Hot Stuff (23 page)

“What can I do for you?”

“Give me five minutes of your time.”

He glanced at his watch, and I realized the age difference. I didn't wear a watch. Neither did James. We used our cell phones. A lot more accurate and a lot more convenient. Em wore a watch, more as an accessory, jewelry, than anything else. This guy still used his wrist.

“Okay, five minutes. Are you in one of my classes?” He was studying me, trying to figure out if he knew who I was.

We continued walking, I assumed to his office. He must have thought I knew where we were going.

“No. Not at the moment. I was a student here about three years ago.”

He did a quick turn and there we were. Inside his tiny cubicle.

“Now, what did you want?”

“Professor Brandt, I'm Skip Moore.”

I stuck out my hand, but he made no effort to shake it, so I withdrew the offer and concentrated on my short speech.

“I am a private investigator looking into the murder of Amanda Wright. I would like to ask you a few—”

“Get the hell out of here.”

I hadn't expected the interview to be this brief. But I'd seen the interview with Kevin Kahn cut short when I mentioned Amanda's name, so it didn't totally surprise me.

“Professor, this is simply—”

“I'll call campus security.”

I wondered if there was such a thing. If there had been when James and I were students at the school, we would have been arrested a number of times.

“Look, I'm not here to open any wounds. Okay?” Poor choice of words. “Amanda was murdered several days ago and I'm simply trying to—”

“What are you insinuating?” He was ghost white, his hands clutching at the desk calendar in front of him.

“I'm insinuating nothing.” I wasn't sure that I shouldn't put this guy on the front list of suspects. He was paranoid from my opening statement.

“Then why are you here?”

“I want to find out who killed Amanda Wright. And you have a history with her.”

“Oh, yeah. A history, you call it? Kid, you can't imagine what kind of history we have.”

“Well, I wanted to explore that.”

“Let me be very brief about your exploration. The girl is, the girl
was
, serious trouble. And now, after she's gone, I still have to deal with her?”

Brandt spread his large hands on the wood-topped desk in front of him.

“She ruined my life. She lied to authorities, and damn it,” he pointed his index finger at my head like the barrel of a gun, “she should have been prosecuted for what she claimed. But for all the fairness in our litigious society, she remained above the fray. What are you even doing here? Are you suggesting I had something to do with her murder?”

Both of us still stood, Brandt on his side of the desk, me still in the doorway. I was afraid the guy might come over the top to get me.

“No. Nothing like that. I'm trying to figure out what she was like. I thought if you'd talk to me maybe I could understand her a little better. Get into her head and possibly that would help me find her killer.”

Finally, he sank into the swivel desk chair, staring at his hands.

“It doesn't matter anymore.” His voice had gone from combative to subdued.

“What doesn't matter?”

“The whole thing.”

“You're still here, still employed. You're doing seminars, I even saw where you recently had a book published on business ethics. I mean, it doesn't sound like your life is too bad.”

“Ever been accused of something you didn't do?”

Almost everything I'd been accused of, I'd actually done.

“We had an affair.” The fight seemed to have left him and he let out a slow breath.

“She wanted it to continue and I called it off. I've admitted all of that.”

“So this was the way she paid you back? Accusing you?”

He nodded.

“She got mad, furious is more like it. Threatened me, told me she'd ruin my career and it came down to a matter of he said-she said. She couldn't prove the charges and as there were no witnesses—”

“It just went away, or did she drop the charges?”

“Why should I tell you this? You're a detective, go look it up.”

He looked up at me and shook his shaved head.

“All right. You want to know what happened, it's there for anyone to see. She dropped the charges and dropped out of school. I have not seen or heard from her since then. Of course, I was surprised at the news about her murder. I hated the girl, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.”

There was not much more to ask, but I needed his answer to get this thing straight in my head. “One final question.”

“That's it.”

“I know. This is the last one. When she dropped the charges,” I wasn't sure I could go through with it, but it seemed like the logical conclusion, “was there any compensation?”

He stood up and came around the desk as I backed out of the cramped office.

“I think it's time for you to leave.”

“If there was even a request for money, it might follow a pattern. Just a yes or no and I'll never bother you again.”

“Damn straight you won't. Get the hell out of here. Leave. Now.”

I started down the long corridor, hearing my steps echo off the walls. The hallway was eerily empty, and I figured everyone was in class. I hadn't really found out what I wanted to know. Either he was never going to tell anyone, or I just hadn't asked the right questions.

“Kid.” I turned, and he was still in the doorway watching me, the scowl etched on his face. “Don't come back.”

“I won't. You won't hear from me again.” I had no intention of visiting this place again. I didn't need this kind of aggravation. Maybe I'd find a job as a retail clerk or insurance salesman, but I didn't need this kind of pressure.

“Kid.”

“Yeah?” I didn't want to hear any more. I felt certain the guy had been set up, and I was just picking at old wounds.

“It's complicated.”

His voice was barely above a whisper. I had to strain to hear him.

“When something as meaningless as that happens, when you are just having a fling with someone of the opposite sex, and then you realize it's not only a mistake, but that fling is going to cost you everything that's important in your life, you'll do just about anything to make it go away. Almost anything.”

“Did you make it go away?”

There was a long pause as he took a deep breath.

He nodded. A confession that he'd kept bottled up inside.

“I did. I did.”

With my last couple of bucks I bought the cheapest WD-40 I could find and sprayed it heavily on the door hinges. It made the inside of the truck smell even worse than it normally did, but I was amazed at the difference. The doors weren't that much easier to open, but there were almost no squeaks and squeals.

As I walked into the apartment, James was scowling.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“What? What did I leave out?”

“That the cops were seriously looking at me as a person of interest.”

I had left that out.

“It didn't seem that important, James. Em said that Ted Con -way mentioned it to her, but she didn't think they were serious.”

“Well, they're on their way over to sweep the truck.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“No. They found some fibers on the body, and they can't identify them. Hell, it couldn't possibly be anything from the truck.”

“No, no way.”

Now I felt like shit. I should have told him.

“Listen, James, I saw Amanda, I talked to her that night. But even then, Em drove and I didn't do so much as shake her hand. There's no way any fiber, or whatever was at the scene, came from our vehicle.”

“Well, they're apparently not having much luck with the case if they're down to vacuuming my truck. I mean if that's the best they can do—”

“Did you pick Amanda up in the truck? When you took her out?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Yeah, but that was months ago, and I can't believe she still had fibers from a three-month-old date.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Em stopped by. I told her about the truck and that's when she told me that the cops considered me a person of interest.”

“Listen, there's no way you're going to get implicated. They're just covering bases. What did Em want?”

“Wanted to talk to you. She said there was some friction between the two of you and she was hoping to talk it out.”

I let out a deep breath.

“What I learned today isn't going to make it any easier.” I needed to debrief him on my meeting.

He leaned back on the sofa and I eased onto the recliner. “Amanda Wright had an affair with Brandt. When he tried to break it off, she filed charges of sexual battery. He fought it.”

“Dude?”

“His story. She can't very well refute it at this time.”

James folded his hands. “You know, that doesn't surprise me. I told you she was a needy little girl. The woman was out on a limb.”

“Charges were dropped, James.”

“And you found out why?”

“First of all, Brandt said there was no proof. But she could
have kept it alive and done even more damage to his reputation. Instead, she dropped the charges.”

“I'm waiting for the payoff, amigo.”

“Surprise, James. That's what it was. A payoff. Brandt pretty much told me he'd paid her to go away.”

“Wow. And how close were Amanda and Emily?”

“She's admitted that Amanda wasn't the nicest girl in the world, but I don't think Em knows all there is to know.”

“And if you tell her—”

“It just strains our relationship.”

“So, you're going to keep it quiet?”

“Nope. You just got pissed because I held back the thing about person of interest. I'm going to be open with her. No more secrets.”

They showed up twenty minutes later, two gloved officers with forceps, tape, and an official search warrant. I'd never seen one before, so I examined it thoroughly, then passed it to James while one officer tapped his foot and kept looking at his watch.

“We don't have all day, guys. And we do have the official warrant.”

“Signed by a judge and everything,” James said. “It says here you can only search our truck, am I right?”

The impatient one nodded.

“And you're going to vacuum the floor? Because,” he said smugly, “it needs a good cleaning.”

“There you are out of luck. A vacuum picks up too much extra stuff. We use tape and forceps. That's it.”

The cop opened the door to the truck and sniffed. “What, you sprayed WD-40?” He spun around and stared at me, his forehead creased with a frown.

Standing on the blacktop, James looked at me and smiled. “You did it, pard. Lubricated the doors.”

“Look, you probably know that the lubricant will hydrate the fibers in the carpet, but if these fibers match the ones on the body, we're going to know it.” The cop smirked. “You can't mask it, pal. We'll know.” He turned to his task.

Pressing the tape to the floor, the officer then lifted the sticky cloth and deposited the gray tape in a paper envelope. His partner pulled fibers up with his forceps. In a matter of minutes they were done. As the two of them climbed into their car, the driver turned to us and said, “Nice try, guys. But seriously, we'll know.”

I couldn't believe it. They thought we were trying to mask the fibers in the carpet with a lubricant. Maybe they really were going to make a case against James. With me as an accomplice.

“I've been doing a little research on stab wounds,” James commented as we drove to L'Elfe.

“What did you learn?”

“Men stab overhand. Women stab underhand.”