The Perfect Coed (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1) (14 page)

“No,” he said quietly, “I couldn’t do much. But I’m sure you want to solve Missy’s murder as much as I do, and I thought you might help.”

“I don’t know anything.” Her arms were folded across her chest, and she sunk down in her chair, trying to look bored.

Jake could see that every nerve in the girl was strung tight, in spite of her desperate efforts to appear casual and unconcerned. He looked out the window a long minute, giving her time to relax. Then, casually, as though friend to friend, he asked, “You have a good dinner the other night at The City Restaurant?”
Relax, my foot!
he thought as the girl coiled to attention in her chair. Susan was right: Brandy Perkins was scared to death.

“The City Restaurant? What’s that? I’ve never been any place like that.”

“I saw you, Brandy,” he said quietly. “I was there for dinner myself, and I saw you.”

“How’d you know it was me? We haven’t met before.”

He shrugged. “I’m a cop.” This was clearly not the time to tell her he’d been with Susan Hogan, who had pointed her out.

She sank back in the chair. “So I met my brother at The City Restaurant for dinner. So what?”

“Your brother? Which one—the redhead or the older gentleman you didn’t appear to have known before.” He didn’t add,
Then why did you deny it?

She hesitated, staring at him appraisingly, wondering how much trouble she was in. Finally she said, “The red-haired one. He’s not really my brother—we’ve just been friends since grade school, and we feel like brother and sister. He wanted me to meet his boss.”

“Really? What kind of work does he do?”

“Oh,” she waved a hand in the air, “airplanes. He’s doing really well, and his boss… he’s a nice guy. Bought me dinner and everything.”

“Did Missy know this sort-of brother of yours?” Jake asked.

She shrugged. “Not really. She may have met him a time or two, but she didn’t know him.”

She’s lying through her teeth,
Jake thought.
I’ve got to save
this girl before she ends up just like Missy.
“I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, Brandy, and I’ll tell you why I’m concerned. I don’t want what happened to Missy to happen to anyone else on this campus, especially not you.”

He saw the look of wild fright cross her face, though she almost instantly covered it with a mask. “Nothing’s going to happen to anybody. That was just an accident. You know, some crazy guy picked Missy as his target. Didn’t know her, didn’t have any reason to choose her except maybe that she was pretty.”

“So are you.”

She let just the briefest flicker of a smile cross her face. “Thanks. But I’m okay, I really am.” She stood to leave and reached out a practiced hand to shake his. “What you really ought to worry about is why that crazy guy stuffed Missy in your girlfriend’s trunk.”

Touche!
She left before he could close his mouth.

Later Jake reflected that the only thing that interview had told him was that Brandy Perkins was lying with every word she said and she was scared. Susan’s call-girl theory was becoming more plausible every minute.

Chapter Eight

Susan was doing some secret sleuthing of her own. Remembering how strict the registrar’s office was about privacy of records, she went to the housing office. Deliberately, she went at lunchtime, knowing the director of housing and his staff took long, leisurely, off-campus lunches.

“Hey, Nellie, how’s it goin’?” She breezed in casually and greeted the secretary, a friend ever since the woman’s daughter had taken Susan’s American lit survey class and gotten an A. Nellie Thetford was a pleasant woman in her late forties who always carried about her an air of subservience, as though she were constantly aware that in the world of academia she was a mere secretary—uh, administrative assistant. This attitude made her obsequious, and she was given to changing her mood instantly, trying to present whatever attitude she thought was expected of her at any given moment.

“Dr. Hogan! How are you?” Her genuine pleasure at seeing her daughter’s teacher made Susan cringe, knowing she was about to abuse the poor woman’s trust.

“Fine, fine, Nellie. Nothing new… ’cept I guess you heard about the poor girl who was found in the trunk of my car.”
Well, there’s another white lie,
Susan thought.
I’m not fine. I’m scared, and I’m mad.

Nellie’s face grew solemn. “Of course, everyone on campus knows about it. We all wonder why it was your car somebody put her in.” She stared at Susan a minute. “You seem to be okay about it. I mean, if it was my car… I’d be… oh, I don’t know, but I don’t think I could just keep on coming to work.”

Am I getting paranoid? Does she think I’m guilty because I’m at work? Why doesn’t she say she knows I had nothing to do with it and what a tragedy that it was my car.
Aloud, she said, “It’s hard for me to come on campus, Nellie. But I figure I have to help”— She started to say “clear my name” and then decided that was wrong. “I owe it to that poor girl to help find out who put her in my car. I have some responsibility. In fact, I’m trying to find out a few more things about Missy Jackson.”

Nellie’s face turned stern with disapproval. “Does Mr. Phillips know you’re doing that?”

“Oh, of course he does,” Susan lied. “That’s why I’m doing it.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “And, Nellie, I think you can help me.”

“Me, Dr. Hogan?” She beamed with pleasure again. “If you’re sure it’s all right with Mr. Phillips…”

“He’ll be grateful,” Susan assured her. “All I need is some information about Missy’s roommates in previous years.”

“Oh, my!” She drew her mouth into a pucker that reminded Susan of Edith Bunker on
All in the Family.
“I don’t know… student records.”

“Well, of course, I’m not asking for grades or anything. Just some names.” Susan had decided if she could worm names and majors out of Nellie, she could track down the students herself.

“Well…” Nellie looked around as if to see if anyone was listening. The office was totally empty. “I’ll just see what I can find.”

Susan nearly took a nap, waiting for the woman to return. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, looked at her watch seven times, and wondered what in heaven’s name was so difficult. At long last, Nellie came back carrying a piece of paper.

“Two of her former roommates are still on campus. I wrote down their names for you.” She thrust the paper at Susan as though anxious to get it out of her hands.

“Great. Thanks, Nellie.” As she stood up, Susan asked ever so casually, “You don’t know what their majors were, do you? I’m wondering about a connection…” She let that absolutely meaningless sentence drift off.

“Well,” Nellie said, “just off the top of my head, I remember that Barbara Buckness was an art major. Very unusual girl. She worked in this office for a while, and I… well, I found her difficult.”

“Thanks, Nellie. I’ll tell Mr. Phillips what a help you’ve been. And give Rosemary my best—how’s her first teaching job going?”

“Oh, just fine, thank you, Dr. Hogan. She loves it, and she still raves about all she learned in your class.”

Susan’s conscience bothered her as she left the housing office, but not too badly. It was twelve forty-five, and she didn’t have office hours until two. She headed for the art department.

The secretary in the art department neither knew nor cared who Susan was. She stared at her computer screen for a long time, apparently bored beyond measure, and finally looked up. “Help you?” she said, her voice flat.

“I’m looking for Barbara Buckness,” she said, “one of your senior majors.”

“Really don’t know where she could be.” The woman cracked a piece of gum, and Susan winced. There should be a law against chewing gum anywhere on an academic campus. Then she thought she sounded like Aunt Jenny.

“Do you know her?” Susan asked.

“Yeah, she’s a sculptor.”

“Terrific,” Susan said. “Thanks for all your help.” She headed for the sculpture lab, which was empty except for Dan Thurman, the teacher. She introduced herself and told him who she was looking for.

“Barbara Buckness? Yeah, one of my brightest students, got a real good career ahead of her. What you want her for?” He was a muscled, short man with blonde hair cut too short. It looked bleached to Susan. He wore jeans, a tight T-shirt, and he exuded the air of someone who thought himself masculine and irresistible.

“Just want to talk to her,” Susan said.

“Well, she’s working on that piece over there,” he jerked his head toward a stand. Whatever stood on it was covered with a drop cloth, “and I expect she’ll be in here about four. She usually works in the late afternoon. I try to come help her when I can fit it into my schedule.”

Susan wondered if he was one of those male faculty members who were not averse to a little hanky-panky with their students. One was caught a couple of years earlier when the student reported him, and the resulting scandal cost the associate professor his career and blackened the school’s name for a while.

“Thanks,” Susan told him. “I’ll come back.”

“Great. What’d you say your name was?” Without shame or embarrassment, he looked directly at her left hand. His words and tone held an invitation that Susan wasn’t interested in.

“Hogan,” she said. “English.” And with that, she was out the door, hoping he would be gone when she came back to meet Barbara Buckness.

“Hogan?” she heard him exclaim behind her. “The one who…”

She was out of hearing before he completed his inquiry.

* * *

Like many art majors, Barbara Buckness dressed the part. She wore baggy cotton trousers, a black turtleneck, and a gray smock-like jacket. The only thing missing was a beret. When Susan entered the studio at four-thirty, the girl was alone, intent on using small, fine tools on the clay figure of a young woman’s head.

Susan watched a minute in fascination, because the girl’s work dealt with detail which her own eye missed. At last she coughed discreetly—at least, she hoped it was discreet.

Barbara whirled and looked at her. “Yes?”

“May I talk to you for a minute?”

“What about?” It was neither a hostile nor impolite answer, just one of curiosity.

Susan decided to be forthright. “Missy Jackson.”

Barbara Buckness was visibly startled. “Missy? What about her?”

It was time, Susan decided, to approach the girl, and she strode across the studio toward her. She was almost next to the sculptured head when she realized with a shock that it was a bust of Missy Jackson. Involuntarily she said, “That’s her!”

“Yeah,” Barbara said. “I can’t get her out of my mind since… well, you know. So I thought maybe sculpting her would do it. If it turns out okay, I’ll give it to her folks.” She looked sheepish, as though she’d been caught doing something naughty. But then she raised her eyes, looked directly at Susan and said, “Who are you?”

Boy,
Susan thought,
if they don’t take English, you’re nobody!
“Susan Hogan, English,” she said, offering her hand and receiving in turn a hand moist with clay. “I’m the one… it was my car Missy was found it.”

“Oh, yikes, that’s right!” Barbara stared at her. “Everyone thinks you did it.”

“A few mistaken people think I was involved,” Susan corrected.

“Were you?”

“No.”

“If you’d known her, you would have been, willingly,” Barbara said flatly.

“Really?” she was surprised by the girl’s boldness. “I came to talk to you because I heard you roomed with Missy your sophomore year, but I guess you sort of answered my questions already.”

Barbara ignored the last part of Susan’s statement. “I did room with her, at least first semester.”

“But you apparently weren’t good friends?”

“No, we weren’t. I came to dislike her. Missy had, ah, different interests than I did.” She was at work again, scraping away a thin layer of clay here, adding another there.

Susan saw that she looked continually at a newspaper clipping pinned on the wall behind her. It was the picture of Missy that had appeared in the newspaper the day after the girl’s body had been found.

Susan seated herself on a stool a few feet away from the young girl and watched silently for several minutes. Finally, she said, “You want to tell me more?”

“Not really. My mother told me never to talk ill of the dead.” She didn’t look up from her work.

“I take it then you have nothing good to say about Missy? Her record on campus makes her seem too perfect to be true.” Susan was thinking that this remarkably blunt and self-contained girl might hold the key to what happened to Missy Jackson, if only she would open up.

“You got that right,” Barbara said, whirling to face her and apparently speaking before she thought. Then there was a long pause, and finally she said, “All right. If it was your car, you got a right to know. Missy really worked hard to create that picture of the perfect student. She got good grades, she joined the right groups, she did charity work, but that wasn’t her.”

“What was?” Susan found herself leaning forward, anxious to hear the truth.

Barbara turned back to her work. “She was scheming, selfish… she wanted fame, if that’s what being an outstanding student on this campus means, and she wanted money. Always said she grew up poor, and she’d do anything never to be poor again. She practically disowned her parents, didn’t want anything to do with them.”

Susan remembered those grief-stricken parents. “I didn’t think her family was that poor.”

Barbara laughed scornfully. “I could have told her about poor on a hardscrabble farm in East Texas, but she never would have listened. She wanted to believe her own story about a miserable childhood as much as she wanted to get rich quick.”

“Where did Eric Lindler fit in? I mean, if she wanted money and fame, why was she going to marry a preacher?”

“Marry a preacher?” Barbara’s voice was scornful now. “She would never have married that poor boy. He was part of her act, like singing in the choir. Eric Lindler was riding for a fall, a big one, and he was too dumb to know it. Or maybe too naive. He’s a nice enough guy, but Missy really had him fooled.”