Murder 101 (12 page)

“Why do you think he liked her?”

“Probably the sex was hot.” She shrugged. “Isn’t that usually the reason guys put up with crazy girls?”

McAdams came in with the hot water for her and two cups of coffee for them. “I don’t know how you take it so I put in some sugar and milk.”

“Thanks, it’s fine.” Decker took a sip. He wasn’t used to the watered-down stuff. He liked his mud without any accoutrements. “We were just talking a little bit about Lance, Terry.” He turned his eyes back to Lucy. “What do you mean when you say Lance is basic?”

“Well . . .” She sipped hot water, which must have warmed her up. She took off her jacket. “Lance plays football for Littleton . . . that’s kinda like saying you’re a caddy for Tiger Woods’s caddy. Our sports teams aren’t in competitive divisions other than tennis and maybe water polo. The football teams play small liberal arts colleges in the area as well as each other.”

“Did Lance come here on a football scholarship?”

“No, his family has money.”

“Where is his family from?” McAdams asked.

“Manhattan. The Upper East Side.”

“Groton?”

“Horace Mann. I’m from Groton. Were you in Groton?”

“Phillips Exeter,” McAdams said. “What’s Lance’s major?”

“Performing arts, acting. That’s where we met.”

“You’re an actress?” Decker asked.

“
Actor.
”

“Right.” Decker smiled. “Is that how you met Angeline?”

“No, she’s an art history major. I’m an econ major actually. Why else would I be at Morse McKinley. But I find that marketing and acting have a big area of intersection. Anyway, Lance used to bring Angeline to the theater parties. It’s probably how we met, although I don’t remember the specifics.”

McAdams asked, “What was Angeline’s substance of choice?”

“She liked whiskey and bourbon. Jack Daniel’s. I don’t do booze . . . too many calories.”

Decker said, “What else did Lance tell you about Angeline?”

“Just that she was nuts. He didn’t elaborate.” She started chewing on her thumb again. “I know they still talked. Every time she’d call, he’d, like, turn around and talk quietly into the phone, protecting the call like I’d listen in. Finally I told him, ‘Look, if you want a girlfriend, you’ve got to stop behaving stupid. Just cut her out of your life!’ ”

“Did he?”

She blew out air. “I don’t think so.”

McAdams said, “Booty calls?”

“If anyone did the booty calling, it would be her. According to Lance, they used to fuck all the time.” She rolled her eyes. “God, as I’m talking about him, I don’t know why I put up with it.” She shrugged. “I guess I don’t care all that much. I mean, it’s a college fling. And he takes me out to nice dinners when we go into the city.” She checked her watch. “It’s two-thirty in the morning. I need to get some rest.”

Decker said, “Just a couple more questions. Lance mentioned another guy. Someone he called a freak named John. What do you know about that?”

“Nothing.”

“C’mon. Lance must have mentioned him when he was pissed at Angeline.”

“All he said is that she’s seeing some freak.”

“How did he know?”

“Beats me. When he went on his tirades, I barely listened.”

“Did he give the freak a name other than John?”

“No.”

“Did he know where the freak lived?”

“I wouldn’t know.” A pause. “This could be totally wrong, but I got the feeling that the freak wasn’t a student at any of the colleges.”

“Tell me why?”

“Because Lance used to rant about how old he was.”

“How old was he?”

“From the way Lance talked about it, he was around thirty.”

“And he never said where the freak lived?” When she didn’t answer, Decker said, “It’s not a time to be holding back, Lucy. Angeline was murdered and I really need to talk to this guy.”

“I don’t know where he’s from and that’s the God’s honest truth.” A pause. “I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but it sticks in my mind as odd, so I’ll tell you. A few months ago, Lance asked if I wanted to meet him for a Saturday night dinner in the city. It was reading week so I didn’t have classes anymore. I figured why not. I asked him what he was doing in the city. He said he had some family affair earlier in the day and if I could come down on my own, he’d drive me back up. I agreed. I made all these plans to hitch a ride into Manhattan. At the last minute, right before I was ready to go, he called me and said, change of plans. He was in Boston. Could I come up? I was pissed but he offered me a car service to come up and we’d drive down together.”

“That was nice,” Decker said. “Even a little extravagant.”

“Yeah, it was. But we’re closer to Boston than to New York anyway, so I didn’t think much about it.”

“Did you meet him?”

“I did. He took me out to a Spanish place. It was really, really good and we had a good time. But he was downing the pitchers of sangria like it was water.”

“What did you think?”

“Well, I was kinda worried about him driving. But the meal lasted a long time and when we were done, he seemed sober enough.”

Sober enough. Great.
Decker said, “Do you know why he was in Boston instead of New York?”

“I asked him that. He told me he had an audition at Boston Rep and didn’t want to tell me . . . that it was bad luck. And that made total sense. Lots of actors are very secretive about their auditions because the field is so competitive. And because he was drinking so much, I thought it probably didn’t go well. So I dropped it.”

“Does he have family in Boston?”

“No idea.”

“Friends?”

“Probably. The city is full of colleges.”

Decker said, “So what made you skeptical about his story?”

“Not exactly skeptical. More like . . .”

“Dubious?” McAdams tried. “Doubtful? Unsure? Uncertain? Hesitant? Cynical? Am I getting closer?”

She smiled. “I just think there was more to the story than an audition.”

“Angeline often went away for the weekends,” Decker said. “Do you think he could have been following her?”

“Possibly.”

“Because it happened before?”

“Not like a stalker . . . I’m not saying that. More like he was curious, I guess.” She rubbed her arms. “Can I go home now?”

“Yes, you can.” Decker looked at McAdams. “Take the spare squad car and drive her back, please.” He handed Lucy his card. “If you think of anything more that could help us, please call.”

“Sure.” She stood up and smiled at McAdams. “Where’d you go to college?”

“Harvard.”

“Thought so. You seem Crimson.” She was still smiling as she slipped on her coat. “Why are you working as a cop? Gonna write the ultimate screenplay or something?”

“Yeah.” McAdams held the door open for her. “Something.”

CHAPTER 12

L
ANCE HAD FALLEN
asleep in the interview room. In the big city, dozing was usually a sign of psychopathology. But in this case, it was three in the morning, Lance had been partying, and he was overwhelmed with exhaustion. Decker still had a good six working hours left in him, but McAdams was drooping. Maybe a little strategy planning would wake him up. They were looking at Terry through a one-way mirror.

“Did Lucy say anything on the way back to her dorm?” Decker asked.

“About Terry? No.”

“Is she flirtatious?”

“Yep.”

“She’s cute.”

“Not my type.”

Decker shrugged. “Do you think she’s Terry’s type?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is she a rebound relationship from Angeline or do you think he really likes her?”

“He likes her enough to fuck her. College guys aren’t noted for discrimination.”

“Speaking of which, do you think Terry was still doing her?”

“Angeline?” Tyler nodded. “If she’d let him, sure.”

“Think that’s why he was in Boston? Meeting up with her for a tryst?”

“Makes more sense for him to just go to her apartment.”

“What if Angeline was living with a guy?”

“The freak? If he exists, he probably wasn’t there all the time. They could easily squeeze in a quickie.” McAdams shrugged. “Besides, Boston seems like a long way to go for a nostalgic fuck with the ex.”

“What do you think about Lucy’s stalking theory?”

“I think stalking makes more sense than traveling three hours for a booty call.”

“Why?”

“Because if all he wanted was sex, I’m sure he could have figured out how to do it closer to home.” He faced Decker. “If Angeline dumped him, he’d think about her for a while. Who did she throw me over for? Who’s the other dick? But eventually, he’d just let it go. That’s how college guys are.”

Decker said, “So let’s see if we can rule him out as a suspect. Angeline was murdered recently, so we need him to retrace his steps over the weekend. If we can rule him out, then we can concentrate on the other guy a.k.a. the freak.”

“Whatever you think, boss.” When Decker was silent, McAdams took out his iPad and said, “That came out as sarcastic. I didn’t mean it like that. I know this is serious stuff. And I know I haven’t a clue. I cede to your superior knowledge.”

“More like my experience. It’s nothing you can’t learn, Tyler. But you’ve got to want to learn it.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That’s a good start.”

“THIS WEEKEND, THIS
weekend . . .” Terry was having a hard time concentrating even with the double shot of caffeine. “Uh, starting on Friday?”

“Yes, tell me what you did on Friday.”

“I was in school.”

“How about Friday night?”

“I didn’t murder her. I loved her.”

“I believe you. This is just routine. Friday night, Lance.”

“Uh, Friday night . . .” He hit his head. “I had a game on Friday night. We won.”

“Congratulations. What did you do after the game?”

“Partied. Morse McKinley . . . that’s where most of the parties take place.” He cleared his throat. “The way it works is that Morse McKinley and Littleton are like one group versus Clarion, Duxbury, and Kneed Loft. I mean our swipe cards can get us into Morse McKinley’s gym facilities, but not into Duxbury. Most of the time, Morse McKinley students use Littleton facilities because we’re a smaller college.”

“A consortium within a consortium,” McAdams said.

“Yeah . . . I guess. We can still take classes at any of the colleges, but we’re allowed to take more classes at Morse McKinley than at the other three colleges. We still have to take a certain amount of classes at Littleton unless our major is a 5-C major, meaning you can take classes in your major across the colleges. Angeline wasn’t a 5-C, but she took a lot of classes at Duxbury because it’s the most prestigious of the colleges. She thought she was all that.”

Decker said, “Let’s return to Friday night after the game.”

“I told you I went to a party. There were like a zillion people who saw me.”

“And what did you do after the party?”

“Went back to my dorm room and fell asleep.”

“What time was that?”

“Around . . . four.”

“Did you go back alone or did you go back with friends?”

“I went back alone. I was pretty wasted and needed to sleep.”

“Did you swipe your card to get into your dorm?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

“So there would be an electronic record of it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Check it out.”

“I’ll do that. What time did you wake up the next morning?”

“Late . . . twelve, twelve-thirty. I made it down to lunch . . . that must have been around one. I went back to my dorm and showered. We had an acting seminar at three until six. Afterward, I worked out for a couple of hours . . . then I had dinner at the dining hall . . .”

Decker and McAdams waited.

Terry rubbed his eyes. “Can I check with my phone?”

“Sure.”

Terry took out his phone and then said, “Ah . . . another party. This one was at Kneed Loft. I went with Lucy. We both got wasted, and then we went back to my room . . . she spent the night. We went to brunch in Greenbury on Sunday morning. Health and Hearth. I hate that place but she loves it.” He continued to consult his schedule. “I worked out . . . I had an appointment at the writing center at four.”

“Did you show up?”

“Yeah, of course. My tutor was Liz. We worked on my Native Americans of the Southwest paper. The Pueblo revolt of 1680 and the recapturing of the land by Spain under Diego de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon.” He grinned. “The mind is still working.”

“Good for you,” Decker said. “What did you do after that?”

“I went to dinner at the dining hall. Then I guess I was in my dorm all night. My door was open. It’s always open unless I’m doing my business with my woman. People coming and going. Lucy came over at around ten. She left at twelve and I went to bed.”

“We are now at Monday.”

“I had classes. Then I had practice. Then I showered and did a little work. And then Lucy came over and we went to a party at Palm Hall in Littleton. Lucy came back with me and . . .” He grinned a third time. “We are now up to date.”

“I need phone numbers,” Decker said. “We’ll need to verify everything.”

“Go ahead,” Terry said. “I’m down with that. Angeline and I hadn’t been together for a year. Like I told you, I moved on.”

“But you’ve been in contact though.”

“A few texts here and there.”

“You’ve spoken to her on the phone as well.”

“When she called me, I didn’t hang up on her.”

“Did you ever call her?”

“Not once I found out she had someone else.”

“Yeah, the freak. John something . . . do you recall his last name? There are a lot of Johns out there.”

“I’ve been thinking. Leather . . . Letter . . . it’s something like that.”

“Keep thinking. You’ll nail it down. And in the meantime, tell me about him.”

“Pretentious arty type.”

“You’ve talked to him?”

“Well . . . no.” Lance blew out air and took a swig of coffee. “No, he just looks pretentious. Really, really skinny. Like he lives on air or something. He has a scrawny beard and a long braid down his back. He wears black—including a black hat.”

“Hipster meets hippy,” McAdams said.

“Yeah . . . like he can’t quite decide. And he’s old . . . old for her, I mean. Maybe thirty-two or thirty-three. He’s just got the type of face that you want to put a fist through. Smug little bastard. I just don’t understand what she sees . . . saw in him. I asked her about it . . . when she called me up. What the fuck do you see in him?”

“What’d she say?” Decker asked.

“She’d just laugh . . . like I couldn’t understand. Bitch!”

“You sound angry.”

“I’m angry at her for being conned.”

“Maybe he was a secret prince?”

“Right . . . living in a one-bedroom shit house in Summer Village outside of Boston. The locals call it Slummer Village.”

“So you know where he lives,” Decker said.

Terry turned a deep red. “Uh . . . she told me. Angeline did. I said he looked old for a college student and she told me he wasn’t a student. That he was some kind of lecturer or postdoc or something.”

“Tufts University is in Medford, which is next to Summer Village,” McAdams said.

“Yeah, I know,” Terry said. “Angeline told me he was at Tufts.”

“What was his field?”

“I didn’t ask and she didn’t tell me. We didn’t speak that often after the breakup.” Terry exhaled. “This isn’t politically correct to say out loud but he looked gay. For the life of me, I can’t understand what she saw in him.”

“Could they have had something else going on?”

Terry was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Julia Kramer told me that about the same time Angeline broke up with you, she began toting around expensive handbags. Could they have been doing something illegal together?”

Lance was stoic, then stunned. “You don’t think they were sleeping together?”

“I don’t know. And it’s possible that they were sleeping together and still doing something illegal. We’re exploring everything. And if you say that he was a postdoc student, it appears she wasn’t getting her money from him.”

“I don’t know where she got her money,” Terry said. “I . . . was out of her life.” He turned to McAdams. “Are you from Massachusetts?”

“I went to school there.”

“Tufts?”

“Yeah,” McAdams lied.

“Did you know him?”

McAdams said, “Lots of Johns in the school, Lance. It would help if I had a last name.”

Terry went quiet. So did McAdams. Decker said, “Did you ever pay the mysterious John a visit, Lance?”

“No . . . why would I?”

“You knew he lived in Summer Village. And I know you were in the area when you went on your audition at the Boston Repertory Company,” Decker said. “Maybe you took a little side visit.”

Terry turned red again . . . this time out of anger. “Lucy told you about the audition?”

“She did. Now I’m not saying you were stalking Angeline—”

“I wasn’t stalking anyone! I had an audition and it didn’t go well. To blow off some steam, I drove by his apartment, taking great pleasure and schadenfreude in his shabby building. Je-ez! Can I go now?”

Decker took a chair and pulled it up close to Terry. “Lance, you’re not a suspect—”

“Well, thank you.”

“You’re here to help us find a killer, okay? So if there was another guy in her life, I want to know about him . . . starting with his last name . . . which I know you know. So tell me.”

Terry closed his eyes. “Latham. John Latham.”

McAdams was already on his iPad. “There’s a John Latham who’s a stage actor in England who’s fifty.”

“The guy wasn’t fifty,” Lance said.

“There’s a John Jeffrey Latham who won a Windsor Prize: Political Analysis of Prolekult and the Soviet Socialist Realism Art Movement.”

“Well, ex-cuse me!” Lance said.

“Let me get an image.” McAdams showed the picture to Lance. “Is this him?”

Lance stared at the picture. “Yeah, that’s him. Do you know him?”

“Nope.”

“What does the article say about him?”

“Not much . . . it mostly talks about the Windsor Prize. It’s given to candidates every four years who have excelled in the fields of arts and politics . . .” McAdams looked up. “I know that Tufts is known for the Fletcher Graduate School of International Affairs. I bet he’s either a postgrad there or maybe a lecturer—something like that.”

“He’s a prick, that’s what he is,” Terry said.

“Lance, do you know anything else about Latham?” Decker asked. “If you know something, tell me now.”

“Only that he and Angeline like to go out for Thai.” He bowed his head. “Okay. So I followed them a little in the beginning. Then Lucy and I starting hanging and I lost interest.”

“Do you have any idea where Angeline got the money to buy expensive purses?”

“No.” Said emphatically. “And it’s really ironic. Because if she wanted nice things like that, I would have bought them for her.”

“You went together for two years and you didn’t buy her anything nice?” Decker asked.

“I took her out to nice places—restaurants, concerts, sports events. I took her to a couple of Jets games, a Knicks game. We went on a couple of nice weekends. But . . . I never bought her much of anything: T-shirts, books, flowers a few times . . . nothing expensive like designer handbags.”

“If you loved her so much, why not?”

“Well . . . for starters . . . she never asked.”