wrong.”
“I know she cared about me.”
I gritted me teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mark looked up from the sidewalk and met my gaze. “She asked me not to. She said you wouldn’t understand.”
“Damn right, I wouldn’t understand. She led you on for years, and you let her.” My anger at Olivia burned within my chest. How could she treat my brother so poorly? How could the both of them keep it from me for so long?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Sorry, what are you sorry for?”
“You’re right; I let her lead me on. I loved it when she called. Now look what’s happened because of it. She’s dead, and I’m the number one suspect.”
My anger deflated, and I patted his arm. “You’re not responsible for what happened to her. I will figure this out. We have the picture to go on now, remember?”
He nodded.
“Go home, if Lepcheck sees you here, he’ll have one of the rent-a-cops throw you in a janitor’s closet. Or worse.”
After a little more prodding, Mark agreed, got into his car, and drove away.
I picked up the cooler and shuffled to the fountain. Nicholas was still on the ground with his pile of blocks, now deconstructing the fortress, but my father was in front of the protestors waving what appeared to be a permit to protest in Lepcheck’s face. Lepcheck’s complexion blazed maroon under his bottled tan.
Putting the cooler down next to my nephew, I crouched beside him and whispered, “Hey, Nicko.”
He looked up from his blocks. “Dia!” he shouted at top voice.
I winced and peered up to see if we had attracted Lepcheck’s glance, but my father had his undivided attention. I held a finger to my lips. “Shhh.”
He mimicked me. “Shhh.”
“I have to go. Can you tell Grandpa that after he’s done talking to that angry-looking man?”
“The one with the purple face?” whispered Nicholas.
“That’s the one.”
I beat a hasty retreat.
I knew I was being a coward, but I couldn’t hang around with Lepcheck in sight. No need to tempt fate with the status of my employment.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Something nagged at me about Olivia’s death, aside from its occurrence and the general suspicions against my brother, of course. After stopping at my car where I kept a candy stash for just such an occasion, I made a stop before I left campus. I jogged to the east side of Martin, past the gymnasium and into the thick of the dorms. I stopped in front of a small modular building tucked away between the gym and the end of fraternity row: the safety and security office.
I didn’t come to this part of campus often, only when I had a dire need to bribe the real powers-that-be on campus.
The modular’s door was unlocked, and I stepped in. The reception area was empty. Lucky for once, I caught the safety and security secretary on her smoking break. I slipped around the desk and scurried down the hall to the office at the very end. After a deep breath, I knocked once and opened it. The room was absolutely freezing, but the man sitting behind the desk looked like he’d recently marched the Mojave Desert at high noon. The lights blinked, but the tired window air conditioner labored on.
“Well, hell’s bells,” he said by way of greeting. “They caught you again.”
“Really, Mutt,” I said. “I’m completely innocent.”
“Uh-huh. First things first.” He drummed his fingers on the desktop.
I slid a king-sized chocolate bar onto the metal desk that divided the tiny room. The candy bar was a little worse for wear after spending the morning in my smoldering car, but Mutt didn’t seem to mind. He chuckled softly and made a gimme sign with his hand. I rifled through my shoulder bag, pulled out another bar, and slapped it down next to its mate. Mutt gestured that I could sit.
I settled on the lone metal folding chair, grimy from decades of dust and chocolate.
“Well, lovely India, what can I do for you today? Fix a no-parking zone ticket? Speeding?”
I shifted uncomfortably on the frigid metal. “Not this time.”
“Hmm.” Mutt worried his chin, seemingly enjoying tormenting me. Then he snapped his fingers. “I know you’re here to save your brother from a murder rap.”
I jumped. But, then again, I didn’t know why Mutt’s comment surprised me. Lee Mutton, head of safety and security, had intimate knowledge of every rumor that pulsated through Martin’s campus, and none came bigger than Olivia’s murder.
Mutt unwrapped a chocolate bar and finger-combed his mustache in preparation. His navy uniform was opened to the navel, displaying the unseemly view of his signature beer belly barely restrained by a white T-shirt. Appearances couldn’t be more misleading. Mutt ran the entire campus from his little office where security monitors lining the walls flickered from scene to scene with an efficiency of an iron hand. Mutt was Jabba the Hut in navy cotton blend. And if Mutt ever found a reason to rise from his abused desk chair, look out. Rumor had it that the three-hundred-plus, six-three security lord once threw a frat boy out of a second-story window while breaking up a rave. Of course, it was probably all rumors. He couldn’t possibly still be head of security after chucking Martin’s bread and butter out of a window, could he? Another rumor claimed that Mutt wasn’t fired for said chucking, because he has some dirt on Lepcheck so horrible that he’s virtually untouchable. I considered all of this as Mutt polished off the first candy bar and chugged a sweaty can of cola before moving on to the second.
“So?” he asked between bites. He wiped chocolate from his lip with the back of his hand.
I took a breath. “You’re right. I haven’t broken any of Martin’s hallowed traffic laws—at least not lately.”
He smirked. Chocolate clung to his mustache. “Hallowed, huh? My, you professor-types and your big words.”
“I’m not technically a professor.”
“Excuse me, you librarians,” he amended.
I plunged in. “Have you been involved in the Blocken case?”
Mutt finished the second bar and became officious. “Not so much. The police are salivating over this one. And the whole situation has more Lepcheck than I can stomach.”
“What do you know?”
“You know,” he said philosophically, “This isn’t really like fixing a parking ticket. It’s a little more complicated. Lepcheck would put me on the curb if he knew I was even speaking to you about it.”
“I thought you were un-fire-able.”
“That’s the word on the street.”
I opened my bag and slapped two more chocolate bars on his desk. I’d need to restock after this visit.
Mutt smiled. “Like I was saying, I don’t know that much. But my boys were some of the first ones on the scene.”
“Boys?” I arched my brow. At least three female security officers patrolled the campus.
Mutt grunted. “My boys and girls, then. Happy?”
“Very.” I nodded for him to continue.
“One of them, Mike, found your brother sobbing over Olivia at the scene. Mark had already pulled the girl out of the fountain and was holding a shirt to her head wound. Mike said Mark was a scarier sight than the girl. Mark wouldn’t let anyone close to her until the EMS arrived.”
I shuddered, envisioning the scene: Mark cradling Olivia’s bloodied head, blood and water ruining her
