by Meg Cabot
“Yeah, she said his name was like Mark, or something,” Marnie says, breaking in on my thoughts on sizeism in the entertainment industry. “But I never saw him. I mean, they started going out just a week or so before she died. He took her to the movies. Some foreign film at the Angelika. That’s why I thought it was so strange—”
“What?” I shake my head. “That what was so strange?”
“Well, I mean, that a guy who liked, you know, foreign films would be into elevator surfing. That’s so…juvenile. The freshmen guys are into it. You know, the ones with the baggy pants, who look about twelve years old? But this guy was older. You know. Sophisticated. According to Beth. So what was he doing, encouraging her to jump around on top of an elevator?”
I sit down next to Marnie on the enormous bed.
“Did she tell you that?” I ask. “Did she tell you he wanted her to go elevator surfing with him?”
“No,” Marnie says. “But he had to have, right? I mean, she’d never have gone alone. I doubt she even knew what it was.”
“Maybe she went with some of those freshmen guys you mentioned,” Cooper suggests.
Marnie makes a face. “No way,” she says. “Those guys’d never have invited her along with them. They’re too cool—or think they are—to be interested in someone like her. Besides, if she’d been with them, she wouldn’t have fallen. Those guys wouldn’t have let her. They’re good at it.”
“You weren’t here, were you, the night she died?” I ask.
“Me? No, I had an audition. We aren’t supposed to audition as freshmen, you know”—she looks sly—“but I figured I had a good shot. I mean, come on. It’s Broadway. If I got into a Broadway show, I’d quit this place in a New York minute.”
“So Elizabeth had the room to herself that night?” I ask.
“Yeah. She was having him over. The guy. She was real excited about it. You know, she was making a romantic dinner for two on the hot plate.” Marnie looks suspicious. “Hey—you’re not going to tell, are you? That we have a hot plate? I know it’s a fire hazard, but—”
“The guy, Mark,” I interrupt. “Or whatever his name was. Did he show? That night?”
“Yeah,” Marnie says. “At least, I assume he did. They were gone by the time I got home, but they left the dinner plates in the sink. I had to do them, to keep them from attracting bugs. You know, you would think for what we’re paying to live here, you guys would have regular exterminators—”
“Did anyone else meet him?” Cooper interrupts. “This Mark guy? Any of your mutual friends?”
“Beth and I didn’t have any mutual friends,” Marnie says, a bit scathingly. “I told you, she was a loser. I mean, I was her roommate, but I wouldn’t have hung out with her. I didn’t even find out she was dead until, like twenty-four hours after the fact. She never came back to the room that night. I just figured, you know, she was over at the guy’s place.”
“Did you tell this to the police?” Cooper asks. “About Elizabeth having the guy over the night she died?”
“Yeah,” Marnie says, with a shrug. “They didn’t seem to care. I mean, it’s not like the guy murdered her. She died because of her own stupidity. I mean, I don’t care how much wine you’ve had, you don’t jump around on top of an elevator—”
I suck in my breath. “They were drinking? Mark and your roommate?”
“Yeah,” Marnie says. “I found the bottles in the trash. Two of them. Pretty expensive, too. Mark must have brought them. They were, like, twenty bucks each. The guy’s a big spender, for someone who lives in a hellhole like this.”
I catch my breath.
“Wait—he lives in Fischer Hall?”
“Yeah. I mean, he’d have to, wouldn’t he? ’Cause she never had to sign him in.”
Good grief! I’d never thought of this! That Beth might actually have had a boy in her room, but that there was no record of her having signed one in, because he hadn’t had to be signed in. He lives in the building! He’s a resident of Fischer Hall, too!
I look up at Cooper. I’m not sure where all this was leading, but I have a pretty good idea that it’s leading somewhere…somewhere important. I can’t tell if he feels the same, though.
“Marnie,” I say. “Is there anything, anything else at all that you can tell us about this guy your roommate was seeing?”
“All I can tell you,” Marnie says, sounding annoyed, “is what I already said—that his name is Mark or something, he likes foreign films, has expensive taste in wine, and that I’m pretty sure he lives here. Oh, and Beth kept saying how cute he was. But how cute could he be? I mean, why would a cute guy be interested in Beth? She was a dog.”
The student-run newspaper, the Washington Square Reporter, had run a photo of Elizabeth the Monday after her death, a photo from the freshmen class yearbook, and Marnie, I’m sorry to say, wasn’t exaggerating. Elizabeth hadn’t been a pretty girl. No makeup, thick glasses, outdated, Farrah Fawcett–style hair, and a smile that was mostly gums.
Still, photos by school-hired photographers are never all that flattering, and I had assumed that Elizabeth was actually prettier than this photo indicated.
But maybe my assumption was wrong.
Or maybe, just maybe, Marnie’s jealous because her roommate had a boyfriend, and she didn’t.
Hey, it happens. You don’t need a sociology degree—or a private investigator’s license—to know that.
Cooper and I thank Marnie and leave—though we couldn’t escape without Marnie launching, once again, into a chorus of I-know-I-know-you-from-somewhere. By the time we make it out into the hallway, I’m cursing, as I do nearly every day, my decision—or, I should say, my mom’s decision—to forgo my secondary education for a career in the music industry.
Trudging back down the stairs in silence, I wonder if Cooper is right. Am I crazy? I mean, do I really think there’s some psycho stalking the freshwomen of Fischer Hall, talking them into elevator surfing with him after having his way with them, then pushing them to their deaths?
When we reach the tenth-floor landing, I say, experimentally, “I once read this article in a magazine about thrill killers. You know, guys who murder for the fun of it.”
“Sure,” Cooper says dryly. “In the movies. It doesn’t happen so often in real life. Most crimes are crimes of passion. People aren’t really as sick as we like to imagine.”
I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He has no idea how sick my imagination is. Like how at that very moment I was imagining knocking him down and ripping off all his clothes with my teeth.
I wasn’t. Well, not really. But I could have been.
“Somebody should probably speak to the other girl’s roommate,” I say, resolutely pushing away my fantasy about Cooper’s clothes and my teeth. “You know, the one who died today. Ask her about the condom. Maybe she knows who it belonged to.”
Cooper looks down at me, those ultra-blue eyes boring into me.
“Let me guess,” he says. “You think it might belong to a guy named Mark who likes foreign films and has expensive taste in Bordeaux.”
“It won’t hurt to ask.”
“You got a guy on your staff who fits that description?” Cooper wants to know.
“Well,” I say, thinking about it. “No. Not really.”
“Then how’d he get the key from behind the reception desk?”
I frown.
“Haven’t worked that part out yet, have you?” Cooper asks, before I can reply. “Look, Heather. There’s more to this detective stuff than snooping around, asking questions. There’s also knowing when there’s actually something worth snooping around about. And I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing it here.”
I suck in my breath. “But…the condom! The mystery man!”
Cooper shakes his head. “It’s sad about those girls. It really is. But think about how you were when you were eighteen, Heather. You did crazy things, too. Maybe not as crazy as climbing onto the roof of an elevator on a dare, b
ut—”
“They didn’t,” I say, fiercely. “I’m telling you, those girls did not do that.”
“Well, they ended up at the bottom of a shaft somehow,” Cooper says. “And while I know you’d like to think it’s because some evil man pushed them, there are nearly a thousand kids who live in this dorm, Heather. Don’t you think one of them might have noticed a guy shoving his girlfriend down an elevator shaft? And don’t you think that person would have told someone what they’d seen?”
I blink a few more times. “But…but…”
But I can’t think of anything else to say.
Then he looks at his watch. “Look. I’m late for an appointment. Can we play Murder, She Wrote again later? Because I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah,” I say, faintly. “I guess.”
“Okay. See you,” he says. And continues down the stairs at a clip so fast, there’s no way I’ll catch up with him.
Though on the landing below, he stops, turns, and looks up at me. His eyes are amazingly blue.
“And just so you know,” he says.
“Yes?” I lean eagerly over the stair railing. The reason I’m so against you investigating this on your own, I am expecting—well, okay, hoping—he’ll say, is because I can’t stand the thought of you putting yourself in harm’s way. You see, I love you, Heather. I always have.
“We’re out of milk,” is what he says instead. “Pick some up on your way home, if you remember, okay?”
“Okay,” I say weakly.
And then he’s gone.
10
* * *
Let’s run away
Someplace that’s
Warm all day
I’ll make it worth your while
If you stay
I said
Let’s run away
Throw all our cares away
They can’t tell us
What to do
This time it’s just
Me and you
“Run Away”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Rocket Pop
Cartwright Records
* * *
“Who was that?” Sarah wants to know. “That guy who left just now?”
“That?” I slip behind my desk. “That was Cooper.”
“Your roommate?” I guess Sarah has overheard me on the phone with him or something.
“Housemate,” I say. “Well, landlord, really. I live in the top floor of his brownstone.”
“So he’s cute and rich?” Sarah is practically salivating. “Why haven’t you jumped his bones?”
“We’re just friends,” I say, each word feeling like a kick in the head. We’re. Kick. Just. Kick. Friends. Kick. “Besides, I’m not exactly his type.”
Sarah looks shocked. “He’s gay? But my gaydar didn’t go off at all—”
“No, he’s not gay!” I cry. “He just…he likes accomplished women.”
“You’re accomplished,” Sarah says, indignantly. “Your first album went platinum when you were only fifteen!”
“I mean educated,” I say, wishing hard we were talking about something—anything—else. “He likes women with, you know, a lot of degrees. Who are stunningly attractive. And skinny.”
“Oh,” Sarah says, losing interest. “Like Rachel, you mean.”
“Yeah,” I say, my heart sinking, for some reason. “Like Rachel.”
Is that really true? Does Cooper like women like Rachel—women whose handbags match their shoes? Women who understand what PowerPoint is, and know how to use it? Women who eat their salad with the dressing on the side, and can do hundreds of sit-ups without getting out of breath? Women who went to Yale? Women who shower instead of bathe, the way I do, because I’m too lazy to stand up that long?
Before I have a chance to really think about it, Rachel comes running in, her dark hair mussed, but still sexy-looking, and says, “Oh, Heather, there you are. Where have you been?”
“I was upstairs with one of the investigators,” I say. It’s even true. Sort of. “They needed to get into the dead girl’s room—”
“Oh,” Rachel says, losing interest. “Well, now that you’re back, could you call counseling services and see if they can see someone right away? Roberta’s roommate is in a state—”
I perk right up.
“Sure,” I say, reaching for my phone, my promise to Cooper that I would quit playing Murder, She Wrote promptly forgotten. “No problem. You want someone to walk her over there?”
“Oh, yes.” Rachel may have been dealing with a tragedy, but you would never have known it to look at her. Her Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress clings to her lithe figure in all the right places, and none of the wrong ones (the way wrap dresses do on me) and there are bright spots of color in her cheeks. “Do you think you can find someone?”
“I’d be happy to help,” I say.
Sure, I feel a twinge of guilt as I say it. I mean, that my willingness to lend a hand has more to do with a desire to question the dead girl’s roommate than actually to help her.
But not enough to stop myself.
I call counseling services. Of course they’ve already heard about “the second tragedy,” so they tell me to bring the roommate, Lakeisha Green, right over. One of my job responsibilities is personally to escort students who’ve been referred to counseling services to the building that houses it, because once a student who was sent over by herself got lost on the way and ended up in Washington Heights wearing her bra on her head and insisting that she was Cleopatra.
Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.
Lakeisha is sitting in a corner of the cafeteria under a kitten poster Magda had hung on the wall to brighten the place up, since, as Magda puts it, antique stained glass windows and mahogany wainscoting are just plain “ugly on the eye.” Magda is there, too, trying to coax Lakeisha into eating some Gummi Bears.
“Just a few?” Magda is saying, as she dangles a plastic bag full of them in front of Lakeisha’s face. “Please? You can have them for free. I know you like them, last night you bought a bag with your friends.”
Lakeisha—just to be polite, you can tell—takes the bag. “Thank you,” she murmurs.
Magda beams, then, when she notices me, whispers, “My poor little movie star. She won’t eat a thing.”
Then, in an even lower voice, Magda asks, “Who was that man Pete and I saw you with today, Heather? The handsome one?”
“That was Cooper,” I say, since I’ve told Magda all about Cooper…as one does, naturally, discuss hotties over sloppy joes on one’s lunch break.
“That was Cooper?” Magda looks aghast. “Oh, honey, no wonder—”
“No wonder what?”
“Oh, never mind.” Magda pats me on the arm in a gesture that would have been comforting if I hadn’t, you know, been terrified of being poked by one her nails. “It will turn out all right. Maybe.”
“Uh, thanks.” I’m not at all sure what she was talking about…or that I wanted to know. I turn my attention to Roberta Pace’s roommate.
Lakeisha looks really, really sad. Her hair is done up in braids all over her head, and at the end of each braid is a brightly colored bead. The beads click together whenever Lakeisha moves her head.
“Lakeisha,” I say, gently. “I understand you have an appointment to speak to someone at counseling services. I’m here to walk you there. Are you ready to go?”
Lakeisha nods. But she doesn’t stand up. I glance at Magda.
“Maybe she wants a rest,” Magda says. “Does my little movie star want a rest?”
Lakeisha hesitates a moment. Then she says, “No, it’s okay. Let’s go.”
“You sure you don’t want a DoveBar?” Magda asks. Because DoveBars are, actually, the solution to nearly every problem in the universe.
But Lakeisha just shakes her head, causing her hair beads to rattle musically.
Which is surely how she stays so skinny. Refus
ing DoveBars when offered, I mean. I can’t remember ever turning down an offer of free ice cream. Especially a DoveBar.
Our walk out of the building is slow-paced and somber. They are letting students back into the building a few at a time, with the warning that they’ll have to use the stairs to get to their rooms. As one might expect in such a small community, word of another death has spread fast, and when the students see Lakeisha and me leaving the building together, there is a lot of whispering—“That’s the roommate,” I hear, and someone else responding, “Oh, poor thing.” Lakeisha either doesn’t hear it or chooses to ignore it. She walks with her head held high, but her gaze lowered.
We’re standing on the street corner, waiting for the crossing sign to change, when I finally get the courage to bring up what I want to know.
“Lakeisha,” I say. “Do you know if Roberta had a date last night?”
Lakeisha looks over at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. She’s a tiny little thing, all cheekbones and knees. The little bag of Gummi Bears Magda had pressed on her, and which she still carries, seems to be weighing her down.
She says, “Excuse me?” in a soft voice.
“Your roommate. Did she have a date last night?”
“I think so. I don’t really know,” Lakeisha replies, in an apologetic whisper that’s hard to hear above the sound of all the traffic. “I went out last night—I had dance rehearsal at eight. Bobby was asleep by the time I got back. It was real late, after midnight. And she was still asleep when I went down to breakfast this morning.”
Bobby. Had they been close, Lakeisha and her Ziggy-loving roommate? They must have been, if she’d called her Bobby. What am I doing, interrogating the poor girl this way, after she’s had such a shock?
Is Jordan right? About what he’d accused me the other day. Had I turned hard?
I guess so, since next thing I knew, I was trying again.
“The reason I ask, Lakeisha—” I feel like a total and complete heel. Maybe it’s all right, you know, if you feel like a jerk. Know what I mean? I mean, I’ve read that crazy people—sorry, I mean mentally disturbed people—never consider themselves mentally disturbed. So maybe real jerks never consider themselves jerks. So the fact that I feel like a jerk means that I couldn’t possibly be one…