The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6) (10 page)

Ryan nodded. “I think I do. Instead of a standard
erotic story, the poverty messes up the romance or the sexual relationship.”

“That’s it. The reader thinks they’re going to be
reading a standard erotic story, but then it goes in a completely different
direction because the reality of her life makes her respond in some unexpected
way that screws everything up. The professor said she wanted us to take a
standard plot and turn it on its head. I think that’s what she was getting at.”

“That’s really interesting.” Ryan offered another
smile. “Do you know if any of the other students are doing a creative project?”

She nodded. “A couple of them are doing short
stories, little screenplays. They say they’re really having a great time. You
know, exploring the issues but in a way they never would have been brave enough
to try.”

Ryan’s face was solemn. “Professor Rinaldi sounds
like she was a terrific instructor.”

“She was.” Donna’s eyes were glassy. “She really
was.”

All very interesting: watching Ryan dazzle another
parched damsel with his teeth and his body and his cologne and his undivided
attention. But I wasn’t seeing how anything in the professor’s syllabus got her
killed.

Chapter 11

I ate dinner that night
with my two closest friends: Keith Somebody and Emily Somebody Else from Action
6 We’re On Your Side News. The death of Virginia Rinaldi was a big enough story
that the station sent Emily herself rather than one of their teenagers. Emily
interviewed President Billingham. The
prez
, a soft,
round grandpa figure with a fringe of white hair, was standing next to the
statue of the cougar, the school mascot, outside the Business Building.
Billingham offered a couple of sentences about how inspiring Virginia Rinaldi
was to the sociology kids and all the others who were lucky enough to study
with her. The only hint she was controversial was a little blather about how
she was unafraid—both in her courses and in her public activism—to fight for
the rights of the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, and the ostracized.

Then three or four students, including a weepy
girl, said similar nice things. Although there was no way to tell whether the
news crew had interviewed anyone who said a discouraging word about the
professor, no
grumpies
made it onto the air. We were
still in the Shocked and Saddened Phase.

Nobody said anything about how the professor died.
That’s because Chief Murtaugh had not yet issued a statement. The chief knew
that when you say you’re investigating whether it was murder you plant the
idea, which makes the public hyperventilate. Then, if it turns out she was
drunk and fell down the stairs, cracking her skull open, you have to announce
“Never mind,” which makes you look like amateurs. So he doesn’t say anything
until he’s ready to call it a homicide.

Plus, not saying anything about it being a
homicide makes it easier to run down the truly stupid killers, who make up a
surprisingly large percentage of killers. They’re the ones who think if we
don’t say we’re investigating a murder that we’re not. It’s kind of sweet how
these morons assume we always tell the whole story.

If the killer is not truly stupid and we didn’t
call it a homicide, he’s a little less likely to hit the interstate. I say “a
little less likely” because most killers try to disappear before the body is
discovered. That’s assuming they’re mobile killers: folks who can toss all
their stuff in the back of a pickup and disappear in a half-hour. That includes
most students, day workers, and guys with cardboard signs who stand near the
off-ramps. The pillars of the community can’t just take off; it would be too
obvious. They have to hang around, cook up alibis, and in general hope cops are
as stupid as we often seem to be.

The two guys we had interviewed already—Daryl
Sorenson, the chair of the sociology department, and Cletis Williams, the car
dealer—obviously are pillars of the community. If they just took off, we’d hear
about it within a half-hour and track them down within a day or two, tops. But
I didn’t like either of them for killing Virginia Rinaldi. Both were strong
enough to beat the crap out of her and carry her up the staircase, and she
pissed off both of them pretty good. But, like most adults, they were used to
being pissed off. Typical day, I get pissed off twelve or fourteen times, so I
don’t even remember half the episodes. No, Daryl Sorenson and Cletis Williams
wouldn’t have survived as long as they had if they went around killing people
just for pissing them off.

Now, Christopher James Barrow, Krista’s pimp—he
was a different story. Pimps are all about money and control. If they think
they’re losing control, they’ll spend the money to protect it or get it back.
If Barrow thought Krista was disrespecting him or going freelance and therefore
encouraging his other girls to do the same, he’d do whatever it took to stop
her or turn her into an object lesson. He’d pay almost any amount to send that
message.

Finding Krista and Christopher James Barrow would
be tomorrow’s job.

Tonight, like almost every other night, I’d check
in with my AA group. I like the eight o’clock sob session run by a woman named
Sarah. I don’t know her last name—or the last names of any of the other drunks
I spend the hour with—and I never see any of them outside the basement of the
community center.

I haven’t said anything in the group for several
months, and I don’t intend to. For me, AA is damage control for badly damaged
people. When I listen to the other drinkers tell their sad stories about how
they’ve screwed up their lives—and other people’s lives—I realize I’m not the
biggest fuckup in town. Of course, that’s not much of a hurdle. It’s like
placing the bar on the ground and then stepping over it. So I don’t feel a rush
of victory endorphins. That’s one thing I’ve learned as a recovering drunk:
Being able to live my life without hurting anyone takes a lot of effort, but
there’s no reason to be all that proud of yourself. After all, you weren’t
supposed to hurt other people in the first place.

Next morning, I pulled into headquarters at 7:58
and made it to my desk at eight sharp. Ryan was already at his computer,
looking something up. We said our good mornings. Ryan always gives me a big
smile. At 7:58 in the morning.

“What are you up to?” I said to him. We don’t have
a relationship where he asks me what I want to do next. He just does his
research, and answers my question when I ask him what he’s doing.

“Looking up Krista’s apartment on the map.”

“Want to head out there now? If that’s where she’s
staying, good chance she’ll be in.”

“I guess.” He paused a moment. “Just trying to
figure out what was going on.” His chair creaked as he leaned back. “If she was
living at Virginia Rinaldi’s place, it was either because they were in some
sort of relationship or because she was trying to lay low so her pimp couldn’t
find her, right?”

I thought about it a second. “That makes sense.”

“And maybe the pimp finds her. He goes to
Virginia’s house, kills her.”

“Yeah. That could be what happened.”

“But we’re not considering another scenario:
Krista and the pimp kill Virginia together. She tells him where Virginia is, he
comes over—alone or with some muscle—and they kill her.”

“Motive?”

“Not sure.” He shook his head. “Krista and
Virginia got into it Monday night. Krista storms off. One way or another, she
and the pimp come back to Virginia’s place. The argument turns into a fight.
Virginia’s dead.”

“All we know about Virginia so far is that she was
real good at pissing people off. She could humiliate you or threaten you.
Whatever. I’m sure there’s lots of ways she could have pissed off Krista—or
Christopher James Barrow. Maybe that’s what happened: Virginia finally pissed
off the wrong person.”

Ryan looked frustrated, like he wanted to nail
down the motive. “So how are we going—”

My cell rang. I pulled it from my bag and read the
screen. It was Mary Dawson, the dean of students at Central Montana. I held up
my finger to tell Ryan I wanted to take the call. “Hello, Dean Dawson. What’s
up?” I hit Speaker.

“I wanted to give you a heads-up on something. I
just got a call from President Billingham. He asked me to pass this on to you.
There’s going to be a rally of some sort here on campus this afternoon. One
o’clock.”

“Okay, what’s it about?”

“Still quite sketchy, but we know it was called by
this group called Students for Decency and Morality.”

“Oh, Jesus. Who’re they?”

“We don’t know that much about them. They’re not
officially registered as a campus organization, so we don’t have any good
information about how many of them there are. There used to be this group on
campus, called
InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship. But
they got derecognized—”

“What was that word?”

“They got derecognized. It’s happened at a number
of colleges and universities across the county. It means they’re no longer
recognized as an official organization by the school.”

“What did they do?”

“Well, that depends on who you ask. The
university’s position is that they discriminate—they require that students have
a certain set of beliefs if they want to join. Their position is that the
university wants to wipe out religious expression, that it’s absurd to say that
a student organization that exists to promote Christianity can’t require
members to hold those beliefs.”

“So what’s the big deal? The group isn’t
recognized. The university isn’t forbidding students from joining, right?”

“No, not at all. Students can join. But the
university can’t support the organization. Which means that the group doesn’t
get a stipend for its operations. They can’t meet on campus without paying to
use the rooms. They aren’t invited to the student fairs, where most groups do
their recruiting.”

“All right, so this old group morphs into this new
group, Students for Decency and Morality, right?”

“That’s right. They’re a lot more aggressive in
their outreach. They’re a family-values organization. Very conservative.
Anti-abortion. Anti-gay marriage. Anti-LGBT.”

“What’s the occasion for the rally?”

“It’s Virginia Rinaldi. Based on some tweets and
Facebook posts they’ve put out since last night, I think they’re planning to
put pressure on the university not to replace her with someone else who doesn’t
represent Montana values.”

“Thirty-six hours after she dies?”

“They’re probably going to say a few polite things
about her before they get into why she was wrong for Central Montana State.
Then they’re going to make some sort of big announcement.”

“What about?”

“They’re not saying. The tweets say, ‘Stay tuned
for a big announcement.’”

“Everybody’s in show business.” I sighed. “This
group have a ringleader?”

“It’s definitely Richard Albright. He’s the one
who writes all the letters to the editor of the school paper.”

“Can you give me a quick sketch of him?”

“He’s a junior, but he’s forty-one years old.
Studying pre-engineering. Mediocre grades. He likes to say he’s a reformed
sinner.”

“Great. He’s proud he used to be a bad guy. I’ll
see if we can run down some of his sins. Do you know if he’s a Montana native?”

“Doesn’t look like it. He went to high school in
Nevada twenty years ago. Transferred from a community college in Nevada a year
ago.”

“But he’s officially in good academic standing? No
disciplinary infractions or anything?”

“He’s officially okay. That’s all I can say in his
defense.”

“All right, we’ll see what we can learn about him.
You know if any other groups are gonna show up?”

“We’re monitoring a couple of hashtags about
Virginia’s death. Seems the Women’s Coalition is planning to attend.”

“Are they the opposite of Albright’s group?”

“Good way to put it. They’re a loose bunch of
groups that focus on things like campus daycare, rape-awareness and prevention,
Planned Parenthood. They work with immigrant groups to help the women set up
cooperatives to make handicrafts and learn English. They encourage female
students to form chapters of professional organizations. You know, Women in
Engineering, Women in Accounting. That sort of thing.”

“Okay, I got it. So they’re fans of Virginia
Rinaldi.”

“I’m not saying all of them knew her or even liked
her, but they all would be on her side of the culture wars, yes.”

“Have you notified the Campus Substation about the
rally?”

“No, I wanted to go straight to Rawlings PD to let
you know. If you think your Substation personnel can handle it, that’s your
call. But if you want to bring in some other people, too, that’s fine with us.”

“All right, thanks very much, Dean Dawson, for the
heads-up. I’m gonna bring this to my chief right now, see how he wants to
handle it. We’ll coordinate with the Campus Substation.”

“Will you let me know if there’s anything you need
me to do?”

“You bet. Thanks again.”

I ended the call. Ryan and I hurried down to the
chief’s office. His gatekeeper, Margaret, told us he’d stepped out for a second
and asked us to wait. We sat in his outer office.

I turned to Ryan. “Seem odd to you that this
Richard Albright guy can put together a rally this fast?”

“Not at all.” He shook his head. “If he’s any good
with social media, he could’ve assembled a flash mob within an hour of the news
broadcast at five last night.”

“And if he knew Virginia was dead before anyone
else …”

Ryan smiled at me. “And if he knew when and how
she was going to die …”

“If I tossed her down the stairs, I’d get out in
front of it by setting up a rally about how bad she was.”

“Hiding in plain sight?”

I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

The chief walked into his outer office. “You want
me?”

“Yeah.” Ryan and I stood.

He invited us into his office and we sat. “Before
we start,” he said, “about the call that came in to check out the
vic’s
house? Untraceable. It’s a burner.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“What have you got for me?” the chief said.

I explained what Mary Dawson had just told us
about the rally. The chief hit some keys on his keyboard and stared at the
screen. His expression was grim. “Trying to see if the Campus Substation has
anything else going on they need to attend to.” A moment later he spoke. “We’ve
got four uniforms on duty. Think I’ll put on two more.” He looked up at me.
“That work for you?”

“That’d be good. Thanks.”

“You want to go over, too?”

I looked over at Ryan, who nodded. “I think we
should.”

Ryan said, “One other thing you might be able to
help us with. The guy who organized this thing—a student named Richard
Albright. He came to town only a year ago. Karen and I’ll look him up in our
system, but he appears to be a Nevada native. You might have better luck
getting the Nevada state police to talk to you.” The chief used to be the
number-two guy in Sacramento.