The Killer in My Eyes (20 page)

Lysa looked around happily. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘What is?’

‘Everything. The day, the sun, the journey, the bike. This incredible place. And to think it’s a school! I know people who would be happy just to spend a week’s vacation here.’

‘Well, we have to be content with one day. Apart from anything else, it’s free.’

They walked in silence towards the cafeteria, a low building a few dozen yards away, hidden from them by a tall hedge of mixed vegetation, tended in such a way as to give the impression of being untamed.

A girl passed them, walking fast. She had coloured leggings and a green T-shirt, with a pair of jogging shoes tied together and thrown over her shoulder. On her feet, she wore a pair of Japanese-style thongs. Her red-dyed hair seemed strewn over her head at random. Taken out of that context, she would have looked like a young homeless woman trying to figure out how and where to get through the day. Here, she was only an oddball from a good family attending a college that charged exorbitant fees. Jordan found himself thinking of his nephew here, just as much of an oddball, a few years earlier.

Maybe, in her way, that girl really was homeless.

They followed her up a small flight of steps and through a glass door into the cafeteria, a large hall with yellow-painted walls. Some young people were working in the service area, others were sitting at tables, talking among themselves.

There was an understated air about the place, although an ATM cash machine was in full view on the wall to the left. The red-headed girl went straight to it and slipped her card into the slot. Jordan smiled to himself. Some of these kids might adopt a casual, bohemian style, but they were happy to use the credit cards provided by their parents.

On their entrance, all male heads had turned in perfect unison to look at Lysa, and the hum of conversation had died down. If Jordan hadn’t been so busy noticing this, he would have noticed that many of the girls were looking at him in the same way.

At that moment, a man came through the glass door beside them, carrying a golf bag over his shoulder. He was about sixty, as tall as Jordan, with somewhat sparse hair of an indefinable colour, worn slightly longer than average. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of unrimmed spectacles. He gave the impression of being a calm person, someone who had had everything he wanted out of life.

He approached them with a smile. ‘Jordan Marsalis, I assume. I’m Travis Hoogan, the President of this godforsaken place.’

Jordan shook the hand held out to him. ‘Pleased to meet you. This is Lysa Guerrero.’

Hoogan’s eyes lit up with contained mischief as he held Lysa’s hand a moment longer than necessary. ‘Miss Guerrero, what a delight to meet you. Your presence on this earth tells us common mortals that miracles do happen. Which is why I shan’t lose hope that I can yet improve on my golf handicap.’

Lysa threw her head back and laughed. ‘If you’re as good on the golf course as you are at making compliments, I think we’ll soon be seeing you at the Masters.’

The President gave a little shrug. ‘Oscar Wilde said that the problem isn’t that we grow old on the outside, but that we stay young inside. Believe me, knowing that doesn’t help. Thanks, anyway.’

Jordan had not told Lysa why they had come to Vassar. After these pleasantries, Lysa showed her usual tact by saying, ‘I think you two have something to talk about. While you do, I hope you don’t mind if I take a look around.’

Hoogan made a gesture, as if granting her a hypothetical key to the college. ‘If I did mind, I fear the male members of the board would ask for my resignation.’

Lysa headed for the door and went out. Two young men on their way in stood aside to let her through, stood for a moment in the doorway, looked at each other, then turned back to follow her.

Hoogan smiled as he watched her go. ‘She may not be a pure miracle, but she’s something very close to one. You’re a lucky man, Mr Marsalis.’ Then his tone changed abruptly. ‘When Christopher rang to tell me you were coming, he told me you’ve both been in a bad state since Gerald’s death. I was really sorry to hear about the boy, and I hope you find something while you’re here that may help you discover who killed him.’

‘I hope so, too.’

‘Shall we go to my office? I think we can talk there without being disturbed.’

As he followed Hoogan out of the cafeteria, Jordan looked through the windows and saw Lysa standing under a tree, helmet in one hand, gesturing with the other to a squirrel that was looking at her curiously from the top of a branch.

She was smiling, and Jordan thought she looked very happy.

The office of the President of Vassar was exactly as Jordan had imagined it. It smelled of leather and wood, with a faint hint of pipe tobacco. The room was straight out of an illustration in the
Saturday Evening Post
. The furniture would have made the fortune of any dealer in modern antiques. The only odd note was provided by the computer on the desk.

On the way in, Hoogan had asked his secretary, a bright-looking girl with a sly smile, to hold his calls. The girl had made a note of this, and before they disappeared through the door had found the time to give Jordan an interested once-over.

Hoogan went to the window, which looked out on the avenue that Jordan and Lysa had ridden along a while earlier, and drew the curtains to avoid the light shining in Jordan’s face. Then he sat down behind the desk.

Jordan wondered how many times young people had found themselves on the chair where he was sitting now, waiting to be lectured to by the President of Vassar. Maybe his nephew Gerald had been one of them.

‘The answer is yes.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You were wondering if your nephew was ever in this office. The answer is yes, more than once.’

Hoogan took advantage of Jordan’s surprise to remove his glasses and clean them with a napkin he had taken from a drawer. As he put them on again, Jordan noticed that he had grey eyes.

‘His father, though, almost never.’

He said this not as an accusation, but as a statement of fact. But there was a definite note of regret in his voice. He leaned back in his chair.

‘You see, Mr Marsalis, among the young people who come here to study, only a few really deserve to do so, because they really want to. That’s a civilized way of saying that most of our students have been . . . how shall I put it? . . . dumped here by their families. Sometimes by tacit agreement. “You keep out of my way, and I’ll keep out of yours”.’

‘And which category did Gerald belong to?’

‘Your nephew was probably insane, Mr Marsalis. Or if he wasn’t, he was playing his part very well.’

Jordan was forced to admit that this terse description seemed to fit Gerald – and Jerry Ko – perfectly.

‘Vassar College focuses on a number of artistic fields,’ Hoogan went on. ‘Fine art, creative writing, directing. They’re fields in which talent can’t be bought, but where it is possible to postpone the realization that it isn’t there. Gerald, on the other hand, did have talent. A great deal of talent. But he was convinced that it had to go hand-in-hand with certain extreme life choices. I don’t know what triggered this idea in him, but I can tell you he professed it like a dogma. And there’s something else. He scrupulously avoided any visit from his father. I got the impression that he hated him, and I suspect that’s one of the reasons why he behaved in that way.’

‘Did Gerald have friends when he was here?’

‘He could have had dozens. In his own weird way, he was a kind of idol. But he was too busy demonstrating that he didn’t need anyone. Not even us.’ Hoogan placed his elbows on the desk and leaned forward slightly. ‘I followed his career after he left here. You may think I’m being cynical, but trust me when I say I was very saddened by his violent death, but not surprised.’

Nor was I, unfortunately.

More than anything else, Jordan had listened to Hoogan talking at length about Gerald as a way of judging the man’s character. Now that he was sure he was up to the mark, it seemed the right moment to explain the reason for his trip to Poughkeepsie.

‘There’s one thing you may not know, Mr Hoogan. Have you heard the latest news?’

‘No, I’ve been on the golf course all the time.’

‘Last night, Chandelle Stuart was murdered at her home in New York. She also studied here in Vassar. Around about the same time as Gerald.’

Hoogan took off his glasses and cleaned them again, even though they didn’t really need it.

‘Chandelle Stuart. I remember her very well. How did it happen?’

‘Mr Hoogan—’

The President stopped him with a gesture of his hand. ‘Call me Travis, please.’

Jordan was pleased at this openness, because it gave greater weight to what he was about to say. ‘All right, Travis. What I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential. So far we’ve managed by a miracle not to let any of this get out and we’d like to keep it that way. The circumstances of Chandelle Stuart’s death are such as to suggest a connection with the murder of my nephew.’

‘What kind of connection, if you don’t mind my asking?’

Despite everything, Jordan felt slightly uncomfortable revealing the circumstances of the crimes to Hoogan.

‘You may find this incredible, but the person who killed them arranged their bodies to resemble two characters from
Peanuts
.’

‘You mean Charlie Brown and so on?’

‘Precisely. Gerald was sitting against a wall with a blanket stuck to his ear, and Chandelle was at the piano. Linus and Lucy.’

As Travis did not ask him for clarification, it was obvious that he was familiar with the strips.

‘And in Chandelle Stuart’s apartment we found something that leads us to believe that the next victim will be Snoopy.’

Travis Hoogan, the President of Vassar College, a man whose life had revolved around words, seemed to be struggling to find a single one. ‘My God. That’s crazy.’

‘I think that’s the right word. Can you think of anything that might link the two of them with
Peanuts
?’

‘None at all. Not only that, I can’t think of anything to link them with each other. This is a small world and we know every thing about everybody. Especially where two such unusual personalities are concerned. But I don’t remember ever hearing of a connection between your nephew and Chandelle.’

‘What do you remember about her?’

‘Rich. Unbearable. And probably sick. The fact that she’s dead doesn’t change the memory I have of her.’

‘Did she have friends?’

‘I’d say the same about her as about your nephew, although with her it was slightly different. Gerald didn’t want anybody, and nobody wanted Chandelle. The only person she was at all friendly with was Sarah Dermott, I think.’

‘Who was Sarah Dermott?’

Hoogan turned to the computer and tapped on the keyboard for a few moments.

‘Here she is. Sarah Dermott, from Boston. She was here on a scholarship. She was part of that small percentage I mentioned before, the ones who really want to be here. She was intelligent, gifted – and very ambitious.’

Jordan noticed the slight stress on the word ‘very’.

‘She and Chandelle attended the same Directing course. I think Sarah tolerated her for a short period because she was convinced that a member of the Stuart family might be useful to her, but after a while she was forced to throw in the towel. Chandelle was too much even for someone as ambitious as her.’

‘Where can I find this Sarah Dermott?’

‘Los Angeles. She’s directing in Hollywood – I think she has a contract with Columbia. She was here recently at a reunion of ex-students.’

‘I think it might be useful for me to speak to her.’

‘No problem.’ Hoogan picked up a phone from the desk and pressed a key. ‘Miss Spice, could you get hold of Sarah Dermott in Los Angeles for me, please? Put her right through.’

Less than a minute later, the telephone rang. Hoogan lifted it to his ear.

‘Sarah, this is Travis Hoogan, calling from Vassar . . . Very well, thanks. I have someone here with me who needs to speak to you about an important matter.’

Jordan leaned across and took the cordless from Hoogan. ‘Hello, Miss Dermott. I’m Jordan Marsalis, New York Police Department.’

Basically, he thought, it wasn’t a lie but only a half-truth.

‘What can I do for you?’ The voice was bright, precise, the voice of someone with not much time to spare, but friendly enough.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I thought you ought to know that Chandelle Stuart has been murdered.’

There was a moment’s silence, then: ‘Oh my God, when?’

‘Last night. Now, I need to point out that what I’m about to tell you is in the strictest confidence.’

As he said these words, Jordan wondered how much longer it would be before the whole story was widely known, if he continued to tell everyone like this.

‘We have every reason to believe that the person who committed the crime is the same person who recently killed Gerald Marsalis. I don’t know if you heard about his death?’