Consider the Crows Read online

And it was a residence, as opposed to simply a house.

  She knew Audrey Kalazar only in the way a good police chief knows the important people in town, and the vice-chancellor was never a woman to underestimate her importance. In other words, a certain amount of kowtowing was necessary. Keith Kalazar, a writer of some note, received celebrity status. Hampstead didn’t have many celebrities. His books were of the life-is-grim, human-relationships-are-destructive variety; quite good books, actually.

  The house was a two-story red brick with a row of white columns across the front, terraced grounds and flower beds waiting for spring flowers. She trudged up steps lined with cement urns and poked the doorbell. Chimes echoed away inside.

  Keith Kalazar answered the door; a man straight out of central casting. Send us a writer. Late forties, brown hair and well-trimmed beard with a tasteful touch of gray, fawn jacket with leather elbow patches, pipe in hand. He looked distracted, as though she’d interrupted him in the midst of creation; maybe writers—like cops—worked on Sundays.

  “Chief Wren. Is something wrong?”

  She was a little surprised he knew her. She’d met him once or twice at town functions where Audrey was involved and he was always in the background; soft-spoken, rather vague and seemed a spectator in life rather than a participant. He must be more observant than she thought. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. I won’t take long.”

  “When it’s not going right, writers seize any chance at interruption.” He led her into a large living room so immaculate it was intimidating; dark walnut floors, walnut tables, ivory rugs with beige borders. She perched on an ivory couch and hoped she wouldn’t leave a crease, or, God forbid, a smudge.

  “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “If you’ve come to see Audrey, you’re out of luck, I’m afraid. She’s off to some conference.” He stood with his back to French doors that opened onto a wide porch and an expanse of winter-brown grass with a pedestal birdbath in the exact center.

  “It’s Julie I need to see.”

  “Why?” His attention sharpened.

  “A young woman has been killed—”

  “Who?” He left his spot by the door and dropped into a wingbacked chair.

  “Lynnelle Hames. Did you know her?”

  He shook his head as he searched through pockets, found a book of matches, struck one and took a long time puffing on the pipe with the lit match held over the bowl. “What happened to her?”

  “We don’t know yet. Where can I find Julie?”

  “Why Julie?” The words were heavy with worry.

  “Just a few questions,” she said calmly. “Lynnelle was a friend. I’m surprised you didn’t know her.”

  “I may have met her. Kids seem to be in and out all the time. Sometimes I lose track.”

  Susan, nodding understandingly, wondered why he was reluctant to tell her where his daughter was. Parental protectiveness or something more? “Where is Julie?” she repeated smoothly, as if she were prepared to go on asking, all day if that’s what it took. She watched him hesitate.

  He puffed on the pipe, then said, “On campus. Studying. At the library.”

  As she opened the door of the pickup, she glanced up at the house and saw a curtain flick in a second-floor window. Making sure she left? She dropped down to Ridgefield and set off for campus. As she drove past Erle’s Market, she spotted Sophie nipping inside. Susan made a left, parked the pickup in the lot and entered the store from the rear, wandered up and down aisles looking for Sophie.

  “Chief Wren.” The mayor’s wife pinched an anemic-looking tomato and put it back. “We’re not at all pleased.”

  I’m not at all surprised. Murder usually doesn’t please anyone. Except the perpetrator.

  Mrs. Bakover, a thin woman with artfully applied makeup and a sculptured hairdo that looked ten minutes old, waited for a reply. Susan complied. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Those college girls came to see me yesterday with another application.”

  Oh. That. Mrs. Mayor obviously hadn’t been listening to the local radio station.

  “They claimed you told them they were entitled to a booth at the fair.”

  “It’s to raise money for the Helping Hand Fund, right? They simply want to help.”

  “They’d better have something handmade, I can tell you that.” Mrs. Bakover fingered the strand of pearls resting on her beige sweater. “I hope you’re prepared for trouble because trouble there’s bound to be.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “You mark my words. Information on AIDS.” She looked highly indignant. “At the fair!”

  “It could prevent someone from contracting the disease and the Helping Hand could then help someone else.”

  Mrs. Bakover sniffed and went back to selecting tomatoes. Not finding Sophie anywhere, Susan bought two slightly green bananas—not because ripe ones weren’t available but because she only liked them green—and ate them while she drove to the campus.

  * * *

  Emerson College, with its mixture of modern glass and steel and old creamy limestone buildings, sprawled over and around small hills thick with trees and crisscrossed with pathways. On a knoll overlooking Pauffer Lake, a bronze statue of Josiah Hampstead gazed benignly into the distance. He’d come here in 1856 when Kansas was still a territory, laid claim to all the land he could see and built the gristmills that made him wealthy; mills famous for their ability to grind fifteen bushels of corn per hour. A free-stater, he was engaged in the bloody conflicts with pro-slavery men. The town was named after him, and he’d donated the land for the college.

  She parked in the faculty lot, almost empty on Sunday afternoon. Heavy black clouds roiled overhead and one or two fat raindrops splotched across the windshield. The campanile bells chimed the hour and then struck four times. No wonder she was starving.

  Turning up the collar of her trenchcoat, she strode along a path in the direction of the library. A student, huddled inside a hooded blue sweatshirt emblazoned with the glittery snarling wildcat, came toward her, muttering grimly to himself. “A equals F over M equals Wt minus R over M. Remember if R equals Wt then A equals O.”

  Right. I’ll try to remember that. For all she knew he might be reciting the formula for a bomb. She trotted up the black marble steps of Keller Library, entered the hushed atmosphere of higher learning and scouted around for Julie. The long wooden tables were clotted with students, heads bent over books, scribbling away in notebooks. One young man lifted his head, stared at her, then darted a guilty look at his backpack. Oh ho, carrying around an illegal substance? It wasn’t until she reached the top floor that she spotted Julie in the stacks.

  “We can’t,” Julie, in blue jeans and a man’s white shirt with the shirttail hanging almost to her knees, was whispering fiercely to a young Hispanic male in an Emerson sweatshirt.

  “Why?” He had his hands in his back pockets and a scowl on his handsome face.

  “Because.” She put an imploring hand on his wrist.

  He shrugged it off and brushed past her, stalking around Susan without a glance.

  “Nick—” Julie turned and spotted Susan. “Oh— Chief Wren—” Surprise and dismay flickered in her hazel eyes.

  “I’d like to speak with you for a few minutes, Julie.”

  “Oh. Well.” She looked at Susan a shade frantically. “Sure. I guess.” She shoved hair behind one ear, rapidly blinking back tears.

  “Let’s go across to the student union. I’ll buy you some coffee.”

  Sprinkles of rain fell as they headed up the path to the union, one of the newer buildings, a row of glass doors along the front. They went down a flight of stairs to the coffee shop, rather cutely called the Cat’s Cradle, in the basement. A snarling gold-painted cat, two feet high, crouched just inside the door.

  The place was crowded with students; the babble of voices and clatter of crockery made the noise level just beyond bearable. This may not have be
en the best choice, Susan thought. Blue banners picturing the snarling cat hung on the red brick walls. The air felt steamy with the odor of brewed coffee and damp wool and frying grease. The almost palpable energy emanating from all these kids made her want to sigh. Had she ever been this young and fresh-faced? She bought coffee for herself, cinnamon tea for Julie, and they worked around to a far corner where they managed to snag a table.

  “Who were you talking to?” She asked Julie when they were seated.

  “Nick. Nick Salvatierra. A friend.”

  Uh-huh, Susan thought.

  Julie hunched her shoulders and busied herself dunking the tea bag in the mug of hot water. “He’s in my calculus class.”

  Susan took a sip of bitter coffee and studied the girl’s bent head. She was attractive, with a wholesome, scrubbed appearance, and at the moment very worried about something.

  Julie glanced up, caught Susan’s gaze and sat straight. “So. What did you want to ask me?”

  Susan pulled the textbook from her bag and slid it across the table.

  Julie grabbed it and dropped it in her lap. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Lynnelle’s house.”

  A deep flush spread across Julie’s cheeks, tears welled in her eyes. “I heard about that. What happened?”

  “I don’t know yet. How did your textbook get out there?”

  Julie rubbed the back of a finger across her eyes, then fiddled with the spoon, smoothing the ball of her thumb in the bowl. “We were friends.”

  “She wasn’t a student.”

  “That doesn’t mean we couldn’t be friends,” Julie retorted.

  “Of course not.” Nevertheless, it was unusual. Students made friendships among themselves and seldom went outside their own circle. “Has somebody suggested otherwise? Nick maybe?”

  “No. Why would he?”

  “Did he know her?”

  Julie shrugged. “Sure.”

  Something was going on here that Susan didn’t understand. Handsome Nick might deserve some attention. She fished in her bag for cigarettes and lit one. Julie, with a tiny frown of disapproval, lifted the mug with both hands and took a cautious sip. Susan turned her head to exhale.

  “Probability stinks,” a young male at the next table said to his friend. “I miss one lousy question and Egersund gives me a B.”

  “Well shit, man. She gave me a C.”

  “Yeah? What’d you miss?”

  Susan turned back to Julie. “Did Lynnelle ever talk about her family?”

  “Not a lot. She was kind of secretive, but I don’t think she liked them very much. She said one time that you can’t trust anybody. Not even your own parents.” Julie gave her a wry smile. “Sometimes I can sort of understand that. Not that I don’t trust my parents, but sometimes they can be too much.”

  “Did she ever seem worried about anything? Or frightened?”

  “She did, kind of,” Julie said slowly, as though she was thinking back. “She never said much. I might of been worried living out there all by myself, but that didn’t seem to bother her. Well, she had the dog. Not that Lexi’d be much good. I told her that dog couldn’t even protect her from the ghost.”

  “Ghost?”

  Julie pushed hair behind her ear and twisted a strand. “You know, old man Creighton. He died years and years ago and he had pots and pots of money. When I was a kid, we were scared to go near the place because old Creighton’s ghost was supposed to be hovering around protecting the money.”

  “Did she say why she came here?”

  “She was looking for her past.”

  How much past could a twenty-one-year-old girl have? “What did she mean?”

  “I never figured that out. It’s probably in her notebook though.”

  “Notebook?” There had been no notebook in the house.

  “She was always writing in it. A three-ring binder, blue.”

  “Who were her friends?”

  Julie lifted the mug and held it between both hands. “Well, Edie.”

  “Edie Vogel? Your mother’s secretary? Anybody else? What about boyfriends?”

  Julie shook her head, lowered the mug and sat peering into it.

  Susan could tell she was concealing something; it sat oddly on her fresh-scrubbed face, but Susan felt no further progress was possible until she learned more. Julie looked back up and her eyes were shiny with tears.

  “Call me,” Susan said, “if you think of anything else that might help.”

  With a nod, Julie rose, clutched the textbook to her chest and edged around crowded tables toward the door.

  Susan spent forty minutes looking for Nick Salvatierra. He was no longer at the library; he wasn’t in his room at the dorm; nobody she asked knew where he was. She gave it up and walked through the fading daylight and light rain back to the parking lot.

  A couple, oblivious of the rain, stood nose to nose in front of the pickup. “Jerk!” the young woman spat. “You’d probably understand me better if I was a football.”

  The young man, looking bewildered and guilty and contrite, scooped her into an embrace. Over her shoulder, he glanced at Susan and crossed his eyes. Smiling, Susan aimed a finger at the center of his forehead and climbed in the pickup.

  6

  THE RADIO CRACKLED and Susan picked up the mike.

  “Ben’s trying to get hold of you,” Hazel said.

  “Patch him through.”

  Parkhurst’s voice came over, distorted by interference. “In regard Lynnelle’s job application. No next of kin listed. Previous address in Boulder, Colorado. Previous employment, ticket seller at a movie theater in Oklahoma City, receptionist for electronics firm, also Oklahoma City. Social security number.”

  “No home address or permanent address?”

  “Negative.”

  Damn. “All right. Get on to Boulder PD. See what they can give us. Contact previous places of employment. Although that’ll probably have to wait until Monday. Lynnelle is not Jane Smith. It can’t be that hard to track down.”

  “Right. And I’ll have another shot at Egersund and McKinnon.”

  “Be polite.”

  It was five-thirty when Susan parked in front of the small white frame with brick trim where Edie Vogel lived. A street light sparkled through drizzle, and moisture dripped disconsolately from the bare-limbed tree in a deep front yard full of dead weeds which straggled across the walk. She tapped on the aluminum storm door; the front door had a heavy glass panel covered by a sheer curtain stretched between two rods. A porch light went on. Edie pulled the curtain aside and peered out, then slid back the curtain; a second or two went by before she opened the door.

  “You’ve come about Lynnelle,” Edie said in a flat voice.

  Although light spilled from the kitchen, the living room was in darkness and Edie, moving heavily, switched on lamps. She was a sturdy young woman of twenty-two with broad shoulders and brown hair cut into points around what should be a pert little face, but her face was pale and slack with a shadow of despair behind her brown eyes, and the eyes were red and puffy.

  Last November, her ex-husband had picked up their two-year-old daughter for the Thanksgiving weekend and never brought her back. After several days of frantic phone calls trying to find them, she came to the police. Susan hated any domestic disturbance—all cops did, too potentially explosive—but snatching a kid made her savagely furious. She’d explained the legalities and Edie obtained a court order stipulating the ex-husband had violated the custody agreement. With that, Susan could put out his description, photo and a pickup alert. She’d also suggested a private investigator. Edie had clutched at that like a drowning woman. Each time Susan saw her she seemed a little thinner, a little more bleak.

  A tea kettle whistled in the kitchen and Edie jumped. “I’ll just turn off the stove,” she said.

  Susan sat in an armchair upholstered with a fuzzy fabric of large pink flowers and green leaves. On the matching couch lay a dog-eared teddy bear and two tattere
d children’s books. A ceramic vase of a sleeping puppy with plastic flowers sat on the coffee table. A child’s square wooden stepping block was pulled up close to the coffee table, across the seat was a verse: This is my stool for watching TV. For brushing my teeth. Or doing a job that’s bigger than me.

  From the kitchen came the sound of running water and a moment later Edie reappeared. She settled on the couch, feet close together on the floor like a schoolgirl, and arranged the tan plaid skirt over her knees.

  “When did you last see Lynnelle?”

  “Friday after work we walked to the parking lot.”

  “She had plans for Saturday evening, something that was important. Did she mention them?”

  Edie stared at her hands, picked at a Band-Aid on one finger, and shook her head.

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing really. We just talked. I told her about Dr. Egersund.”

  “What about Dr. Egersund?” Finding the body automatically made Egersund a suspect, but Susan was beginning to think they should take a real serious look at the woman.

  “Dr. Kalazar was furious with her. She called her into her office, Dr. Kalazar’s, I mean, and I heard them through the door.”

  “Arguing?”

  “More like Dr. Kalazar was reading her out. In this loud voice. Not shouting, but mean and threatening.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I couldn’t hear it all.” Edie hunched her shoulders. “‘How dare you interfere.’ And ‘I know what’s best for my daughter.’ And she said, ‘You better stick to teaching or I’ll see to it you won’t teach here.’”

  “What had Dr. Egersund done?”

  “I couldn’t hear that part. She came out all mad, Dr. Egersund, with her face all tight and walked real soft right by me without saying anything.” Edie paused. “She better be careful because Dr. Kalazar gets real irritated when things aren’t the way she wants and she doesn’t give anybody a second chance.”

  Grabbing the teddy bear, Edie held it in the crook of her arm and caressed its grimy head. “She didn’t like Lynnelle.”

  “Dr. Egersund?”

  “Dr. Kalazar.”

  “Why not?”