The Professor (9 page)

He sighed and let his mind return to Meg. Why did she run? Literally. He’d seen fear in her eyes. She was scared of something.

So start with the obvious. She was scared because he was a cop. She knew the “inquiry” with the sorority girl was political bullshit. He could look deeper, ask some questions, but he’d already found out what he needed to know there. Meg wasn’t in trouble with the law. There wasn’t any reason for her to fear a law enforcement agent.

Was she afraid of him? He’d let things go further than he should’ve, but whatever scared her was already there. Was it men in general? She came across too confidently for that, although it could be an act. What would make her so frightened? A bad experience? Of course, he thought. The possibility of sex had scared her.

Why would she be afraid of that? He doubted she was a virgin. Her passion had initially matched his. In his experience, there was only one other reason women feared sex. The thought chilled him and solidified in cold anger at some faceless man. At that moment, he’d have bet his life’s savings some bastard had raped Meg Connelly. And she probably didn’t report it. Or get counseling. Too few women did—afraid of the trial and the public backlash. He ran her name again, searching for any field: victim, complainant.

Nothing.

Mick cursed himself and the faceless rapist. He’d lost control too.

He shouldn’t have let it happen, but it was a kiss they’d both wanted.

Closing his eyes, he deliberately replaced his anger with good thoughts: the walk, their conversation, and finally that mind-blowing kiss. He relived every second of it. She’d responded. God, had she responded. Her body had melted into his. His penis stirred and he knew he should think of safer things, but he retraced each movement of
his hands. He could smell her, taste her. He revisited every curve, every soft moan until his erection throbbed painfully against his jeans. He’d wanted to lay her down and explore her supple body. Pleasure her until the last shred of restraint vanished and she screamed his name as she exploded into orgasm.

He took a shuddering breath and packed away his fantasy. It was after they stopped that she panicked, as if she realized what had nearly happened. If they’d been somewhere besides a residential street, it might have. “Ah, Mick, you’re a fool,” he whispered. “You’re too old to think with your little head.”

So what if she could sear him with a glance from across the room? If she could send a thousand volts shooting through him with the briefest touch of her fingers. He was supposed to be an adult, dammit!

He prayed he hadn’t blown his chance with her.

He had to figure out a way to talk to her again.

But right now, he had a different problem. He needed to either make it to the restroom unobserved and do something he’d never done before at the office, or else think of something disgusting. Something like his upstairs neighbor. Mrs. Wilcox wore too much makeup, too little clothing—two sizes too small—and made her interest more than a little obvious. Definite turnoff.

Or he could get his mind back where it belonged—on this case. Then maybe he could find the bastard.

Sunday morning

Frank dropped the
Greenville News
onto the kitchen counter in Mick’s condo. “I got your paper.”

“Thanks.” Mick didn’t lift his eyes from the laptop on his dining room table. Normally he worked in the small bedroom he’d converted to an office, but the case files had outgrown the space. He typed in his password and waited for the computer to finish loading.

“Man, does your neighbor always dress like that to get her paper?”

Oh, jeez, Mrs. Wilcox strikes again
, he silently groaned. The good mood that sleeping in his own bed and an hour at the gym had produced evaporated. He stared at the computer, urging it to start faster.

“It wasn’t so much what she was wearing, as what she wasn’t.”

He sighed. Frank wasn’t going to leave it alone until he responded. “What was she wearing this time?”

His partner rocked on his toes. Enthusiasm lit his voice. “She had on this little-bitty robe over a baby-doll gown. It was that kinda sheer material, you know, where you can see, but not really.”

“Hmm.” He focused on the laptop and launched the database program.

“That’s the best you can do? ‘Hmm’? What is
wrong
with you, O’Shaughnessy? She’s hot. I mean, she has these tits…”

He rolled his eyes. Frank was pantomiming cantaloupes or maybe watermelons. “Go for it. She’s not my type.”

“Your type?” Frank asked, incredulous.

“Yeah. As in Barbie has no brain.”

“Who cares?” The man’s hands rose and fell in exasperation.

Mick ignored him and opened the car file.

“Christ. Sexy woman throws herself at him and he bitches ’cause she isn’t a nuclear scientist.” He opened a cabinet, grabbed a mug, and poured coffee. “You’re out of sugar again.”

“There’s Sweet’N Low.”

Frank made a face, but emptied several packets into his mug. He moved to the refrigerator and stood in front of the open door.

Mick shot a concerned glance into the kitchen. Frank had been making too many comments like that lately. But what was he supposed to ask? Was everything okay between Marilyn and him? Was he thinking about having an affair? Their relationship didn’t work that way. Frank meddled in his life, not the other way around. His partner was supposed to be the solid, married man.

Frank pulled out the milk carton, sniffed and grimaced. “This is pathetic.” He examined and replaced a carton of orange juice. “What’s this?” He lifted a white container as if it might contain anthrax.

He leaned back so he could see what the guy held. “Probably leftover Thai. You might not want to eat it.”

“Do you have anything in here that didn’t die last week?”

“I haven’t been here. The apples and those little carrots in the bottom drawer are okay.” He’d had a handful for breakfast, along with a bagel he found in the freezer. “I
need to go to the grocery store this afternoon.”

Frank grimaced and closed the refrigerator. He opened cabinets and finally found a box of Triscuits. “You want more coffee?”

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving the DMV records scrolling down the screen. “There are over two hundred thousand lines in this file. I had no idea there were so many old cars around here.”

“Half of them are in my neighbor’s yard,” Frank replied around a mouthful of crackers. He leaned against the counter, scanning the front page while he crunched noisily. “You see this?”

“You just brought the paper in.”

Frank held it up and Mick glanced at the headline.

“The Professor, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s made the big time. Bastard has a name now. I’m sure he’s rejoicing, wherever the asshole is.”

“Damn. If the TV people use it on the news tonight, we’ll be stuck with it. Anything interesting in the article?”

“Let’s see…rehash of the press conference. Wasn’t
that
fun? Here we go, unnamed sources…believe he’s a professor at one of the local colleges. Is that official now?” Frank looked up, an amused expression on his face. “Where do they get this stuff?”

“Did Terri Blankenship write the article?”

Frank glanced at the paper. “How’d you know?”

“Rumor has it Andersen’s sleeping with her.”

“Ouch. Talk about sleeping with the enemy.”

“No kidding. I wonder what else he’s leaking to her. And don’t even say what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.” Frank dropped the newspaper on the counter. “How do you want to tackle the car?”

“All we have are reports of a coupe or sports car and a big engine. No one actually got a real description.” Mick’s fingers tried to smooth the tension from his forehead. He’d had a headache for days. He propped his elbows on the table, thumbs at the hinge of his jaw, fingers cradling his head. Their one clue was turning into a grain of sand on a wide Carolina beach.

Frank wandered into the dining room and peered over Mick’s shoulder.

He angled the screen so Frank could see the information. “Let’s see how many we can get rid of. If we ignore the generic Chevy and Ford four-door sedans, that cuts it nearly in half.”

“Get rid of all the trucks too,” the other agent suggested.

Mick further narrowed the list by excluding the foreign cars. He paged through the remaining records. “Corvettes didn’t have big enough trunks to conceal a body.”

“Thunderbirds were clubby boats by then,” Frank said. “They had big engines, but they weren’t cool enough for our guy to be driving one now.”

“The clerk did say it was a coupe.”

“You were what in the eighties? Two? Three? I was in college. I can’t believe that was thirty years ago.” Frowning, Frank drummed his fingers on the table. “What were the tough guys driving?”

“British cars were hot when I was in high school.” Mick stretched, remembering a time that seemed so simple in retrospect. “Old Triumphs and MGs. Jeeps and Blazers were big. Lots of 4x4’s. As far as domestics went, we’re talking Mustangs, Camaros or Trans Ams.”

“They’ve been around a long time. Seems like they were big when I was in high school too.”

There were thousands of them. He cursed the mild South Carolina climate that didn’t turn cars into rusting hulks, eaten away by salt like the cars of the Northeast and Midwest. They’d have to find and investigate the owners of each car.

Frank hung over his shoulder. “It would help if they’d included the exterior color.”

Mick’s attention caught on the Vehicle Identification Number. “The manufacturer would have everything—including the original body color and interior package. Clark said the fibers were old. They could be the original carpets.”

“Good idea,” his partner nodded. “It’s possible he repainted the car, but we can at least start with the shorter list.”

Mick’s fingers danced over the keys, sorting the remaining cars by maker, then model, and sent each manufacturer the relevant VIN list, requesting specifications. As much publicity as this case had generated, he knew he’d have no trouble getting the information.

The message list refreshed with the outgoing requests, and the incoming message tone sounded.

“That was quick.”

“‘File received’ confirmations,” Mick said. He pointed at the screen. “Who’s Kevin Rynd?” The message subject line read, “Investigation.”

“Agnes Scott address. Did we talk to him when we interviewed people at the college after Baldwin’s murder?”

“I don’t think so.” Mick opened the message.

What the hell was this?

“My God,” he murmured. “Read this.”

He turned the laptop so Frank could see the screen. “The asshole’s sending
me
e-mail now.”

Anger clamped Mick’s jaw like a vise. The contemptuous bastard.

What? Was this scumbag trying to draw a comparison with what the police did?

Don’t lay that on me, you asshole.
Even as he rejected it, Mick felt the taunt hit home.

“Jesus,” Frank said.

“Amen,” Mick answered.

Monday morning

Mick settled at his desk in the Greenville field office, a cup of coffee clutched in his hand. His mood was as gloomy as the weather outside. He slid the band off the
Greenville News
and scanned the morning’s article on the Professor. “Well, damn.”

Frank stopped mid-sip. “What?”

His partner’s desk abutted his. Mick spun the paper and poked a finger at the headline. “Bereaved Father Blames Police.” Nathan Geiger had vented his rage to a reporter.

“If the police had told us about the e-mails from this monster, Emily wouldn’t be dead,” Frank read aloud.

“Yeah, like she told her parents about anything happening in her life.”

“‘You wouldn’t believe the things this animal said to my daughter. If she’d known the murderer was saying things like that, she’d have shown them to us. We could’ve protected her. Obviously, the police can’t protect anybody.’” Frank shook his head. “No, we’re just sitting over here eating doughnuts.”

The Newberry PD had wisely taken the “not our issue” position on Mr. Geiger’s anger, exonerating themselves and thereby laying another stink-bomb at SLED’s doorstep. The SLED spokeswoman had confirmed only that the victims had received suspicious e-mails, which were being investigated.

The police had told the press about the stalking and the e-mails, but withheld the contents. The article offered the lurid details. “Let’s hear it for sensationalism,” Frank said when he finished reading.

Only someone intimately involved in the investigation had that kind of access. “I’m going to wring his stupid neck,” Mick said.

“Which one? Geiger or Andersen?”

“Both of them. The press are gonna be all over us. By this afternoon, we’ll have all kinds of terrified women forwarding e-mails.”

“And a hundred emotionally stunted men will find it amusing to send them.”

“We’ll have a dozen copycats active by noon,” Mick said grimly.

“Come on, O’Shaughnessy. Treat it like any other leak,” Frank said with a shrug. “Set up a hotline.”

He took a deep breath and shook off his anger. What was done was done. “Benny already set up a mailbox for suspicious e-mails. If the cap’n hasn’t called to chew us out in five minutes, I’ll ask Lucy to come up with a press release.”

“Ninety-nine percent of the messages will be bogus,” Frank agreed. “Maybe we’ll get lucky with that last one percent. We know his pattern: stalking, increasing possessiveness. We’ll recognize his style.”

“The problem is, the victims didn’t recognize them as a problem at first, so we don’t have the earliest ones. They didn’t tell their friends until the messages got really creepy. We might miss the initial ones to his next target. Assuming he keeps it up after this. With the publicity, he may change tactics.”

“He’s not gonna change,” Frank said. “Hell, he’s sending you e-mail.”

“That’s true.” He threw the paper in the recycle bin, drained the dregs of his coffee and with one last frustrated sigh, turned to the mountains of paperwork that had piled up while he was out.

Three hours later, he logged off the system and rolled a cramp from his shoulders. “I’m going down to Newberry. I want to look at those statements again, maybe go out to the mall. That guy at the Orange Juice stand was the last person to see Geiger. We never identified the second guy the clerk saw her with. Maybe there’s something there, something we’re missing. You want to come?”

“I have paperwork on those prison guards at Tyger River. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Rain-heavy clouds loomed ominously over the low-slung brick building that housed the Newberry Police Department. As in many small towns, several emergency services shared the physical space. A haz-mat truck was parked in a smaller, second lot beyond the two fire engine bays. A municipal court sign pointed toward doors at the far end of the building.

The same architectural firm that designed the new sheriff’s department building must have handled the building’s renovation, Mick decided. He recognized the standing seam metal roof and Tinkertoy arch above the double doors.

He parked between a cruiser and a civilian car. A cold, blustery wind pushed a paper cup across the parking lot. Flipping up his coat collar, he hurried toward the front door. He automatically noticed the occupied Mazda Miata parked in the adjacent row, and turned as the driver’s door opened.

“Mr. O’Shaughnessy?”

The girl wrapped her unzipped jacket across her chest and hugged herself from either cold or nerves. He recognized her immediately. The petite blonde was Emily Geiger’s younger sister. She was also seventeen and a high school student who should be in class.

“What brings you down here, Ms. Geiger?” Questions, he wondered, or more blame from her family?

She shuffled from one foot to the other, a nervous dance. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

“Not here.” She peered around uncertainly.

He smiled, hoping to help her relax. “Not at the station or not out here in full view of everybody?”

Blushing, she blurted, “I’ve never been in a police station before.”

“Actually, they’re pretty routine. We can use one of the interview rooms, if that’d make you more comfortable.”

He led her inside and signed them in, then escorted her into the back. She stared wide-eyed at everything. Other than the uniforms and cop gear, he thought the station’s interior looked like any other office space—desks, computers and file cabinets. The posted suspect photos were different, he supposed, but the cartoons were universal.

The interview room contained only a table and two chairs—nothing to distract the person being questioned. “How’s your family, Ms. Geiger?”

“Um, call me Susan.”

A second later she added, “please,” with what sounded like parental-installed politeness.

“Okay, Susan.”

She perched on the edge of the chair. “I don’t think it’s real yet. I keep expecting Emily to walk in the door.”

He knew the feeling. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

Susan continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The press are such assholes, hanging around. And there are these jerks calling, saying stuff about her.”

“Get someone—a friend, one of the people who ask what they can do to help—to screen your calls.”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

Her tone said her suggestions didn’t carry much weight. Given her father’s personality, they probably didn’t. Mick figured she hadn’t come down to complain about the nut cases and related villains. “What’s on your mind?”

She fidgeted with her pocketbook, moving it around before carefully tucking it under her chair. Lacing her fingers, she placed them first in her lap, then on the table. Finally, she separated the entwined digits and adjusted one of her silver rings. “I heard you talking to Mama and Daddy, asking about Emily’s schedule and all. Um, where she went and stuff.”

He deliberately relaxed his posture and waited.

“She always went to the mall before her English class. She didn’t tell anybody.”

“Every Monday?”

“Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

“Always?” No wonder the sales clerks knew her. Robbins and Jordan had focused on that Monday, retracing Emily’s steps, rather than looking at the bigger picture. If she had that regular a schedule, they needed to re-interview all the mall witnesses. If the killer was stalking Emily—and the abduction made a lot more sense now—someone at the mall might’ve seen him.

Susan nodded, still studying her fingers. “For about the last month.”

“It’s a long way to the mall to go that often.”

“She didn’t want anyone from around here to see her.”

Mick kept his face blank.

She hesitated, then confessed, “There’s a guy. He works at Barnes and Noble. She’d meet him during his break. Mama and Daddy didn’t know about it.”

He held his breath.
Why hadn’t anybody gotten this from her during an interview? This guy could be the killer, or at a minimum, he’d know something.

She risked a quick look at him. “They’re pretty…strict.” Her eyes dropped to her hands and she picked at her cuticles.

“Tell me about the guy.”

He was completely unprepared for her response.

“He’s black, African American. Mama and Daddy freaked when they met him and told Emily she couldn’t see him again. They
say
they’re open-minded,” she burst out. Her chin came up, challenging him. “But not when it comes to
their
precious blonde princesses.”

I’ll be damned. The OJ guy’s unknown male. It made sense now
. “What’s his name?” She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t want to tell him.

Her gaze slid away. “Robbie wouldn’t hurt Emily.”

“I don’t think he did either, but he may be able to tell us something. Emily may have confided in him.”

Susan considered that possibility. “My parents will freak. How will they hold up their heads at the country club if word gets out their daughter was dating a…” She
couldn’t bring herself to utter what was undoubtedly a derogatory term.

“They’re already freaked. Robbie could help us find out who killed your sister.”

She worried her cuticle for another minute. “You won’t tell him who told, will you?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“The only way he’s in trouble is if he killed her. And you’re sure he didn’t.”

She thought about that. Finally, she sighed. “Robbie. Robbie Mahaffey.”

They talked until he was sure she had nothing else to offer about her sister or the investigation.

“Thank you. You’ve been a big help.” He looked at her and used the same tone of voice he’d use on Tricia. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

She blushed. “It’s only Spanish, which has got to be the easiest class in the world.”

“For you, maybe. I’m trying to learn, but I’m terrible at it.”

“That’s ’cause it’s harder to learn when you’re old.”

Ouch. Out of the mouth of babies.
“Well, don’t make a habit of cutting or you could find yourself down here again.”

Her mouth made a perfect
O
. She shot to her feet and fumbled with her pocketbook. Edging to the door, she said, “My teachers have been pretty cool about me missing, but maybe I should, you know, get back.”

He handed her his card and walked her to the lobby. “Call me or come down— after school—if you think of anything else.”

She flashed a smile that so closely resembled her dead sister’s pictures that Mick felt his stomach cramp. How must her parents feel each time they looked at her? What they still have, and what they lost, in the same face.

Susan disappeared out the door.

Mick spun around. “Where’s Detective Robbins?”