Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead (20 page)

“Yes.” She was rocking slightly, clearly unconscious of the
movement. “Every day, I’ve put on my walking shoes and told myself I was being
silly. All I had to do was take one step and then another. I promised myself
today I’d only walk to the corner and back. Of course I could do that!”

“But you couldn’t,” he said softly.

“I couldn’t.” Her face was breaking down again, becoming
something—someone—unfamiliar. “I could not make myself take a single step
farther. I...started to shake.”

“Oh, Mom.” Hurting for her, he scooted over enough to wrap his
arm around her again. “I hope you know how brave you were to try.”

“Brave? I’m a coward.” Her smile was pitiful, but she was
trying. “I have been...refusing to admit to myself how crippled I’ve become. I
told myself it was natural to want to stay close to home. Why should I go to the
hairdresser when she’d come to me? I never liked grocery shopping, anyway. Oh, I
had a thousand excuses. I was mad when you accused me of something I told myself
was completely ridiculous.” She looked away from him. “Only, it wasn’t.”

“I didn’t see it, either, Mom.” He hesitated, then decided she
deserved honesty from him, even if it showed him in a bad light. “I don’t think
I wanted to. I was impatient with the pace of your grief.”

She met his eyes at last. “I could tell. And that’s all right,
John.” She shook her head when he tried to speak. “No, listen. The part that I
think
isn’t
all right is that I can’t help wondering
if you’ve grieved at all. Have you let yourself, in your heart, accept that Dad
is gone? Have you really cried?”

He opened his mouth to say an immediate and brusque
don’t be ridiculous,
but even without hearing the
words aloud was stunned by the echo.
How we lie to
ourselves.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, his voice having acquired a
rasp. “Yeah, I’ve cried. I cried at the funeral.” But instead of accepting that
as natural, he had been embarrassed. What an idiot. “Not much since.”

“Your father and I...weren’t often apart.” She examined his
face, as if to be sure he understood. “I haven’t been able to avoid knowing that
he is utterly and forever gone. But you didn’t see him as often. It would have
been easier to think of him as temporarily absent instead.”

“Yeah.” Now he was hoarse. “I guess that’s it. I think of
things I want to say to him, and then it’s a jolt when I remember I can’t.
Only—” He hunched his shoulders. “Hell, I guess I have a way of shoving that
knowledge out of mind.”

Wiser than he’d known she was, his mother nodded. “It’s
different for a son or daughter, anyway. You
expect
to lose your parents. It’s part of the flow of your life. I suppose I’d
hoped...” Her voice caught. “Hoped...”

“That you’d go first,” Troy said gently. “Or together.”

“Together,” she whispered. “When I thought of it, that’s always
what I imagined. You read about the couples who die within a few weeks of each
other when they’re in their eighties or nineties. When one dies, the other lets
go. But I’m fifty-seven. It’s too soon! I know that, but a part of me...” She
choked again.

He took her in his arms again and she buried her face against
his chest. His eyes stung. He felt unbelievably petty for having been hurt
because she so obviously wanted to be with her husband, wherever he was, instead
of her son.

But I don’t need her, not the same way as
a spouse does, and she’s always known that. She’s known the time would come
when I’d find the woman
I
would need for a
lifetime.

Madison’s name sang in his head, softly, but he heard it and
knew.

However much he loved his mother, it
wasn’t
the same.

Mom, he realized, wasn’t crying this time, only gathering
strength from him. Without saying a word, he tried to give her as much as she
needed.

After a minute, she straightened away from him. “Tomorrow I
will call Dr. Drayton and ask for the name of a counselor.” A tiny bit of
mischief showed in her eyes. “One who
doesn’t
come
to the house.”

Troy smiled at her. “Whenever I can, I’ll drive you.”

“I do still have friends.” She patted his hand. “There’s
something else you could do for me, Troy.”

“Anything,” he said, and meant it.

“I believe, with you beside me, I could go for that walk. If
you have time...”

“Yeah.” He had to clear his throat. “I have time.” He stood and
crooked his elbow. “A walk sounds good to me.”

His mother laid her hand on his arm. “Maybe we could talk about
your father.”

Crap. He didn’t like the way his eyes still burned. “We can do
that,” he agreed.

“And your Madison. I’d like to hear more about her, too.”

Talking about Madison was definitely something he could do.
“Sure,” he said. He smiled. “Did I tell you she made me go swimming?”

Mom laughed. “What are you going to make her do in retaliation?
Go fishing?”

They reached the sidewalk and turned onto it in tandem. “I was
thinking mountain climbing.”

Tension quivered through her touch, but his mother’s step did
not falter.

He bent his head to see her face as she walked, shoulders
straight, her dignity restored. His pride in her made his chest feel as if it
was being crushed.

“Or marrying me. That might work, too,” he heard himself
say.

“Oh, Troy.” Mom’s smile trembled. He knew she hadn’t forgotten
what she was doing, the distance widening between her and her refuge. But she
was happy for him. Taking this walk partly for him.

“Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?” he asked, and
she chuckled.

“Not nearly as often as you ought to.”

They were nearly to the corner, and despite her fear, Mom was
smiling.

* * *

M
ADISON
HAD
JUST
let
Troy in the door when her phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and hurried to the
kitchen where she’d set it on the tiled counter.

Aware that Troy followed and was studying his own vase sitting
on the windowsill, she picked up the phone.

Her pulse bumped. Oh, Lord. It was her father calling. Instinct
screamed,
Ignore it.
Common sense had her wondering
if she’d then have to lie to Troy about who the caller was.

With an apprehensive look at his back, she answered. “Hi,
Dad.”

Troy turned slowly, his gray eyes darkening to flint.

“Madison,” Dad said. “Am I getting you at a bad time?”

“I was about to go out to dinner with a friend.”

“Friend?”

He didn’t, of course, ask if the friend was anyone he knew,
because he hadn’t met any of her friends or colleagues in Frenchman Lake.

“No, I’ve begun dating Troy recently.”

Troy’s eyes narrowed a flicker.

“Is it anything serious?” her father asked.

Oh, boy. Between the rock and a hard place. “He’s actually
standing here, Dad.”

He chuckled. “I see. I’ll let you go, then. I didn’t have
anything special to say. You’ve been on my mind lately, that’s all.”

The flash of bitterness surprised her. “Are you sure it isn’t
Mitchell King who’s been on your mind?”

Any denial was too slow coming.

“I thought so,” she said flatly. “Dad, I do need to go. I’ll
talk to you later.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “You haven’t sounded like yourself
recently. I think something is wrong.”

Yes,
she wanted to say.
Yes, it is. Funny thing, I’m a little rattled to find out you
have something ugly in your past. And, hey, to discover that Mr. Righteous
is fully capable of lying to his daughter. Other than that, no
problem.

Um...except for the cop standing here listening to every
word.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Good night, Dad.” She touched End
without waiting for a response and dropped the phone in her purse, then lifted
her chin. “Shall we go?”

“Do you want to tell me what that was about?”

“No, actually, I don’t.”

He scrutinized her for an unnerving minute, then bent his head.
“All right. Shall we?”

Madison swept out of the kitchen ahead of him, keys in her
hand. Neither spoke until they were in his SUV.

“You have anything special in mind for dinner tonight?” he
asked, starting the engine.

“Something casual. I’m not very hungry.”

“How about Brannigan’s again?”

“Yes, that’s fine.” In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Why was she so upset?
Because Dad is lying. Because Troy
gets a cold, predatory expression in his eyes every time I mention Dad.
Because I’m scared.

Because she wanted to trust and believe in her father—but she
did trust and believe in Troy.

“I’m sorry.” Her hands clenched her purse. “That was rude.”

“No, honey. That was honest. I keep telling you I
understand.”

His voice came out rough and still so tender she could hardly
bear it.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be dating until, well, this is over.”

His foot caught the brake. “Is that what you want?”

Her panic was the finger-in-the-electrical-socket kind. The
hair on her arms stood up. “No!” she cried. “You know it isn’t. I love spending
time with you. But...what if...?”

“I end up arresting your father?” The tenderness was gone. So
was all other emotion.

Madison nodded.

“That’s something you have to decide. It won’t change how I
feel about you.” Still flat.

She wanted to beg,
What
do
you feel for me?
Pride wouldn’t allow her.

“I know,” she said. “I know you’re doing your job. And the
right thing to honor your father’s memory. It’s just...if you’re the one to
prove my father is capable of something so awful...” Throat thick, she broke off
again. “If he did something like that, what does it make me?”

Troy’s big hand closed over both of hers, still knotted on her
purse. “It doesn’t change who you are. Your dad may have made mistakes, but he
raised you to believe in certain principles. The sad part will be knowing he
didn’t always live by them, but this is about him, Madison.” His voice had
firmed; it compelled her to believe. “Him. Not you.”

She did some more deep breathing. “Yes. I know you’re right.
Most of the time I’m fine. It’s only sometimes that I freak.”

“Like every time he calls.”

“Um...yes.”

Without her noticing, Troy had pulled into a parking space in
the small lot next to the restaurant. Now he took his hand from hers to set the
emergency brake and turn off the engine.

He didn’t move for a long minute, though, only gazed straight
ahead through the windshield at the sand-blasted brick wall of the old building.
“Your first instinct when you read what my father wrote was to fiercely insist
he was wrong, your dad would never do anything like that.”

Madison sat silent, not moving.

He turned his head, compassion in his eyes. “Why the change,
Madison? Where did that fierce belief go?”

She had trouble even drawing a breath. When
had
she begun to wonder whether Dad was capable of
murder when his reputation was threatened?

“I don’t think I’ve lost it.” She was in the grip of a
revelation. “I don’t.” Oh, God, the relief was enormous. “But...I suppose I do
believe he was blackmailed, which means he did
something
crummy. Knowing that shakes my image of him. And that has
me thinking, and now I’m seeing shades of his personality I never let myself
acknowledge before. Which,” she concluded, “makes me mad, because why couldn’t
I
ever make a mistake? Why did he pretend he was
perfect?”

“I don’t know.” Troy was smiling at her, as if he was proud of
her. “But I think maybe now you have to find out.”

She blinked a couple of times, bemused. “Here’s where you say,
‘That may not be such a bad thing.’”

“Yeah.” He smiled a little and leaned over and kissed her, his
lips gentle. When he lifted his head, he looked gravely at her. “I don’t want to
lose you over this, Madison.”

She opened her mouth with every intention of saying,
You won’t.
But nothing came out.

They gazed at each other. Finally he nodded acknowledgment and
opened his car door, coming around to meet her as if nothing was wrong. As if
nothing had changed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

O
VER
THE
NEXT
couple of weeks, Troy
was painfully conscious that something had changed between him and Madison. He
was doing his damnedest to pretend it hadn’t, and thought she was, too, but he
couldn’t get that one moment out of his mind. He’d known from the beginning
that, if he had to arrest her father, her reaction could get between them, but
Troy had begun to hope they were solid enough for their relationship to survive
anything.

He’d told his mother he wanted to marry Madison, but apparently
that kind of outcome wasn’t on her radar. She seemed totally fixated on the
outcome of this murder investigation.

He was afraid that if he tried to tell her he was in love with
her, it would come across as a demand:
me or
him
.

God
, he thought,
maybe that’s exactly what I would be doing
. He did
know he was desperate for reassurance, and had been struggling for weeks to keep
himself from begging for it.

Was that pitiful or what?

Madison was under a lot of emotional pressure right now. How
would it help if he applied more? Sometimes love meant keeping your mouth shut.
Being patient.

Troy had to ask himself whether he’d allowed his innate
muleheadedness to drive him into making a huge mistake, one that was hurting
Madison. His father was dead. Joe Troyer would never know whether he’d been
right or wrong about his friend Guy. If Troy went to Dad’s grave to say, “I
arrested the killer, Dad,” the words wouldn’t mean any more than the roar of the
mowers that kept the grass down. Dad was deaf to all of it.

And then there was the distinct possibility that he would have
preferred Troy to leave well enough alone. To ignite the confession of moral
weakness and let it turn to insubstantial ashes.

I was already in love with Madison, even
if I hadn’t admitted it to myself.
And yet, his righteous anger
hadn’t allowed him to seriously sit back and think,
Who is
to be served if I pursue this?

So now he was stuck with a bigger question.
What’s it going to cost me?

In the dark hours at night, he told himself it wasn’t going to
cost him anything worth having. If Madison really didn’t understand why this
mattered to him, she didn’t understand
him
. If, in
the end, her sense of loyalty to her father was that much more powerful than
anything she felt for Troy, it meant she didn’t love him. Not the way he wanted
and needed.

Not the way his parents had loved each other.

He also knew it was too late to let the investigation go, for a
lot of reasons. One was Madison—he knew himself well enough to be aware he
couldn’t live without finding out where he rated with her. If he quit now, she
might say, “I love you. I would have even if you’d arrested my father,” but
would he ever, gut-deep, believe her? Think how easy the words would be to say
once she knew he
wasn’t
going to arrest her
daddy.

Backing out of the investigation would do some serious damage
to his career, too. He was too near to closing in on answers for either the
chief or his lieutenant to buy it if he announced one day, “I’ve asked a lot of
questions but I haven’t gotten the right answers, so let’s just close the book
again.”

Finally, the truth was that he
was
mule stubborn. He’d started this, and by God he had to finish it. He had to
believe that finding answers and achieving justice did matter. Otherwise, why
did he bother? What had his life mattered to this point?

And answers just kept coming. Every person he interviewed gave
him another name, or several other names. It was like a pyramid scheme. You pass
me a name, and that person passes me two, and those two each hand over
three...

Most interviews were, by necessity, conducted by phone. He was
saving as much of the travel budget—and the time traveling would eat up—for the
end when he would have narrowed the suspect list to two or three. With a little
luck, he could persuade those two or three to come to him instead, and save the
department’s bucks.

He finally decided to make an exception to head over to the
Seattle area, where he’d been able to book appointments with ten alumni and
former employees.

The first two interviewees admitted to having paid blackmail to
King. Both were chagrined, a little pissed, but also resigned, which fit the
pattern. Neither—if they were to be believed—had committed terrible offenses.
One student had been allowed to take an exam early because of a family
obligation and had then sold the questions and answers to several fellow
students who proceeded to ace the test undeservedly. The other had worked in the
café at the Student Union and had swiped some money—including tips that were
supposed to be divided with other students.

Another had overheard enough interesting rumors to give Troy
the name of a college grounds employee who might have stolen some pretty pricey
equipment.

“He was paying King five hundred bucks a month, which had to
have hurt. If I had gotten caught, I’d have gone on academic suspension and I
would have been real unpopular around campus, but this dude would have lost his
job and maybe gone to jail, too. He had serious reason to hate Mitch.”

Conveniently enough, that employee had recently retired from
the Seattle Parks Department and still lived in Shoreline. He didn’t sound real
happy to hear from Troy, but agreed to let him come out to the house.

In his mid-sixties, Leonard Hickman was one of those little
guys who got smaller with age. It wasn’t hard to picture him twenty years down
the line, wizened like an Egyptian mummy. His brown hair was mixed with gray in
a crew-cut bristle. His eyebrow and nose hairs were damn near long enough to be
braided, though, which occasionally distracted Troy from what Hickman had to
say.

“It was bullshit!” he exploded. “That little scumbag had
somehow manufactured evidence against me. We did have some equipment missing,
and one of the other guys must have found a way to blame me. I didn’t see what I
could do but pay the asshole for a few months until he was outta there. Then I
planned to job hunt.”

“You didn’t consider going to the college administration and
laying it all out?”

“Hell, no! Who’d believe me? A prissy ass college like that,
the guys they pay to do the dirty work don’t get any respect. They wouldn’t have
cared about truth. They’d have been happy enough to fire me.”

He reeked of bitterness, the smell so strong Troy was reminded
of sweat socks long past laundry day.

“How many payments had you made before his death?” Troy asked
quietly.

“Four. Two thousand dollars. He was killing me.”

He seemed unconscious of how telling that last bit was.
He was killing me, so I killed him?

“I see that you did leave Wakefield College at the end of the
academic year even though any threat from Mr. King was gone.”

Furious brown eyes met his. “I still had to think about which
guy I worked with had set me up.”

If his side of the story was true, it would indeed be
off-putting to head to work every day knowing one of the other guys was not only
a thief, but had also thrown you under the bus to deflect suspicion. Or maybe to
get a cut of the payments from Mitch King?

Now there was a thought. Just about everyone Troy had talked to
said the same thing—I don’t know how he could possibly have found out/seen
me/known. What if King’s scheme was even more sophisticated than Troy had
guessed? What if he had a network of spies and therefore a payroll to record in
that ledger?

Well, hell,
Troy thought,
what if I need to be identifying those subcontractors,
too?
Once they realized King had recorded their names and the less
than admirable parts they’d played in his little business, some of them, too,
would have had motive to eliminate him and make the damning ledger
disappear.

He asked for more information, and elicited the names of two of
Leonard Hickman’s fellow employees he had suspected—or had disliked most, it was
hard to tell. It didn’t sound as if he’d gotten along well with
any
of his coworkers.

He blew up when Troy asked for his whereabouts the night of the
murder.

“I was goddamn home and in bed with my wife where I belonged.
You know, I was trying to help out here. I wouldn’t have talked to you at all if
I thought you were going to try to finger me for killing the little creep.”

He crowded Troy over the threshold and onto the porch.

“May I speak to your wife?”

“We’re divorced,” Hickman snapped, and slammed the door. A dead
bolt slid into place.

Golly gee whiz,
Troy thought
sardonically,
I wonder why the wife didn’t stay with a nice
guy like that?

Troy got back in his Tahoe and made a note to track down the
ex. Glancing at the next address on his list, he set out.

This was a woman who had allegedly been at McKenna that night
and yet somehow remained unknown to the police.

On the phone, Sally Yee sounded reluctant to talk to him, but
after a long silence she’d said grudgingly that she could take a quick coffee
break if he dropped by her workplace, which was a law firm. Ms. Yee, he saw with
interest as he studied the brass directory just inside, had made partner at some
point.

He was stopped by a guard. After a low-voiced phone call, he
told Troy, “Ms. Yee will be down shortly.”

She appeared so quickly that she must have hustled. Troy’s
first thought was that she looked way younger than he knew her to be. All the
then-students were in the fifty-three to fifty-eight-year age range. Like Mitch
King, Joe Troyer and Guy Laclaire, she’d been a senior.

In a stylish poppy-orange suit, she was still a beautiful
woman, her skin smooth, her glossy black hair cut in a wedge that followed her
jaw. Heels clicking on the marble lobby floor, she came straight to him.

“I wondered when you mentioned your name. You look a good deal
like your father.”

He inclined his head. “So I’m told.”

“There’s a Starbucks halfway down the block. Or a Tully’s at
the next corner.”

He wasn’t surprised. No block in downtown Seattle was complete
without at least two coffee shops. God forbid workers had to stretch their legs
to find a caramel macchiato or espresso con panna or whatever.

“Either’s fine. I’m not that much of a connoisseur.”

Starbucks was closest so that’s where they went.

He chose a breve, she went for something sweeter and
creamier.

They sat at a small table in the rather dim back of the room.
No near neighbors. “What’s this about?” she asked, brisk but wary.

He politely repeated some of what he’d said on the phone before
he got to the point. “Another student says she saw you at McKenna Center the
night of the murder, although it appears investigators didn’t have your
name.”

“You mean I didn’t come forward.”

Yeah, that’s what he meant. He didn’t say anything.

He wasn’t surprised that a high-powered attorney like Ms. Yee
hid what she was thinking and had the self-control to mull over what she wanted
to tell him before she opened her mouth again.

“Yes. I went intending to swim some laps.”

Well, that was intriguing. She’d intended? “Do you recall what
time you went?”

“Yes, I left my dorm room at one forty-five. It wouldn’t have
taken me more than five minutes to walk to McKenna.”

He loved precise.

“It sounds like you didn’t stay.”

An emotion crossed her face that was surprisingly sharp, even
if muted by time. “I’m surprised anyone saw me. I never even got inside the
sports center.”

“Do you mind telling me why?”

“It didn’t have anything to do with Mitch King, which is why I
didn’t bother speaking to investigators.”

“I’d still like to know. I’m attempting to put together the big
picture. If I can get every single player on the board, then I’ll be able to see
which pieces moved where.”

She nodded, understanding completely. She likely worked the
same way when she planned a presentation to a jury.

Still, she hesitated for a moment. “What I’m going to tell you
doesn’t reflect well on me.”

“If, in the end, it has no relation to what happened to Mr.
King, I can promise that anything you tell me will remain confidential.”

Her mouth tightened, showing for the first time fine lines that
betrayed her age. “Very well. It scarcely matters anyway, after so many
years.”

He took a swallow of his drink.

She gazed down at hers. “I imagined myself in love with a young
professor at Wakefield. I also imagined that he was in love with me. We
had...relations.”

Troy tried hard not to give away his increased interest.

“That night, I had reached the outside door, which was well
lit, when I glanced to one side and saw a couple in a clinch. I must have made a
sound, because the man turned his head. It was that professor. He was being
quite careless,” she added dispassionately, “because he was kissing another
student. I’m sure you’re well aware that having sexual or romantic relationships
with students is taboo for professors.”

“Yes.”

“He and I had been exceedingly cautious. So cautious the whole
thing had begun to feel...sordid. But I was still in love, in that painful way a
young woman can be.” She sipped her own coffee, then set it down. “I fled. There
is no other way to put it. My heart was shattering.” She was trying to sound
amused, but didn’t completely succeed. “It was all very dramatic.”

“Did you confront him the next day?”

“Not until the next semester. I’d already had my final exam for
his class. When I did manage to be alone with him, he apologized, told me what a
lovely young woman I was, but admitted he had fallen for someone else. He should
have told me instead of allowing me to discover it that way.” She rolled her
eyes. “As I said, none of this had anything at all to do with the murder.”