They walked side by side toward the kombucha bar. All she could think about was how out of character his aggression had been. On the other hand, what about his behavior with Richie in Tennessee? Two outbursts of near violence. Had there been other episodes she didn’t know about? And if so, what kind of father would he be?
“What we need,” he told her, “is a friendly witness. Somebody we can trust.”
It took her a moment to switch gears, to recognize that he was talking about the case. They were almost to the door when they stopped at the same time, looked at each other, and said, “Daksh.”
Seventy-Four
The front room was empty when DeMarco and Jayme arrived at the Humane Society facility north of Youngstown, but voices and barking and an occasional scraping sound could be heard coming through the door at the rear of the room. They crossed to the threshold and saw Daksh Khatri returning a listless beagle to its cage while two other workers, one male and one female, both in their late teens or early twenties, stood ready at the next cage. The young man was armed with a short-handled shovel and a cardboard box lined with a black plastic garbage bag, and the young woman held a green garden hose by its spray-gun handle.
When Daksh turned after locking the beagle’s cage to see Jayme and DeMarco filling the door, he crossed to the young woman and leaned close to say something otherwise indistinguishable above the barking. She nodded in reply, while cutting a quick look toward DeMarco and Jayme. Then she laid the hose down on the already wet floor, gathered two puppies from their collie-husky mother in a different cage, and headed out the back door.
Daksh held up an index finger to Jayme and DeMarco, gathered up the mother in his arms, then gave them a nod as he too headed out the back door. They followed.
The mother and her pups were placed in a larger kennel outside. The young woman, returning to the cages inside, smiled at Jayme in passing. Daksh secured the door on the larger kennel, and motioned for DeMarco and Jayme to join him at the other end of the enclosure, where the barking from inside was muted.
“I apologize for the odor,” he told them. “The cages should have been cleaned this morning, but my regular volunteer did not show up. I telephoned three others before Lisa agreed to come in and help. And then Cory showed up after all.”
Jayme smiled. For some reason she found the lilt of his inflection soothing. “So now you have to manage two volunteers as well as all the animals.”
“I do not know which is more difficult,” he said with a grin.
DeMarco told him, “We won’t take up a lot of your time, Daksh. But we could use your help filling in some details.”
“I am pleased to be of assistance.”
“The last time we spoke,” DeMarco said, “you told us about Dr. Gillespie’s ‘pets.’ We know who those pets are. We know about their secret meetings. About the drugs and the sex.”
Daksh’s cheeks darkened with a blush. He watched the puppies nipping at each other. “So the rumors are true?”
Jayme nodded. “We need you to keep this conversation confidential, by the way.”
“Indeed,” he said. “It will be no problem at all. I am not an extroverted individual by nature.”
“So here’s what we need to know,” DeMarco told him. “And I understand that your exposure to Gillespie and his group was limited. But tell me this. Did you attend any of the secret meetings?”
“Oh no, I did not. I was never among his favorites.”
“Do you know anybody else who might have attended?”
“I am sorry, no.”
Jayme said, “But you witnessed interactions between these students and Gillespie? Whether before, during, or after class? And you apparently heard other students’ gossip about them. Would that be correct?”
“Mmm,” he said, and bobbed his head back and forth as if trying to remember. “To a small extent. As I said, there were only rumors. But many. Of those I heard…I have no memory of the source.”
DeMarco scowled, tried to think of where to go with his questions.
Daksh held his right wrist in his left hand, turned the wrist back and forth as if massaging the cobra tattoo. “I was not very happy there. I had no friends. Things are better where I am now.”
“What about arguments?” Jayme asked. “Or just general demeanor. How, in your opinion, did the group get along?”
He shook his head. “I possess no knowledge of a group per se,” he said. “In my class, there was the girl and her brother. The professor favored her explicitly. He never corrected her when she was wrong, and her answers were often incorrect.”
“Not so much her brother?” Jayme asked.
“So-so,” Daksh said. “I would say he was tolerated more than the rest of us. But the girl could do no wrong.”
DeMarco asked, “Can you think of anybody who resented that fact? Was angry enough about it to do her harm?”
Daksh continued to watch the puppies with their mother, a finger and thumb still encircling his wrist. The puppies clambered over their docile mother, nipping at one another. “She had six in all,” he said. “The last two are being difficult to place.”
DeMarco and Jayme waited. She smiled at him. He frowned and gave his head a little shake.
“There was only one time,” he said, “he seemed to be very angry with the girl. But that is only how it seemed to me. I do not wish to paint an incorrect impression of what I heard.”
DeMarco said, “We’re talking Professor Gillespie and Samantha Lewis, right?”
“That is correct. I went to the professor’s office to inquire of a recent grade. My grades have never been so low in any other class. My work is always of a very high caliber. I work very hard to do my best.”
Jayme said, “You strike me as a highly efficient and ambitious young man.”
“That is very kind of you to say. It is important for me that I succeed in this country.”
“You saw Gillespie angry, you said?” asked DeMarco.
“No sir, no, I did not see this. But I could hear his voice quite clearly through the door. The emotion of it, although not always the words.”
“What did you hear?” Jayme asked.
“Again, I hesitate to create a false impression…”
“It’s okay,” Jayme said. “Just tell us what you heard.”
“His voice was angry. There is no mistaking the sound of anger. The words? In recollection, it seems that he was jealous of some other man. ‘You will not see him!’ That is a phrase I heard at least once, quite clearly.”
“And how did she respond?”
“I heard crying. Sobbing. She was clearly distraught.”
DeMarco said, “How did you know it was Samantha Lewis?”
“I moved farther down the hall,” Daksh said, “wishing not to intrude on a private moment. But when the door opened and she came out, I was surprised to see a student, and one I recognized.”
“You’re sure it was Samantha?” Jayme asked.
“I am indeed quite certain of that.”
DeMarco said, “Then what? Did you talk to her about it?”
“I did not intrude,” Daksh said. “Perhaps I should have. But it is not my nature to insert myself in other people’s business.”
“And Gillespie?” DeMarco asked.
“We did not meet that day. He came to the door and saw me standing down the hall. He was still very angry, his face very red. Then he closed the door and went back inside, and I… He is not a reasonable man. To make a young woman weep…” He shook his head. Watched the puppies. “I did not speak with him that day.”
DeMarco and Jayme exchanged a look, hers full of sympathy, his a quizzical one, eyebrows raised.
Daksh said, “I am sorry to be of so little assistance.”
DeMarco asked, “Based on what you witnessed in class, or on any rumors you might h
ave heard, do you have any suspicion of who Gillespie was referring to when he said the word ‘him’?”
“I do not, sir. I am sorry. She was a very pretty girl. I am sure a lot of the boys were attracted to her.”
A few moments passed. Then Jayme said, “Thanks for talking to us, Daksh. If you think of anything else, anything at all, you call me, okay?”
“I have your card you gave me last time,” he told her. “I will use it if I can.”
A minute later, while standing beside DeMarco’s car with the front doors open, waiting again for the air conditioner to soften the greenhouse effect inside the vehicle, Jayme asked, “Any thoughts?”
“Sounds to me like Gillespie didn’t like sharing his toys. Unless he controlled the sharing.”
“Could be Griffin he was jealous of,” she said. “Could be Connor. Could even be her father, for that matter.”
“Or any other male in the city.”
“How do we narrow it down?”
“There’s only one other person who might know.”
“True,” she said. “On to Canfield?”
“Giddyup.”
They climbed into the car and closed the doors with a simultaneous double thud. He said, “Do you mind if we ride with the windows down?”
“What—you don’t like the lingering scent of animal feces?”
“I know it’s a character flaw in me, but no, I’ve never learned to appreciate that scent.” He started the engine and powered down the windows.
“So I should throw away my bottle of Eau de Kennel?”
He smiled as he backed out of the parking space. “You crack me up, Matson.”
She buckled her seat belt. “Those puppies were pretty cute, though, weren’t they? I saw the way you were looking at them.”
He said nothing, but continued to smile as he drove forward and onto the street. And told himself, Yeah, they were pretty damn cute.
Seventy-Five
On the drive to Canfield, Jayme put her phone on speaker and called the Lewis residence. A female voice answered. Jayme introduced herself and asked to speak with Griffin, and the woman said, “Just a minute, please.” It wasn’t long before the woman returned. “I’m sorry. He isn’t available right now.”
“With whom am I speaking?” Jayme asked, with a roll of the eyes to DeMarco.
“This is Paulina, the housekeeper.”
“Thank you, Paulina. Please tell Griffin that if he doesn’t wish to speak with us at the house, we can have a police car pick him up there in a few minutes and bring him to Youngstown for a conversation.”
“Oh,” the housekeeper said. “Just one minute, please.”
When she returned to the phone, she said that Griffin would be happy to receive them at the house.
After Jayme ended the call, she told DeMarco, “I’m so glad we made him happy. Aren’t you?”
* * *
Paulina led them through the house and to the rear door, which opened onto an extensive flagstone patio that ran half the length of the building and extended thirty feet into the yard, complete with a stone fireplace, oven and grill, a koi pond, and a bonsai garden.
A few yards beyond the striped awning’s reach, Griffin, wearing only a pair of tight swim trunks, lay sunning himself on a chaise longue. He did not sit up or even open his eyes when Jayme stepped onto the flagstone, but he did spread a large yellow towel across his chest and stomach. DeMarco grabbed two wicker patio chairs from against the wall, carried them to where the young man lay, and slapped them down atop the pavers. Griffin’s flinch from the sudden noise made DeMarco smile.
DeMarco and Jayme sat side by side facing Griffin. Jayme was the first to speak, her tone abrupt and resolute. “All right, listen up,” she said. “I’ve never had much time for spoiled pretty boys, Griffin, and I’m at the end of my patience with you. I couldn’t care less if your neocortex is still four years short of maturity. You need to sit up and answer some questions.”
Three seconds later, he opened his eyes and slowly rolled his head toward her. And in that moment, DeMarco saw something familiar about the way Griffin’s mouth was set, something familiar about the truculence in his eyes. And DeMarco felt, for the first time, sympathy for the young man.
DeMarco said, “Believe it or not, Griffin, I understand this philosophy you ascribe to. It might surprise you to know that I grew up that same way, hating everybody who wanted to tell me what to do. I didn’t need a philosophy to make me that way. Life was a bitch, just like it is for you right now. Like it’s been, probably, since your mother died. Truth is, I’m still not a big fan of authority. But what it comes down to in the end is trust and mutual benefit. We’re trying to help you, Griffin. And your father. And Samantha. We want to find her killer and put him in prison forever. I’m assuming you want the same thing. If you don’t…then I have to ask myself, why not?”
It took a few beats before the boy’s eyes softened. Then he raised his upper body, pulled on the chair’s arms and locked them into a higher position. Sitting up, he stared straight ahead, out across the manicured yard, and nodded.
DeMarco said, “We have recently learned that Dr. Gillespie was jealous of Samantha’s relationship with some other male. Would you have any idea who that might be?”
Griffin jerked his head around to meet DeMarco’s gaze. His surprise was evident. “No, none. Where did you hear that?”
“She didn’t have a boyfriend?” Jayme asked.
“No.”
“Seems odd for such a pretty young woman.”
“She was focused on her schoolwork. That’s just how she was.”
“From all accounts,” DeMarco said, “you two were extremely close. Which seems natural, being twins.”
“Are you implying that he was jealous of me?”
“I’m asking,” DeMarco said.
“Why would a professor be jealous of a student’s brother?”
DeMarco was about to speak when the cell phone in his pocket vibrated, two quick buzzes like a bumblebee trapped in his pants. He ignored it.
He said, “We know about the sex parties at Dr. Gillespie’s house, Griffin. We know about the drugs.”
The young man’s eyes flared open, though with fear, not anger.
“Hey, you’re old enough to make your own decisions,” DeMarco told him. “We’re not here to judge you for anything. We just need to know what was going on between Gillespie and your sister. And apparently some other male.”
Thirty seconds passed before Griffin responded. “The meetings we had were…rituals. Ceremonies. It wasn’t like a free-for-all orgy, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Jayme said, her own tone softer now, “I know this is going to make you uncomfortable, Griffin, but we need to know who was making Gillespie jealous. If she didn’t have a boyfriend outside of the group, that leaves you and Connor McBride. Could she have been interested, romantically, in Connor?”
“That’s absurd,” Griffin said. But his face was pinched, eyes narrowed as if he were thinking hard, so Jayme and DeMarco waited.
“I mean,” Griffin said, “yeah, he was always trying to get with her.”
DeMarco said, “And by ‘get with her,’ you mean…?”
“Hook up with her.”
“Outside of the ceremonies?”
“Right.”
Jayme asked, “How about during the ceremonies? Was he hooking up with her then?”
Griffin lifted a hand, palm up, as if trying to reach for the right explanation. “Generally it would be me and Connor with Kaitlin and Becca. Gillespie kept Sammy for himself. High priest and priestess, you know? The relationship is sacred. Not that that stopped him from doing the other girls too.”
DeMarco suppressed his rising emotions, kept his voice low and even. “But outside of the meetings,” he said. “Connor wanted to ge
t with Sammy, but she wasn’t interested?”
Griffin nodded. “Plus we weren’t supposed to…dissipate the sacred energy.”
“No sex outside the meetings?” Jayme said.
“Not that she would have hooked up with him anyway.”
DeMarco asked, “With Connor?”
“He was only in the group because—” Griffin said, then cut himself off.
DeMarco finished the sentence. “Because he could supply the weed and mushrooms.”
Now Griffin lowered his chin and stared at a spot closer to the foot of the chaise longue.
Jayme said, “And I bet that made him angry, didn’t it? That Sammy wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”
“He’s the kind of guy who’s always pissed off about something,” Griffin said. “But yeah. Like I told you, he was always trying to get with her, and she was always telling him no, no way, not ever. My sister wasn’t a slut.”
“Nobody suggested she was,” DeMarco said. He leaned back in his chair. Cut a look toward Jayme.
She said, “I need to ask you again about those pages missing from your sister’s notebook.”
“I didn’t take them,” he told her.
“We know you didn’t. But who else might have had the opportunity to take them? Did Connor?”
Griffin shrugged. “He was here a couple times. First time was right after the funeral.”
DeMarco asked, “He came here, to your house, the same day as your sister’s funeral?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to go to the thing afterward, the reception or whatever. Whatever it’s called. Dad said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. And Connor offered to bring some weed and, I don’t know, just chill with me and Becca and Kaitlin for a while.”
Jayme said, “So there were just the four of you here at the house? For how long?”
“I don’t know, three or four hours.”
“And your sister’s notebook was where—up in her room?”
“As far as I know.”
DeMarco said, “And let me guess. The second time Connor came here was sometime between our first and second search of her room.”
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