Josie Tucker Mysteries Box Set 2

by E M Kaplan

  “Uh…the what?” Lydia Blaine was a horrible liar. Her eyes darted back and forth. If she’d been hooked up to a lie detector machine, the wobbly ink arm would be flying back and forth. Looked like she needed some tutoring from Professor Pants-on-Fire.

  Sure. Whatever. Josie would humor her and play along. “The poison pen letters from the person who’s stalking Joshua Sanborn.”

  As they headed down the hill in the direction of the police station, someone called out to them. “Lydia, you moron, we’re over here. I told you we’re going in Aimee’s car. Oh—”

  Because of the professor’s height and added bulk from the shoulder bag in combination with the gathering dusk, Josie had been hidden from site. As she craned her neck to peer around the professor, she saw Jane, the admin, who had a very pissed off look on her sun-tanned face, her blonde curls in messy disarray around her eyes. Though Jane didn’t say anything further, her sour expression said, What the hell are you doing here?

  “Girls’ night out,” Lydia Blaine said, apology in her voice. “Jane’s ready to tie on a few, it looks like.”

  “Tough week,” Josie said.

  “And it’s only Wednesday,” the woman said in agreement.

  “Which means one-dollar apple pie shots at Louie’s. So get your ass in gear, Lydia.” Jane’s shout was loud enough to make them both flinch.

  “Cider, vodka, cinnamon-sugar, and whipped cream,” Lydia explained to Josie. “To die for. And super cheap on ladies’ night. Not that I believe plying women with alcohol on a specially designated night is a healthy social practice. But we make less money than men with a 21% pay gap. And sometimes the bartender adds ice cream.”

  Behind Jane, a car honked. They all looked over together to see Aimee Kohler-Rowski laying on the horn of her Subaru. She gesticulated with a ferocity Josie hadn’t suspected her capable of displaying. Maybe she would have to re-think the extent of the woman’s involvement.

  Lydia Blaine seemed just about to invite Josie to join them when Jane latched onto her arm and yanked her toward the waiting car. “We gotta go before they run out of hot wings. That happened last time, and I won’t let it happen again.”

  “I love those things. Man, when the vinegar hits the back of your throat and you have to cough...” Josie said, not really wanting to go with them, but more interested in seeing Jane’s reaction to her inviting herself to their coven’s night out on the town.

  “Oh? Yeah. Would you—”

  “Come. On. Lydia,” Jane said with no subtlety left in her meaning—that Josie would be joining them when hell froze over.

  Lydia Blaine gave an apologetic shrug and scurried to the car where the rest of her entourage awaited.

  “Have fun.” Josie waved at them, a big, fake smile pasted on her face.

  #

  Darkness had fallen by the time Josie arrived back at her dorm room. A large crowd had gathered in her room. She took stock and made sure she knew everyone. No need for strangers at this point in her muddling. In fact, any more players in this mess, and her head might explode.

  “Dang it,” she said, noting an absence. “Where’s Sarah?”

  “Dunno,” Leah said. “Her shift at the faculty center was done over an hour ago. We’ve been texting her, but her phone must have died.”

  Or something. Just as she was starting to think they might have been too late, Sarah walked into the room. No longer in her work black-and-whites, she was in Bader sweats and her hair was clean and damp from a shower.

  “What’s going on? My phone was on mute, but you guys sent me like, thirty messages.”

  “Well, did you read any of them?” Leah asked, scooting herself over on Josie’s bed to make space for her roommate.

  “I only saw the first one and came here.” Sarah’s jaw dropped as she noticed Drew perched on the edge of Josie’s desk, and Benjy, who was leaning against the wall behind them. Her voice faded to a squeak as she said hello, and her face turned bright red. Poor, fair-skinned freckled kid—she’d never be able to play it cool.

  Glancing at her two best friends with fresh eyes, Josie took a second to appreciate the overwhelming hotness. Yeah, they have it going on. Height, big shoulders, calm confidence. And those strong hands and muscular forearms that could drive a person crazy. Even Tyshawn, who normally seemed unaffected by the hormone stew they’d been living in, actively avoided eye contact with Drew and Benjy. Interesting.

  “If you guys could bear with me for a minute, I’m going to close the door and go over some things I’ve been thinking about,” Josie said. As Brandon jumped up to get the door, she started to say, “I had a massive epiphany today that I want to hash out out loud. Maybe you have some details to add that’ll help—”

  Before she got any further, a light, polite knock sounded on the door. Well, at least it’s not the police, Josie thought because it wasn’t one of those scary, skull-rattling S.W.A.T. knocks that shook the hinges. At least, that’s how it happened on TV.

  Except when she opened it, Officer Krupkey stood there, an apologetic but serious expression on his strong, impassive face.

  “Ah…” he said. “I’m looking for…Yeah—there you are. Sarah, I’m going to need you to come with us.” He stepped forward and revealed the “us” he’d referred to as including two Northam police officers.

  “Three officers for one small freshman girl?” Josie said, her hackles rising. “Don’t you think that’s a little excessive?” As Officer Krupkey’s mouth pursed, she realized that he didn’t appreciate the presence of the other officers any more than she did.

  “Sarah,” he repeated, not meeting Josie’s stare, “let’s get your coat and purse. Whatever you need from your room.”

  “I’m coming with her,” Josie said, her eyes narrowing at the city cops. “She’s a minor and she needs a guardian.”

  “Not necessary,” one of the other officers spoke up. Josie turned on him, ready to cut him a new one. “Her parents have been notified. They’re local and they’re going to meet us at the station.”

  Well, crap.

  Chapter 32

  “What the hell is going on?” Josie halted Officer Krupkey with a hand on his starchy blue sleeve. She’d wanted to talk to Sarah about the letters, but nothing serious enough to warrant calling the police.

  The Northam officers escorted Sarah down the hall. As they started to guide her out the door into the quad, Officer Krupkey stopped them with a harsh bark to first take her to her dorm room for her belongings and a jacket.

  He sighed and shook his head, a weird combination of defeat and irritation that made Josie’s stomach drop. “Dean Handley died. He never recovered. Flatlined and had a DNR. Waiting for the official coroner report, but it looks like it’s going to be homicide, based on those plant leaves he was bringing up before he died.”

  Dean Handley. Dead?

  DNR meant do not resuscitate. It could be coupled with a living will directive, one of those end-of-life documents that Josie had yet to think about setting up. With all the trouble she’d been in lately, she should probably get off her butt about it.

  “With the video evidence and statement about Sarah, we gotta bring her in.”

  “Waitaminute. What statement?” Josie remembered Sarah saying she’d prepared the salads, but she’d mentioned it in the presence of only their small group, in the privacy of Josie’s room.

  “Northam PD has a statement from the cook at the dining hall that Sarah meant to kill Joshua Sanborn, but accidentally poisoned the dean instead. The cook says Sarah told her all this. We’re obviously not arresting Sarah on one woman’s word, but she needs to be questioned.”

  Josie was left standing in the middle of the gloomy hall, hands on her hips in disbelief as they escorted Sarah out of the building. All down the floor, heads popped out of doorways, watching and whispering.

  She turned back to see Leah, obviously distraught, rush out of the room and down the corridor in the opposite direction. The tall girl’s shoulders were h
unched, and her head was down as she pushed through the stairwell door.

  “Wow. Didn’t see that coming,” Tiffany said, after they were all back in the room with the door closed. They hadn’t heard the exchange between Josie and Officer Krupkey because it had been more or less whispered out of the corner of the campus police officer’s mouth. The only thing the kids had seen was Sarah being taken away—not in cuffs, thank goodness.

  “Which part?” Tyshawn asked, meaning the dean or Sarah. Though their words were flippant, their faces were tight with strain. Josie didn’t blame them.

  The dean had died—he’d been murdered. Poisoned.

  #

  Josie paced the short and narrow area rug of her dorm room, stepping over the legs of her entourage, old and new members alike—the remaining people, at least. Poor Sarah.

  “What evidence did they have to arrest her?” Tiffany asked. Her eyes were oddly glossy. Josie was about to ask her if she needed an allergy tab when she realized the tough girl was on the verge of tears. Huh. Not so tough now.

  “They didn’t arrest her. They just took her in for questioning based on the surveillance videos and something the cook at the dining hall said.” Josie didn’t elaborate that the questioning could take hours and be both draining and upsetting. Officer Krupkey was going to the Northam station with Sarah until her parents arrived. Josie trusted him to take care of the girl.

  In a blink, Tiffany’s tears had evaporated. “That cook named Linda? I could cut a bitch.”

  Drew cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the threat of vigilante violence. Interesting. Maybe it was the Arizonan in her, but taking matters into her own hands didn’t bother Josie. Best keep that to herself, she thought.

  “Easy now,” Josie said. The last thing she needed was her little ninja to go rogue. If Tiffany got hurt, Josie would never forgive herself. “We don’t know the whole story. Throwing suspicion on Sarah could just be a misunderstanding.” Or subterfuge, if the cook was in on it. Linda the cook was the one who bumped into the oleander plant in the atrium. That, also, was caught on video. Maybe she had pointed the finger at Sarah to draw attention away from herself.

  The fact of the matter was, Sarah might be involved. Josie didn’t think the girl was the stalker—not necessarily the over-emotional, bad-grammar-having letter writer that they’d profiled. Granted, their profile was the work of amateurs… However, Sarah’s flaming crush was enough to make Josie want to ask her more questions.

  The video recordings also troubled Josie. If no one had gone in or out the back of the dining hall, she could narrow the list of suspects down to the people already inside the building. And if the person who’d poisoned the dean was the same person who’d stabbed Professor Sanborn, the video of the dorm entrances meant that that same person was already in the dorm before and after the stabbing. Who were the people who had been in both the dining hall during the poisoning and in the dorm during the knife attack? The list was short. Sarah was one of them. The professor, of course, was another.

  Obviously, this was not science but mere speculation. Gut feeling, really. Luckily, Josie’s gut was trustworthy. Most of the time.

  “We’re going to make some assumptions here, for purely academic reasons. We don’t have proof, mind you. But what we do have is our power of first-hand observation. None of this would stand up in court trial—but that’s not my concern right now. Our first goal is to prevent any further harm from occurring, and the best way to do that is to determine who is causing the harm.”

  She didn’t want to admit to them that her brand of justice had very little to do with legalities. Yes, she wanted to see criminals punished for what they’d done, but more often than not—in her experience—fate took care of a lot of them. No intervention from her needed. But also, she didn’t want to set up her bad-example-self as a role model for these kids. As tough as they tried to be, like Tiffany, and as tall and adult-like as they appeared, they were still impressionable young people.

  “But do we know the dean was murdered?” Drew asked, his low rumble of a voice causing a ball of warmth to ignite in the lowest part of Josie’s belly. A sudden flush suffused Tiffany’s face as she looked at Drew. Apparently she wasn’t immune to him either.

  “That’s the first assumption,” Josie said. “The second is that he was poisoned. Those two things go hand-in-hand.” She caught a few head nods around the tiny room. “There’s a popular fallacy in books and TV that poisoning is a woman’s method of murder. I think Sherlock Holmes said it, as well as a few other detectives. It’s a literary convention—not truth. Point of fact, only about 40% of poisoners are women.”

  She’d read this statistic on a website, so it had at least a small chance of being true. Whether it was or not, she wanted them to keep their minds open. Even if most of the suspects on hand were female.

  “But the stalker is a female,” Brandon said, hoisting himself up on the bed and out of the way of Josie’s pacing feet.

  “And Sarah’s handwriting doesn’t look anything like the writing on the notes,” Tiffany said. “She’s got this big messy scrawl that only she can read. I think she’s Pre-Med like you, Brandon.” She whacked his calf that dangled over the edge of the bed.

  Josie remembered the lab hours Drew had racked up as an undergrad. Then again, it was only Brandon’s freshman year. A lot could happen between now and getting his diploma.

  “Dude.” Drew snapped his fingers at Brandon, and their heads all swiveled that direction. “Butt off the pillow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your ass. Get it off my girl’s pillow.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Brandon scooted away from the memory foam wedge that Josie had already given up for dead. The boy’s lanky legs sprawled as he perched on the edge of the bed, full of respect for Drew.

  Josie had never been more in awe—and slightly turned on—in her life. She decided then and there, whatever she was paying Drew to be her bodyguard, he was worth double. Joking aside, maybe she owed him a raise. She could try to be more emotionally available and supportive…try being the operative word.

  “The thing is, guys,” Josie said, “I don’t think there is a stalker.”

  Chapter 33

  Josie wasn’t able to calm the kids down after sharing her theory. She might as well have delivered a crate full of puppies to a nursery school. They erupted into such a frenzy of confused chatter that she grabbed Drew’s Jeep keys and a bunch of twenties out of his wallet and tossed them to Benjy.

  “Take them to the nearest 24-hour pancake house and fill ‘em up,” she said. “The carbs will settle them down and help them sleep.” She cringed when she heard how condescending she sounded, but no one seemed to mind.

  Tiffany paused at the door, and Josie wondered if the girl was about to hug her. But then the girl rolled her eyes and left. Which was just about as good as an embrace, she figured.

  After the kids left, Drew opened the window to let the excess body heat out. The room had two levels of stuffy—a lot and Oh, God, we’re all going to die.

  As they straightened the bed and rolled Benjy’s sleeping bag out for when he returned, Drew spoke quietly, mindful that their voices might carry out into the quad.

  “If there’s no stalker, who wrote the letters?”

  “I don’t know.” All she knew was that Professor Sanborn had not acted threatened in any way, shape, or form when anyone spoke about the letters. In fact, he’d seemed the opposite—as if the letters were a joke, despite their escalating, angry tone. So, either he knew who the writer was…or he had written them himself, as implausible as that seemed. What kind of grown-ass man would do a thing like that? “Do you need to borrow a toothbrush?”

  “I brought mine,” he said, holding it up along with their tube of toothpaste from home. “I’m going upstairs to the men’s floor to clean up. Hopefully it’s not a breeding ground for bacteria. Pray for me. I won’t be gone long, God willing, but lock the door.”

  Josie didn’t know what
was going on, but since the professor had been stabbed that morning just one floor beneath her, she nodded, compliant for once. Being stabbed was no fun. Once was more than enough for her.

  When he came back, she was already in pajama bottoms and a tee, sitting on the bed. He stripped off his jeans and shirt and stood in his boxers, not purposely encouraging her to feast her eyes on him—yet she did anyway. She hadn’t seen him in days, after all.

  “I brought an extra pillow,” he said.

  “Thank God.” She tossed the butt pillow onto the desk and took the one he handed her.

  “Got room in there for me?”

  “It’s going to be cozy.” It was, after all, a single bed—although extra-long.

  “Just the way I like it.”

  They left the light on for Benjy as they snuggled together. She gave a deep sigh that felt like her first full breath in days. Lying there together, her head on his shoulder, she felt like all was right in the world, that nothing could disrupt the peaceful, content tide flowing through her.

  She said, “So, tell me what happened exactly with Lisa First.”

  Of course she brought it up. Her and her stupid big mouth.

  #

  “She’s a new doctor at the clinic, which I mentioned before. She’s been there a couple months now. I’m assuming she’s single.” Drew’s voice rumbled through his chest even though his voice was quiet. Josie felt the vibration through her cheek, which was pressed against his skin.

  “What does she look like?”

  “Nondescript. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Medium build.”

  “Nice try.” She snorted a half-laugh though she wasn’t smiling. Her face had twisted into a grimace.

  He sighed. “She’s tallish. And blonde.”

  “Huge breasts?”

  “I haven’t checked those out. But if you want, I can look next time and report back to you.”