Failure is Fatal (18 page)

I walked out into the cold night, sadness over the loss of such a beautiful and bright young woman once again enveloping me. The wind picked up, and I could see no stars or moon. We were in for another storm. As I headed for the SUV, a small car without its lights on turned into the lot and headed toward me.
Damn idiot.
He had his lights off. How could he see anything with the wind blowing all this piled up snow all over the place? The car appeared to speed up as it neared. I yelled, but knew there was little chance the driver would hear me. Momentarily frozen to the spot, I realized that the car was not going to slow down or swerve to miss me. I threw myself out of the way just as the front bumper impacted with my left ankle. The car kept going. I lay on the frozen ground watching the taillights retreat down the row of parked cars.

Chapter 15

At the end of the line of parked cars, the car that had just missed me stopped. The driver got out and ran back toward me.

“Get an ambulance, you damn fool. I think you broke my ankle.”

I looked up into a face covered with a ski mask, the eyes merely dark holes in the dim light of the parking lot.

“You'd better hope that it's only your ankle that's broken. In the future, it might be your neck. Stop snooping around, Dr. Murphy. As you can see, it's not very healthy for you.” With that, the man ran to his car and sped off. Stunned by his words, and my ankle throbbing with pain, I lay there for a few moments, hoping that the physical damage to my foot was not as extreme as the emotional impact of the man's warning.

Car lights from a vehicle turning into the lot shined into my eyes.
Oh no. He's come back for me.
I began to drag myself into the space between the parked cars. This time he had his lights on to get a better shot at me. The car came to a halt at the point I entered the row of cars. I saw a booted foot step from the driver's side. A flashlight searched the ground, its beam fixing on me as I attempted to roll under the nearest car.

“You drunk, ma'am?” said the individual behind the light.

“Get that light out of my eyes.” I recognized the distinctively southern drawl of Officer Rawlins, Campus Security's newest hire and one of my former students.

“Dr. Murphy, ma'am.” The officer tipped his hat to me. “What are you doing here?”

“Someone just ran me down, then threatened my life.”

“Don't you mean ‘someone ran me down threatening my life'?”

“I do not. I mean someone ran me down,
then
threatened my life. Could you call the EMTs? I think there's something seriously wrong with my ankle, broken maybe.”

“Oh, yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am. Can I help you get up first, ma'am? Would you like to sit in the car, ma'am?”

“Rawlins, I could die here by the time you finish with all those ma'ams. Call the EMTs and then call Detective Pasquis with the local police. And please don't say ‘yes, ma'am'.”

“Yes, mmmmmm, ah, Dr. Murphy. Let me help you up first and get you into the warmth of the car.”

As I listened to Rawlins summoning aid, I examined my ankle in the dim light of the car. No bones were poking out anywhere they weren't supposed to, but the ankle was taking on a rainbow of colors and its size was growing to proportions larger than the top of my leg. The EMTs arrived and announced that the ankle appeared to be only badly bruised, but that I had better be transported to the hospital.

“Tell Detective Pasquis where they're taking me,” I said to Officer Rawlins as they loaded me into the ambulance.

Several hours later when a doctor at the hospital finally saw me, I was poked, prodded, X-rayed several times and referred to with the usual hospital “we.” I was told “we” were going home. The doctor confirmed the EMTs' diagnosis. The ankle was badly bruised, but not broken. I was to ice it—I could stick it outside in a snow bank I thought and save the ice cubes in my freezer for a drink—and stay off of it for a few days.

“Some diagnosis, doc,” I said. “The EMTs already told me all that. What do I need you for?”

He ignored my surly question. “Don't drink on those painkillers I gave you.” Despite his warning, I could tell by the look on his face he didn't believe there was much hope I would follow his instructions. Der walked in on the end of my conference with the doctor.

An orderly arrived and wheeled me out of the hospital.

“Well, ‘we' certainly have enjoyed our stay here. Thanks.” I struggled out of the chair curbside. “And where have you been all night?” I said to Der.

“Now do you want a ride home or do you want to take this wheelchair?”

“Fine. I'll be good now, for a while, at least.” I proceeded to tell him about my escapade with the hit-and-run driver. I finished with, “Let's stop at my office. There's something on my answering machine you'll want to hear.”

After I played Ryan's message, Der gave me a ride to my car still parked in the residence hall parking lot.

“We've got a lot of footwork to do now, no pun intended.” He eyed my swollen ankle. “The search warrant for the frat office, tracking down the English Department member who wrote the stories, finding Ryan's friend, and…”

“And,” I said, “finding Marie Becca's ex-boyfriend.”

“She didn't have a boyfriend. I explored that with both her roommate and her friend, Lainie. There's nothing there.”

“Oh, but I think there is. The reason I was in this parking lot being run over was because I paid a visit to Lainie, and we had a long talk. One week earlier this semester, Marie was not where she said she would be. She broke her routine, and she told her best friend she was going to get a single for next semester. It sounded to me as if she was off seeing someone and that she planned to go on seeing someone but didn't want anyone to know who. She was hiding something.”

“Why didn't Lainie mention any of this to me when I talked with her?” Der just hated it when I got more information out a source than he did. But then that was why he had me help him on campus, wasn't it?

“There was no boyfriend Lainie could identify, just a lot of suspicion, which was later forgotten when their friendship got back to normal.” I paused as we rolled this one around in our heads. “Did you know Marie transferred here from another college?” I said.

“You think that's important somehow. Right?”

“Maybe. Whoever she was seeing for that brief time, she wanted to keep his identity a secret, and she also didn't want her roommate and best friend to know she was seeing anyone. Maybe it was an old boyfriend from the other college. I'll find out what college it was and see if I have any contacts there. I can also snoop around for the ghostwriter in the English Department and find out who Ryan left his stuff with. What are you going to do?”

“You're supposed to stay off that foot. So any snooping will be by phone. Describe the guy who hit you tonight again.”

“There's nothing to describe. I never saw his face, and I didn't get a good look at the car. The lights weren't on, and, when he braked, he was too far away for me to read his license plate.” I shivered a little despite the warmth from the car's heater.

“I should just tell you to back off this case given that threat,” Der said.

“You can't do that. You need me.”

“No one needs you, Murph. You're like the plague, spreading death and destruction wherever you go.” Der then seemed to notice that I was looking quite hurt by his words.

“I'm sorry.” He patted my hand to take the sting out of his words. “I was just kidding about you being like the plague. You're more like a bad case of the measles.”

“Well, you're not getting rid of me by insulting me. I have a thick skin. I'm tough, as I proved tonight. But I do need to get home and ice this ankle, and some kind of painkiller is in order. Boy, it's really beginning to throb.”

“I'll follow you home. Sure you're up to driving?”

“It's my left ankle and I only need my right foot to drive this thing. And you don't need to follow me home. I'm fine.”

“Don't be foolish. Someone tried to run you down tonight and then very pointedly delivered what amounts to as a death threat. I'll follow you home, and there'll be a cruiser driving by your house every hour or so until we track this guy down.”

“You think it's the killer, don't you?”

“Don't you?”

“Yes, and I think his attack on me tonight means we're getting too close to the truth and to him.” I got out of the car and limped over to the SUV.

“Oh, shit!” I said. I pulled a sheet of paper off my windshield.

Der leaned his head out of the window of his car and said, “What's wrong?”

“A parking ticket, compliments of Officer Rawlins.” My additional comments, of which there were many, were unfit for the human ear.

*

The ankle was too painful to walk on, so I was forced to spend time at home, icing it, and sometimes taking a shot of scotch and elevating my foot, measures that took down the swelling and reduced the pain just as the emergency room doctor with the attitude and the adolescent skin assured me would happen. I threw out the painkillers preferring to keep my head clear for working on my manuscript, now long overdue as usual, and making phone calls for the case. My students could struggle along without me for several days. I needed only to call in reading assignments for the secretary to give to the classes.

Two concerns dominated my thinking. Foremost was tracking down the leads in the case. The other, almost equally important to me, was whether I would be able to drive to Canada any time soon to see Guy as we planned before the ankle was damaged. Driving on short runs to town and back encouraged the ankle to swell, producing significant pain. A long trip of several hours was out of the question. I was scheduled for an appointment with the doctor Friday morning and would know then when I could resume normal activity. Meantime, I focused on making progress on the case.

Calls to the Registrar's Office gave me the name of the college Marie Becca attended in her freshman year, Barnett College, south of Beacon on the Hudson River. I knew a member of the faculty there and immediately put in a call to her. Emily Dobbs, a professor in anthropology at Barnett, and I served for several years on a statewide committee set up by the governor to address women's issues in higher education. Our contact had been sporadic since then.

“Hi, Emily? It's Laura Murphy at Upstate College.” We exchanged pleasantries, talked over our work and made promises to be in touch on a more regular basis.

“I could use some help from you,” I said.

“Sure, anything. What can I do?”

I explained about the murder and that I wanted any background information on Marie Becca that Emily might be able to unearth at Barnett.

“Barnett is a small college, but that was over a year ago. I'm not familiar with the name so I don't think she was in any of my classes, but I'll check old rosters from last year. Meantime, I'll discreetly ask around here and get back to you.”

I thanked Emily and hung up.

Now, how could I find out who Ryan's friends were? I'd have to begin with the frat house. The person most likely to know was the person I least wanted to ask—Adam Stokes. Maybe I should begin with someone else, perhaps Ralph or Martin, the guys on the Pledge Committee. I rang the house, hoping that someone other than Adam would answer. The voice who said hello was not Adam's, nor anyone's I recognized. I asked for Ralph first. He wasn't in. I then said I'd speak with Martin.

“Hey, Martin, some woman for you,” I heard the guy at the other end of the line yell out. The receiver hit some hard surface with a clonk and I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I hung up and called again.

“Uh, I just called and wanted to talk with Martin.”

The process was repeated once again, the voice yelling for Martin, the receiver being thrown down, and the waiting, waiting, waiting.

Damn.
I decided I'd have to make a trip into town and pay a visit to the house again. The chances were I'd run into Adam, but I wasn't getting anywhere fast this way. I grabbed the walking stick I used on some Adirondack hikes and limped out to the SUV, stepping lightly on my left foot.

My appearance at the fraternity house was met with little enthusiasm. It was clear the brothers recognized me and felt my presence could spell trouble for them. The young man who greeted me as I entered the house said he thought Martin was sleeping.

“Could you just go look?” My level of frustration was increasing by the second. He shrugged, climbed the stairs at tortoise speed and appeared several minutes later followed by Martin who, indeed, looked as if he just got out of bed. He wore rumpled gray sweats, his eyes were red-rimmed, and he was blowing his nose as he stumbled along the hallway. He paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at me.

“It's you. Now I'm really sick.” His voice had the tonal quality of a Canada goose.

“I'd like us to have a friendly little chat. How about you come on down here.” At this point I waggled the walking stick at him. “And we can talk in the frat office?”