“No, it warn’t in my pants when I got arrested.” He looked at Malachi. “Anybody in my tent?”
Malachi nodded. “Somebody done stole Slick and Elise’s tent while they in jail. They moved into yours when they got out.”
“Who done stole a whole tent?”
Malachi shrugged. He had an idea, but he didn’t want Ralph going after him.
“Malachi, I need you to find my phone.”
“Where you put it?”
“I buried it in one of them lunchboxes, then pitch the tent on top of it.”
“Why you do that?”
“There’s somethin’ on it that might show the po-lice I ain’t kilt Maylene.”
Pastor Liam and Malachi looked at each other, and Liam spoke up. “Like a voicemail?”
“A video,” Ralph said.
“What kinda video?” asked Malachi. “Them gov’ment phones don’t got video.”
“I bought me a phone. Worked a lot of day labor last year.”
Malachi and Liam waited for him to continue.
Ralph breathed noisily through his nose. “You ’member last winter when them college boys come under the bridge and beat up Max?”
Malachi nodded. “Well, I caught ’em on my phone. I followed the boys and saw what frat house they went to. The Robies, they call theirselves. I tried to talk to one of ’em, but he was roarin’ drunk. Threw a wild punch and busted my nose.
“I went back to my tent and thought ’bout it and thought ’bout it. Ol’ Max was so drunk he didn’ wanna report it and couldna told the po-lice nothin’ noway. But I had their faces on my phone.
“A few days later, I went back to the frat house and found the guy who was the ringleader. He was sobered up, and when I played the tape for him, he ’bout peed his pants. He said he’d pay me not to report it to the po-lice. So I let ’im.”
“What was his name?” asked Liam.
“Jones Rinehart.”
Malachi saw Pastor’s mouth stretch into a thin line. “How much he pay you?” Malachi asked.
Ralph’s face reddened. “A hunnerd at first. Then I realized that warn’t nothin’ for this rich boy. So ’nother two hunnerd. That’s when I got the idea.”
Malachi and Liam looked up.
“If this frat boy was willing to pay three hunnerd – and who knew how high he’d go? – what ’bout the other frats? And whatta ’bout the girls? The sor-rah-ri-ties. I mean that fancy-ass school costs fifty grand a year.” Ralph looked down at the table. “So I started hangin’ ’round.”
Malachi glanced at Pastor Liam to see how he was taking this news. He looked disgusted. “And?” he said.
“I got a lot of kids throwin’ up,” Ralph said, “and makin’ out. Didn’ think nobody gonna pay for that. But then I shot a video at one of them girls’ parties durin’ rush or pledge or whatever they call it. That’s the one I think the po-lice might be inter’sted in.”
“Why?” Liam asked.
Ralph leaned back with a look more haunted than satisfied. Malachi could barely hear his next words.
“’Cause it’s got them dead girls in it.”
Chapter Four
Branigan, Malachi and Detective Scovoy stood outside Slick and Elise’s tent under the Michael Garner Memorial Bridge. It was cooler now that they were out of the sun, and Branigan pulled her thin sweater around her.
Detective Scovoy grabbed the tent flap and shook it. “Grambling Police,” he called.
Elise’s head, her patchy brown hair covered with a red scarf, popped out. “Whatchu want?” she said irritably.
“We have a tip that something’s buried under this tent, ma’am.” He showed his badge. “We need to move your tent just a few feet.”
When Elise continued to stare at him, he added, “We’ll be glad to help you set it back up, ma’am.”
She ignored him. “Whatchu doin’ wit’ the po-lice, Mal’chi?”
Malachi shrugged. Branigan knew they were placing him in a difficult position with his Tent City neighbors, but he answered anyway. “When Ralph be livin’ in this tent, he bury somethin’ under it we gotta see. Where Slick?” Not for the first time, Branigan marveled at how Malachi’s speech pattern changed to match whomever he was speaking to.
Elise flounced back into her tent, shouting over her shoulder, “He diden come home las’ night. Good riddance.”
The three of them quickly emptied Elise’s tent, carefully clearing a space on a nearby picnic table for her sleeping bag, blankets and belongings. By the time they had finished, the only other Tent City occupants around at mid-day on a Saturday appeared from a shack atop the concrete incline. The two men crab-walked down the slope, then stood silently beside a cold fire pit to watch.
“We may not even have to move the tent,” said Detective Scovoy. “If we can lift the stakes on one side and hold up the floor, one of us can dig.”
Branigan and Malachi held up the canvas floor while Scovoy worked with the shovel they’d brought from Liam’s house. It wasn’t hard to see where the red dirt had been disturbed.
After just a few inches, the shovel struck metal, and Scovoy shimmied the tool around until he pulled out a Star Wars lunchbox. He brushed the dirt off the latch and popped it open. Inside was an empty plastic lunch bag.
“Damn it!” the detective exclaimed.
He turned to Malachi. “You’re our best hope,” he said. “Who could’ve gotten to it?”
Malachi shook his head, which Branigan took to mean he’d prefer to move the conversation elsewhere. So the trio quickly re-staked Elise’s tent. “Do you want us to move your things back in?” Branigan asked.
“Yeah, but jus’ mine,” Elise said. “We gonna leave Slick’s out here where he gon’ be stayin’.” Elise found a box of cereal bars a church group had left on the picnic table, and unwrapped one. As the three left Tent City, she sat at the table’s attached bench, eating and balefully watching them go.
“Ralph ain’t coming back, iz he?” she called to Detective Scovoy.
“No way of knowing yet,” he answered as they rounded the river birch at the encampment’s opening. “Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am.”
Branigan, Malachi and Detective Scovoy walked to Branigan’s Civic, parked at Ricky’s Quick Mart.
“Okay if we go back to Liam’s,” she asked as they piled in, “since he was the one who got Ralph talking?”
They were silent as she pulled into the Delaneys’ driveway, and knocked on the side door to the kitchen. Liam met them and led them to the living room, where Charlie sat on a sofa upholstered in yellow and white striped chintz, a bowl of tomato soup on a tray in front of her.
“Can I get anyone anything?” Liam offered. “Soup? Iced tea, Malachi?”
They waved him off. “The phone was gone,” Branigan blurted.
Liam sank into a recliner. “You’re kidding.”
Detective Scovoy held up the Star Wars lunchbox. “Everything was exactly as Ralph described to you, but there was only an empty plastic bag inside.” He turned to Malachi. “Like I said, you’re our best bet on who would have it.”
“You saw there ain’t no privacy in Tent City,” Malachi said. “’Most anybody coulda seen Ralph bury it. Most likely people, though, would be Slick or Elise. They coulda felt somethin’ bumpy under their sleeping bags. Or Maylene coulda taken it.”
“Maylene,” Branigan said. The others looked at her. “Liam, tell us again what Ralph said was on the video.”
“He’d been talking about his intention of filming rush or pledge parties in order to blackmail people. Then he said this video’s ‘got them dead girls in it’.”
“Well, Janie Rose and Maylene went through rush,” said Branigan, “so I guess they could’ve been at any sorority party. And they pledged Gamma Delta Phi, but those girls are so goody-goody,
it’s hard to imagine him getting any blackmail material on them.”
Detective Scovoy stood and turned to Liam and Malachi. “And you two can’t remember anything else Ralph said?”
When they shook their heads, he said, “Guess it’s time to question him myself.”
After Detective Scovoy and Malachi had gone, Branigan stayed for awhile with Charlie and Liam. “How you doing, girlie?” Branigan asked, pulling up a footstool near Charlie’s seat on the sofa.
“Much better. Now that I’m getting work on my teeth, I feel a lot more positive.”
“Casts coming off soon?”
“Yeah, Monday, I hope.”
“Any more dreams?”
“Yeah, a new one that tops all the others. Mrs Santa Claus is chasing me in a sleigh.”
Branigan laughed. “Not Mr Claus?”
“No, it’s definitely Mrs Claus, which is bizarre because I’ve never even thought of her driving the sleigh. And there are all these evil, giggling elves sliding around and riding the reindeer.” Charlie laughed and held up her hands. “I know it sounds ridiculous in the light of day. But when I have it in the middle of the night, I wake up terrified. Poor Mom’s had to come to my room more than once.”
Branigan frowned. “Are you still having the dream about being in the Jeep right before the wreck?”
“Not in a few weeks. I think the hospital bed was driving that – with all the engine noise it was making.”
“Well, I’m a big believer in our subconscious trying to tell us things,” Branigan said. “Though I think we can safely dismiss Mrs Claus and the elves.” She stood. “I think I want some of your mama’s iced tea,” she said. “You two want any?”
“I’ll have some,” said Charlie.
“You know where everything is,” Liam said, waving Branigan to the kitchen to help herself. “I need to work some more on tomorrow’s sermon if you don’t mind. I’ll leave you two to it.” He went into his study and closed the door.
Branigan rummaged in the kitchen’s lacquered red cabinets for two glasses, filled them with crushed ice from the refrigerator door, then tea from a cut glass pitcher inside. After handing a glass to Charlie, she sat on the small sofa across from the girl.
“You’ve got to be feeling like you’re about to get your life back,” Branigan said.
“I do. And I want to find out what happened to Janie Rose.”
Branigan cocked her head. “How so?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Branigan raised her eyebrows. “Okay.”
“Tell me everything you learned that wasn’t in your stories. Was there anything you heard that you wanted to go back to and didn’t have time?”
“Well, yeah, Nancy Drew, now that you mention it.” Branigan hesitated. “But what do you intend to do? We’re not entirely sure you’re out of danger yourself.”
“Well, assuming I can drive after Monday, I’d like to visit Janie Rose’s apartment in Athens. Just look around and see if anything hits me.”
“Funny you should say that. Malachi had the same thought and said someone beat him to it. He said it looked like the apartment had been ransacked. We told the police that.”
“So Malachi didn’t find her journal?”
“I didn’t know there was a journal.”
“Yeah, we used to have lunch together after class. She mentioned that she journaled.”
Branigan sat back. “Wow. I wonder if it did have something in it. And if the hearse driver found it – in her apartment or at the crash site. The police don’t have it, so there’s still the possibility that the driver went through your luggage before they arrived.” She thought for a minute. “Tell me about those lunches. What else did she say?”
“I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember,” Charlie admitted. “We mostly talked about classes, homework, boys we were dating. Nothing stands out. There were usually another one or two people there too, so nothing really personal.”
“No sense of the nervousness you saw in the Jeep that last morning?”
“Not that I was aware of. I’ve been trying to think back over our conversations to see if I missed something. But I was so involved with my own settling in, you know? I’m not sure I would’ve noticed even if something was off.”
“Well, I’m interested in her time at Rutherford Lee,” Branigan said. “That seems to be where everything converges. So it might be worthwhile to circle back and check out some of the things we’ve been told. Like her mom said she dated a boy from Louisiana. And the Gamma Delts said she had a falling out with her freshman roommate. Stuff like that.”
“Wait a minute,” Charlie said. “She talked about some boy visiting her at Georgia whom she’d dated at Rutherford Lee. He came down every month or so. But then around Thanksgiving she found out he was pretty serious about another girl from Rutherford Lee, and told him not to come back.”
“You don’t know if he was from Louisiana?”
“No idea.”
“That might be worth looking into. Did she say anything about the freshman roommate?”
“Yeah, that’s why she wanted to live off-campus at UGA. By herself. She said she’d grown up as an only child and found out she didn’t particularly like having a roomie. But that’s all she said about it. To me, anyway.”
Branigan got up to leave. “Make sure you don’t do anything or go anywhere without your folks knowing,” she said. “Or someone going with you. There are plenty of people around at the college, but not in places like Janie Rose’s apartment in Athens. That could be dangerous.”
“Sounds like Mr Malachi covered that anyway.”
“Promise me.”
“Pinky swear.”
Chapter Five
Branigan attended church at First Baptist Grambling with her parents on Sunday, then stopped by the grocery store on her way home. She was choosing red pears when she saw Sylvia Eckhart looking at lettuce at the next display stand.
“Dr Eckhart,” she said.
“Well hello, Branigan,” the professor said warmly. “And please, it’s Sylvia.”
“I guess you’ll be called in on the Kappa Epsilon drinking party that ran in yesterday’s paper.”
“Already have,” said the professor. “The dean called me at home Friday night.”
“At least the girl survived.”
“No thanks to them, by the sounds of it. The dean is personally bringing charges.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Oh, yes. We have an emergency session tomorrow.”
“Can we send a reporter?”
“No, I’m sorry, the proceedings are private. But if you submit a request, we will give you the action taken. That’s how the college traditionally handles it.”
Branigan thought for a moment. “I haven’t talked to you since my interview with Mackenzie Broadus. I’m still puzzled over how the school didn’t know such a thing.”
“Believe me, we were too. Off the record, there were quite a few meetings after your stories were published over Christmas; how two young women left school without exit interviews.”
“Two?”
“Mackenzie Broadus and Maylene Ayers.”
“What about Janie Rose Carlton?”
“Oh, she had an interview with her adviser. Didn’t say a whole lot, apparently, and certainly nothing about Mackenzie’s accident. And of course, Ina Rose Carlton told us she had transferred to UGA. Her case wasn’t unusual. But it was as if the other two girls had disappeared. Your interview with Mackenzie explained a lot.”
Branigan squeezed a pear and put it in her cart. She looked around to make sure they weren’t being overheard, and lowered her voice. “It’s still hard to believe those girls were able to keep an accident like that quiet. And that Janie Rose and Maylene were upset enough to leav
e school.”
“Well, your story implied they felt guilty because she was paralyzed. At least that’s what I got from it.”
“Yeah, that’s what Mackenzie thought.” Branigan stopped abruptly. “Oh, I almost forgot. Something else surfaced.”
Dr Eckhart waited expectantly.
“The man accused of beating Maylene to death says he took videos of Rutherford Lee students and tried to extort money from them.”
“What?” Dr Eckhart dropped a head of lettuce back on the pile and turned her full attention to Branigan. Now she too looked around to make sure no one was listening. “He was blackmailing them?”
“You remember I told you about the ‘rehab’ beating of Max Brody under the Garner Bridge last winter? Well, apparently this man caught it on his cell phone and was able to scare a student out of several hundred dollars not to release it. When that succeeded, he started doing it at other frat and sorority parties.”
Dr Eckhart looked horrified. “Nothing like that has come before the Honor Council.”
“So the blackmailer didn’t follow through and tell the college about any of this?”
The professor shook her head.
“That’s what isn’t clear,” Branigan said. “Why didn’t he use what he filmed? Detective Scovoy is back talking to him.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but it could be evidence for the council. Let us know if you find anything.”
She and Branigan exchanged goodbyes and parted ways.
* * *
Reaching the last aisle of the grocery store, Branigan reached into the ice cream freezer for mint chocolate chip, then had a thought. She left the ice cream and pondered her carton of milk, finally deciding it could stay safely in her trunk for awhile.
After packing her groceries into the Civic, she drove to Rutherford Lee. She might try bluffing some of these sorority girls.
As she pulled through the brick arch of the school, she saw plenty of activity – students biking, jogging, walking in twos and threes, and gathered on a playing field off to her right for what looked like intramural soccer. On an impulse, she exited the traffic circle to the right and drove to the football stadium, which was on the opposite end of the campus from Greek Row. She parked, and entered an open gate below the stadium’s press box. She passed across a concourse and under concrete stands, then emerged into the mid-afternoon sunshine.
The Cover Story Page 17