Looey.
He
was a semi-regular at Sal’s, a Michelob man who was about fifty. The Buckland
she’d met wasn’t yet thirty. “What does your Kurt Buckland look like, Officer?”
Michaels put his pen down. “Why?”
“I’m wondering if we’re talking about the same man.
The man who grabbed me last night was about thirty, maybe five-eleven, with
brown hair and brown eyes.” She was studying Michaels’s eyes as she spoke. “Not
your Kurt Buckland.”
“No.” Michaels had the same bad feeling, she could
see. “Let me take your statement, Miss Wilson, then I’ll check on Kurt. I mean,
Looey.”
The man who’d threatened her was not Kurt Buckland,
mild-mannered Metro reporter. That made his threat all the more bizarre and
terrifying. And suddenly even more personal against Noah. “Do you have a pencil
and paper?”
Michaels gave them to her and quickly she sketched the
man she’d seen. It wasn’t nearly the level of work she might have done before
her hand was slashed six years ago, but it was a passable facsimile. “This is
him,” she said. “Just in case.”
“Not bad. I’ve never seen him, but I’ll take this with
me when I go see Looey.”
Wednesday, February 24, 9:40 a.m.
Noah got back to his desk to find Jack angrily
throwing his own belongings in a box. “What the hell are you doing?”
Jack looked up, tight-lipped. “Moving.”
He grabbed Jack’s arm to keep him from tossing a book
in the box. “Why?”
Jack faltered. “I thought… I assumed you’d be asking Abbott
for a new partner.”
Noah blew out a breath. “Dammit, Jack. He was yelling
at me, not you. I should have told you about Amy Millhouse, but I just found
out about her this morning.” He told Jack about the latest on Kurt Buck-land.
“Abbott’s gonna take care of it.”
Jack puffed out his cheeks. “Is Eve reporting him?”
“She should be doing that right now. Did you get a new
cell phone?” It was an olive branch, albeit a skinny one.
“On my list to do today. There’s a store near Marshall
University. I’ll get one after we talk to Donner and Lyons.” He met Noah’s
eyes. “I really only had one drink, Noah.”
Noah lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes one’s all it takes.
Let’s go.”
“Wait.” Jack pointed over Noah’s shoulder and Noah
turned.
Eve was walking toward them. For a few seconds Noah
just let himself look. Her dark eyes were shuttered and there was no sign of
her little sideways smile. Something was wrong.
Something new, that is.
“Can you give me a minute?” he asked Jack.
“Sure. I’ll wait in the car.”
Eve nodded to Jack when he passed, then fixed her eyes
on Noah’s, and he knew it wasn’t going to be good. “I just finished filing my
complaint against Kurt Buckland.”
“Good.” He led her to an unoccupied room and closed
the door. Taking her arm, he pushed up her sleeve. “Did you show the officer
this bruise?”
She tugged her hand free. “Yes. Listen. Last night I
researched Buckland, found this article on your case is his first front-page
article ever. Everything he’s ever done has been in Metro, just like that first
article about Martha’s suicide.”
“So he bullies and blackmails to get ahead? Extreme,
but it’s been done.”
“I thought so until I came here today and filed my
complaint. Guess what? Officer Michaels knew him. Turns out Kurt is about fifty
and that everyone called him Looey.”
Noah frowned. “I know Looey. He’s good at darts. He’s
Buckland?”
“Apparently so.”
“So, then… who is the guy who took all the pictures?
And who threatened you?”
“That’s what somebody needs to find out. This is
personal, Noah. Against you.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered. “Another distraction.”
“So what will you do?”
“About Buckland or whoever he is? I want to find this
guy and make him pay, but right now I can’t. Right now, I’m going to let the
officer you talked to do his job. And right now I’m going to follow you to
school. Jack and I have to talk to Donner.”
“Then we need to go, because I’m late.”
But neither of them moved. “I never got to kiss you
last night,” he murmured.
“You did, at Sal’s.”
“That was a little one-sided. You never kissed me
back.”
“I was too surprised,” she said, shivering when his
thumb caressed her jaw.
Jack was waiting for him and they had so much work to
do, but Noah needed a minute, just one minute for himself. For Eve.
For both
of us
.
“Consider this fair warning then.” He covered her
mouth with his, willing her to respond, and after a few pounding beats of his
heart, she did. Lifting on her toes, she kissed him as she had in the coffee
shop, nothing held back. Her arms wound round his neck and he pulled her
closer, fitting her body to his. It was sweet and it was hot and he wanted so
much more. But this wasn’t the place, so he forced himself to stop.
She was breathing hard, her eyes closed. Her fingers
trembled as they trailed down his arms. Pressing his palms together, she rested
her brow on the tips of his fingers.
“Why?” she whispered so softly he had to lean forward
to catch it.
“Why which?” he asked, gruffly.
She lifted her head, her expression devastated. “Why
me? Why do you want
me
?”
“That’s a longer answer than I have time for now. Have
dinner with me tonight.”
“I have to work.”
“Then after. I’ll wait.”
“All right.” She pushed his folded hands gently to his
chest. “I need to get to class.”
Wednesday, February 24, 10:25 a.m.
“Detectives, I’m so sorry I missed you yesterday.
Please have a seat.” Dr. Donald Donner waved at two chairs on the other side of
his very disorganized desk.
“You’re a hard man to find,” Jack said. “We looked for
you yesterday.”
Donner smiled distractedly. “My wife and I went to see
her mother, who’s been ill.”
Noah kept his expression mild—a hard thing to do when
he thought about Donner’s last interaction with Eve. But after getting his
first look at Donner, Noah had crossed him off his list. Donner might have
access to the list, but he didn’t have the physical strength to hoist a woman
from her ceiling. “We’d also like to talk with your assistant, Mr. Lyons, but
we can’t find him either.”
At this Donner frowned. “He took the afternoon off
yesterday and didn’t come in this morning. That’s not like him. He’s very
reliable. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
You’d have to get another weasel to do your dirty work
, Noah thought with contempt for the older man. But he
and Jack were after alibis and for now would play nice.
“One of your studies has come up in the course of an
ongoing investigation,” Jack said. “The study in which participants play a game
called Shadowland.”
“Yes. That’s the work of one of my graduate students,
Eve Wilson.” His lips thinned. “But I guess you already knew that. No matter.
How can I help you?”
“You can start by telling us where you were last
night,” Noah said. “All night.”
“Why?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused, and Jack
frowned.
“We’re investigating murder, Professor. Four women
have been killed.”
“What does that have to do with my study?” Donner
asked.
“All four victims were participants,” Noah said,
wondering if the man’s confusion could possibly be real. “All four were heavily
into the Shadowland game.”
Donner sat back heavily, disbelief etched in his face.
“You’re joking.”
“We don’t joke, Professor,” Jack said, “especially not
about something like this.”
The color drained from Donner’s face. “Four women?” he
whispered. “In my study?” Then Noah’s first question seemed to catch up to him
as twin flags of crimson appeared on Donner’s sallow cheeks. “Am I correct in
understanding I am a suspect, Detective? That you want me to provide an… an
alibi
?”
“We’re asking everyone connected with the study,
Professor,” Noah said. “It would make our jobs a great deal easier if we could
just cross you off quickly.”
“Of course,” he murmured, distractedly. “I was with my
wife asleep.”
Noah jotted it down. “What about Monday morning
between midnight and five?”
“Asleep. With my wife.”
He was becoming agitated. “All right,” Noah said
calmly, and Donner appeared to try to regain control. “We think whoever is
killing your subjects has access both to your participant list and to the
questionnaires they filled out when the study began.”
“Why would you think that?”
“He uses information from the questionnaires to
torture them,” Jack said flatly.
Donner flinched. “Torture them? He tortured them? Who
are the four women?”
Noah frowned. “Don’t you read the paper, Dr. Donner?
Three of the victims were listed yesterday. On the front page.”
Donner gestured weakly to his journals. “I don’t read
much news.”
Okay.
“The
four victims are Samantha Altman, Martha Brisbane.” Noah stopped when the
remaining color drained from Donner’s face. “Professor?”
“Martha Brisbane, did you say?” Donner asked
unsteadily. “Dear God. I thought she’d committed suicide.” He abruptly went
silent, as if realizing he’d said too much.
“How did you know that, sir?” Jack asked quietly. “You
don’t read the paper.”
“My graduate student, Eve… she told me. I didn’t
believe it was related to our study at the time. The others? Who were they?”
“Christy Lewis and just last night, Rachel Ward,” Jack
said.
“I see.” He looked at Jack. “What do you need from
me?”
“Anybody who would have had access to the list and
those questionnaires.”
“I… I don’t know. My assistant entered the names, but
the committee separated them into groups. I only saw results by subject number.
Nobody was supposed to see everything. That’s the purpose of a double-blind
study.”
“What about the questionnaires? How were they used?”
Noah asked.
“They’re part of a baseline measure. They form a
profile, a personality index.”
“Did anybody read them?” Jack asked.
“Various students,” he said. “But nobody ever saw the
subjects’ real names. They were to input the answers in a standardized
protocol.”
There was nothing here they could use, Noah thought.
He and Jack stood. “Thank you,” Jack said. “We’re trying to keep Marshall and
Shadowland out of the press. We’re hoping the killer doesn’t know how much we
know. We’d appreciate your cooperation.”
Donner nodded, his face gray. “Of course,” he
murmured. “If you see Miss Wilson, tell her… Tell her I’m sorry. I should have
listened to her.”
“I’ll tell her,” Noah said. “If your assistant calls
you, let us know immediately.”
“Of course.” They left Donner with his head in his
hands, trembling.
“Well?” Jack said when they were back at their cars.
“He’s too… frail to have done these murders.”
“Mentally or physically?”
“Both.”
Jack nodded. “I agree. Let’s confirm Donner’s alibi
and find Jeremy Lyons.”
Noah gritted his teeth. “Dammit, I wish I’d grabbed
that little weasel yesterday.”
“I think we’ve all been a little distracted,” Jack
said. “Let’s pull LUDs on both Donner and Lyons and pay their wives a visit.”
Wednesday, February 24, 11:20 a.m.
Callie, it’s all right,” Eve said, setting her lunch
tray on the only empty table at the Deli. She sat down and slid her computer
bag safely between her feet. “None of this is your fault. I should have called
you, but I had no idea this guy would come to you.”
An irate Callie had intercepted Eve coming out of
Abnormal class, saying she had information about Noah Webster, that Eve needed
to know. More “Buckland” lies.
“I can’t believe I talked to him. He said you were
having an affair with a married man, that Webster had a wife named Susan.”
So that was her name
, Eve thought. She’d died, Sal had said. More than ten years ago. With
a sigh she patted Callie’s hand. “Chill. I have to send a text to Webster, let
him know I’m okay.”
“I am chilled, knowing that guy grabbed you. You’re
texting? Why not just call?”
Eve hated text messaging. Even short messages made her
thumb throb. “He’s working. I don’t want to bother him during an interview.”
“Give me your phone. I’ll do it for you. What do you
want to say?”
“Um… at the Deli with Callie. Was walked over by a
large ex-wrestler named Jose. Currently surrounded by at least six cops. Am
quite safe. Don’t worry, Eve.”