bonnie Warner?” She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me the truth.”

  “Bonnie Warner?” That came out of left field. “No, I don’t think so—”

  “Yes, you do. She was tutoring Heidi’s sister Amy. You told me a girl from Wilbourne was coming by to tutor her. You mentioned her to me.”

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” Billy remembered the name now. His girlfriend’s bratty little sister was flunking math class and so some Wilbournian chick was helping her out. He’d seen her last night at Heidi’s house, in fact. “So what’s up with asking me about her?”

  “She was there last night when you were there, right?”

  Billy nodded.

  “Did you talk with her?”

  For the first time, Billy noticed his mother was holding a pad of paper in her hands, and was jotting down notes as he talked.

  “Yeah, maybe for a minute or so.” He gave her a cocky little grin. “She’s not really my type. Kind of dykey actually.”

  “Don’t use words like that, Billy.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What time did you see her?”

  “Mom, what is going on?”

  “Just answer me, please.”

  He sighed. “I guess it was about nine thirty. Yeah, I remember she wanted to get on the road because it was getting late.”

  “And you didn’t offer her a ride? A girl on a bicycle on dark roads that late at night?”

  Billy made a face. “Mom, I hardly know her. She always takes her bike.” He leaned in toward her and took hold of the pad in his mother’s hands. “Tell me what is going on, please!”

  “Bonnie Warner never made it back to her dorm last night.” Billy’s mother stared at him. “You don’t know where she might have gone, do you?”

  “No.” He pulled on an Eminem T-shirt he knew his mother hated, and started digging through his sock drawer. “I don’t really know her at all. You know how Wilbourne girls are—they think they’re too good to talk to any of us. Like they’ll catch something if they talk to us.” That wasn’t true about Bonnie—she had seemed nice enough—but he knew his mother hated the college and it was easy to score points with her by bashin
g Wilbourne.

  She smiled faintly. “You don’t know if she had a boyfriend? If she was seeing anyone? I’ve asked Heidi’s mother, but she’s just too rattled by the whole thing to talk much. Did she ever mention who she hung out with?”

  Billy smirked. “So you’re writing an article about her disappearance? Is that what this is?”

  “Billy, please, just answer me. If you have any leads at all—”

  “I told you, I hardly knew her, I never really spoke with her. She was always huddled with Amy talking about trigonometry or algebra or something obscene like that.”

  “Oh, all right.” His mother flipped her notebook shut. “But see if you can get Heidi to call me sometime today. I’d like to ask her a few questions, see what she might know.”

  “She’s not going to know much either,” Billy told her.

  “Well, hurry up and finish getting dressed. I have to get to the office, so have some Cheerios for breakfast. And I can’t drop Meghan off at school, so you’ll have to do it for me.”

  “Aw, Mommmm—”

  “I don’t want hear it.” She pointed her index finger at him. “It won’t kill you to help out a bit around here, now will it? I have to get to work at the newspaper so I can keep food on the table.” She glanced around the room and her face reddened a bit. “And pick up this room! How can you stand to live in a pigsty like this? It stinks in here. When I get home from work tonight, this room better be straightened up, or I’m throwing everything in the trash, do you understand me? Starting with your letter jacket.”

  “Mommmmm—”

  The door slammed behind her. Billy let out a long sigh, then pulled on his shoes and socks. He glanced around the room. Reluctantly, he picked up a few dirty clothes and tossed them into the hamper. The bed was still unmade. This would have to do for “straightening up.”

  He was humming as he headed out of the room. Just to be safe, he grabbed his letter jacket and took it with him.

  15

  Ginny Marshall was having one of those mornings that made her wish she could just go back to bed. Or kill myself, she thought with a rueful grin as she examined herself in the parking lot of the administration building, which housed her office. Well, better yet, kill Dean Gregory.

  It started when her coffeemaker broke while she was in the shower. She came out in her robe, longing for her first cup, only to discover that something was wrong with the damned thing and the pot was smoking on the burner. She threw the whole thing in the trash.

  Eyes and mind foggy, she headed downstairs to beg a cup of coffee from her landlady. Mrs. Seibert was a soft-spoken widow in her early seventies who spent, it seemed, most of her life working in the yard or on the phone talking to her grandchildren. She was a great landlady as far as that was concerned—she kept her distance, which was a huge relief to Ginny. When she’d first moved in, she was afraid Mrs. Seibert would be one of those lonely old women who would be pestering her constantly for company. And while the apartment itself wasn’t as big as the town house she’d had in Boston, it was comfortable and cozy.

  Unfortunately, on this particular morning, Mrs. Seibert had just gotten off the phone with her oldest granddaughter, who’d just gotten engaged—and Ginny found that her landlady wanted to talk. So Ginny just gritted her teeth and let the older woman pour out her woes and worries about her granddaughter at the same time she poured the coffee. Finally, Ginny was able to make her escape by pretending she’d be late for work.

  But more was still to come. After grabbing her briefcase and heading out to the driveway, she discovered her rear driver’s side tire was flat. Irritated and cursing, she changed the tire, getting oil and grease all over her hands and slacks, necessitating a change of clothes. After dropping the flat off at Bud’s Shell, she finally headed out to the college.

  All the way there, she kept rehearsing in her head what she would say in her meeting with Dean Gregory. No other faculty member has to get his or her curriculum approved by the dean, or clear it ahead of time with you. Of course my classes are controversial. Their purpose is to encourage intelligent debate about religion and its history. I do not teach that the Bible is wrong, or that Christianity is wrong, but no one can argue that the Bible hasn’t been edited, and the Christian Church has historically been used by a male-dominated society for political purposes and to pursue agendas that are diametrically opposed to what the Bible actually says and teaches. The Church has been anti-woman almost from its very beginnings—and the Book of Revelation in particular has been used and misused.

  And if logic and rationality didn’t work, she could always play the Harvard card.

  As the only faculty member who not only had her doctorate from Harvard, but also had been a full tenured professor there, Ginny knew she had some clout. She didn’t like to swing that weight around, but if she had to, she would.

  The thought made her smile. She wasn’t big on confrontation in her personal life—nor was she big on “tooting her own horn,” as her agent, Angela Cohen, often pointed out to her. But she would not stand for infringements on her freedom to teach as she saw fit.

  Ginny enjoyed the drive out to the college—the smell of the apple orchards, the low-slanting rays of a pink morning sun. Even though it took less than half an hour, there was something almost zenlike for Ginny driving through the countryside. But the calmness that settled her anxiety over Dean Gregory was short-lived.

  As she reached the college entrance, Ginny’s eyes widened. All along both sides of the road were police cars with their lights flashing. She could see uniformed men wandering through the woods on the opposite side of the road from the college entrance. There were state police cars along with the Lebanon cops.

  “What the hell?” Ginny stepped on the brake, rolling down her window. “What’s going on, Sheriff?”

  She liked Miles Holland. He was one of the few people in Lebanon who’d remained friendly to her after that damned article had appeared—and he’d been the one to suggest calling in the FBI when she got the threatening e-mails. “I won’t put up with that kind of bullshit in my town,” he’d told her. “If they’re playing pranks, let ’em think about that when they’re behind bars.”

  He smiled as he saw her now. “Morning, Dr. Ginny,” he called, heading toward her car. He always called her “Dr. Ginny,” with a slight teasing sound in his voice that always made her want to giggle a little bit.

  “What’s going on?” she asked again.

  Miles was at her window now. “Seems like one of your students went missing last night.”

  “Missing?” Ginny put the car in park. “From the dorm?” She felt a knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

  The sheriff scratched his head as he leaned in her window. “Best as I can piece it together, she never made it back from town last night. We found her bike by the front gate.” He paused. “There was a lot of blood, but no trace of the girl.”

  Ginny felt sick. “Who—is she?”

  “Name’s Bonnie Warner.”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  Miles looked in at her. “You know her, Ginny?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. I saw her. Last night.”

  “When? Where?”

  “At the Yellow Bird. I’d stopped in, and she came in to get a cup of coffee. She was concerned when she saw me, because she shouldn’t have been off campus at that hour.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  Ginny sighed. “I agreed not to report her. She had been in town, where she tutors a girl. She said she needed the extra money to buy textbooks.”

  Miles was nodding. “Yeah. I’ve been over to talk to the girl she was tutoring and her mother. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”

  “I should have insisted I give her a ride.”

  Miles looked at her kindly. “She apparently has been making the same bike ride all summer. There was no reason to think last night would be any different.”

  Ginny felt her stomach twist. “But apparently it was. You said th
ere was blood…?”

  “Ginny, I’ll call you later, or maybe have Perry come by. To get an official statement from you. Is that okay?”

  She nodded. Miles called ahead to tell his men to let her car through. Ginny’s head felt light, as if she might faint. Bonnie’s face hovered in front her, her plaintive plea not to report her ringing in Ginny’s ears. She liked Bonnie. The girl had been in her Bible and Women class the previous semester. Bonnie had been a good student, rather quiet, only speaking when called on—but she’d always had a valid point to make when she did speak up. In her term paper, she’d made some excellent points that had surprised Ginny with their thoughtfulness. Bonnie had obviously not only been paying close attention in class, but had done some outside research on her own.

  Ginny sat behind the wheel of her car after parking in her designated spot. She couldn’t move. She felt frozen in guilt. Blood. There had been blood. That meant something terrible had happened to Bonnie. She might even be dead.

  Why didn’t I insist on driving her?

  Finally, she was able to get out of the car and make her way into the building. The theology department shared its office area with the history department. All of the professors had small offices off a hallway that jutted out in either direction from a central reception area. Both departments shared a single secretary, Hazel Westwood, who was on the phone when Ginny walked into the office.

  “Did you hear, Dr. Marshall?” Hazel’s nasal voice was especially hard to take this morning. “One of the scholarship girls is missing.” There was a smug note of triumph in her voice, as if she were trying very hard not to smile.

  Ginny glared at her. Though blue-collar herself, Hazel looked down her snub nose at the girls who attended Wilbourne on scholarships, as though they didn’t belong among the high-class princesses on campus. More than once, when Hazel made a snide reference to “scholarship girls,” Ginny had had to bite back a stinging retort.