“I didn’t hear about that,” Sanger said.
“It happened in Reno, and he’s been dead a couple days. Probably since late Sunday morning.”
“Sorry to hear it,” Sanger said to Duke.
Duke acknowledged his condolences and asked, “What happened here?”
“Three seniors dead. The dorm room is a mess-they all vomited violently. The medics came in and tried to resuscitate the female, who still had a pulse, but she was declared DOA at the hospital. She never regained consciousness. We found the letter on the desk. The M.E. took the bodies about twenty minutes ago, and my deputies are upstairs collecting evidence.” In Placer County, the sheriff’s deputies doubled as crime-scene investigators, which was common in many of California’s smaller counties.
“Pills?” she asked.
“Seems so, but until the autopsy we don’t know what they took.”
“How were they discovered?”
“The girl across the hall smelled something foul and knocked on the door early this morning. She didn’t get an answer, went to class, and then when she came back she tried again, and found the door unlocked. It was a pretty ugly scene. The poor girl is a wreck.”
“And the three just stayed in the room vomiting and didn’t try to get help? Did the female have a roommate?”
“No, she didn’t. And apparently, they wanted to die,” Sanger said.
Or maybe the ingested drugs had a paralyzing effect, Nora thought. Still, it didn’t seem right to Nora. She’d seen pill-related suicides. They weren’t pretty, but she wouldn’t call them violent. Generally if vomiting began, the individual would purge enough from their system to survive or regret their decision and seek help. “Such a violent reaction seems unnecessary,” Nora said.
“Excuse me?”
“If they planned it, they would know how many pills to take to do the job, and what type of pills would minimize pain and suffering. Most suicides try for the most painless, easiest out they can find. They also talk about it to someone-even if that person doesn’t know the suicidal person is talking about killing themselves. They show signs of despair and depression-”
“But they faced prosecution for arson and murder,” Sanger pointed out.
“Did they? I don’t have a suspect right now, do you?”
Sanger hesitated. “I see what you mean.”
“Do you have an ID on the three?”
Sanger checked his notes. “Anya Ballard, twenty-two, originally from Portland, Oregon. She’s been here for four years. Chris Pierson, twenty-three, from Richmond, California, also here for four years. Scott Edwards, twenty- two, from Los Angeles, California. He transferred two years ago from UCLA. He was a computer engineering major until he came here, then switched to environmental studies, like the other two.”
Sanger looked at her. “I pulled their schedules. I wasn’t surprised that all three of them are in Leif Cole’s Social Justice class.”
Nora raised her eyebrows. “Did the letter incriminate him or anyone else?”
“No. It’s bagged and in the van, but I’ll have someone fetch it.” He spoke into his walkie-talkie.
Duke asked, “Do we know about what time this happened?”
“Just sometime last night. They weren’t at a meeting people expected them at, but no one thought twice about it. My deputies are interviewing everyone in the dorm, their political groups, and their classes. Holbrook has given us the student union for the duration of the interviews and investigation. As soon as we clear the dorm room, we’ll release the third floor.”
“Duke!”
Nora turned and saw a kid who could have been Duke’s younger twin on the opposite side of the crime-scene tape.
“It’s my brother,” Duke said.
Nora said to Sanger, “Can you let him through?”
Sanger frowned, but motioned for the deputy at the door to let the younger Rogan in.
Nora glanced at Duke. “I’m still not happy about this,” she said quietly.
“Noted,” Duke said. He introduced his brother. “Sean, this is Special Agent Nora English and Sheriff Lance Sanger with Placer County.”
Sanger asked, “Are you a student here?”
Sean hesitated, and Duke explained. “I got him in so he could keep an eye on Cole and his activist group. Nora didn’t know, it was my call.”
Sanger looked impressed. “Well Nora, I guess you don’t mind bending the rules.”
He didn’t believe she hadn’t known, and Nora didn’t correct him. What would be the point? Instead, she asked Sean, “Were you at the meeting last night?”
He nodded. “They really didn’t have a meeting. Mostly, they ranted about the ducks being killed at Lake of the Pines. It broke up early, a little after eight. I went to Anya’s room to see if she was okay.”
Duke said, “So you knew her?”
“I met her Monday morning in class. We had lunch together.”
“What was her behavior like then?” Nora asked.
“Cheerful, I guess. Normal. She invited me to the meeting and I said she would see me there. She was distracted near the end of lunch, though, and so I followed her when she left. She met Professor Cole in the organic garden. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it seemed obvious that he told her something that upset her. And I had the impression they were involved.”
“Involved?” Nora asked. “Romantically? Did they kiss?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It wasn’t like a passionate kiss, but it was more how they touched and stuff. They stood really close, not like us here, but like this.” He stepped close to Nora and took her hands. They were about a foot apart. “Yeah, like that. And they held hands.”
He stepped back, embarrassed.
“Why did you go up to her room?” Nora asked.
“Because she didn’t show up at the meeting and she’d invited me.”
“Did you talk to her in her room?”
“Just briefly at the door. She said she was studying and time got away from them. But Chris, who I saw through the door, had been at the meeting. He left early, before it started.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
“No, but I heard someone. A girl.”
Nora straightened. “A girl?”
Sean paused. “I can’t swear by it. I only saw Anya and Chris, and part of another guy-he had big feet in white sneakers. But I heard another person. Maybe it was a guy.”
Nora went with Sean’s first impression, which was probably accurate. But it wouldn’t hold up in court because he was already backtracking-if in fact there had been another female in the room who knew what the three were doing and didn’t do anything to stop them, she could be in serious trouble. Suicide was still a crime in California.
“What else did Anya say?” Nora prompted Sean.
“I told her I’d see her Wednesday in class and she said maybe we could have lunch again.”
“She was making plans?”
“Well, it wasn’t set in stone,” Sean said. “More like if we saw each other at the cafeteria we’d eat together.”
People who were contemplating imminent suicide did not generally make future plans, even lunch in two days.
Sean added, “When I was leaving the meeting, I asked Professor Cole about Anya. He said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“So he already knew she wasn’t coming to the meeting? Why would he say she wasn’t feeling well if she was
