her a couple times doing reports as I was surfing for something to watch, but I hadn’t realized she had worked her way up to a co-anchor position.
‘A former student of mine!’ I told Lucy and Molly cheerfully. ‘Let’s watch this. Patty’s all right!’
Johnna Masterson was still a second page story, but my name had come up as an individual sheriff’s detectives were interviewing. Patty Storm did not use the word suspect. Mostly the report was about the search for Masterson continuing. There was a touching plea from her parents.
Lucy looked at me suspiciously when the report was over.
‘Innocent,’ I said.
‘She’s pretty,’ Lucy rejoined.
‘Johnna? She sure is. Smart, funny, totally likable.
Personally, when I commit murder I like to do it to someone who deserves it!’
‘Don’t make jokes, David,’ Molly answered.
‘How well did you know her?’ Lucy asked.
I grimaced but I wouldn’t back away. ‘She was one of the women who filed charges against me at school.’
‘So what happened? Or is this not my business either?’
‘As long as we’re all living in the same house it’s our business,’ I said. I glanced at Molly.
‘Tell her,’ Molly said. ‘Tell her what you told me this afternoon.’
I went to the pantry and cracked open a bottle of bourbon. As I was pouring a couple of healthy shots over ice for Molly and me Lucy asked for one as well.
I got Molly’s nod of approval. Special occasion: her stepfather was coming clean.
‘We got a call on Tuesday night,’ I said. From there I went through the whole evening. I finished by explaining that I had something of a history with Buddy Elder because of some trouble at school, and I was fairly sure he was involved in this for no other reason than to hurt me.’
‘How could he do that?’ Lucy asked.
‘I think he might be trying to frame me for this.’
Lucy seemed uneasy. Molly was scared.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘It will blow over.’
There were some calls after dinner. A number of people from the university who had avoided all contact with me for the past two months suddenly wanted to know how I was doing. As per Gail’s instructions that afternoon before we got off the phone, I neither answered nor returned the calls.
At nine o’clock, Patty Storm, among others, left a message. She called me Dr Albo and reminded me of the class she had taken ‘a couple of years ago.’
She was working on a story and wondered if I could help her. Ten minutes later, she left another message. She had received information about Johnna Masterson’s disappearance. For the sake of fairness, she wanted my response before she went on again.
I was curious about her information, so much so that I thought about calling her, but I resisted the temptation.
Twenty minutes later we found out what she had.
Johnna Masterson’s disappearance now led all stories.
The intro music was different, urgent, not the typical stuff. This was breaking news. I checked the other two local stations. The story was upgraded there as well.
I went back to Patty Storm. She had the look of a reporter who knows she is on to something good, and I quickly realized I was the something.
‘Sources inside the sheriff’s department are investigating allegations of an affair between Professor David Albo and an unidentified freshman co-ed, who, along with Johnna Masterson, filed charges of sexual harassment against Dr Albo earlier this fall…’
‘This is not good,’ Molly offered quietly.
‘…suspended from his teaching duties as the investigation continues…’
‘Where did this woman get all this, David?’
‘…the last person to talk to Johnna Masterson on the night she disappeared…’
‘Gail told Dalton we aren’t going to play ball. This is the payback.’
‘…refusal to take a polygraph…’
They posted the university’s public relations photo of me. I had always liked the shot. It was about four years out of date, a portrait of a thirty-three-year-old man projecting confidence, training, scholarship, and just a touch of sex appeal. On television, I came off looking like an overbearing English prof with a hard-on.
‘…what some witnesses are calling a brawl at a local funeral home…’
Molly stared open mouthed at the screen. ‘Nice picture, huh?’ I asked.
‘…following Professor Albo’s arrest on felony assault charges stemming from an incident at The Glass Slipper, a local establishment featuring topless dancing…’
I snapped Patty Storm off mid-sentence.
‘I wanted to watch the rest of it.’
‘This stuff is important if you make it important,’ I said.
‘This stuff pushes prosecutors to try cases, David.
You can’t just ignore it!’
‘Watch me.’
Lucy came down the stairs, her face red, her eyes wet. Shaking her head, Lucy looked at me as if I had just violated her.
‘You saw it?’ I asked.
‘You liar!’
Molly and I both called out to her, but she headed for the back door and kept going.
As soon as she had driven off I looked at Molly.
‘How about another bourbon on the rocks?’
‘How about we forget the rocks?’
I got the good stuff out and our best crystal and poured us both three fingers’ worth. ‘To catastrophe!’
I said cheerfully. It was how we used to celebrate the purchase of broken down houses we thought we could resurrect.
Molly smiled at me suddenly as if we hadn’t a worry in the world. ‘To catastrophe!’
Chapter 25
Saturday morning the phone rang incessantly.
At midday, a TV van pulled up into our driveway. Molly took her shotgun out and sent them off in a hurry.
In the evening Lucy, having not spoken to me all day, drove off again. Molly asked where she was going but didn’t really get an answer. Alone for the evening, we talked about what happened after an arrest. That came down to money, I said. Like everything else, there were different prices for different people. A trial defence could be purchased at anything from bargain basement rates to a multimillion dollar media show. A public defender would get me the needle. Twenty thousand could probably keep me off death row. Fifty thousand would probably buy a retrial. A couple hundred thousand might get an acquittal on the second trial. Of course, if Buddy Elder decided to plant some evidence, which I thought he would do, there were only a handful of lawyers in the country who could get me off.
We could find the money, Molly said.
Of course we could, I answered, but that would stop all of our income. With my suspension continuing into the next semester, almost certainly now without pay, everything we had would go to the lawyers.
Doc and Olga could help.
I said it wasn’t their problem. It wasn’t Molly’s either.
