A Faint Cold Fear

WEDNESDAY

12

Kevin Blake paced around his office, glancing at his watch every two minutes. “This is horrible,” he said. “Just horrible.”

Jeffrey shifted in his chair, trying to act like he was paying attention. Thirty minutes ago Jeffrey had told Blake that Andy Rosen and Ellen Schaffer were murdered, and the dean had not shut up since. The man had not asked one question about the students or the investigation. His sole focus was on what this would mean for the school and, by extension, him.

Blake threw his hands into the air with a great sense of drama. “I don’t have to tell you, Jeffrey, but this is the sort of scandal that can break the school.”

Jeffrey thought that it would not be the end of Grant Tech so much as the end of Kevin Blake’s tenure there. As good as the dean was at shaking hands and asking for money, Kevin Blake was a little too good-ol’-boy to be running a school like Grant Tech. His golf weekends and annual fund-raisers worked for the most part, but Blake was not aggressive enough to seek new sources of funding for research. Jeffrey would have placed a sizable bet on Blake’s getting ousted in at least a year, replaced by some energetic but mature woman who would drag the school into the twenty-first century.

“Where is that idiot?” Blake asked, meaning Chuck Gaines. Chuck was at least ten minutes late for their seven o’clock meeting. “I’ve got important things to do.”

Jeffrey did not express his own feelings on the matter, which were that he could have spent the extra half hour in bed with Sara instead of waiting around in Blake’s office for a meeting that would be as tedious as it was unproductive. He had a lot to do today, primarily following up with Brian Keller.

Jeffrey offered, “I can go look for him.”

“No,” Blake said, plucking a glass golf ball off his desk. He tossed it into the air and caught it. Jeffrey made a noise like he was impressed, but he had never understood golf and did not have the patience to learn.

“Played in the tournament this weekend,” Blake said.

“Yeah,” Jeffrey answered. “I saw it in the paper.” That must have been the right answer, because Blake’s face lit up. “Shot two under par. Beat the pants off Albert.”

“That’s great,” Jeffrey said, thinking it was probably not wise to beat the president of the bank at anything, let alone golf. Of course, Blake had the upper hand with Albert Gaines. He could always fire Chuck and make his daddy have to find him another job.

“I’m sure Jill Rosen will be glad to hear this get out.”

“Why is that?” Jeffrey asked, thinking there was something spiteful about the way Kevin said the woman’s name.

“Did you see the write-up in the paper? ‘College Psych Can’t Throw Her Son a Rope.’ For God’s sake, how tacky, but still . . .”

“Still what?”

“Oh, nothing.” He grabbed a club out of the bag in the corner. “Brian Keller made overtures about resigning the other day.”

“That so?” Jeffrey asked.

Blake gave an exasperated sigh, twisting the club in his hand. “He’s sucked on the university tit for twenty years, and now that he’s finally come up with something that might make the school some money, he’s talking about resigning.”

“Doesn’t the research belong to the school?”

Blake snorted at Jeffrey’s ignorance. “He can lie his way out of that, and even if he can’t, all he needs is a good lawyer, which I’m sure any pharmaceutical company in the world would be able to provide.”

“What’s he come up with?”

“An antidepressant.”

Jeffrey thought of William Dickson’s medicine cabinet. “There are tons of those already on the market.”

“This is hush-hush,” Blake said, lowering his voice even though they were alone in his office. “Brian’s been playing this real close to his chest.” He gave another laugh. “Probably so he can bargain his way into a bigger share, the greedy bastard.”

Jeffrey waited for him to answer the question.

“It’s a pharmacological cocktail with an herbal base. That’s the marketing key—make people think it’s good for them. Brian claims it has zero side effects, but that’s bullshit. Even aspirin has side effects.”

“His son didn’t take it?”

Blake looked alarmed. “You didn’t find a patch on Andy, did you? Like one of those Nicotine-control patches? That’s how it’s delivered, through the skin.”

“No,” Jeffrey admitted.

“Phew.” Blake wiped his forehead with the back of his hand to exaggerate his relief. “They’re not ready for human testing, but Brian was in D.C. a couple of days ago showing his data to the big boys. They were ready to cut the check right then and there.” Blake lowered his voice. “Truth be told, I took Prozac myself a couple of years back. Couldn’t tell it made a damn bit of difference.”

“How about that,” Jeffrey said, his standard answer-without-giving-an-answer.

Blake leaned over the club, as if he were on the golf course instead of standing in the middle of his office. “He didn’t say anything about Jill leaving with him, though. I wonder if there are problems.”

“What kind of problems would there be?”

Blake swung the club in a wide arc, then stared out the window like he was following the ball.

“Kevin?”

“Oh, she just takes a lot of time off.” He turned back to Jeffrey, leaning on the club. “I don’t think a year has gone by since Jill got here that she hasn’t used every last one of her sick days. And vacation days. We’ve had to dock her pay more than once for taking too much time.”

Jeffrey could take a good guess as to why Jill Rosen needed to stay home some days, but he did not share that with Kevin Blake.

Blake looked out the window, lining up another imaginary shot. “She’s either some kind of hypochondriac or allergic to work.”

Jeffrey shrugged, waiting for him to continue.

“She got her degree about ten, fifteen years ago,” Blake said. “One of those late bloomers. You see that a lot these days. The kids get a little older, and Mommy gets bored, so she takes some classes at the local school, and next thing you know she’s working there.” He winked at Jeffrey. “Not that we don’t appreciate the extra money. Continuing ed has been the backbone of our night school for years.”

“I didn’t know you offered that kind of training here.”

“She got her master’s in family therapy from Mercer,” Blake said. “Her doctorate is in English lit.”

“Why didn’t she teach?”

“We’ve got more than enough English teachers. You can’t shake a tree without six of them dropping down and wanting tenure. It’s science and math teachers we need. English professors are a dime a dozen.”

“How’d she get hired at the clinic?”

“Frankly, we needed more women on staff, and when the position opened up for a counselor, she went through the licensing to become a therapist. It’s worked out well.” He frowned, adding, “When she shows up to work.”

“What about Keller?”

“Welcomed with open arms,” Blake said, opening his arms to illustrate. “He came from the private sector, you know.”

“No,” Jeffrey answered. “I didn’t know.” Generally, professors left colleges to go to the private sector, where more money and status awaited them. He had never heard of a professor going backward, and he said this to Kevin Blake.

“We lost half our faculty in the early eighties. They all fled to the big companies.” Blake took a swing, then groaned, as if the shot had gone wide. He leaned on his club again and looked at Jeffrey. “Of course, most of them came crawling back a few years later when their jobs were cut.”

“What company was he with?”

“You know, I don’t recall,” Blake answered, taking the club in hand. “I remember shortly after he left, they were bought out by Agri-Brite.”

“Agri-Brite, the agricultural firm?”

“That’s right,” Blake answered, taking another swing with the club. “Brian could have made a fortune. Oh”— he went to his desk and picked up his gold Waterman pen—“that reminds me. I should give them a call and see if they’re interested in touring the university.” He pressed a button on his phone. “Candy?” he said, calling his secretary. “Can you get me the number for Agri-Brite?”

He smiled at Jeffrey. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

Jeffrey stood, thinking he had wasted enough time. “I’ll go look for Chuck.”

“Good idea,” Blake said, and Jeffrey left the office quickly, before he could change his mind.

Candy Wayne was typing on her computer outside Blake’s office, but she stopped when Jeffrey walked by. “You leaving already, Chief? That’s the shortest meeting I think he’s had since he got here.”

“Is that a new perfume?” he asked, giving her a smile. “You smell as pretty as a rose garden.”

She laughed, tossing back her hair. This might have been attractive on a woman who was not on the tail-end side of seventy, but as it was, he worried she might throw out her shoulder.

“You old dog,” she said, every line in her face gathering into a smile of sheer delight. Blake probably resented the hell out of the fact that he could not hire a twenty-year-old slut to take his dictation, but Candy had been at the school longer than anyone could remember. The alumni board would get rid of Blake before they let him get rid of Candy. Jeffrey had a similar situation with Marla Simms at the station, though he was more than happy to keep the older woman around.

Candy asked, “What can I do you for, hon?”

Jeffrey leaned on her desk, careful not to knock over the thirty or so framed pictures of her great-grandchildren. “Now, why would you think I want something?”

“Because you always want something when you’re being nice,” she said, then pouted her lips. “But it’s never the right thing.”

He tried the smile again, knowing it worked no matter what she said. “Can I get the number for Agri-Brite?”

She turned back to the computer, all business. “Which department?”

“Who would I need to talk to about someone who worked at one of their other companies about twenty years ago?”

“Which company?”

“That I don’t know,” Jeffrey admitted. “Brian Keller worked there.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” she asked, giving a sly smile. “Hold on a sec.” She rose from her desk, surprisingly spry in her tight velour miniskirt and Lycra top. She walked across the room in high heels that would have broken a lesser woman’s ankles, flicking back her platinum white hair as she pulled open one of the file drawers. She was not overweight by any means, but a flap of skin under her arm jiggled as she ran her finger along a series of folders.

She said, “Here you go,” pulling out a file.

“That’s not on computer?” he asked, walking over to see what she had.

“Not what you want,” she told him, handing him a sheet of paper.

He read Keller’s employment application, which had Candy’s notes neatly written in the margin. Jericho Pharmaceuticals was the name of the company that had been sucked into Agri-Brite, and Candy had spoken with Monica Patrick, the then head of personnel, to verify Keller’s employment and make sure he was not leaving in disgrace.

Jeffrey said, “He was at a pharmaceutical company?”

“Assistant to the assistant director of research,” she told him. “He made a lateral move salary-wise to come here.”

“He could have made more money if he’d stayed.”

“Who knows?” she said. “Those big-time mergers back in the eighties cut off everybody at the knees.” She shrugged. “Some might say he was smart getting out when he did. Nothing rewards mediocrity like the world of education.”

“You’d call him mediocre?”

“He hasn’t exactly set the world on fire.”

Jeffrey read aloud from Keller’s typed comments, “ ‘It is my desire to get back to the fundamentals of scientific research. I am tired of the backbiting corporate world.’ ”

“So he came to a university.” She laughed long and hard. “Ah, the ignorance of youth.”

“How can I get in touch with this Monica Patrick?”

Candy put her finger to her lip, thinking. “I don’t guess she’s still there. When I talked to her, she sounded old as the hills.” The look she gave Jeffrey told him to keep his mouth closed. “I bet I could make a couple or three phone calls and find a current number for you.”

“Oh, I can’t let you do that,” Jeffrey offered, hoping she would.

“Nonsense,” she said. “You don’t know how to talk to these corporate muckety-mucks. You’d be as helpless as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.”

“You’re probably right,” Jeffrey allowed. Then, “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but—”

Candy looked over her shoulder to check that Blake’s office door was still closed. “Between you and me, I never liked the man.”

“Why is that?”

“Something about him,” she said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I learned a long time ago that first impressions are generally right, and my first impression of Brian Keller was that he was a creep who couldn’t be trusted.”

“What about his wife?” Jeffrey asked, thinking he should have talked to Candy yesterday.

“Well,” she began, tapping a finely manicured finger to her lip, “I don’t know. She’s stayed with him this long. Maybe there’s something about him that I’m just not seeing.”

“Maybe,” Jeffrey said. “But I think I’ll trust your instincts. We both know you’re the smartest person here.”

“And you are the devil,” she said, though he could tell she was pleased with the characterization. “If I was forty years younger . . .”

“You wouldn’t give me the time of day,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “Let me know when you track down that number.”

She either gave a low purr or cleared something in her throat. “Will do, Chief. Will do.”

He left before she said something that embarrassed them both, taking the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. The distance between the administration building to the security office was a short one, but Jeffrey made it a stroll. He had not been for a run in almost a week, and his body felt sluggish, his muscles tight and strained. The storm last night had done some damage, debris scattered all over the quad. Campus maintenance people were mulling around, picking up trash, pressure-washing the sidewalk with enough bleach in the mixture to make Jeffrey’s nose burn. They were smart to clear up the areas around the main buildings first, where people who would complain about the mess were most likely to work.

Jeffrey pulled out his notebook, reading through his notes, trying to figure out how his day would best be spent. The only thing he could do at this point was talk to more parents and recanvass the dorms. He wanted to talk to Monica Patrick, if she was still alive, before he went back at Brian Keller. People did not leave high-paying jobs in the private sector to take a pay cut and teach. Maybe Keller had falsified data or taken one too many shortcuts. Jeffrey would ask Jill Rosen why her husband had left his job. She had talked about rebuilding her life. Perhaps she had done it once before and knew how hard it would be to do again. Even if she could not offer any new information, Jeffrey wanted to talk to the woman and see if there was anything he could do to help her get away.

Jeffrey tucked his notebook into his pocket as he opened the door to the security office. The hinges squeaked loudly, but he barely heard them.

“Damn,” Jeffrey whispered, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching.

Chuck Gaines was lying on the floor, the soles of his shoes facing the door. His neck was wide open like a second mouth, what was left of the esophagus lolling out like another tongue. Blood was everywhere—on the walls, the floor, the desk. Jeffrey looked up, but there was no blood on the ceiling. Chuck had been leaning down when he was cut, or maybe sitting at the desk. The chair had been knocked on its side.

Jeffrey knelt down so he could see under the desk without contaminating the scene. He saw the glint of a long hunting knife under the chair.

“Damn,” he repeated, this time with more passion. He knew that knife. It belonged to Lena.

Frank looked mad as hell, and Jeffrey could not blame him.

“This isn’t her,” Frank said.

Jeffrey drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. They were sitting outside Lena’s dorm, trying to decide the best way to do this.

“You saw the knife, Frank.”

Frank shrugged. “Big deal.”

“Chuck’s throat was sliced open.”

Frank blew out air between his teeth. “Lena’s not a murderer.”

“This could tie back to Tessa Linton.”

“How? The kid was with us when it happened. She chased the fucker into the woods.”

“And lost him.”

“Matt didn’t think she was slowing down.”

“She did when she twisted her ankle.”

Frank shook his head. “The White kid—him I could see.”

“She might have recognized him in the forest and tripped on purpose so he’d get away.”

Frank kept shaking his head. “This is not the kind of thing I signed up for.”

Jeffrey wanted to tell him that he was not crazy about it himself, but instead he said, “You saw the knife she’s been carrying on her ankle. Are you telling me it’s not like the one we found under the desk?”

“It could be a different one.”

Jeffrey reminded him of the forensic evidence that had brought them here. “Her fingerprints are on the knife, Frank. In blood. She was either there when he was cut and touched the knife, or she was holding it when it happened. There’s no other explanation.”

Frank stared out at the building, not blinking. Jeffrey could tell he was trying to figure out how this could not be Lena. Jeffrey had had the same reaction less than half an hour ago when the computer had made a positive match on three of the prints. Even then Jeffrey had pulled the card and made the tech do the comparison point by point.

Jeffrey looked up as a professor came out of the dorm. “She hasn’t left all morning?”

Frank shook his head.

“Give me a good explanation for her fingerprints being stamped on that knife in blood and we’ll drive away right now.”

Frank’s mouth set in an angry line. He had been sitting in front of the dorm for a good hour, probably trying to think of anything that would exonerate Lena.

“This ain’t right,” he said, but, without anything further, he opened the car door and got out.

The faculty dorm was fairly deserted, most of the professors already at classes. Like most colleges, things slowed down toward the end of the week, and with the Easter holiday coming up, a lot of kids had already left for home. Jeffrey and Frank did not see anyone as they walked down the hallway toward Lena’s room. They stood outside the door, and Jeffrey could see that the knob was cockeyed from when they had kicked it in yesterday morning. If Jeffrey had managed to find something on Lena then, if his gut had let him believe she was culpable, Chuck Gaines might still be alive.

Frank stood to the side of the door, his hand on his weapon, not drawing. Jeffrey knocked twice, calling, “Lena?”

A few moments passed, and he strained to hear if anyone was in the room.

He tried again, saying, “Lena?” before opening the door.

“Shit,” Frank said, pulling his gun. Jeffrey did the same, his instincts kicking in before he saw that Lena was just pulling on her pants, not going for some kind of weapon.

Jeffrey asked the question he knew Frank was thinking. “What the hell happened to you?”

Lena cleared her throat, which had dark bruises around it. When she spoke, her voice was raspy. “I fell.”

She was wearing only pants and a bra, the material white against her olive skin. She covered herself with her hands in a flash of modesty. There were round fingertip bruises on her upper arms, as if someone had grabbed her too hard. A mark on her shoulder looked like it was from a bite.

“Chief,” Frank said. He had cuffed Ethan White and was holding him by the arm. The boy was dressed but for his socks and shoes. His face was black and blue, the lip split down the center.

Jeffrey picked up a shirt off the floor, meaning to offer it to Lena so that she could cover herself. He stopped when he realized what he was holding was evidence. Dark blood stained the bottom.

“Jesus,” he whispered, trying to get Lena to look at him. “What have you done?”