An Act of Murder Read online

  The hallways in Bodeman Hall were narrow and dark and smelled of musty furniture, and it took my eyes several minutes to adjust from the outdoor light. The Resident Assistant, or RA, said Sarah Sorenson was on the third floor, and I walked nearly to the end of the hall before I came upon her room. I knocked, but not surprisingly, no one answered. It being Saturday, the entire place was deserted except for a few kids who sat watching TV in the room downstairs. Disappointed, I started for the exit door. This time I took the fire escape stairs.

  As the door clanged shut behind me, I saw Sarah getting into a little blue hatchback and called out to her. She looked up but did not recognize me, or seem to, as she continued to shove her duffle bag into her trunk. I ran down the steps to catch her, which wasn’t easy considering my boot heels kept getting stuck in the metal holes that made up the stairs.

  “Sarah!” I called out again, this time more urgently.

  “Professor Prather?”

  “Sarah, I wanted to talk to you about something. I can see you’re on your way out, but this will just take a minute.”

  Sarah looked at her car. “Okay, but my parents are expecting me. I told them I was leaving right away.”

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “I … I don’t feel well. I’m going home for the weekend.”

  She didn’t look well, either. She was pale, and her normally shiny hair appeared unkempt.

  “Listen, Sarah, I wouldn’t ask you this unless it was important—and it involves you. You said that you were supposed to meet Austin on Saturday but that you never did. Are you sure about that?” She immediately bristled. I added, “The reason I ask is because I think Austin was in danger, and I think you might be too.”

  Her shoulders slumped forward slightly, and she stared at the ground.

  “You see why this is important now?”

  She looked up, and I saw tears in her eyes. She nodded.

  “I think someone is following me, Professor Prather. I think they think I killed Austin, but I didn’t!”

  “Of course you didn’t. Why would they think that?”

  She dabbed at her nose with her sleeve. “I went to see Austin on Saturday, just like I said I would. I was a few minutes early, and he was sick. He said he had a headache, but I swear to God, I didn’t know he was going to die! I didn’t do anything to him. He said he was going to go back to the dorms and take a shower.”

  “A headache,” I said. This meant someone got to him before Sarah did. Perhaps that someone was even still there. “What time did you get there?”

  “Everybody was long gone. It must have been about six thirty when I left work.”

  “Where do you work?” I asked.

  “Dynasty. ”

  Dynasty. I recalled the fight the young man had there and immediately wondered if it was her boyfriend. Claudia had said he was Asian, and it would explain her working there.

  “Did Austin say why he was sick? Or was anyone with him?”

  “No one was there. Just him. He said the paint thinner made him dizzy, and he was anxious to go back and take a shower. I could tell. That’s why I stayed only for a few minutes. He was working on some furniture—a table.” Tears began to trickle down her cheeks again, and she brushed them away with her sweater.

  “This is important, Sarah, so think carefully. Was he wearing gloves when you saw him?”

  She sniffed. “What kind of gloves?”

  “Oh, you know, the rubber kind. The kind you might use with stain or paint.” I was becoming impatient.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. How should I know?”

  “Just try and remember. For Austin’s sake,” I added.

  She closed her eyes, and put her fingers to her temples. She was an actress and a fine one at that. She had to be allowed her dramatics. Finally, she opened her eyes.

  “Yes, he was wearing gloves. He was.”

  I knew it. I knew that before the police ever got there, someone had removed the gloves and perhaps the only piece of evidence that would link him or her to the murder.

  “He was wearing gloves,” Sarah repeated, more slowly now. “They should have protected him, right? Why didn’t they protect him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I wish I did.” I leaned in a bit closer. “Sarah, when I first came up, you said you thought someone was following you. What makes you think that?”

  She looked around the parking lot before she answered. “Last night when I got back to my room, there was a note stuck in my door that said, ‘I know about Austin. Meet me at the Tech Lab at nine o’clock.’ I thought maybe it was my boyfriend.” She rolled her eyes. “It looked like his handwriting, but it’s hard to say. I don’t see his handwriting that much because he usually texts. He gets weird ideas in his head about all my friends. I went and I waited until ten, when they close on Fridays, and walked back to the dorms. I felt like someone was watching me the whole time. When I got back to my room, stuff had been moved around and not been put back in exactly the same spot.”

  “What about your roommate? She must have seen something?”

  She shook her head. “No, she leaves Friday right after her afternoon class to visit her boyfriend. He goes to State.”

  “What about the RA? Was she downstairs?”

  Sarah smiled briefly. “She usually doesn’t show up until curfew.”

  I could think of no more possibilities. I believed her. Someone had been in Sarah’s place same as they’d been in mine. The person who killed Austin knew this campus, knew its habits and customs. He knew the dorms would be empty just as he knew I would be out getting my takeout from Vinny’s … just as he knew the perfect place for a murder.

  “Do you still have the note?”

  She shook her head. “I shredded it at the Tech Lab. I didn’t want anyone to see it. You believe me, don’t you, Professor Prather?”

  “Of course I do, Sarah. And I don’t want to see any harm come to you … or anyone else. I’m glad you’re going to your parents’ house. It’s the safest place for you. Before you go, though, I have to ask you one final question.”

  She released the handle to the car door, waiting.

  “Austin was at a party Friday night for his fraternity. Did you pick him up?”

  She shook her head. “No. I swear. I wasn’t with him.”

  “But one of the guys said he left with a woman.”

  She shook her head again. “It wasn’t me. I was with my boyfriend. You can ask him.”

  I could feel my brow furrowing. “Do you know if Austin had a girlfriend?”

  “He had someone. A girl. I don’t know if she was his girlfriend, but I heard him talking to her on the phone.”

  “Were they serious?”

  She crossed her arms. “He seemed serious. I never met her. I don’t think she lived on campus.”

  “Did he ever say her name?” I pressed.

  “No, not that I remember. We didn’t talk about our significant others, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded. I could imagine why the topic was off limits.

  She pulled open her car door.

  “Do you think someone did something to Austin?” she asked. “Is that why you’re asking all these questions?”

  I knew my own suppositions would give the girl no peace of mind, but I didn’t want her to come to any harm either. “I think you need to be very careful until the police sort this thing out. If someone did do something to Austin, he or she might still be on campus, so don’t go anywhere by yourself, especially at night.”

  She nodded, and I slammed the door shut. She drove away, leaving me alone in the parking lot. Only the trees made sounds, their brown leaves blowing violently back and forth in the wind. Sometimes I wondered how they could hang on in all that tumult.

  As I walked toward Harriman Hall, I thought about what Sarah had said. Austin had been wearing gloves when she arrived, early and unannounced. This could have accounted for the something unexpected that the murderer
did not anticipate. Startled, the murderer had to get out of there, leaving a piece of the evidence behind. Now the murderer was desperate to get that item of evidence back and was going to the people closest to Austin to find it. But who was close to Austin besides Sarah? Who was this mystery woman she had mentioned?

  I stopped at the vending machine, pushed B5—Twizzlers—and started up the stairs. I had never been to a fraternity in my life, but I had no other move to consider. I had to invent a reason for going to one now. But what?

  My office was cold, and I threw the sweater that was on my chair over my shoulders. When I opened the shade, a stream of sunlight flickered on and off as if it couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. I sat, entranced, eating my Twizzlers and hoping an idea would come to me. When the candy was gone and no ideas had formed, I picked up A Restless Heart, a fairly well-formed romance novel about a woman who could not find her place in eighteenth-century London. I could completely relate. The picture was so dreamy and the plot so predictable that I found myself happily nodding off here and there among the pages. I was exhausted from not having slept the night before.

  It wasn’t long before I found myself in a drawing room with a man named Drake, bantering with the kind of witty wordplay I could never muster up in real life. Of course this was all a prelude to his cornering me near the bookshelf, where we happened to grab for the same book. Once our hands touched, a kiss was inevitable, and his smooth lips were the last thing I remembered as I was jostled awake by a man’s voice.

  “Really, Emmeline!”

  It was Giles. Straightening up in my chair, I squawked, “Yes?”

  He brushed off his coat sleeves. “I thought you were having a nightmare, but it’s apparent that you were only under the spell of one of those romance novels.”

  I put the book, which had fallen to the floor, onto my desk and cleared my throat. “It isn’t so much a romance novel as an in-depth study of eighteenth-century mores.”

  He crinkled his brow. “Let me guess. Drake is the one who is helping the young damsel defy those mores.”

  “You’ve read it, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t have to. Your moans were testament enough to its … pleasures.”

  I felt my cheeks grow warm, but I could think of nothing to say.

  Now a broad smile covered his face, and he looked around the room curiously. “What brings you in on a Saturday, anyway? Your neighbor, Mrs. Gunderson? You look exhausted.”

  “I am. I was up half the night,” I said.

  “That woman is an absolute menace.”

  I shook my head. “She is, but it wasn’t her.”

  “Ah! I know,” he said, clapping his hands. “You were up all night grading papers.”

  “I did grade papers,” I said, which was sort of true. The essay on top was a C. I could tell right away from the run-on sentences.

  Now he became more serious. “You’re still thinking about Austin. You know, Emmeline, there are services available on campus. Grief counseling. It may not be a bad idea to talk to somebody.”

  Giles knew there was more to my odd behavior than I was telling him, and he suspected grief was to blame. I needed him to continue to believe this so he wouldn’t get involved. “I think you’re right. I need ideas on how to move on.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Moving on can be difficult, especially when we don’t have explanations. But it is best. For now. We will find out what happened. In time. But who can say what that time will be?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t think Officer Beamer had a clue.”

  But he did have a clue; I was certain of it. He was just holding his cards very close to his chest.

  “Anyway, if you need anything—I mean, besides the embrace of a devilish rogue—please let me know. I’m sure I can help you.”

  I smiled. “I do know that, Giles. Thank you.”

  As soon as he was gone, I turned to my computer and typed in the name of the fraternity where Austin had been a pledge. Their house was the grand old brick two story on Oak Street. I knew it well, and so did generations of men who oftentimes followed in their fathers’ footsteps. While the website dropped words like “honor” and “excellence” and the house itself emanated tradition, I could see from the photos that partying and roughhousing were probably the major pastimes. Jared did take his leadership role in the fraternity seriously, though. Seriously enough to kill Austin? That was what I needed to find out.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I returned home from my office with renewed energy in my step. I wasn’t good at lying, but I could stretch the truth with no problem. As I jumped into my ’69 Mustang, a calculated decision to win the boys’ approval, I put the finishing touches on my story. Although simple, it had taken a good deal of time to think up.

  Two of the boys were in my class; they knew me. There was no avoiding this fact, so I decided to use their connection to my class to question Jared’s whereabouts last night, which might tell me if he had been the one in my house. As I squealed my wheels into a parallel park, a skill I was proud of and drew attention to whenever possible, I rehearsed what I would tell Jared. I would tell him I had spilled coffee on his essay and would he be so good as to print me a copy. I had spilled plenty of beverages on plenty of papers. I had always haphazardly dabbed at them with paper towels and hoped it would suffice. But this time, no. I would tell him that the coffee had smeared the ink to the point that I couldn’t read it. It was a minor lie that would garner only a small amount of humiliation. I killed the engine.

  I walked up to the front door and knocked casually. It was one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, a time you’d expect someone to be home at a large fraternity house. But I stood there for a good long minute before I knocked again, this time more forcefully.

  Finally, a lady in her mid-fifties answered. Her hair was brown and curly and pulled back with a headband. She was busily turning pages in a calendar. “I’m sorry,” she said, still focused on her work. “May I help you?”

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m looking for Jared. Is he here?”

  Now she looked up and smiled sweetly.

  “I’m his English teacher,” I said.

  She nodded doubtfully, and I debated whether or not I should rattle off the definition of a dangling participle.

  “I teach at the university,” I said. “He’s in my class. I’ve spilled something on his paper, unfortunately, and need another copy.”

  “Of course you do, dear. I completely understand.” She motioned to a sitting room at her right. “You sit here, and I will just go and fetch him for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, admiring the combination of oak and leather. From the dusty books and the polished floor free of scuff marks, I gathered that this room wasn’t used much. On the walls were pictures of past houses, dating all the way back to 1910. I found myself smiling at the sophisticated-looking gentlemen with their jackets and hats, collars and ties. They all seemed so self-important, so ready to take on the world. Even the men in the more modern houses struck dignified poses, I saw as I progressed toward the current body of students. But then I stopped and looked again as I recognized some of the faces. Who would have thought some of our very own faculty had once been hormonal frat boys?

  “Professor?”

  “Hello, Jared. What a nice place this is.”

  He didn’t sit down. Instead, he just stood there, confused.

  “I suppose you wonder what I’m doing here, and really, it’s rather embarrassing. I was grading papers, see, and happened to spill coffee on yours.” I waved my hands. “Completely illegible. Can’t read a word of it.”

  He squinted at me. “So you want another paper?”

  “I know it’s rather … unconventional, but I did want to hand back your paper with all the others. You know how I abhor lateness,” I added, sounding rather like a schoolmarm. If only the housemother could hear me now. “I thought you could zip off a copy on the printer for me.”

  “I suppose I could do t
hat.” He looked around the room as if he could pull it from thin air. “I have it on my jump drive. Shoot. Just a sec.” He bolted out of the room, leaving me with no opportunity to follow him. Instead I looked out the window.

  Two boys putting on their jackets in the hallway looked in the room as they were passing, and I took it as an opportunity to speak. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” they said in unison.

  “I’m waiting for Jared,” I said. “Do you guys live here?”

  The redheaded boy with freckles laughed. “Do you want to see our ID cards?”

  I laughed as well, trying to appear at ease. Really, though, I had no idea how the whole fraternity thing worked. For all I knew, they had ID cards. “You must have known Austin then, huh? Too bad about him. Jeez. It’s all over the news.” I tried to sound young. Perhaps I could even pass for a grad student.

  “Austin was a cool dude,” Freckles said. “I don’t care what anybody else said. Farm kid or not, he had style.”

  “I wouldn’t say style, I’d say determination,” added the brown-headed boy wearing an expensive leather jacket. “Nothing was going to stop him from getting into the fraternity.”

  Jared broke up our conversation with his entrance, paper in hand. “Hey.”

  “Hey. We were just talking about your favorite person,” said the boy in leather.

  “Yeah? Who’s that?” He handed me the paper.

  “Austin,” he said.

  “You didn’t like Austin?” I asked innocently.

  The two boys laughed. “If the shoe fits,” said Freckles.

  Jared shoved his hands in his pockets, clearly irritated. “I liked him fine. I was the one who gave him the bid, idiot. I just didn’t know if he’d make a good addition to the house.”