What If... Page 3

  Not that she ever admitted all that. Yet Leon felt he knew Gertie well enough to make those assumptions and for them to be valid. A lot of disappointments had filled his aunt’s life. Although she was a hard person to get close to, she was essentially a good person inside, but she hid behind a stiff, crusty exterior. Still, he understood how the disappointments had rocked her over the years.

  He drove them carefully through town, before pulling up in front of her brownstone. “Do you want me to come in?”

  “No, of course not.” She unbuckled her seat belt. “I’m totally fine.”

  “You may well be,” he replied, “but that doesn’t mean you always have to be so strong.”

  “Of course I do.” She widened her eyes, as she looked at him in surprise. “There’s no other way to be. You know that.”

  He winced. “Well, it would be nice to think that you didn’t have to be that way all the time.”

  “Nonsense. This life is what you make it.” She unlocked the car door, stepped out, looked back at him. “Don’t you go worrying about me now. I’ll be fine.” And, with that, she slammed the car door. With her back ramrod straight, she strode up to her front door.

  He watched her carefully, looking for any break in that facade she always put up, but she appeared to be holding steady. He sighed as he put his car in gear, then pulled back out into the traffic. He returned to the university because he was overwhelmed in paperwork. But one of the things that he really didn’t enjoy was to leave her like this, if she needed somebody. The trouble is, she was one of those people who always made a point of never needing anybody, which made it frustrating to lend her a helping hand.

  Just the two of them were left in the family, and he thought it likely that she did allow him into her life more than anybody else, if there had been anybody else. But he didn’t even know that for sure. She had always been difficult to get along with. It was her way or the highway. He had no trouble with Gertie, but he understood who she was and where she was coming from. Not everybody was willing to go that extra mile and give her a little bit more leeway.

  Back in his own parking spot at the university, he hopped out and headed toward his office. As it happened, he crossed paths with the same detective again.

  She looked at him, then frowned, as if trying to remember where she’d seen him, and then her face cleared. “Did you get your aunt home okay?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but she’s pretty shaken up.”

  “Of course,” she said gently. “It’s been a shock for her.”

  “You’re right.” Leon searched for her partner, off to the side on the phone. “I guess the investigation will take a few days.”

  “We’ll be lucky if it’s done by then,” she stated quietly. “Sometimes it can take a whole lot more.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” he muttered. He smiled, as he stepped past her. “Good luck with your hunting, Detective.”

  Her eyebrows shot up at that, and he felt her eyes boring into the back of his head, as he headed for his office. But he didn’t give her any more clarification. It was a fairly well-known phrase in the military and in law enforcement. He had joined the military at eighteen, did a tour, then moved into law enforcement at twenty-two, before adding fifteen years on the force and then moving on again.

  Now, as a professor for the last two years, he was thirty-nine, and the years had seemed to disappear so quickly for him. He imagined that was probably how his aunt felt as well. Time just flew by when you were busy. He smiled, thinking about it.

  Still, he’d been almost married once, and that had been enough for him, at least for now, but he had to admit something about that detective intrigued him. An age-old weariness was in her gaze, as if she’d seen more than she’d ever expected to see in this lifetime. But also a naughty humor, as if to say, “Well, here we go again. Let’s see what we find this time.” He wondered at that dichotomy. It was unusual in one so young, but then, as he thought about it, maybe she wasn’t as young as he’d first thought. She had that hard edge of experience.

  He headed toward his office, then looked up to see a line of students waiting outside. He groaned. “What’s going on here?”

  The students moved toward him.

  One said, “I have a few questions.”

  Another one stepped up. “I have questions on the exams coming up.”

  He stared at them. “And yet you all seem to be here at once. Why is that?”

  They shrugged.

  “More for moral support,” one of the younger women explained. “After the murders today, we’re all a little shook up.”

  He winced at that. “If it was murder, yes, but we don’t know yet. Come on in.” He opened up his door and stepped inside, while the six students filed in behind him. He walked around the corner of his desk and stood facing them. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” one woman replied cheerfully. “I just, you know, had some questions.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Real questions?”

  “Of course.” She nodded. “About the exams.”

  “Well, I’m not answering any questions about the exams,” he stated immediately. “I told you that in class.”

  “But everybody gives us extra help when it comes to the exams,” she protested.

  “Not everyone does,” he said, “and I certainly won’t. You’re expected to have paid attention in class.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed, “but I still don’t understand some factors.”

  “Well, if you have a specific question about a factor that you don’t understand, that’s a different story. But, if you’re asking for insight into what the exams could be about, I gave you that information already. So you’re out of luck if you’re looking for more.” He turned to the next one. “And you?”

  She said, “I’m with her.”

  “And you?”

  By the time he had addressed all the students’ concerns, and they had left, he felt a little more tired than he should be. But it seemed like, no matter what year, what group, a portion of the student body always looked to step in closer to get a little bit more information, a little bit more insight into what the exams would bring. Extra insight that the other students didn’t need or want.

  It happened every time, but he still found it wearying. No matter how many times he told them that he wasn’t giving them more information, it seemed like they needed to be told over and over again, hoping he would say it in a different way, so they would glean that little bit more. But it wouldn’t happen. He’d been at this just long enough to understand the behaviors of his students.

  Finally he got up and closed his briefcase, taking work home yet again, and he headed out the office door. He gave a last fleeting thought about the two dead women in the amphitheater, hoping that, by now, the families had been notified, and the bodies removed. It would take time to absorb the news, then find the way forward. The university’s reputation was one of the big concerns. They didn’t need any more bad press. There had been just enough trouble with cheating scandals and other rumors flying around that they had hoped for a few clean years without any bad press.

  Unfortunately this would be the kind of bad press the university could not escape from.

  Chapter 2

  Abby walked into the small university staff room, where the one student—who’d been sitting between the two dead women—had been sequestered. But instead of looking like she might have recovered slightly over the last hour or more sitting here, she actually appeared catatonic. Abby looked around to see if she was alone or if somebody was with her, but Abby saw no sign of anyone, outside of the policewoman standing off to the side. Abby immediately walked over, sat down, and picked up the girl’s cold hands.

  “Carrie, are you okay? I’m Detective Abigail Cartwright. I’m sorry you had to wait so long.”

  Carrie slowly lifted her head and looked up, her eyes huge wells of pain, and whispered, “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Good
, I’m glad to hear that,” Abby replied, “but I still need to ask you some questions.”

  The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t see anything,” she said. “But how could that have happened? How could I have been sitting right there and not seen anything? Two people, my two best friends at that, are dead. They died right in front of me, and I didn’t notice anything. How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know.” Abby studied Carrie. “What did you see?” The young woman had been traumatized by the day’s events, and she’d be lucky to remember anything. However, nothing was off about her energy; it was full of pain and grief, as to be expected. Abby immediately shut down that part of her vision, trying to head off the oncoming headache before it grabbed hold.

  “I saw the professor. It was an interesting class. I was paying attention to her.”

  “Why did you sit in that place, in that particular seat?”

  “I always do.” She looked at Abby in confusion. “The three of us always do.”

  “You always sit at the front of the class?”

  “We do if we like the class,” she added. “If it’s one we’re likely to want to skip out on, we sit at the back, so that our leaving won’t be so obvious and disturb people.”

  That made sense. Abby pressed her point a little further. “In the time that you were sitting there, did anybody else come and join your row?”

  She looked at her in surprise. “I don’t think so, but I wasn’t paying attention to anything but the professor.”

  “But you weren’t paying attention to the prof the whole time, were you?”

  “Enough,” she said. “I didn’t really see anything happen around me. Plus I was in the middle, so wouldn’t I have noticed?”

  “Did anybody come and talk to the two women?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “So, it was a completely routine class?” Abby asked.

  “Routine, except that they’re dead,” Carrie wailed.

  “I get that,” Abby said, “and that’s why I’m asking the questions I’m asking. We have to find out what happened.”

  “And I don’t know what could have happened,” she murmured. “All I can think of is that maybe they had food poisoning or something.”

  “Interesting option. Did the coffee taste okay? Did they complain of feeling sick? Did you guys eat before class?”

  She nodded. “We stopped at the little cafeteria round the corner from class. It’s in the same building, and there was no line outside, so we went up and got coffee.”

  “All three of you?”

  Carrie nodded. “All three of us got coffee. It’s kind of a routine for us.”

  “Okay, did you get anything to eat with it?”

  She stopped, looked at her in confusion, then her face cleared. “No.” She shook her head. “We didn’t. We just drank our coffee.”

  Abby made a note of that on her notepad to check out the coffee.

  “Yeah, at least I didn’t notice anything different. But, you know, I just drank mine, almost by habit. They weren’t complaining either.”

  Abby winced at that coffee comment because she was guilty of the same thing. You pick up a wonderful coffee, and then you just get so busy that you don’t even get a chance to enjoy it. You sense that it went down the hatch, but not in the way where you actually appreciated it. “What about your friends? Did they have any enemies? Any arguments? Stalkers? Recent breakups that turned ugly? Anything to say someone might have done this?”

  “No,” Carrie whispered. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about it, and there’s nothing. Neither had any recent boyfriends. It was always the two of them and then me. I was on the outside. Friends with both but not part of their duo. Not everyone loved them, but, in all the years I’ve known them, and that’s over ten now, I’ve never seen anyone actively dislike them.”

  “Okay.” Abby nudged Carrie back to the day’s events. “Is there anything else you can tell me about what went on today? Was anybody acting oddly, anybody being difficult, giving the prof a hard time or causing a disruption?”

  She shook her head. “No, we were really engaged in the class today. It was kind of a fun one, something to make us, the whole class, sit up and think.” Carrie sighed. “Honestly I don’t even know what to say. We’ve really enjoyed the class, and I was sorry it was coming to an end.”

  “So, you had no problems with the professor?”

  “No, none at all. She’s been really good,” she stated. “I’ve always heard rumors that she can be hard to deal with and a tough grader, and maybe that’s fair, but honestly the class was more interesting than most. And, early on, I knew I would see it through, even if it meant a lower grade than other classes.”

  “Do you think anybody held a grudge against her? Like, was anybody openly upset about the marks that she gave?”

  The young woman stared at her. “I have no idea,” She shrugged. “Our scores are always posted by student number on the board outside, so nobody knows who got what. It’s a common system. Your marks are your marks, and you either do the work and get better marks, or you don’t do the work, and you don’t.” She shook her head. “I honestly don’t have a clue who got what.”

  “Okay, but if somebody did get a low grade, have you seen any animosity toward the professor, anybody causing issues during class, anybody being disruptive or yelling at her?”

  She shook her head. “No, of course not, besides”—confused, she frowned—“what’s that got to do with my friends?”

  “I don’t know,” Abby murmured. “Nothing perhaps, but, because it was a classroom scenario, we have to check everything.”

  Carrie nodded, as if understanding, but clearly she didn’t have a clue.

  Abby asked, “Are you a local?”

  “No.” Carrie gave a quick headshake. “I’m living on campus, but I’m actually from Montana.”

  Abby wrote that down. “And you’ll be staying here now?”

  “Well, I have to. I have other classes and projects I have to finish, final exams to take.”

  But Carrie had a blankness to her tone, as if she just couldn’t begin to understand how much work she had left to do or how she would possibly do it now. Abby nodded. “You might want to talk to your counselors here. I’m sure some assistance is available for you to deal with the loss of your friends.”

  Carrie nodded, as if she understood that, but still lacking a look of comprehension.

  Abby stood. “Do you have anybody here to take you home?”

  “Home?” She looked up at her. “I live around the corner.”

  “How long have you been sitting here in this room?”

  “I don’t know. One of the police officers told me to come in here and wait, until somebody came to talk to me.”

  “You were waiting for me.” Again the other woman just nodded blankly. “Come on. Let’s get you back to your room.”

  Obediently the other woman stood.

  “Do you have somebody to stay with you tonight?”

  Carrie shook her head. “No. If you mean friends, well, you’ve taken my friends to the morgue.” At that declaration, her eyes filled with tears, and she sobbed noisily.

  Abby sighed, gathered the young woman into her arms, and held her close. When she showed signs of calming down, Abby said, “Come on. Let’s get you back to your place. I wish somebody could stay with you tonight though.”

  “Me too,” she whispered, “but there isn’t anybody.”

  “What about family?”

  “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “My mom’s at home, but she looks after my brother. He’s disabled. I can’t expect her to just pick up and come here to look after me. Besides she’s a couple hours’ drive away.”

  “No, of course not. How about going home for the holidays, so you could maybe put some of this behind you.”

  “I was supposed to go away with my friends.” She started crying yet again.

  Grabbing her up, keepi
ng her moving, Abby headed outside, where several police officers were. She quickly explained what the problem was, and one of the other women walked over and took Carrie’s arm.

  “We’re from victim services,” she explained to Abby. “We’ll take care of her.”

  With relief, Abby handed her off. She wanted to tell the girl to not leave town because Abby still might have questions, but that would have gone unheard. This young lady, so caught up in her own grief, wasn’t even cognizant of what was going on around her, and it would be a while before the full import set in of how her life had been devastated. Abby watched as the woman was led to a car and driven away.

  As she stood here, pondering her next move, Harvey stepped up.

  “Hey, I wondered where you were.”

  She looked at him, gave him a weak smile. “Finding lots of dead ends. How about you?”

  “More dead ends, although we’ll have to talk to the professor again. I did get the video cameras from the hallway, and it does show a ton of students coming in and out all day. We’ll have to double-check to see if any of them she doesn’t know were allowed inside.”

  “Right, we can do that first.”

  “I can do that, if you’ve got something else you want to do,” Harvey offered.

  “What I want to do,” she grumbled, “is figure out what the hell happened. Unfortunately it feels like we’ll need the coroner’s report for a cause of death first. At least we have a very good idea of the time of death.”

  “Were the women seen talking to each other during the class?”

  She nodded. “Yes, other students are confirming that. We’re still going through a whole list of interviewees yet,” she noted. “That room over there is full, but I’ve got four uniforms helping with those.”

  Harvey pointed down the hallway. “Since the prof already left, I’ll confirm with her later. For now, I’ll go double-check the witnesses—getting photos and contact info—so I can check that against the video cam feeds of all these students caught on the film.”