Chopping Spree

Hulsey held up a hand, his face as cold and impassive as a stone statue’s. I flinched. “Calm down,” he commanded. “They’re telling me you’re not a suspect anymore. So I’m taking over on this case now. Please listen calmly while I tell you what’s going to happen.”

I bit back another protest, crossed my arms, and glared at the gleaming white tiles on the lobby wall. Couldn’t they have made this place look a bit less like a bathroom?

“They’re still developing evidence in the case,” Hulsey told me, his voice back to the bronchilian reptile. “And the county attorney’s office and the detectives are going over that videotape from the party in the shoppers’ lounge with a microscope. Julian is on it, having not one but two heated arguments with the victim. And let’s not forget, the store security guard found Mr. Teller with his hand on the murder weapon. Friday, ten in the morning, is the time of the arraignment.”

I nodded. I’d been to one of The Jerk’s arraignments. There I hadn’t heard justice being served; I’d heard a dispassionate declaration of war between the prosecution and the defense.

“With second-degree murder, they’ll probably let Julian out,” Hulsey said, a bit more gently, but with a peek at his watch. “For a price, of course. Mrs. Korman is seeing about bail.”

“Mrs. Korman?” I said. Of course: Marla. I blinked and tried to focus. The lawyer’s voice seemed far away.

“Marla Korman.” Hulsey could not disguise his impatience. “Your friend, the other ex-wife of Dr. John Richard Korman? You’re probably looking at bail of a million dollars. Bond’ll be a hundred thousand.” I nodded blankly. A hundred thousand dollars. “One more thing,” Hulsey added briskly. “Since you’re not a suspect anymore, you can visit Julian. That’s it, then. I need to go.” He handed me another one of his cards (I was accumulating quite a collection), grasped his briefcase, and sailed out the doors.

I watched Hulsey make a determined tramp through the snow to his Jag. OK, Julian was going to be arraigned. I shook my head. Our wonderful friend was suffocating behind bars. No matter what it cost, we had to get him out on bail.

I signed in to see Julian and was sent to the same phone-containing cubicle as before. What was I going to say to him that could possibly cheer him up? You could be out on bail pretty soon? Like Hulsey, I snuck a peek at my watch: almost half past two. Would Julian feel hurt when I said I could only stay for thirty minutes? Tears stung my eyes when he strolled through the door. I cemented a smile in place and sternly ordered myself to buck up. I couldn’t help him if I was slobbering.

“Hey, Goldy!” Julian sang into the phone. His face was even thinner and more haggard than before. But either he was doing a great acting job or his spirits had taken a turn for the better. “Didn’t expect you here!” He pulled a torn piece of paper from his pocket and leaned forward in his chair. “Sorry if you had to wait. My lawyer just left —”

“Yeah, I heard about it—”

“And then I called Arch on his lunch hour—”

Julian’s face cracked in a broad smile. He glanced down at the sheet in his hand. “This paper is my lifeline! It has the numbers of everyone I know. Arch told me to call him on his cell at certain times. So we talk three or four times a day. At his lunch hour, between his classes, like that. It’s great. He told me you were taking him to the anatomy field trip. I did that at EPP. The smell of formaldehyde’s really gross, by the way. Prepare yourself.”

I thought of Julian’s adoptive parents in Utah. Had he called them yet? I doubted it. “Yes, but—”

“And then you’ll never guess whose message I just answered!” His tone was beyond bubbly; it was feverish. No talk of the arraignment. No talk of the future. I swallowed and remembered my admonition to the parents of my Sunday school kids: Sometimes they just need you to listen.

“Kim Fury!” Julian exclaimed. I tried not to look surprised as he continued: “Kim was a classmate of mine at EPP. We got to know each other pretty well, since we were both science kids among all the rich brats. Kim’s really smart. Finished her B.S. in three years. Now she’s doing graduate work at C.U. in computer science. Anyway, Kim is really pissed off with her brother for running away with her mom’s credit cards.”

I tried to look as if I understood where all this was going. But I was worried. Julian was beyond both bubbly and feverish. He was manic. How was I going to have a logical strategy-planning session with him?

“Anyway. Kim’s sure her brother Teddy had something to do with this Dean thing, and that’s why he skipped! But that’s not all. She says her mother will do anything to keep Teddy from facing the consequences of his actions. Like this one time, he swiped a purse that had some car keys in it, and when he tried to start the car it jumped forward because it was still in gear—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whose car? Ellie McNeely’s?”

“I don’t know,” he rushed on. “But I was thinking, maybe—”

It was time to interrupt. “Julian,” I said. “Please. Just take a deep breath, OK?”

Immediately the spark of hope in his eyes went out. I felt a pang of guilt.

“Sorry!” I said hastily. “But I need to take notes if I’m going to get all this down. Do you know what kind of car it was?” I dug into my purse for an index card and pencil.

“I don’t know that either.” His voice was barely audible.

“Did Kim have anything concrete to share about Teddy and Barry Dean? Something that might help us?”

“No.”

“Well, give me her number, will you?” I scribbled the number he recited.

Julian looked up at the ceiling. “I passed the second lie detector test. Here’s what’s funny—it didn’t matter. I had a wicked headache from caffeine withdrawal, so I’ve drunk about eight cups of jail coffee since the test. Stuff tastes like motor oil.”

“We’re going to get you out of here—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, right, sure.” He still wouldn’t look at me. “Sorry to be so jazzed up. Listen, I still don’t want my folks to know about this yet. I’ll call down to Bluff when I’m ready, I promise.” He straightened. “The formal charge on Friday will be second-degree murder. You probably heard. It’s different, somehow, from that advisement on Tuesday. It all feels out of control.” He shook his head. Again the sight of his thin face and unkempt hair felt like a blade in my heart. “I … I feel so bad about the bail money,” he went on. “I feel so bad about everything. Seeing that knife in Mr. Dean was like noticing an electrical wire down on a wet road. You know you’re not supposed to touch it. But your only thought is that you want to help, and then as soon as you touch it, you’re either dead, in the case of the wire, or screwed, in the case of the knife—”

I leaned forward and urged, “Julian. Don’t do this to yourself. As you said, all you tried to do was help, and that was the right thing to do. You are innocent of this crime. And we’re going to prove it.” I managed what I hoped was a courageous smile. “I promise to ask Tom to look into Kim Fury’s allegation about her brother.” And to look into my own questions about the whereabouts of Ellie McNeely and Page Stockham from quarter to nine to nine, and why Page had ended up buying so many of a certain kind of shoe, I added silently.

Julian rubbed his forehead. “I don’t really want Teddy to get into trouble.” He was suddenly restless. “Look, thanks for coming. Have fun at Arch’s field trip.” Then he hung up and walked away. He didn’t look back.

Snow fell steadily as I drove up to Elk Park Prep. My muscles ached and my stomach growled. I had had nothing to eat except a reheated chocolate croissant (one of Julian’s creations from the freezer) and double espresso. My mind jumped around: Page Stockham and her shoes. Liz Fury fretting over her troubled (and missing) son. Julian, alone in jail.

First things first. I punched in the phone number Julian had given me for Kim Fury in Boulder. No answer. I left a message identifying myself and asking her to call. Then I tried Tom, who was off somewhere, and brought him up to speed on the shoes I’d found heaped in Page’s closet. Had the cops checked the alibis of these two women, Page Stockham and Ellie McNeely, for the time of Barry’s murder? Finally, there was Kim Fury’s report of her brother stealing a car. Was he aware of any of this? I wanted to know. Had Teddy been a suspect in the theft of Ellie’s car? And finally, had the cops found anything at the Elk Park Prep portable toilet?

At quarter to four, I pulled off the interstate at the Aspen Meadow exit. I had to pick up my own son plus four other boys, drive back down the mountain, and endure an anatomy class. I was going to pass out if I didn’t have something to eat.

To my surprise, there was no line at our little burg’s drive-through espresso place. Through the thickening