A Faint Cold Fear

  He leaned down, running his hand over the tire treads. The road leading to the parking pad by the bridge was paved, and the pad itself was gravel. Even if they were able to match treads, Andy might have driven the car to the site himself a hundred times before. Jeffrey knew from patrol reports that the area was a prime make-out spot.

  Jeffrey flipped open his phone to call Frank but stopped when he noticed Richard Carter coming up the walk carrying a large casserole dish in his hands.

  Richard’s face broke into a wide grin when he saw Jeffrey, but then he seemed to catch himself and put on a more serious expression.

  “Dr. Carter,” Jeffrey said, trying to sound pleasant. Jeffrey had more important things to do than field prying questions so Richard could look like a big man on campus.

  Richard said, “I made a casserole for Brian and Jill. Are they in?”

  Jeffrey glanced back at the house, thinking of the oppressive atmosphere, the raw grief the parents were experiencing now. “Maybe now wouldn’t be the right time.”

  Richard’s face fell. “I just wanted to help.”

  “They’re pretty upset,” Jeffrey told him, wondering how he could ask Richard some questions about Brian Keller without looking obvious about it. Knowing how Richard operated, he decided to approach the subject from a different angle. “Were you friends with Andy?” he asked, thinking that Richard could not have been more than eight or nine years older than the boy.

  “God, no.” Richard guffawed. “He was a student. Barring that, he was an obnoxious brat.”

  Jeffrey had gathered as much about Andy Rosen on his own, but he was surprised by the vehemence behind Richard’s words. He asked, “But you’re pretty close to Brian and Jill?”

  “Oh, they’re great,” Richard said. “Everybody likes everybody on campus. The whole faculty is like a little family.”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey agreed. “Brian seems like a solid family man.”

  “Oh, he is,” Richard agreed. “The best father in the world to Andy. I wish I’d had a father like that.” There was an edge of curiosity to his voice, and Jeffrey could tell that Richard had realized he was being questioned. With this realization came a sense of power, and Richard had a smirk on his face as he waited for Jeffrey to ask him for dirt.

  Jeffrey jumped in with both feet. “They seem to have a good marriage.”

  Richard twisted his lips to the side. “You think?”

  Jeffrey did not answer, and Richard seemed to take this as a good thing.

  “Well,” Richard began, “I don’t like to spread rumors . . .”

  Jeffrey suppressed the bullshit that wanted to come.

  “And it was just that—a rumor. I never saw anything to give it credence, but I can tell you that Jill was acting mighty strange around Brian at the last department Christmas party.”

  “Y’all are in the same department?”

  “Like I said,” Richard reminded him. “small campus.”

  Jeffrey stared silently, which was all the encouragement Richard needed.

  “There was rumor of a problem a while back.”

  He seemed to need Jeffrey to say something, so Jeffrey provided, “Yes?”

  “Mind you, just a rumor.” He paused like a true showman. “About a student.” Again he paused. “A female student.”

  “An affair?” Jeffrey guessed, though it was hardly a difficult leap. This would certainly be something that Keller would not want to talk about in front of his wife, especially if Rosen already knew about it. Jeffrey knew from his own experience that Sara’s even alluding to the circumstances that had ended their marriage made him feel like he was dangling his feet over the Grand Canyon.

  “Do you know the girl’s name?”

  “No idea, but if you believe the gossip, she transferred after Jill found out.”

  Jeffrey was dubious, and he was sick of people holding things back. “Do you remember what she looked like? What her major was?”

  “I’m not sure if I believe she even existed. As I said, it was just a rumor.” Richard frowned. “And now I feel bad for talking out of school.” He laughed at the double meaning.

  “Richard, if there’s something you’re not telling me . . .”

  “I’ve told you everything I know. Or at least heard. Like I said—”

  “It was just a rumor,” Jeffrey completed.

  “Was there anything else?” Richard asked, a pronounced pout to his lips.

  Jeffrey decided to parry. “That’s nice of you to bring them food.”

  The corners of Richard’s mouth turned down. “I know when my mother passed away a few years ago, having people bring things was like a ray of sunshine in what was arguably the darkest period of my life.”

  Jeffrey played back Richard’s words in his head, alarms going off like crazy.

  “Chief?” Richard asked.

  “Sunshine,” Jeffrey said. Now he knew what was so familiar about Andy Rosen’s lewd drawing. The girl in the picture had a sunburst tattooed around her belly button.

  A patrol car and Frank Wallace’s unmarked Taurus were parked outside Ellen Schaffer’s sorority house when Jeffrey pulled up, though Jeffrey had asked for neither.

  “Shit,” Jeffrey said, pulling into the space by Frank’s car. He knew that something was horribly wrong even before he saw two girls coming out of the dorm with their arms around each other, sobbing.

  Jeffrey jogged to the house, taking the front steps two at a time. Keyes House had burned down years ago, but the college had replaced it with a close duplicate of the old antebellum mansion, with formal front parlors and a grand dining room that seated thirty. Frank was standing in one of the front parlors waiting for him.

  “Chief,” Frank said, motioning Jeffrey into the room, “we’ve been trying to call you.”

  Jeffrey slipped his phone out of his pocket. The battery level was fine, but there were areas around town where signals would not reach.

  Jeffrey asked, “What happened?”

  Frank closed the pocket doors to give them some privacy before answering. “Blew her head off.”

  “Fuck,” Jeffrey cursed. He knew the answer, but had to ask, “Schaffer?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Deliberately?”

  Frank lowered his voice. “After yesterday who knows?”

  Jeffrey sat on the edge of the couch, feeling dread creep up again. Two suicides in as many days were not unheard of, but Tessa Linton’s stabbing was casting a shadow over everything that happened on campus.

  Jeffrey said, “I just talked to Brian Keller, Andy Rosen’s father.”

  “That his stepson?”

  “No, he took his mother’s name.” When Jeffrey saw Frank’s confusion, he said, “Don’t ask. Keller’s his biological father.”

  “All right,” Frank agreed, a baffled expression still on his face. For a split second, Jeffrey wished he had Lena here instead of Frank. Not that Frank was a bad cop, but Lena was more intuitive, and she and Jeffrey knew how to work off of each other. Frank was what Jeffrey thought of as a gumshoe, meaning he was better at wearing down the soles of his shoes tracking down leads than he was at making the mental leaps that solved cases.

  Jeffrey walked to the swinging door that led to the kitchen, making sure they weren’t being overheard. “Richard Carter said—”

  Frank snorted out a breath. Jeffrey was not sure if this was because of Richard’s sexual orientation or his abhorrent personality. Only the latter was acceptable to Jeffrey, but he had learned a long time ago that Frank was set in his ways.

  Jeffrey said, “Carter knows campus gossip.”

  “What’d he say?” Frank relented.

  “That Keller was having an affair with a student.”

  “Okay,” Frank said, his tone contrary to the word.

  “I want you to do some digging around about Keller. Find out his background. Let’s see if this rumor is true.”

  “You think his son found out about an affair and the dad shut him up to
keep it from the wife?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said. “Richard said the wife knew.”

  Frank said, “As far as you can trust that fruit.”

  “Cut it out, Frank,” Jeffrey ordered. “If Keller was having an affair, it could play out real nice for a suicide. Maybe the son couldn’t forgive his father, so he jumped off the bridge to punish him. The parents were fighting this morning. Rosen told Keller he never cared about him when he was alive.”

  “Could be just her being mean. You know women can get that way sometimes.”

  Jeffrey was not going to debate the point. “Rosen seemed pretty clearheaded to me.”

  “You think she did it?”

  “What would she have to gain?”

  Frank’s answer was the same one Jeffrey had: “I don’t know.”

  Jeffrey stared at the fireplace, wishing again he had Lena or even Sara to talk this through with. He told Frank, “I’m gonna be looking at a lawsuit if I stir up shit around his parents and the kid really killed himself.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Go ahead and check if Keller was really in D.C. when this happened,” Jeffrey said. “Ask some discreet questions around campus and see if we can substantiate this rumor.”

  “The flights are easy enough to check,” Frank said, taking out his notebook. “I can ask around about the affair, but the kid would probably be better for that than me.”

  “Lena’s not a cop, Frank.”

  “She could help. She’s already on campus. She probably knows some students.”

  “She’s not a cop.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing,” Jeffrey said, shutting him up. Lena had proved in the library yesterday that she was not interested in helping out. Jeffrey had given her plenty of opportunities to talk to Jill Rosen, but she had kept her mouth shut, not even offering to comfort the other woman.

  Frank said, “What about Schaffer? How’s she fit into this?”

  “There was a painting,” Jeffrey told him, giving Frank the details of the drawing in the Keller-Rosen living room.

  “The mom had that hanging up?”

  “She was proud of him,” Jeffrey guessed, though his own mother would have slapped the crap out of him and ignited the painting with one of her cigarettes. “Both of them said the son wasn’t seeing anybody.”

  “Maybe he didn’t tell them,” Frank said.

  “He might not have,” Jeffrey agreed. “But if Schaffer was having sex with Andy, why didn’t she recognize him yesterday?”

  “He was ass up,” Frank said. “If it was Carter not recognizing him, then I’d be suspicious.”

  Jeffrey gave Frank a look of warning.

  “All right.” Frank held up his hands. “Lookit, though, she was upset. He was about fifty feet below her. What’s she supposed to recognize?”

  “True,” Jeffrey conceded.

  “Do you think this could have been some kind of suicide pact?”

  “They’d do it together, not a day apart,” Jeffrey pointed out. “Did we lift anything off the suicide note?”

  “Everybody and his mother touched it,” Frank said, and Jeffrey wondered if he was making a joke.

  “If it was a pact, they’d say so in the note.”

  “Maybe Andy broke up with her,” Frank suggested. “So she gets him back by throwing him over the bridge.”

  “You think she’s strong enough to do that?” Jeffrey asked, and Frank shrugged. “I don’t buy it,” Jeffrey said. “Girls don’t act out like that.”

  “It’s not like she could divorce him.”

  “Watch it,” Jeffrey warned, taking the remark personally. He continued before Frank could embarrass them both trying to apologize. “Young girls don’t do that,” he amended. “They shame the guy, or they lie about him to his friends, or they get pregnant, or they take a load of pills—”

  “Or they blow their brains out?” Frank interrupted.

  “All of this is assuming that Andy Rosen was murdered. He still could have killed himself.”

  “You got anything on that?”

  “Brock took some blood this morning. We’ll have the lab report back tomorrow. There’s no evidence of foul play right now. Tessa’s the only reason we’re looking at this funny, and who the hell knows if there’s a connection?”

  Frank said, “Hell of a coincidence if it’s not.”

  “I’m going to give Keller a day to stew, then go at him hard to see what he knows. There was something he wanted to tell me this morning that he didn’t want to discuss in front of his wife. Maybe after Sara does the autopsy tonight, I’ll have more to go on.”

  “She’s coming back tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “I’m picking her up this afternoon.”

  “She doin’ okay?”

  “It’s a hard time,” Jeffrey said, then cut off the conversation. “Where’s Schaffer?”

  “This way,” Frank told him, opening up the pocket doors. “You wanna talk to the roommate first?”

  Jeffrey was going to tell him no but changed his mind when he saw the crying woman sitting in the window seat at the end of the hall. Two girls flanked her, offering their support. They could have all been carbon copies of each other, with their blond hair and blue eyes. Any one of them could have passed for Ellen Schaffer’s sister.

  “Ma’am,” Jeffrey said, trying to sound consoling, “I’m Chief Tolli—”

  The woman cut him off by bursting into tears. “It’s so horrible!” the girl cried. “She was fine just this morning!”

  Jeffrey glanced at Frank. “That’s the last time you saw her?”

  She nodded, her head bobbing like a fishing line.

  “What time was that?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Eight,” she said, and Jeffrey knew that he had been with the Rosen-Kellers during that time.

  She said, “I had to go to class. . . . Ellen said she was going to sleep in. She was so upset about Andy. . . .”

  Jeffrey asked, “She knew Andy Rosen?”

  At this the girl burst into tears again, putting her whole body into it. “No!” she wailed. “That’s what was so tragic. He was in her art class, and she didn’t even know him!”

  Jeffrey exchanged a look with Frank. Oftentimes in police work, they ran across people who felt a lot closer to victims of crime than they ever had when the victim was living. In Andy’s case, an alleged suicide, the melodrama would be heightened.

  “So,” Jeffrey began, “you saw Ellen at eight? Did anyone else see her?”

  One of the girls beside the roommate spoke up. “We all have early classes.”

  “Did Ellen?”

  The three nodded in unison. One of them said, “Everyone in the house does.”

  “What’s her major?” Jeffrey asked, wondering if the girl was linked to Keller in some way.

  “Cell biology,” the third girl provided. “She was supposed to hand in her labs tomorrow.”

  Jeffrey asked, “Did she have Dr. Keller for any classes?”

  They all shook their heads. One of them said, “Is that Andy’s father?” but Jeffrey didn’t answer her.

  He told Frank, “Let’s get copies of her schedule and see what classes she’s had since she’s been here.” To the girls he said, “Was Ellen dating anyone in particular?”

  “Um,” the first girl began, looking nervously at her friends. Before Jeffrey could coax her along, she said, “Ellen was seeing lots of different guys.” The emphasis implied thousands.

  “No one had a grudge against her?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Of course not,” the first girl defended. “Everyone loved her.”

  “Did y’all see anyone suspicious hanging around the house this morning?”

  The three shook their heads.

  Jeffrey turned to Frank. “Did you do a canvass?”

  “Most of them were gone,” Frank said. “We’re rounding them up. No one heard the gunshot.”

  Jeffrey raised his eyebrows in surprise but
didn’t comment in front of the girls.

  He told them, “Thank you for your time,” and gave them each one of his cards in case they thought of anything else that might be useful.

  It was not until Frank was taking him up the hallways to Schaffer’s ground-floor room that Jeffrey asked, “What’d she use?”

  “Remington 870.”

  “The Wingmaster?” Jeffrey asked, wondering what a girl like Ellen Schaffer was doing with such a weapon. The pump-action rifle was one of the most popular weapons used by law enforcement.

  “She shoots skeet,” Frank said. “She’s on the team.”

  Jeffrey vaguely recalled that Grant Tech had a shooting team, but he still could not reconcile the perky blonde he had met the day before with a skeet shooter.

  Frank indicated a closed door. “She’s in there.”

  Jeffrey did not know what he was expecting when he walked into Ellen Schaffer’s room, but his jaw dropped at what he saw. The young woman was on the couch, her legs wrapped around the barrel of the pump-action rifle. The muzzle was pointed at her head—or what was left of her head.

  His eyes watered as a strong odor hit him. “What’s that smell?”

  Frank pointed to the bare lightbulb over the desk. A piece of scalp clung to the frosted white glass, smoke wafting up to the ceiling as it cooked from the heat.

  Jeffrey covered his mouth and nose with his hand, trying to block out the odor. He walked over to the window, which was opened about twelve inches. Glancing out behind the house, he could see a lawn with a gazebo and a sitting area. Beyond this was the national forest. A trail that half the kids on campus probably used led into the woods.

  “Where’s Matt?”

  “Canvassing,” Frank told him.

  “Get him outside this window to look for footprints.”

  Frank flipped open his phone and made the call as Jeffrey studied every inch of the window. After a full minute of staring, he found nothing. It was not until he started to turn away that the light caught a streak of grease near the latch. “Did you see this?” he asked.

  Frank walked over, bending his knees for a better look. “Oil?” he asked, then indicated the desk beside the couch. A wire breech brush, a patch, and a small bottle of Elton gun-cleaning oil were laid out on the top. On the floor a cloth that had obviously been used to clean the barrel of the rifle was crumpled into a ball.