Josie Tucker Mysteries Box Set 2

by E M Kaplan

  “Hmm,” Josie said—a non-answer. She considered her options. Did she want to know everything? Or just the salient facts of the incident?”

  “Let me just tell you the whole thing,” he said after another sigh. “I’d chatted with her a few times. Mostly just small talk. Obviously the whole single or married thing never came up—believe me, you would have come up sooner rather than later. You’re all I think about—you know, when I’m not thinking about symptoms and medicine interaction and weird rashes.”

  She laughed. The vise around her midsection loosened a notch.

  “The other morning at about five o’clock, it was the start of my shift at the hospital. She was just finishing hers. We passed each other in that small break room on the third floor. I said good morning. She kind of stared at me for a few seconds—I honestly thought something was wrong, like I shaved only half my face or I had cream cheese on my chin. Then she just leaned in and kissed me.”

  It didn’t sound half as bad as Josie had made it out to be in her mind over the past two days. Then again…

  “Tongue?”

  “No. No tongue. I didn’t kiss back. I might have flinched, but I think I just stood there, tired and shocked.”

  Josie paused for a minute, just breathing, gearing herself up for the hard questions. “Did you like it?”

  “No, babe. I didn’t.”

  “So, you don’t like her better?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “And you don’t want to kiss her again?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She squeezed him tight, glad to have gotten through it—more than happy to be moving on with their lives. “Good, because now I don’t have to murder her—and I look really bad in stripes.”

  Chapter 34

  The sun streamed through the dorm room window. Josie woke wrapped up in 210 pounds of boyfriend, feeling content. Drew breathed in a whispery inhalation that wasn’t quite a snore.

  “You know that’s totally going to turn into a snore in the next couple of years,” Benjy said from his sleeping bag on the rug. He didn’t bother to keep his voice down. As Drew’s former roommate, Benjy knew the guy could sleep through anything. “And he’s Italian. He’s going to put on weight. Then it’ll be a full-blown snore. Maybe even apnea. He’ll have to get one of those breathing machines with the masks.” He clapped his hand over his face, fingers splayed wide, a gargling sound coming from his throat. “Just like that alien movie with the face huggers.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be quite the catch myself in a few years,” she said. “My stomach will calm down, and the pounds will start packing on. I’ll be just as wide as I am tall, bitching to myself about dumplings and the meaning of life.”

  “Aww, that sounds cute. Can I live with you guys?”

  She pictured not the three of them growing old and gray together, but all four, rounding out the group with their missing counterpart, Susan. “You just need to find the right girl, you know.”

  Benjy huffed and rolled over, punching his pillow. “I already did.”

  She regretted bringing it up now. He’d had a thing for Susan since the day they met. “Yes, you can live with us. But no cats.” He had a couple of rescued kittens—not from a shelter, but ones that he’d actually, personally rescued from a box on the bank of the Charles River. She didn’t like to admit it out loud, but she was partial to the gray one, which he’d named Meatloaf.

  “Love me, love my cats,” he said, his voice muffled by his pillow.

  #

  Josie opted to skip breakfast in lieu of a pack of peanut butter cookies from the snack counter. She wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but she was getting sick of packaged pickings. Her stomach didn’t much like them either, if the increased gurgling was any clue. If she kept this up, Mount Josie was going to erupt soon, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Benjy and Drew, however, refused to start the day on snack foods, so they hoofed it over to the dining hall in the freshman quad—the one that Josie had experienced her first morning there. She’d wished them the best of luck. Maybe they’d find better fare than she had.

  Maybe unicorns would fly out of her butt.

  Today, however, she had other priorities. As important as her stomach was to her, she might have lives to save. Possibly. First on her list of things to do was to make an appointment to see the head of the university, President Olsen.

  She didn’t know how long she’d have to wait in the Administration building for him, so she took her pack of overly processed white flour, peanut-flavored cardboard discs with high fructose corn syrup filling and sat outside the president’s office until his admin came into work.

  Shirley Hansen was from another era, which Josie could have guessed judging solely by the name on her nameplate she had stared at it for a good fifteen minutes before anyone arrived. No one named baby girls Shirley anymore. The Depression Era name had fallen off in popularity in the last century, gone with Dolores and Gladys.

  Going by Ms. Hansen’s appearance alone, Josie would have surmised the lady was a vampire. Long dancer’s legs, a smooth face, and a trim figure were all packaged in a houndstooth skirt suit. The only clue as to her possible age was her white hair, which fell around her face in layered waves in a very stylish, modern cut.

  Josie made a mental note to do more yoga.

  “How can I help you?” she asked Josie. The woman’s face gave nothing away as to what she thought of Josie’s collegiate appearance—her jeans and rumpled Bader fleecewear. Maybe she had students traipsing through the office all the time, demanding to kibbutz with the president.

  “I’d like to make an appointment to see President Olsen,” Josie said, suddenly unsure of herself. What if he had no idea who she was? Maybe Dean Handley had kept her presence under wraps.

  “I’m sure you would,” Ms. Hansen said. Her cool, brisk tone suggested an ability to mobilize strategic defense units. Josie wanted a woman like this holding the country’s nuclear codes. However, at the moment, she just wanted to get in to see the president of the university.

  If she didn’t fill him in on the recent events on campus, she’d have some major issues, not only with her digestion—possibly for the rest of her life—but also with her conscience. Yes, she had one of those as well.

  She needed to stand firm and not cave to this Greta Williams wannabe.

  “My name is—”

  Shirley Hansen had booted up her computer, at which she sat clicking away at the keyboard with manicured nails. “Miss Tucker, President Olsen’s schedule is thoroughly filled this morning, but I’ve cleared his lunch hour. If you’ll come back to this office at noon, you and he can chat then.”

  “I—” Josie nearly got whiplash from the abrupt verbal change of direction she was required to execute. “I would be glad to. Thanks.”

  Chapter 35

  With a few hours to kill, Josie knew exactly where she needed to go next—back to the Women’s Studies department to see if she could corner Professor Blaine. Hopefully this time, the professor would be alone and vulnerable, separated from her pack, so to speak. With any luck, also hungover and regretful after a ladies’ night out. Josie hoped to cull the weakest link from the herd, like a lioness on a savanna assessing spindly-legged wildebeests.

  Once again in the building that mirrored Professor Sanborn’s, Josie hunted for Lydia Blaine. Unfortunately, she didn’t find the woman alone. This time, Lydia’s wingman was Aimee Kohler-Rowski, but they were without their ringleader, Jane. Josie heard their voices as she came down the hallway. Lydia Blaine’s office door was open, but it was still too early for students to be awake. They probably thought they were the only people in the building, which Josie wasn’t afraid to use to her advantage.

  Lydia Blaine moaned. “Oh God, why did we switch to tequila last night? I have an Ivy League education. I thought I was a smart woman. Why do I act so dumb? From now on, start with beer and end with beer.”

  “Let’s blame Jane. In fact, let’s bl
ame her for everything,” Aimee Kohler-Rowski said. “From that stupid plant that she had us haul up those stupid steps. Who leaves a plant as a veiled threat? That’s just stupid. ‘I hate your guts. Here’s a rubber plant.’ You know what? She just wanted to have a plant in her office. If you want a plant in your office, you just say so. Am I right? Everything is her fault.”

  Josie stood out of sight outside the office door, listening. She definitely wanted to hear more about this everything business, so she made sure she wasn’t panting from her hike up the stairs. Good old fashioned stealth mode could be ruined by a lack of cardio preparation. Yeah, add that to her list of things to do.

  “I’m so sorry, hon,” Lydia said.

  “I never should have admitted I wanted Josh back. This is so humiliating. And even though Eric was a filthy pig, he shouldn’t have gotten caught in the crossfire. No one deserves to die like that. I mean, do grabby hands deserve such an extreme punishment? Even the Code of Hammurabi wasn’t that bad. Although…they were really big into the ‘hewing off of hands’ and the ‘putting to death.’ Maybe we just should’ve chopped off his thumbs for grabbing our asses.”

  “If Hammurabi had been a woman, there would have been a lot more castration, that’s for damn sure,” Lydia Blaine said with fervor, giving a Josie a glimpse of what sounded like a frequently-discussed daydream of the Women’s Studies professor.

  Holy crap. Was that an admission of guilt? Josie was stunned as the two professors went off on a tangent about the ancient Babylonian laws, clearly enjoying their gruesome, intellectual foray.

  “We still don’t know who did it,” Lydia Blaine said, instantly crushing Josie’s hopes for a confession. “And that salad could have been meant for any one of us. You, or me even, though would someone really want to kill me over bringing Ida Mae here?”

  So much for a big reveal.

  “What if Jane did it? I mean, she’s so adamant about humiliating Josh and making him suffer for what he did to me,” Aimee Kohler-Rowski said, though she sounded doubtful.

  This development was new and interesting. So, the three women were attempting to punish Joshua Sanborn for his adultery. How, exactly? That was the question.

  “Again. You mean, what he did to you again.” Lydia Blaine sounded slightly accusatory, as if her friend had allowed herself to get into this predicament of putting up with an unfaithful spouse. It sounded as if she herself would have jettisoned a cheating husband from the first proof of adultery—no exceptions, no second chances. “How many times does he have to cheat on you before you don’t want him back, Aimee?”

  But what if there were mitigating circumstances? Josie thought about Drew and The Kiss—the incident that had been weighing heavily on her mind.

  Aimee Kohler-Rowski didn’t respond because she’d noticed Josie, who’d stuck her head in to the office.

  Both professors looked hung over, eyes puffy and red—a far cry from the gym-fit look they, along with Jane, normally had. Aimee Kohler-Rowski’s white-blonde hair had escaped her loose ponytail and was coming out in wisps around her face. She was in a Mills College sweatshirt with worn jeans and a black Fit-Band step-counter on her wrist.

  “Got some regrets you want to confess this morning? I know a good priest.” Josie went on the offensive since their queen hyena was currently absent.

  After a slight, awkward pause, Lydia Blaine said, “‘Beer after liquor, never sicker.’” Even though she’d just been saying the order of the previous evening’s events had been the reverse. Lydia was in her typical sweater set with granny style pearl necklace—what Josie recognized as her uniform.

  “I was looking for you, Professor Blaine, but since you’re busy…” Josie began. She had no intention of letting them off the hook. She did, however want to catch them off-guard. “It’s absolutely perfect timing. I’ve been wanting to catch up with you, Professor Kohler-Rowski, in particular. I thought I was going to have to take a trip over to your college, so I’m so glad to find you here.”

  Neither women said anything.

  “So, how exactly are you punishing your ex-husband for his trespasses?”

  “We’re not divorced. Just separated,” Aimee Kohler-Rowski was quick to say—so fast, in fact, that Lydia Blaine rolled her eyes.

  “You know the ultra-conservative, throw-back, anti-feminist speaker, Ida Mae Rubens? She’s speaking here tomorrow,” the Women’s Studies professor said. “The right-wing circus is coming to town, complete with sideshow freaks, bearded ladies, and two-headed sword-swallowers.”

  Josie blinked. That didn’t seem very politically correct for a lefty academic. And rife with phallic metaphors as well.

  “Yes, I’m aware of it. I also heard that Professor Sanborn was instrumental in bringing her here to talk, though that doesn’t seem to jibe with winning you back,” Josie said, gesturing between the two women. As if that one flappy hand motion would sum up all the years of their feminist activities and beliefs. “Ida Mae seems to say exactly the opposite of what feminists stand for. ‘Women don’t belong in the workplace’ and we should be paid less to discourage us from wanting to work in the first place? I mean, seriously?”

  Aimee Kohler-Rowski—Josie could not stop thinking of the woman without her full hyphenated name—sighed long and loudly.

  “Let me guess,” Josie said, catching on to the pattern. “Jane’s idea?”

  “Absolutely, it frickin’ was,” Lydia Blaine said.

  “Of course I don’t want that woman, Ida, to speak here. I’ve seen her speak at other venues, but Jane’s idea was to make Joshua bring her here as a peace offering. To humiliate him on a professional level. He doesn’t support any of those throw-back, barefoot-and-in-the-kitchen views any more than I do. But this was Jane’s idea of him groveling. In a public display.”

  “What ever happened to buying flowers?” Granted, committing adultery numerous times was going to cause more damage than simple flowers could repair, but public and professional self-flagellation?

  “I like flowers,” Aimee Kohler-Rowski said, a daydreamy look coming over her face.

  Lydia Blaine slapped herself on the forehead. Josie had never seen a person actually perform a face-palm in real life, though she’d seen people say it online often. “For the love of God, Aims, don’t take him back. You’re deserving of so much better than that lying, cheating man-whore.”

  “I’m sure Jane would say the same thing,” Josie said, watching their faces.

  Lydia Blaine snorted. “I believe Jane would have more than a few foul words to say about him.

  “Why does Jane hate Professor Sanborn so much?” Minute by minute, Josie was finding reason to promote the admin to the top of her suspect list.

  “So many reasons,” Aimee Kohler-Rowski said. “To start, Joshua took her job and gave it to another person.”

  Josie frowned. “Her admin job?” Well, now that she said it out loud, it sounded stupid. Of course not her current job.

  “A teaching job. Here at Bader. Jane had been working as an admin ever since she got her master’s degree. When a junior professorship opened up two years ago, she applied.”

  “Of course she applied,” Lydia Blaine interrupted. “That was the only reason why she was hanging around, working in a job she’d over-qualified for. Do you think she’d do it just for the benefits?”

  “Well, maybe. Bader has good benefits.”

  “That’s beside the point, Aimee,” Lydia Blaine said. “Then there’s the whole thing about Jane being in love with Joshua.”

  Chapter 36

  “No, she does not. She is not in love with him,” Aimee Kohler-Rowski said. Two pink spots appeared on her cheeks as she stuttered through her adamant denial.

  Lydia looked skeptical, her forehead bunching up in wrinkles. “Whatever. You just keep telling yourself that.”

  Josie flinched. Hearing that whatever business coming from someone other than herself was really annoying. She vowed to stop saying it. At least to try to cut back on
her usage.

  “Jane’s a lesbian. She’s in love with me,” Aimee said. Actually, it was more of an embarrassed blurt.

  Lydia was caught off guard, her normally sharp tongue tripping into a void of silence like a Prius careening into a sinkhole. She twisted the prissy pearls at her throat while she gathered more verbal ammo. “How do you know?”

  Aimee looked even more flustered. “She told me so.”

  “Nu-uh.”

  “She did so.”

  The two of them commenced squabbling like first graders. Josie had always thought professors were supposed to be more intelligent than the rest of the human herd, but it sounded like their kind of smarts had nothing to do with emotional development.

  Lydia made a noise more suited to a fussy 1950s librarian from that Robert Preston musical with the trombones. “Are you sure? Maybe she’s bi and she loves both of you. You and Josh. Otherwise, why would she hate him so much? That kind of raw, visceral fury can only be the flip-side of love.”

  “You seem pretty sure about Jane’s feelings,” Josie said, interrupting. She figured the bickering might go on indefinitely and she didn’t have decades to spend waiting, especially if the stalker had turned into a killer. If it were Jane, they needed to find her right now. “Do you think she was involved with Dean Handley’s death?”

  “No, she couldn’t be,” Lydia said. “I mean, we would know, wouldn’t we, Aimee?” She turned to Josie. “Jane’s not a secret keeper. Anything you say comes out of that big mouth of hers. If you think so-and-so is getting fired, bam, she says it out loud in a staff meeting. If you think so-and-so faked his resume and credentials, you’d better keep it to yourself or the whole world is going to know.” She looked at Aimee for confirmation. “Don’t you think?”

  “Hang on a minute,” Josie said. “Did he?”

  “Did he what?” Lydia said, looking at her blankly.