The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6) (29 page)

Chapter 34

The auditorium at the
Special Events Center on campus was about three-quarters full when Ryan and I
pulled up Saturday morning. We walked into the lobby, usually a cheerful place
with its brightly colored carpeting and posters on the walls showing the
performers who had appeared there.

In front of the big steel doors that led into the
auditorium were two large photographs framed in black. One was a publicity
photo for Virginia Rinaldi, the other a yearbook photo of Jennifer Taylor. Mary
Dawson had told us they had checked with Jennifer Taylor’s parents, who said it
was fine to combine the service for the two people who died. Mary said they
hadn’t been able to make contact with Virginia’s son, Robert Rinaldi, the only
relative they had on record.

Three professors spoke briefly about how important
and smart Virginia Rinaldi was. One student, a girl who I recognized from her
course, said Virginia had changed her life, giving her confidence that she
really was intelligent. The girl said she was a sociology major because of
Virginia and was planning to go to graduate school.

Three or four students offered remarks about
Jennifer Taylor. Smart, hard-working, kind. Wonderful future. Senseless death.
Throughout the little speeches about Jennifer, I could hear a lot of students
weeping. I spotted her parents in the front row. Parents of dead children are
unmistakable.

The ceremony ended with brief remarks from
President Billingham, the university’s father figure. I’d seen him speak at a
number of services. He was always diplomatic, graceful, and thoughtful, even
though you were never sure he had actually met the people he praised.

After the service, Ryan and I went up to talk with
Mary Dawson.

“How’re you holding up?” I said to her.

“I’m fine.” She put on a sad smile. “I spent an
hour this morning with Jennifer’s parents. They’re such strong people. I can’t
imagine what they’re going through.” She shook her head.

I nodded. “I didn’t see Arthur Vines up on the
stage this morning. He couldn’t make it?”

“Mr. Vines is no longer with the university.”

“Really?”

“He decided to take early retirement. Yesterday
afternoon, quite suddenly.”

“You have something to do with that?” I tried to
repress a smile.

“President Billingham asked Mr. Vines to show me
all the files related to the harassment of Abby Demarest. That’s all I’ll say.”
I detected a hint of a smile, so I felt free to return it.

After Ryan and I finished talking with Mary
Dawson, a young man walked up to us. “Are you Detective Seagate?” he said. I
knew I recognized him but couldn’t pull up a name. “I’m Robert Rinaldi.”

Now I remembered where I’d seen him: in the
photographs on the mantelpiece in his mother’s house. “Robert, I’m very sorry
for your loss.”

“Thank you. I wanted to tell you I appreciate what
you’ve done—trying to find the person …”

I nodded. “We know who he is. He’s in custody on
other charges. We’ll be charging him with murder very soon.”

“I didn’t learn until late yesterday that you were
looking for me. I wasn’t hiding or anything. I was staying with a friend here
in town.”

“We tried calling you a bunch of times.”

He shook his head. “I’d turned my phone off. I was
trying to pull it together.”

“I understand. Robert, would you mind if I asked
you a couple questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“What happened that made you decide to drive here
from Portland last week?”

“My mother had told me about this new relationship
she was in. With Elena. When she told me Elena was a sex worker … I knew my
mother was bisexual, but I didn’t think she’d ever gotten involved with a sex
worker before. It scared me, is all. I thought this woman would try to take
advantage of my mother in some way. You never met her, but she was like a child
when she was in love. All the qualities that made her such a good
researcher—the energy, the brains, the tenacity—all those things disappeared. I
didn’t want her to get hurt.”

“So you were there Monday night, the night of her
class?”

“Yeah, the three of us had this big scene. My mom
was out of control with grief. She told me she was going to give up Elena. I
hadn’t insisted on that—you can’t insist on anything to my mother—but that’s the
way she put it. It was horrible. And Elena grabbed her backpack and left.”

“I don’t know that it makes any difference now,
but your mother and Elena did have a loving relationship. They really did care
for each other. And Elena didn’t take advantage of your mother in any way.”

Robert Rinaldi nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. I
didn’t know.”

“You couldn’t have known. It wasn’t your fault.
Any son would have been worried.”

Robert Rinaldi shifted his weight. “This person
who did this, to my mother? Was it about her relationship with Elena?”

“No, it wasn’t. It was an idiot student who was
unhappy about a grade. Your mother wouldn’t back down about a grade.”

Robert Rinaldi shook his head. “Unbelievable. But
I’m not surprised. I mean, about my mother not backing down. I’ve seen that,
many times.” He began to weep. “I’m sorry.”

“Put your phone on. I’ll keep you up-to-date on
the case, okay, Robert?”

He tried to speak but couldn’t. He nodded his
head, then managed to say, “Thank you.” He turned and walked across the
brightly colored carpet and out of the Special Events Center.

There was still one more thing we needed to do to
close up the case. Monday morning we heard from the hospital that Abby Demarest
had been released. Ryan and I drove over to the university and walked over to
Mary Dawson’s office. When her secretary called into her office on the phone,
Mary came out and gave us a weary smile. I could tell she was still wrung out
from the ordeal.

“Is Abby still at your place?”

“Yes, she hasn’t decided where she wants to go
next.”

“We need to stop by this morning and have a chat
with her. We think you should be with us.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Mary, we need you to trust us on this. Come with
us now. Tell your secretary to cancel your appointments. We’ll have you back
here in an hour.”

“Should I call her to tell her we’re coming?”

“No, you can’t do that, Mary. Just come with us
now. We’ll explain it as soon as we can.”

“Let me get my bag.” She ducked into her office
and came right out. The three of us left her office and walked down to the
parking lot. Ryan got into the back seat of the Charger. Mary sat up front with
me.

“You need directions?”

“No, I’m good.”

And those were the only words that any of us spoke
on the nine-minute trip to her house. I glanced over at her a few times. She
had put down the visor and closed her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping
or just trying to make everything go away.

 
Mary
unlocked her front door and we followed her inside. A moment later, Abby
emerged from the staircase that led to the basement.

She looked surprised to see us. “Hi, Detectives.
What’s going on, Mary?” She brushed her hair off of her face. She looked good:
Her color was back and her movements and speech seemed normal.

“The detectives said they needed to talk to you.”
Mary led us into her living room.

I said, “Please sit down, Abby, Dean Dawson.”

Now they both looked apprehensive as they sat next
to each other on a couch facing the fireplace.

Ryan and I remained standing. I nodded to him. He
placed his briefcase down on the carpet and opened it. He pulled out a paper
evidence bag the size of a grocery bag and handed it to me. I reached inside
and pulled out two sealed clear plastic bags, each with the word “EVIDENCE”
printed in black letters on the side.

“What is this?” Abby said, looking to Mary Dawson.

“I have no idea.” Mary turned to me. “What are you
doing, Detective?”

“Inside this bag is a large fragment from a liquor
bottle. This bottle was from the Molotov cocktail that was used in the arson.”
I stood and carried the bag over to Abby. “You see the grey area on the piece
of paper label? We pulled a fingerprint off the label. That fingerprint is
reproduced on this card in the bag.” I pointed to a fingerprint card about
three inches by five. “In this other bag is a paper cup. We got this from the
hospital on Saturday, before you were released. We pulled a fingerprint from
the side of this plastic cup. That fingerprint is reproduced on this card in
the bag.” I stopped.

A look of horror came over Abby Demarest’s face.
Her features contorted and she began to scream and shake uncontrollably.

Mary Dawson slid over on the couch and put her
arms around the girl. “What are you doing, Detective? What is happening?”

“Excuse me.” I stood and walked out of Mary
Dawson’s house before I burst into tears myself. I covered my face in my hands
and wept for two or three minutes. A woman pushing a baby jogger with an infant
in it came by. I was bent over the hood of the Charger. She asked me if I was
okay. I waved her away. She asked me if I was sure. I was.

When I pulled myself together, I took a tissue and
wiped off my face as well as I could. I checked it in the Charger’s outside
mirror. Then I walked back into the house.

Abby Demarest was lying on her side on the carpet,
in front of the couch. She was sobbing, her arms and legs pulled in tight. Mary
Dawson was sitting on the carpet, holding her, rocking her silently. Mary did
not look up when she heard me re-enter her house.

Ryan was seated on a chair, his elbows on his
knees. He stood and came over to me. “She gave it up,” he said softly.

“Call for a uniform to drive Dean Dawson back to
campus.”

After about five minutes, the police officer
knocked on the door. Ryan whispered to him. The officer nodded.

Ryan and I lifted Abby to her feet. She could
barely stand. Mary tried to hold onto her, but Ryan gently took the dean’s arm
and led her to the other side of the room.

We brought Abby back to headquarters, where we
booked her for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Jennifer Taylor.

I sat at my desk and removed the two evidence bags
from the paper bag we had shown Abby. I dropped them into the garbage can under
my desk.

Ryan said, “Did you have any prints on the cards?”

I held up my right thumb, which still had some ink
under the nail.

Chapter 35

Wednesday morning, Ryan and
I were walking out of the county courthouse, where Abby Demarest had entered
her plea of not guilty. Twenty yards ahead of us, Abby was walking between Mary
Dawson and an attorney, a woman named Elizabeth Wagner. The university had
hired Wagner to represent her.

We hadn’t talked to Mary since the episode at her
house when Abby confessed to the arson. I don’t think Mary knew I had
phonied
up the props for the show-and-tell, and I’m not
sure she would have objected even if she had known. It was more that Abby
needed an adult on her side, and since the two of them got along, Mary became
the surrogate mother. According to the media, Abby’s own parents were stunned
by the news of her arrest, then repulsed when they learned their little girl
had made that video. They didn’t leave their house and come to support their
daughter, even though they lived only about a half-hour’s drive from Rawlings.
So it made sense that Abby leaned on Mary Dawson.

Abby tried to cover her face as she walked out of
the courthouse. The media were crawling all over Rawlings. The story of the
student in the porn video first broke in the newspapers and websites for
university people. Then it quickly spread to the general media, including two weekly
newsmagazines. When one reporter figured out that the student who killed the
professor and the student who made the video and who did the arson knew each
other—and were in the professor’s course—reporters couldn’t get to Rawlings
fast enough.

Network anchors who normally put on safari jackets
for their annual reporting trips to overseas warzones found themselves in
downtown Rawlings. They had to interview professors, university administrators,
and sociology students. Even the guy who shut down the dam so Ryan and Abby
wouldn’t get sucked under was on TV two or three times. The last time, he
reported that there was no damage to the turbine from the emergency shutdown.
“That’s one piece of good news in this terrible tragedy,” the local newsreaders
said solemnly.

I was walking with my head down. Ryan was trying
to avoid eye contact, too, but with his serious shoulders, strong chin, and
eighty or ninety glistening teeth, there was no way he didn’t draw a crowd
whenever he was out in public. “Hero Cop” was the title the media bestowed on
him for saving Abby at the dam.

And that might be why neither Ryan nor I saw the
figure step out from between a couple of parked cars and walk deliberately
toward Mary, Abby, and the lawyer. Tall and muscular, he wore scuffed engineer
boots, black jeans, and a black denim jacket. He had a mustache and goatee, and
a fresh scar on his cheek.

He stopped when he was about five feet behind the
three women. He shouted “Whore.” All the reporters and camera crews seemed to
freeze for a moment, then turn and swing their equipment in his direction. The
three women stopped, too, and turned toward him. He reached into the waistband
of his black jeans and pulled a pistol. “In the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Ryan was already running toward Richard Albright,
but before he could tackle him, Albright squeezed off one round. Amid the
screams and the commotion, Abby Demarest clutched her chest and sank to her
knees. The blood spread out across her white silk blouse.

Most of the camera people had dropped their
equipment and run toward cover behind the satellite trucks that lined the
street in front of the courthouse. A few, seeing that Ryan had tackled the
shooter and had a knee on his back, stayed to keep filming. I cuffed Richard
Albright and called for an ambulance and squad cars.

Mary Dawson and Abby’s attorney were huddled over
her body. A man who identified himself as a doctor rushed over and was giving
her CPR. I think everyone who saw the location of the wound feared it would be
fatal.

Ryan stayed with Richard Albright, who was face
down on the pavement, his hands cuffed behind his back. Flashbulbs lit up
Albright’s face, his expression serene and distant. He had come to the
courthouse with a mission, and he had accomplished it.

I rushed over to Mary Dawson and the attorney, who
were weeping and hugging each other. “Come with me, now,” I shouted above the
screams. I hustled them off toward the Charger and pushed them into the back
seat.

I looked back to see the doctor still working on
Abby as the ambulance arrived. The expressions on the faces of the EMTs said
she wasn’t going to make it, but they worked quickly and professionally. Within
thirty seconds, they had her on a gurney and hooked up to a drip. In less than
a minute, the ambulance had sped off and three squad cars had skidded to a halt
in front of the courthouse.

Before I took off with Mary Dawson and Abby’s
attorney, I saw Ryan hustling Richard Albright through the crowd and into the
back of one of the squad cars.

We didn’t have to work too hard to charge Albright
with first-degree murder. There were about a hundred witnesses in front of the
courtyard, as well as another three million on YouTube. That’s as of today,
four days after he shot Abby Demarest in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Ryan and I are on paid leave for the week. The
chief explained that we did excellent work but with all the media around, we
wouldn’t be able to get anything done, anyway. As I expected, the chief put
Ryan in for a commendation for jumping into the reservoir to save Abby. He
deserves it. I’m glad for him.

When I got home after the murder at the
courthouse, there was a small contingent of reporters camped outside my tiny
house. I shut all the blinds and drapes and just stayed inside for three days.
I didn’t have much food in the house. But I did have my emergency bottle of
Jack Daniel’s.

That first night, I descended into one of the
moods that lead to trouble. I was emotionally wrung out, still reeling from
almost getting Ryan killed at the reservoir. I started to think about how I’d
put Abby Demarest on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse where Richard
Albright had just walked right up and shot her. The Richard Albright who had
told me he was going to remove Abby like a doctor removes a cancer. The guy who
had told me he didn’t do the arson fire—he said he was more of a marksman than
an arsonist.

I broke the seal on the Jack Daniel’s bottle and
the next day disappeared. I came to about twenty hours later and started to
weep when I saw the wet ring around the fragments of the bottle on my carpet.

I checked the street in front of my house. The
reporters were still there. I slipped out the kitchen door and made it to my
neighbor’s house. She gave me a lift to my AA meeting, where Sarah hugged me
and brought me back to her place for a couple days. Finally, the week of paid
leave ended and I was really glad to return to work.

With Richard Albright now in the county jail
awaiting formal indictment and Martin Hunt being processed into the state
prison, attention shifted to Martin’s fraternity, Alpha Phi Sigma. The
university officially banned the chapter and is talking about high-level
discussions on the future of the Greek system on campus. Mary Dawson is
chairing a committee to plan new programs to prevent irresponsible drinking and
sexual assaults in the dorms and fraternities. The Alpha Phi Sigma national has
revoked the chapter’s charter. Now the place is just an ugly two-story building
with a couple dozen guys shoving their stuff into their cars and leaving for
the last time.

We learned that Richard Albright got himself a
high-profile attorney from out of state who announced he was going to enter a
plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. He’s probably already figured out how
that’s not going to work, not here in Montana. For one thing, we abolished the
insanity defense. The best he can hope for is what the lawyers call “guilty but
insane.” That means you get a few chances to prove you were insane, but no
matter how insane you were, if you did the crime, you still get found guilty.
Then the judge gets to decide whether you go to prison or some kind of
institution where they treat you but still keep you behind bars. You do the
time, but they give you pills and let you leave your cell for an hour several
times each week to sit in a circle talking with other guilty but insane guys.

My personal opinion, from the half-dozen lectures
in criminal law that I was sober enough to attend as an undergrad, is that it’s
almost impossible to define insanity. My perspective, based on being a cop for
almost two decades, is if you intend to kill someone, there’s a very good
chance you’re insane.

Take Richard Albright. Ryan’s opinion of this guy
was that he was at least guilty of being a really bad Bible student if he
thought Jesus would have approved of killing anyone. Even though I don’t know
much about Jesus, I do know Ryan’s right about that. Richard Albright knew one
thing—that sin is bad—and therefore thought it made sense to kill sinners. Even
though he could quote the line about hating the sin but loving the sinner, that
message never made it down to his trigger finger. I’ve read about guys who did
a lot of time inside but can’t cope outside, so they deliberately do stuff to
get arrested to go back inside. I don’t think that’s what was going on with
Albright. I think he needed the attention and was willing to pay any price to
get it. Which is insane.

Martin Hunt was insane, too. He was willing to
kill the professor who was going to kick him out of the university. He claimed
he didn’t know what happened in Virginia Rinaldi’s house that night, but the
fact that he tossed her down the stairs not once but twice tells me he was
thinking clearly. Not well, but clearly. And when he pushed Abby into the
reservoir so she wouldn’t flip on him, he was thinking clearly, too. As it
turns out, he succeeded in not getting kicked out of Central Montana State
University. But he is going to spend the rest of his life in a different
central Montana state institution. That’s insane.

I haven’t yet figured out what motivated Abby to
do the stupid things she did. Why would anyone think it’s smart to put a porn
video up on the web? Lots of girls didn’t get enough attention from their
parents or thought they weren’t pretty enough. Why couldn’t Abby have just gotten
a stupid tattoo above her ass like those girls do? And why was she so dim that
she torched her own place? Whether your roommate is home or not, you can’t go
around starting a fire in an apartment complex and not realize you might hurt
someone.

I think Abby suffered from a serious lack of
imagination. If you’re my age with my mileage and you can’t imagine a future
with at least a promise of meaning and love, that’s too bad. But if you’re
twenty and the best you can imagine for yourself is that thousands of losers
will get their rocks off watching you screwing someone, that’s terrible.

Once I pulled myself together after my drunk
episode last week, I tried to call Elena Moranu to see how she was doing. She
never picked up. Yesterday I stopped by her apartment. Her car was gone. I was
pleased to see there weren’t any reporters around. That might be because most
people knew her as Krista and couldn’t track down her real name. I knocked on
her door, but she didn’t answer. I went to the manager’s office. The guy told
me she missed her rent. He waited a few days, like he does, then opened up the
place. All the furniture was there, but her clothing and personal things were
gone. He’s arranging to sell her stuff and rent the apartment. He said he
didn’t think he would need to paint it. Elena didn’t do a lot of damage like a
lot of college girls do. She seemed like a nice young woman, he told me. I told
him I agreed, she is.

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