The Jinx

Twenty-Seven

I screamed.

And no pathetic girly shriek, either. A bloodcurdling siren of sound that would have done any horror-movie starlet proud. I half expected to hear windows shattering.

The arm unloosed itself from my neck. My eyes flew upward to its owner’s face and landed on Jonathan Beasley’s blue, blue gaze.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “I’m not going to kill you.”

Then he cracked up.

A slew of science nerds had come running, and they were all staring at us, clearly trying to decide whether to come to my aid.

I’d been scared before. Now I was pissed, too. As if my day hadn’t been bad enough. Now a serial killer was laughing at me, uproariously and in public, if you could describe an audience comprised of half the population of the molecular chemistry department as public. “You think it’s funny?” I demanded, hands on my hips.

He was laughing too hard to speak. In fact, he was laughing so hard that he had to lean against the nearest shelf of books for support. Taking their lead from him, the assorted science nerds also erupted into laughter.

I turned on my heel and started heading for the exit sign again, but this time Jonathan caught me by the elbow. “No, Rachel, wait-” he managed to get out before another wave of hilarity got the better of him.

“Let me go.”

“Look,” he said, struggling to get himself under control. “I know what you thought you saw. I talked to Detective O’Connell-” another spasm of laughter “-and he told me all about it.”

“You mean, about you stashing bodies in the trunk of your Saab?”

He was mopping at his eyes with his scarf. “Exactly.”

“And how is that funny?”

“You know, you’re gorgeous when you’re pissed. And you’ve got quite a pair of lungs on you.”

“That’s it. I’m leaving.”

“Rachel, it was a blow-up doll.”

I paused in midstride. “A blow-up doll?”

He nodded, clearly doing his best not to burst into laughter all over again.

“A blow-up doll?” I repeated.

“Yes, a blow-up doll,” he confirmed.

“So, it wasn’t a body.”

“No, it wasn’t a body.”

I thought about this. If Jonathan Beasley hadn’t been stashing corpses in his trunk, then he probably wasn’t a serial killer. And I’d just made an enormous scene in the middle of the Harvard Coop. It occurred to me that I should feel a bit ashamed.

But then something else occurred to me. “Would you like to explain just what you were doing with a blow-up doll?” I asked, not even trying to keep the tone of jubilant self-righteousness out of my voice.

“Actually, I have two.”

“Two what?”

“Blow-up dolls.”

I’d been hoping that my question would force Jonathan to admit to some sort of deviant sexual practices. It seemed only fair that he be embarrassed, too, given that I’d made a fool out of myself in front of the Geek Squad, not to mention how I’d damaged any shreds of credibility I might have had in O’Connell’s eyes.

But Jonathan’s explanation was neither embarrassing nor lacking in credibility, although it was creative. “I use them for role-playing exercises. To show students how they unconsciously change the way they communicate based on whether they’re speaking to a man or a woman. The class gets a kick out of it, but it’s a really effective exercise. And it’s easier to blow the dolls up at home with my bicycle pump than to lug the pump back and forth.”

“Oh.” Now I was feeling truly ashamed.

“Yes. Oh.”

“I guess I owe you an apology.”

He shrugged good-naturedly. “Don’t worry about it. At least it explains why you fled from me this morning. Besides, I think O’Connell appreciated the comic relief. We had a good chuckle over it.”

“Glad to be of service.” I flushed when I thought of the two of them laughing over my accusation, but I knew that I probably deserved to be laughed at.

“Listen, I really am sorry. I mean, I just didn’t know what to think. When I saw the foot. And you were wearing the scarf. But it still wasn’t very nice to think that you were-that you could have been-”

“Don’t say it,” interrupted Jonathan. “Or you’ll get me started all over again. I’ll end up with a nasty case of hiccups.”

“We wouldn’t want that.”

“No. Anyhow, I know how you can make it up to me.” He looked down at me, his blue eyes sparkling, and flashed his movie-star grin. When the tingling started, I accepted it with resignation. So much for dedicated spinsterhood.

“How’s that?”

“Come have a coffee. Or, better yet-” he consulted his watch “-a drink. It’s after five.”

“Okay. But I’m paying.”

“Fair enough. Shall we?”

He offered me his arm and led me towards the door. The science nerds murmured appreciatively and I heard a spattering of applause as we left.

We debated a bit about where to go. He offered up his finals club, but I refused on political grounds. The clubs were staunchly all-male relics of an earlier age, and they controlled some of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Cambridge. I was in no mood to rub shoulders with the current generation of undergrad male elite and whatever alumni might have dropped by to keep the Old Boy Network going strong. Besides, if we went to Jonathan’s club, I wouldn’t be able to pay, and I felt obligated to make some formal retribution for my massive gaffe. I offered up the lounge at the Charles instead, and he acquiesced. I then spent most of our walk to the hotel haranguing him on the political incorrectness of his affiliation with such an institution. He took it with good humor and even expressed agreement with much of what I said. And the nice way he helped me navigate the icy sidewalks was more chivalrous than chauvinistic.

It was only when we were nearly at the hotel that it occurred to me that it would be an awkward moment to run into Peter. But I quickly shoved that thought away. I hadn’t heard a thing from him all day, and based on what I’d seen that morning, he was occupied with other matters. He was undoubtedly still at his conference unless he and Abigail had ventured out for another shopping expedition. I had a mental image of Peter helping Abigail through the snow the way Jonathan was helping me, and my heart promptly dropped into my stomach. My earlier resolution to just give up on romance now seemed like false valor. But perhaps that was only because Plan B had turned out not to be a serial killer. I resolved to forget about Peter and focus on Jonathan. After all, the tingling could only be a promising sign.

Now that most of the recruiters had vacated the premises, the hotel was much calmer. The lobby held a more usual assortment of tourists, parents in town to visit their overachieving offspring, and only a few people who looked as if they were there on business. The Regattabar threatened live jazz, so we went to Noir, the ground-floor lounge where Winslow, Brown had had its party the previous evening. When Jonathan began explaining, without any provocation from me, how much he hated live jazz, I found myself looking at him with heightened appreciation. I’d long believed that live jazz was part of a nefarious plot on the part of a shadowy anarchistic group to drive people insane.

Jonathan ordered a Guinness and I asked for a Kir Royale, a drink that seemed uniquely suited for bitterly cold winter evenings. It was still early, but there were a number of people in the lounge, clearly enjoying the cozy refuge it provided from the less than balmy weather. We sat by the window, which offered a view of the plaza outside and the unrelenting snowfall.

As we sipped our drinks I found myself able to laugh with Jonathan about my earlier suspicions, and I even filled him in on the nightmarish ups and downs of my day. His professional background made him a knowledgeable sounding board as I discussed my options for defending against the Barnetts’ planned takeover. And, unlike O’Connell, he seemed to take my theory about Barbara Barnett without a drop of skepticism, only concerned curiosity, and even anger that someone so close to Sara would seek to do her harm. He seemed reassured when I told him about warning the security guard at Sara’s door. Soon our conversation skipped easily to other subjects, and before long I was having a lovely time. I hadn’t forgotten about all of the various things I’d been fretting about before, but I was able to put them on the back burner and enjoy myself.

I’d told Jonathan about my roommate reunion, and before I’d even thought it through I was asking him if he wanted to join us for dinner that night. He appeared flattered by the invitation and accepted after some coaxing. I had a brief twinge of regret-what if Peter showed up?-but then I reminded myself that the odds of that happening were pretty much nil. The crisp champagne with the sweet lacing of Kir washed away the sour taste this thought induced.

It was close to six when Jonathan’s cell phone rang. He dug it out of his jacket pocket and checked the caller ID. “I should get this,” he apologized. “I don’t know who it is, and there’s been too much going on lately to let it go.”

He went out to the lobby to take the call, and I quickly pulled out my own phone to let Jane know that I would be bringing an unexpected guest to dinner (who, as it turned out, was not a serial killer) and to warn her that I expected them all to be on their best behavior. “I’m not the one you need to worry about,” Jane answered pointedly when the call finally went through. I was beginning to think it was time for a new phone.

“Perhaps somebody could give Hilary an etiquette refresher before we arrive?” I suggested.

“Perhaps. Although, she’s at the library right now doing some research. Apparently her interview went well, but she had some things she wanted to look up afterward. If she gets here before you do, however, I’ll be sure to read her the riot act.”

“Thanks. See you soon.”

Jonathan returned to the table as I was replacing my phone in my bag. “That was Gabrielle LeFavre,” he told me.

“Really? I thought she’d disappeared.”

“She had. But she’s reappeared. And she said she really needs to talk to me. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked her to meet me here.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “But I should leave you two alone to talk.”

“No, stay,” he urged.

“Are you sure?” Given my suspicion of Barbara Barnett, I was pretty confident now that Gabrielle hadn’t attacked Sara in a fit of jealous rage, but I was still curious as to what she might have been up to.

“I wouldn’t ask you if I weren’t.”

Gabrielle showed up less than fifteen minutes later. It was fully dark outside, but she was wearing sunglasses, and her hood was pulled up, hiding her strawberry-blond hair. She looked furtively over her shoulder as she entered and then carefully surveyed the other occupants of the lounge as she made her way to our table.

“Could we switch tables?” she asked. “I don’t want to sit by the window.”

It seemed like an odd request, but given that she was all but in disguise, I guessed that she was concerned about being seen. We moved to a corner table against the back wall, which had the added virtue of being nearly hidden by a large plant. The question of who Gabrielle didn’t want to see her was answered quickly enough. She required only a small amount of encouragement from Jonathan to tell her story, and it quickly put to rest any suspicions I might have once harbored as to her having a role in the attacks on Sara.

Thursday morning, Gabrielle had left for the gym early, even before Sara had left for the boathouse. She’d brought a change of clothes with her, and she showered and dressed at the gym after her workout. Then she’d gone directly to the Winslow, Brown recruiting suite where, as Cecelia had told me, she’d waited until I returned.

She turned to me apologetically. “I was a disaster when I saw you. I really was. And I’m so sorry. I was just completely in a tizzy. I was getting dinged from every bank I interviewed with, and it was making me frantic. I’d just totally lost perspective. And I felt like I was completely losing it.” She’d certainly seemed to be losing it when I’d encountered her.

“It’s a stressful time,” I said. “It’s hard to deal with all the pressure.”

She nodded. “Yes. And I clearly wasn’t dealing very well. Anyhow, after I spoke to you, I was pretty much at my wits’ end. My mind was racing, and I felt like I just had to get away for a bit.”

“So what did you do?” asked Jonathan.

“I went to the movies.” This seemed a reasonable choice. I had to confess that on the semiannual occasions when I found myself at loose ends on a weekday afternoon, my first thought was to sneak into a matinee. There were always movies that none of my friends wanted to see with me, probably because they were geared toward teenage girls rather than thirtysomething Yuppies. I still didn’t understand how my tastes could be so firmly aligned with a different demographic.

However, Gabrielle’s choice of movies hadn’t done much to calm her. The Brattle Theatre had been showing a medley of movies featuring women on the edge, and they’d whipped her into an even greater frenzy. Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct probably shouldn’t be viewed when one was already in a precarious mental state. “You see,” said Gabrielle, “it wasn’t just the job thing that’s been upsetting me. There was a guy who I’d been really into. And for a while, I thought he might be into me, too. But then he started asking Sara out.”

“Grant Crocker?” I asked.

She nodded. “It’s hard, you know. Sara’s got so much going for her, and she didn’t even like him. I did. But she was the one he wanted. And I couldn’t understand it. So I decided I would just ask him. Flat out. Find out why he rejected me like that.”

I listened in wonder. I’d often had the urge to have similar conversations with men who’d jilted me, but fortunately those urges had never coincided with my being sufficiently drunk to act on them. Gabrielle hadn’t required liquid courage, and there was a part of me that admired her for it, although I doubted it was a tactic I’d be employing anytime soon.

She’d gone to Grant Crocker’s apartment. He was, not surprisingly, surprised to see her, nor was he terribly welcoming. He tried to slam the door in her face, but she was too quick for him, and managed to slide through the opening before he could shut her out. In his living room, she launched into an impassioned and prepared speech. “Then I saw it.”

“Saw what?” I asked.

“He has a-I don’t even know how to describe it, really-but it’s like a shrine set up.”

“A shrine?”

“To Sara.” Apparently he’d dedicated a corner of his living room to a bizarre sort of installation art. There was a massive framed picture of Sara on a small table, surrounded by other pictures and various mementos. So, I’d been right after all. Grant Crocker was the Creepy Stalker.

“He’d been trying to block my view of it, but I got around him, and then he grabbed me, and we were sort of struggling. He’s really strong, you know. He’s sort of a work-out fanatic. But I am, too, and I’ve even taken self-defense courses, so I put up a good fight. He was holding on to me, but I managed to pull away, and I went crashing into his desk. There was a pile of newspaper clippings on it, and the impact made them go flying all over the room. And here’s what really freaked me out.”

I would have been pretty freaked out already, given the shrine, and Gabrielle had already been freaked out when she’d arrived, so it was hard to imagine what could elevate her level of panic still further. But when I heard what she had to say next, I was amazed she didn’t have a coronary on the spot.

“The clippings were all about the prostitute killings. And it looked like he’d been putting them in a scrapbook. And there was a pile of stuff, too. An earring, a ring, a lipstick-none of it nice stuff. And a couple of the things were Sara’s. There was a page that must have been torn from one of her notebooks-she has really distinctive handwriting-and a glove that Sara thought she’d lost.”

“Souvenirs,” I said, remembering Hilary’s lecture on serial killers. “They frequently take souvenirs from the victims.” So much for Barbara Barnett, I realized, almost disappointed. Grant Crocker was more than Creepy. He was Violent, too. And if Sara’s belongings were in the pile of souvenirs Grant had taken from women he’d killed, it looked like he’d intended to kill her, as well.

“Anyhow, I saw this all in like a split second, and then he was on me again. And I punched him, hard, in the face.”

Ah. That explained the black eye. “You did a great job,” I said. “He has quite a shiner.”

“Yeah, well, he was sort of reeling from that, but at this point he was still between me and the door and I didn’t know how I was going to get out. I was looking around for a weapon, and then I realized that I had this in my bag.” She opened up her shoulder pouch and pulled out an economy-size can of Aqua Net hairspray.

“I didn’t realize they still made that,” I said, amazed.

“Oh, yeah. It’s hard to find. I buy it by the case on the Internet. Where I’m from, you learn how to do big hair early. So I gave him a good spritz, right in the eyes. It’s better than Mace.”

Hence the reddened eyes complementing Grant’s shiner. I was beginning to think that Gabrielle might do better at an investment bank than anyone had been giving her credit for.

“I ran out,” she continued. “And he was yelling after me. That I’d better not say anything to anyone, or I’d regret it. He said he’d hunt me down and kill me.”

“That must have been pretty scary,” Jonathan said. He’d been listening carefully, an empathetic expression on his face, and I could see why the students came to him with their problems. “What did you do next?”

“I didn’t know what to do. I really thought he was going to come after me. And I was too scared to go to the police. I mean, what if they didn’t believe me? Or, even if they did, what if Grant found me before the police found him? So I checked myself into a motel in Porter Square. I’ve been holed up there ever since, and when I finally calmed down enough, I called you. And here I am.”

“You did the right thing,” Jonathan assured her. “And we’re going to tell the police what happened. It sounds like you’ve managed to find both the prostitute killer and the guy who’s been attacking Sara.”

“I guess so,” said Gabrielle. “But are you sure he can’t come after me?” She looked around the room again, her anxiety almost tangible.

“Yes. Even if they can’t immediately tie Grant to the murders and the assaults, they can get him for assaulting you.” He smiled. “Although, it sounds like you won that fight.”

Jonathan went back to the lobby to call Detective O’Connell, and Gabrielle asked me to accompany her to the ladies’ room. Although she was calmer now that she’d told her story, she was wary of going anywhere unaccompanied until Grant Crocker was safely apprehended.

As I waited outside the door for Gabrielle to emerge, I called Hilary, thinking that I’d be doing a good deed by giving her the scoop on Grant Crocker.

“Where are you?” I asked. “I have some news that you’ll want to hear.”

“At Widener Library. There were a few things I wanted to check into after I interviewed O’Connell. Which was great, by the way. I definitely owe you.”

“You’ll have to mention me in the acknowledgments. Although, after you hear this, you might just decide to dedicate the book to me.”

“What?” she asked excitedly.

“I know who the killer is. And it’s not Jonathan Beasley.”

“That’s wonderful news. So you can still go out with him. But who’s the killer?”

“No, this will be more fun in person.”

She didn’t want to wait, but I told her I’d meet her at the library and give her the full download. “Then we can go up to Jane’s together.”

“Okay. But hurry. Suspense makes me cranky.”

Gabrielle emerged from the ladies’ room, and we met Jonathan in the lobby.

“Did you reach O’Connell?” I asked.

“Yes. He’s back at the station and he suggested Gabrielle come by. Is that all right, Gabrielle?”

Gabrielle hesitated but then she nodded. “Will you come with me?” she asked him.

“Of course. In fact, I’ll drive you there.”

Jonathan’s car was parked around the corner, and he dropped me off at the gate to Harvard Yard nearest the library. I wished Gabrielle well in her discussion with O’Connell and gave Jane’s address to Jonathan.

“I’ll come by as soon as we’re done,” he told me.

“Good. See you later. And Gabrielle, don’t worry. You’re doing the right thing.” She didn’t look convinced, but she gave me a stoic wave. I made a mental note to see what I could do about finding her a job. She still seemed like too much of a stress case to handle Winslow, Brown, but the Aqua Net incident demonstrated a level of gumption that I had to admire.

I shut the car door behind me and passed through the familiar gates.

I didn’t realize I was being followed.