Red Solaris Mystery Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Bourne Morris

Karen gave me a grateful smile. “The Senator is sure to call you.”

  I started to leave, but Karen wasn’t finished. “Watch out for her, Red. She’s cozy with the provost.”

  The evenings were starting to get cooler; the roses that climbed the front of my house were in full riot, displaying their one last bloom before the first frost. I put Joe’s lasagna in the oven, opened some red wine, retrieved the bourbon from the cupboard, and checked to make sure there was cold beer in the refrigerator. I also put on a fresh pot of coffee. I never know what cops are going to want before dinner.

  Wynan had been checking out the status of the Morgan-Lassiter properties and Joe and his people had been scouting from Landry to Reno.

  Joe was with Wynan when they drove up to my house, took off their dirty shoes, and left them near the kitchen door.

  We spread the maps out on my kitchen table.

  “Here’s what I’ve found out about the Morgan-Lassiter parcels,” Wynan said, pausing to take a long draft on the beer I’d given him. He pointed to the two-acre parcel outside of Landry. “The records say this one was sold in 1977 to a developer who left it alone for three years and then filed plans to build housing. But never did.”

  “And then what?” Joe asked.

  “Then the land was acquired as an addition to a larger ranch owned by Andrew Vane.”

  I perked up. “I think I may know his son, Shelby Vane. He’s a professor in our College of Agriculture at the university.”

  Wynan patted my shoulder. “That’s great, Red, because when I went to the ranch house, the woman who answered the door said she knew absolutely nothing about that piece of land. She also made it clear that she had no interest in helping me. Said something about the police not being among her favorite people.”

  “I’ll talk to Shelby,” I said. “His older brother was falsely convicted on a rape charge some years ago, so that’s probably why the family is so unfriendly to police. But I think Shelby respects me, and he might be willing to tell us what he knows.”

  Or, I thought, maybe I could pick up more information about Shelby before I tell Joe and Wynan my suspicions.

  Joe unrolled another map. “What about this large parcel further away?”

  “I had no luck at all with that one,” said Wynan. “I’m not sure I even covered much of it. It’s about fifty acres of mostly hilly land, and swamp. You can’t drive onto it, and the perimeter I covered on foot was fenced in with eight- foot high steel construction fencing. I couldn’t see any buildings or animals.”

  “Do we know who owns it now?”

  Wynan took another draw on his beer and pursed his lips. “The owner is listed as a bank in San Francisco that acts on behalf of a blind trust. They pay the Nevada property taxes, but couldn’t tell me the identity of the true owners on the trust, and even with help from San Francisco PD, it will take a California judge a month to get us into it.” Wynan sighed and sat in a chair. “And, damn it, we don’t have a month.” A large hand came up and covered his eyes as his head bent down.

  “Do you want to reconsider calling the FBI?”

  The pain in Wynan’s face was unbearable. “We still have no evidence of kidnapping. But I’m at my wit’s end. Maybe we could use the Feds’ help on this.”

  Joe put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Let me see what I can do. I have some buddies in the Reno office.”

  I put my hand on Wynan’s other shoulder. “Let’s drop the maps for now and I’ll set this table so we can eat supper.”

  Nell arrived as we were having coffee and placed a stack of papers next to Wynan. “There are about two hundred here,” she said, gently taking Wynan’s hand. “The printer wished us well.”

  Over large type reading “Missing Student” was a color photograph of a beautiful girl with cropped black curly hair, large brown eyes, and a full smiling mouth. An orange cat nestled in her arms. “Jamie with her cat, Marmalade, taken a year ago,” said Wynan, a catch in his voice. “I guess it’s time to put up posters. Probably should have done this days ago.”

  “I’ve lined up some journalism student volunteers for tomorrow,” said Nell. “We’ll put these up all over campus and the neighborhood of Jamie’s apartment.”

  After Nell and Wynan left, I joined Joe on the couch. A baseball game was on television but Joe had muted the sound.

  “I know we can’t take any time away from here now, at least not until Jamie is found.” I tucked my head into his chest. He stroked my hair. “But after the search is over, I would love a weekend in Graeagle.”

  Joe had inherited his parents’ cabin in Graeagle, a place important to both of us. Last year after a dreadful quarrel and a serious breakup, Joe and I reconciled and he had taken me to the cabin. In Graeagle, we discovered how much we cared for each other and how good we could be together. We took walks, talked about all our hopes and fears, our childhood troubles, our professional ambitions. We enjoyed three days of good wine and wonderful lovemaking, and returned to Landry promising to give our relationship a chance to thrive.

  Since that weekend, our lives had gotten busy again. Joe was appointed chief of detectives, and while his individual caseload decreased, his responsibility for overseeing all the others increased. Landry’s not as big a community as Reno, but it is a college town and we did have our share of incidents. I had become involved in long hours working on the school’s reaccreditation and my application for the dean’s job, requiring a brilliantly written letter and an impressive updating of all my publications. Members of my faculty continued to come to me with problems of their own, plus dreams and desires and hopes I would be the next dean. If I got the job, I would have to keep all my promises to them. If not, who knew what a new guy would decide?

  Joe and I spent time together, but didn’t live together. Many nights we ate at the same table and slept in the same bed, but too often we were too tired for the long talks and the shared family stories that had bound us closer in Graeagle.

  I chalked it up to his new responsibilities at work, but Joe told fewer jokes, had stopped talking about his family and his deceased best friend. He’d even stopped talking about the boy in Chicago he shot by mistake, the case that still put him into moments of deep depression. I knew, however, that particular tragedy was never very far from his mind.

  I’d stopped telling him about my mother, who had disappointed me, and my father, whom I adored even as he disappeared into dementia. I knew Joe and I should talk more about what was important to us. I missed the conversations that revealed our deeper emotions and secrets. Those talks made us closer. But somehow we’d gotten out of the habit.

  As Sadie had said, “You and Joe are like an old married couple who never got married. You spend time together but you are not building a life together. You have allowed routine to substitute for intimacy. You take each other for granted. You fight over small and stupid stuff and don’t take the time to make up. That’s a recipe for a very poor endgame.”

  I listened to Sadie, but when I just stared at my wine glass and didn’t react, she said, “Red, you’re getting ahead at the university but you are not getting younger. Do you even want to have a future or a family with this man?”

  That’s when I stopped staring at my wine and looked at Sadie. “I do want a future with Joe. But I don’t know what that future looks like and…I don’t know how to make it happen.”

  Jamie

  Jamie hunted through every room in the house. In the laundry room, she found one of the knives he had hidden. Not the strong eight-inch blade, but a smaller one. She’d decided to make one more try to create another escape hole. This time she would try the floorboards. She knew the house had no cellar, but maybe there was a crawl space and she could get to it and find a way out. Knife and dust cloth in hand, she explored all the floors in the kitchen, parlor, laundry room, hall, every place to which she had access.

  T
he man had left early again but had left her bedroom door unlocked. He’d only denied the empty front room, along with her ground floor view of the lake.

  She longed to get back to the lake. Maybe she would see the men, the trespassers, in the rowboat again. Next time, she would shout at them no matter what.

  Meanwhile, she poked and pried and prodded and scratched and looked for another weak spot.

  By late afternoon her fingers were bleeding and the knuckles of her hands were raw. The dust cloth had not provided the protection gloves would have given. Damn, he would notice her hands.

  She took the knife back into the laundry room and turned on the clothes washer. Once the agitator blades had started, she poked at them with the knife to see if she could damage the blades and stall them out.

  The water turned pink with the blood from her fingers, but ultimately she had stabbed at the blades long enough to cause a sharp grinding sound and a halt. She would tell him she had tried to fix the washer and hurt her hands. That would explain the condition of her knuckles and fingers.

  She put the knife back in his hiding place and sat at the kitchen table, waiting for his return.

  Chapter 27

  The next morning I woke up alone and feeling blue. Joe had dodged my suggestion we go to Graeagle for a weekend. “We’ll see,” was all he had said. I spent some extra time patting Charlie’s silky head, feeling sorry for myself, and then shook off the blues. I still had not found any serious clues to Jamie’s whereabouts, and I knew I should get back to focusing on that.

  But focusing on Jamie was not to be. Senator Virginia Delacroix was waiting in my office.

  “She’s been here since eight. I gave her coffee.” A roll of Nell’s eyes told me to expect a tough meeting.

  “Good morning, Senator.”

  Virginia Delacroix was a handsome woman, strong features, elegant navy blue suit, carefully styled blonde hair swept into a wave on one side of her face. “Good morning, Dr. Solaris. I hope you don’t mind my visiting unexpectedly, but I also assume Dr. Milton told you I would contact you.”

  “She did. I’m sorry to hear about Peter.” I sat down at my conference table opposite her.

  She placed her coffee mug delicately on the table as if afraid it would break. She smoothed her hair and unbuttoned her suit jacket. “I need your help.”

  “I’m not sure what I can do.” The senator’s face was so tragic I felt a surge of pity for her.

  “You were Peter’s teacher last year?” She played nervously with a diamond and gold bangle on her wrist.

  “Yes, he was in one of my writing classes.”

  “He spoke highly of you.”

  “That’s nice to hear. Peter was a good student.”

  “I’m glad you remember him, and I was wondering if you could appear at Peter’s hearing and speak on his behalf. He did well in your class, I believe.” She ran her hand over her hair again. Her hand trembled slightly.

  “Senator, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do that. It would be highly inappropriate for me to seem to take sides in a university hearing on...sexual assault.”

  “I don’t know how well you know my son…”

  “Not well. He was rather shy with me.”

  Her back straightened and her voice grew stronger. “Peter’s shy with everyone. You probably don’t know, most people don’t, but Peter doesn’t relate to other people very well. He never has since he was a little boy. He was an adorable baby, but then he changed. He keeps to himself. He can be charming, but usually he’s quiet, unobtrusive. But, as you may have observed, he’s terribly bright. It’s just that drinking and sex are not part of his life.”

  I nodded, unsure of what to say next. How often have I heard a parent swear their college student didn’t drink or was still a virgin?

  She pushed her hair roughly away from her face. “It’s impossible for me to believe Peter would do what he’s accused of doing. He’s a kind, gentle boy who can barely make conversation with young women. He doesn’t date.”

  “That must be lonely for him.”

  “Probably, but that’s his life. When I asked him about the accusations, he shook his head. And when I asked him if he had done anything to…with that girl, he burst into tears.”

  She paused to catch her breath. “Crying is very unusual for Peter. Except for occasional impatience with a math problem, showing his emotions is rare. Clamming up is what Peter usually does, and that’s what he’s doing now. He won’t tell his father or me anything.”

  “I understand. I am so sorry about all this.”

  She stood up. “Dr. Solaris, my son is a loving, wonderful young man. If you can’t help, I don’t know where to turn.”

  “Senator, I wish I could help, but I can’t get involved. Please believe that. Perhaps you should go back to Karen Milton and tell her what you have just told me.”

  She looked at her watch. “I doubt Dr. Milton will care. I’m due to see the provost in fifteen minutes. Perhaps Ezra will have some ideas on how to help my son.” Ezra? Yes, of course.

  The dull stare in her eyes told me we were done. “Thank you for your time.” She picked up her handbag and left.

  Yes, Senator, do see the provost, I said to myself. McCready may not give a damn about your son or any other student, but he knows a powerful political ally when he sees one.

  I busied myself for about half an hour with paperwork before Nell came in. “Mark Froman is here. Wants to see you.”

  Oh, wonderful. Another tough meeting. Just what I needed. No doubt Froman would want to talk about the shooting. And he did.

  Froman stood in my office doorway looking even taller than usual. Instead of the thousand-dollar suit he had worn the previous time, he was wearing jeans and work boots and a denim shirt that made his shoulders look particularly broad.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Red. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to change into a suit and tie, but my best mare had a bit of trouble birthing a foal this morning and I had to stay with her.”

  “How’s the mare doing now?”

  “Oh, fine. She’s a good breeder normally. Just taking her time this morning. Foal’s a bit spindly, but I think he’s healthy.” He sat at the table this time, avoiding the slender chair in front of my desk. I moved from my desk to join him.

  “What brings you here, Mark?” As if I didn’t know.

  “The shooting, of course. What’s the latest?” I had to make an effort to conceal my impatience. Once again, Mark Froman acted as if he was entitled to first party information no matter what the subject.

  “Well, as it stated in the paper this morning, George Weinstein is at a hospital in San Francisco pending spinal surgery, and Larry Colman has been released on bail pending a trial for assault with a deadly weapon.”

  Now it was his turn to be impatient. He waved his hand dismissively. “I know all that. What I don’t know is what you are going to do about Coleman. I mean, when you’re going to fire him.”

  “Larry’s a tenured professor, Mark.”

  “Yes, but you can fire him for cause even if he is tenured. Considering the man shot a colleague and seriously wounded the fellow.”

  Nell entered with more coffee. Mark looked up at her. “Any raw sugar around here?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake.

  Nell cocked her head to one side. She was used to arrogance. “Just regular white,” she said, and turned on her heel without waiting to hear what was sure to be another request.

  “Hmm. Females around here are a little touchy this morning.” Obviously Nell and I and his slow-laboring mare were all lumped together in his mind.

  “Very few academic units carry gourmet condiments,” I said. “And we’ve been very busy and very sad at this school today.”

  He sipped his coffee and eyed me over the rim of his mug. “About firing Coleman.”

&nbs
p; Again, I practiced patience. “If Larry Coleman is convicted of a felony, he will automatically be terminated by the university. That’s our rule. But until then, he is presumed innocent, and he claims self-defense.”

  “You were there. Was it self-defense?” How the hell did Mark Froman know I was there? Oh yes, friends and informants in the Landry Police Department.

  “I wasn’t there the whole time, and that’s all I can say about it now.”

  Froman pushed himself away from the table with a grunt I’m sure was meant to indicate his displeasure with me. Oh well. One more opponent to my getting the dean’s job probably didn’t matter, since I was sure the provost was opposed. “You’re a stubborn woman, Red Solaris. Thanks for the coffee.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He stood once again in my doorway, one hand on the frame, his head almost touching the top of the frame. He smiled. “And you’re one beautiful woman. We should have dinner sometime. I’ll show you around my property.”

  “I understand you have quite a lot of property.”

  “My dad bought half the county, and then after old man Lassiter died, I bought half of the other half.” Froman laughed. “I mean it, Red. I think you and I could have a good time.”

  Lassiter property. Jesus. I worked hard on a smile back. “Thank you, Mark. But I don’t think I’m your type.”

  His smile dimmed. “You’re right about that. You’re not my type. I like a smart woman, but I like a woman smart enough to follow good advice.”

  “You mean follow instructions.”

  “Maybe so. See you around, Red.”

  Lassiter property in Froman’s possession. I had to follow this up. But how? I called Sadie.

  “I need to know more about Froman. How can I find out?”

  “Well, I suppose you could try his ex-wife, although I don’t know how much she might be willing to tell you. Why do you need to know more about him?”

  “Oh, Sadie. He’s so pretentious. But for some reason, he quizzes me all the time about everything. I have to figure him out. Particularly because he just said something that suggests he might know about my missing student and I need a way to follow up without his knowing.”