Wrongly Accused

by Erin Wade

  “Professor Shaw, did anyone see him drug you?”

  “The student who rescued me. She also videoed him doing it.” Ryan pulled her cell phone from her purse, queued the video, and handed it to Agent King. “She sent me a copy. I didn’t believe it at first either.”

  Ryan watched the video. It turned her stomach to think that the professor could be in an entirely different situation today if not for her student.

  “May I have a copy of this?”

  “Of course.” Regan reached for her cell phone.

  “I’ll just add my number to your contact list,” Ryan said, smiling. “Is it okay if I send myself the video?”

  Regan nodded.

  “I assume you’ll be around campus if I have any more questions for you?” Ryan bit her bottom lip.

  “I . . . uh, am I a suspect?” Regan asked.

  “No, the question I have in mind is, would you join me for dinner?”

  “I’m not sure I should.” Regan hedged. “I was his last date and all, and—”

  “You can say no, if you wish. I’m new to this area and thought you might be able to direct me to some good Chinese or Italian. It’s not like I’m asking you out on a date. Since you were on a date with Coach Tucker, I’m assuming I’m not your type.”

  Regan laughed. “Of course. I’m just a little rattled. It’s not every day one’s date from the night before is found mutilated the next morning.”

  Ryan squinted at her. “How did you know he was mutilated?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. Wasn’t it on the news this morning?”

  “No. That’s one of the things we’re keeping out of the news.” Ryan stood and paced around the room. She returned to stand in front of Regan. “That is something only the killer would have known.”

  Regan held her breath. Then how did Brandy find out about it?

  “Who gave you that information?” Agent King’s flirty demeanor was gone. In its place was a no-nonsense FBI interrogator.

  “One of my students, I think.” Regan didn’t want to implicate Brandy, but King’s chameleon-like change had disoriented her.

  “Which one?”

  “Ah, um, I’m not certain,” Regan said. “I don’t want to give you a wrong name.”

  “Why don’t you give me a name, and I’ll sort out whether or not it’s wrong?”

  “Grace Brandywine,” Regan mumbled.

  “Brandywine? Of course.” Ryan snorted.

  Chapter 4

  Brandy watched the door of the building Ryan King had confiscated for her headquarters. She knew the FBI agent would be on campus until she caught the killer. King was tenacious. When she went after something, she always got it.

  Brandy shifted her Beemer into drive and eased forward as Professor Shaw walked out of the building and started down the sidewalk. She pulled alongside the professor and rolled down the passenger-side window.

  “Professor Shaw,” Brandy called out. “Want a ride?” She leaned over and pushed open the passenger door.

  Regan hesitated, but not for long.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Brandy noted as she pulled away from the curb. “Was Agent King that hard on you?”

  “Brandy, I mentioned that Coach Tucker had been mutilated, and she went berserk. She demanded the name of the person who gave me that information.”

  “So, you threw me under the bus?” Brandy quipped. “Is that the reason you’re white as a sheet?”

  “I feel so awful. I would never try to get you in trouble,” Regan said. “I didn’t tell her Joey told you. I’m certain she’ll want to interview you.

  “I would expect her to interview me,” Brandy said, wrinkling her nose. “I saved you from a fate worse than death. I’m sure she’ll want to know my relationship with you.”

  “We have no relationship,” Regan scoffed. “I’m your English Lit professor, and you’re my student. That’s it.”

  “Yes, that’s all it’ll ever be.” Brandy’s woeful tone made Regan look at her in time to see a sly smile flit across her face.

  “Brandy, sometimes you worry me.”

  “That’s good.” Brandy laughed out loud. “Where to for dinner, Professor?”

  ##

  Pat Sawyer pulled the folder containing complaints filed on coach Danny Tucker. She debated shredding the incriminating evidence she had gathered during her past ten years as chief of security at the university. Always acting the part of the southern country gentleman in public, Tucker had been a vile human being in private. Now Tucker was dead, and there was no need to publicize her complicity in protecting the sexual predator.

  Almost like clockwork, Pat had received at least one and sometimes two complaints every month from coeds claiming Tucker had raped them. Over 150 complaints had been filed against the winning coach. Some of the complaints had been so severe that Pat had instructed the victims to file a report with the Austin Police Department. Of course, the overworked APD had filled out a report and then informed the women they had to deal with the campus police force.

  Pat was ashamed to admit that she had been forced to look the other way to keep her high-paying job at the university. With over 500 commissioned police officers serving under her command, the UT System police department was the third largest statewide police force in Texas, behind only the Department of Public Safety and Texas Parks and Wildlife.

  Tucker’s death would allow her to wash her hands of the whole sordid mess and start over. She would never again compromise her ethics or reputation. She tried not to think of what had led her down the dark, dismal road she had taken.

  Heads would roll—including her own—if Tucker’s file ever fell into the wrong hands. FBI Agent Ryan King would nail her tits to the wall if she ever got her hands on Tucker’s file.

  A loud knock on her office door interrupted her debate, and she slid the file folder into the bottom drawer of her desk.

  The door swung open, and Ryan King in all her glory charged into Pat’s office.

  “Come in, Agent King,” Pat said, smirking. “How can I help you?”

  “I need to see your file on Danny Tucker.” King never wasted time on niceties.

  Pat eyed King as one would a wild animal about to pounce. “What makes you think I have a file on Coach Tucker?” Pat watched King’s eyes to see if she was just guessing or had hard evidence.

  “I already have a search warrant.” Ryan’s twisted smile told Pat she was in trouble.

  “Go ahead and serve it,” Pat said, calling her bluff. “We’ve no secrets to hide. You’ll find nothing, so I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your suspicions to yourself until you find something to justify them. May I see your search warrant?” Pat held out her hand.

  “It’s on its way.”

  “Then you won’t mind waiting in the lobby until it gets here.” Pat stood and walked toward the door. “I’m trying to solve a murder case.”

  “You’re off the case,” Ryan barked. “It’s my case now, and I don’t have anyone’s ass to protect or kiss.”

  Pat’s eyes flashed. “Are you insinuating that I would look the other way when a crime is committed on campus?”

  “It’s been known to happen,” Ryan said. “That’s why universities shouldn’t police themselves.”

  Pat shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and then opened the door so Agent King could leave her office.

  King was as tenacious as a pit bull. She had arrived on campus two years ago when newly elected Chancellor Katherine O’Brien had requested the FBI investigate the disappearance of four coeds. King had moved swiftly, calling in all the personnel at her disposal, and located the women in the boxcar of a train headed for Mexico.

  Both O’Brien and King had been heralded for their quick action, while Pat had spent the following months wiping egg off her face for failing to take the disappearance of the four women seriously.

  Pat’s intercom buzzed. “Chief, Chancellor O’Brien is on the phone.”

  Pat gr
oaned as she mentally prepared to deal with the Irish spitfire waiting on her line. She decided to let O’Brien take the lead. “Chief Sawyer.”

  “Good morning, Chief. Please fill me in on your investigation of Coach Tucker’s death.”

  Katherine O’Brien never wasted words on cordiality when her university was under attack.

  “The case is out of my hands, Chancellor. The FBI is confiscating my files as we speak.”

  “Cooperate with them,” O’Brien ordered. “Don’t make them get a search warrant. That will make it look like we have something to hide, and we do not. Do we?”

  Pat gulped. “No, ma’am. We’ve nothing to hide.”

  “Good, that’s what I wanted to hear.”

  Pat leaned her head back against her chair and closed her eyes. She knew it was going to hit the fan when Ryan King got her hands on Tucker’s file.

  She looked around her office for a place to hide the incriminating file but decided King would find it no matter where she hid it. That would make her look worse than ever. She decided to hand the file over to Agent King. She pulled all the complaints from the file except the last four and hid them in another file.

  Chief Sawyer opened her office door and stepped into the waiting room.

  “We don’t have our warrant yet,” Agent King said, looking up from her cell phone.

  Pat did her best to look amiable. “You don’t need one. Chancellor O’Brien said to give you Coach Tucker’s file.” She held out the thin file.

  “Is this all there is?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes.”

  ##

  “FBI Agent Ryan King to see Chancellor O’Brien.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” the prissy secretary said.

  “Seriously?” Ryan growled. “What part of FBI agent did you not understand?”

  The secretary jumped to her feet and led the way to the chancellor’s office. “FBI Agent Ryan King to see you, ma’am.”

  Katherine O’Brien drew herself to her full height of five-seven and walked around her desk to greet Ryan. “Agent King. How may I help you?”

  “I wanted to thank you for the phone call that resulted in this.” Ryan handed Danny Tucker’s file to the auburn-haired beauty.

  Katherine motioned for Ryan to sit as she returned to her chair behind her desk. “It’s very light. I was afraid there would be more.”

  Ryan agreed. “Four complaints. It doesn’t exactly jibe with this file from the Austin PD.” Ryan placed a file that was over an inch thick on Katherine’s desk.

  Katherine frowned. “She’s withholding evidence.”

  “We’ll find it,” Ryan said. “My people are going through her office with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “May I see what you find before you release any information?” Katherine asked. “I have a feeling this is going to be bad.”

  Ryan smiled “Sure . . . if you’ll have dinner with me while I wait for my folks to finish. I have a video you need to see. I don’t want you to be blindsided.”

  “That sounds like a fair trade,” Katherine said. “Some place outside of town.”

  “I know just the place.” Ryan opened the door and let her hand rest on the chancellor’s lower back as she ushered her out the door.

  ##

  Harvard educated Katherine O’Brien was the epitome of success. The University of Texas’s first woman chancellor/president and the first Irish immigrant to head a comprehensive research university in the United States, her track record was incomparable.

  Under Katherine’s leadership, the Texas Advanced Computing Center had launched Stampede, one of the largest computing systems in the world for open science research that had led to mind-boggling discoveries in DNA by compiling input from genetic scientists all over the world, allowing them to consult and work together on their theories. The computer system saved universities worldwide from wasting valuable research funds duplicating work already completed by other scientists.

  Katherine’s most lauded recent accomplishment was landing the National Science Foundation grant to establish an Engineering Research Center (ERC) for research into nanomanufacturing, the first ERC designated at UT Austin and only the second in Texas.

  At forty-five, Katherine O’Brien was exactly where she wanted to be, but she knew things weren’t as they seemed. She was aware that beneath her firm foundation, something was wrong. Something was always causing a ripple that never quite reached her. The Texas good-old-boy confederates always seemed to cloud issues close to home preventing her from getting a clear view of seething problems. She feared that coach Danny Tucker’s death was only the tip of the iceberg.

  Chapter 5

  Regan downed her last bit of coffee and got out of her car. She had spent a restless night thinking about Danny Tucker and Brandy’s insinuation that he had raped several coeds over the years. She debated on whether she should tell Agent King.

  Suddenly, a movement in a shadowy alcove caught her attention. Joey Sloan had someone pinned against the wall and was running his hands up and down her sides. The girl wasn’t trying to fight him off. God, don’t let it be Brandy.

  She started to call out Joey’s name then decided she didn’t really want to know who he was crawling all over. She hurried to her classroom.

  As she connected her laptop to the overhead projector, Brandy and Joey entered the room. They were arguing loudly.

  “You promised you’d go home with me this weekend,” Joey whined. “My folks are dying to meet you.”

  “It’s too early to meet the parents,” Brandy argued. “You know how parents get all excited when they think their offspring has landed a real catch.”

  “You are a real catch.” Joey grinned as he placed his hands on her hips. “You’re the only girl I want to catch.”

  “I bet you said the same thing to Loraine Munoz while you were banging her last night,” Brandy huffed.

  “I did not,” Joey grumbled. “Babe, you know you’re the only girl I love.”

  “I’ll think about it, but we sleep in separate rooms. And no sneaking into my room after your parents go to bed.”

  The bell rang, and they continued to argue.

  “Miss Brandywine, Mr. Sloan, would it be possible for you to find a seat and let me teach my class? Or I can just give you both a zero for today.”

  Brandy shot Joey a disgusted look and took a chair on the front row.

  Regan waited while her class settled down. “I know that there is a lot of speculation about Coach Tucker’s death.”

  A murmur ran through the room.

  “I’m going to give you Wednesday off to finish reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ll post your study guide tonight, so you’ll know what to expect on Friday’s test.”

  Joey held up his hand. “Professor, do you grade on the bell curve?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if we have a failing grade, but all of our other grades are really good? Will you allow us to throw out one grade every reporting period?”

  “Yes,” Regan replied. “Any other questions? If not, class is dismissed.”

  Regan wanted to avoid the SUB, so she walked across campus to the nearest kolache shop. She was surprised to see Brandy sitting alone in a booth reading a textbook.

  Brandy looked up and smiled as Regan entered, motioning for the professor to join her. Regan stopped at the counter and ordered coffee and a kolache.

  “I don’t want to bother you,” Regan said as she approached the booth. “Obviously, you’re studying.”

  Brandy shrugged “Spanish. I was just brushing up. I heard the professor is going to give us a pop quiz this afternoon and a test on Friday. She’s not as nice as you.”

  “She probably wants to gauge the level of her students so she’ll know where to start teaching.”

  “Duh, Professor. It’s beginner’s Spanish 101. You can’t get much lower than that.”

  Regan was fluent in Spanish, but Brandy didn’t need to know that.

  “So, join
me.” Brandy gestured toward the booth seat and Regan sat down across from her.

  “Has Agent King questioned you yet?” Regan asked as the server placed her order on the table.

  “After lunch she’ll start interviewing students who had contact with Tucker. Joey is at the top of her list. He’s captain of the football team.”

  “Does he know anything?” Regan said, fighting to hide her curiosity.

  “Help me study for my Spanish test, and I’ll tell you.” Brandy’s impish grin made Regan’s heart skip a beat. She couldn’t pull her gaze away from her student’s beautiful face.

  “Okay,” Regan mumbled.

  “What time?” Brandy beamed.

  “What time for what?”

  “What time should I come to your place so you can help me study?” Brandy looked up at her through long lashes and smiled.

  “I meant right now . . . right here.”

  “No can do.” Brandy stuffed her Spanish book into her book bag and slid from the booth. “I have to get to class. See you tonight. Six at your place.”

  “You don’t know my address,” Regan replied.

  “Yes, I do.” Brandy waggled her eyebrows. “You can cook dinner for me, if you’d like.”

  Regan watched the girl as she sprinted out the door. Oh God. What have I gotten myself into? The last thing I need is Grace Brandywine in my home.

  ##

  “Joey Sloan, is that correct?” Ryan King watched the cocky young man sprawled out in the chair in front of her desk. He certainly overpowered the room. “You’re dating Grace Brandywine?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” When Joey grinned, his blue eyes twinkled.

  “Did you see Coach Tucker Friday night?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you know what time he left your fraternity party?”

  “No, ma’am.” Joey hung his head and blushed slightly.

  “What time did you last see him at your party?”

  “A little after midnight. He was falling-down drunk and groping the girls.”

  “Do you know the names of the girls he groped?” Ryan had a feeling there was a brain beneath Joey’s mop of unruly blond hair.