“She’s not a nervous Nellie,” Branigan said. “If she felt threatened, something was probably going on. But she’s not sure.”
“And very strange that no one mentioned Jones Rinehart’s relationship to the dead girl,” he said. “Makes me wonder if he was visiting Charlie to see if she could identify him. And he’d know about the hearse and could get the key easily enough.” He paused. “This may sound kind of out there, but do you think Charlie would consider undergoing hypnosis? To see if she could reclaim a memory of seeing anyone in that hearse.”
“Interesting thought,” Branigan said with a sideways look at Charlie’s profile, her red-gold hair gleaming even in the sunless day. “But not for me to say. You’d better ask Liam and Liz and Charlie.”
The girl turned. “Ask us what?”
“If you’ll be hypnotized.”
Charlie looked puzzled.
“We’re pulling in,” Branigan said into the phone. “I’ll tell the Delaneys to call you.”
“Branigan, wait. Are you free to have dinner Friday night?”
Her stomach fluttered with unexpected pleasure. “Sure. Tell me where to meet you.”
“No, a real date. I’ll pick you up.”
“Sounds good. See you then.”
Branigan handed Charlie’s phone back as they veered into the winding turn-off to Rutherford Lee. Branigan slowed before entering the roundabout, and was surprised to see two campus police cars enter the top of the roundabout then exit in quick succession.
“What do you think’s wrong?” Charlie asked.
“Don’t know. But we’re going the way they’re going, so we may find out.”
Branigan followed more slowly, but was able to see the school’s police cars up ahead. They pulled onto the lakeside patio at the student center, parking haphazardly before the doors burst open and uniformed officers spilled out. Branigan counted four.
“That’s got to be every cop on duty,” she said. “What is going on?”
She parked in an adjoining lot, and they ran across the patio and through the doors the officers had used. The dining hall was a third full with an early lunch crowd. Everyone was still serving themselves or eating, clearly not cognizant of whatever was going on. Branigan and Charlie heard the officers’ radios squawking overhead and bounded up the stairs to the second floor. Branigan could hear Charlie gasping next to her, and put an arm around the girl.
“Take it easy,” she cautioned. “We don’t want that leg to snap.”
Apparently the occupants of the second-floor offices hadn’t been alerted yet. Branigan saw only one woman peering curiously from a doorway. But on the spacious landing that served as a theater lobby, a girl sat on the carpet outside the women’s bathroom, head buried in her arms, weeping. A female officer knelt next to her, speaking quietly, as her colleagues fanned out into the darkened theater and the men’s bathroom.
Branigan pulled out her Rambler ID, but the officers were making no attempt to keep anyone away.
She and Charlie watched as the male officers completed their search of the men’s room, then the theater, and turned their attention to the administrative offices. Now people started coming out, glancing at the crying girl shielded by the female officer.
Branigan found a position where she could see the line of offices. A middle-aged woman hurried out of one marked Vice President, Student Services, and bent to speak to the crying girl. Together, she and the officer helped her to her feet. The girl turned unsteadily and Branigan was shocked to see blood streaming from her head and down a face that was already swelling. But she was more shocked to see that she recognized the girl.
It was Catherine Reisman. The pledge chair from Gamma Delta Phi.
Catherine’s eyes registered shock when they met Branigan’s. Then Branigan saw them slide to something behind her. She wheeled to find Anna Hester staring at Catherine.
Anna ignored Branigan and Charlie, and approached her fellow student.
“Catherine, what happened?” she asked. The woman from the vice president’s office shooed Anna away. “Not now,” she said. “You can get your story from Chief Ellsworth.”
“Call me,” Anna mouthed. Catherine nodded woodenly.
“We need to get her to the infirmary,” the administrator told the officer. “If you haven’t finished questioning her, you can do it there.”
The officer spoke into the radio on her shoulder. Branigan strained to hear. “White male, five-eight to five-eleven, black ski mask, blue jacket. In other words, could be anybody on this whole campus.”
By now the landing was beginning to fill with curious students from the dining hall below. A low buzz followed the administrator, the officer and the student to the elevator. Catherine Reisman gave Branigan an imploring look as the elevator doors closed on her battered face.
Branigan felt the hairs on her arms rise, and she looked around at the confused swirl of young bodies. She shivered. Something was perilously wrong here, hidden beneath the surface of this affluent campus and its bright, attractive students. But it was impossible to tell whether the threat was coming from within or from without.
Chapter Fourteen
Branigan motioned for Charlie to follow her into the women’s bathroom. “This will be a crime scene soon,” she whispered. “With criminal assault, the school will have to report it to the Grambling PD. I want to look around first. But don’t touch anything.” She wrapped a paper towel around one hand, then pushed open one door after another in the empty stalls.
“What are you looking for?” Charlie whispered.
“I don’t know. I’m hoping something will jump out at me.”
She peered all around the sinks and mirrors and paper towel dispensers. Using two paper towels to avoid leaving her own fingerprints, she carefully lifted the lid off the trash can and looked inside. On top lay a bunch of wet paper towels streaked reddish brown. She lowered the lid until it was the way she’d found it.
She pulled out her phone and punched in Chester Scovoy’s number. “Have you gotten a call yet from Rutherford Lee?” she asked as soon as he picked up.
“Yeah, we’re halfway there. Are you at the school?”
“Yes. Charlie and I stumbled right into the middle of it. The victim is one of the Gamma Delta Phis I’ve talked to a few times. Pledge chair.”
“The same sorority those other two were from?” Chester’s voice rose an octave. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“I don’t know,” said Branigan. “But I’m beginning to agree with you that hypnotizing Charlie might be a good move. Janie Rose and that wreck was where it all started.” She put an arm around Charlie. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep Charlie with me until I deliver her to Liam.”
“Good idea. I’ll see you in three minutes.”
“Might be a little longer. We’re headed upstairs to talk to someone.”
Branigan and Charlie entered the frigid stairwell at the end of the hall and climbed to the third floor. They saw Anna Hester turning her key in the door to the Swan Song office. The door swung open and Anna screamed.
They ran to the doorway, and inside the room saw Malachi Martin, a wrench in one hand, the other held palm up. “The dean called for maint’nance,” he was explaining calmly to Anna.
Charlie looked ready to speak, so Branigan laid a hand on her arm.
“I’m sorry,” Anna said, exhaling and sitting heavily on a couch along one wall. “A girl was attacked on the second floor and I’m jumpy.”
Branigan broke in. “Um… John…” she said, reading the name above Malachi’s pocket. “The victim described her attacker as a white guy in a ski mask. And the Grambling police are on their way.”
Without a word, Malachi gathered his tools and left, shutting the office door quietly.
“How did you get here so quickly?” Anna asked, her attention di
verted from Malachi to Branigan.
“Complete coincidence. Charlie and I were coming to see you.”
“Me? What about?”
Branigan pulled a rolling desk chair over to face Anna. Charlie took a seat at the far end of the couch and spoke up. “Anna, I’m Charlie Delaney. I was driving the day the hearse ran Janie Rose and me off the road. I still have a temporary bridge and got out of arm and leg casts two days ago.”
Anna’s eyes widened.
“Branigan told me about your stories in The Swan Song,” Charlie continued, “and that you may have been the last person to see Maylene alive. I mean, other than her killer. I’m hoping you can tell us something that will catch this guy. Too many people are getting hurt.”
“I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“Two big things are missing. Janie Rose kept a journal. A blue leather one she wrote in every night.” Charlie waited a moment, but Anna didn’t speak. “And a phone video that supposedly shows Janie Rose and Maylene.”
Anna waited a beat too long, Branigan thought, before asking, “Janie Rose and Maylene doing what?”
“I have no idea. But that’s what the homeless man who lived with Maylene said.”
Anna remained silent.
“The thing is, Anna, you know these people. You know that Jones Rinehart dated Janie Rose, which we only found out this morning. You know who hung around your sorority house enough to know about the hearse and the key. You may even know things you don’t know you know.”
Branigan looked at Charlie with admiration. Well, Liam had been a reporter before he went into ministry. Maybe she’d inherited his instincts.
“I swear we are not trying to steal your story,” Branigan broke in. “And we can credit you in The Rambler with anything you tell us.”
“So you want to join forces?” Anna asked.
“You could put it like that,” Branigan said with a flicker of hope.
“But what do you have to offer?”
Branigan and Charlie looked at each other. Precious little, both knew.
Charlie tried one more time. “That’s not really the point. I’m not a reporter. I don’t care about the story, though I’m sure Aunt Brani does. But I want whoever ran me and Janie Rose off the road caught, and I want to be able to go out alone again, and I want my nightmares to stop.” Charlie halted, seemingly near tears. “That can’t happen until all this is solved.”
Anna looked lost in thought. Branigan and Charlie let the silence spin out, uninterrupted.
Then abruptly Anna stood. “An hour ago, I might’ve said okay. But it’s possible I’ve been reading everything wrong. I’ve got to think it through.”
Branigan sighed. “We have people watching Charlie,” she told the young woman. “We’re afraid the hearse driver thinks she saw something, even though she didn’t. But no one’s protecting you. The police are right downstairs. Tell them.”
“Maybe,” said Anna.
But Branigan heard the no in her voice.
Chapter Fifteen
As Branigan and Charlie walked down to the second floor, Branigan called her office to see if Bert wanted a story on Catherine Reisman’s assault. Ordinarily, such an incident wouldn’t make the newspaper, but the fact that it was the fourth involving a Rutherford Lee student pushed it to the forefront.
Bert wanted it. “Can you dictate a few paragraphs for online, or have you got your laptop handy?”
“I haven’t talked to the police yet,” said Branigan. “Let me do that, then I’ll call it in.”
Charlie sat on a bench to rest her aching leg while Branigan caught up with Detective Scovoy. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t answer such a call either, but nothing was ordinary these days at the private college. The president and dean, along with the vice president who’d accompanied Catherine to the infirmary, were all on hand, talking to the detective. To their credit, as far as Branigan could tell, they weren’t asking him to keep it quiet. They said they’d already sent out a text alert to students and parents with Catherine’s description of her attacker.
A young man Branigan assumed was Anna’s Swan Song editor stood at the president’s elbow, taking notes. During her own college days, one student per year – usually the paper’s editor-in-chief – took the role of interviewing the president. That kept the president from having to endlessly repeat himself, and ensured a bit of institutional knowledge on the part of the newspaper staff.
The young man now asked if Catherine had been raped. The vice president shook her head vigorously. Branigan pulled out her notebook, introduced herself to the administrators, and began taking notes on Detective Scovoy’s briefing. After getting clarification on the time, place, Catherine’s injuries, and other details, she asked Scovoy if he considered this to be an isolated incident or somehow connected to December’s murders of former students.
The administrators froze at the question. It occurred to Branigan that while assaults might be fairly common on a college campus, murders were not. And now she had dragged off-campus murders of former students into this on-campus assault. No wonder the administrators looked as though they’d eaten hot peppers. The dean began sputtering that perhaps they’d better wait for their internal media people to arrive.
“Not necessary,” Branigan said. “I’ve got what I need.”
Collecting Charlie, she walked out with Detective Scovoy. He’d interviewed Catherine at the infirmary before meeting with the administrators, and was headed to the campus police office for one more consultation.
“What do you think?” Branigan asked him when they were out of earshot of college personnel. “Serial killer on the loose at Rutherford Lee?”
“My, what an active imagination you have, Miss Powers.”
“But is this connected? Or entirely random?”
“Good question. It certainly appears random. Girl alone in a restroom in the student center.”
“But what about all those offices down the hall?” Branigan asked. “Weren’t there a lot of people around?”
“There are smaller bathrooms along the hallway that they use. The bathroom she was in is a large one used by theater-goers.”
“So what was she doing in there?”
“She acts occasionally in college productions. I verified that with the dean. She said she goes to the darkened theater sometimes to think. She used the bathroom while she was up there.”
“Hmmm. Did she do that regularly enough for this guy to know her pattern?”
“That was my thought. But she said no one’s been stalking her and there are no disgruntled ex-boyfriends. Unfortunately her description – black ski mask, blue jacket – are things easily discarded. That leaves us with ‘white guy’.”
“Yikes.”
“Tell me about it.”
Branigan and Charlie turned up the Civic’s heater full blast before calling the story in to Bert. Charlie called her dad and promised to have his SUV back at Jericho Road within the hour.
“So what now?” she asked Branigan.
“I want to talk to Malachi and find out what he was up to in the newspaper office. And you and Liam can contact Detective Scovoy about hypnosis if you decide to do that. Are you considering it?”
“You know, I think so. I’d do just about anything to get my head cleared of this mess.”
Branigan reached over and patted the girl’s leg. “I know you would, Char. I hope it helps.”
She started the car and headed back to the Rambler office. On the way, they saw a figure in a dark puffy coat cycling on the sidewalk toward town. Dreadlocks flew out behind his do-rag and baseball cap.
Charlie pointed. “There’s Malachi now.”
Branigan passed him, then pulled into an insurance office parking lot and waited for him to catch up. When he pulled alongside her window, she said, “We need to compare notes. Want to meet a
t Bea’s? Or Marshall’s? I’m buying.”
“Then Marshall’s, for some of they veg’table soup,” he said.
“Deal.”
Branigan returned Charlie to her SUV at the Rambler building. She offered to follow her the six blocks to Jericho Road, but Charlie was adamant in her refusal. Nonetheless, Branigan watched her lock her doors and pull out before driving up Main Street to Marshall’s.
Malachi was standing outside the popular diner.
“Why are you out here in the cold?” she asked.
He looked impassively at her, and an instant too late she realized he wouldn’t be welcome inside if she weren’t accompanying him. Her face grew hot.
“I’m sorry, my friend. Let’s get some soup.”
Branigan felt a few stares as they settled into a booth, but no one said anything. Homeless people might feel invisible on the streets, but in here it was the opposite.
They ordered large bowls of vegetable soup, and Branigan added two sides of cornbread. She leaned across the table so the people behind her couldn’t hear. “So what were you doing in the newspaper office?”
“Lookin’ for that dead girl’s diary or Ralph’s phone,” he said.
“Any luck?”
“Nah.”
“Where were you looking?”
“Desk drawers mostly. Some filin’ cabinets.”
“Weren’t they locked?”
Malachi gave her a rare smile. “You really wanna know that, Miz Branigan?”
She sat back. “Maybe not.” She thought for a moment. “And if you got caught, your story was you were maintenance. Not too shabby, John. But it could’ve backfired with the cops sweeping through after the attack on the student.”
“Sure coulda. Good thin’ that such a whitey campus.”
Branigan burst into laughter. “Don’t let their diversity officer hear you say that.”
He smiled slyly. “You gotta love people who spend a hundred years keepin’ us out, then hundreds o’ thousands of dollahs to get us in.”
“You have a wicked sense of humor, Mr Malachi.”
The Cover Story Page 22