That brought Johnson out of his reverie. “You mean Rosemary Bartlett? You’re talking to her, too?”
“I’m hunting for a killer. I might interview everyone in this whole damn town,” she said.
He looked a little stunned now, nothing like the calm, cool and collected academic he’d been when we first walked in. “Um… where did you park?”
“Right next to you,” Candace said.
“Then you can walk to their house. There’s a path on the far side of the lot that leads to Hawthorne Street. They live in a small house about a block to the right. Number 405.”
“Thanks,” Candace said and started to turn to leave. But then she stopped. “Does Mr. Bartlett do a good job janitoring? Is that why Rosemary got to stay and Evan didn’t after that little protest?”
Johnson opened his mouth to reply, but Candace said, “You don’t have to answer. I think I already know.”
I followed her out, and when we were in the elevator I said, “You didn’t tell me Rosemary’s father worked at the college, too.”
“I mentioned that everyone in town works at the college, didn’t I?” she said with a smile.
“You did. I have to say, I’ve never sat in on anything like that. You were awesome.”
“He could have been a suspect, you know,” she said.
“Because VanKleet tarnished Denman College?” I said.
“Maybe, but even though I didn’t act like it, I believe he’s a genuine guy doing a difficult job. VanKleet went rogue on him, and he had no choice but to fire him.”
“I agree you didn’t leave President Johnson with a warm, fuzzy feeling,” I said. “He might be worried you’ll come back.”
“This is murder, Jillian. There’s nothing warm or fuzzy about it. If I need to return with a subpoena for that letter Evan said he wrote, I will,” she said.
“Maybe Evan kept a copy. I could ask him,” I said.
“Good idea. Now I’m ready to hear what Rosemary Bartlett has to say.”
Twenty-three
The Bartlett home was about a ten- minute walk from the college, and Mr. Bartlett answered the door of the small brick house. He was a burly man with muscled arms and a ruddy complexion.
Unlike Lawrence Johnson, he invited us both in without even questioning my presence. Maybe he was old- school. If a cop comes to your house, you don’t ask any questions.
The living room was small and neat, with a big flat-screen TV the centerpiece on the far wall.
Bartlett said, “The wife’s gone. Said she didn’t want to be here when you questioned Rosemary. It’s better that way. She’d probably cry the whole time. I mean the wife, not Rosemary. I wish I’d see that girl cry over something. Worries me sometimes how she can be.”
Candace said, “This is Jillian Hart. She’ll be sitting in on the interview, taking notes.” She took her notebook from her pocket and handed it to me.
Okay, I thought. I can take notes.
“Where is your daughter, sir?” Candace said.
Funny how she’d never used the word sir with Johnson-a powerful man-but chose to do so now with a guy who obviously respected Candace without reservation.
“I’ll get her. Go ahead and sit.” He left the room and went left down a hallway.
“Do you really want me to take notes?” I said.
“Yes. And sit on the sofa next to me. That way the girl can only choose one of the easy chairs and I’ll be right across from her.
We sat on the beige sofa, and I noticed the vacuum lines on the carpet. A police visit required tidying up. Yup, this was far different from sitting in a college president’s office.
Rosemary walked into the room after her father, her head down. The hair grabbed my attention first. Purple and magenta, cut in spiky layers. Her bangs covered one eye.
When she sat across from us, I noticed a piercing in her lower lip, but the ring had been removed. Sullen was a kind word to describe Rosemary Bartlett’s expression.
Her father took the other easy chair, a plaid rocker, and said, “Go ahead. Talk to the officers.”
She addressed him, not Candace. “What am I supposed to say? I’m sorry?”
He pointed a thick freckled finger at his daughter. “Quit with the attitude. These policewomen have come a long way to talk to you. I told you they want to know about Evan VanKleet. And I’d sure like to hear about him, too.”
Rosemary raised her eyes and then faced Candace. “How can I assist you, Officer?” But she didn’t sound in the least like she wanted to assist anyone.
“First of all,” Candace said in her kindest voice, “let me tell you that I’ve spoken with Evan. He was cooperative and very much wants to find out who murdered his father.”
Rosemary’s heavily penciled brows knitted. “You’re lying, right? He cooperated with the cops after they put him in jail for no reason?”
“I didn’t put him in jail,” Candace said. “And from what I could tell, he got a raw deal.”
“No kidding. We do have the right to protest in this country,” she said. “That’s all we were doing.”
“That’s not why he went to jail, Rosemary.” Bartlett looked at Candace. “I heard he was drunk. Is that true?”
“True,” she said. “By his own admission.”
“And he’s sorry about that,” I added. “I helped interview him, and he’s trying to get back into school, straighten his life out. But he’s so upset about his father’s death. Can you help us help him?”
Rosemary said, “He’s okay, then? My father wouldn’t let me bail him out or even talk to him afterward. But Evan is such a cool guy.”
“I get your father’s concern,” Candace said. “Because that’s what it is-concern. To answer your question, Evan seemed fine when I talked to him-aside from being torn up about his father dying.”
Candace knew exactly the right words at the right time, it would seem, because Rosemary said, “Man, I so wanted to call him after the story was in the paper. But I don’t have his number anymore.”
“We wanted her to have no contact with Evan and the other students involved in the incident afterward,” Bartlett said. “Rosemary is on scholarship at Denman, and she could lose it all.”
“Yeah, and instead I lost my friends.” She began to chew on an already ravaged fingernail.
“How did you meet Evan?” Candace asked.
“Patrick. He told me that Evan needed friends, that he was bummed after his father got canned,” Rosemary said.
“Patrick who?” her father said before Candace or I could ask the same question.
“Hoffman. He’s pretty cool for a cop,” she said.
“You call Officer Hoffman by his first name?” Rosemary’s father said.
“We all do. You know he always walks me home when I stay late, right?” she said.
“No, I didn’t know. How friendly are you with this man? And how old is he?” Bartlett said.
Rosemary sighed heavily. “Jeez. It’s not like that.”
Candace quickly said, “You can talk about all that later. So Officer Hoffman mentioned Evan?”
“Right,” she said. “He knows my friends are all the weirdos on campus-I mean it’s like frickin’ high school all over again here. Patrick thought Evan would fit right in with us. And he did.”
“Tell me about this protest,” Candace said.
I realized I hadn’t been writing anything down and decided to start looking official. I poised my pen over the blank notebook page.
“Did Evan tell you about that?” Rosemary said.
“Yeah,” Candace replied. “This protest, the one where Evan got arrested, that was about the ferrets?”
“Yes,” she said. “Most of us are science majors. Evan wasn’t, but his dad was some big science freak, so he knows a lot more than he lets on. Saving even the small animals is important, even in Denman, which is a tiny
