him. “You can see it in his eyes. This guy is seriously enamored with you,
“Don’t start,” Izzy said, starting to feel embarrassed. She hated it when Kathy got into cataloguing all of what she felt were Izzy’s strong points.
“No,” Kathy told her. “Don’t you start. Give this relationship a chance to go where it’s going to go before you start making up your mind about where you think it’s headed.”
Over the past few months Kathy had gotten a lot more serious with her writing. She took to spending long evenings at the library, researching and writing, and always made a point of letting Izzy know when she’d be back. Izzy wasn’t so sure that Kathy actually needed to do so much research, and she certainly could have written at home, but it did allow Izzy some intimacy with John that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to share since he didn’t have a place of his own.
“Where did you put the painting?” he asked one night when he came over. “It’s going to be in the show,” Izzy said. lily’s letting me store it at her studio until then.”
She’d been surprised, certainly more than a little self-conscious, but ultimately delighted when Albina had agreed to give her a solo show at The Green Man. It was going to be in January. She planned for
“You’re going to sell it?” John asked.
Izzy shook her head. “Oh, no. Rushkin says it’s good to have a couple of NSF pieces hanging with the ones that are for sale—it supposedly gets people into the buying mood.
And besides, I think it’s one of my best pieces.”
“I’d feel you were selling a part of me, if you did sell it,” John told her.
Izzy knew what he meant. Though she’d painted it before she’d met him, she still thought of it the way people thought of the first time they met, or a first date.
“I could never sell it,” she assured him.
From
POLICE HUNT VIGILANTES
by Maria Hill Newford Sun
Police have launched a manhunt for the killers of three Butler University students brutally beaten to death yesterday.
Robert Mandel, 19, John Collins, 19, and Darcy McClintock, 20, died after being savagely attacked in Lower Crowsea at approximately 11:30 P.M., police said.
The bodies of the three students were discovered in a car parked in front of the Crowsea Precinct at 1:00 A.M. by Const. Craig Chavez. The car was registered to McClintock.
With the bodies was a note alleging that the three students were responsible for the brutal assault and rape last month of a female Butler University student.
Detectives have few details on the vigilantes and are appealing to the public to help provide information, said NPD spokesman, Sgt. Howard Benzies.
“We have no idea how many were involved in the attack,” said Benzies, adding that there was also no indication whether the fatal assault took place inside or outside the car.
Police had no comment when asked if there was any evidence that the victims had been involved in the assault last month.
An extensive search of the area by police officers failed to find the murder weapons.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Crowsea Precinct at 263—1112.
> Grief Hits Pals Hard as Victims Mourned: Page 5
> Rise of Violence on Campus: Page 5 > Editorial: Page 10
At first, all Izzy could do was stare at the frontpage headline of the newspaper that Kathy had left out for her to read. Then she began to read the piece. She forgot all about getting herself a coffee or making breakfast as she worked her way through the various articles and finally the editorial related to that headline.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Kathy said, coming into their little kitchen from the shower. “Justice is served.”
She had a towel wrapped around her wet hair, another wrapped around her torso. Filling a couple of mugs with coffee, she brought them over to the table and sat down across from Izzy.
“Do you think they really are the guys that attacked Rochelle?” Izzy asked. “God, I hope so. I don’t know who killed them, but they should get a medal for giving the scum what they deserved.”
Izzy wasn’t so sure. While she certainly didn’t want Rochelle’s attackers to remain at large, if these really were the same men, the punishment seemed too extreme. Jail, yes. Lock them up forever, even.
But to be beaten to death like this ...
“I take it you don’t agree,” Kathy said.
“It’s not that. It’s just ...”
“Excessive.”
“I guess.”
Kathy sighed. “Look. If they did it once, the odds are they’d do it again. Rochelle wasn’t necessarily the first woman they attacked, and she certainly wouldn’t have been the last.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Statistics bear me out on this one,” Kathy said. “It’s not something I want to be right about—believe me.”
“I know,” Izzy said.
But her mind wasn’t really on the conversation anymore. She was thinking instead of that night with John in Perry’s Diner, when she’d told him about what had happened to Rochelle. He’d looked so grim.
John with his violent past.
John of whom she still really knew next to nothing.
John who’d also told her,
John who, she’d discovered since, always did keep his word.
John who’d assured her that Rochelle’s attackers would pay for what they had done.
Her gaze drifted back to the newspaper. Phrases leapt up from the newsprint and went spinning through her mind.
‘‘... brutally beaten to death ...”
. savagely attacked ...”
. fatal assault ...”
The scary thing was that she could imagine John doing it. Gentle as he was with her, she knew how strong he was, how much he abhorred injustice, how he had no fear of breaking the law because they were “white man’s laws. We never agreed to them.”
What kind of a friend are you, she asked herself, that you’d even suspect such a thing of him?
And then she thought: Angels and monsters. Spirits called from beyond. Guardian spirits ... and vengeful ones as well?
She shook her head. This was crazy. But she couldn’t suppress a shiver all the same.
“You okay?” Kathy asked.
Izzy nodded. “I’m just a little creeped out, that’s all.” She let her gaze rove to the kitchen clock.
“God, look at the time. I’ve got to get to the studio.”
“What? Rushkin’s got you punching a time clock now?”
“No. It’s just that I’ve got a class at two, but I really wanted to finish off this painting I’ve been working
