Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead (9 page)

Whatever her father had done wrong,
Troy thought,
he’d done one thing very right. He had taught
his daughter to face the truth without flinching. You have to admire
that.

She shook her head. “If he was there and didn’t see anything,
why wouldn’t he have volunteered a statement? Kids that age like nothing better
than being the center of attention.”

Troy had been thinking about this. “You know,” he said slowly,
“another possibility is that he was in the same boat as my father. He
did
see something or someone—but he didn’t want to
tell tales, either.”

Her eyes fastened hopefully on his. “You believe that?”

He had already decided he wouldn’t lie to her. “I’m keeping an
open mind.” That was the best he could do.

The change in her expression was subtle but unmistakable. She
pressed her lips together and nodded.

“One thing I couldn’t help noticing,” he said slowly. “When he
insisted that if there’d been any witnesses, they would have spoken up back
then.”

She stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights look.

“He sounded smug,” Troy said flatly.

Madison winced. Yeah, she’d noticed that, too. The tone had
been subtle, but unmistakable. Until his daughter’s phone call, Guy had been
real confident that no one had seen him that night. The passing years, all
thirty-four plus of them, had given him faith that he was safe.

Guy Laclaire, Troy thought, was a powerful man accustomed to
getting his way. If Guy had had any idea what his old buddy Joe Troyer had put
in the time capsule, chances seemed good, Troy speculated, that the capsule
would have disappeared from that foundation stone beneath Cheadle Hall. When she
looked for it, Madison would have uncovered a gaping, empty hole, and been left
without a clue who had taken the capsule or why.

Her mouth had stayed stubbornly closed when he said that about
her dad sounding smug. Troy watched her, not wanting to push too much.

“Now what?” she asked finally, probably with the hope of
diverting him, he suspected.

He let her get away with it. “Now I talk to other people. I’ll
start with the original witnesses—the students who admitted to being there at
some point that night. What I need from you is current contact information.”

“That won’t be any problem for the alumni who have stayed in
touch with the college. We do lose track of a certain percent along the way,
though. I’ll search old records so you at least know where they were at our last
contact with them.”

“Do your best.”

She frowned. “Will you be getting in touch with men only?”

Troy shook his head. “Presumably women wouldn’t have been in
the men’s locker room, but they could just as well have noticed who was at the
pool, the gym, the indoor track or coming and going.”

“Don’t you think women would have been less likely to be there
in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe,” he agreed, “but some may have gone in pairs or
groups.”

“Yes.” Her jaw firmed. “Okay.”

“This is going to take time.” Troy set down his mug and
stretched his arms above his head. “I’d much prefer talking to every potential
witness face-to-face, but I can’t justify any kind of travel budget at this
point.”

“A surprising number do live in Washington. We work at
attracting out-of-state and even foreign students, but still a substantial
majority is from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.”

He’d sort of known that, but hadn’t thought through the logical
corollary—that many of those same grads would stay in the Northwest.

“If that’s the case, I can set up a bunch of appointments in
the Seattle area. Or, worse come to worst, I have buddies with Seattle P.D. I
can ask to do the interviews there.” Seeing the strain on her face, he had the
feeling he’d worn out his welcome for the evening. He hoped she had something to
do besides worry once he left her alone. He stood and carried his mug to the
kitchen sink. “So,” he asked, “have you really taken up quilting?”

She followed him. “No, but I’ve been thinking about it. Heaven
knows why. I was dangerous with my foot on the pedal of a sewing machine when I
had to take Home Economics in high school.”

Troy laughed at her. “Needle get away from you?”

“Yes!” She made a comical face and held up her right index
finger. “Literally. I poked my finger in the wrong place and the needle went
right through it. Missed the bone, thank goodness, but it
hurt
.”

Troy winced. “I can imagine.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, sure. You’ve probably been shot or
stabbed or something way more dramatic than a sewing accident.”

“I have been shot.” He rotated his arm, recalling the pain,
then grinned. “It was a flesh wound, just like yours.”

“Couldn’t help one-upping me, could you?”

“Nope.” He waited while she dumped out the remnants of her own
coffee and placed the mug in the sink. When she turned to face him, he gathered
her into his arms. Placing his chin on top of her head, he whispered, “I’m
sorry.”

Her lips moved against his throat. “You don’t have to be.”

She meant it, which blew him away. Even so, something had
changed between them, and he didn’t think it was all in his head. Madison rested
against him, her arms around his torso, as if there was nowhere else she’d
rather be. But her expressions were more guarded now; some reserve had created a
wall that hadn’t been there before.

Troy usually had a near-limitless store of patience. He
wouldn’t be good at his job if he didn’t. Cops with a short fuse didn’t last
long, and they sure as hell didn’t make it to detective. A long, involved
investigation would drive an impatient man crazy. Talking to the same people
over and over, listening for new shades of meaning and deviations from their
original story. Sitting with the phone pressed to your ear, on hold, with
nothing better to do than stare into space. Anyone in law enforcement spent a
lot
of time on hold. Then there was the rest:
studying reports, poring over driver records, watching piss poor quality video
recordings made by store and parking lot security cameras in hopes of one useful
glimpse of a face or a vehicle or a license plate.

Troy was hanging on to that patience right now with a sweaty,
tight grip. Madison must have mixed feelings about him. She might like him, she
might be attracted to him, but he had become a major threat to the person she
most loved and therefore he was a threat to her world as she knew it. He’d
watched her closely as she talked to her father. Her hands had given away
tension her expression didn’t. Her fingers had knotted rhythmically into fists
on her thighs. They would loosen, flatten, then squeeze tight again the next
second.

He’d give anything to have met her weeks or months ago, to be
able to
know
their relationship had roots deep
enough to ensure they survived this. Some primitive male instinct insisted he
ought to get her in bed
now,
as if he could bind her
that way.

Troy suppressed a groan. Man, he wanted to take her to bed. He
had since he set eyes on her, but then he’d had patience and common sense on his
side. Now...shit, now he was battling panic.

Leave her alone and you’ll lose
her,
the primitive side of him growled.

The modern man—yeah, he still kept his grip on the more evolved
part of himself—knew that expecting her to choose sides too soon was asking for
her to pick daddy. And why wouldn’t she? The man had raised her. He was her
rock. For God’s sake, she’d gone to daddy’s alma mater and now worked there, as
if this was home because he had said so.

She’d known Troy for less than a week. They’d kissed half a
dozen times. On the surface, whatever they had was new and tentative, even if it
didn’t feel that way to him.

Holding her close, breathing in her scent, he told himself not
to be an idiot. Madison wasn’t rejecting him. Yeah, she had some major internal
conflict—and who wouldn’t in her position. She was handling it well.

And she’s leaning against me as if she
trusts me.

A smart man would take what he was offered and not screw up by
demanding more.

I can be smart.

He pulled back enough to let her look up at him. The wariness
on her face was a hammer blow. All he could do was pretend not to see it.

“You okay?”

“Of course.” Her lips formed a smile he recognized as the one
she trotted out on the job, if a little weak—practiced and not necessarily
reflecting what she felt. He didn’t like it.

“Can I come by your office in the morning?”

“Yes, of course.” Without making it obvious, she had backed
away. Now, arms crossed, she rubbed her hands up and down them. “I’ll have the
class lists from those years and all the available contact information ready for
you.”

“Good.” He frowned. “I didn’t ask. Does everyone know you’ve
been asked to do this?”

Madison shook her head. “Lars asked me to keep it quiet for
now. Word will eventually spread, but we prefer that current students don’t hear
rumors.”

“You must have alumni email loops and chat groups and what have
you. They’re going to light up by the time I’ve talked to three or four
people.”

“Probably,” she agreed with a sigh.

They walked to the front door, but he didn’t reach for the
knob. Instead, he faced Madison. Her eyes met his shyly. “I’d like to kiss you,”
he said, his voice low and rough.

Her mouth trembled. “Please.”

At the exact same moment he reached out, she launched herself
at him with a cry. Troy took her mouth with starving intensity, driven by the
fear that he’d found her only to lose her. Rising on tiptoe, pressing herself
against him, she kissed him with as much passion and desperation.

She’s afraid, too,
he realized with
the small sliver of his brain that was still functioning.

Her fear, her need, eased his and allowed him to gradually
gentle the kiss. His hands stroked her from the delicate nape of her neck to the
lush curve of her hips, savoring the womanly contrast. She turned him on, big
time—but now was not the moment, however painful it was going to be to take his
hands off her.

He let his lips travel from her mouth across her cheek to the
complex whorl of her ear and the tiny gold hoop she wore. He nibbled it, flicked
it with his tongue then traveled upward to her temple. Then he kissed her closed
eyelids, feeling the quiver of movement beneath the thin, delicate skin.

Reluctantly, Troy lifted his head, looking down at her uplifted
face. For a long moment, she stayed like that, her eyes closed, her lips parted
and slightly swollen. This time he did groan.

“I’d better go while I still can.”

Her lashes fluttered before lifting. The brown of her eyes was
melted into a soft chocolate. “Part of me wants to ask you to stay.”

God.
Every muscle in his body
seemed to clench. “But the other part of you?”

“Isn’t quite ready.” She looked apologetic.

He kissed her forehead and tried to smile. “The timing isn’t
the best.”

Gathering herself seemed to include taking a step back. She
crossed her arms as if to hug herself. “I know he sounded strange tonight,” she
said in a sudden burst, “but you’re wrong about my father. He wouldn’t murder
anyone. He wouldn’t.”

Troy had never heard a plainer warning. She might have kissed
him fiercely one minute, but she was defending her father with equal strength
the next.

Yeah, the timing completely
sucks.

He nodded, accepting what she’d said. “I’ll do my damnedest to
find out the truth,” he promised.

His reward was a shaky smile. “Thank you.”

Troy didn’t try to kiss her again, didn’t dare. “See you in the
morning.”

He thought she said “Good night” just before she closed the
door behind him. He got in his SUV and slammed the door before he let himself
swear, a long litany that didn’t come close to being the release valve he
needed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
ROY
FROWNED
AT
the ream of paper
Madison had just handed him. “Can you email me this file?”

“Yes, of course.”

He watched as she did so in front of him. “All employees are
allowed to use the facilities, right?” he asked. “It occurs to me that I’m going
to want the names of Wakefield College employees during that year, too.” He
glanced up.

Madison was dressed down today. In deference to the continuing
heat wave, she was wearing calf-length chinos and a tiny T-shirt with a deep
scooped neck and sleeves that barely qualified. His body had responded the
instant he saw her. He was having a hell of a time lifting his eyes from her
cleavage, especially since a bead of sweat was even now trickling in slow motion
from her chest into the valley. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to follow it, or
lick it.

Damn it, concentrate!

Her eyes widened at his question. “Yes, of course all employees
have full access, but in the middle of the night?”

“Not likely,” he agreed, “but the faces would be familiar. A
student wouldn’t think twice if he saw someone who, sure, is usually out mowing
the lawn, but is always around. Young, hip professors might keep the same hours
as students do. And in this case, the killer wasn’t there to swim a few laps. He
was there because Mitchell King was.” If he suddenly sounded grim, Troy
thought—so be it.

Her head bobbed. “Yes, okay.” She seemed to think about what
he’d said—and his request. “I’ll have to clear it.”

“Understood.” While reluctant to leave, he stood nonetheless.
“This gives me a good start. Thanks, Madison.”

She rose to her feet as well, more slowly. “You’ll keep me
informed?”

“Daily updates,” he promised. “Preferably given over
dinner.”

She relaxed enough to smile. “Deal. Although I don’t want you
feeling obligated....”

He took a step toward her and slid his hand beneath the silky
bob of her ponytail. She was sweating there, too, but sweat, he had discovered,
could be sexy. “You haven’t noticed that I want to spend time with you?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Actually, I had.”

He was about to bend his head when boisterous voices announced
the arrival of somebody—at least two somebodies—in the outer office. Troy almost
groaned.

“Another time and place,” he conceded. Releasing her, he
stepped back. “Damn, it’s hot up here. Haven’t you complained?”

“Believe it or not, this
is
air-conditioned. Just not very effectively. I whine, maintenance shows up and I
hear some bangs and clangs but the temperature never drops. Fortunately, the
heat only lasts for a few weeks after school starts. By December, it’s the
people on the first couple of floors who have to come to work wearing wool
socks, scarves and gloves while my office is completely comfortable. And spring
is lovely for all of us.”

“We do have nice springs.” Even a hard-bitten cop occasionally
paused to smell the lilacs once they came into bloom in every shade from white
to the deepest plum. The old bushes crowded damn near every porch in town and
branches weighted with blooms hung over sidewalks.

He settled for a quick, light kiss and let Madison escort him
out of the office, past the curious stares of the two students who apparently
were her helpers today. He’d have to ask what her next big project was. Maybe
one of those—what had she called them? Those get-togethers that happened across
the country? On the Road? He thought that was it. That got him wondering, as he
descended the stairs, how much time she spent on the road herself.

He found the police station to be relatively quiet today. After
spending some time highlighting the names of people he wanted to start with, he
went to talk to Davidson.

He outlined his plan of attack, starting with his hope to meet
with as many potential witnesses as possible in person.

“Several of the students who were interviewed still live in
eastern Washington, two right here in town. From there on, I intend to focus
first on the senior class.”

His lieutenant nodded, as he’d anticipated; as a senior in
college, King would have known his classmates better than younger students. A
freshman might have been a witness, sure, but probably not the killer.

“I’ll begin with the ones I can talk to face-to-face. I’m
expecting to make a trip to the Seattle area in the next week.”

“We can swing that,” Davidson agreed gruffly.

Troy told him his intention to speak to as many professors and
other employees who’d been here at the time, too. “I’m not sure investigators at
the time did.”

“It’ll be interesting to see what you learn about the victim.”
Davidson ran a hand over his crew-cut, graying hair. “Like every other cop in
Frenchman Lake, I’ve read that whole damn murder book. Students who knew King
were pretty reticent, as you’d expect, but between the lines...”

Troy nodded. “He wasn’t well liked. Hard to miss.”

“I’m betting people who knew him will be more willing to open
up now. Why wouldn’t they?”

Troy pushed himself to his feet. “Here’s hoping.”

“I won’t swear you’ll be able to give this all your time,” he
was warned.

“I know.” With a nod, he left.

He’d counted himself lucky when he saw that two students who
had admitted to being at McKenna Sports Center on the night in question still
lived in Frenchman Lake. If Madison’s records were complete, Karen Blair Wardell
was currently unemployed although remaining an active volunteer in the schools,
and Bob Schuler was an attorney. When he called, both were available to see him
today.

Turned out, Karen Wardell’s husband had inherited one of the
few wheat farms large enough to survive the trend toward conglomeration. Troy
actually enjoyed the twenty-minute drive through the rolling countryside, mostly
covered by curving rows of grapevines. Eventually a rocky gully formed a sort of
demarcation, and golden fields of wheat, familiar from his childhood, took the
place of the grapes. He turned into a long driveway bordered by tall poplars
that dead-ended at a good-sized rambler surrounded by farm outbuildings.

Ms. Wardell was a still-trim woman with curly brown hair
captured in a bun and a friendly smile. She invited him in.

“Detective Troyer. Any relation to Joe Troyer?”

“My father.” He accepted her condolences, and then an offer of
lunch. While they ate sandwiches and a fruit salad, he asked how well she’d
known Mitchell King.

“Not well,” she said frankly. “You’re wasting your time talking
to me. I had a roommate who dated him for a few months back in—oh, I don’t know,
our sophomore year? If not for the murder, I doubt I’d even have remembered him.
As it is...”

She didn’t finish the sentence and didn’t have to. Nobody
attending Wakefield College at the time would ever have forgotten Mitchell
King’s name.

“Any impressions of him?”

“I couldn’t see the appeal.” She wrinkled her nose. “But the
roommate and I didn’t stay friends either, so...”

He smiled. “Would you mind telling me her name?”

She did, and he jotted it down in a spiral notebook.

“Was your, er, distaste physical, or did you not like him in
general?” he asked.

She paused with the sandwich halfway to her mouth. Wrinkles
formed on her forehead as she thought. “A little of both,” she finally said. “I
mean, he wasn’t my type, but mostly there was something about him...” That
required more thought. “He had a really unpleasant sense of humor,” she
concluded, her expression troubled. “Somebody was always the butt of it. Someone
not present to defend him or herself. You know?”

“I’ve met the type.”

“Like I said, I didn’t see enough of him to tell you if my
impression was accurate.”

He asked about the night of the murder, and she told him that
she and one of her housemates—by then she was living in a rental off-campus with
three other women—had gone to McKenna for a swim. “I wonder if those
all-nighters actually helped when we sat down to take the exam, or hurt,” she
said wryly, her smile reminiscent.

He smiled, too. “It’s tradition.”

“More like the perennial tendency of kids to put off until the
last possible second what they don’t want to do today. So I guess we can call it
human nature.” She poked a strawberry with her fork but he had the impression
she didn’t see it. Her gaze was fixed on the past. “I actually saw Mitch that
night. I think Becca and I were the only two who did.”

Or the only ones who admitted to seeing
him,
Troy thought.

“He was pushing open the door to the men’s locker room just as
we arrived. We were quite a ways down the hall, of course. I guess we were
talking, because he turned his head and looked at us. He sort of nodded and I
didn’t give it another thought.” A pained smile told Troy how often in the days
following the murder she’d remembered that nod, that moment.

Back then she’d said King was carrying a duffel bag, which in
fact was found in a locker along with his clothes. She struggled now to remember
the few other people she’d seen. He was dismayed to note the list didn’t include
anyone new—or two of the names she’d given to the police at the time. He knew
what had happened—her memory of the night had gotten trapped in that last
glimpse of Mitch King himself, in the realization that within an hour, max, he’d
died horribly. For her, it would be like a scratch on a record album, replaying
over and over while what came after never replayed.

She and her friend Becca had stayed together, she said, which
meant she was unlikely to have seen anything Ms. Wardell hadn’t.

He thanked her sincerely, appreciating both her cordiality and
the lunch that saved him from a fast-food stop once he got back to town. When he
told her he was on his way to talk to Bob Schuler, she smiled.

“Bob and his wife are good friends. I know he’ll help you as
much as he can.”

As he drove away from the farmhouse, a golden tail of dust
rising behind his Tahoe, Troy reflected on how much happier he’d be to talk to
someone who
wasn’t
thrilled to cooperate. Someone
who maybe had secrets, or at least bad memories.

You already did,
he reminded
himself. Madison’s father.

Hell
.

So, okay, what he really wanted was to find someone
else,
someone with an even bigger secret. He couldn’t
say he’d much liked Guy Laclaire after listening in on the one phone
conversation. But he knew this much: he surely didn’t want to have to arrest the
man.

* * *

M
ADISON
SPENT
PART
of her
day on a teleconference call with Jasmine Miller, a 1995 grad who was serving as
liaison for the Alumni Admission program. An assistant director of admissions,
Marco Quiroz, had joined her. Last year, nearly a hundred alumni across the
country had volunteered to interview kids who’d applied to the college. The
program had taken on increasing importance, as the impressions conveyed by the
alumni interviewers had more of an impact on an applicant’s admittance than most
people would have guessed. Inevitably, some of those interviewers wouldn’t be
available to do it again this year. Jasmine had ideas for recruiting more alumni
to help and for offering guidance to the volunteers, all of which had Marco and
Madison nodding and offering their support.

Alone again in her office, she tried to concentrate on the
column she was supposed to be writing for the upcoming college magazine that
went primarily to alumni but was also used by admissions officers in
recruitment. She kept an eye out year round for alumni who did something
exciting enough to merit a feature article. This particular magazine included an
interview with a fifty-eight-year-old woman who, after her husband died, decided
to fulfill her dream of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer. She’d been accepted
with enthusiasm and sent to Ghana.

Madison realized she’d been staring at her computer monitor for
a good ten minutes, her fingers resting, unmoving, on the keyboard. Not a single
sentence had formed in her mind, much less appeared on the blank screen. She
made a sound of disgust and sat back.

The column wasn’t due for a couple of weeks. She might as well
give up. The truth was, all she could think about was Troy’s quest. So why not
do something useful? Maybe she could descend into the basement, where paper
records were stored. She’d been mildly surprised to discover how many classmates
of Mitchell King had dropped off the college’s radar at some time in the past
thirty-five years.

And, hey! It was bound to be cool down there.

It was so much cooler that she moaned with pleasure, then
sneaked a surreptitious look out into the hall to be sure no one had heard
her.

The pleasure fled when she got a look at the banks of old metal
filing cabinets and tall metal shelving units packed with dusty cardboard
banker’s boxes. If she had to open every drawer and box...! But it turned out
labeling was adequate for her to find a good starting place, saving her from
perusing records that dated to the 1930s or who knew when. Eventually Madison
plunked one of the boxes on the single library table and pulled out the first
file.

Nope—these graduates were seven years ahead of her father. She
checked a couple of other files then replaced the lid and heaved the box back
onto a top shelf, taking down the one next to it.

She was already tired by the time she found the first records
from her father’s year of graduation. They’d been tidily put away in
alphabetical order. Jennifer Abhold was the first student.

Jennifer, Madison discovered, had dropped out before the end of
her freshman year.

Gerald Ackerman had graduated. There were a couple of brief
communications from him—he was working toward a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at an East
Coast school, he’d gotten married... And then at the back of his slim file was a
note from his wife, saying that Gerry had been killed by a drunk driver.