Adventures In Murder Chasing (Funeral Crashing #3) (20 page)

Leonora nodded. "I read about them in the paper. I was here when the Moretti funeral happened, though."

"Oh?" I asked.

Ethan shot me a look. I couldn't help it.

"Full turn out," Leonora said. "But that's to be expected."

"Did anything interesting happen?" I asked and from the corner of my eye, I saw Ethan shake his head.

"No," Leonora said. "Just the usual."

I nodded. I felt disappointed. I guess part of me had hoped someone would cause a scene, so I'd have a reason to get back on the case. I still didn't want to let it go. Sigh.

Leonora continued, "There was a boy who came by after, though, that looked distressed."

"Antonio?" I said out loud and then described him for Leonora.

"Sounds like the one," Leonora said. "He was sort of far away, though."

I nodded. That was interesting. According to Fiorella, neither of them had gone to the funeral. I supposed that since it was technically after the funeral, it didn't count, but it was still curious that Antonio had showed up.

"Kait," Ethan said.

Oh yeah, right. I wasn't supposed to be investigating anymore. Oops. "Sorry."

"Sorry about what?" Leonora asked.

"Long story," Ethan and I both said at the same time.

Leonora frowned, "Well, when you have time I'd like to hear it."

I nodded. Leonora might eventually get it out of me too. She kind of tricked you into talking sometimes.

Leonora turned to Ethan, "So, Ethan, have you been treating Kait right? She's a special girl."

I felt my cheeks burn pink. "Leonora!"

Ethan chuckled.

"What? Someone has to look out for you," Leonora said.

"I can look out for myself," I said.

Ethan smiled, "Kait is definitely a special girl and I care a lot about her."

My face had to look sunburned I was so embarrassed. Well, and secretly pleased. Ethan telling me he cared about me was one thing, but now he was admitting it to other people. That was huge.

"Good," Leonora nodded. "I knew you were quality as soon as I first saw you. Well, and from the way Kait lit up talking about you. Still, I had to ask."

"Thanks," Ethan said.

"Alright," I said, getting really embarrassed. "Time to change subjects. I brought Ethan here to meet you, Leonora, not to get the third degree. Did anybody give you the third degree about your Jacob?"

Lenora smiled, remembering. "Oh yes. My father. He grilled him, but Jacob passed with flying colors..."

My phone beeped with a text. Leonora started telling the story of how Jacob came by to pick her up for a date and her dad sat him down in the living room for a long chat. I automatically reached to look at my phone, wondering who could be texting me. I was already with Ethan, so I knew it wasn't him. Wait. Was it Suzie? I felt a little nervous. We still had yet to do a real friendship thing and hang out. Would it be weird? Maybe she wanted to go to the mall after work or something? I hadn't had a real friend since Ariel. Would I be good at it?

It wasn't Suzie. In fact, I had to read the text twice. First, it was from Ariel, which was mind blowing in itself. I was surprised that she still had my number since we weren't friends at all. Then there was the fact that it said:
There's been another death at Landale College.

There it was in black and white: Dana Tulle found dead in her Landale College dorm room from an apparent suicide. What were the odds that two people from the same college had died in a span of weeks? There had to be a connection between Dana's death and Nico's. I quickly reconsidered my previous standpoint and opened the case back up.

"But...are you sure?" was Ethan's groggy response when I called him after reading multiple articles about the latest death at Landale College. "But you said it was a suicide and Nico said..."

I must have woken Ethan up from a nap. I hadn't told him about Ariel's text when we were at the cemetery. I wanted to look it up myself first. It wasn't that I didn't trust Ariel, but okay, I didn't trust Ariel. Maybe to prove that she really wasn't my friend, she was trying to break Ethan and I up by making me appear crazy to Ethan or something. So, it was really weird that when I got home and looked it up that it was actually real - another death at Landale college. Why was Ariel helping me? Yeah, I couldn't think about it. That was too complex a mystery to solve.

"Ethan, I'm sure," I said, focusing back on my conversation with him. "I've decided that I'm taking another college day tomorrow to investigate. It's just too weird. I don't think it's just a coincidence. Are you in?"

"Sure," Ethan said groaning, but sounding more awake. "Although if we keep this up, I'm not going to have any college days left to visit any colleges that I'm actually considering."

"There's always senior year," I joked.

"That's a year away," Ethan joked back. "So, are we getting the gang back together again or going solo?"

"Going solo," I said. "Getting the gang back together just feels way too complicated at the moment. Plus I want to be sure this time before we get anyone else involved."

I didn't want to stir up emotions for Troy, but I was mostly thinking about Ariel when I said that. She was the complicated one. I mean, she was the one that had texted me about the Landale College death. I hadn't even texted her back yet. She had texted me four times about it in the last few hours. First, that there was a death and three more times to make sure that I got her text. Then she stopped. What was wrong with me? Why didn't I just text her back and say thank you? I guess I was just confused. Seriously, why did she even text me in the first place? I mean, other than that she'd know I'd want to know about this latest development and all that. Was there another reason? I just felt really confused and I simply didn't know what to text back. Yeah, she was definitely complicated and I needed some space.

I hoped that the dean or whoever looked over the College Day slips wouldn't think too much of us taking two days to go look at Landale College, although Ethan had a good suggestion that only took us a second out of our way. We got Laurel Community College to sign our college day slips and then we booked out of there for Landale College.

An hour later we had parked in almost the same spot we had parked in the last time. Since we already had a head start investigating Nico's side of the case, our morning was going to be spent focusing on Dana Tulle's death. I did still want to revisit Nico's death too, though. It was going to depend on where Dana's death took us.

Still, first things first, we had to see if there was an easily found connection between Dana and Nico. If there wasn't, we'd have to investigate both cases until a connection became apparent. I'd probably have to throw out some of my leads on Nico, though, like Ed Patawak, the guy who gave Nico a hard time in high school and was probably doing time for drugs. My guess was that Ed didn't know Dana at all. The odds on that were slim to none since Dana's hometown was in another state. Dana and Nico had to be connected somehow for their deaths to both be murder and I so had a feeling in my gut that they were.

The first stop was Dana's dorm room. One of the articles mentioned the name of the building where she lived. After following another resident into the building, the room was actually super easy to find. I mean, there was still crime scene tape on the door.

"Do you think her roommate's even here?" I asked Ethan, staring at the yellow crime tape.

He shrugged and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked. There was still no answer. Ethan tried again.

"Paula's not in there. They put her in a single," a girl said. "In another building."

We turned to look at the girl, who was standing in the doorway of the room next to Dana's. She was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, her hair was in a loose bun and still wet from a shower, but she had on all of her makeup. It looked like we had caught her getting ready to go out.

"Why? What happened?" I asked.

"You didn't hear?" The girl said.

"No," I said.

Ethan shook his head. The girl looked between us, eyes getting wide.

"I don't know how to say this, but Paula's roommate Dana shot herself," The girl said in a horrified whisper and then continued, her voice rising in horror. "It's insane. I never would have pegged her for the depressed type, but I guess you can't tell. She left a note and everything. I almost wish I could move, but they said I couldn't. There are no rooms available. It's creepy, though. She died in there."

"Wow," I said. I was becoming a great actress. I hoped.

"Did Paula find her?" Ethan asked, all business.

"Yeah," The girl said. "I was in my room and then there was all this screaming. I stepped outside and Paula was yelling that Dana was dead! The RA called the police."

"Did you see anything?" I asked.

"Well, sorta. I could see Dana on the floor near her bed. Paula said that she had shot herself in the head. I didn't see the gory details or anything. I didn't want to look," the girl said. "I don't do well with blood and guts and stuff."

"That's scary," I said, feeling slightly nauseous myself at the thought of blood and guts.

I looked over at Ethan. He looked a little stricken too. We were both thinking about blood and guts now, obviously.

"Totally," The girl said and I focused back on the conversation.

"So, why did Dana kill herself?" I asked. "I mean, were there signs?"

"That's the weird part," The girl said. "She said she was so depressed that she just couldn't take it anymore."

"Why is that weird?" I asked. It sounded more like sad to me.

"Well, it's weird because Dana was so not depressed," The girl said.

"How do you know that?" Ethan asked. "Behind closed doors she could be crying all the time."

I looked over at Ethan. Is that how he felt? About Liz? I reached over and took his hand in mine. He glanced at me and then we both focused back on the girl in front of us, who was already answering his question.

"She just wasn't. She was super happy. Seriously. Like, there's nobody that seems further from killing themselves than Dana. Something must have totally gone wrong in her life for her to have done it, but even the day before she was totally happy," The girl said.

"Did you see her the day before?" I asked.

The girl thought for a moment, "Yeah, she was leaving her job at Keller and I stopped to talk to her on my way to class. We talked for like five minutes about this really cute guy that had asked her out and then I had to get to class. She was totally fine, though. I mean, she laughed and all, at least. She was not upset. In fact, she was super excited about her date."

"Do you remember the guy's name?" I asked.

The girl paused, but then said. "Antonio, uh, something or other. Definitely Antonio, though. That was one of my ex-boyfriend's names too. Well, my guy was Andy, but it's close. Anyway, I remember it pretty clearly. I mean, my Andy cheated on me and I got so pissed at him, how could I ever forget that name, you know? What a jerk. I swear..."

I wondered if it could be the same Antonio. Did Fiorella's brother have a date with Dana even though he had a girlfriend?

I interrupted her before she could continue her rant, "His last name wasn't Moretti was it?"

The girl frowned, "I don't remember. Maybe."

Ethan and I exchanged a look.

"Did she say what he looked like?" Ethan asked.

"Super hot, dark hair, the usual," The girl said.

That wasn't all that helpful. Still, the coincidence of another Antonio was pretty big. If it was him then he was connected to both deaths and that was huge. Another thought randomly entered my brain as my mind went over what Dana's next door neighbor had told us.

"Wait. Where was Dana's job again?" I asked.

"She was a desk assistant at Keller Dorm," The girl said.

That was interesting too. Both Nico and Dana had worked as desk assistants at dorms on campus. Another possible connection? I was definitely going to find out.

"What does a desk assistant do?" I asked. I had asked this before, but maybe there was something I was missing in the job description.

"I dunno," The girl said and then thought for a moment, "Well, they're the people at the front desk of the freshman dorms. I guess they get you your keys if you get locked out or call maintenance or give you toilet paper or whatever. Mostly I think they just sit there and get paid. It's one of those work study jobs, you know?"

"Yeah," I said. "I heard they're pretty easy and you don't do much."

The girl shrugged, "Not always. I worked at the library my freshman year and people left books everywhere. It sucked. We were super busy."

I nodded. "Well, thanks for letting me know about Dana."

"You're welcome," The girl said, turning to go back into her room.

"Oh. Do you happen to know where Paula's staying?" I asked before she closed the door.