Phi Beta Murder (12 page)

The medical bill came as a shock. “Just as well I’m in a hospital,” he told the clerk at the payment office. “The bill is enough to give me a heart attack.”

The cashier gave him an agreement to sign whereby the hospital could charge his Visa card if further costs were incurred before Moira left. Further costs! Not that he didn’t have adequate funds. However, he was in the process of converting a hunting lodge in the Highlands and it was costing him a bundle. He thought it would be grand to spend time there with Helen, although he hadn’t told her about it yet. It was going to be a surprise.

As he crossed the main lobby of the hospital, he was appalled to see an automated teller machine. The National Health Service in Britain might leave something to be desired, but he was grateful for it all the same.

“Why the frown?” Campbell asked when Rex climbed into the driver’s seat of the Trailblazer.

“Moira doesn’t have traveller’s insurance, and I’m not sure it would have covered a suicide attempt anyway.”

“You didn’t pay her hospital bill, did you?”

Rex reversed out of the parking space. “She doesn’t earn a lot from her job and I feel responsible in a way. I never gave her the time of day when she came to see me in Edinburgh.”

“Yeah, but still. And you say Consuela is high maintenance.”

Rex smiled wryly. “
Touché
.”

He experienced an acute craving for his pipe, which was strange, since he had not smoked much since arriving in Florida. The hot weather was not conducive to smoking. He felt on edge, his nerves in suspense, whether more from the effort of dealing with Moira or the pressure of solving the murder in time, he could not be sure.

“How are you bearing
up?” Rex asked Moira as he carried her suitcase across the hospital parking lot. The sun was rising in a sky of rippled amber—a scene he would have preferred to enjoy from his ocean-view balcony over a leisurely cup of coffee.

She meekly held onto his arm, taking small steps. “They never let you sleep in hospital. At four this morning, an orderly came in to deliver clean towels. Or maybe it’s just so they can keep an eye on you.”

“You’ll be able to sleep on the plane.”

“Do we have time to get breakfast?”

“We’ll get some at the airport. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get there.”

Although Jacksonville was even bigger than Miami and had its own system of freeways soaring into concrete loops around the city, Rex found it easier to navigate. All the same, he didn’t want to risk the catastrophic consequences of Moira missing her flight. Campbell dozed in the back seat as they sped up I-95 to the airport among a sprinkling of freight trucks and early commuters.

“You can tell me all about progress in the case,” Moira said. “I’m about to get on the plane, so I won’t be able to leak any information.”

“All right.” More relaxed now that they were well on their way, Rex quickly organized his thoughts. “The case against R.J., according to newspaper stories, was based on the word of a career criminal and paid informant of the Jacksonville Police Department and on corroboration by Dixon Clark, who as a resident assistant was supposed to report any suspicious drug activity in the dorms.” He had read up on the case from various newspaper articles online.

“Dixon Clark being the boy found dead in his room?”

“Correct. The informant told the police he’d purchased cocaine from R.J. twice, but university records show R.J. was in the lab on the other side of campus when the buys took place. Dixon secretly videoed one of the transactions, but the recording proved too blurry to serve as conclusive evidence, and R.J. was acquitted. However, the university’s disciplinary board voted not to reinstate him because they believed Dixon.”

“I still think R.J. did it.”

“Everything seems to point that way. When I discovered that his room, now Campbell’s, was directly above Dixon’s, I thought I might well be dealing with a case of murder rather than suicide. By tracking Dixon’s Internet activities, Campbell was able to confirm there was no indication the deceased ever surfed the suicide website from which a set of how-to instructions were downloaded and left on his desk.”

When Rex realized he had mentioned suicide, he glanced over at Moira. She was staring out her window, a lost expression on her face.

“We’re making good time,” he remarked with false cheer. “We can get your baggage checked in and then see about breakfast.”

“I’ll take my case with me as carry-on, otherwise it might get lost. And I want to get some duty free.”

Rex hoped she wasn’t going to buy liquor. He wasn’t sure when she had started drinking, unless Monday night had been a one-off.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” she blurted, as though reading his thoughts. “I had a lot of time to think in hospital. You’re not to blame.”

“The important thing is that you get yourself better. Heather will take good care of you.”

“But what about afterwards?”

“Won’t you continue with your work?”

“I suppose.”

Rex patted the small hands clasped limply in her lap. “You’ve been through a lot.”

He followed the signs to the Continental terminal and woke Campbell up. “Can you park the car while we queue up at the ticket counter?”

Afterward, Rex called Campbell on his cell to tell him where they would be having breakfast. Moira ordered the special. Rex restricted himself to a coffee and Danish. The coffee was weak and tasted as though it had been left stewing for hours.

“They don’t care,” Moira remarked, pushing hers aside. “They won’t see most of their customers again.”

“The best airport coffee I ever had was in Paris.”

“They’re serious about their food in France. The French would never put up with this pigswill. Using that word would be a grievous insult in a Muslim country, you know. You have to be very careful.”

Campbell joined them and ordered a Coke and waffles.

“The breakfast of champs,” Rex remarked.

“So, Moira, are you looking forward to being back in Scotland?” his son asked. “I’ll bet it’s raining over there.”

Rex kicked him under the table. “Moira will take the sunny weather back home with her.”

“You’d never think I’d been in Florida,” she said, contemplating her pale hands.

“Och, you never did tan all that much,” Rex said.

“Anyway, the sun gives you wrinkles,” Campbell added, catching on. “You wouldn’t want that.”

Moira asked how he was getting on with his studies and what he did in his free time, and Rex was glad to see him make an effort to be sociable, even though he knew how his son felt about her. The strain of waiting for her to finally be off made Rex feel like a ticking time bomb. He would explode if the flight was delayed.

With less than an hour left to board, Rex escorted her to the security checkpoint and hugged her goodbye. Dry-eyed, she bid him a curt farewell. He lingered while she went up to the X-ray machine and placed her handbag and shoes in a plastic tray and her small suitcase on the conveyor belt. As she was about to walk through the metal detector, he turned away with a final wave and heard the alarm go off.

“No-o-o-o,” screamed a voice in his head. He looked back in panic. An armed female guard, taking Moira aside, waved a wand down her back and up the inside of her spread legs. It buzzed when it reached chest level. Rex watched in shock as the guard directed Moira to lift her blouse. The passengers awaiting their turn fell silent and stared. A second guard approached Moira with his hand on his holster. She turned in desperation to Rex, who pushed his way through the line. A guard blew a whistle.

“You can’t treat her like that!” Rex protested over the heads of waiting passengers.

“We’re on high alert. We’re looking for a female terrorist fitting this woman’s description. Step back!”

“She’s no terrorist!”

“I’ll need to see your passport,” the guard told Moira.

Retrieving her handbag, she stretched out her arm to deliver the document. The guard bristled when he saw her bandaged wrist.

“You were in Iraq?” he questioned when he came to the stamped entry. “You’ll have to come with me.”

“Her underwire bra set off the alarm,” the female guard informed him.

“Let her through,” Rex pleaded, wondering when she had started wearing underwire bras. Weren’t those what Victoria’s Secret models wore to enhance their bust line? “She belongs to a church group, which goes to trouble spots all over the world! She’s not a threat. I can vouch for her. I’m a member of the Scottish bar.”

“You can go,” the guard told her, regarding Rex as though he couldn’t care less about his legal credentials.

Moira reclaimed her suitcase and shoes, and made for the departure lounge without so much as a backward glance. Rex watched her disappear down the concourse. His knees wobbled with the giddy realization that she was out of his life—for now, at least, though he could not help but feel desperately sorry for her.

Grabbing Campbell by the shoulder, he guided him toward the terminal exit. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, “before something else goes wrong.”

While Campbell drove, Rex
called directory assistance and got the number for LTB Construction. The office manager told him where R.J. Wylie was working and gave him directions.

“I can chill at the Landing while you talk to R.J.,” Campbell suggested.

Rex reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. “Here you go. Get yourself something for the Keys.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

They drove downtown in slow-moving traffic. At night, the blue-lit Main Street Bridge and illuminated skyscrapers cast ribbons of neon color across the river. Rex had taken a photo the last time he was in Jacksonville, though it hadn’t done the scene justice. This morning the glassy towers sparkled with sunlight above the marina. The Landing, a complex of bistros and boutiques built on the waterfront, successfully combined urban chic and Florida casual. They entered Bay Street across from the Modis Building and parked the SUV.

“I’ll call you,” Rex said as they split into different directions.

As he approached the LTB construction site, a bronze glass skyscraper with scaffolding scaling one side loomed over him, dwarfing the tall buildings around it. A giant crane stood motionless against the azure sky. Within the wire fence lay piles of concrete blocks and stacks of pipes. Rex opened the gate and made his way to the trailer. Before he had taken two steps across the yard, a robust man in a yellow construction vest waved his arms at him.

“Hey! You there!” he shouted. “This is a hard hat area. You need to get outta here.”

“I’m looking for R.J. Wylie.”

“He’s up there somewhere. I’m his super. What d’you want him for?”

“Can you tell him his dad told me where I could find him? It’s important.”

The man radioed up to the tower. “He’ll be down in the cherry picker in just a minute,” he told Rex. “He’s a good kid. Comes to work on time, does what he’s told. But you’ll have to wait outside the gate.”

Minutes later, a mechanical arm lowered a red steel basket to the ground. A young man in jeans, yellow vest, and a white T-shirt and hat stepped out. The supervisor pointed to the gate where Rex waited, and he nodded. He was about Campbell’s height with more developed shoulders and a broader chest.

“I’m R.J.,” he said opening the gate. “The boss said you wanted a word.”

“I wanted to discuss what happened last year when you were suspended from Hilliard.”

“You must be the Scottish boy’s dad. You sound just like him. Whose side are you on?” Hazel eyes fringed with thick black lashes gazed at him in curiosity from a well-formed face edged with dark stubble. A silver ring pierced his right ear.

“The Dixons asked me to look into their son’s suicide, but I’m not taking sides. I’m just trying to get at an approximation of the truth.”

“My expulsion was a crock. The dean of students was just looking for a way to get rid of me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I strung his bicycle up on a tree last year. It was an April Fool’s dare—a prank. That’s the real reason Bikey-Bink was pissed at me.”

“Did you sell drugs?”

“Sell? No! I handed a bit out when I had some to spare. Pot mostly, including to your son.”

“Campbell?”

“Sure. Just the one time. Don’t worry, he’s not a pothead, far as I know.”

Rex took a moment to recover from this revelation.

“Look, it wasn’t me on the tape. Any moron could see that. The gray hoodie didn’t even look like mine. But the cops needed to make a bust. Their informant was making $60 off them for every buy he reported. Thing is, he never bought from me. I never dealt. Period.”

Rex held up the button that Klepto had given him.

R.J. pulled a cigarette and lighter from his jeans pocket. “Not mine. Lots of students have hoodies. Anyway, school records prove I was in the chem. lab at the time the bust went down. I couldn’t have been in two places at once. Plus my lawyer pointed out in court that the guy in the video standing next to the informant, a man of six foot, was inches shorter. I’m six-two. You couldn’t even see a face under the hood. It took less than thirty minutes of deliberation for the jury to deliver a verdict of not guilty.”

“Who arrested you?”

“Campus Security. Then Detective Beecham came to question me and took me to the station for no good reason other than I couldn’t produce the hoodie I was supposedly wearing. I told him it wasn’t me on the video, and he said he had a list of six eye-witnesses who confirmed I had the exact same hoodie. At first I said I didn’t need a lawyer because I hadn’t done what they accused me of. He and his partner questioned me for four hours straight. They found a second person to say he’d bought from me. I never saw either man in my life.”

R.J. kicked at the dirt with the toe of his work boot. “Not that it would make a difference now, but I could prove that button doesn’t come from my hoodie.”

“This isna aboot the drug bust. It was allegedly found in Dixon’s room the night he died.”

“So?”

“I don’t think his death was a suicide.”

R.J.’s face blanched. “Shit … Excuse me, but what are you saying, sir?”

“Someone got to Dixon from your old room.”

“How?”

“A system of air ducts leads to his room.”

“I don’t have access to my old room. If I as much as set foot on school grounds, campus security would arrest me.”

“A hoodie would disguise your face. Like you said, several students have ones that are similar.”

R.J.’s face tightened in rage. “I better not be getting the rap for murder as well as dealing. Why me? Lots of kids experiment with drugs. Why did Dix single me out? And why the fuck are you looking at me for his murder?”

“You have a compelling motive for killing him. He got you kicked out of Hilliard. You could have gone to prison for dealing.”

“Yeah, I could. He totally ruined my life.”

“You ruined it the day you first took drugs.
You
blew your degree at Hilliard.”

R.J. clamped his arms across his chest and stared off into the middle distance. “Don’t I know it! Not a day goes by when I don’t kick myself. But I’m clean now, six months. I even volunteer in a mentor program teaching kids about the risks of drugs. Whatever; I didn’t kill Dix Clark.”

Rex glanced over the barrier. “You work in construction. You’d know all about air ducts.”

“If I’m gonna get framed again for something I never did, I’d rather end it now.” R.J. chucked his cigarette butt on the ground. “I haven’t got any money left for a defense. And that bitch never even stood by me.”

Before Rex could understand what was happening, R.J. swung open the gate and sprinted across the job site. Enclosed in a construction elevator, he rose up the glass façade of the building.

“Where’s he going?” Rex asked the super who stopped him as he chased after the boy.

“To the top. What did you say to him?”

“He’s been implicated in a murder.”

“Christ, as if that kid hasn’t been through enough trouble already.” The super tilted back his head and followed the elevator’s progress to the dizzying bronze pinnacle of the skyscraper. He got on his radio. “Pete, R.J.’s on your floor. He may be suicidal. Don’t approach. I’m comin’ up.”

“I’m coming with you,” Rex said.

“Grab a hat from the trailer.”

Rex found one on a hook inside the door and joined the super who led him around the building to a second elevator.

“You should be wearing a harness,” the supervisor said, hesitating as they stepped onto the platform. At close quarters, he reeked of Marlboroughs.

“No time. Beam me up, Scotty.”

The super set the hydraulic lift in motion. “Name’s Tony,” he said thrusting a calloused hand into Rex’s. “Hope you’re not scared of heights. That hat’s not gonna do nothin’ for you if you fall from the sixtieth floor.”

Rex was not prone to acrophobia, but he had never ridden in an outdoor elevator. As a precaution, he decided not to look down. “Do you test employees for drugs?” he asked, trying to gauge R.J.’s state of mind.

“It’s mandatory at LTB.”

Perhaps R.J. was telling the truth about being clean. The floors sped down to meet them, reflecting the mesh cage off the bronze panes. Toward the summit, Rex’s ears popped. He did not venture a peek until he reached the top. From here the site looked like a sandbox littered with die-cast trucks and blocks of Lego. He fought down a reeling sense of nausea.

Tony let him out of the elevator and, clearing the other men off the roof and construction platform, led Rex across the concrete floor latticed with naked steel girders. The breeze, barely noticeable before, flattened Rex’s shirt against his torso. R.J., standing perfectly still, was staring over the edge. He had removed his hard hat, and his dark hair blew about his forehead. Rex could not look at him without seeing the tops of surrounding towers spiking the skyline. If something happened to R.J., he would never forgive himself, especially if the boy was innocent.

“Come away from there, R.J.,” he called. “I just want to talk to you.”

“What’s the point?” A gust buffeted the boy and he took a step to steady himself. Another step and he would go over the low rail and fall sixty floors. “I should have done this before and saved my parents the money for my defense. What good did it do?”

“I want to see justice is done.”

Behind Rex, Tony murmured into his radio. “Call the cops. No sirens or lights.”

“Just think what this would do to your parents,” Rex reasoned with R.J. “One boy is already dead.”

“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t!” R.J. stepped over the rail.

Rex’s stomach completed a somersault. “I believe you! Klepto gave me the button.”

“Should have known!” the boy cried out, looking back in despair. “But I could prove it’s not mine.”

“Come over here and tell me about it.”

R.J. turned away and peered over the brink. This was the second where, in the recklessness of youth, he could decide to end his life and make a dramatic, poignant, and ultimately futile statement. Rex sprang forward just as the boy let himself fall head first in slow motion. Adrenalin pumped through his veins.

Grabbing him around the waist with one arm, Rex hooked a vertical beam with the other. The impact of R.J.’s weight pulled him forward, almost wrenching both arms from their sockets. A telescopic view of asphalt, cars and tree tops swam before his eyes before he managed to yank R.J. away from the edge, bringing him keeling on top of him as he hit concrete.

Tony pulled R.J. to his feet and stood gripping him by the shoulders. Rex lay for a moment staring at the sky. He had a fleeting notion that the world had gone mad. His heart reverberated through his body while concentric waves of pain shot through his elbow.

A construction worker helped him up. “I just saw the cops pull into the site,” he told Tony.

A spasm of terror crossed R.J.’s face.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “We won’t say nothing about this. Let’s get off of this building. I got a first-aid kit in the trailer,” he told Rex.

A cop approached them when they reached ground level.

“What’s up, Tony?”

“Trailer got broke into again. Don’t think anything went missing, but they jimmied the lock.”

“Who’s this?” the cop asked, looking at Rex.

“A building inspector. He fell and scraped his arm pretty bad. Lemme see to it first. Come with us,” Tony instructed R.J., prodding Rex up the steps to the trailer.

They removed their hats and dumped them on the desk. Stale smoke hung in the stuffy air. Tony rummaged among a pile of rolled-up plans on a shelf and extracted a white plastic box marked with a red cross. He handed Rex a wad of cotton wool doused with hydrogen peroxide and a large Band-Aid.

“You can use that room back there if you guys need to talk. Here, take this.” Tony gave R.J. a Thermos flask from off the desk. “It’ll do you good. And take the rest of the day off. You wanna talk, call. I got to see to the cop and make a report on the break-in.”

Rex, holding the wad to his bleeding elbow, made his way past the water cooler into a closed-off room equipped with a small desk and two chairs. He sat down and stuck the Band-Aid on his arm while R.J. took a seat and twisted off the lid to the scuffed flask. An aroma of sweetened coffee rose into the air. R.J. filled the cup and pushed the rest toward Rex, who took a swig straight from the Thermos. Though no longer burning hot, it tasted fresh and strong, much better than the coffee he had been served at the airport restaurant that morning.