The Professor (15 page)

“Some of the guys come on strong, but Mary liked to dance, and it has the best floor and sound system.”

“How often did you go?”

“Once or twice. She’d call sometimes on Wednesdays, usually last-minute, and ask if I wanted to go.”

“What was special about Wednesday?” Other than the fact that Mary Baldwin had been killed on a Wednesday night.

“Ladies night.” She said it like
Duh? What planet do you live on?
“No cover and drinks are half price.”

Great. Pack in a bunch of women, get them drunk and offer them up to the local
predators.
He kept that out of his voice. “What happened if you had plans? Did Mary go with someone else?”

Cheryl was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure. She may have gone alone. She knew some people who hung out there. I didn’t know them. I mean, she introduced them…. All I can remember is one’s named Jack. They called another one Morp.”

“Morp?”

“Yeah, it stuck in my head since it’s kinda weird.”

“Would you recognize them if you saw them?”

“Gee, I don’t know.” She was backing away, not wanting to get involved in this part of the investigation. “Do you think one of them might’ve done it?”

“I’d just like to talk to them. See what they know.”

“I only met them that one time, and that was a while ago.”

“You remembered their names,” he said. “All you’d have to do is point them out to me.”

“Point them out?” she asked, incredulous. “You mean, like, go over there with you?”

Why not?
“That’d be great,” he said, as if she were volunteering. “You wouldn’t have to stay long. You could leave after showing me who they are.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“If I remember correctly, there’s a Waffle House on the corner near the Squirrel. I could meet you there. That way you’d have your own car. We’d talk to the bouncer for a minute. You’d take a quick look inside for the guys, and that’d be it.”

“No way. Look, Jack’s got that blond surfer hair. He spikes it. He thinks he’s hot, but it’s all in his mind. Morp’s quieter. His hair’s dark, about shoulder-length. He’s sexy, like a laid-back musician.”

“It wouldn’t take but a minute for you to point them out.”

“Ask the bouncer. His name’s Bruce. He knows them.”

And she hung up.

Wednesday night

Mick changed into tight, black jeans and an Egyptian-cotton shirt. When was the last time he’d gone to a club? Other than a few setups he hadn’t been able to dodge, he hadn’t gone out since he and Jess broke up.

He wondered if Meg liked dancing, then blew out a disgusted breath. It had been three days. She hadn’t called. Why couldn’t he just let it go?

That was easy to answer, even if it made no sense. He wanted to understand what was going on. One more try, he decided, and then he was giving up.

As Cheryl had predicted, the Squirrel was packed. The parking lot was full, and he left his BMW in a quasi-legal spot. He scanned the area with professional interest. The surrounding businesses were dark, but the club owners had halfheartedly tried to make the exterior attractive. Crepe myrtles and low bushes separated the sidewalk from the blank outside wall. Soft up-lighting turned them into sculptures and minimized shadows. The parking lot was well-lit, with no overgrown hedges or obstacles to hide an assailant. The Squirrel might be a hookup joint, but management appeared concerned that their patrons find only trouble they’d created themselves.

A couple entered the bar and sound blasted through the opening. The bouncer closed the door behind them, then turned and scanned his domain. He locked onto Mick and watched his approach.

“Hey, are you Bruce?” Mick asked when he was closer.

“Last time I checked.”

“Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a girl.”

“You’re in the right place.”

He smiled. “A specific girl.”

Bruce shifted. It was subtle, but he was wary now. “We don’t want any trouble.”

He flashed his badge. “Me, either. Janet’s friends said she came in on Wednesday nights.” He pulled out a picture of Mary Baldwin. “Recognize her?”

The bouncer studied the photo. “She looks like a girl who used to come in here, but…”

“Just look at the face. Maybe she dressed different.”

Bruce partly covered the photo, then nodded. “Yeah, it’s the hair. And she wore more makeup. She used to come in a lot, but I haven’t seen her for a while.”

No kidding. Read the papers often, buddy?
“What about these?” He pulled out Ashley Cohen and Emily Geiger’s pictures.

After a moment of silent study, Bruce shook his head. “Never saw these two.”

“But Janet was here.”

“Nearly every Wednesday, all summer. She hasn’t been in since mid-August. She must have gone back to school.”

“Did you ever see her with this guy?” He pulled out the sketch of the suspect.

“A guy like that…” The bouncer shook his head. “He may come in, but nobody’s going to give him the time of day.”

“What about other men? Anyone in particular hang around Janet?”

Bruce pursed his lips and returned the sketch. “I can’t say for sure. There’s a lot of people through here.”

“She was a regular. It’s important.”

Bruce glanced at him, considering, and then dropped his gaze to the photos. “Now that I think about it, she left with a guy sometimes.”

“Same one? Different?”

He shrugged. “She’d sometimes hook up. That’s all I know. That’s what most of these people are here to do. Dance, get drunk, get laid. My job’s to keep out the underage kids and toss the drunks before they cause problems, not be their dad.”

“Janet’s ID looked good?”

The bouncer hesitated, as if sensing a trick question. “She matched the picture and the date’s right. You know something I don’t?”

“Somebody’s supplying phony IDs.” He handed the guy “Janet’s” ID. “Her real name’s Mary Baldwin.”

He watched the bouncer process the name. “Where have I heard that?”

“The papers. TV. She’s dead.”

For a second, Bruce lost his
I’m-too-cool
composure. Just as quickly, his facade was back in place. “Didn’t happen here.”

“She was murdered on a Wednesday night, in mid-August.”

The bouncer played with the ID, rotating it between his fingers. “I don’t remember anybody in particular being with her. As for this…” He handed back the fake license. “I haven’t heard anything about a market for fakes. Management got stung a few years ago with a bunch of underage kids. We target an older crowd—more your age. They still want to party and meet people, but they know they have to get up and go to work in the morning. Some of the chicks are younger, but guys go for that.”

“She hung with a couple of guys, Jack and Morp. You know them? I’d like to talk to them.”

“They’re here tonight. They usually come in right after happy hour.”

Hoping the women are drunk enough not to be picky?

Bruce waved him to the door. “See those guys by the back bar? Jack’s the blond with the green shirt. Morp’s sitting beside him with the Mexican chick.”

Thursday morning

Mick looked up from the report he was typing when Frank strolled through the office door. “Cap’n have any interesting insights?” Frank asked around his morning doughnut.

“He just wanted a status report. And for us to catch this asshole so the Governor’ll get off his back.”

“Oh, well, when you put it like that, I may put some effort into it today.”

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Pep talks aren’t his forte.”

“Where are we?” Frank dropped into his seat.

“The guy those morons at the Squirrel remembered didn’t match Ms. Henry’s sketch.” He stretched, loosening his shoulders. “They were focused on the hair and clothes, though.”

“They saw Baldwin leave with a guy?”

“Yeah. They didn’t know who he was. Said he was mid-thirties, brown hair, gold tips, expensive clothes. He didn’t say much, just flashed some cash. They said a couple of girls latched on like white on rice, but he brushed them off. He sat back and watched the more confident women.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ms. Henry’s guy.” Frank finished his doughnut and wiped his fingers.

“Maybe. The height and age are right. The other stuff’s easy to change. I asked Buzz to redo the sketch with gelled hair and no glasses.” He shrugged. “See if that gets us anywhere. Greenville and Spartanburg PDs are going to run the pictures—the victims and the mystery guy—around to all the clubs. I wish that sketch Ms. Henry did was less generic.”

“How is the lovely Ms. Henry?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You’re no fun anymore since you’ve become celibate.”

“Tough. I don’t have time for a going-nowhere relationship.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to give up sex,” Frank grumbled.

Mick looked at him sharply. He started to say something, like
stay out of my private life
, but Frank had picked up the printout Jordan had developed of professors from the three colleges.

“Do we still want to work this? If the killer’s picking them up at clubs, he could be anybody.”

Let it go. He doesn’t mean anything by it. Maybe he’s having a midlife crisis
. “It makes sense to follow up on the professors. Maybe he spots them at school and then follows them to the clubs.”

“Maybe. You get anything from the abortion clinics?”

“Their lawyers are talking to ours. That may not be the key, but I think it’s definitely going to be Baldwin’s ‘secret.’ Until we find something else, college is the only thing the women have in common. You’re gonna hate me— I’m gonna hate myself—but when I updated the cap’n, we talked about getting all the professors in the Upstate on the list.”

Frank groaned. “Between the tip line, the bars, and the car list, we already have
people running everywhere. Who’s got time to do that?”

“We need a professor to turn up on the car list or at more than one school.”

“It sounds like another wild goose chase.”

“Right now, we’ve got a better chance of catching the goose than this killer.”

“Okay,” Frank grumbled. “Let’s get the kid, Jordan, to work on the teachers.”

Ten minutes later, Mick looked up from the car list. He tapped his pen against his desk. “How’d he get home?

“What?”

“If he picked them up at a club, slipped something into their drinks, how’d they get home? The vics’ cars were in their apartment parking lots. If she was too drunk, drugged, whatever, he would’ve driven her car from the club to the apartment. How’d he get back to his car?”

A slow smile spread over Frank’s face. “A cab. Hand me the phone book.”

Meg closed the word processing program. She wasn’t getting a thing accomplished. Her hands rested on her desk, but her fingers were drawn into tight fists. She stared unseeing at the calendar on her office wall. Her tension had nothing to do with midterms, her teaching schedule or even Mick O’Shaughnessy. With an irritated snort, she punched in the pass code for her e-mail, not sure she wanted to know what the pervert would say next.

She scanned the list of unread mail, zeroing in on the new messages. He’d switched identities, using a different Prescott College account, but she knew it was him. She could sense it, the way she’d felt his eyes on her every time she’d left her apartment, office or classroom today.

This was his fourth message. In twenty-four hours, the e-mails had gone from weird to creepy. She’d started looking around, watching people, but she hadn’t seen him. Or if she had, she didn’t know it was
him
.

He sounded so possessive. And how dare he call her names?

Property? She recoiled, staring at the message. That was as disturbing as his fantasies about a relationship.

What did he think he saw her doing? That was disgusting. Reluctantly, she opened the next message.

Her head whipped around before she could remind herself she was in the office and not her apartment. There were no windows in her tiny work space and the windows
of her second-floor apartment had curtains. No one could see anything through those drapes, could they? Besides, she didn’t parade around naked.

Destiny? What part of outer space was this guy living in? The rest of the paragraph detailed what he wanted to do to her. Embarrassed and revolted, she couldn’t stop reading.

Her breath caught in a gasp. He couldn’t possibly know.

She reread the line. He was bluffing, hoping to scare her. The whole message was creepy and disgusting, but the threat was vague. She slouched in her chair, staring at the screen, uncertain about what to do with the message. The obvious person to talk to was Mick, but she didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to give him a reason to come to Clinton.

Maybe she should tell someone else. Maybe Lisa.

No, she decided. It was time to call the police. She might not be the only person getting these weird e-mails, but the cops would know whether it was the killer or some copycat jerk.

She switched to the
State’s
web site, scrolled to the end of the special report on the Professor, and found the link for the hotline. Before she lost her nerve, she picked up the office phone and dialed the listed number. “I’ve been getting strange e-mails,” she told the person who answered.

“Can I get your name and contact information?”

She provided the details and a summary of the messages.

“An officer will contact you to take your statement and review the e-mails.”

“Is there anything I should do in the meanwhile?”

“Don’t delete any suspicious e-mail. And you should take precautions.” He rattled off a litany of safety measures any woman should be aware of, potential serial killer or not.

A few minutes later, she dropped the handset onto the base. Her gaze drifted to the open computer. The message seemed to taunt her from the screen:
Is that the best you can do?

Sitting back and waiting for someone else to do something wasn’t her style. There were additional things she could do until the officer arrived. She filed the message with the others and added the teacher’s name to the Block Sender list. Opening the Internet browser, she moved to the yellow pages web site and looked up the phone number for Prescott College.

Mick dropped the phone back into the cradle and crossed off another car record. This was the part they never showed on television. The boring grind. Endless telephone conversations. Massive piles of paperwork. For days, city and sheriff’s officers had checked Camaros with Dark Carmine Red carpet. Cars owned and driven by women, old men, Hispanics. Cars that no longer ran. Cars whose male owners had solid alibis.

None of the owners was the killer.

“Damn.” He stared at the database table. Most of the original list had been processed. Discouragement hovered like a dark cloud. He could feel the case slipping
away. How many clues had they missed? Was someone else going to die while they were stumbling around?

He recognized the self-defeatist attitude. Recognizing it and pulling out of it were two different things. He had to stay focused—catch the killer—but their leads kept wandering into mazes full of blank walls and dead ends.

Frank threw his pen onto his desk and stretched. “What do we do now?”

“The damn car has to be somewhere. We’ll go back to the DMV and get all the Camaros in the state.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. The case was settling into one of those inevitable lulls. Waiting mode: waiting on paperwork, DNA results, car reports, bar interviews. After the new Camaro list arrived, he’d have to wait on VIN details. He’d be happy for something credible off the tip line.

Basically, he was waiting for a break that might never come.

He pushed the pessimism aside. He wanted to be out in the field rather than the one everybody fed information. Information that so far didn’t amount to a hill of beans.

He shoved his chair away from his desk. “I’ve got to get out of here for a while.”