But she hadn't handled Kenny Storm- or the other two male students- very skillfully.
Able to deal with women but not with men?
Most probably a man had executed her- I realized that's how I thought of the murder. An execution.
Which man?
Long-suffering husband pushed to the brink? A deranged stranger?
Or someone midway between those two extremes on the intimacy scale?
Crossing the quad, I sat down at a stone table and checked the class schedules Milo had given me.
Unless they were playing hooky, Patrick Huang was in the middle of a thermodynamics class, Deborah Brittain was contending with Math for Humanities Majors, and Reed Muscadine, the theater-arts grad student, was participating in something called Performance Seminar 201B a half-mile away in MacManus Hall on the north end of the campus. But Tessa Bowlby's Psychology of Perception class would be letting out in fifteen minutes in the Psych Tower.
I studied the picture of the young woman who had accused Reed Muscadine of date rape. Very short dark hair and a thin, slightly weak-jawed face. Even allowing for the poor photocopy, she looked discouraged.
The drooping eyes of someone much older.
But not because of the encounter with Muscadine. The picture had been taken at the beginning of the school year, months prior. I had a quick cup of vending-machine coffee and returned to the Psychology Tower to see if life had knocked her even lower.
Her class let out five minutes early and students gushed into the hall like dam water. She wasn't hard to spot, heading for the exit alone, hauling a denim bag bulging with books. She stopped short when I said, “Ms. Bowlby?”
Her arm dropped and the bag's weight yanked down her shoulder. Despite the tentative chin and a few pimples, she was waifishly attractive with very white skin and enormous blue eyes. Her hair was dyed absolute black, cut unevenly- either carelessly or with great intention. Her nose was pink at the tip and nostrils- a cold or allergies. She wore a baggy black raglan sweater with one sleeve starting to unravel, old black pipestem jeans torn at the knees, and lace-up leather boots with thick soles and toes scuffed fuzzy.
She backed up against the wall to let classmates pass. I showed her my ID and began my introduction.
“No,” she said, waving one narrow hand, frantically.
“Ms. Bowlby-”
“No!” she said, louder. “Leave me alone! I have nothing to say!”
She shot for the exit. I hung back for a moment, then followed, watching from a distance as she hurried out the main doors of the tower, racing, nearly tumbling, down the front steps, toward the inverted fountain that fronted the tower. The fountain was dry and streams of students converged near the dirty black hole before spreading out and radiating across campus like a giant ant trail.
She ran clumsily, struggling with the heavy bag. A thin, fragile-looking figure, so emaciated her buttocks failed to fill out the narrow jeans and the denim flapped with each stride.
Drugs? Stress? Anorexia? Illness?
As I wondered, she slipped into the throng and became one of many.
Her anxiety- panic, really- made me want to talk to the man she'd accused.
I recalled the details of the complaint: movie and dinner, heavy petting. Tessa claiming forced entry; Muscadine, consensual sex.
The kind of thing that could never be proved, either way.
AIDS testing for him. She'd already gotten tested.
Negative. So far.
But now she was ghostly pale, thin, fatigued.
The disease took time to incubate. Maybe her luck had changed.
That could account for the panic… but she was still enrolled in classes.
Maybe Hope Devane had been a source of support. Now, with Hope dead and her own health in question, was she overwhelmed?
The testing had been done at the Student Health Center. Getting records without legal grounds would be impossible.
Having a look at Muscadine seemed more important than ever, but the acting seminar was one of those weekly things that lasted four hours and was only half-over.
In the meantime, I'd try the others. Patrick Huang would be free in thirty minutes, Deborah Brittain soon after. Huang's class was nearby, in the Engineering Building. Back to the Science Quad. As I started to turn, a deep voice behind me said, “Sleuthing on campus, Detective?”
Casey Locking stood several steps above me, looking amused. His long hair was freshly moussed, and he wore the same long leather coat, jeans, and motorcycle boots. Black T-shirt under the coat. The skull ring was still there, too, despite his remark about getting rid of it.
Glinting in the sunlight, the death's-head grin wide, almost alive.
In the ringed hand was a cigarette, in the other an attachE case, olive leather, gold-embossed CDL over the clasp. The fingers sandwiching the cigarette twitched and smoke puffed and rose.
“I'm not a detective,” I said.
That made him blink, but nothing else on his face moved.
I climbed to his level and showed him my consultant's badge. His mouth pursed as he studied it.
So Seacrest hadn't told him.
Meaning they weren't confidants?
“Ph.D. in what?”
“Psychology.”
“Really.” He flicked ashes. “For the police?”
“Sometimes I consult to the police.”
“What exactly do you do?”
“It varies from case to case.”
“Crime-scene analysis?”
“All kinds of things.”
My ambiguity didn't seem to bother him. “Interesting. Did they assign you to Hope's murder because she was a psychologist or because the case is perceived as psychologically complex?”
“Both.”
“Police psychologist.” He took a long, hard drag, holding the smoke in. “The career opportunities they never tell you about in grad school. How long have you been doing it?”
“A few years.”
White vapors emerged from his nostrils. “Around here all they talk about is pure academics. They measure their success by the number of tenure-track types they place. All the tenure-track jobs are disappearing but they groom us for them, anyway. So much for reality-testing, but I guess the academic world's never been noted for having a good grip on reality. Do you think Hope's murder will ever be solved?”
“Don't know. How about you?”
“Doesn't look promising,” he said. “Which stinks… Is that big detective on the ball?”
“Yes.”
He smoked some more and scratched his upper lip. “Police psychologist. Actually, that appeals to me. Dealing with the big issues: crime, deviance, the nature of evil. Since the murder I've thought a lot about evil.”
“Come up with any insights?”
He shook his head. “Students aren't permitted to have insights.”
“Have you found a new advisor yet?”
“Not yet. I need someone who won't make me start all over or dump scut work on me. Hope was great that way. If you did your job, she treated you like an adult.”
“Laissez-faire?”
