“We never knew about that…before,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “She never told us.”
“What is your connection to the harassment thing?” Mr. Hoffman asked in a guarded manner.
I had gone this far. “I’m a friend of Dr. Pappas.”
They both looked stunned.
“But he’s the man who killed her,” Mrs. Hoffman blurted.
“He harassed her,” Mr. Hoffman added. “If he ever shows his face here I’ll let Monster loose on him.”
My minutes here were numbered unless I could make a breakthrough. I said, “When I talked to Elise she told me she was sorry that she had filed the charge. And then she left me a message for me saying that she was going to withdraw it.”
“But why would she do that?” Mr. Hoffman asked. “My baby wouldn’t accuse anybody falsely.” He grasped his cane and looked as if he was about to get up.
“Your daughter and Dr. Pappas are both good people,” I said, hastily. “I can assure you about Dr. Pappas because I’ve known him for quite a while. They are also both charismatic and attractive people. It’s not inconceivable that they were attracted to each other. In a case like that, a professor and a student, things can get confusing. Elise may have gotten confused.”
“Are you insinuating that Elise was agreeable to whatever happened between them?” Mr. Hoffman leaned forward on his cane. “She’s engaged to another fellow.”
“She’s not engaged to him yet,” Mrs. Hoffman said. And more softly, “Now, she’ll never be engaged to anybody.”
“I don’t know exactly what happened between them,” I said. “We’ll probably never know. But I can tell you this: Dr. Pappas did not kill Elise. He was lost on Mt. Mitchell when she died.”
“I read that cock-and-bull story in the newspaper,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “He’s got no witnesses. And his face was scratched. How did he explain that?”
The local newspaper had found out about Mark and done an article on him. “Elise didn’t scratch him,” I said. “He fell on the mountain. There was no skin under her fingernails and they had not been broken. They had fresh nail polish on them.” I had read the newspapers too. “Look, we can help each other because we want the same thing. We both want to find out who killed your daughter.”
“Whether or not he actually killed her, if you’re representing a rapist, I want you out of this house,” Mr. Hoffman said, straining to rise from his chair.
“Sit down, Eric.”
The sharpness of the command caused Mr. Hoffman to fall back into his chair. He and I both looked at Mrs. Hoffman.
“Getting rid of the professor won’t make the problem go away,” she continued. “She’s right; we want to see justice done. If she can help with that we should support her.”
“Call me Lillian,” I said.
“I’m June. He’s Eric.”
“Let me tell you what I know. I’ll try not to gild the lily. Something happened between Elise and Dr. Pappas and she filed a charge of harassment. She had decided to withdraw the charge before she died. Now it’s true that Dr. Pappas didn’t know that, but I’m convinced that he was many miles from here that evening. Although his teaching career could have been ruined by the charge, I’m also convinced that he would never kill anybody.”
I stopped, expecting a reaction from June or Eric, but they looked attentive and said nothing. I continued, “If Dr. Pappas didn’t kill her, somebody else did. It’s the job of the police to investigate all possibilities. Maybe we can help them. They think it was somebody who knew Elise because there is no sign of a burglary. Nothing was taken. Isn’t that right?”
“We don’t know of anything,” June said. “Her purse was there, with money and credit cards and all the stuff young people seem to need these days. It didn’t look like anything else had been touched. And Donna-that’s her roommate-said her own stuff was all there.”
“Let’s talk about the people who knew her. First, as you said, is her roommate. She found Elise.”
“Donna is a nice girl,” Eric said, accenting “nice.” “She wouldn’t hurt a fly. In fact, she wanted to help Elise with her singing.”
“Donna wrote songs for Elise,” June said. “The words, not the music. When Elise was in the review last fall, Donna wrote the songs she sang.”
“She wanted to do more of that,” Eric said. “She told me she pictured her and Elise as a team and she thought they could go far together. In a good way, of course. I don’t like a lot of what passes for modern music-rap and garbage like that. It’s junk, with terrible words, about sex and violence against women…killing cops, disrespect for authority. But Donna wrote nice words. I think she was a good influence on Elise.”
“I didn’t know you had talked to Donna all that much,” June said.
“She came here during the day, when you were at work. Just once or twice, of course.”
“You never told me that.”
“Didn’t I? Must have slipped my mind.”
“It must have. What did you two talk about?”
“I told you; we talked about the possibility of Elise and Donna teaming up after college. Donna would write the songs and Elise would sing them. They would be good songs, with Christian values, providing a positive influence on kids, instead of the junk they hear now.”
“What did Elise think of this idea?” I asked.
“She was open to it. I talked to her-Donna asked me to-and she said anything was possible.”
“Elise had a good voice,” June said. “If I may say so she had an excellent voice, but that doesn’t mean she could have had a career as a singer. You know how hard it is to do that. I think she was realistic about it.”
“So Donna and Elise got along well together,” I said.
“Very well,” Eric said. “They’ve known each other since the beginning of Elise’s freshman year at Crescent Heights.”
“I understand that Elise lived in a dormitory last year, even though your house is only a few miles from the college.”
“She needed to spread her wings,” June said. “We don’t have all that much money and for a long time it looked like she would have to live at home and maybe go to community college. Or take on large student loans. But we’ve always been thrifty and we didn’t like that idea. But then this scholarship came through…”
“Elise was the smart one in the family,” Eric said. “But she was awful young to live away from home. Maybe if she had been living at home, this would never have happened.”
“And then there was her boyfriend,” I said, hoping to keep Eric from dissolving, which it appeared he might do.
“His name is Ted,” June said. “He’s a nice enough boy, but he’s a bit of a wimp, if you ask me.”
“Ted is no wimp,” Eric said. “He’s just got good values. He’s even gone out with me on patrol.”
“That’s what I mean,” June said. “That’s a strange occupation for a 21-year-old. Do you know about this patrol business, Lillian?”
“You mean the website and the license plates. Eric told me about that.”
“He tells everybody who will listen. If you ask me, there are better ways he could spend his time. Such as earning some money.”
“Nobody asked you, woman.”
“How did Ted feel about the harassment charge?” I asked.
“He didn’t like it, of course,” Eric said. “Who would? He knew about it before we did. Just like you. It seems like we were the last to know.”
“Elise didn’t want you to go out and hunt down Dr. Pappas,” June said. “You’re so volatile.” She turned to me. “It isn’t all his fault. His leg pains him a lot. But as far as Ted’s reaction, I think that could be a problem. He was funny about things like that. He thinks everybody should be a virgin when they get married.”
“Girls should be virgins when they get married,” Eric said.
“Don’t get started on that,” June said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
She quickly mentioned other peculiarities that Ted had. We chatted about Ted for a few more minutes, but I didn’t learn anything more.
When that subject had exhausted itself I said, “How did you hear about Elise? Did the police come here in the
