Rushing to Die (18 page)

She hates the whole chapter.

I leaned away from the table and smell of the fries and bacon. It couldn't be.

“Could this Sheila person be lying about being close to Shannon Bender?” Ty half asked me, half asked himself. “I think we'd know by now if there were more new ­people hanging around the row.”

She's had it in for us from the beginning.

I had to tell him. I didn't want to tell him. Now was the time to tell him. Even though I had no proof, of anything. Not really.

I swallowed, hard. My throat was scratchy. I was probably coming down with something. It was pretty common after rush for an entire chapter to be laid low with a virus. It was only natural after spending so many hours together, inside, during winter.

“There's Ginnifer,” I said slowly.

“Ginnifer?” Ty asked, his face blank.

“Ginnifer Martinelli. You met her at the house after Shannon Bender . . . She's the visiting sisterhood mentor.”

Realization showed on his face now. “Ah. The Mini Margot.”

“Mini me?”

“Exactly.”

Ginnifer was shorter, more compact, but with her darker hair, okay, maybe I could see it.

“What about her?” he asked.

“She's new.”

“She's a Deb.”

“I know!” This was so hard. So, so hard. It was antithetical to everything I was, everything I stood for to voluntarily give a Deb sister to the police. Even though I'd set up the arrest of a Delta Beta last semester, it didn't mean that I hadn't prayed right to the very last moment that I had been wrong, that it was some sort of
Law & Order
murder-­mystery game that I hadn't been invited to.

I focused on keeping my hands folded, the fingers gripping each other and forced the words out of my mouth. “She's made a lot of girls unhappy at the house, and Sheila somehow knows that Ginnifer left the Deb house and broke curfew and . . .”

Ty reached over and put a warm, steady hand over mine. “Where is she now?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. She's been hard on the girls. I called her a name. She turned us in for breaking a rule. Then, yesterday, I was wearing a wig, and I saw her in the bathroom . . .”

Ty's fingers twitched. “It's okay,” I told him. “You can write things down.”

Immediately, his hands went straight for his pocket to retrieve his pad and pen. “Spell her name.”

I did, and curiously, somehow just the fact that he was taking notes alleviated some of my guilt. Maybe I wasn't tattling on a sister for no reason. Maybe I was actually looking out for truth and justice and the Delta Beta way.

“What rule did you ladies break?”

Oh. Um. Man. How was I going to explain this one? “Rule number five.” Ty wrote that down, and I hoped he would find that sufficient. But of course, a detail-­oriented man like him had to ask a follow-­up.

“What's rule number five?”

“It's the . . . um . . .” I thought quickly. “No outside help rule.”

Ty looked skeptical. Probably because I sucked at lying. “All right, fine!” I spat it out even though I knew exactly what he'd say. “Rule number five is no men in the sorority house.”

Just as I expected, his lips twisted in a half-­amused, half-­sardonic way. “You don't say.”

Don't ask don't ask don't ask.

“And what exactly were these men doing in the Deb house?”

“They were serenading us,” I snapped. Technically, stripping was almost the same as serenading.

“And who did Ginnifer report this egregious rush infraction to?”

“The Mafia.”

Ty's eyebrows jumped up. “No, it's just their nickname. For the Panhellenic Recruitment Council,” I assured him hastily, in case he started worrying about organized crime infiltrating Sutton.

“I think I remember that from my Alpha Kapp days.” Then he paused, frowning at his pad. “In fact, that's the second time I've heard that name recently.”

The Mafia? Dang. I really hoped I had been wrong about that organized crime wave.

Ty tapped his pen against the Formica tabletop. “Callie was talking about that. With her grandma.”

“Her grandma? She called Elizabeth?”

“Please tell me you don't memorize all of the sisters' grandmothers' names.”

I waved my hand. “I spent part of Christmas break with Callie's family in Richmond.”

Ty looked relieved at that answer. Maybe he thought memorizing fifty women's family trees was excessive?

“No, she didn't call. She had a visit from her last night.”

That didn't make sense. “Elizabeth Campbell?” I clarified.

Ty shrugged. “I didn't catch the name.”

It didn't matter. “Callie only has one grandmother still living. Elizabeth Campbell is eighty-­five years old and extremely inspirational.”

“Okay . . .” Ty still didn't see where I was going with this.

“Do you know why she's so inspirational to me?”

“There are so many possible reasons, Margot.”

I ignored that tone in his voice and went on. “Because two weeks ago, eighty-­five-­year-­old Elizabeth Campbell left the country with her wine club to study rare vintages around the world. The first stop of their two-­month trip was Argentina.”

Ty's brows snapped together. “Oh.”

“So that means that Callie was talking about the Mafia with another woman who was pretending to be her grandmother.” I whipped out my phone and pulled up the Panhellenic Web site. “Was it this woman?” I pointed at Alexandria Von Douton's face in the picture of the Mafia.

“No.” Ty was definite. “It was her.”

He was pointing at Louella Jackson. The Delta Beta Mafioso.

I slid out of the booth and said something that I never thought I'd say, “You're taking me to jail. Now.”

 

Chapter Thirty-­three

I
N THE END,
Ty didn't agree to my plan of putting Callie in an interrogation room with a single lightbulb hanging over her head. He said they didn't “do that” anymore though my friends Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler would beg to differ. But he did think that playing “good cop/bad cop” was a worthwhile idea. At least, he didn't use air quotes and say that was “frowned upon.”

I marched straight down to the holding cell to see Callie. “Look, missy, you've got a lot of talking to do. Don't make me call your mother.”

“I thought you were going to be good cop,” Ty muttered.

Please. And miss my chance to be bad cop?

Callie's eyes opened wide in fear. Then she remembered that she was a hard-­boiled tough criminal now. “So?”

I pointed up at all the cameras in the ceiling. There were two high up above the cell and at least three down the hallway. “Did you really think they weren't going to notice, Callie?

“What?”

“We have proof of your grandma visiting last night,” Ty inserted.

“And it wasn't Elizabeth Campbell,” I added. “Unless she can fly back from Buenos Aires at a moment's notice.”

Callie's shoulders slumped.

“You tell me who it was right now, little lady. Don't make me look at those tapes,” I threatened, pointing up at the ceiling again.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly. “It was Louella Jackson, from the Mafia.”

Ty and I exchanged a glance, and I gave him a little nod. His ID had been correct. “What did you two talk about?” Ty asked.

Callie pressed her lips together, but as soon as she saw my finger snap back toward the cameras, she relented. “Louella called me yesterday and convinced me to confess to the murders.”

“Why?” I asked.

“She said it was for the good of Delta Beta. That rush could go forward if they had a suspect and that Nick Holden would back off his push to close down the sororities if there was no more danger to the girls. She came in last night to make sure I was still on board.”

My heart melted a little bit hearing that. Callie truly lived up to her ancestor's legacy. I was proud to call her my sister. Except for the fact that she was in a jail cell. “Okay, Lieutenant. Let her out.”

Ty jerked his head back. “Excuse me?”

“Let. Her. Out.”

“I can't.”

“What do you mean you can't?”

“I still have a confession,” Ty said, his arm gesturing toward Callie. “And to release someone who confessed would be idiocy on my part.”

“She just said she didn't do it!”

“No she didn't!”

I started to argue again, then realized he was right. Callie hadn't taken back her confession. “Go ahead, Callie. Do it.”

Her wide eyes went damp. “I'm sorry Margot. She said she couldn't vote for rush to restart unless the police had a suspect. I have to do this for Delta Beta's sake.”

I was speechless. This was a
Sophie's Choice
situation. Do I sacrifice one sister for the good of them all?

Or do I trap the enemy in an underground bunker and toss grenades in the air shafts?

If history had taught us anything, it was that Margot Blythe was always ready to go to war for her sisters.

N
O ONE
WAS
happy to be there. Of course not. It was two hours until preference night, and every chapter, nervous as all get-­out, had a to-­do list as long as a Project Runway marathon.

But rules were rules, and once again, I nimbly used the Panhellenic regulations to my advantage for an emergency meeting. Every single woman in the room gave me the evil eye, even Maya, who was usually pretty sweet. “Where's Sheila?” I asked the Tri Mu advisor.

Sarah just smirked. “She's getting shit done.” Uncalled for.

Patty Huntington banged her gavel and called the meeting to order. “This one was called by the Delta Beta chapter advisor,” she huffed. “After we just calmed everything down, too.”

I stood and calmly greeted everyone. It wasn't the first time I had been the most unpopular person in a roomful of Panhellenic women. As a Delta Beta sisterhood mentor, I had had many opportunities to address Panhellenic councils around the country and suggest corrections to their approach to Greek life. In college, they actually honored me at the Panhellenic banquet my junior year with an engraved silver plate that read, “
MOST LIKELY TO SUGGEST SOLUTIONS
TO EVERYTHING
.” I got the sarcasm.

So this was not my toughest room. It would rank up there, but I had faced worse scenarios.

“As many of you know, rush—­I mean recruitment—­was restarted because the Sutton Police Department arrested a suspect. Therefore, our esteemed Panhellenic Council deemed it safe for rushees to once again walk the streets. However, I have proof that we—­all of us—­are still in danger for our lives.”

I said that really dramatically, and thankfully, there were many gasps and shocked faces in the room. “Because the real murderer is still out there!”

Genuine fear was in the chapter advisors' faces, and I could see they were just like me. They didn't want another innocent woman to die without knowing the pleasures of sisterly love.

The council, on the other hand, was another story. To a woman, they were stony and unfazed by my dramatic declarations.

“Do you have any evidence to bring to this council of this allegation?” Von Douton challenged. Seriously, this woman was obsessed with “evidence.”

“I know that the woman who was arrested is not a murderer. Ergo, the real murderer is still at large. Waiting.” The logical theory was thanks to my major—­I was a philosophy major if you couldn't tell. The extra flair at the end was all those nights rehearsing skits for the Epsilon Chi Sing-­A-­Thon my sophomore year.

“You mean that you called us all here to tell us that the Delta Beta who confessed to a double homicide is innocent?
Quelle
surprise!” Von Douton sneered at me.

“Technically, a double homicide means that two ­people were killed at the same time, which is not the case here,” I informed her, drawing upon my vast criminal-­law expertise.

“You would know.” Von Douton's snide remark made some of the women actually giggle. Like that was appropriate.

“And yes. The Delta Beta who confessed is innocent.”

“If she's so innocent, then why did she confess?” Patty Huntington's thick Southern accent only made that question seem more reasonable, and many women around the room nodded.

I placed a hand on my heart. This is where things were going to get really emotional. “Because she loved her sorority”—­I waved my hand to encompass the rest of the room—­“and Greek life so much, she sacrificed herself so that rush would go on.” Everyone was hanging on my every word. It was an unbelievable story, one full of loyalty and true crime. And now, betrayal. I thrust my finger at Louella Jackson. “And because that woman ordered a young, impressionable postadolescent to confess to a crime she didn't commit!”

That did it. The room went into a tizzy. The advisors were whispering and nattering, their eyes round and concerned. And the Mafia was . . . well the Mafia was rather stoic.

I hadn't expected that reaction. Maybe they were a little uncomfortable, but there was no shock, no outrage there. I suddenly got the distinct impression that I was in way over my head.

Patty Huntington banged her gavel. “Enough! Ms. Blythe, you are out of order.”

“And her chapter's on probation,” Von Douton singsonged. Oh how I loathed that old Moo.

“Ladies, please.” Louella addressed the room in a stern voice that was the opposite of the genteel words she had used. “I would like to address the charges. Yes, I urged Callahan Campbell to confess to these crimes. But I did so because of the overwhelming evidence provided to this council that proved that she was guilty. Evidence that I will be providing to the Sutton Police Department after this meeting is over.”

She tapped a manila folder in front of her. What could be in that folder?

As if she could read my mind, she went ahead and described the contents, which included proof that Callie Callahan had set up surveillance cameras around Greek Row in order to track her victims before she murdered them in cold blood.

“Oh for Pete's sake!” I cried out. “Callie didn't do that! I did that!”

The room went silent as the grave.

Patty Huntington and Clara-­Jane Booth and Sue Harlow all looked very regretful. Alexandria Von Douton looked triumphant. Louella looked . . . satisfied?

I was trying to process that when the members of the Mafia shared a glance and a nod, as if they were listening to their hive mind. “Louella, as the Delta Beta representative of this council, it's your responsibility . . .” Patty's voice trailed off as Louella sat straight and faced me.

“Ms. Blythe, under rule 24.4 subsection d of the recruitment regulations, I regret to inform you that the Delta Beta chapter has been removed from the formal recruitment process.”

In the distance, there were more shocked gasps and maybe a curse word. I could do nothing as I felt the icy-­cold shock in my nervous system.

This was the death knell for the Sutton Delta Beta chapter.