The Cat, The Professor And The Poison

Twenty-three

The Bartlett home was about a ten- minute walk from the college, and Mr. Bartlett answered the door of the small brick house. He was a burly man with muscled arms and a ruddy complexion.

Unlike Lawrence Johnson, he invited us both in without even questioning my presence. Maybe he was old-school. If a cop comes to your house, you don’t ask any questions.

The living room was small and neat, with a big flat-screen TV the centerpiece on the far wall.

Bartlett said, “The wife’s gone. Said she didn’t want to be here when you questioned Rosemary. It’s better that way. She’d probably cry the whole time. I mean the wife, not Rosemary. I wish I’d see that girl cry over something. Worries me sometimes how she can be.”

Candace said, “This is Jillian Hart. She’ll be sitting in on the interview, taking notes.” She took her notebook from her pocket and handed it to me.

Okay, I thought. I can take notes.

“Where is your daughter, sir?” Candace said.

Funny how she’d never used the word sir with Johnson-a powerful man-but chose to do so now with a guy who obviously respected Candace without reservation.

“I’ll get her. Go ahead and sit.” He left the room and went left down a hallway.

“Do you really want me to take notes?” I said.

“Yes. And sit on the sofa next to me. That way the girl can only choose one of the easy chairs and I’ll be right across from her.

We sat on the beige sofa, and I noticed the vacuum lines on the carpet. A police visit required tidying up. Yup, this was far different from sitting in a college president’s office.

Rosemary walked into the room after her father, her head down. The hair grabbed my attention first. Purple and magenta, cut in spiky layers. Her bangs covered one eye.

When she sat across from us, I noticed a piercing in her lower lip, but the ring had been removed. Sullen was a kind word to describe Rosemary Bartlett’s expression.

Her father took the other easy chair, a plaid rocker, and said, “Go ahead. Talk to the officers.”

She addressed him, not Candace. “What am I supposed to say? I’m sorry?”

He pointed a thick freckled finger at his daughter. “Quit with the attitude. These policewomen have come a long way to talk to you. I told you they want to know about Evan VanKleet. And I’d sure like to hear about him, too.”

Rosemary raised her eyes and then faced Candace. “How can I assist you, Officer?” But she didn’t sound in the least like she wanted to assist anyone.

“First of all,” Candace said in her kindest voice, “let me tell you that I’ve spoken with Evan. He was cooperative and very much wants to find out who murdered his father.”

Rosemary’s heavily penciled brows knitted. “You’re lying, right? He cooperated with the cops after they put him in jail for no reason?”

“I didn’t put him in jail,” Candace said. “And from what I could tell, he got a raw deal.”

“No kidding. We do have the right to protest in this country,” she said. “That’s all we were doing.”

“That’s not why he went to jail, Rosemary.” Bartlett looked at Candace. “I heard he was drunk. Is that true?”

“True,” she said. “By his own admission.”

“And he’s sorry about that,” I added. “I helped interview him, and he’s trying to get back into school, straighten his life out. But he’s so upset about his father’s death. Can you help us help him?”

Rosemary said, “He’s okay, then? My father wouldn’t let me bail him out or even talk to him afterward. But Evan is such a cool guy.”

“I get your father’s concern,” Candace said. “Because that’s what it is-concern. To answer your question, Evan seemed fine when I talked to him-aside from being torn up about his father dying.”

Candace knew exactly the right words at the right time, it would seem, because Rosemary said, “Man, I so wanted to call him after the story was in the paper. But I don’t have his number anymore.”

“We wanted her to have no contact with Evan and the other students involved in the incident afterward,” Bartlett said. “Rosemary is on scholarship at Denman, and she could lose it all.”

“Yeah, and instead I lost my friends.” She began to chew on an already ravaged fingernail.

“How did you meet Evan?” Candace asked.

“Patrick. He told me that Evan needed friends, that he was bummed after his father got canned,” Rosemary said.

“Patrick who?” her father said before Candace or I could ask the same question.

“Hoffman. He’s pretty cool for a cop,” she said.

“You call Officer Hoffman by his first name?” Rosemary’s father said.

“We all do. You know he always walks me home when I stay late, right?” she said.

“No, I didn’t know. How friendly are you with this man? And how old is he?” Bartlett said.

Rosemary sighed heavily. “Jeez. It’s not like that.”

Candace quickly said, “You can talk about all that later. So Officer Hoffman mentioned Evan?”

“Right,” she said. “He knows my friends are all the weirdos on campus-I mean it’s like frickin’ high school all over again here. Patrick thought Evan would fit right in with us. And he did.”

“Tell me about this protest,” Candace said.

I realized I hadn’t been writing anything down and decided to start looking official. I poised my pen over the blank notebook page.

“Did Evan tell you about that?” Rosemary said.

“Yeah,” Candace replied. “This protest, the one where Evan got arrested, that was about the ferrets?”

“Yes,” she said. “Most of us are science majors. Evan wasn’t, but his dad was some big science freak, so he knows a lot more than he lets on. Saving even the small animals is important, even in Denman, which is a tiny place, I know.”

“And is giving you a free education,” her father added.

She turned to him again. “I could go somewhere else where you aren’t watching me every second. I’ve got the grades and the smarts, you know.”

“You do sound like a very intelligent young woman,” I said, hoping to avoid a complete meltdown between Rosemary and her father. “So you decided to focus on the ferrets?”

“Yes,” Rosemary said.

“Were the ferrets being hurt?” I said.

“Maybe. By the flu shots they were getting. Ferrets don’t get the flu,” she said.

“Actually, I think they do,” I said. “Both cats and ferrets have immune systems similar to those of humans. Last year cats even got the H1N1 virus.”

“Okay, maybe they do get the flu, but people have to stand up for them. That’s all we were doing. Just a small protest we hoped might make more than just the Denman College newspaper. We tweeted about it, and lots of kids showed up from the surrounding towns for support.”

“Tweeted?” I said. What the heck was that?

“She’s talking about Twitter,” Candace said.

“Oh. I know about that,” I said. But I didn’t know much.

“You had an audience, then?” Candace said. “Bet that didn’t go over well.”

“You got that right,” she said. “I think Evan got arrested because President Johnson felt as if he had to do something about the protest. Make a statement. Evan was the scapegoat.”

“Rosemary, you know that’s not true. The president told me himself he knew nothing about what you and your friends were doing that night.”

She said, “And you believe him, Dad? You are so frickin’ gullible.”

“The campus police took Evan to jail?” Candace said.

She nodded. “I have to admit, he was pretty stupid to drink before we chained up to the truck. Plus he had a flask in his back pocket. Our protest wasn’t some prank. We were serious. We wanted to say something, but when someone’s drunk, it makes it seem less… important.”

“Why do you think Evan was so stupid, as you put it?” I asked gently.

“Because she picks stupid friends,” Bartlett said.

“I do not,” she practically shouted. Then she took a breath and seemed to calm down. “Evan was so upset about his family situation. His father was gone, his mother was screwing Professor Lieber and-”

“Rosemary,” Bartlett said. “Watch what you say.”

“Whatever. Lieber is very cool, by the way,” she said.

“You’re talking about Douglas Lieber?” I said.

“Right. Anyway, after we were chained up, ready to go all night, I realized Evan was wasted. He was rambling on about how his father hadn’t paid his tuition. I felt so bad for him.”

Maybe Lieber, who seemed to be friends with the students, was the reason Evan seemed to be clean and sober now. His mother apparently hadn’t been much help; that was for sure.

Candace said, “Let me get this straight. The campus police arrived and used Evan’s being drunk as an excuse to stop your little demonstration? Do I have that right?”

“They didn’t stop the rest of us. Only him,” she said. “But after that, our heart wasn’t in it. We quit.”

“And you’ve heard nothing from Evan since that night?” I asked.

“Not a text, not an e-mail,” she said. “If you see him, will you tell him to call me? He has my number.”

“Hold on, Rosemary. This young man is trouble.” Bartlett looked at Candace. “Do you think he might have killed his father?”

Rosemary reached over and shoved her father’s arm. “That is the most stupid thing you have ever said in your life.”

He grabbed her wrist. “Do not disrespect me, Rosemary.”

I could see why the mother didn’t want to be here for this. Rosemary was one little spitfire.

“Rosemary,” Candace said. “Listen to me. Your dad has a right to worry about you, okay?”

“But he doesn’t even know Evan,” Rosemary said.

“I know more than you think,” Bartlett said. “When I was cleaning Professor Lieber’s office, I heard him talking on the phone to Sarah VanKleet about the kid. They didn’t know what to do with him.”

Rosemary glared at her father. “You never told me that. What other crap have-”

Candace held up a hand. “Let me finish. We have no evidence that Evan harmed his father, Mr. Bartlett.” Rosemary was leaning back in the chair, arms folded across her chest, head down.

Bartlett looked over at her and then at Candace. “You’re being straight with me? He didn’t kill him?”

“This is an ongoing investigation, but Evan is cooperating. He seems honest and obviously loved his father. That’s all I can say at this time,” Candace said.

“Then maybe I was wrong to judge him so harshly,” Bartlett said.

“Oh,” Rosemary said, “you believe them but not me. So typical.”

“He’s trying to understand, Rosemary,” I said. “Give your dad some credit.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she mumbled.

Candace stood, so I did, too. She reached across and shook Bartlett ’s hand. “You’ve been a big help. Appreciate you talking to us.” She looked down at Rosemary. “Thanks for being straight with us. You’ve helped your friend.”

She started for the door, but I stopped in front of Rosemary. “I’ll have Evan call you.” I looked at Bartlett. “If that’s okay with you?”

He gave a short nod, and Rosemary almost smiled.

As Candace and I walked back to the college, I said, “If I had to deal with clown hair and pierced lips and that much attitude every day, I don’t think I’d have as much patience as Mr. Bartlett has-even though he seemed almost at the end of his rope.”

“Deep down she’s probably a good, caring kid,” Candace said. “You saw how she stood up for her friends. But now I want to talk to that campus cop, Patrick Hoffman. I still think it’s hinky that he helped Evan and then arrested him not long after. I’m betting President Johnson had a hand in that, no matter what Bartlett thinks. Yup, I want to hear what Hoffman has to say.”

But when we took the small path back into the parking lot, I saw we wouldn’t have to hunt down the campus cops. A uniformed man was standing, arms folded, staring at the Mercy squad car.

“No way. He is not giving me a ticket.” Candace started marching toward the man, and I had to jog to keep up.

But then the man turned and saw us.

Fear grabbed at my gut.

Those eyes. Oh my God, those eyes.