Stalking Death (36 page)

I felt like I was working a jigsaw puzzle and none of the pieces fit.

"This is not a good time," Quinn repeated. "We're upset. I have to go."

"Will you ask Bobby one question for me? Ask him who he told about the accident... about my car."

"Thea. Darling. You don't understand what I'm dealing with here. He's just gone to take a hot bath. If he's feeling up to it, I'll ask when he gets out." Quinn put down the phone. If I called back, I knew he wouldn't answer. Quinn reminded me of my mother. She was convinced Suzanne worked me too hard; Quinn believed I worked Bobby too hard. Impossible to make them understand that we worked hard because we chose to.

I put down the phone. "Curiouser and curiouser." I poured some lukewarm coffee into my cup, and stared at the too perfect artificial fire. Nothing that had happened since I took this job made sense. Not professional, reasonable way to run a school sense and not logical, interpersonal sense. There was a level of game playing going on here that I couldn't get a handle on. "None of this makes any sense."

"Maybe you could be more specific?" Andre said.

"I don't know if I can. Maybe it will help if I start at the beginning. You know about that. Todd Chambers called us for help with a campus problem. His version of the campus problem was that a minority student, Shondra Jones, had, for either irrational or vindictive reasons, accused a fellow student, known for his conservative, practically white supremacist views, of stalking her. Her accusations had inflamed the campus and upset other female students. He wanted us to approve a letter to the parents, assuring them that there was no stalking problem."

I stared at the tongues of yellow and blue gas flame, feeling pretty out-of-gas myself. "Have you got time for this? You don't need to be back?"

"I need to get back, but I've got some time."

A little bit of time. I hated to waste it on St. Matthews, but I wanted Andre's advice. "I refused to approve the letter without asking some questions, and discovered that the student
was
being harassed, that the school had failed to follow its own rules and procedures by not questioning the alleged stalker or holding a hearing, that they didn't get the concept of stalking at all. When I suggested a different letter and some systemic changes, I was sent packing. With me so far?"

"Of course." He nodded impatiently.

"It was Suzanne they wanted all along, not me. Chambers believed she would avoid asking hard questions and support his agenda, which appears to have been calm the parents and go back to business as usual, a business which mostly seems to have revolved around the Headmaster's desire to raise money for a fancy new building rather than running a quality school. Then they had the murder, where apparently the harassed girl's brother, Jamison Jones, beat Alasdair MacGregor, the boy who was harassing her, to death and tried to burn his body in a fire."

I grabbed a breath, knowing I was racing through this. "The head of the Trustees, Charles Argenti, called us back in and we started doing our thing. Not far into the first day, we discovered that the dead boy, Alasdair, had formed the Neo-Skulls, a group of legatee boys who specialized in harassing women and minorities, but who were never disciplined for it because their families were big donors."

Andre put a hand on my arm. "Easy, Thea," he said. "I don't have a plane to catch."

"Okay. Sorry. This gets me all wound up. So this group had threatened to revenge Alasdair's murder, which we... or I... took as a threat to Shondra Jones... but the coaches who reported the threat stonewalled about giving any details, and Chambers refused to take the threat seriously. All along, they've refused to listen to our advice, and Chambers and his staff are still doing their best to avoid telling the truth about what is going on on this campus."

I sucked in a breath. "I don't understand why they're behaving this way. There are other things that don't make sense. When we found Shondra unconscious from an overdose, and her room completely trashed, Chambers hardly blinked, even when we learned that the dorm residents had been lured away by a bogus phone call. And Chamber's behavior last night was so smug and so indifferent, like nothing was happening here that he needed to pay attention to... like his crisis was over and it was okay to act insulting again."

"Remember to breathe," he said. "This isn't your problem anymore. It's their problem, Suzanne's problem."

"It
was
their problem, before someone attacked me. Before they trashed my car. Before they tried so hard to get me out of the way again. Now, their problem is that I'm not leaving until I understand what's happening and why it's happening, why someone is so desperate to have me gone. And I can't go until I know that Shondra is safe."

"Shondra is your latest waif?"

"If a 6' 3" tough, fit female basketball player can be characterized as a waif." I checked my watch. "And the first item on my agenda is to see if I can find her. I thought her coach would be taking care of that, but it seems that she's too busy."

"And someone's got to do it, right?" He looked like he wanted to argue. As he'd said, it wasn't supposed to be my problem anymore. Then he sat down beside me and picked up my hand. "Where would I be today if you weren't so determined?" I squeezed back, the flames blurred to a kaleidoscope of blue and gold by my tears. It was something we would never know.

Abruptly, he dropped my hand and stood up. "I have to go."

"I know," I said. "I wish..."

"We both wish. Look, will you do something for me? Something you aren't going to like much?"

Here came the 'be careful' speech, or the 'get out of town' one, some form of protective behavior. But it was natural for him to be protective. He was a cop. He held out his hand. "Give me your phone."

I gave it to him.

"You got Gary Bushnell's number?" I dug out Bushnell's card and handed it to him. He programmed the number into my phone, first on the list of automatic numbers, and gave it back. "I hope you won't need to use it."

"Better safe than sorry, right?"

"You got it."

We shared one last hug, then he dropped his arms and reached for his coat. "You be careful out there," I said. "I don't want to be finding parts of you in people's freezers."

"How likely is that?"

"You're the detective. You tell me."

"You're the one who needs to be careful. In fact, when you get home, I'm getting you a helmet like the ones skiers wear. You can decorate it any way you want. Ribbons, beads, flowers, pompoms... but you have to wear it all the time, just in case."

"Maybe I'll get a bright red one. Stencil EDGE Consulting on it. Get me some of those shoulder pads like footplayers wear. That would really make people sit up and pay attention."

"I think you've got people paying attention," he said quietly. "That's why they're trying to get you out of here. You scare them."

"Yeah, right."

He gave me a look, one of his 'believe me, I know bad guys' looks. "Right. So you be careful." Then my handsome husband walked out the door. I heard him thumping down the stairs, resisting the impulse to run after him and tell him he couldn't go. He had to go, and so did I. Back to the St. Matthews campus.

Chapter 28

I was stiff and sore from battling the forces of evil, and sleepy from good food and sitting by the fire. Gearing up to go back out into a chilly night wasn't easy. But then, no one said life would be easy. I'd had my hour with Andre. It was time to get back to work. I changed into sleuthing clothes, black sweater and pants and charcoal trail runners, stuck a tiny flashlight and my pepper spray in my pocket, and went down to the Jeep.

I parked in the lot behind Shondra's dorm, then sailed right in through the unlocked door, unchallenged and unobserved all the way to Shondra's door. They had awfully short memories around this place. If I'd been an axe murderer—these days, in films, the guy who wants to be thought good always declares he's no axe murderer, so society must be rife with them—I'd have reached my quarry easily. I knocked on her door, not expecting a response, waited a minute, and knocked again.

The slight shuffle of feet told me I was being observed. I turned to find Cassie the pastel blonde watching me from a doorway across the hall. She widened her eyes as I turned. "Oh, good. So Shondra's back?" she said.

A wise friend once told me that if something's too good to be true, assume it isn't. If someone who appears to be a sweet, innocent friend wannabe is always on hand but never actually seems to perform friendly acts—be suspicious. Maybe she's no friend at all. Maybe she works for the other side. Alasdair and his crew must have needed some inside people. Maybe MacLeods, like MacGregors, were a hereditary St. Matthews family. Maybe the Neo-Skulls had a women's auxiliary—the Neo-Skullettes? Or maybe I'd been Thea Kozak, girl detective, too long.

I shrugged. "I have no idea. Just thought I'd stop by and see."

"Oh. Too bad. I was just wondering if she was okay." The wide-eyed enthusiasm faded to a dejection equally dramatic and equally implausible.

"So you haven't seen her, Cassie?"

She blinked a little, surprised that I'd remembered her name, then shook her head. "Not for days," she said. "Not since... not since her brother... since that awful thing happened."

That wasn't what she'd told me last time I'd come looking for Shondra. Girl ought to get her story straight. "So you have no idea if she's in there?"

Her shrug was airily delicate. "Not a clue." She looked ruefully over her shoulder at her room. "Guess I'd better get back to work." She retreated, closing the door behind her, but I didn't hear the click of the latch.

I knocked on Shondra's door again. "Shondra, if you're there, let me in. It's Thea Kozak. I need to talk with you."

I expected her to be there. Where else was she going to go, if she wasn't with Coach Adams? Frank Woodson, maybe? But while her brother had taken Woodson's concern at face value, Shondra seemed to dislike him. I'd try her teammates next, starting with Jen and Lindsay. I had their numbers from this morning. I took paper from my briefcase, wrote my message and my cell phone number on it, and pushed it under the door. I waited a little longer, hoping she'd respond. When she didn't, I left.

I consulted the list and my campus map. I'd grabbed a handful of those after giving my copy to Bushnell, figuring I'd probably keep losing them and keep needing them. Jen and Lindsay were in Henderson Hall.

This time, I got in the door all right, but ran into a wary adult before I was five feet into the building. She was handsome and imposing, with the well-put-together style I admired and could never achieve. She had a great haircut and knew how to use make-up. Women like her always make me feel frumpy. Her smile was pleasant, but there was a firmness and certainty about her that made one thing clear: there was no way she was letting me pass.

"I'm Molly Weston, the head resident. And you are?"

"Thea Kozak, from EDGE Consulting, we're working with the school on issues around Alasdair's death." She knew this. I'd been at the faculty meeting. But it didn't hurt to remind her and I wanted to appear cooperative. "I'm looking for Lindsay Davis and Jen Reilly."

"I think Lindsay is in. I'm not sure about Jen." She waved a hand toward the open door behind her. "Why don't you come in and tell me what this is about?"

"I'm trying to find Shondra Jones. I wanted to see if either of them had any suggestions about where she might go."

"You tried Jenna Adams?"

"Yes. And Shondra's dorm."

"I see. If you don't mind my asking, why are
you
looking for Shondra? Why not someone from the school?"

It was a fair question. I decided it deserved the truth. "Technically speaking, I
am
someone from the school, as long as I'm working for them." I let her absorb that, and gave her the rest. "I'm doing it because no one else is bothering, and I'm concerned about her. I was the one who picked her up at the hospital this morning. When we stopped for lunch, someone in the parking lot tried to run us down."

I stopped. This had to sound like too much answer.

But Molly Weston didn't look surprised or suspicious. "Go on," she said.

"Then the police came, and one of them, Lt. Bushnell, the state police detective who's investigating Alasdair's death, questioned her." Her eyebrows went up and I nodded. "He was rough... said some pretty harsh things about her brother. We were going to ride back with Frank Woodson because my car was damaged but before Bushnell finished, Shondra ran away. As far as I know, no one has seen her since."