Tunnel Vision (23 page)

BRODIE WAS LEANING against the car when she saw Nicholls and Maggie coming toward her. The temperature had risen and she knew it wouldn’t be long before the heat and humidity reached a level where she wouldn’t want to wear her jacket any more. As she looked around the campus, students strolled between buildings or cruised by on bicycles. She always loved being on the campus and wondered if the students she saw realized they were in the best time of their lives. There was so much to be learned and she regretted not having realized it sooner in her own life. Now she had to satisfy herself with an occasional course in night school just to keep her hand in.

Nicholls was laughing as he and Maggie reached her. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothing. We were just comparing notes on how some of the folks on our lists took being dragged out of class and questioned by the police,” he answered with a smile.

“Find out anything interesting?”

“Only if you’re interested in who’s doin’

marijuana or who’s bangin’ who,” he said. “Scared the hell out of most of mine. Probably never even had a parking ticket before, let alone been questioned about a homicide.”

“One of mine wanted to know how Brauner’s

death was going to affect his grade,” Maggie added.

“Finally decided it couldn’t make his grade any worse than it already was.”

“Sounds real choked up about losing his

professor,” Brodie said as she slid into the front passenger seat.

“Didn’t question anyone who got depressed when they heard about it,” Nicholls said as he turned the key in the ignition.

“So how many do we have left to interview?”

Brodie asked.

“We’ve got a couple left on each list. If they’re not at their addresses, then they’re probably about ready to hit the beaches at Padre by now. We can check the addresses after lunch and if they’re not in, we’ll have to catch them when the session resumes,” Nicholls said.“I think most of them are going to be a dead end anyway,” Maggie said as she settled in the back seat.

“Why’s that?” Brodie asked as she turned to look at her.

“From the reactions I got. None of them denied hating Brauner, but they all seemed genuine in their disbelief that he was dead.”

“Probably genuine disbelief at their good fortune. Anyone have anything to say about the last exam?”

Brodie asked.

Nicholls and Maggie both said they hadn’t heard any complaints.

NICHOLLS PULLED THE car into the parking lot of Swanson’s on Central Boulevard. The small familyowned diner was almost full by the time they arrived, but they assured Maggie the food would be worth the wait. Most of the lunch customers had already been seated by the hostess and they only had to wait a few minutes before a large woman dressed in a denim skirt and western blouse approached them. She grabbed three menus from a rack and smiled.

“Usual place, Lieutenant?”

“Or as close as you can get to it, Ruthie,” the detective answered with a warm smile.

They followed the woman as she made her way through the tables with an ease that showed she’d had plenty of practice at running the obstacle course of tables and customers. She climbed the four steps into another room and set three menus at a booth table near the back of the smoky room.

“Take your time, folks. I’ll be back with your water in a minute.”

The booth had well-worn red vinyl seats and a plastic red and white checkered tablecloth over the table. A small jukebox hung on the wall next to the table. Maggie looked around and noticed a similar jukebox at each table. She glanced at the selections available on the jukebox and saw that there was nothing newer than the seventies on the machine. Even if the food was horrible, she knew Royce would be a regular customer due to the restaurant’s smoking section, as well as the music. The dining room was decorated with old license plates representing every state. One wall was completely covered by a sign for motor oil. It was a brand she had never heard of, but she guessed it had once been a popular brand. In the middle of the room was a salad bar with a large assortment of raw vegetables, cheeses and other ingredients for making a salad. Two large metal containers of steaming soup sat on one end of the salad bar.

Brodie had already closed her menu by the time Ruthie returned with their water.

“Are you ready to order or do you need a few more minutes to decide?” the waitress asked with a smile.

“I’ll take the chicken fried steak, Ruthie,” Brodie said.“You want the usual with it?”

“Yeah, that’s good.”

Ruthie scribbled on her order pad and looked at Nicholls and Maggie.

“Go ahead, Nicholls,” Maggie said.

“I think I’ll give the catfish a whirl. And I’ll have the coleslaw and hush puppies with it. Tea, and can I get a couple of extra pieces of lemon on the side?”

“Sure thing,” she said writing. “And how about you, dear?”

“Ruthie, this is Detective Weston. She’s new and this is her first time at Swanson’s,” Brodie said, as she lit a cigarette. She saw the look of disapproval in Maggie’s eyes. She had convinced Brodie to stop smoking when they first met, but it had been an easy habit to fall back into without Maggie there to support her.

“Well, welcome to Cedar Springs, Detective. I hope you can stand working with these two clowns. Don’t let ‘em run you ragged. What can I get you today?”

“The chicken fried steak sounds good. With mashed potatoes and a small salad.”

“Tea?”

“Yes, please.”

Ruthie picked up the menus. “These’ll be ready in just a few minutes. Enjoy.”

They smiled at Ruthie and leaned back in the booth.

“Did anyone you talked to know Garcia?” Brodie asked as she exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“I got the idea not many of them associated with the janitorial staff,” Nicholls said. “They might know his face if they saw it, but no one seemed to be on a first name basis with the guy.”

“Same here,” Maggie said. “If he worked

evenings, it’s unlikely they would see him unless they happened to be working in a lab where he was cleaning up. Even then janitors seem to be a part of that invisible group people know are around, but generally ignore. They see them without actually seeing them.”

“Who did you interview?” Nicholls asked,

glancing at his partner.

“Saw Obregon first, then Roth and his assistant. No love lost between Obregon and the other graduate assistants apparently. But I did find out that Roth could have had a motive.”

“Really?” Maggie said.

“Yeah, seems Brauner caught him plagiarizing in an article he was writing and called him on it. He claims to have written another article and dropped the plagiarized one.”

“Publish or perish?” Nicholls asked.

“Yeah.”

“Think it’s enough to make Roth a good suspect?”

“It’s as good a reason as any. Roth could have lost everything if Brauner turned him in.”

“What about the exams that were tampered with?”

Maggie inquired.

“Obregon claims he wouldn’t lift a finger to help out the other graduate students. And I believed him.”

“Still money can be a pretty powerful motivator,”

Nicholls said.

“How much you think a copy of the exam could go for? A hundred bucks? You’d have to be desperate for money to sell something worth as little as that,”

Brodie said.

“It could be worth a lot more than that if you had a graduate degree riding on passing the class,”

Maggie said. “He could have asked for more and probably gotten it.”

“But if the graduate students dislike Obregon as much as he dislikes them, they might think it was a better idea to pay him some money and then turn him in and get rid of him,” Brodie said.

“So you think someone decided to save a few bucks, became a do-it-yourselfer and it got screwed up,” Nicholls said.

“Possibly. But if it was one of Brauner’s students they had to have been fairly desperate to pass to risk getting caught like that.”

Ruthie returned with a large tray containing their food and placed the plates in front of each of them.

“Anything else I can get you?” she asked.

“Looks fine, Ruthie,” Brodie said. “Thanks.”

“Wave if you need something,” she said, picking up the tray to leave.

They ate in silence for a while, all beginning quickly and gradually slowing down to a more leisurely pace. Maggie took a long drink of her tea and paused between bites.

“This is really good chicken fried steak,” she said as she cut another bite.

“Best in town,” Brodie said. “Specialty of the house.”

Nicholls popped the last bite of catfish into his mouth and leaned back in the booth. “Well, what’s the plan for this afternoon, boss?”

“Finish interviewing the kids we can find and then go over our notes and see if anything jumps up and bites us on the butt, I guess. Are we waiting for anything else to come in from the lab?”

“We’re still working on the preliminary reports on Garcia, but I don’t think there’ll be anything new or exciting in the final report,” Maggie said.

“Have we found anyone who saw Garcia after he left his home Thursday?”

“When I talked to his supervisor, he said he saw Garcia clock in and didn’t see him again after his shift.” Maggie said.

“What time was that?” Brodie asked.

“A little before five Thursday afternoon.”

“Do we have an approximate time for Brauner’s death?”

“Mrs. Brauner said he left home between seven and seven-thirty Thursday evening to pick up something at his office.”

“If Brauner was killed the same evening, then our guy must have been a busy boy. There’s only three and a half hours between the last time anyone saw Garcia and the time Mrs. Brauner last saw her husband,” Nicholls said.

“This is ridiculous,” Brodie said. “It’s barely dark at seven-thirty or eight o’clock. It was a weeknight. There had to have been people around. Someone must have seen something, even if they didn’t realize it at the time.”

Chapter Eight

BRODIE WATCHED NICHOLLS and Maggie leave

the squad room the next afternoon and pulled her notebook from her jacket pocket to review the notes she had taken over the last few days. Halfway through her notes on Obregon, Maggie walked back into the squad room and threw her purse down on her desk.

Brushing her hair back with both hands, she asked, “Know any good mechanics?”

“Try Frankie over at Cedar Springs Automotive. I’ve used him once or twice.”

Maggie pulled a phone directory from her desk drawer and started dialing. She glanced at her watch as she waited for someone to pick up the phone.

“Yeah, is Frankie there? This is Detective Weston at Cedar Springs Police Department. Thanks.”

She tapped her fingers on the desk and waited a few more minutes.

“Come on,” she said. Finally, Frankie answered the phone.

“How can I help you, Detective?”

“My car seems to have died and Detective Brodie recommended you. Would it be possible for you to take a look at it?”

“It’s getting late, but I can probably swing by there on my way home. Say about a half hour or fortyfive minutes.”

“Fine.”

“I can’t promise to get her runnin’, but I’ll look at her.”

Maggie placed the receiver in its cradle and rested her elbows on the desk.

“I gather your car bit the dust,” Brodie said as she read her notes.

“It was on its last legs, but I hoped it would hang in there until I got a few dollars ahead.”

“Well, if it can be resuscitated, Frankie will do it. Fairly reasonable price usually.”

She picked up a folder and tossed it on Maggie’s desk. “Look through that again to kill time.”

An hour later Frankie reported that Maggie’s car would need intensive care and wouldn’t be going anywhere except his repair shop that evening. He would tow it to the garage and try to work it in the next day, but he couldn’t make any promises about when it would be ready. As soon as Maggie’s car was attached to Frankie’s tow truck, Brodie offered to drive her home.

MAGGIE LIVED IN a one-story duplex in a

relatively quiet neighborhood not far from the university. Not exactly upscale living, but it looked like a safe enough place. It was a red brick building with a flat roof. Flowers had been planted along the walk leading to the front door and the lawn was mowed and neatly trimmed. A homemade slat privacy fence separated her half of the building from the other occupant who she said was a priest at the local Catholic church.

“How are you getting to work tomorrow?” Brodie asked.

“I’ll call one of my brothers if they’re still talking to me. One of the four is bound to have an extra car he can loan me until I get mine back. I can make some coffee if you’d like to come in,” Maggie offered.

“I should be getting home, but thanks anyway.”

“I thought it might give us a chance to talk a little,” Maggie said.

“Except for work, there isn’t much we need to talk about,” Brodie said with a shrug.

Maggie was beginning to feel uncomfortable and she cleared her throat. Looking at Brodie from the corner of her eye, she said, “I’d like to clear the air between us.”

“I let go of the past a long time ago.”

“I haven’t,” Maggie said softly. She waited until Brodie looked at her. “What happened between us after Stan was killed wasn’t your fault, Royce.”

When Maggie saw Brodie’s face darken, she

continued. “My father said and did some horrible things to you, but not everyone believed what he said.”

Brodie swallowed hard. “Enough did.”

Suddenly, the car seemed warmer to Brodie and she was desperate to separate from Maggie. “I have to go,” she said abruptly in a hoarse voice that threatened to betray her thoughts.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Maggie said.

Brodie looked at Maggie, the hurt showing in her eyes. “I did exactly what you told me to do. I sobered up and got on with my life,” she said, her tone biting.

“So just drop it, okay.”

“Please, Royce,” she said.

Too much bitterness still lived deep with Brodie.

“What happened eight years ago was my fault. No one else’s. No one forced me to drink to drown my problems. No one made me hi…hit you. I hurt you. I was the only one responsible for that. You did the right thing when you kicked me out.”