She kissed him then. Hard. It was a damn good kiss. He felt it in his toes.
“Just the overture,” she said.
He’d be dead before the second scene. “I really do have to talk to your husband. Do you know when he’ll be home?”
“Not for a while. But he’s at the office across campus. By himself. You’ll have to knock loudly for him to hear you.”
He rose. “Thanks.”
“Myron?”
“Yes?”
“We never use names when we discuss our affairs. I don’t know if Harrison fools around with co-eds. I would doubt it highly.”
“How about Kathy Culver?”
She visibly jumped. Her face stiffened. “I think you better leave now.”
“The honest blue eyes,” Myron said. “Watch the honest blue eyes.”
“Not this time. And when I watched you play, it wasn’t your eyes I looked at.”
“Oh?”
“Your ass,” she said. “It looked nice in those little shorts.”
Myron felt cheap. Or ecstatic. Probably ecstatic. “Were they having an affair?” he asked.
She said nothing.
“I’ll shake my ass if I have to.”
“They weren’t having an affair,” she said firmly. “That much I know.”
“So why did you get all bent out of shape?”
“You were asking if my husband had an illicit affair with a co-ed who was probably murdered. I was taken aback.”
“Did you know Kathy Culver?”
“No.”
“Did your husband ever talk about her?”
“Not really. I just know she worked in his office.” She looked at the grandfather clock, stood, and led him to the door. “Talk to my husband, Myron. He’s a good man. He’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
“Like?”
She shook her head. “Thanks for visiting.”
Madelaine was in shutdown mode. Probably hurt by his interrogation technique. Using his brawny body to get his way. Myron had never done that before. He liked it. Better than pistol-whipping a suspect, anyway.
He turned and left. Madelaine was probably watching his ass. He put a little wiggle in his step and hurried across campus.
Chapter 32
Jessica found Getaway Realty in the Bergen County Yellow Pages Their office was a converted cottage next to a McDonald’s off Route 17 on the New Jersey side of the New York-New Jersey border. The drive was only twenty minutes, but it felt as if she’d arrived in the rural past She actually saw a feed store.
Only one person was in the office.
“Well, hello there,” the man said with a too-wide smile. He was mid-fifties, bald, with a long, scraggly gray beard, like a college professor’s. He wore a flannel shirt, black tie, Levi’s jeans, and red Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers.
“I’m Tom Corbett, president of Getaway Realty.” He handed her a card. “What can I do for you today?”
“I’m Dr. Adam Culver’s daughter,” she said. “He wrote a check to your office on May twenty-fifth for $649.”
“Yeah, so?”
“He passed away recently. I’d like to know what it was for.”
Corbett took a step back. “I’m awfully sorry to hear that,” he said “Nice man, your father.”
“Thank you. Can you tell me why he came to you?”
He thought a moment, shrugged. “Don’t see why not. He rented a cabin.”
“Near here?”
“Five, six miles. In the woods.”
“For how long?”
“A month. Starting May twenty-fifth. Still has it for a few more weeks, if you’d like to use it.”
“What kind of cabin?” she asked.
“What kind? Well, it’s pretty small. One bedroom, one bathroom with shower stall, living room, kitchenette.”
This made no sense. “Do you think you could give me the directions and a spare key?”
He thought that one over too, chewing on the inside of his mouth. “It’s a bit remote,” he said. “Kinda hard to find, darling.”
Aside from
“The cottage’s away from it all,” Tom continued. “Way away, if you know what I mean. A little hunting, a little fishing, but mostly just peace and quiet.” He picked up a key chain as heavy as a barbell. “I’ll drive you.”
“Thank you.”
He drove a Toyota LandCruiser and chatted the whole way, as though she were a client. “Here’s our local grocery store.”
It was an enormous A &P Superstore.
She was surprised when he turned onto an unpaved road. They were heading straight into the woods.
“Nice, ain’t it? Real pretty.”
“Uh-huh.”
Green foliage surrounded them. Jessica was not much of the outdoor sort. To her, the great outdoors meant bugs and humidity and dirt and no running water and no bathroom. Man had evolved for millions of years to escape the woods. Why rush back? But more important, her father had felt the same. He hated the woods.
Why would he rent a cabin out here?
Tom pointed to a gully up ahead. “Two years ago, guy got killed by a hunter over there. Accident. The hunter thought he was a deer, shot him in the head.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Couple of dead bodies been found in the woods. Three in the past two years, I think. Found one girl just a couple months back. Runaway, they guessed. Hard to tell ’cause she was all decayed and stuff.”
“You’re a hell of a salesman, Tom.”
He laughed. “Yeah, well, I can tell when someone ain’t a buyer.”
Jessica, of course, knew all about the bodies. The police hadn’t caught the killer, but the general consensus was that the psychopath had gotten hold of one more young girl, one that had not yet been found:
Kathy Culver.
Could Kathy’s fate have been that simple and that horrible? Had she been another victim of a random psychopath, just as everyone thought?
No, Jessica told herself. Too many holes.
“When I was a kid growing up around here,” Tom said, “these woods were filled with legends. Guy with a hook hand lived in here, the old-timers said, used to kidnap bad little boys and gut them with his hook.”
“Charming.”
“Sometimes I wonder if he moved on to young ladies.”
Jessica said nothing.
