The Professor (14 page)

“I hadn’t thought about it like that, but it’s possible. It’s hard to find a pattern when there isn’t one.” Mick ate the last hush puppy and wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “Good ’que.”

“Best around.”

They rose and headed to the car.

“How many opticians sell those glasses that change to sunglasses?”

Robbins snorted dismissively. “All of them. That won’t work. HIPAA put the nail in that coffin. You know it takes a specific court order to look at medical records. We can’t go fishing for everybody that wears prescription sunglasses.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. After a moment, he asked, “Did you catch that morning sickness comment?”

“I was wondering about that.”

“Can you get Geiger’s health records?”

“You think that’s it? They were all pregnant?”

“We can’t afford to pass up an opportunity.”

“Like Ms. Henry?”

“Jeez,” he muttered. “Give me a break.”

He retrieved his pistol and his car and headed to Greenville. The meal sat heavy in his stomach. Combined with the sun shining through the window, he felt warm and sleepy. A quiet lassitude dragged at his eyelids. He pulled himself straighter in the seat. He shouldn’t have eaten so much. No wonder Robbins was built like a tree stump.

Robbins was okay. Not long ago, he’d have considered the detective’s job beyond boring. But getting settled somewhere wouldn’t be so bad. Learning a town, knowing his neighbors actually sounded rather appealing. Other than Mrs. Wilcox, he rarely saw the other people in his building.

Fighting sleep, he opened his cell phone. For a moment, he indulged the fantasy that Meg had called, breathless to see him again. Laughing at himself, he clicked through to his voice mail. But during the tiny pause before another cop or a snitch started talking, his heart gave a hopeful lift.

The last message—the prison contraband informant he’d been chasing— finished. Meg hadn’t called. It had only been two days. He’d decided not to count Saturday or Sunday, since she wouldn’t have received the card until Monday.

He made a few calls, then returned the phone to his pocket. Why was he so hung up on Meg? He’d never felt this way about a woman. Was it just the thrill of the chase? Normally, it was the other way around. Women pursued him. He’d never had to chase a woman. He wasn’t completely sure how to do it. Surely, that wasn’t the attraction. He’d quit being that shallow in college.

There was more than sexual attraction. He gave in to a moment of male mental vision. Meg, naked, sprawled across his bed. Her head arched back, half an inch from orgasm. Her eyes opened and locked on to his. There was bliss, love and an awareness of him that blew him away. He blinked and sighed.

Yeah, she definitely tripped his trigger.

But it was more than that. In spite of everything—the mixed signals she gave off, whatever had her so uptight—he felt an unexpected ease when he was with her. She picked up on his meanings practically before he opened his mouth. He couldn’t believe some of the things he’d said; telling her about his dad, admitting how deeply she affected him. But in return, he’d received understanding, a feeling of coming home.

A few minutes later, he negotiated the road construction maze around the I-85/385 interchange and followed 385 downtown. Leaving the unmarked cruiser in the parking garage, he took the stairs to the sidewalk. The Greenville field office barely resembled a cop-shop. Only its strategic location near the courthouse and the bulletproof glass in the lobby distinguished it.

Fortified with coffee, Mick checked his e-mail. Finally—thank you, Ford Motor Company—the first VIN list was in. He sorted the data by exterior color: black, dark blue. Would the maroon ones look dark at night? There were still hundreds of cars to investigate.

Chevrolet’s contribution landed in his mailbox an hour later. Mick opened the file of professors Jordan had accumulated and ran a match query against the sports car database. Thirty-four professors owned 1980s-era sports cars. He pulled up first Ford’s and then Chevy’s VIN information.

Damn
. He crossed off the last one. Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

None of the professors owned a black car.

Tuesday night

Meg focused her attention on the Mesoamerican civilizations. At their peak, long before Columbus and the Spaniards arrived, the Mayans and Aztecs dominated much of what is now Mexico and Central America.

Growing up amidst dozen of Revolutionary and Civil War sites, she’d developed and nurtured a love of history and an appreciation for its continuing impact on society. A course in Latin America history, taken as a whim, had opened her eyes to hundreds of years of pre-Columbian culture that was virtually ignored except for the ruins touted as tourist attractions.

This graduate course concentrated on the Classical Period, when artistic endeavors and construction of palaces and temples peaked. Her primary interest with this paper was the long-distance trading between the Mayan city-state of Palenque and Teotihuacan. She searched for references to the economic impact of the alliances as she examined the books scattered across the library table. She could use most of the analysis for her International Trade class, as well as this history assignment.

She scanned the crowded library as she rolled her shoulders, easing the cramped muscles. Usually she avoided it this time of day, but the reference books she needed weren’t available online. Thankfully, the students sharing her table weren’t texting or talking. The baby-faced boy across from her—he had to be a freshman—had stacks of history books she remembered using for papers on World War II. Wearing a frustrated scowl, he laboriously transferred bits of information to his laptop.

Two students passed, deeply engrossed in conversation. One bumped the table and the books the boy had stacked nearest the edge shifted. He lunged for the stack, but the uppermost volumes slid to the floor. She winced as they landed with a crash.

Heads turned, some irritated, some amused. Cursing, the boy began collecting the scattered texts. She picked up the closest book and absently smoothed a photograph on the rumpled page. A cluster of soldiers, RAF by their uniforms, lounged with studied nonchalance against their Airco single-seat biplanes. They were so young, but responsibility tugged at them. A face caught her eye. The pilot was Black Irish: dark hair, blue eyes, an engaging grin. He could’ve been Mick O’Shaughnessy’s grandfather.

She caught her breath as the memory of Mick’s kiss seared through her. A flush climbed her cheeks, then warmth flooded her chest as she remembered her wanton response. Desire flamed so intensely, she nearly turned around to see if Mick stood behind her.

Brutally, she forced the images and feelings away. Mick was the kind of man who’d had a lot of experience, far more than she’d had.

And she wasn’t just thinking about in bed.

He was the type women made fools of themselves over. She wasn’t going to join the parade. He was simply another version of Tony. The only reason Mick was interested was because she’d said no.

“Can I have my book?”

The boy’s voice intruded, and her cheeks burned hotter. She closed the book, wishing she could close off her feelings as easily, and handed over the text.

Resolutely, she returned to her own material, but thoughts of Mick wouldn’t go away. He probably dated every woman deemed dateable in both high school and
college, she thought as she searched for her place in her notes. She, on the completely opposite other hand, had become a two-and-a-half-date woman. Everyone knew you had sex on the third date, so she quit at two and a half. Her reputation accompanied her through college and into graduate school. Most guys didn’t bother to ask. Only Tony— and apparently Mick—who couldn’t resist a challenge, still dogged her tracks.

Why did Mick have to be so smart and funny? It would be easier to ignore him if he didn’t intrigue her.

Of course, she absolutely did
not
want anything more to do with him.

She flicked a glance at the stack of WWII reference books. The photograph tugged at her. Family connections—any family’s connections—drew her irresistibly. No matter how hard she tried, a real family always seemed out of reach—an impossible dream.

She pulled up the image of the airmen, idly tracing the pilot’s smile. Mick had the same generous curve to his lips, the same sparkle.

From Mick’s comments, his family was close. She tried to imagine what a loving family would be like. Even before everything went wrong, she’d never felt accepted by her parents, much less received unconditional love. Her mother saw nothing beyond the aura cast by her father. He was always so busy being a pillar of the church and community, he couldn’t see anybody but himself. The hypocrisy of the impossible standard he held everyone else to ignited the old bitterness.

Unshed tears filled her eyes. Why had they abandoned her? Had anything she’d done really been that terrible?

Did they ever think about her? Did they know she graduated at the top of her class? Did they know she was voted Best Young Professor by her students? Did they care?

Blinking, she straightened and closed her book.

Her parents didn’t want her.

Fine.

She didn’t need them, just like she did not need Agent Michael J. O’Shaughnessy. The world lay right beyond her fingertips. Everything was possible. She wouldn’t throw it away. Not for anyone or anything.

Mick walked out of the bathroom, briskly rubbing a towel over his hair. Four miles on the treadmill and half an hour with the Nautilus had banished part of the fog in his head. Something had occurred to him while he was in the shower. The killer knew Geiger hid a forbidden lover. He’d discovered Mahaffey while he was stalking her. Geiger had hidden the relationship and made herself vulnerable in the process. Did the other victims also have secrets? Secrets the Professor used against them? A mirthless smile twisted his lips. “The Professor.” Even he had picked up the moniker.

Mick wrapped the towel around his waist and pulled out the files. Mary Baldwin died at the beginning of the school year, in mid-August. She’d gone to summer school, picking up a class she’d dropped during spring term, along with an introductory anthropology course. Mick automatically added the names of the instructors to those he’d run against the car list.

Why did Baldwin drop the course during spring term? He drew a circle around the instructor’s name. Had he threatened her in some way? Come on to her? An exposed affair would damage him, not the women. Had she cheated on a test? Mick
couldn’t think of any other academic threat. He made a note to follow up with the school and turned to the autopsy report.

Baldwin was a healthy twenty-year-old. He skimmed the medical histories; mostly routine checkups. The most recent report was dated only weeks before her murder. The gynecologist’s final note read, “cleared to resume sexual relations.” Mick nearly missed the significance of the word.

Resume
. Why would sex be suspended on a doctor’s orders? Disease or pregnancy termination were the only things he could think of. He flipped through the file, but found nothing else from the doctor.

Nancy Henry implied Geiger could be pregnant. None of the women were pregnant when they died. Again, he considered the possibility of a terminated pregnancy. He’d have to ask Dr. Spindler if it was possible to detect one during an autopsy.

Baldwin’s parents were as straitlaced and strict as Geiger’s were. He’d seen other sheltered kids go wild when they got away from their parents’ control. If Baldwin was pregnant or had contracted an STD, she could’ve gone to a clinic for either medicine or an abortion. If she paid cash, her parents would be none the wiser.

Mick felt the adrenaline rush that said he was on to something. This could be Baldwin’s secret: a terminated pregnancy. There weren’t many clinics left—most had been put out of business by the Religious Right. Not many private physicians performed the procedure. A few keystrokes gave Mick the names of the clinics in the Upstate. He opened another form on his computer and started the wording for search warrants at the clinics for Ms. Baldwin’s medical records. After a moment, he added Ashley Cohen and Emily Geiger’s names to the warrants, as well.

Wednesday morning

Warm sunshine after two days of clouds had drawn a crowd to the plaza outside the Student Center. The Professor sat at a table, his laptop open before him. He scrolled slowly through the latest analysis of his activities. All the top news outlets were featuring articles about him now. A self-satisfied smile lit his features. He relished the stories, fascinated by the thoroughness. Murderer, monster; all the labels weaker men used to distance themselves from their own desires.

He switched to the
State
newspaper’s web site to get the local interpretation. The site was freshly updated. He stared, dumbfounded, at the sketch displayed on his computer screen. Where had this come from? He checked the heading. The document had posted only minutes previously.

He switched to CNN and refreshed the page. The sketch wasn’t there, only the articles he’d already read. He returned to the
State
site and quickly read the accompanying article. Someone from the mall had described him. He ran a brief mental review of the food court that morning. No one had paid attention to them. He’d planned it out too carefully. So who gave the description? And why had they waited so long to come forward?

Casting surreptitious glances at the nearest students, the Professor carefully examined the sketch. Other than a vague resemblance to any thirty-year-old white male, the picture didn’t resemble him. He straightened, suddenly aware he’d hunched over the computer, his nose barely inches from the screen. The drawing wasn’t anything to worry about. The police had nothing.

He rotated his head, stretching the tight muscles in his upper back. Students clustered at several of the tables around him, laughing and eating. Their laptops were open, streaming music, taking advantage of the campus-wide wireless network. Competing stations underlay the babble of voices.

Would they be so casual if they knew who he was? Not the bland, everyday public persona, but his true identity. Dismissing the sketch, he closed the Internet browser, ending his traceable activity on the web. With practiced ease, he selected and hijacked a student’s identity. If by some miracle the police traced his incursions, all they’d find was some schmuck who didn’t know how to shield his computer. Masking his computer’s Mac address, he tapped keys and entered Prescott College’s server via the backdoor he’d set up. He smiled, a cruel twist of his lips. The college still hadn’t changed the administrator’s pass codes. He moved to the mail server and logged in as Tom Evans.

It was time to jerk the smug SLED agent’s chain again. The Professor flexed his fingers, opened an e-mail form and typed:

The Professor paused, no longer seeing the courtyard around him. He delved deeper into the black well of his fantasies.

Mick poured a cup of coffee and checked the new cartoons posted on SLED’s break room bulletin board. He took a sip and grimaced as his stomach spasmed in protest. He was drinking too much coffee.

Frank wandered in, looking grumpy, and poured a cup.

“I got something that ought to cheer you up,” Mick said. “We finally nailed down that dope ring over at the Tyger River prison.”

He gave Frank the highlights of his early morning session with an informant. Frank examined the available doughnut selections and chose a jelly-filled one. By the time Mick finished, Frank was smiling. “I knew that peckerwood was up to his ass in it,” he said.

They left the break room, headed for their desks. “It’ll be nice to have a success to hand the cap’n,” Mick said. “You see today’s paper yet?”

Frank nodded. “Makes it sound like we actually have something on the murders. That sketch should generate some traffic.”

“Cap’n shook some manpower out of Greenville PD to cover the tip line.”

“Thank God for small miracles. You should hear Benny bitching about the e-mail.” Frank grinned. “Of course, he’s forwarding the ones he rates highest for creativity.”

“How’d I get left off his distribution list?”

“We figured you’re getting your entertainment in a more personal format. Speaking of which, what’s happening with the Fountain Frolic?” Frank asked. “Any action there?”

“Cap’n’s handling that stink bomb, thank God.”

“I meant the cutie-pie.”

“Excuse me?”

Frank wore a shit-eating grin. “Jordan’s brother’s a Clinton cop. He saw you at Barracuda’s the next morning with one of those sweet things from the sorority house.”

“Damn, why does everyone see everything except the killer?”

“You don’t cover your tracks as well. What’s the story?” Frank nudged his shoulder. “He said that’s one little hottie. So, what about it? You rubbing the old blarney stone?”

Don’t overreact
, he told himself, even as his temper spiked. “Meg’s a nice woman. It’s not like that.”

“Ah, Meg, is it? That’s why you stayed in Clinton that night. Jumping on that opportunity. Which one is she? The leggy blonde? No.” He snapped his fingers. “The redhead who stood up. I saw the look on your face when she strolled in.”

“Back off, Meyers.”

He ignored the warning tone. “Robbing the cradle, aren’t you? Is it true what they say about young flesh rejuvenating old men?”

He slammed his hand into Frank’s shoulder, pinning him to the wall. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

Frank’s face was a study in stunned surprise.

He dropped his arm and stepped back. “Shit,” he muttered and turned away. “Sorry.”

“Damn, Mick. I was just raggin’ you.”

“Well, don’t.”

“I didn’t know you actually liked the girl—woman.”

“Drop it,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m just tired.”

His pager beeped, saving him from what could’ve become an embarrassing detour through the wonders of Meg Connelly. He mashed the number into his cell phone.

“Fiber Lab. Clark.”

“You paged me?”

“Yeah. I have some results for you.”

“Go.” He pushed Meg and Frank to the back of his mind.

“I’ve got more info on those fibers. They’re part of a nylon cut pile, constructed from Dupont Antron nylon BCF yarn. And I quote: it’s tufted on a 1/8-gauge machine with fourteen ounces of yarn per square yard, unquote. Any-hoo, specific chemicals, which yours truly found present in our sample, were added after the dying process to reduce fading. The manufacturer just verified the formulation.” He paused dramatically.

“You’re killing me, Clark.”

“To be precise, the fibers are a color known as Dark Carmine Red. It was only used in Chevy Camaros from 1985 to 1989.”

“You’re a genius.”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell my boss about it at performance review time.”

He closed his cell.

“Something good?” Frank asked, clearly looking to put the Meg incident behind them.

He repeated the news on the fibers. “That has to narrow down the car list.”

Wednesday afternoon

Meg scanned the list of new e-mail. She deleted some spam and read a finance department announcement. There was a Panhellenic meeting Sunday afternoon. She could skip that, thank God. The next sender surprised her: [email protected]. She’d taken a class from him as an undergrad. She’d heard he was on sabbatical somewhere. What did he want? She opened the message.

What? She reread the words as if the meaning might change. None of that happened.

She stopped, trying to remember his class. Did she ever wear a skirt? Could he see up it? If he could, did he really think she did it on purpose? How creepy that he was getting off on it now, years later.

Disgusted, she started to delete the message. Her fingers rocked the mouse back and forth over the Delete button. She wasn’t immune to the rumors swirling through campus. The Professor stalked his victims through e-mails. She’d also heard about all the copycats. That was what this was, wasn’t it? Somebody’s sick idea of a joke? She scanned the rest of the message and shuddered, as if he’d reached out of the computer and touched her.

For a long moment, she stared at the screen. If nothing came of it, she could always delete the message later. But if it was something to worry about, maybe she shouldn’t erase it. Feeling slightly foolish, she saved the e-mail to a folder and closed the program.

Wednesday evening

Mick drummed his pen against the dining room table. There had to be something, some detail that could get him inside the Professor’s head. They’d nearly exhausted the car list and struck out with the tires. Ms. Henry’s sketch was too generic. The detectives had shown it to the victim’s friends and family to no avail. The e-mails provided insight into the bastard’s personality, but he couldn’t see how to use them to find the guy.

The latest message from the Professor was open on his laptop. He was finding it harder to keep his professional detachment. The guy was getting under his skin. He scanned the message, lingering over the final paragraph.

I lie awake at night, wondering who will be next, shuffling my list of candidates. Maybe she will be the beautiful blonde who loves lattes and foolishly cuts through the dark alley at seven each evening. Or perhaps she will be the sloe-eyed brunette that said no when I asked her to dance. Perhaps the auburn-haired beauty who until now has hidden her sexuality. Maybe it will be all of them, since you make no moves to stop me.

Don’t make it so easy. If the fight is one-sided, then the victory is cheap.

Bastard.

The computer jockeys had recovered additional deleted e-mails from the victims’ computers. Mick opened Mary Baldwin’s mail and read the increasingly perverse messages. No wonder she deleted them. He reread the fourth one.
“I know your secret.”

Was the threat a complete shot in the dark, or did the Professor know something? Everybody had something they’d prefer other people didn’t know. The killer had threatened Geiger with disclosure of a forbidden lover. What was Baldwin hiding?

He wasn’t getting anywhere with the pregnancy possibility. Her friends said she was a sweet girl. Was that the normal, clean-up-the-image-after-they’re-dead tendency? She wasn’t an angel. She’d had a fake ID for one purpose: getting into bars. He flipped pages in the file, but found no mention of which bars.

Bars.

Drinking.

Dancing.

The word snagged his attention.

He clicked through his own e-mail.
“The girl that said no when I asked her to dance.”

Was there a connection?

He glanced at the clock. It wasn’t that late. He pulled out Mary Baldwin’s contact list and dialed the first name.

The first two denied everything. The next one was cautious. “I’m over twenty-one, but Mary wasn’t,” she admitted. “Am I going to get in trouble if I tell you this?”

“We’re trying to find a murderer. I’m not going to arrest you for contributing to the delinquency of a dead woman.”

In the following silence, he could almost hear her indecisively chewing her lip.

“I need your help.” He put his tone somewhere between encouragement and desperation.

“Sometimes a group of us would go out to a club,” she said finally.

“Where’d you go?”

She named a popular spot near the college.

“Did Ms. Baldwin ever hook up?”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t like that. We just went to dance. I mean, occasionally a guy’d buy us a drink, but that was it.”

They talked a few more minutes, until he was sure she had nothing else to offer. “A Spartanburg police officer, Detective Ward, will come by tomorrow and show you some pictures. We’d like to know if you recognize anybody.”

“Do you think that’s it? The Professor picked them up at bars?”

“We’re considering multiple possibilities. But if you go out with your friends, watch out for each other. Make sure y’all leave together. And pay attention to your drinks.”

He left her a little scared and hopefully, a little wiser.

He hit pay dirt with the fifth friend.

“Ms. Baldwin liked to go clubbing.” He said it like it was a given, not a question. “I’ve got a line on a couple of the places she liked to go, but we’re trying to figure out the rest of them, to find the overlap.”

He paused, waiting to see how she’d respond.

“Do you have the Squirrel?” Cheryl asked.

Interesting. Squirrel’s had a reputation as a serious pickup spot, with an older crowd than the bars the other women had mentioned. “No. I don’t have that one.”