Marcie's Murder (39 page)

Branham
hung
up and grabb
ed
his uniform jacket off the back of his chair.
“Let’s go,” he said, nodding at Hank.

“I’ll drive,” Karen said.

Branham
shook his head
.
“We’ll take the
c
hief’s Explorer. Looks more official that way.”

Sam Hanshaw was a thin, cadaverous
sixty
-year-old who
was just locking his office door as they walked up.

Branham badged him, introduced Karen and Hank, and folded his arms across his chest. “
I t
hought you were going to be here until five o’clock.”

Hanshaw jingl
ed
his keys. “
I f
inished up early. My wife and I are
going
out tonight
and I d
on’t want to keep her waiting.”

“This won’t take long,” Karen
said, her tone casual
. “Witnesses tell us you were pretty chummy with Marcie Askew before she was strangled. Care to explain that?”

Hanshaw blinked at her. “We were friends.”

“Pretty good friends, were ya? Sack buddies and all?”

Hanshaw looked
at
Branham. “What on earth is she talking about?”

“Tell us about the nature of your relationship with Mrs.
 
Askew,” Branham suggested.

“We were friends
, as I said
.” Hanshaw shifted his black leather briefcase from one hand to the other. “Actually, she was closer to my wife than to me. We socialized occasionally with
them
. I dealt with Billy from time to time on committee work, you know, for the town council, and we
spent Sunday afternoons together whenever Billy’s work permitted. The girls played backgammon
,
and Billy and I watched football. That’s pretty much it.”

“You knew she was taking a photography course out here a while ago?” Karen asked.

Hanshaw nodded.

“Ever see her while she was on campus?”

“Yes. Sometimes she’d stop by my office after class
.
W
e’d have a cup of coffee in the cafeteria before she went home.”

“She was closer to your wife than to you, but she’d go out of her way to look you up for a cup of
coffee
.” Karen’s tone made it clear that she didn’t believe a word he was saying.

“Yes, well, it was only a few times. Once, she wanted to know what to buy Marjorie–that’s my wife–for her birthday. Another time I left a message with her instructor, Professor Brogan, to
have her stop
by
my office after class because I had some documents
for
Billy and it seemed the most convenient way to get them to him. Things like that. Nothing at all inappropriate, as you
seem to be
implying
.”

They worked him for a while longer
and then let him go. As they walked across the grounds toward the gymnasium, Karen looked at Hank.

“That guy’s got about as much sex appeal as a
n old
tube of toothpaste. No way
she
was romping in the sack with
that
.”

Hank nodded.
“Probably not physically fit enough to have carried her down the ravine.”

“No scratches that I could see from struggling with her,” Branham added.

They found George Rudy sitting in the bleachers as two teams of
female players
battled on the volleyball court in front of him. He was a chubby, balding, middle-aged man with a whistle around his neck and a perpetual grin on his face.
He wore a
gray
Lewis Collins College sweater, red track pants with white stripes down the legs, and white Nike sneakers.
He shook everyone’s hand without getting up and motioned them to sit down as a violent spike
on the court
scored a point for the team on the right-hand side of the net.

Rudy stood up
abruptly
and blew his whistle, nearly deafening Karen, who was still standing next to him.

“Mandy! You were out of position
for the block! Remember, keep your feet moving at all times and be ball aware! Ball aware!”

“I’ll bet you’re a ball aware guy, aren’t you?” Karen asked him, rubbing her ear.

“They need repetition to remember the basics,” Rudy
smiled,
sitting
down again.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear
what you said
on account of you deafening me,” Karen said, “but reading your lips I thought you said you were real close friends with Marcie Askew. I get that right?”

“Huh? Marcie?” He looked from Karen to Branham. “This is about her murder, isn’t it? You wanted to ask me some questions about her?”

“How well did you know her?” Branham asked.

Rudy shrugged apologetically. “Not nearly as well as I wanted to, that’s for sure.”

“You ever meet with her around here?” Karen asked.

“Yeah,” Rudy’s eyebrows went up enthusiastically, “a couple of times. I’m
d
irector of
f
ine
a
rts, so I step in for the first few minutes of the first class for our courses, make a little speech about Lewis Collins being a great place for liberal arts and creativity and imagination and all that. Give the instructor a bit of a boost. I noticed Marcie right off in Brogan’s class that day. I recognized her, knew who she was, and asked around a bit. Someone
thought
she was separated from her husband or something, so
I accidentally on purpose bumped into her after
one of her
class
es
and bought her a coffee. Excuse me.”

He leaped to his feet, blew the whistle and pointed. “Again! Run that set again. Pam, you and Ann need to get your timing together. Try it again!”

He sat down and grinned. “Sorry. Where was I?”

“You were coming on to the wife of the
c
hief of
p
olice,” Karen reminded him.

“Oh. Yeah. Right. I’m divorced
,
and I thought she was available, but she set me straight right away. She was real nice about it, let me recover gracefully, and we had a nice chat. I bought her coffee one more time after that, just to make sure I’d understood her correctly, if you know what I mean, and I
had
understood correctly, so it was just a nice chat and have a good evening, see you later. Only I didn’t. Unfortunately.”

“You ever see her socially away from campus?” Karen asked. “In town? At bars or somewhere like that?”

“Good
heavens
, no!” Rudy laughed. “I prayed, but
no such
miracle ever happened. Look, I know I’m no Lothario. They don’t sigh and melt when they see me coming.
So
when a woman says she’s not interested, I move along without an argument. And you’ll notice, Detective
Stain, I said woman and not girl.” He pointed at the volleyball court. “They’re girls. Kids.” He tipped his hand back and forth. “More or less. Not yet women, really, because they’re not in complete control of their own lives yet. Not interesting to me, in case you were wondering. There’s nobody female
around here
who’s
willing to
coach volleyball, and I happen to love the sport. I’m
forty
-
three
years old. Anyone under
thirty
is way too flighty for me. D
oes
that answer your question?”

“It answered about six of them,” Karen said. “And the name’s Stainer, not Stain. You always talk this much?”

He grinned back at her. “Know any mature single women who are good listeners?”

Walking back across the parking lot, following Rudy’s directions to the building where David Morris’s office was located, Hank looked at Branham
, who shook his head
.

“I don’t think so. He didn’t come across as someone prone to violence.”

“More like the Pillsbury Dough Boy,” Karen said.

“
Didn’t notice any scratches from a struggle,
”
Hank said.

Karen shrugged.
“Wouldn’t hurt to do a background on him,
I guess.
”

“That would be Muncy’s call,” Branham
said
.

David Morris’s office was locked. They asked around and were told that he had
already
left for the day.

“Hall already interviewed him,” Branham said. “Didn’t come up with anything out of the ordinary.”

“Hall’s lucky to be able to find his ass with both hands,” Karen said.

On the way to the stairwell
she
heard someone call her name.
It was Dr. Jane Morley
,
director of
the
criminal justice
program
.
Morris’s boss.

“
I
found
your business card. You remember, you gave it to me earlier in the week when you were interviewing Erica. It gave me a great idea.
I’m teaching a third-year Criminal Investigation
course
,
a
nd our class tomorrow is on interrogation. We try to bring in guest speakers whenever we can
on Fridays
, and I was wondering if you might be willing to make a short presentation, maybe ten minutes or so, on your experiences with effective interrogation techniques? Then take a few questions from the students?”

“Whoa,” Karen said, “I’m no teacher. You’d probably
do
a lot better with someone else.”

“With all due respect, Detective, I have to disagree. You’re an experienced detective from a
large
city
force
,
and no doubt you’ve interrogated
quite a few
subjects in your time. Plus, you’re a woman, and I’ve got a lot of female students in my class who’d benefit from
listening to
a successful female police officer. It’s a rare opportunity for them and I’d really appreciate it.”

“
I don’t know
.” Karen
looked at
Hank.

“Do it,”
Hank said
.

Karen frowned.
“
Will Morris be around?”

“David?” Morley nodded. “Yes, of course. There are only two of us on faculty for Criminal Justice, David and myself, and we both attend the Friday presentations. Why?
”

“Just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t have a problem with me presenting a female point of view,” Karen lied.

“Of course not. In any event, I’m the
d
irector and I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

Karen accepted Morley’s invitation and agreed to be t
here at 11:00
a.m.
tomorrow.

Out in the parking lot she
pointed a finger at Hank.

“You have to tell me what to say. I don’t know what the hell to say to a bunch of kids.”

“About interrogation?” Hank pretended to be astonished. “After all the war stories I’ve heard you tell?”

“I don’t tell war stories
.
I just kick asses.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Besides, I have an idea.
Maybe the same one you have. If Morris is going to be there, we might have an opportunity to press him.
”

Branham
raised an eyebrow
. “
Let me call Muncy
.” He took out his cell phone and
thumbed the number. He explained to Muncy Hank’s idea to apply pressure to Morris during tomorrow’s class at the college.

“I don’t know,” Muncy groused. “Sounds pretty dubious to me.”

“Drive up tomorrow morning anyway,” Branham said. “Breakfast’s on me. We can talk about it some more.”

He put away the phone
. “He’ll be
here.”

“We need more info on
Morris
,” Karen said. “If we can’t talk to him, we should talk to some people who know him.”

“How about his former boss?” Hank suggested. “The
m
ayor? He seemed to have a pretty high opinion of
Morris
when he hired him as
c
hief of
p
olice. Be interesting to see if he still feels that way about him.”