Got Your Number (24 page)

"Hello?"

She'd obviously awakened Capistrano from a dead sleep. "Um, hi. This is Roxann. Beadleman."

He grunted and sheets rustled in the background. "Did Cape show up?"

"No. At least not that I know of."

He sighed in relief. "Did you change your mind about something?"

The drowsy amusement in his voice irritated her—the man thought she was calling to invite herself over for a little early-morning tryst? "
No,
Detective, I didn't change my mind about anything." She winced and forced the words from her throat. "I n-need your help."

His rusty laugh rumbled over the line. "Oh, now you need
my
help. What is it—car trouble? Low on cash?"

"Carl Seger was murdered last night. I'm at the police station."

More sheet rustling. "What? Are you a suspect?"

"He was strangled with my scarf. Will you come?" She counted to three, prepared for him to tell her he didn't want to get involved.

"I'm already there."

The resolute click was comforting—the man was an arrogant ass, but right now, with four police officers staring at her, she needed an arrogant ass who was on her side.

"Was that your lawyer?" one of them asked. Detective Warner, she recalled. Good cop.

"I don't need a lawyer," she told him. "Where's my cousin?"

"In the next room," another officer said—Jaffey, bad cop. "Bawling her eyes out."

"Can I go to her?"

"Why, so you can synch up your stories?"

She frowned. "No, because she's scared out of her wits."

"She should be." He leaned forward, his eyes menacing. "Both of you should be."

Roxann chewed on her lip, trying not to think about Carl lying dead with her scarf around his neck—it was simply too incredible. "I have nothing to hide, but I want to wait until my friend—er, acquaintance arrives. He's a police detective from Biloxi."

"And can he give you an alibi?"

"I was with him for some of the evening, yes."

"Boyfriend?"

"No."
She and Jaffey held a staring contest, and he finally looked away. She prayed that Angora would keep her mouth shut until the lawyer Nell recommended arrived. Angora had forbidden her to call Dee, and she'd relented—for now. But she had a bad, bad feeling that Angora was going to need as much defense as Jackson and Dee Ryder could afford.

"Cup of coffee?" Warner asked.

"Yes, thank you." Actually, scotch sounded better, but she needed to keep her wits about her if she was going to figure out what had happened to her scarf. Her initial reaction that the scarf found at the scene couldn't be hers was quickly refuted by the fact that she couldn't find it, and that the "weapon" matched a confiscated receipt for the lime-green scarf she'd purchased when they stopped outside Baton Rouge. Not the kind of thing she normally bought, but the filmy piece of silk had caught her eye and Angora commented that it looked nice against her hair.

One estrogenic impulse, and look where it had gotten her.

Now she couldn't even remember if she'd been wearing it last night when she changed clothes. Nell seemed sure she was still wearing it at the restaurant, but maybe she'd lost it afterward, while fussing and feuding with Capistrano?

She craned her neck to see if she could catch a glimpse of Angora, but the view from the interrogation room was limited—windows from the waist up on one wall only. The remaining walls were padded with the same low-nap gray carpet that was on the floor—either perps regularly flung themselves around the room, or the cops did it for them.

The chair was as uncomfortable as possible, naturally. Molded plastic. The overhead lighting was intense and unflattering, the wooden table was bolted to the floor. A pad of paper and a pencil lay nearby, just in case she felt compelled to confess, she assumed. The bizarre urge to laugh seized her, but she covered her mouth with her hand and swallowed hard. The entire atmosphere had a strange, cartoonish quality. Quite remarkable, and quite terrifying.

"Here." Warner handed her a paper cup of strong coffee that scalded her tongue, and, unfortunately, she still didn't wake up as she'd hoped, to find Angora asleep in the twin bed next to her in Nell's guest room. Carl was dead. No, worse—Carl was
murdered.

A rap on the window caught her attention, and when she saw Capistrano's mug peering in, her heart lifted crazily. She hated to admit it, but there was something reassuring about having the big lug around.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Jaffey asked.

"Acquaintance," she corrected.

He gestured for Capistrano to come in and the men introduced themselves. Capistrano flashed his badge, for professional courtesy, she assumed. He was a good head taller than anyone in the room. And he looked remarkably put together to have rolled out of bed fifteen minutes ago. She didn't want to think about how she looked.

"You look like hell," he said.

"Nice to see you, too."

"Has she been charged?" he asked the room in general.

"Not yet," Jaffey said.

Capistrano walked around to lean on the wall facing her. "What happened?" he asked Jaffey.

But Warner took the lead. "Paper boy noticed Seger's door was open this morning around five o'clock, and went to investigate. Found him dead in the library, strangled by a scarf that belongs to your girlfriend here."

Roxann pursed her mouth. "Except I don't know how it got there. Was I wearing it last night when we"—she frowned—"said goodbye?" The cops gave each other knowing looks that infuriated her.

"I don't remember," Capistrano said. "I wasn't looking at the scarf."

How did he
do
that? Make it seem as if there was something between them? In fact, why the devil had she even called him?

He looked back to Warner. "The scarf is purely circumstantial evidence anyway. What else do you have?"

"Mud on her jeans," he said, pointing. "And a pair of running shoes, caked with dried mud."

Capistrano looked back to her with a raised eyebrow.

"I... couldn't sleep last night, so I went jogging."

"Where?" Jaffey asked.

She closed her eyes. "To Dr. Seger's house and back."

Capistrano averted his gaze.

"That's all I need to hear," Jaffey said, reaching for his cuffs.

"No, wait," she said, holding up her hand. "I jogged to his house because... "

"Because?" one of the other cops prompted.

She inhaled. "Because someone told me that Carl was a philanderer, and I was worried about my cousin being with him."

"She outbid you for a date with the professor," Jaffey said.

"It was for charity." A dumb argument, even to her own ears.

"What time did you
jog
over to Seger's house?"

"Around two-thirty a.m."

"And what happened when you got there?"

"Nothing. I realized how stupid it was of me to be concerned, so I simply turned around and ran back to the house where I was staying."

"Right," Jaffey said, his sarcasm thick.

She leaned forward. "I could have lied just now. Why would I tell you I jogged over there unless I was innocent?"

"Did anyone see you?"

She turned to Capistrano. "I don't guess you could have been following me
then?"

He shook his head. "I gave up." His gaze was pointed.

She looked back to Jaffey. "I didn't see anyone else, although someone could have noticed me, maybe someone driving."

The cop gestured to her black sweatshirt. "You weren't exactly dressed to be noticed, now were you?"

She didn't answer—her humiliation was complete.

"Do you have a history with Carl Seger?" Warner asked.

She sat back. "He was my professor when I went to school here from ninety-two through ninety-six, and I had a work-study under Dr. Seger my senior year."

"Let me rephrase. Do you have a
personal
history with Carl Seger?"

Roxann inhaled and exhaled, wondering how much to tell. But really, how much was there
to
tell? "We were fond of each other, but we didn't have a sexual relationship." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Capistrano straighten, edge closer.

"Did you see him after you graduated?" Warner continued.

"No. Just before I graduated, Carl was accused of having an improper relationship with a student. I left campus and... I didn't see him again until this week."

"Did the two of you stay in touch?"

"He called twice—once a few months after I left to say he was sorry how things had ended, and a few weeks ago he left a message on my phone in Biloxi asking if I would consider accepting a Distinguished Alumni award. But I didn't return his call."

"Because you were still angry over how things had ended?"

She frowned. "No. Because I wasn't interested in receiving the award."

"So there was nothing personal in the message?"

"He said that he missed me."

"But you didn't call him back?"

"I said that already."

Warner sat down to her left. "Ms. Beadleman, were you the student that Dr. Seger was accused of having an improper relationship with?"

She blinked. "Yes... I always assumed."

"Did you ever hear of him being involved with other students?"

She shook her head. "All the girls were crazy about him, but Carl was a gentleman around me."

"Who told you he was a philanderer?"

"I did," Capistrano said. When all eyes turned in his direction, he shrugged. "Just a hunch. Plus last night at the auction I overheard a couple of coeds talking about his technique
outside
the classroom."

"You never said why you were in town, Detective," Jaffey said.

"You never asked. I followed Ms. Beadleman here from Biloxi. She's involved in a case I'm working on, and a thug named Frank Cape was on her tail."

"That's why I came to South Bend," she added. "To stay with Dr. Nell Oney for a few days until Cape lost interest."

"When was the last time you saw this Cape fellow?"

"Little Rock," she said, then looked to Capistrano, who nodded agreement.

"Why is he following you?"

She looked at Capistrano, then back to them and sighed. "Frank Cape is an abusive man. I work for a women's advocacy group, and I helped his ex-wife and daughter relocate. He thinks he can threaten me into telling him where they are."

"He threatened you?"

"And my family." Suddenly she stopped and looked at Capistrano. "In Little Rock he said if I didn't tell him where Melissa was, the people I cared about would start dropping like flies."

"The guy's no honor student," Capistrano offered. "He put my partner in a coma."

All the cops straightened and fingered their weapons involuntarily. Then Jaffey scoffed. "You're saying that this Cape fellow stole your scarf and used it to strangle Carl Seger so you would tell him where his wife and kid are?"

"I didn't say that, but right now it makes as much sense as anything. Officer, don't you think if I were going to kill Carl, that I would have chosen something a little less obvious than the scarf that at least a thousand people saw me wearing last night?"

He chewed on his tongue, then retrieved the pencil and pad of paper. "Ms. Beadleman, I think you'd better tell us exactly where you were last night, when, and who you were with."

She recited her schedule and timetable as best as she could remember. Capistrano corroborated her story until the time he dropped her off. Then she was on her own.

"Nell was asleep when I came home, so that's when I decided to go to Carl's. No wait—I lay down first, and received a phone call."

"From?"

"From an ex-roommate of mine in Biloxi, Elise James. She went to grad school here and came up for Homecoming."

"What time was that?"

"Around midnight."

"What did she want?"

"It was a strange conversation. She was stoned, I think. She said something about wanting to tell me everything and asked me to meet her at the chapel today at noon."

"Do you know what she was referring to?"

"We had a falling-out when she lived with me, after which she moved out. I assumed she wanted to apologize. Elise can be dramatic."

"What did the two of you argue about?"

"It's personal."

"We can always ask her," Jaffey said.

She sighed. "Elise got it into her head that she was... attracted to me."

All the men smiled, even Capistrano, the lout.

"She's a lesbian?" Jaffey again.

"You'll have to ask her."

"Are you a lesbian?"

"No."

"Bisexual?"

"No."

"So this girl hit on you and you threw her out?"'

"What does this have to do with Carl being murdered?"

"Just amusing myself," Jaffey said with a nasty little smile.

"Let's get back to the subject," Capistrano said.

She smirked at him—he could pester her, but no one else could?

"What happened after the phone call?"

"I dozed off for a couple of hours, then I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I changed into these clothes and my tennis shoes, ran over to Dr. Seger's and back, then went to bed."

"Dr. Oney said she didn't hear you leave or return."

"I tried to be quiet. And the bedrooms are on opposite ends of the house."

"What did you see when you got to Seger's house?"

She shrugged. "Nothing. I saw his car sitting out front."

"A black Volvo."

"Right."

"What else?"

"Some lights were on, in maybe two or three rooms."

"You didn't see anyone inside?"

"No. I didn't get close enough."

Jaffey sneered. "Are you sure you didn't see your old flame boinking your cousin?"

She bit down on the inside of her cheek and maintained eye contact. "I'm positive."

"So where does she come into all this?"

"Angora?"

"Yes."

"We went to school here at the same time."

"Did she know Dr. Seger?"

"Everyone knew him."

"Did she know him in the biblical sense?"

"No."