Annie Seymour 01-Sacred Cows (3 page)

“I can’t believe it,” I heard from somewhere in my vicinity. “I saw her last night. She seemed fine.”

News travels fast, almost as fast as my head turned to see who was talking.

Three kids sat a couple of tables away, their expressions grim. Bingo. I hit the jackpot. Having no respect for anyone’s personal space if I could get any information, I picked up my coffee and scone and moved to their table.

“I couldn’t help but overhear,” I started, “but it sounds like you knew that girl, Melissa, who died last night.” I almost said “took a flying leap,” but in that split second between saying something entirely inappropriate and the right thing, I chose wisely. I don’t always.

I put my coffee down and pulled one of my cards out of my bag. “Anne Seymour. I’m with the
Herald.
I saw her, well, after.” I tried to sound meek, and I think I was pulling it off. They sighed collectively and asked me to pull up a chair.

“Was it really awful?” the girl with the red hair asked. “I mean, well, you know.”

Fortunately I knew exactly what she was asking and nodded. “Yeah. It was pretty bad. Since you all knew her, could you tell me something about her? I have to write a story, and I hate having to write the gruesome stuff. If I could describe her, make her real, maybe the cops will really push to find out what happened to her.” It was all bullshit. I was surprised they couldn’t smell me coming a mile away. They were Yalies, after all. They were supposed to be smarter than me. I went to a state school, majored in beer and pot and Led Zeppelin. I kept
CliffsNotes
in business. Who had time to read?

“She was a sophomore.” The red-haired girl obviously was the leader of this group. She wore pretty silver-framed glasses, and her hands were folded neatly on the table. “I knew her from bio. Biology class,” she added, obviously knowing I didn’t have the SAT scores she did. “She was going to be a doctor.” Weren’t they all?

I didn’t pull out my notebook, but instead turned on the tape recorder in my head. No need to make it formal just yet. I took a sip of coffee and a bite of scone. If I kept my mouth shut, something I’m not known to do on a regular basis, I knew they’d talk. They wanted to.

“She was so pretty,” blurted the other girl, a blonde with unfortunate skin. “No wonder David wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“David?” I prompted.

The red-haired girl fidgeted with a ring on her finger. “Oh, a guy we know. She went out with him for a little while but broke it off. He had a problem accepting that.”

The blonde snorted, an ugly, wet sound that made the remnants of my hangover lurch back into my stomach. “A problem accepting that? Are you kidding? He was constantly calling her and trying to see her.”

A stalker. I liked that. It could be easy. Girl dates boy. Girl rejects boy. Boy throws girl off balcony. Or something like that.

“It’s not what you think.” The boy, who sported a pierced eyebrow, finally spoke. He was good-looking in that punk sort of way, spiky hair, brooding eyes. If I was eighteen . . . well, I wasn’t.

“What is it then?” I shook myself back to the matter at hand.

“She led him on, even after. She called him sometimes, asked him for help moving furniture, getting notes from a class, help with her lab stuff.”

I knew the type. I was that type. Didn’t really want him around, but it was nice to have someone paying attention. Okay, so nothing’s ever simple.

“You saw her last night? Was David with her?” I gave them a nudge. My coffee was almost gone but I needed more information, and I needed it faster.

I felt a rush of cool air on the back of my neck and turned to see the door closing. He was standing at the counter, hands in his pockets, staring at the writing on the blackboard as if it was Greek. He was a Dunkin’ Donuts guy, this caffe latte crap was stumping him. My first impression was that he was a cop, someone I hadn’t crossed paths with before, but there was something different about the way he held his shoulders, his back wasn’t military-straight and his black hair curled around his ears. He looked like one of my father’s henchmen, but better looking, in that Frank Sinatra sort of way, Frank in the ’50s, when he was still lean, when he was with Ava.

He saw me staring and actually had the balls to wink. A real wink. I turned back to my new friends, who didn’t seem to notice I’d gone away for a minute or so.

“There was a party,” the pierced guy was saying. “We were all pretty trashed. David was there, but she didn’t leave with him. I didn’t see her leave with anyone.”

“What time did she leave?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t paying too much attention.”

I squirmed in my chair and glanced out of the corner of my eye back at the counter. He was gone.

None of them noticed what time Melissa left, although they all saw her consume quite a bit of beer. I finally took their names: Randy was the guy, Helen the pretty redhead, and Cynthia the blonde. They told me Melissa had lived at Davenport, one of Yale’s residential colleges.

“You might want to talk to Sarah,” Cynthia said quietly.

“Sarah?”

“Sarah Lewis. One of her roommates. I know David talked to her a lot.”

I thanked my new friends after they told me how to get to Davenport College, left them each one of my cards, and said they could call me anytime if they thought of anything else.

Outside on the sidewalk again, I only felt worse when I saw the parking ticket tucked under my windshield wiper. The cop who left it there completely ignored the “Press” sign in my window.

I walked away, ignoring the ticket. Since I’d already gotten one, why not leave my car there?

Davenport College was just up the street, and I found it easily. A young woman was coming out as I reached the gate.

“I’m looking for Sarah Lewis,” I said. “Do you know where I could find her?”

She looked me over and shrugged. “She’s not here. I think she might be at the library.”

I walked across the wide lawn of Cross Campus and approached Sterling Library. On the pavement in front of the building, students were reminded in pink sidewalk chalk of a party at Saybrook College the night before at 9:00
P.M.
I neglected to ask the Atticus group where the party had been where they saw Melissa, but I was willing to bet it was the one at Saybrook.

I couldn’t remember the last time I smelled musty books. My boot heels were loud as they hit the hard floor, and I went up to the desk.

“I’m looking for Sarah Lewis,” I asked, hoping the librarian had a clue who she was.

She pointed her nose in the direction of the Starr Reading Room. I went through the thick, dark doors and looked left, then right, at tables of students studying. A lone brunette sat at a table to my right in the back, flipping through pages of a book, but she wasn’t reading; her eyes were resting on the wall behind me, not seeing anything. I took a shot. I walked over to her. “Sarah?”

She tried to focus, but she seemed incapable.

“Sarah,” I tried again, sitting down across from her. “My name is Anne Seymour. I’m a reporter from the
Herald.
”

Now she saw me, and a flash of anger whipped across her face. “Can’t anyone just leave me alone?”

Intruding on someone’s grief is something I’ve never been able to do well, despite my reputation. “I’m sorry,” I tried, but I did not get up.

“I thought no one would find me in here. The police finally let me leave, but they said I couldn’t go back to my room until they were done.” Her shoulders were hunched in that way tall people do to try to disguise their height, and her hair was matted, a little oily. She wore a big sweatshirt that just accentuated how flat-chested she was. Her hands were free of jewelry, although there were small hoops in her earlobes. Her watch was a Swatch, oversized and colorful. Her face was drawn, pale, and two green eyes peered at me.

“Were you very close?” I asked.

Sarah managed a small smile. “That’s the bitch of it all. I hated her.”

“Did you see her last night?” I asked, hoping my face didn’t reveal that she had succeeded in surprising me.

“Oh, sure. She was getting ready to go out. To that party.”

“The one at Saybrook?”

She nodded.

“Weren’t you going?”

Sarah bit her fingernail. “I don’t like parties. I don’t drink or smoke or do anything like that.”

Sounded pretty boring, but the hangover was still occasionally crashing against my brain, reminding me that I should take it easy, too.

“Do you know how she ended up at University Towers if she was just going to that party?”

“She had a late date, after the party. Maybe whoever it was took her there.”

“How do you know that?”

“I took the message.”

“What message?” I wanted to start writing this down, but was afraid the notebook would spook her.

“From the agency.”

She was being far too cryptic. “What agency?”

Sarah’s mouth curved into a small, sinister smile. “Everyone thought she was so wonderful, you know? Smart, pretty, but she did have a secret life no one knew about.”

I waited.

She shrugged. “She worked for an escort service. Her parents thought she was spending too much money and stopped sending any except a monthly allowance. Melissa didn’t think it was enough, so she answered one of those ads. You know, in the paper.”

A million thoughts were running through my head, slamming against the hangover, pushing it out of the way. “Did you tell the cops this?”

Sarah smiled again, wider this time. “I told them she had a late date, but I said I didn’t know who with. They didn’t ask any more questions about that.” She paused for a minute. “Are you going to put this in the newspaper?”

She was a sneaky one. She wanted this in the paper, wanted Melissa’s name smeared publicly, to show everyone what her roommate was really like. I wasn’t born yesterday.

Sarah’s eyes were dancing. I could see she knew how much I wanted this story and that I wouldn’t walk away until I had it.

“What agency was it?” I asked, taking the bait. Screw it. No need to pretend with this girl.

Sarah dug into the backpack slung over her chair and pulled out a business card, handing it to me: Come Together. Clever.

“She gave this to me, like a joke or something.” I could see Sarah wasn’t amused. “You know, she could’ve had anyone she wanted. She really was a bitch.” Her voice was tight, the anger oozing into her words.

I’d had enough of her.

“If you think of anything else that might help, can you call me?” I handed her one of my cards.

She nodded. “Sure.”

I got up.

“Have you talked to David Best, her ex-boyfriend?”

“No, not yet.”

“He’s a head case. After she dumped him, he found out about the escort thing and was really pissed. He started following her around, even once when she was so-called working.”

“She told you that?”

Sarah laughed, a small sound from the bottom of her throat. “He told me. He thought I could talk her out of it. Yeah, right. Like anyone could ever talk Melissa out of anything.”

Yalies fucking with their lives and the lives of those around them. This would become one helluva made-for-TV movie. I said goodbye and got out of there.

CHAPTER 3

The newsroom was quiet. Marty was sipping coffee at his desk, the other day editors savoring the calm before the storm.

Henry Owens didn’t even notice me as he scanned eBay in his unending search for rare coins. Peter Martone briefly looked up from the
New York Post,
then resumed reading, and Jim Wingate was having a heated discussion with his wife on the phone.

Not a whole lot happened until stories started coming in about four in the afternoon, except if there was breaking news. The day editors did the brunt of their work in about three hours, spending the rest of their time in meetings and on the phone with the reporters in the bureaus, even though I wasn’t sure anyone really talked to anyone about anything. Two reporters ended up doing the same stories on occasion because someone “forgot” to tell someone what he was working on.

Watergate and Woodward and Bernstein had lured me into this business. But the industry wasn’t like that anymore, no one took the risks. Melissa Peabody was definitely a risk, a dead Yalie on the front page.

“Whatchagot?” Marty put his coffee down on top of the weekend rotation schedule. He was too tall for his desk and complained bitterly about neck pain, popping Advils all day. His glasses balanced precariously on the end of his nose. I always fought the urge to stick my finger on the center and push them up.

Marty Thompson came from the competition in Bridgeport about a year after I’d started at the paper. In those days, we stole their people and they stole ours, always for more money, and the people were always quality. From the first day he arrived, we had a good relationship. He respected me professionally, and after a required grace period, I respected him. His news judgment was solid, his editing good enough so I never knew where my words left off and his began. But it was starting to wear on him, too, the corporate mentality that profits were more important than anything, even the news. Unfortunately for him, he was just past that age where places would look at him as a viable candidate.

I ran through the interviews with the kids at Atticus, purposely leaving Sarah until the end. Marty’s eyes grew wider when I told him about Come Together.

“Shiiiiiit,” he drawled. “Can we confirm that?”

“The roommate told me.”

“We’re going to need more.”

I hated it when he sat on stuff just because he didn’t think the publisher would like it. “The roommate confirmed it,” I tried again.

“No, we need another source.”

“Why?”

His blue eyes got darker. “Think about it, Annie.”

I hated this shit. “I’ll get on the phone.”

“Good. Dick’s gone to the press conference.”

“What press conference?”

“The one the cops are having as we speak.”

I took a deep breath. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because Dick was here and you weren’t. I figured you had a good reason not to be.”