Rushing to Die (6 page)

 

Chapter Ten

I
WASN'T SURE
the coffee shop on campus was the best place to meet Nick Holden. After all, it was public, and there was a possibility that ­people would see us and gossip about the purpose of our meeting. But as soon as I stepped inside and felt my skin flush from the humid, espresso-­scented air, all those concerns disappeared like steam off my paper cup. The only way I was going to keep my wits about me during this interview was to have an extragrande four-­shot caramel latte in my hand.

I had al ready selected a shadowy corner table when Holden arrived. He looked exactly as he did on TV except he was oranger, shorter, and had a much larger head.

“Miss Margot Blythe. We meet at last. May I call you Margot?”

What does one say to a question like that? As if I were going to answer, “No, call me Penelope.” I bit my lip to keep myself from doing just that.

Holden pulled a small digital recorder out of his jacket pocket and put it on the table. “You don't mind if I record our conversation, do you?” He flipped the recorder on before I answered, either way.

“Are there hidden cameras, too?” I cast a look around the coffee shop for ­people wearing suspicious glasses or adjusting tacky handbags toward me.

Holden chuckled. “No, I like to get to know ­people before I put them on film. Make sure I know what they're going to say.”

That . . . didn't seem right.

“Who do I have to screw to get coffee around here?” Holden muttered, screwing up his face toward the hardworking baristas.

“You have to order at the counter.”

“Terrific. Half-­caf drip with steamed soy. Thanks, Marg.”

I didn't move. Maybe it was because he called me Marg. Maybe it was because we hadn't even started talking yet, and he wasn't listening to me. Maybe it was because I didn't trust someone who ordered “half-­caf.”

“I can only be here for thirty minutes,” I said. “So what can I help you with?”

Holden blinked a few times, then said, “I've heard your chapter is once again experiencing a turbulent police investigation.”

I remembered the chapter filing through the Sutton Police Department's conference room in an orderly fashion and enjoying a few donuts. Hardly a turbulent event. But if I said that, would it be misconstrued? Could it be seen as flippant? Like we didn't care? Like we were putting our breakfast in front of justice?

So I took a sip of coffee, and said, “Nobody likes tragedies.”

“True.” Holden nodded. “So true. Tell me about the deceased. What kind of person was she?”

Heck if I knew. “To protect the privacy of the families, I can't answer anything like that at this time.”

“Good point.” Holden nodded. “The investigation is ongoing.”

Oh yeah. That was it.
I smiled. “Exactly.”

“So let's talk about a completed investigation. Of the murder that occurred in the Delta Beta house three months ago.”

My stomach dropped. This was not how this was supposed to go.
Think fast, Margot. You can get him off that trail.
“By the way, your special on that was thorough and informative.”

Holden pushed the recorder closer to me. “Really?”

“It was fair yet hard-­hitting journalism. And so very comprehensive. I don't think I can bring anything else to the table, do you?”

Holden thought about that for a moment and realized that no, he couldn't very well ask for more information on the subject of his first news special. “With the rise in violence against college women across the country, do you feel unsafe being part of a sorority?”

This was a question I hadn't expected or prepared for. “Unsafe?” I echoed. “Why would I feel unsafe?”

“Because in the last four months, three women have died at the Sutton Delta Beta house,” Holden replied, dropping his voice into a news-­anchor “story-­at-­eleven” range. “Doesn't that indicate that women are unsafe there?”

When he put it that way, I would sound like an idiot if I said no. And if I said yes, I was opening myself up to all sorts of follow-­ups that would necessarily involve thorny topics like “responsibility” and “liability” and “accountability.”

So I asked myself that age-­old question:
What would Miss America do?

“That an excellent question, Nick—­may I call you Nick?” Nick nodded, because how else was he going to answer? “The thing about sororities, in the case of Delta Beta especially, is that we are very old institutions. In 1879, Mary Gerald Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner founded Delta Beta, as a way for women to grow as individuals, to form lifelong bonds of sisterhood, and to contribute to the community as a large group would, for example, men.”

“Men?”

“Men, who have long been encouraged by society to have this sort of organization. In that way, Mary Gerald Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner were pioneers. Heroines, in my book. And 1879 was such a long time ago, and many sisters have died in our metaphysical house, bonded by friendship. Therefore, the answer is, no. The Delta Beta sisterhood doesn't bring women down, it empowers women.”

Nick Holden squinted at me. “I see.” Then he seemed to have trouble forming his next question. “Are you saying that if the Delta Beta sorority were filled with men, then I wouldn't be asking these questions?”

“I would never call you sexist,” I assured him.

He recovered quickly. “In this day and age, is there really a point to Greek life? I understand that in 1879, there was a good reason for women to empower themselves. But in the twenty-­first century, don't incidents like the recent murders show us that there's no safety in secret societies that cloister women away from the world?”

I had lost control of something along the way. This was an entirely new direction that I wasn't expecting and one that my brain couldn't quite grasp. “Is there a
point
to being
Greek
?” I asked incredulously. Surely, that wasn't a real question.

“Isn't it time to stop walling off our colleges? Bring everyone together, regardless of color, class, culture?”

Despite the warm air of the coffee shop, I was suddenly chilled to the bone.

“Isn't that what Mary Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner would have wanted?”

Gerald,
I wanted to add. It was Mary Gerald Callahan. But it was so beside the point. Nick Holden didn't pose a danger to Delta Beta. Quite clearly, I understood that his second cable-­news special wasn't going to be about another murder at the Sutton Deb house.

“I can tell you're an intelligent, motivated woman,” he was saying. “You're educated, accomplished, and a feminist. Surely you can see that the time for Greek systems has come and gone. They're antiquated bastions of misogyny, privilege, and pseudoreligion, and there's just no place for them in modern society.”

“What . . . How . . .” I choked. No Miss America worth her crown could come up with an answer to the hate speech Nick Holden was spewing, and neither could I.

“I've been conducting interviews with various students and staff, and I'm hearing that more and more ­people are seeing what I'm seeing.”

“You want to end the Greek system?” It was inconceivable. “All of it?”

Nick lifted his shoulders. “More like, just let it die off. Like a spider, trapped under a cup.”

Which was an inaccurate analogy, if you asked me. Sorority women hated spiders.

I searched my soul and realized that the time for playing games with Nick Holden was over. It was all well and good for me to dissemble and act coy when he was trying to pin my chapter for being accomplices to murder. But he had gone a step too far by threatening our entire way of life. I couldn't in good conscience leave this coffee shop without speaking my truth. I leaned over the digital recorder, and, in a clear voice, said, “I disagree with you one hundred percent.”

Nick was intrigued. “With which part?”

“All of it,” I said. “You're wrong about everything.” I felt the ghostly support of Mary Gerald and Leticia behind me, cheering me on as I stood up for their principles.

“Excellent.” Nick reached out and turned off the recorder. “Will you say that on film?”

Suddenly, I wasn't sure if Nick had just slapped a plastic cup over a spider—­and the spider was me.

I took a pen out of my purse and scribbled a number on my paper napkin. “Call my PR person.” I pushed the napkin across the table. “Then we'll talk.”

I wasn't sure whether Casey could make this situation any better, but I was pretty darn sure it wouldn't get any worse.

 

Chapter Eleven

T
HE SHED AT
the back of the Delta Beta property line was creaky, dusty, and cramped. It housed spare lumber and paint cans for the giant wooden letters that graced the front yard during celebratory times of the year, along with the rakes and clippers and shovel that the yard crew used. It was the perfect place for a secret meeting of my most trusted sisters.

I had texted Callie, Aubrey, and Zoe to meet me there. First, Callie opened the door, followed by Aubrey and Zoe a few minutes later.

“We told Ginnifer there were extra twinkle lights out here,” Aubrey explained.

“She's furious we don't have enough,” Zoe said grimly.

“And every store in town is sold out,” Aubrey finished.

“It's not like every house on Greek Row doesn't use them,” Callie said. We all nodded. Twinkle lights were a rush-­decor staple.

“She sent the Leonard twins up to their rooms as a punishment.”

“What?” I gasped. I hadn't heard this. “What did they do?”

“They used the word ‘rushee' instead of ‘potential new member.' ” Aubrey answered. “It threw the Gineral into a tailspin. Now she's on a rampage about ‘rules' and ‘terminology.' ” Aubrey used air quotes around the words, and I could tell that they were all on edge.

“The lion thing didn't help.” Even in the dim light of the storage shed, I saw an accusation in Aubrey's eyes directed at Callie and Zoe. Only three months ago, she and Callie had been near-­mortal enemies; I hoped their new friendship wasn't in danger because of a stupid prank.

“It was a baby lion.” Callie sniffed.

“Callie . . .” I said her name in a voice as full of gentle reproach as I could.

“What?” She slung her hands up. “It wasn't me.”

“I hope not. We can't afford to get caught up in these silly pranks, not when we have real issues to work on.”

“I'm sorry,” Zoe said, wringing her hands. “I hope I didn't make it worse with the glasses.”

This was going to be difficult, but we all had to be on the same page. “You lied to the police, Zoe.”

“I didn't!”

“What did you say, Zoe.” That was Aubrey's responsible big-­sister tone.

“He wanted to know how I knew about the spy-­glasses. I told him the truth, that I bought a pair when I suspected that John Schnaefel was cheating on me with the entire Epsilon Chi pledge class.”

Callie nodded sagely. “He was such a Man Ho.”

“Anyway,” I prompted. “That's why Zoe knew so much about the spy-­glasses. She used them to catch her boyfriend doing the dirty with a bunch of trashy Epsilon Chis.” The girls all looked at me with trepidation. “That's the truth, and that's what we're going with.”

“It is the truth,” Zoe agreed. “But what was the dead girl doing with Witness glasses in her pocket?”

The four of us had fairly active imaginations.

“She was a reporter for Nick Holden?”

“She was in the CIA?”

“She was dating John Schnaefel, too?”

I appreciated their abilities to consider all the alternatives, but the truth was staring us in the face.

“Ladies, I think she was sent here to spy on the Debs.”

Aubrey covered her mouth and gasped.

Zoe's face showed me that she agreed. “After all, we had considered that possibility.”

Callie nodded. “Page three of Plan B.”

“Does that mean someone knows about Plan B?” Aubrey's perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together in concern.

“No. It means we're not alone in considering it,” Callie said pointedly, but also with an implied question. I knew what she wanted to know.

“We're going for it.” I said, ignoring the tightening in the pit of my stomach. Plan B was full of potentially illegal, definitely shady maneuvers—­to ensure that Delta Beta rush had every chance of success.

Callie and Zoe high-­fived each other. Even the most cautious of the group, Aubrey, looked pleased with my call. I wasn't sure how I felt yet. But as soon as Zoe had identified the Witness XV-­99 glasses at the police station, I knew one thing—­that other chapters were not experiencing scruples about the ethics of strategies like sending undercover sorority women with spy-­glasses to other houses.

The other possibilities—­that the dead woman was a reporter or a CIA agent—­while possible, were not probable. For one, why would a CIA agent dress in a Delta Beta T-­shirt? A trench coat and thigh-­high stiletto boots seemed much more appropriate.

And could the dead woman be a reporter for Nick Holden? After meeting with him, I knew that wasn't possible. Nick Holden was ambitious, thirsty even. If one of his colleagues had died in the midst of gathering information for a story, he would have already organized a candlelight vigil and gone on every morning show vowing to catch the criminal. He would already have his front-­page story instead of padding around Sutton looking for one. But the thought did spark something in my brain.

Callie, Zoe, and Aubrey knew just what they had to do—­we had decided and rehearsed the next steps several times over winter break. And even though it wasn't necessary, I again stressed the need to keep Ginnifer Martinelli in the dark. No one could know what we were about to launch. Plan B made D-­day look like a Black Friday shopping trip.

Over the course of the next few minutes, the girls plotted, then staggered their exits from the shed. They would be giving me regular updates, and we would meet only under the cover of night. Maybe with disguises. I hadn't decided yet.

I also hadn't decided how forthcoming I should be to aid in the murder investigation. Was I going to give Ty Hatfield any of the conclusions that I had come to after learning about the Witness XV-­99 glasses? On the one hand, telling him my suspicions that the dead woman was a sorority spy would very likely confirm his beliefs that I was a little too intense about Delta Beta rush. On the other hand, it could help him identify the body faster, help the woman's family get closure, help catch a murderer.

But rush started tomorrow. And telling Ty would bring more scrutiny on the Deb house, attention that we did not need before hundreds of Sutton College freshmen were invited to get dressed up and listen to our chants and clapping.

Telling Ty might mean he would give the other chapters a heads-­up that we were onto them, erasing any possible advantage we had.

He was probably looking at the Witness digital card right now, I told myself. There was very likely information on it that would identify the girl. It could even solve the crime in one stroke: Like if she happened to have the glasses on while talking to the murderer, and the murderer said something like, “You better do what I say, or I'm going to murder you tonight in the Delta Beta backyard. With no involvement from the Delta Beta chapter whatsoever.”

Zoe had handed him all the evidence he needed to solve the case, really. He didn't need me to help him solve crimes—­hadn't he told me that five or six times?

Really, I was doing Ty a favor by not interfering and benefiting my chapter at the same time. And good Delta Betas always put the interests of both their sisterhood and their community first.