Rushing to Die (22 page)

Suddenly, a light flashed inside the van. The monitor had a picture again, but the Witness glasses clearly weren't transmitting from Casey's face.

“What the fudge!” I exclaimed right before Ty yanked me back onto my stool and shushed me.

“We have visuals,” Ty told Casey on the radio. “Where are you?”

Either Casey couldn't hear us, or he couldn't improv an answer fast enough. “I understand, ma'am. But yes, I have permission to be here from the college press office. My badge is right here.”

Ma'am?

I stared so hard at the monitor, I'm surprised two laser-­beam holes didn't appear in the glass, and I finally realized what I was looking at. The glasses were on a table. It must have been a glass table because I saw shoes below on the carpet. First I recognized Casey's trademark Gucci loafers with the golden bit. Then a set of woman's pumps.

Size seven.

With a red sole.

And a dirty heel.

And it all came together.

I leaned over to Ty's radio, and shouted, “Look out, Casey! Behind you!”

 

Chapter Thirty-­eight

T
HE LAST THING
I heard before I leaped out of the van was a scream. Somewhere along the sidewalk between the van and the front door of the Tri Mu house, Ty Hatfield and five other Sutton cops appeared out of nowhere and beat me to the sorority house, guns drawn and authoritative voices yelling. It would have been the most brilliantly exciting moment of my life if I wasn't torn up with worry about Casey's safety.

The sudden invasion of a platoon of gun-­waving, shouting police officers caused a panic in the Tri Mu house, which meant that no one paid much attention to me, following in the wake of the law.

I followed my nose and soon heard Casey's voice. “I said, get down on the ground!” Which was very authoritative of him. Then I heard Ty shouting, “Someone call EMS,” which made me panic.

A ­couple of the cops acted like they didn't want to let me into the scene of the crime, which seemed to be a small study room. After I shouted, “FBI,” I shoved and slipped under elbows and saw Casey, sitting in a chair and clutching the back of his head with a bloody pocket square.

I went straight to him, ignoring the “hey you!” and “Blythe!” that came from the officers around me. It was only after I looked in his eyes and assured myself that he was okay that I faced the culprits.

Ty's eyes met mine, filled with more than his usual natural skepticism, silently asking me, “are you sure?” I nodded slowly, knowing that I had a lot to explain and guiltily glad that Casey would be able to back up my theory: that Louella Jackson and Alexandria Von Douton were coconspirators in the deaths of Shannon Bender and Daria Cantrell.

With a resigned sigh, Ty reached into his jacket pocket and slapped some cuffs on Louella, while Officer Malouf handcuffed Von Douton. “I'll meet you at the station,” I called out to him, as they marched the women out the door, past the gaping mouths of a houseful of rushees, Tri Mus, and Nick Holden's camera.

It was over an hour later before I walked through the front doors of the police station. While the other officers had been questioning women at the pref party, I had stayed by Casey's side as the EMT guys checked him out. He had a major scrape down the back of his skull, not deep enough to require stitches.

While I waited for Casey, I got a call from Maya, the Panhellenic Advisor. She was convening a chapter-­advisor meeting right there on the Epsilon Chi front steps. I gave her ten minutes, but it didn't take that long for her to declare yet another change in Sutton rush procedures. With the craziness going on at the Tri Mu house, nobody argued. When Casey and I pulled out of the street, three Sutton College buses had pulled up at the end of the block to transport all the rushees back to campus for counseling and, hopefully, a hug or two. They didn't sign up for this insanity in their rush registration.

Outside the Sutton police station's interrogation room, Ty scratched his chin and frowned at me. “How did you know?”

“It was the shoes. I always notice the shoes.”

“Really?” Ty asked. “That's not an urban myth?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Not for me. Louella and Alexandria have been wearing amazing footwear all week. That's what killed the girls, right?”

Ty nodded. “A four-­inch-­long stiletto from Alexandria Von Douton's closet. Reinforced steel with a sharpened projectile of some sort. Kind of like a nail gun.”

Ouch. Sounded like Louella's husband had developed some specialized technology for savage old ladies.

“Reinforced steel would sink down into dirt easier, wouldn't it?”

He looked unsure for just a moment, then he realized where I was going. “The mud on the shoes.”

“Have you questioned them yet?”

“No. I was waiting for you to tell me what you knew.”

I was beyond flattered.

“And I wanted to make them sweat a little.”

The thought of those two old ladies wringing their hands in anticipation of being questioned about committing murder didn't make me feel good, but something in my gut told me that all of the women of Panhellenic would be a lot safer with these two locked up.

I decided to start with the beginning. “Shannon Bender was a stranger in Sutton. No one even knew she was here, and those that did wanted her to complete her spy mission. If someone wanted her dead, it was because of who they thought she was—­someone working for Nick Holden, whom she had met with earlier that week.”

“And Daria?”

“Also went to Nick Holden's round table. That's the only connection between the two women.” But it was enough, unfortunately.

“In nearly all of the footage that we and the Moos have recorded, there's a silver Mercedes parked just off camera. That's Alexandria Von Douton's car. Ginnifer's been feeding her information all week.”

Ty slid his ever-­ready pad of paper and pen out of his coat pocket. “Ginnifer? She's the Mini Margot, right?”

“Yes.” I held up a hand before he could ask his next question. “Von Douton was blackmailing her for rush violations at another school—­nothing superillegal.”

Ty's eyebrow flick showed he didn't quite believe that, but he let me move on.

“When we watched Sheila's footage of Shannon's murder, there was something that bothered me. It looked like Shannon was responding to someone in the woods, but then she was killed from behind.” I explained that we had thought someone was watching us from those woods and suggested Ty get someone down there to check for high-­heeled footprints in the dirt. “I didn't realize what it meant until I saw the shoes with dirty heels behind Casey. There had to be two murderers. They weren't strong enough to take one person down, so they had to work together to take them down by surprise.”

Ty's hands dropped to his side, his pen and paper momentarily forgotten. “You really figured all this out while we were watching Casey's feed?”

“I didn't figure it all out. Just the important parts.” Just enough to keep Casey alive.

“What did you miss?” Ty asked me, watching me carefully.

“Why.” My voice broke. “Why us, why rush, why Shannon, why Daria. Why in the hell would a Deb help a Tri Moo with anything, much less murder?”

Ty thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Then let's ask.”

After a quick debate, we agreed on starting with Louella. And because Louella and I were technically sisters, Ty allowed me to talk to her.

The room was small and airless, with nothing but two metal chairs, a plain table, and the requisite two-­way mirror. Louella looked extremely peeved when I came in. “What is going on out there? I need my medicine. I told the police I need my medicine.”

I walked into the room with every intention of playing the role that Ty and I had agreed on. I was going to be the sympathetic sorority sister, ready to engage all the Delta Beta resources to protect and defend one of our own. But this bitch had always rubbed me the wrong way.

“Louella, you were caught digging your heel into the back of a man's skull,” I snapped. “I'm not sure what kind of medicine helps with that.”

There was no contrition in her eyes. “It was self-­defense. He attacked me. I think he was going to rape me.”

“With his back to you? I'm pretty sure you remember that it doesn't work like that.”

She flinched. “He was going to attack Alexandria. Then me. He was a crazed sex fiend. Why else would he come to the sorority house looking for a story? And his name was Lorenzo,” she added, as if that was obviously the name of a violent rapist.

I'd let her defense attorney explain all the evidence we had showing that “Lorenzo” was not only perfectly pleasant but had been invited back to a private room by two senior citizens.

Instead, I sank into the chair across from her and sighed sadly. “Oh, Louella. I don't know how to say this, but . . .” My voice trailed off, and it got her attention. “I think the Tri Moos are out to get the Debs.”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

“I mean, they're setting all of this up. Alexandria just told Lieutenant Hatfield that you plotted the murders of Shannon Bender and Daria Cantrell because you hated the Moos so much.”

Louella's head jerked like she'd been slapped. “She wouldn't!”

“She's a Moo. They'd do anything to bring us down.”

I must have been a really good actress, or Louella needed new glasses. Her face dropped, then her hands started to shake, as reality started smacking her in the face. The doubt, then fear showed in every expression, and I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

“Alexandria and I have been best friends for nearly forty years,” she said in a shaky voice. “She wouldn't betray me.”

“When Lieutenant Hatfield comes in, tell him it was her idea.” How I managed to say that with a straight face, I had no idea. After all, Casey was going to testify that it was Louella who spiked him with a Manolo Blahnik.

Her eyes clenched closed. “No. I won't betray her. That's the Delta Beta way.”

At that, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. This lady had pledged way too long ago. “What happened, Louella,” I said as gently as I could. “If you're protecting her, you must have had a good reason.”

Louella sat up straighter and lifted her chin. “Forty years, the council has run Sutton rush. The five of us determined long ago that we would ensure that the Sutton Panhellenic system would survive no matter what.”

So far that didn't sound crazy. I loved the idea of Panhellenic alumnae working together to provide a steady guiding hand to the system we all cherished.

Louella looked dismayed. “But then you came to town.”

Oh please. “What did I do?”

“You came, and the murders started.”

“You know I didn't actually murder ­people?”

“Yes, but they happened. You weren't strong enough to stop them. Then the press came. Then the critics. Now the college is actually debating ending their support for Greek life.” Her lips pressed together, as if she was trying to stop herself from crying. “All these years, we were in control, and now the college wanted us to be transparent.” Yes, she used finger quotes. ‘Talk to the press,' they said. But the press were the ones trying to close us down! We had to stop them.”

“By murdering ­people?”

“We had to ensure that Nick Holden did not get further information to harm our way of life.”

I decided to repeat myself. “BY MURDERING PEOPLE?”

“We didn't mean to,” Louella moaned, pulling her wool coat around her. “I had no idea I still had so much upper-­body strength.”

“What you had was the equivalent of a nail gun in your shoe.”

Louella's eyes teared up. “My husband gave those to me and Alexandria before our trip to Paris five years ago. He didn't want us to get raped by Gypsies while we were touring the Eiffel Tower.”

This woman had quite an imagination. I could psychically feel Ty's eyes rolling behind the two-­way mirror, so I tried to get her back on track.

“So you were just going to knock Shannon Bender down? And then what?”

“She was clearly working for him. A stranger in that ridiculous Delta Beta shirt could only be Nick Holden's spy. We just wanted to get her attention and talk some sense into her, make her realize what she was doing.”

“So why Daria?”

“She was the second one?” Louella clarified. It was all I could do not to stand up and play bad cop on her. She didn't even know Daria's name.

I managed to control myself and nodded; Louella managed a look of pained regret. “She overheard Alexandria and me in the Tri Mu yard discussing the first incident. She said she had Holden's card and was going to call him, tell him everything. Can you imagine what would have happened then?”

“Yeah, Nick Holden was going to have information that you committed murder.” Louella didn't appreciate my sarcasm.

“It was an unfortunate consequence.”

“Why attack Lorenzo?”

“It was our sacred responsibility to protect the rush process.” She looked despairingly at me. “And here was yet another reporter—­a Mexican one—­who had come to our home—­on pref night!—­with Nick Holden and expected us to just lie down and let them destroy everything that we'd worked for, for forty years. It wasn't right, what they were trying to do.”

I pushed back from the table, sick to my stomach, my skull pounding like someone had been tapping a steel-­toed work boot against my forehead. “You're right, Louella. You need some medicine.” She was unhinged.

Her face was unreadable as I glanced at her one last time before I left the room. Maybe she really thought herself some sort of warrior-­protector of Sutton Panhellenic. But a ­couple hundred young women who only wanted friends and a good time in college didn't need anyone to take them quite so seriously.

I walked out, saw Ty, and threw up my hands. “I quit,” I said. “She's all yours.”

Louella Jackson was no sister of mine.