The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6) (8 page)

“Assholes?”

“Exactly. Everything’s about sex to them. If you’d
seen Krista during that class, when she was trying to tell us about her
background? It would have made you cry, what she’d been through.”

“Yeah, well, guys like Martin are insecure. They
think if they talk about sex the
girls’ll
think
they’re real studs or something.”

She rolled her eyes. “I just think they’re … well,
what you said.”

“Just keep your distance from them. Live your
life. Don’t worry about those guys. They’re harmless. They just need to grow
up.”

Donna reached out and touched my arm, then turned
and walked out of the room.

I walked over to Ryan, who was sitting at the
table, making notes on his seating chart.

Chapter 7

Ryan sat at his desk in the
detectives’ bullpen, staring at his screen, a sandwich in his left hand and a
pen in his right.

“Any stone-cold killers in the class?” I had just
gotten back from the break room, where I had nuked some leftovers from last
night. It wasn’t that Ryan and I decided to eat lunch separately when we were
at headquarters. It was more that Ryan liked to work through lunch, so I
couldn’t talk to him, anyway.

“Not that I’m seeing.” He took a long swallow from
his bottle of water. “But I’m a little afraid of getting on the roads when
these kids are driving. Half of them have moving violations. No blinkers.
Running red lights. Inattentive driving. Failure to yield. The works.”

Ryan is twenty-nine. A few of these kids are his
age; the rest are the same age as some of his younger siblings. But I guess
having a family can make a young guy think like an old fart.

“Anything jump out at you?”

“Not really. Of the kids at the meeting this
morning, the only one who’s interesting is this guy Martin Hunt.”

“Which one was he?”

“The jerk who made that comment about Krista being
upstairs at Virginia’s house because that’s where the bedrooms are.”

“Yeah, what’d he do?”

“Possession of controlled substances. He’d steal
his brother’s Ritalin and his parents’ Valium and Ambien.”

“Personal use?”

“Some of it.” Ryan took another bite of his
sandwich. “But some he’d sell—”

“That’s trafficking.”

“The amounts were too small and he was too young.”
Ryan looked down at his notebook. “And he gave them to some girls.”

“Because he’s a nice guy?”

“For sex.”

“That’s statutory rape.”

“Not if the girls and their parents won’t file a
complaint.”

“So it’s what? A misunderstanding?”

“Well, according to the county, it’s a misdemeanor
possession of a controlled substance.”

I shook my head. “How about the three kids who
didn’t come to the meeting this morning? Did you run them down?”

“According to the notes from the secretary in the
sociology department, Maria Ortiz is a member of the Talking Cougars—”

“What?”

“The debate team. She’s in Wyoming now, at some
regional championship. She didn’t attend class last night. Anyway, she’s clean.
Oliver Huntley was in his chemistry lab at eleven this morning. He’s clean,
too. And the third one is Zach Gilcrist. The secretary couldn’t reach him.”

“He in class?”

“I looked him up on the student system. No, he
didn’t have a class this morning.”

“Did you try calling him?”

“Yeah, he’s not picking up.”

“He in our system?”

“Couple of underage drinking misdemeanors. Driving
with an expired license.”

“Hand me his transcript, would you?” Ryan fished
through the stack of pages Mary Dawson, the dean of students, had given us this
morning. I looked at it. “Shit, he looks as stupid as me.” I paused a second.
“What address have you got on the douchebag who made that wisecrack about
Krista being up in the bedrooms?”

Ryan flipped through the pages. “Martin Hunt is at
1200 Petrie.”

“So is Zach Gilcrist.” I nodded. “Is that the
fraternity?”

Ryan hit a few keys. “It’s Alpha Phi Sigma.” He
gave me a big smile. “What made you think of that?”

“It’s my superpower. I channel douchebags.”

“I also ran Robert Rinaldi, the professor’s son.
He’s clean.”

“Okay, good. Now, how are we gonna identify
Krista?” I sat down at my desk.

“Let me try the sociology department. If they paid
her an honorarium for coming to that class, they’d have a tax form on her.”

I nodded as Ryan phoned Linda in sociology. He
asked her; she put him on hold. “Okay, thanks, Linda.” He shook his head.

“I’ll try Vice.” I phoned Harry Weber and asked if
he knew a twenty-something working girl, European accent, goes by Krista. He
asked if I knew who ran her. Told him no. He said it didn’t ring a bell but
he’d ask around and get back to me. I hung up. “Shit. Okay, what’s next?”

Ryan started paging through his notebook. “Until
we can run down Krista, we can interview Cletis Williams—the state education
board guy—and Richard Albright. He’s the angry student.”

I heard my phone hum from inside my big leather
bag hanging on the back of my chair. I fished it out. Robin, our evidence tech,
had sent me a text: “Talk?”

“Why does she do that?” I picked up the phone.
“Now I have to call her.” I punched in her number and hit Speaker. “Hey, Robin.
You and Harold got something already?”

“Harold hasn’t finished the autopsy yet, but I’ve
got some shit for you.”

“You free now?”

She was. Ryan and I headed downstairs. I stuck my
head in her little office, but she wasn’t there, so we walked a few more steps
to Harold’s big lab. Ryan held the heavy door open for me. He’d do that anyway
because of the way he was raised, but in this case it was so he could push me
inside if I tried to run away. I really didn’t like the lab.

It was cold and noisy, the whooshing of the HVAC
system bouncing off the tiled floor and walls. A vague hospital smell hung in
the air. At least it didn’t stink of shit, piss, and mold, which it often does.
Instinctively, my eyes were drawn to the big steel gurney. Harold’s wide back
blocked the top half of a cadaver. The legs, from a forty-something female,
were puckered and a little veiny. I assumed it was Virginia Rinaldi.

I stayed close to the door. “Cause of death?” I
said to Harold.

“Yeah, I think I’ve got it. Want to come over?
I’ve pulled her scalp back.”

“No, that’s okay. Just tell me.”

He pointed to the long table that ran along the
far wall. “Let me show you the picture I just took.” Harold began to lumber
over toward one of his computers along the wall. “We did a BAC. She’d been
drinking. Alcohol was .05.”

“Probably not enough to send her down the stairs.”

“Everybody’s different. With her body mass, if she
had a normal tolerance for alcohol, probably not. But some people are pissed at
.02.” Harold touched a key on the computer, and an image of her skull appeared
on the screen. He pointed to an area above her left ear. “See those little
lines?” He was pointing a pencil at some spidery lines radiating out from a
central spot, like a windshield after a head hit it hard.

“Someone
konk
her?”

“I don’t think so. Usually, there are
characteristic marks from a weapon. You know, a brick, a baseball bat. But
there are no marks of a weapon on her scalp. It’s an indistinct bruise, most
probably from hitting the stairs.”

“So it’s a fracture?”

“Yeah. I haven’t sawed off the skull to take a
look at the brain yet, but my bet is she died of a brain bleed.”

“That’s not conclusive for homicide, right?”

He nodded. “That’s right. She could’ve tripped and
fallen down the stairs.”

“With or without the alcohol.”

“Exactly. So I’m not ready to sign off on it. I
might find all kinds of other interesting stuff when I open up her wrist and
when we get the
tox
screen back. But Robin’s ready to
call it.”

Robin was standing off to the side, studying a
clipboard. Her head jerked up when she heard her name. From twenty feet away I
could see a blotchy red creep up her neck from Harold’s comment. She
outcurses
a run-of-the-mill gang-banger, but compliment her
and watch her pale skin go all crimson.

“What you got, Robin?”

“Hi, cops.” She tried to flash me and Ryan a
smile, but she was too flustered to pull it off.

“Why is it a homicide?”

“There’s some tissue on the wall going down the
stairs showing that she really went down with some force.”

“Where was the tissue?”

“Some of it’s almost a meter off the stairs.”

“She could’ve been wobbling pretty good at the top
of the stairs, tried to catch herself, got all twisted up, banged up against
the wall as she came down.”

“It’s possible. But I think some motherfucker took
a deep breath and pushed her down the stairs.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because the vic has a broken fingernail with some
tissue under it. Looks like a defensive wound.”

“This motherfucker got a name?”

“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know it. One other
thing: I think she made two trips down the stairs.”

“How’s that?”

“You remember her body was on the stairs? There’s
some fresh-looking tissue on the rug at the base of the stairs. Could be from a
scrape on her face. Plus, there’s a fiber strand from the rug in her hair. And
one more thing: There’s a partial fingerprint over her carotid artery.”

“Usable?”

“No, she had some perspiration on her neck, so the
print didn’t stick. But I think the guy put a finger or two on her neck to feel
for a pulse.”

“So you’re saying the first trip she makes it all
the way to the rug?”

“That’s right.”

“Maybe she falls down the stairs, comes to rest on
the rug. She tries to pick herself up and climb the stairs. Can’t make it.”

“Then her body would be pointing up the stairs,”
Robin said.

I sighed. “Ryan, help me out. Tell me how it
could’ve been an accident.”

He stood there a few seconds, his brow furrowed.
Then he shook his head. “Sorry.”

Robin said, “He threw her down the stairs once.
Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs again.”

“Because he checked and she still had a pulse?” I
said.

Robin shrugged her shoulders. “That’s the way I’d
interpret it.”

“He couldn’t just squeeze her nostrils shut for
half a minute and save himself a trip?”

“Well, I would have found that easier to do.”
Robin paused a beat. “I’m just saying she went down the stairs twice. You want
me to run the DNA from the tissue under her fingernails?”

“Yeah, I do. Get me the name of a strong, stupid
killer.”

“I’ll need thirty-six, forty-eight hours to cook
it.”

“You figured out who our mystery woman is?”

“Couldn’t find one piece of paper in the house to
identify her. Not in her bedroom, not in her bathroom. No meds. Nothing in her
clothes. Nothing in the professor’s bedroom. I gave the professor’s computer and
phone to Jorge.” He’s our IT guy. “He’s working on it now. He’ll identify her.”

“And see if she has another computer and a phone
at the university, will
ya
? Get that to Jorge, too.”

I heard my cell buzz. I moved off to the corner to
take the call. “Sorry,” I said to the others in the lab. “Seagate.”

“Detective, this is Mary Dawson. At the
university?”

“Yes, Dean Dawson, what’s up?”

“I got that information you wanted on Robert
Rinaldi, Virginia’s son.”

I put the phone on Speaker and waved Ryan to come
over. He pulled his notebook and pen out of his suit jacket pocket as he walked
over to me. “Great, go ahead.”

“Robert is a student at Reed College, in Portland.
He lives with another student: Thomas
Rafla
. The
roommate’s number is (424) 555-0693.”

I glanced at Ryan, who nodded to tell me he had
it. “Okay, Dean Dawson—Mary—thanks a lot for getting that information for us.”

“You’ll keep me in the loop?”

“Everything I can.” I ended the call. “All right,
Robin, thanks. Harold, would you mind letting me know when you enter the report
on the system?”

“Sure.” He nodded. “And I’ll call you if it’s something
other than the brain bleed.”

“That’d be great.” Ryan and I turned and headed
upstairs to see if the roommate thought Robert Rinaldi was sufficiently pissed
off about the new girlfriend to throw Mom down the stairs twice.

Chapter
8

Thomas
Rafla
answered on the second ring.

“Mr.
Rafla
, my name is
Karen Seagate. I’m a police detective in Rawlings, Montana.” There was silence,
which I get a lot when I mention Rawlings, Montana, to someone out-of-state. I
heard him breathing, so I knew he was there.

“I’m sorry.” He paused. “Say again where you’re
phoning from.”

“Rawlings, Montana. Small city. Big state.”

“All right.” The syllables came out slowly, as if
he were conceding we all should be permitted to live wherever we want, but that
I had made a puzzling choice. “And you say you’re a police detective?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said. My name is
Seagate.”

“What an interesting name.”

“It’s my ex’s. I’m not wild about it.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.” He paused, in case
I wanted to discuss my marital situation a little more. I didn’t. “How can I
help you, Detective Karen Seagate?”

“Mr.
Rafla
, your
roommate is Robert Rinaldi, is that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Okay, Robert’s mother is named Virginia Rinaldi.
She’s a professor at Central Montana State University, right here in Rawlings.”
I paused. “You with me so far?”

“I am aware that Robert’s mother is a professor. I
will take your word for it that there is a university in your community.”

“I need to get in touch with Robert, but he’s not
picking up. Do you know where he is?”

“I do not.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Let me think.” And that’s what he presumably did,
for a good five seconds. “It was perhaps two or three days ago.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He did not mention a location. He said his
mother’s into … I want to remember the phrase … she’s ‘into some shit again,’
and he vowed to ‘put an end to this.’”

“That’s all he said?”

“Those were the words. He was very angry. We’re
nearing the end of the semester, not the most convenient time for a lengthy
road trip.”

“Do you know what he meant, about putting an end
to this?”

“When he mentions his mother, he does not provide
details. From the little he has told me, she is selfish, vain, hotheaded, and
occasionally ruthless. She sounds delicious—much more interesting than Robert.”

“He hates her?”

“As only a loving son can.”

“All right. So you think he’s not in Portland,
right?”

 
“I haven’t
seen his car in its spot behind our building in several days. For all I know,
however, he could be in Portland or any other place, busily cleaning up
whatever shit in which his mother now finds herself.”

“Listen, Mr.
Rafla
, it’s
real important I get in touch with him, so can you give me another minute?”

“Yes, of course. I must say, your call has made
his absence more interesting than it was a few minutes ago.”

“Has Robert mentioned any of Mother’s romantic
partners? Any men? Women?”

“On several occasions, Mother has broken off
personal relationships because the partner has not shown her the proper
respect, has not given her adequate space, has not invested sufficiently in the
relationship.”

“Was that men? Women?”

“Yes.”

“And Robert would talk about that kind of stuff?”

“Her romantic life?”

“Her sexual orientation.”

“Oh, I see. He never said anything that would lead
me to conclude that he cares at all about her orientation. That’s the least of
his challenges in dealing with her.”

“What about a father? Robert ever mention a
father?”

“He has mentioned that he does not know his
father’s identity. His mother seems to know, but she won’t reveal that secret.
She told him once that his identity is unimportant. The man has fulfilled his
role, she said. He is now out of the picture.”

“Like he was a sperm donor? Something like that?”

“Definitely a sperm donor, although whether it
occurred through an agency or in a minivan, Robert does not appear to know. On
his birth certificate, the father’s name is listed as Unknown.”

“Okay, Mr.
Rafla
, thanks
a lot. Listen, it’s real important I get in touch with Robert, so would you
take my name and number and, if he checks in with you, you tell him to get in
touch with me, okay?”

“I definitely will, Detective Karen Seagate. And I
must say, you certainly have piqued my interest in the relationship between
Robert and Mother. I will pay more attention when he next mentions her.”

When I supplied my contact information, he made
noises like he was writing it down. We ended the call.

I turned to Ryan. “You’re a college kid. A cop
calls. Wants to know where your roommate is. Aren’t you a little bit curious
about that?”

“Not if I’m less interested in my roommate than in
my own reflection in the pool.”

“Do you find it strange that she was this hot-shit
professor of sociology who seems to have pissed off everybody in her life?”

Ryan paused to think for a moment. “Not really.
From the stories my dad used to tell us, the one thing that links all
professors across all the disciplines is a sense of entitlement and righteous
indignation.”

The phone in my leather bag buzzed. I fished it
out. The screen showed Robert Murtaugh. “Yeah, Chief.”

“I got that information you asked for.”

“Great.” I blanked on what he was talking about.
“I’m here in the bullpen with Ryan. Let me put you on Speaker.”

“No, not on the phone. Come to my office.”

“Be right there.” I ended the call and turned to
Ryan. “What’s he’s talking about?”

Ryan and I turned to head over to the chief’s
office. He thought a second. “Cletis Williams. The state board of
ed
guy. Why he quit.”

“That’s it.” My brain was turning into Swiss
cheese at a frightening rate. “Thanks.”

Margaret, the chief’s gatekeeper, looked up and
gave us an official nod. “Go right in.”

The chief was seated at his desk, looking at his
screen. “Sit.” He pointed to the two chairs facing his desk.

“This about Cletis Williams?”

“That’s right,” he said. “I made a few calls.”

“Who’d you talk to?”

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to tell us.
Probably smart. “I’ve got part of the story. Not too interesting.”

I shrugged. “It’s early. We’ll take anything we
can get.”

“It was at a monthly meeting of the state board of
ed. Each of the college presidents got a half-hour to make their case for the
annual tuition rise. It was Central Montana’s turn. President Billingham was
doing a PowerPoint about how the state’s funding of the university was going
down in a straight line. You know that story. Anyway, Virginia Rinaldi was
seated there, in the audience—”

“She was there officially?”

“Apparently not. But they’re open meetings. So she
stood up and made some inflammatory comments about the state abdicating its
responsibility to the citizens of Montana, just like it did the month before
when it voted down some legislation that would protect LGBT people. She went
off on a rant about how the board was just the puppet of the legislature, which
wanted to keep Montana white, straight, poor, and stupid. The chair of the
board, a man named Bjornson, tried to cut her off with his gavel, but the
damage had been done. It embarrassed President Billingham—and shook up the
board members, too. The board members were muttering among themselves, you
know, trying to figure out who Virginia Rinaldi was and how to respond to her.
Cletis Williams didn’t realize his microphone was on. He was whispering
something to another board member sitting next to him. A number of people in
the room were sure they heard him call her a dyke. The audience started
muttering, and it took a little while to get the meeting under control.”

“So how’d it get in the newspaper?”

“There was a reporter covering it, a young woman
named Shields. Valerie Shields. She went up to Cletis Williams after the
meeting adjourned. She identified herself appropriately, told him she wanted to
tape his response. She asked him if he’d called Virginia Rinaldi a dyke.
Williams said he had not, that she had misheard him. So the reporter
interviewed Bjornson, asked him if he heard Williams say it. He looked a little
flustered but told her that he did not, and if Cletis Williams denied saying
it, that was good enough for him.”

“Virginia Rinaldi saw this going on—I mean, with
the reporter?”

“Yes, she did. She got in Williams’ face, raised
her voice, accused him of being a homophobe and Bjornson of being a coward.
Bjornson came over and got between them because he saw Williams getting red in
the face and looking like he was losing his temper. Bjornson hustled Cletis
Williams out of there, but Virginia stayed and gave a long interview to the
reporter about how the board—she called it a ‘dumb old boys’ network’—was in
collusion with the legislature and the university to placate the business
interests and keep the state backward to lower labor costs.”

“But the university president was there to ask for
increased funding. How is the university in collusion with the legislature?”

Chief Murtaugh sighed and shook his head.
“Virginia saw it as a choreographed dance. The college president pretends to be
asking for more money, but really he’s okay with the status quo. The state
board pretends to listen, but then they side with the legislature, which has no
interest in supporting the universities because they’re a bastion of liberals.”

“Okay,” I said. “So then a few days later Cletis
Williams resigns. If he didn’t call Virginia Rinaldi a dyke, why did he
resign?”

“Presumably, Bjornson and the rest of the board
pressured him to resign. He’d become an embarrassment—whether or not he called
Virginia a dyke.”

“All right, thanks, Chief. Ryan and I’ll see what
we can find out about Cletis Williams, see if he has any anger-management
issues.”

The chief nodded, and Ryan and I headed back to
the bullpen. I went into the break room to get some coffee while Ryan sat down
at his computer.

I got back to my desk. He was still clicking
around, so I let him be for a couple more minutes.

Finally, he looked up at me. “Cletis Williams owns
the Williams Group, which has six car dealerships here and in Wyoming. He
started out with one in Billings about twenty years ago. He was on the state
board of
ed
from 1996 until a week ago.

“What’s his link to education?”

“None. Most of the members of the board appointed
by the governor these days have a background in education or in high-tech
industry. Cletis Williams was a holdover from the old days: a business guy
without any higher
ed
himself.”

“He’s keeping it real.”

Ryan gave me a small smile. “He represents the
old-time Montana values: born in-state, no education, built a business empire
through hard work and raw talent. That kind of thing. Generous
philanthropist—there’s a pediatric unit at the hospital with his name on it. He
endowed a business professorship at the university. He supports the Optimists,
the homeless shelter. Kids’ sports teams. A local success story.”

“He in the system?”

“A DUI fifteen years ago. A disturbing the peace
even earlier than that.”

“What was that about?”

Ryan looked at his screen. “Just a fight outside a
bar. It didn’t go any further than that.”

“But the chief said Williams looked like he was
losing his temper when Virginia got in his face.

“I do remember that.”

“Let me ask you something: a professor goes on a
rant about LGBT stuff in a public meeting. How does Williams know she’s a
lesbian?”

Ryan scratched at this chin. “That would be one of
the questions we should ask him.”