Failure is Fatal
Failure Is Fatal
By Lesley A. Diehl
Copyright 2016 by Lesley A. Diehl
Cover Copyright 2016 by Lesley A. Diehl
Cover Design by Karen Phillips
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. The author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Also by Lesley A. Diehl
A Deadly Draught
Poisoned Pairings
Dumpster Dying
Grilled, Killed and Chilled
Angel Sleuth
A Secondhand Murder
Dead in the Water
A Sporting Murder
Murder Is Academic
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the students who served as my undergraduate research assistants. Collaborating with you on the design, execution and publication of work on sexual harassment made the topic come alive for everyone involved and for all who read the work. Thank you for your ideas, time and laughter as we explored an important topic of concern on the college campus. Not everyone understood the significance of our research, but all of you did. And that's enough for me. I hope you are proud of having added your voices to this body of social psychological endeavor.
FAILURE IS FATAL
Lesley A. Diehl
Chapter 1
“Aaargh!” yelled the young man. “Yes, sir, master.” He jumped out of his seat, grabbed the button placket on the front of his shirt with both hands, and ripped the material apart. Buttons flew in every direction, one bouncing off my plate and landing in my lap. I shrugged and placed it on the table in front of me. Flying objects couldn't put me off a meal.
He ran around the circular table where his friends were seated. He was barking like a dog, dropping onto all fours to complete the impression, and then popping back upright to stand at attention. He looked absurd, his head covered with a red kerchief, his torn shirt hanging from slender arms. Another young man clad in an army shirt, minus the idiotic head gear, lifted hooded eyes from his food, focusing them for a moment on the barking boy, then dismissed him with a flick of his hand. The half-naked dog-boy ran from the room into the cold night air.
“What the hell?” Guy, my current and, I hoped, forever squeeze looked both surprised and annoyed at the behavior.
“Fraternity stuff.” I picked up one of my fries and ignored the ruckus.
The manager of the diner emerged from the kitchen and hurried toward the table filled with the fraternity men.
“Out!” he said. “No funny business in my place.” He was a short, round-faced, chubby man, his accent Greek. I'd seen Dimitri eject rowdies before, and I was surprised that these guys would attempt to cross swords with the fiery little owner. Yep, the frat boys were in trouble now.
Dimitri shook his head, his eyes following the young men's retreat to the parking lot. He turned, picked up an overflowing sundae glass just placed on the counter by one of the waitresses, and approached our table.
“Those boys, those boys, always causing trouble. Why don't your college outlaw them?” He placed the glass in front of me.
“That would be my choice,” I said. Distracted by the alluring smell of hot fudge, I slid the sundae toward me. Whoever invented the hot fudge sundae was truly a god.
“How can you possibly find room for all that after a deluxe burger and fries?” said Guy.
“Luckily she seems to have a high metabolism.” Derrick Pasquis was our friend and a detective on the local police force. At first glance he appeared to be overweight, his large body encompassing most of the side of the booth he occupied. But in motion, his movements told another storyâhe was several inches over six feet tall and carried his weight with the grace of a runner.
Guy was shorter than Der, less broad, and highly muscled. He preferred to wear T-shirts year-round and, despite fall's chilly arrival, he wore a black one this evening. He sat in the booth beside me, his arm around my shoulders, the black knit sleeves of the shirt straining over his biceps. There was something about chocolate and the caress of a good man that just went together.
Guy leaned over as if to kiss me, instead dabbing a napkin at the corner of my mouth. “Chocolate,” he said.
I smiled, then leaned back and sighed. “Hey, guys, isn't it time we paid the bill and got out of here, so we can head home?”
Once outside the diner, we stopped in the parking lot to take in the changes in the night air. Days in early October were still warm in this river valley in upstate New York, but the nights brought frost that carpeted the lawns and covered left-over summer plantings with a coat of white. The lights of our small mall across the street twinkled welcoming warmth.
“I don't know about you two, but I could use a stroll in the mall to walk off those French fries,” said Der.
I looked at Guy, hoping he would say no, but I could tell he too felt the need to settle the contents of his stomach. Why was I the one who never felt full? I always seemed to have a gnawing feeling that my life was too settled, too predictable, too, too cerebral, somehow. Helping Der on one of his cases as I'd done in the past seemed to be the only time I felt satisfied. And I lost weight. Were the two somehow related?
Maybe a stroll would take my mind off my stomach, or my head, or my hormones, whatever was creating these cravings.
It was Friday night, and Guy had arrived earlier from Gananoque, Ontario for one of our all-too-brief weekend get-togethers. The mall was filled with shoppers. Many of them were students whom I taught, others, colleagues of mine at the college. We exited the mall after buying nothing, unless, of course, you counted the gummy bears I purchased at the newspaper stand.
As we were standing outside the mall, I heard someone call my name.
“Dr. Murphy!”
I turned my head in the direction of the voice and saw the smiling face of one of my research assistants, Karen Wright. Her arms were filled with packages. She joined the three of us on the walkway adjacent to the parking area.
“Need some help with those?” I took several of the packages out of her hands.
“Thanks. I guess I got a little carried away in there, wouldn't you say?” she said.
Before I could make introductions, Karen held out her hand to Guy.
“You've got to be the infamous Guy LaFrance. I'm one of Dr. Murphy's research assistants. My boss here,” she nodded her head in my direction,” rarely allows me out of the lab, so when I am freed from my shackles, I kind of go wild. Hence, the damage to my credit card, well, rather, I should say, my parents' credit card.”
Guy smiled and shook her hand. “So I'm infamous, am I? I guess I'd prefer that to being invisible.”
“And, I am one of Dr. Murphy's friends, Detective Pasquis. She sometimes asks me in to help her with criminal happenings. Usually, though, she does it all herself, and I get called in later to mop up.” Der's eyes twinkled with good humor as he took Karen's small hand in his large one.
“Oh, I'd know you anywhere, Detective Pasquis. I see you on television and your picture in the newspaper when there's a serious crime,” she said.
I told Guy and Der that Karen and I were involved in a research investigation on campus and then added, assuming she was on her way to the parking lot, “I didn't know you had a car, Karen.”
“I came with a friend, really an acquaintance, who has a car. She sometimes drives a few of us down here to the mall from campus so we can do a bit of shopping. I did more than a bit, I guess.” Her eyes shown bright blue in the lights from the lot, and the cold gave her cheeks a healthy glow.
“Guess I'd better get this loot into the car and then look for Marie and tell her I'm ready to leave,” she added.
“I'll help you carry these to the car.” I shifted the packages I held into one arm and grabbed another shopping bag. “Lead the way.”
“Der and I will run over to the diner and get the cars. I'll meet you back here with the chariot.” That was Guy's term for my beat-up Toyota, which we had driven into town to meet Der for our dinner.
Karen and I made our way down a long line of parked cars, looking for her friend's automobile.
“There it is.” She was pointing to an old blue Oldsmobile parked at the end of the line. We could just spy the top of a head leaning against the driver's window. “I guess she beat me back to the car. I shopped longer than I intended.”
The lights in the mall stores began to go out. I looked at my watch but couldn't make out the hands in the dim light. “It's got to be at least nine thirty. The mall's closing.”
“I didn't realize the time. Marie must have been exhausted and fallen asleep. She pulled an all-nighter last night for an exam.”
Karen opened the passenger side door, and called out to her friend as she tossed her bags into the back of the car. She leaned farther in and appeared to reach out to Marie and shake her, then backed slowly out of the car and turned to me, grabbing my sweater with her hands.
“Help me, Dr. Murphy. Something's wrong with Marie. I can't get her to wake up, and I think she's bleeding.” Karen's legs wobbled and her knees gave way. She slumped to the asphalt pulling me down with her. I let go the packages to break the fall. With the car door open and the overhead light shining onto the ground where we fell, I could see that Karen's hands were covered with blood.
Her entire body was shaking, her teeth clacked together, and she began to sob.
I pulled off my sweater and wrapped it around her. “You just stay right here, and I'll see what I can do.”
Karen sat propped against the rear tire of the car, holding her face in her hands. Tears ran from between her fingers, and the sobs became moans.
I ducked my head in the open door. The light revealed a young woman with dark hair sprawled across the seat of the car, her head propped up on the ledge of the driver's side window. She looked surprised. I almost told her not to be scared, that I was there to help her, but the wound to her chest told me that she wouldn't hear me. Her right hand rested on her left breast as if caressing the huge crimson flower that appeared to be blooming there. The white sweater and beige pants she wore were stained red. I backed out of the car, the coppery smell of so much blood nauseating me. I closed the car door, walked a few steps away from the vehicle, and left the gummy bears and my entire dinner on the asphalt of the lot.