Killing Spree (19 page)

Gary, Glen, and Edna were whispering to Jennifer, trying to comfort her. She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose with a Kleenex. “I feel so silly,” she whispered. But the whole class could hear her. “I thought I was okay. But I keep seeing Kelly in that car—dead. I was hoping to forget about it, but all his questions…”

Gillian sat at her desk with her hands folded. She was thinking back to the third class session, when she’d invited Barry to come sit in for the period. He’d taken a seat in the back, and remained silent the whole time. Afterwards, driving home, Gillian had asked what he thought of everyone. His assessments had been amazingly on-target. Of Jennifer Gilderhoff, he’d said: “Cute, kind of self-absorbed, really loves getting attention—you can tell.”

Even though Jennifer’s tears seemed genuine, Gillian sensed that she was relishing this moment. She kept referring to
Kelly
as if Kelly Zinnemann had been her friend. She had everyone in the class focused on her—except Todd Sorenson. He sat in his usual spot by the windows, glancing down at his desktop with a cryptic little smile on his face.

“That one is trouble,” Barry had said of Todd. “I have a bad feeling about him. He’s like a time bomb waiting to go off.”

The door opened, and Shauna returned, looking relieved. Detective Dunbar poked his head in the room. “Okay, now I need Langford, Ruth.”

Ruth got to her feet and paused for a moment.

“C’mon, let’s not take all day,” he said.

Ruth smiled sweetly at him, and ambled out of the room. She closed the door behind her, but her big, booming voice still resonated in the classroom. “JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, DETECTIVE?”

“Ruth is a force of nature,” Barry had said.

“I wouldn’t want to be in his flat-footed shoes right now,” Chase Scott muttered, leaning back in his chair.

Jennifer, still dabbing her eyes, and Shauna both laughed extra loud at his comment. The two young women were clearly interested in Chase, who remained aloof to them. Sometimes, in his critiques of their work and the writing of his other classmates, he could be downright cruel. On a few occasions, Gillian had even intervened. “I don’t think you’re being helpful here, Chase,” she’d say. He was a real snob, and yet he still managed to charm everyone—especially the women. It was amazing too, because Chase wasn’t nearly as handsome as he thought he was.

“He’s kind of a snake,” had been Barry’s assessment of him.

“So
Madame Professor
,” Chase went on. “You’ve written a couple of thrillers about serial killers. Do you think you’d ever write something based on these ‘Schoolgirl Killings’?”

Gillian shook her head. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Really?” He didn’t seem to understand, and the cocky grin fell off his face. “But don’t you think this stuff could be the basis for a juicy thriller?”

Gillian shook her head again. “I don’t think I could ever cash in on something like this. I deal in fiction.”

“Well, maybe you’d change your mind in a few years, once—”

“No, Chase. I don’t think so. It’s in bad taste.”

He let out a sigh, and pouted at her.

The door opened again, and Ruth reappeared. She patted the detective on the shoulder, then headed to her desk in the front row. “Excuse me, Gillian,” the detective said—almost meekly. He glanced at the class list. “Could I talk with Edna McGovern for a couple of minutes?”

Edna got to her feet, and the detective worked up a smile for the old woman. “Edna? Hello…”

Edna shuffled outside, and people started whispering to each other again. Gillian shot a look at Ruth. “You do good work,” she said under her breath.

Ruth just smiled and nodded.

The interviews with Chase Scott and Todd Sorenson took longer than the others. Chase returned from his session, announcing, “Well, he beat it out of me. I did it. I’m the killer. I’ll send you guys the rest of my chapters from San Quentin.” Both Jennifer and Shana laughed.

After his five minutes in the hallway, Todd silently lumbered into the room, and slumped back into his seat.

When Dunbar finished questioning the last student, he stuck his head in the classroom and thanked everyone for their cooperation. He even apologized for disrupting the class. Then he closed the door.

His friend with the notepad and the tape recorder remained in her seat in the back. Gillian waited until the break to talk with her. She found out Teri wasn’t with the police department after all. She was a newspaper reporter, working on a story about how the Schoolgirl Killings affected the night classes on campus. She asked Gillian about
Killing Legend
, and her next book,
Highway Hypnosis
, which was already scheduled for release in three months.

Teri said she wanted to talk to a few students while they were still on their break. Before Teri left the room, Gillian pulled her aside. “I hope you aren’t going to write about my discussion with Detective Dunbar in the hallway,” she whispered. “That was private. I thought you were his partner. I didn’t know you were a reporter. I don’t want you mentioning my husband.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Teri assured her. “I won’t write about your husband.”

Thriller Author Slams
Police Investigation of
‘Schoolgirl’ Murders

“They Don’t Stand a Chance of
Finding this Killer,” She Says

“Oh, my God, I sound like such an ass,” Gillian said, rereading the article on the front page of the Metro Section. She sat at a table with Ruth in the Starbucks by Group Health Hospital. “She totally quoted me out of context. Look at this! She makes it seem like I accused the entire police force of ‘alienating witnesses’ and ‘bungling the case.’”

Ruth gave her a sour smile. “Let’s not forget the part when you seem to call all the investigators ‘ill-mannered creeps.’”

“Oh, and what’s with this ‘serial-killer expert’ bit? Where the hell did she get that?”

At least the reporter hadn’t mention Barry. She devoted two paragraphs to Gillian’s thriller,
Killing Legend,
and her upcoming
Highway Hypnosis
. But it almost sounded as if Gillian herself were using the Schoolgirl Murders as a forum to criticize the cops and plug her books.

She’d already been regarded as “uncooperative” by police investigating her husband’s disappearance. This article made things even worse. Gillian came across as a cop-hating, self-promoting, smug bitch.

“Do you think I should write a letter to the editor?” she asked Ruth. “Maybe they’ll print a retraction.”

Ruth sipped her latte, and then shook her head. “If you do that, people who didn’t see the article will want to read it. And then they’ll believe the article. Everyone else will think you’re protesting too much—or you’re after even more publicity. Let it go, hon.”

“But how do you think the police feel about me?”

“Well, good thing you no longer have a car, because it’s not very likely you could charm your way out of a traffic ticket any time soon.”

Even with Ruth trying to talk her up to all her friends on the force, Gillian’s reputation as an uncooperative bitch with the police remained unshakable.

Thinking back to that night two years ago, when Dunbar had questioned everyone in her class, Gillian remembered the way Chase had egged her on—asking for her opinion of the rude detective, and if she planned to write her own version of the Schoolgirl Murders.

She remembered how his “erotic thriller” became more and more graphic as the semester progressed. He seemed to enjoy shocking the class with his overly descriptive scenes of sex and gore.

During one session, he followed her back to her office at the break. Reaching her doorway, Gillian turned around. “What are you doing, Chase?” she asked with a wry smile. “Stalking me?”

He chuckled. He had that impish, I’m-so-cute-you-can’t-resist-me look on his face, the one Shauna and Jennifer fell for time after time. “Well, actually, I
am
sort of stalking you, Teach. I wanted to get together with you for coffee sometime—or maybe even a drink.”

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“I sure am.” He grinned.

“Well, I’m flattered. But I’m almost ten years older than you, Chase—”

“I dig older women.”

“I think Edna’s available.”

“Cute.” Smirking, he leaned against the doorway to her office. “I dig
you.
”

Gillian sat on the edge of her desk. She wondered if she was blushing. She also wondered if his ridiculously awful “I dig
you
” line had ever worked before. Still, she found herself strangely attracted to him at that moment—maybe because she was lonely.

“Chase, I’m married,” she said finally.

“Yeah, but I hear he isn’t around.”

“That doesn’t make any difference to me,” Gillian said. “I’m still married. But thanks for the offer.”

“Sure you won’t change your mind?” he asked, his smile fading. “I never ask a girl twice, you know.”

“That’s a relief,” Gillian replied.

She remembered thinking at the time that he took the rejection rather well. Rick in the administration office was a hell of a lot more pushy.

However, Chase did phone her three times the following week. But he hung up every time. During a break in the next class session, she asked him about the calls—and the hang-ups. He tried to deny it.

“Your name and phone number came up on my Caller ID box,” she explained.

“Well, I didn’t mean to call you,” he insisted. “Your phone number’s very similar to that of a friend of mine. It was an honest mistake, Teach. It won’t happen again.”

And as far as she knew, he was true to his word. It didn’t happen again.

Or maybe it had. Maybe he hadn’t completely stopped calling.

Gillian heard the school bell ring. From the driver’s seat of Ruth’s Toyota, she watched the main doors to the high school open. Students began to pour out.

Gillian grabbed her purse, and dug out the old class list. The number for Chase Scott was no longer good. He could have changed his phone number after finishing up the semester. He’d already changed his name once—from Scott Chase. Perhaps he’d changed his name again, to something totally different. He could still be calling her and hanging up—and he wouldn’t have to worry about her seeing his name on her Caller ID box.

“He knows I have Caller ID,” Gillian whispered aloud. Had Chase Scott made all those aborted calls from Dianne’s apartment the other day?

Someone let out a scream. It was a teenage girl. A bunch of them, talking at high volume, passed the car. Gillian looked toward the school’s doors again and scanned the crowd for Ethan. She grabbed a pen, and with a shaky hand, she circled Chase’s name on the old class list. Beside it, she scribbled: “
Knows I have Caller-ID—Good Writer—smart enough to trick Ruth w/ e-mail? Jennifer liked him
.”

Gillian looked up again, focusing on the group of students lining up to board the buses. She still didn’t see Ethan.

Like Detective Dunbar, she’d narrowed down her suspects from the class to the two white males between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. Todd Sorenson seemed dangerous, but his writing was a rambling mess. Gillian couldn’t imagine him inventing “Hester” in Great Falls, Montana. He just didn’t seem that clever and devious. But she could see him killing someone.

Chase may have telephoned her and hung up, but Todd Sorenson had stalked her and gone to her home. She jotted a few notes beside Todd’s name on the list: “
Stalked me—Killer Potential—dangerous—seemed unfocused, but smart
.”

She glanced up once more. “Oh, no,” she muttered under her breath. Only a few stragglers wandered out of the main doorway now. The last few kids were boarding the buses. She didn’t see Ethan among them.

Grabbing her purse, she climbed out of the car and hurried toward the door of the bus parked in front of her. “Excuse me,” Gillian said to a thin girl with braces and a ponytail. She was the last student in line. “Is this the bus to Capitol Hill?”