Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead (23 page)

She supposed Troy would be going to Portland. Would the
interview be at Dad’s office, high in the U.S. Bancorp Tower? Personally, she
believed that office was designed to intimidate, although her father would deny
it. She’d always thought it funny that the skyscraper itself was built out of
rose-colored granite; even the windows were tinted pink.
So
not Dad. It went without saying that the tower was one of the
most prestigious addresses in Portland—Dad wouldn’t have picked it otherwise—but
mostly she believed the appeal had been the view. With tall windows all around
him, he could stand astride the city, the Willamette River at his feet, and in
every direction see the volcanoes that defined the Northwest—Mt. Hood, St.
Helens, Adams, even Rainier.

Dad’s offices, of course, were done in severe black and gray
with touches of gold. His desk was a huge slab of granite.

Would Troy be intimidated?

No. Her certainty let a little warmth begin to melt the ice
that seemed to be encasing her.

She only hoped he remembered that the man he was confronting
was her father. And that, she thought, was assuming Troy actually cared about
her and hadn’t been using her, for information, for connections, for... No, she
couldn’t accuse him of that. He’d waited patiently for her to be ready for sex.
And yes, he’d even been reluctant; she couldn’t let herself forget that.

The warmth seemed to spread a little more as she thought,
of course he cares.
Kind, funny, intelligent,
stubborn—those qualities were Troy. But the tenderness, that had been for
her.

Then why, if she didn’t have any doubts about how he felt, was
she so uncertain?

“I love him.” She jumped at the sound of her voice and was
relieved to see her office door was closed. “I’m in love with him,” she said
more softly, less tentatively than she’d expected.

But, however betrayed she currently felt, she loved her father,
too.

Focus,
she reminded herself, and
managed—mostly—to do her job for the rest of the day.

She swam her usual laps then went home, where she nibbled at a
salad for dinner. Not until she was done, the kitchen clean, did she listen to
her messages.

To her surprise, the first was from Troy, not Dad. It was brief
and to the point.

“I spoke to your father. You may have heard from him by now. He
chose to come to Frenchman Lake to talk to me. I’m assuming he’ll be staying
with you.” There was a pause. “Call me, Madison. I’d like to see you
tonight.”

Next message.

“I can’t believe you hung up on me. What is wrong with you?”
Scathing rather than furious, Dad had obviously taken at least a few minutes to
rein in his temper before leaving this message. “I’m driving over to Frenchman
Lake Friday morning, meeting with this detective in the early afternoon. I
assume we can have dinner? If you don’t have a guest room, I’m sure I can find a
room somewhere.” He, too, paused. “I really would like to see you, Madison.” His
voice had changed, become hesitant. “Give me a call.”

Madison’s chest felt constricted. She couldn’t help noticing
how much the two messages echoed each other.
Call me. I
want to see you.

Dad didn’t know that there was a rivalry happening, but Troy
did.
Your father’s always here, too,
he’d said, and
now Dad would be, in the flesh.

She hugged herself, trying to keep it together when she seemed
to be falling apart.

* * *

T
ROY
HAD
COMMANDEERED
a conference
room for the upcoming interview. While he waited, he used the long table to lay
out the map he’d constructed of the campus and of McKenna Sports Center in
particular, with notations on who was verifiably where at what time. He was good
at keeping it all in his head, but he liked to see it in front of him, too.

In the course of the week that had passed since he returned
from Seattle, he’d eliminated more people. A part of him was still a little
disappointed to have crossed Gordon Haywood off his list, but he knew his
dislike had been petty. Hickman, the grounds maintenance guy, wasn’t looking
like a suspect, either. Troy had reached the ex-wife, who confirmed that he’d
been home that entire night. It was thirty-five years ago, he’d reminded her,
but Mrs. Hickman insisted the news of a murder on the campus had been so
shocking, she’d have recalled anything out of the ordinary the evening
before.

She didn’t sound real fond of her ex, so Troy didn’t think
she’d lie for him, although he couldn’t be sure. There was the possibility she
had known her husband was paying the blackmail and had conspired, if only by her
silence, to free them from a money drain they couldn’t afford. Or, more
innocently, that she was a heavier sleeper than she’d admit and hadn’t noticed
Leonard sneaking out for an hour. They’d lived less than half a mile from the
campus.

His gut said no, though; he thought she was straight-up, and
that while Leonard Hickman wasn’t a very nice guy, he also wasn’t a
murderer.

His phone vibrated and he answered.

“Mr. Guy Laclaire is here, Detective, and says he has an
appointment with you.”

“Thanks, I’ll be right out.”

Troy didn’t often let himself get nervous, but he discovered as
he walked to the lobby of the police station that today was an exception.
Grimacing, he rotated his shoulders to ease some of the muscle tension. There
wouldn’t be as much of it if he’d felt more confident in Madison, but, reality
was, he was scared to death he’d made a big mistake with her.

She had called him back the night before last, well after
dinner, and said, “Yes, Dad left a message saying he’d like to stay with me
Friday night. I haven’t talked to him yet. I’m actually surprised he’s coming to
Frenchman Lake. I suppose you were hoping he would, so you wouldn’t have to
waste your department budget on a trip to Portland.”

A half day’s drive, maybe one night in a hotel. Sure.

“He surprised me by offering.”

“Well, his only child does live here, after all.”

“Except that in the year and a half you’ve been on board at
Wakefield, he hasn’t yet visited you.” The biting words were no sooner out than
Troy wished he’d left them unspoken. They’d sting, and he hadn’t meant them that
way.

“Are you suggesting we’re not close?” Her voice held
astringency. “And yet you claim he’s always here.”

“Damn it, Madison, I’m sorry—”

“I’m afraid I have plans tomorrow night,” she said coolly. “Why
don’t we talk once my father has left?”

Approaching the front of the police station, Troy reflected
wryly that he had only himself to blame. He’d made passionate love to the woman,
then instead of calling the next day to say, “That was the best night of my
life, I hope you feel the same,” he’d left her a crisp message about her father.
He had let his own insecurities get to him, and in doing so had scraped at the
scar tissue—or was it only a scab?—that covered hers.

He was an idiot.

One who was now going to interview her father.

And, by God, he would be completely professional. He wouldn’t
wonder if Madison had already lied to her father and told him she’d met
Detective Troyer only in passing at the time capsule opening.

He’d found pictures of Guy Laclaire online, so he knew him
immediately. The golden boy had aged well, becoming a handsome man who obviously
worked at maintaining his lean, athletic physique. He stood as Troy approached,
his face impassive but his expression watchful. The dark suit he wore probably
cost twenty times what Troy had ever paid for anything in his wardrobe. The fit
in the shoulders and the drape were way too perfect to be off the rack.

Guy had passed on his coloring to his daughter, the mahogany
brown hair and brown eyes, the slight golden tint to the skin that suggested a
Mediterranean heritage. Somehow, though, the pictures hadn’t revealed the
resemblance, but in person it was obvious. Something about the cheekbones, the
distinctly high forehead. If anything had come from her mother, it was the lush
figure.

“Mr. Laclaire,” Troy said, holding out a hand. “I’m Detective
Troyer. Thank you for coming.” He glanced past him. “Do you have an attorney
with you?”

“No. However, I will stop the interview if at any time I think
I need one.”

“Fair enough. This way.”

They walked silently through the squad room, Laclaire’s head
turning as he took in the busy officers and detectives, the sobbing young
teenage girl who had been just been picked up for shoplifting—as if clerks at
J.C. Penney weren’t going to notice a thirteen-year-old browsing the store when
she was supposed to be in school.

“Bigger than I would have expected,” Laclaire commented,
nodding at their surroundings.

“I’ve explained to your daughter that even sleepy college towns
have domestic violence, robbery, rape and pretty much every other crime you get
in a city.”

Those sharp eyes turned to him. “Madison?”

Oh, hell, did his surprise mean she
had
lied?

Troy consoled himself with the possibility that she and her
father might not yet have really talked.

“Yes,” he said evenly, “we met when I was assigned to be the
police department liaison to the college for the time capsule opening. There was
more concern than usual because a couple of the alumni coming were well known.
And, of course, I’d have been there anyway in my father’s stead.”

“I see.” He nodded.

Troy held open the door to the conference room and stood back
to let Leclaire go ahead. The papers were still spread out on one end of the
long table, so Troy gestured to the other end. He was aware that Laclaire took a
look at the spread as he walked by before choosing to sit at the very end of the
table, as if assuming that the chairman’s position was naturally his. Or else it
was a tactical move.

Troy, who didn’t care about crap like that, pulled out another
chair.

“Do you intend to tape this interview?”

“No, actually I don’t,” Troy said, “but I can if you’d prefer
it.”

Laclaire watched him flip open his spiral notebook with mild
incredulity. “You take notes.”

Troy smiled. “Works for me.”

Laclaire drummed his fingers on the table, looked down as if in
surprise and stopped. “Is your father the only one who saw me that night?”

“Yes, although I’d have gotten around to interviewing you
anyway, as you were seen with Mitchell King in circumstances that suggest he was
blackmailing you.”

He grunted. “All these years.”

“You must have suspected my father saw you.”

“No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know.” Suddenly, he sounded human. “I
knew something was wrong. We were friends, you know.”

“So I gather.”

“I thought he was pissed because I’d stood him up. We were
supposed to meet for a game of racquetball.”

Troy only waited.

“I was paying the little prick. Not your father.” A sharp
glance. “You know the worst part? It wasn’t the money. It was the pleasure he
took in bringing everyone down to his level. He insisted on monthly payments
made in person, just so he could rub it in. And then there were the games he’d
play. He’d keep you standing there while he laughed and joked and pretended you
were buddies. But, Jesus—” He lifted a hand that had a faint tremor and rubbed
it over his face. “Not even he deserved that.”

Lightbulb on. “You saw his body.”

“Yeah. That’s why I was running. I got there early, didn’t see
Joe—who
always
got there ahead of me anywhere we
went—and so I stuck my head in the john, the sauna, you know. And I saw
Mitch.”

“Were you certain it was Mr. King?”

“Not a hundred percent. His face...” He stopped, shook his
head. “I suppose you’ve seen photos. He wore this bracelet, though. Braided
cord. That arm was flopping off the bench....”

To his credit, he looked as if the very memory made him queasy.
Troy understood. The crime scene photos had been ugly, even to a man relatively
conditioned to such sights.

Thinking hard, Troy studied Laclaire. “Let me ask you
something, Mr. Laclaire.”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“You’re making no effort to deny that you were present that
night. I appreciate you being forthcoming.” Troy was careful to keep his tone
entirely bland. “However, I have to wonder why you chose to admit being there,
when thirty-five years ago you were unwilling to do so, even though your
testimony would have been an enormous help in pinning down a time frame for the
murder.”

Laclaire’s jaws flexed. “I was twenty-one years old, and
terrified that someone would find out I’d cheated for a grade. I’d shocked even
myself by my behavior. When I saw Mitch, all I could think was that if anyone
found out he’d been blackmailing me, I’d be suspected of killing him. I was
there, wasn’t I? I did what most kids my age would have done in the same
circumstances—I ran like hell and prayed no one had seen me.” He grunted. “Where
was your father?”

“Sitting on the edge of the fountain waiting for you.”

Laclaire gave a bark of a laugh. “Assuming he’d beaten me
there, of course.” There was a wry kind of affection in his voice.

Troy had to fight any softening.

“How long had Mr. King been blackmailing you?”

“Since the beginning of the semester. I’d made four
payments.”

“Did you have any reason to suspect you were not his only
victim?”

That earned him an incredulous look from those sharp eyes. “I
knew there were others. He had a ledger. I assume the killer took it, since the
police never made reference to the possibility that he was anything but an
innocent college student. If they’d found the ledger, they’d have seen my
name.”

“Did it cross your mind that, had you shared what you knew, you
could have made it possible for the police to catch the killer?”