send the student there, to the hospital. They can do things we can’t in a few cases. A very few cases. We do have a full-service health center here,” she boasted.
“Give me an example. When’s the last time you sent a student down to the hospital?”
“Well, we had to send one young lady down yesterday for a chest X-ray. Our machine is down. She’s been ill and the doctor thought it would be a good idea to rule out pneumonia.”
Grimes leaned into the woman’s face. “Who is the girl you sent?”
“Now, I can’t tell you that. That’s private information. I would-”
“Lady, tell me who it was or I’m going to arrest you, so help me God. I don’t have time for this crap from you. Who? ”
The woman became indignant. “Well. You don’t have to yell. Her name is Noelle Pazia. There, satisfied?”
“No. Tell me how I can get in touch with Noelle.”
“Well, I suppose I could call her if you insist.”
He put a hand on her elbow and propelled her toward the door to her tiny office. “Let’s go make that call. I’m trying to make sure one of your students isn’t in trouble.”
The woman gave him a look that made him think of his daughter’s pet rabbit, nose twitching in fear, and picked up the phone. She dialed an extension, asked for Noelle Pazia and held up a finger to indicate she had been put on hold.
“The campus operator is routing the call,” she whispered, though there was no reason for her to keep her voice down. Grimes paced a few feet in either direction until the woman spoke again. “Is Noelle there? This is Nurse Brooks at the student health center. She isn’t. When did you see her last? You know she’s very ill, she needs to be in bed. She didn’t? Oh my. Yes dear, thank you.” She hung up the phone and gave Grimes a look he could not distinguish, whether it was anger or delight he would never know.
“She wasn’t in her room. She didn’t sleep there last night as far as her roommate can tell. I assume that means she went to stay with one of her male friends.” The nurse sniffed self-righteously, obviously not approving of such outrageous behavior. “A lot of the girls here do that.”
“You know that Noelle has a boyfriend?”
“Well, no, I don’t, I just-”
“Call that number again, I need to talk to the roommate. Tell her to meet us, right now. Go on, dial the phone. Then take me to her dorm.”
The woman started to sputter but picked up the phone. She got the roommate and told her to meet them downstairs in her dormitory. The second she hung up, Grimes got a hold of her arms and propelled her toward the door before she had a chance to speak. She was in his car a moment later and pointing him toward the residence halls. His heart was sinking with every moment, he had a bad feeling that Noelle Pazia wasn’t staying in a boyfriend’s room, but was lying on the side of a road in Louisville, Kentucky.
He got out of the car and made his way to the front entrance of the dorm. A very pretty redhead stood in the doorway, a multicolored scarf wrapped around her neck, ends trailing almost to her knees. She looked concerned, and as soon as he was within earshot he heard her ask, “Where’s Noelle?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could help me with that.”
“I spent the night at my boyfriend’s place.” Another, more audible sniff came from the nurse and Grimes turned, pointing a finger at her, a warning not to interrupt.
“Go on,” he prompted. The redhead complied. “He lives here in town, he’s an artist. She wasn’t here when I got in this morning, around eight. Her bed was made, but she always keeps her bed made, and she gets up early, so that didn’t strike me as strange. I assumed she went to breakfast. But she hasn’t been back in the room.”
“When is the last time you saw her?”
“The last I saw of Noelle was yesterday morning. She was going to go to the health center again, get some more medicine and try to take it easy. She’s got a heavy courseload this semester, so she was spending a lot of time studying, in groups and alone. She would have had her study group at the library. All I know to do is talk with them. Here’s a list of their numbers, Noelle had it on the refrigerator door. Please, just tell me she’s okay. Her father’s going to flip if something happened to her. She’s too good of a kid, straight, doesn’t drink, doesn’t even date, for God’s sake. She’s here to get her education.”
Grimes gave the nurse a dirty look. See, it said, she wasn’t with a boyfriend after all. He was ready to be out of her company. “Do me a favor, okay. Please go back to the health center. I’ll contact you if I need anything.”
“Gladly,” the woman snorted and stalked off.
Grimes took the list from Noelle’s roommate. He leaned against the hood of his car and opened his phone. The roommate took the cue and looked at the list, running her finger to the bottom, tapping on the last name. She’d start there.
Grimes got two voice mails before a young man with an Indian accent came on the line.
“This is Harish?” He spoke with an inflection on all of his words that made every statement sound like a question.
“This is Special Agent Grimes with the FBI. Have you seen Noelle Pazia today?”
“Noelle? No, I haven’t? She left our study group last night? I didn’t see her after the break? Is she okay?”
The last sentence was a real question and Grimes could hear the concern in the boy’s voice.
“What time was this break last night?”
“I don’t know, around nine-thirty? Noelle was sick, she looked terrible? We suggested she go home, but she said she would be okay to finish out the group? We took a break, she got a phone call and she left? That’s the last I saw of her?”
“And that was around nine-thirty, you say. She had a call and she did what?”
“Well, Noelle was very polite? She didn’t want to take the call in the library, especially in our study group, and so she took the call outside? She told whomever it was to hold on, and she walked out the side door? She had her backpack with her, when she didn’t come back we just assumed she went on home to bed? It would have been the best thing for her, she was really looking awful?”
Grimes thanked him and hung up. Left out the side door to the library. Damn. He turned to the roommate.
“Do you have a recent picture of Noelle?”
She hung up her own cell phone and nodded. “Yes, in the room. Hold on and I’ll go get it. You think she’s gone, don’t you?”
“I don’t know, but I really need that picture. Thanks.” The girl trotted toward the stairs and Grimes dialed Baldwin’s number. He answered on the first ring. Grimes filled him in on the situation, including the fact that the missing girl had gone to the Asheville Community Hospital for chest X-rays because the school’s machine was down. As he finished, the roommate came back with a picture.
Grimes stared into the soft brown eyes, thanked the roommate and took her cell phone number, promising to call her within the hour with information. He got into his car, prepared to drive out of the campus, but he saw the library on his right and slowed. The poem. Baldwin said there was a poem sent to the reporter in Nashville that indicated another girl had been taken. He decided to check the library. If it was there, they’d have one more set of confirmations that this was their guy. Man, he was getting sloppy. He should have thought about that earlier.
He parked and walked around to what he assumed was the side entrance that young Harish had mentioned Noelle went toward when she got her phone call. He scanned the ground, the doors, and saw nothing out of place. He noticed that there was a bulletin board next to the door, sheltered from the weather by a plastic covering. He walked toward it, searching through the wanted messages and For Sale notices. Tutoring, no he didn’t need that. Didn’t need a new yoga ball and mat, didn’t need…yes, there it was. Under two colored pieces of paper he saw a stark white sheet pinned to the board. He pushed open the plastic, and with a pen he grabbed from his pocket he pushed aside all the surrounding paper. Sure enough. Damn if he hadn’t posted this for all to see, right there on the bulletin board. Son of a bitch.
Grimes read the poem aloud.
“Mark but this Flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.”
