am petitioning the court for immediate release for false arrest.”
Sanger said, “False arrest? He refused to answer questions at the college, and I offered to interview him at the station. He got in my face, so I arrested him for attempting to intimidate a police officer.”
That was interesting, Nora thought. Sanger hadn’t told her the charges. And Nora thought Shepherd had a point, especially if Sanger told the judge that Cole “got in his face.” Intimidation wasn’t the same as assault, and Sanger had forty pounds and two inches on the professor.
Leif Cole slammed his palm on the table. “I asked you one simple question and you refused to answer.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Sanger said. “I ask the questions, you answer-or refuse to answer.”
Nora cleared her throat while Gavin admonished his client. “Professor, what was your question?”
“Is Anya okay? She was taken away in an ambulance. I just want to know if she’s going to be okay.”
Sanger shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Nora realized the importance Sean Rogan’s observations yesterday had on why that information was important to Cole.
She said, “I’m sorry, Professor. She died en route to the hospital.”
Cole’s body shook, his hands fisted, and his jaw moved, trying to prevent a sob from escaping. He lost that battle and the gut-wrenching cry that was pulled from his heart brought goose bumps to Nora’s skin.
She waited a long moment to give Cole time for initial grief. Her opinion about the propriety of a professor’s relationship with a student was put on the back burner; there was no doubt in her mind that Leif Cole cared deeply about Anya. This was no act.
“Why?” Cole asked, his voice rough. “Why would she kill herself?”
“Professor,” Nora said gently. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Anya and the others.”
He didn’t respond.
She plunged in. “I have a witness who said that you and Anya had an intimate relationship. Is that true?”
“That has nothing to do with this,” Shepherd said. “It is irrelevant whether my client had a sexual relationship or not with Ms. Ballard.”
“I’m trying to establish the relationship between Professor Cole and a student who died under suspicious circumstances. Let me ask it this way: Did you know Anya, Chris, and Scott outside of the classroom?”
“Yes,” Cole said.
“Did you ever think for a minute that one of them was contemplating suicide?”
“Never. Especially not Anya.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I did have a relationship with her. I loved her. She was going to move in after graduation. I know what you’re thinking, I’m forty-two and she’s twenty-two, but it worked.”
Sanger shifted in his seat and Nora shot him a look. He’d better not blow this.
“When was the last time you spoke with Anya?” Nora asked.
“Monday afternoon. In the organic garden. I tried calling her later that night, about ten or ten-thirty, after I got home from the meeting, and she didn’t answer. I knew-I didn’t think anything of it.”
“How was her disposition in the garden?” Nora asked.
“She was upset about something.”
“Do you know what?”
He didn’t answer.
Shepherd said, “My client doesn’t have to answer that.”
“If Professor Cole has information on why Anya Ballard killed herself, then yes, I think he should answer it.”
“Should is not a compelling reason,” Shepherd said.
“Did you know that Anya and the two boys were arsonists?”
“We’re not going to answer that,” the lawyer jumped in.
“Did you know that there was a fatality in the Butcher-Payne fire? That Dr. Jonah Payne died?”
Cole said, “A reporter called me Monday morning and told me about that.”
“Why would a reporter call you?” asked Nora.
“Because of you,” Cole snapped. “Your investigation keeps sniffing around me, and I’ve told you time and time again that I had nothing to do with the arsons, and I certainly had nothing to do with the Butcher-Payne arson or the death of Dr. Payne.”
“When did you find out he was murdered?”
“We’re not going to answer-” Shepherd began, but Cole cut him off.
“You would be hard-pressed to get first-degree murder from an accidental death,” Cole said.
“In acts of domestic terrorism, yes I damn well can get first-degree murder,” Nora stated evenly. “But Jonah Payne’s death wasn’t an accident.”
“What the hell are you talking about? The reporter said that Dr. Payne died in his office. I assumed he’d been working or fallen asleep there when the fire started.”
Professor Cole’s frustration seemed genuine. Nora assessed Professor Cole’s posture and eyes and she believed
“Dr. Payne’s horrible death was no accident. It was cold-blooded, premeditated murder. Payne was tortured prior to bleeding slowly to death.”
“You’re lying through your teeth, and you know it,” Cole objected. “I’m not playing these games with you, Agent English.” He began to stand, but Nora waved him down as she pulled files from her briefcase. Without comment, she laid several of the crime-scene and autopsy photos in front of him. Again, the shock on his face wasn’t faked. Leif Cole looked ill.
“You’re a smart man,” she said when she’d finished laying out the gruesome pictures. She tapped the photo of Dr. Payne in his office, lying on his back. “He wasn’t killed here in his office. He was killed-” She turned her cell phone around and displayed a photo that the evidence response team had emailed her of the blood evidence in Payne’s Lake Tahoe bedroom. “-here.”
The digital image of dark red on the white sheets was stark. It had the desired effect on Cole.
“The M.E.’s preliminary report,” she said, gesturing toward several autopsy photos, “indicates that Dr. Payne bled to death”-she held up her phone again — “and was transported in a covered pickup truck eighty miles to his office. The research lab was doused with accelerant and set on fire. The sprinkler system was disabled in order to cause maximum damage, very likely to destroy evidence on the body. Or to make Dr. Payne’s death appear to be something that it wasn’t.”
Though that didn’t explain why the killers didn’t pour fuel onto his body, it did explain why they had disabled the sprinklers. Had Dr. Payne’s body been burned for a longer period of time, the authorities wouldn’t have discovered that he’d bled to death. Perhaps the arsonists had run out of 151 vodka. Or maybe they were running short on time. Or maybe the killer didn’t want the others to know about the cut-up corpse.
Ever since the autopsy, Nora had felt that Payne’s murder was personal, but still in some way related to his professional position. But maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that he was a biotech scientist. Maybe he’d been killed for other reasons and the arson had been merely a convenient distraction.
It explained the time gap between fires. Anarchists generally escalated, the time between attacks coming closer as the players relished the idea of getting away with it. But in this case, the hits had grown farther apart.
According to Sean Rogan, who was truly the only impartial observer, Anya Ballard was cheerful and generally happy when they had lunch together. Yet Sean saw that she had been upset in the garden …
Nora looked Cole straight in the eye. “Professor, when you were in the garden with Anya, did you tell her about Jonah Payne’s death?”
Cole considered his response before answering. “Yes. I told her that a reporter called with the news.”
“And what was her reaction?”
No comment.
Nora was getting irritated with his selective answers.
“Professor, let me explain something. Accelerant that is a likely match to the arsons was found in Anya Ballard’s dorm room, as well as the exact same spray paint used on the exterior of the target business. We have a
