Murder Takes a Break (12 page)

I drove straight on down 9th Avenue for a couple of blocks into the residential area.
 
The yards were full of tall palm trees and oaks that spread their branches all the way across the street.
 
The houses were well-kept but old, though not as old as the oak trees.
 
There were other areas on the outskirts of town where the hundred-thousand-dollar houses were, but the Mullens didn't live there.
 
I didn't blame them.
 
The older homes had character, and they were only a few blocks from Bay Street and the Texas City Dike, a great place to fish.
 
I wondered if Big Al ever went there, but I didn't think she did.
 
She preferred Seawolf Park.

According to the directions I'd been given, the Mullen house was on the corner of 3rd Street and 13th Avenue, and I found it easily.
 
It was a big house of light-colored brick with a wide front lawn, most of which was still green.
 
In front of the house, as in front of a lot of others I'd passed, there were Christmas decorations standing under a palm tree.
 
In some yards there had been scenes of Santa, with the reindeer pulling his sleigh, which looked pretty strange in their tropical setting, like the lights on the palms at the Galvez.
 
But the Mullens had a manger scene, which somehow looked more appropriate.
 
Not that I knew whether there were palm trees in Jerusalem.
 
And if there were, they were probably a different kind of palm tree from the ones in Texas.
 
Still, camels looked better standing under them than reindeer did, at least to me.

I parked the truck on the side street, hoping that no one in the house would notice it, and walked around to the front yard.
 
My knock on the door was answered by a short woman with big hair and a wide smile.

"Mr. Smith?" she said.

I admitted that I was, holding my clipboard in front of me so she couldn't miss it.

"Come right on in," she said.
 
"I'm Carolyn Mullen.
 
Patrick's in the his room."

I followed her down a short hall, through the living room, and into another hall, where she stopped and knocked on the second door.

"Patrick?" she said.
 
"Mr. Smith from the college is here to see you."

A voice behind the door said, "Come on in," and Carolyn Mullen turned the knob.

When the door opened, I looked over her shoulder and saw that Patrick kept the place pretty neat.
 
There was a poster of the UNT basketball team on one wall and one of Cindy Crawford on another.
 
The bed was made up, and Patrick was sitting in the only chair in the room, which was at a small desk.
 
He was looking at what might have been a chemistry book.

He closed the book, then got up and crossed over to us.
 
His mother stepped back and to the side, and I put out my hand.

"Hi, Patrick," I said.
 
"I'm Truman Smith, from the Student Retention Office."

He shook my hand briefly and dropped.
 
"Yeah.
 
That's what mom said.
 
You want to talk to me about something?"

"About keeping students in college," I said, waggling my clipboard.
 
When you have a prop, use it, I always say.

"You two are welcome to use the living room if you want to," Mrs. Mullen said.
 
"I'll be in the kitchen."

She left us there, looking at one another.

"Let's go in the living room," Patrick said.
 
"I don't have any chairs in here."

We went back to the living room.
 
There was an artificial Christmas tree with blinking lights in one corner, but there weren't many presents under it.
 
The carpet was almost new, thick, and much too light-colored for my tastes.
 
The chairs, the couch, and the coffee table were older.
 
Patrick sat in one of the chairs and made himself comfortable.
 
I sat on the couch, got out my pen, balanced my clipboard on my knee, and wrote his name on the legal pad.

"So," he said.
 
"What's this about a job?"

He was a good-looking kid, not much taller than his mother, with wide-set, intelligent eyes and longish hair that fell artfully over his ears.

"We need help," I said.
 
"Every semester, all through the semester, colleges lose students.
 
They withdraw from their classes and disappear, and most of the time we don't even know why.
 
We're trying to get in touch with them, find out why they left, and see if there's something we can do to get them back.
 
We need all the students we can get, since our funding is based on them."

"Yeah, I know about that," he said, "and I could use the job.
 
Mom doesn't make a lot of money as a secretary at the plant.
 
But what would I have to do?"

One of the reasons I like working at home with my computer is that I rarely have to lie to anyone, and I didn't want to lie to Patrick Mullen.
 
But I reminded myself that he'd probably lied to the police about things, and was therefore just as guilty of lying as I was.
 
Maybe two wrongs don't make a right, but the fact that the first wrong wasn't mine made me feel a little better about things.

So I said, "You'd make some phone calls, talk to people, ask a few questions.
 
That's really all there is to it.
 
Of course, you'd have to record their answers on a form we'd provide, but I'm sure you could handle all that."

"I think so.
 
It doesn't sound so hard.
 
Who recommended me?
 
Was it Professor Williams?"

"Let me see."
 
I flipped through a few pages of my legal pad, then looked up at him.
 
"Did you say Williams?"

"He teaches in the management department.
 
I made an
A
in his class last semester, and he told me I was one of the best students he'd had in a while.
 
I thought maybe he recommended me."

"Oh, yes," I said, putting my finger on a page.
 
"Here it is.
 
Professor Williams, management department.
 
He's the one, all right."

"I figured.
 
So how many hours a week would I be working?"

I heard pots rattle in the kitchen, and I thought about how tough it must be for a single mother to be sending a kid to college.
 
I wished that the job offer were real.

"Just a few," I said, tired of the game.
 
"What you'd do is call up the students on a list that the office provided.
 
I have a sample list and questionnaire right here."

I took them from behind my legal pad.
 
I'd printed them out on my computer before I left, hoping the questionnaire looked somewhat legitimate.
 
As for the names and phone numbers, I'd made them all up, except for the first two.

He didn't even look at the questionnaire because he saw the two names first: Kelly Davis and Randall Kirbo.

H
is eyes widened, then narrowed as he looked up from the paper that he still held.

"You're not from the school," he said, keeping his voice low so his mother couldn't hear.
 
"I bet you never heard of Dr. Williams."

He had me there.
 
I didn't know Dr. Williams from Dr. Seuss. So I said, "That's right.
 
I'm here for a different reason.
 
I want to know about two names on that list I gave you.
 
The first two."

"I ought to throw you out of here."

I have to admit that he had spirit.
 
I was nearly a foot taller than he was and in pretty good shape for someone he probably thought of as an old guy.

"You don't want to do that," I said.
 
"We could damage the furniture.
 
Besides, it might embarrass your mother."

He looked toward the kitchen, where the sounds of meal preparation continued.
 
Then he looked back at me.
 
He didn't seem pleased to see that I was still there.
 
Maybe he'd thought I'd take the opportunity to slip away quietly to avoid a thrashing.

"You got in here under false pretenses," he said.

"I'm sorry about that," I said, trying to sound as if I meant it.
 
"But I had to talk to you."

"You're not a cop, then.
 
I've already talked to them."

"No, I'm not a cop."

"If you're not a cop, then I don't have to tell you a thing."

"That's true.
 
You don't.
 
But Kelly Davis is dead and Randall Kirbo is missing.
 
It seems to me that you'd want to do something about that."

"I don't even know who they are," he said.
 
"Why should I want to do anything about them?"

"Well, you see, that's where I just don't believe you," I told him.
 
"I think you did know them, or at least you saw them at a party you went to.
 
That's what you told the police when you talked to them."

He shook his head.
 
"I was wrong, though.
 
The pictures the cops had weren't very good, and I made a mistake.
 
Haven't you ever made a mistake?"

There were beads of sweat on his forehead, but the house wasn't all that warm.
 
He'd made a mistake, all right, but not about identifying the pictures.

"It's going to be easy enough for me to find out if you're telling the truth," I said.
 
"There's another witness, someone who saw you there at the party."

"He changed his mind, too."

"How do you know?"

"I just know, that's all."
 
His voice was rising, and his face was turning red.
 
"And that's all I'm going to say about it.
 
You can get out of here now."

The kitchen got very quiet.

"Patrick?" his mother called.

It was time for me to go.
 
I stood up and tucked my clipboard under my arm.

Mrs. Mullen walked into the room and looked at her son, who was still sitting in the chair, gripping its arms as he might be trying to crush them.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Everything's fine," I said.
 
"I was just leaving.
 
Patrick's going to come by my office when he gets back to school and have a talk about that job."

Mrs. Mullen smiled uncertainly and looked at her son, who didn't look a lot like someone who'd just been offered lucrative employment.

"That's nice," she said.
 
"I suppose."

"He'll be an asset to the school," I said, backing toward the door.
 
"I'm glad Dr. Williams recommended him."

Patrick's eyes were wide with disbelief, as if he couldn't believe that I'd dare to lie so blatantly.
 
I wanted to tell him that if he could do it, so could I, but it didn't seem to be the right time to try imparting a moral lesson.

"We're having roast for lunch, if you'd like to stay," Mrs. Mullen said to me.

"I'd love to, but I have an appointment in Houston.
 
I'm going to be a little late as it is.
 
Thanks for the invitation, though."

"You're welcome.
 
Thank you for coming by."

"My pleasure."
 

I was at the door, and I opened it.
 
Mrs. Mullen was looking at Patrick as if hoping he would say something nice to me to solidify his chance of getting the job.

He didn't say a word.
 
He was still glaring at me when I closed the door, and I wondered how he'd explain his behavior to his mother.
 
Or if he'd even bother to try.

I
drove past the muffler shops and transmission shops, then on out past the discount stores.
 
I crossed Highway 146 and headed for Interstate 45, passing the community college and a huge shopping mall.
 

As I turned onto the interstate, I could see Gulf Greyhound Park on my left.
 
I thought about stopping to put down a few bets on the dogs, but I didn't have time.
 
I had to talk to Chad Peavy and see what his reaction to my visit would be.
 
I hoped I could get more out of him than I'd managed with Patrick Mullen.

As I drove toward Dickinson, a town that had once been nearly as wide-open as Galveston, I thought about what I'd learned from my short visit to Texas City.