BLUE BLOOD RUNS COLD (A Michael Ross Novel Book 1) (7 page)

              “Did she, or anyone else on the campus, ever get caught for possessing firearms of any kind?”

              It took a moment for the dots to connect in her mind. Once they did, she blanched. The color drained out of her face. Despite her tanned skin, she turned a shade whiter. She said, “There was an illegal possession charge three years back. Something of a local legend here.”

              “Would you mind telling me about it?”

              “I can tell you what I know, but the police officers here would be able to tell you more. They keep records of all those kinds of things.” A pause while she picked up the mug and drank the last drops of liquid therein. She continued, “This freshman, Zachary Tyler, gets caught with a gun on campus. The matter was brought before the township police. He went before a magistrate and pled guilty to a misdemeanor on condition that he pay a fine of five hundred dollars and do five hundred hours of community service. He chose to be a summer painter at Ship for free. Now I don't know why he wasn't expelled, but he wasn't. He's scheduled to graduate next spring. Computer Information Systems major.”

              “Do you suppose that, if he wanted to, Zachary could gain access to another firearm and bring it on to campus?”

              Another pause. The president looked away. She said, “I suppose he could, now that I think of it. We really haven't installed metal detectors. Then, because it was feared that it would slow down foot traffic too much, and now, because we just don't have it in the budget. Perhaps we should have. I don't know.”

              Michael reflected on what a public university would look like with metal detectors and, he supposed, more surveillance cameras. He had never known such measures to make people feel more safe; instead, they only gave more work for officers who were already swamped. No one felt safe who had to live with cameras pointed at him every day of the week. Even now, as a veteran detective, he still felt disconcerted by the cameras, overt and hidden, in the office where he worked.

              He wanted to tell her not to blame herself. He wanted to say that she was beating herself up over events outside of her control. As soon as the thought came to his mind, he knew that it would sound condescending—the kind of statement he would be expected to make and, having made it, would be resented for a lack of originality.

              He said, “All right, now I have to ask a toughie.”

              The president appeared unconcerned. She waved her hand in the air in a gesture of dismissal. She said, “Go ahead and ask, Detective. Whatever it is can't be worse than what's already happened.”

              Michael took a deep breath through his nostrils, preparing himself for the worst. He said, “Can I ask you where you were last night between the hours of 1 and 4 a.m.?”

              She recoiled as if physically struck. He saw fear in her eyes, then a familiar anger he had seen before. No one liked being accused, least of all those who had done wrong. They felt the sting of censure more than others, for they censured themselves, even if obliquely.

              She said, “Surely you cannot mean to imply that I am a suspect in the death of Officer Bailey, can you? Surely not.”

              He continued as though she had not heard her reply. He said, “Would you answer the question, please?”

              “Not that I have to tell you, but I was here, in my living room, the whole night. There, are you satisfied? Have you gone fishing enough for one day?”

              Seeing that he had pushed past the limits of her patience, he stood up and said, “Thank you, ma'am. You've been very cooperative. Now if you don't mind, I have other lines of inquiry to pursue.”

              As he showed himself out, she said, “I don't mind at all.”

5

              At the health clinic, which sat on the farthest side of campus away from the president's residence, Michael was told that he would have to come back with a warrant if he wanted any information about patients who might or might not have visited. He saw that the old woman behind the counter was a stickler for rules, the kind of person who would have done well if she had come to work as support staff for a police department. Nevertheless, he told her that a young woman might have suffered severe injuries the previous day, and that he was looking for her. The receptionist's face softened, but she gave him the same reply.

              Walking back and forth in the chill morning air, which did not grow any warmer as the sun rose through the sky, made him appreciate how much fortitude college students really had. By 10 a.m., he found himself sick of the cold and ready to go home. Since he had no other leads on Shannon's whereabouts, he decided to use the university's website. Maybe, he thought, her name would turn up as an executive board member of some group, or as a columnist for the paper.

              For that, he needed an Internet connection. He asked at the university library whether he could access one of their computers on a guest account. The student worker had to call over his supervisor, who told him that she was not authorized to create a guest account. He would have to wait until Monday when the head librarian came back. He thanked for her assistance and left for his car. He found it in the same spot where it had been before. Though no parking ticket had been placed on the windshield, frost had accumulated so thick that he had to scrape the windshield off. He drove out of the campus and took a right turn down Main Street. He passed through several traffic lights before he encountered the Shippensburg Public Library. The library had opened ten minutes before his arrival.

              The inside of the library had a musty smell which came from old books and old wood. The floorboards creaked beneath as he walked. Past the circulation desk, he came to a wide, open area with six computer terminals, only one of which was occupied. He sat down in front of one, then entered his library card number and four-digit pin. A splash screen came up telling him that he had an hour of Internet usage. At the bottom right-hand side of the screen, a clock started ticking away from 1:00:00.

              He went to ship.edu, and looked around the page for a search box. Smiling, happy faces of students and faculty alike scrolled sideways across the main page. The website made much of the word
ship
—internship, friendship, mentorship, leadership, scholarship. To Michael, the website rang false. He could not imagine anyone being happy when they had to walk through below-freezing temperatures just to get to class. He wondered if the university had used models or paid students for those images.

              He found the search box and typed in the name
Shannon Moore
. The webpage loaded slowly, as he expected it would. When the results page loaded, he found a strange acronym: TWOLA. Shannon was the president of a student group bearing that name. He clicked on the link and found a group photo of smiling young men and young women. The caption read
2015 To Write Love on Her Arms student group.
He right-clicked on the image to bring it up in a new tab. He pressed the control button and the plus button at the same time to enlarge the image. He saw at once that there were too many women in the group to tell who Shannon might be.

              He went back to the first tab and scrolled through the list of names on the executive board: Shannon Moore, President; Carly Louis, Vice President; Violet Rasmussen, Secretary; Zachary Tyler, Treasurer. The name
Tyler
rang a bell in his head. He pulled his notes out and flipped through a few pages. He read
Zachary Tyler—pos. of guns
. He felt a chill run down his spine when he realized that the person with the most motive to kill Kevin Bailey could have had the means to do so.

              He continued searching by looking up the phone numbers of the various hospitals in the area. He wrote them down on his notepad one by one until he had six numbers to call. He logged off of the computer, then went outside to make calls. He tried two numbers before the third—Chambersburg Hospital—gave him a hit. Shannon Moore was a patient there, in room 407. The woman who had answered the phone would not give him the date or time when she had been admitted.

              He thanked her and hung up the phone. He circled the number he had called, then put his notepad back in his pocket. He got the distinct feeling that the murder of Kevin Bailey would prove to be anything but an open-and-shut case.

6

              With an hour and a half to spare before lunch, Michael decided to browse the Internet for any other information pertaining to the case. Nothing that he found on there would be admissible in court as evidence, yet it was often the case that clues were there to be found, hiding in plain sight. Just about every newspaper and television station had reported on Jolanda's death, but no one had mentioned anything about the other two incidents. He knew bad press when he saw it; every article he read used the roof collapsing as an excuse to talk about Shippensburg's other problems, of which there were many. He wrote down each point that he could find until he was left with a page full of concerning incidents. Taken separately, they could be dismissed. Taken together, he saw a pattern of administrative incompetence. That made him wonder whether the university trained officers properly, or whether such training had any effect on officer performance.

              When the timer on the library computer had gone down to five minutes, Michael's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He turned off the computer and left the library. He looked at the number of the missed call, then dialed
t
. A single ring, and then there was a man's voice. “Hey Ross, what's shaking? You hungry?”

              “Actually, I am. Where do you want to go, McGee? It doesn't look like there's too many places around here worth going to. Just a lot of gas stations and beer distributors. We might have to go out of town to get anything good.”

              “Hey, you know what? I had an idea.”

              Michael tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He said, “Oh great. You had an idea. Now I know I should stay away. There's trouble brewing.”

              “Don't kid a kidder, all right? I just thought, seeing as how there's this great big dining hall and the campus is almost empty, we should sit down and have our lunch there.”

              “Are you sure? You know what they say about college food.”

              McGee chuckled. He said, “My man, you know me. As long as they have banana peppers and pickle slices, that's all I need.”

              “Probably a bad day for that. I bet you anything they'll serve a limited menu with so few customers expected.”

              “Let's try it anyway. What do you say? Come on.”

              “All right, but only if I get to choose where we have supper.”

              “It's a deal. I'll be waiting.”

              A blast of cold wind struck his face. Michael turned his back towards it. He said, “You're already there?”

              “Yeah, waiting in the lobby kind of thing. Where are you?”

              “I'm in town doing research. I found Miss Moore.”

              “Oh yeah? Good on your father. See you soon.”

              Billy hung up, leaving Michael feeling cold and hungry. He found his way back to campus with difficulty, then came in front of the dining hall. He saw Billy and waved. Billy waved his index finger in the air in a circular pattern, his way of saying
hurry up.
Finding a parking spot for the dining hall was not as easy as he had expected. He entered a lot designated for staff and faculty only. He parked in it anyway, then walked down a length of sidewalk. When he got to one of the glass doors behind which Billy waited, Michael found it locked. He went around and tried another door. That one opened.

              Billy patted him on the shoulder. He said, “Hey, what took ya?”

              “Parking. I really don't know why they don't just build a ten-story parking center or two here. Seems like it would solve all their problems.”

              “Well yeah, if wishes were horses....”

              They waited on someone to come to the register to take their credit cards, then seated themselves in a sunny, warm corner away from the few people who did show up. Since the dining hall did not serve a limited menu, Billy returned with a plate full of banana peppers, round pickle slices, and a hamburger that he had drowned in a pink-colored sauce that was a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise. Michael picked out the first foods that caught his eye, so that by the time he sat down at the table with a glass full of lemon lime Gatorade, he wasn't sure what he had picked out. He poked his fork at a green and white slushy mixture. Then he found corn mixed with lima beans. He had forgotten that he didn't like lima beans.

              Michael put a spoonful of the slush, which turned out to be creamed spinach, into his mouth, then said, “McGee, what did you find at the station?”

              Billy McGee sucked Mountain Dew out of a straw. He burped, then patted his stomach. He said, “Now I know why I gave up on soda. So okay, the police chief here, man by the name of Theodore Kenny, was very helpful and forthcoming. He told me a lot about Mr. Bailey. Apparently he'd had several reprimands in his record for excessive use of his force. One such incident happened when he'd been asked to unlock a student's car. The student didn't have a parking decal on his car. It must have been a bad day for Bailey, because he smashed the car's window in with his fist. Had to have stitches after. He was placed on a fifteen-day administrative leave while the university paid for the repair costs to the vehicle. Chief Metzger also said that before coming to work here, Bailey had resigned from the Hampden Police Department, apparently some kind of excessive force there, too. The guy was a loose cannon. Every now and then he would just go off.”