article we were reading disappear from the computer monitor just in case it was somebody we didn’t want to know what we were doing.
I opened the door and saw Detective Johnson standing beyond the outside door, which still had the winter storm window installed. He was approximately the last person I wanted to talk to, but I opened the outside door and said, “Good morning, Detective,” in a voice loud enough for Mark to hear. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”
“I didn’t come here to eat, Mrs. Morgan,” he said, stiffly. “May I come in?”
“Of course. Mi casa es su casa. ” I opened the door wide enough for him to enter. I led him into the living room and I called, “Mark, Detective Johnson is here,” in case he hadn’t heard before. The detective was neatly dressed for so early in the morning, in a suit and tie. Perhaps he was one of those people who didn’t need much sleep.
“It’s you I want to talk to,” Detective Johnson said to me.
I didn’t particularly want to talk to him on an empty stomach, but I allowed him to sit down on my nice new couch. I sat beside him. He didn’t acknowledge Mark, clearly visible in the next room, so Mark wisely decided to stay there. If I spoke up he would be able to hear what I said.
I offered coffee to Detective Johnson, which actually wasn’t made yet, but he declined, so I couldn’t use that as an excuse to duck his questions for a bit. I remembered that he drank coke, but I decided it was too early for him to indulge in that vice.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Detective Johnson said, his eye twitching. “I’ve had a complaint about you.”
I raised my eyebrows and tried to look innocent as he continued, “Ted Ulrich says that you went to his place and browbeat him.”
“Browbeat Ted?” I said, using my outside voice so that Mark could hear. “That’s strong language. I was just asking him some questions.”
“It’s my job to ask the questions, not yours. It’s your job to stay out of this and let me do my job.”
“I hope you are doing your job.”
“I’m serious, Mrs. Morgan. You know, I can arrest you for obstruction of justice.”
I would have to call Burt and find out what the legal definition was for obstruction of justice. I said, “If I promise not to browbeat Ted, will you answer a question for me?”
“It depends.”
“Okay, the question is this. Have you considered Ted as a possible suspect?”
Detective Johnson looked at nothing for a while and then said, “All friends of Elise are possible suspects. Although we haven’t eliminated the possibility that a stranger murdered her, either. We have investigated Ted along with everyone else. As I’m sure you already know, he’s a pretty clean-cut guy.”
I wasn’t sure clean-cut was the right word for Ted. “It appears that he may have been more clean-cut than Elise. Perhaps that led to some differences of opinion between them. For example, because of his views on marriage, if he was a virgin and Elise wasn’t. Have you searched his room?”
“If we did that we should search your apartment, too, since Dr. Pappas is staying here.”
“You have my permission to search my apartment any time you wish.”
“They’ve already searched my office at the college and my car,” Mark said, strolling into the room. “And what did you find, Detective Johnson?”
“Nothing,” Detective Johnson admitted. “All right, since you two obviously don’t think I’m doing my job, I’ll take you up on that, Mrs. Morgan. I’ll search your apartment. I have another officer in the car and he’ll help me.” He produced a cellular phone, called the other officer and told him to come in.
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” Detective Johnson said to us. “We did search Ted’s room and we didn’t have to browbeat him or get a warrant to do it. He volunteered.”
“And you found nothing,” I said. I could tell by his smug smile.
“Correct. And by the way, Elise Hoffman was not the Shooting Star. Donna Somerset was.”
“You’re talking about the article in the Bethany Bugle this morning.”
“That’s old news. Donna told me, herself, last week. It eliminates any suspects that had anything to do with Club Cavalier.”
His look said that he was quite capable of digging out information without assistance. I suppressed a desire to say that Donna had told me the same thing. He would just accuse me of obstructing justice again.
When he couldn’t get a rise out of me, he said, “And here’s something else you don’t know. Elise tested positive for marijuana.”
Now that was news. “And you didn’t find any marijuana at Ted’s place?” I asked.
“It was clean.”
“Did you find any marijuana at Elise’s apartment?”
“No. It appears that she had been smoking somewhere else earlier that evening.”
But probably not with Ted. “Maybe she had another boyfriend,” I said, “and she was out with him.”
“There’s nobody either her parents or her roommate knows about.” Detective Johnson turned his gaze on Mark. “But we’re still working on it.”
“I heard she had a boyfriend last year. Could that still be going on?”
“I talked to him. That was over last June, almost a year ago. And besides, he has an ironclad alibi for the night of the murder.”
Who did that leave? Was Detective Johnson implying that she had gone out with Mark? I found myself wondering whether or not Mark had ever smoked marijuana. But that had to be irrelevant.
My thoughts were interrupted by the other officer knocking at the door.
Chapter 18
Mark didn’t have to show up at his job as bartender until late in the afternoon and so he was at loose ends. Since he didn’t like the idea of me driving myself to Bethany, he insisted on taking me to Eric Hoffman’s home. It wasn’t because he had anything to do at Crescent Heights College; he had made his appeal for reinstatement and his fate was in the hands of the committee that decided such things. They would issue a ruling when they were good and ready.
When I asked him what he thought his chances were, he said, “What are the chances of a lion and a zebra signing a non-aggression pact?”
“That bad, eh?”
“Let’s just say that I should have decided on a career as a burglar when I had the opportunity.”
I didn’t say much more on that subject. I figured that the best way I could help lift Mark out of his depression was to solve the murder of Elise. We agreed that he shouldn’t talk to Eric Hoffman so he dropped me off at the Hoffman driveway and drove away. I would call his beeper with my cell phone when I was ready to be picked up. He used the beeper in conjunction with his bartending job.
I had called Eric from my apartment to make sure that he was going to be there and June wasn’t. She had returned to work. I told him that after talking to Detective Johnson I had some more ideas I wanted to discuss with him. He seemed to be willing to talk to me. I didn’t tell him that the detective had threatened me and I didn’t plan to tell him about Elise’s marijuana use. Let Detective Johnson do that. After all, that’s what he got paid for.
I carried a dog treat for Monster; King loved them so I hoped Monster would too. Monster growled a little when he first saw me, but then he must have recognized my scent because he stopped and came amiably forward. The treat cinched it. We were buddies for life. I scratched him between the ears and told him I had to talk to his master.
Eric acted surprised when he answered the doorbell and found that I had gotten past Monster without him hearing. He appeared to be agitated as he invited me to come inside and sit down. He served us coffee that was already made. He declined my offer to help, saying that he could carry the tray with one hand and wield his cane with the other.
He could, although the tray shook slightly and the contents chattered as he placed it on the coffee table. But he was still strong. I took a sip of coffee and was preparing what to say when I noticed a copy of the Bethany Bugle
