The Perfect Coed (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1)

by Judy Alter

  “Where was the man?” Susan decided to do anything she could to keep this frenzied young man talking.

  “What man? Oh, the one in the hotel. Who knows? Probably sound asleep after satisfying himself—with my fiancé!” His voice rose in anger again.

  Okay, Susan, keep him talking but try not to let him get worked up into a rage.

  “Did you choose my car deliberately?”

  “Yes. I knew it was your car. Then I drove back and parked it just where you left it. You didn’t know for two days.”

  “Why didn’t you dump Missy on a road somewhere? Nobody would have found her, and you’d have been a lot safer.”

  “No! She had to be found. The world had to know that she’d been punished, just like Brandy’s been punished. I was going to stop Brandy next because she corrupted Missy just like you did. But she was so evil, someone else did it for me.”

  “Why me, Eric? Why did you choose my car?”

  “Because you corrupted Missy too, Dr. Hogan. She was… well, different, after she took your class. She told me she didn’t have to do what I told her. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be a minister’s wife! And she said it was because you made her think in your class. I didn’t want her to think. I wanted her to love and follow me!” He pounded his fist into the table and sat down, as though momentarily dispirited.

  Susan’s hopes rose, but when he spoke again, she shuddered at his derangement.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Hogan. I’d kill you now and get it over with, but I have to wait for your aunt.”

  “Why wait for Aunt Jenny?” She almost bit the words off. What are you trying to do, Susan? Convince him to go ahead and kill you now?

  “Miss Hogan knows too. She’s always known.”

  “Eric, she’s fed you, fussed over you. How can you hurt her?”

  He spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t want to, but I have to. I’ve heard her say that she knows I killed Missy. She knew I trashed your plants and did all those other things. She hears the devil’s voice.”

  So Eric Lindler had trashed the plants, not Kenny Thomas. It was Eric who tried to frighten her all along. “Did you call me on the phone, Eric?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Got one of those things that disguise your voice on the phone. Works pretty good, don’t you think?” Again, he swelled with pride.

  “And did you put that baseball bat here? The dead kitten? The plants?”

  “I did all that,” he said, puffing with pride. “Pretty clever, don’t you think? I had you scared.”

  Yeah, Susan thought, but never as scared as I am right now. Her mind was working frantically. What could she do when Aunt Jenny came in? How could she save both of them? Jake should be here right now, and this wouldn’t be happening. She pictured him, sitting at home, drinking a beer and reading, and she both hated him and prayed for him to walk through the door.

  * * *

  At the Yellow Butterfly in Mineral Wells, John Jackson sipped bourbon on the rocks, while Aunt Jenny daintily tasted a glass of white Zinfandel. John had assured her it was sweeter than whatever it was that Susan drank—that white wine made Aunt Jenny pucker her lips. They had just ordered their dinners—steak for him, shrimp for her—and were waiting for their salads.

  “Isn’t this a lovely place?” Jenny asked, looking around the dining room. It was small, with only ten round tables—she had counted them—that held four people each and no more. White linen cloths covered the tables, and there were heavy white linen napkins, real sterling silver, and fresh flowers on each table. The walls were wainscoted with dark wood and above that covered with a flocked, flowery paper. Heavy drapes covered the windows and were swagged at the top and highlighted with gold cord.

  “Queen Victoria probably would have liked to eat here,” the judge muttered, “but it’s a mite fancy for my taste. I’ll take The City Restaurant.”

  “Oh, no, we’re never going back there.”

  He reached out and covered her plump hand with his own wiry fingers. “All right, then, the steak house at Ponder. Or maybe even Subie’s Cafe.”

  “But you’re the one who picked this place! If you don’t like it…”

  “I thought you’d like it,” he said, squeezing the hand he held, “and it pleases me that you do.”

  The waitress brought their salads, explaining that they were wild greens dressed with raspberry vinaigrette.

  “Raspberry vinaigrette?” the judge echoed. “Give me good old Kraft’s Italian.”

  Jenny Hogan giggled merrily. But just as she took a forkful of greens that she couldn’t identify—they surely weren’t lettuce, why one was even purple!—Jenny suddenly said, “John, we’ve got to get back to Oak Grove. Susan’s in terrible trouble.”

  The judge was completely dumbfounded. “Jenny, we’ve just ordered our dinners.”

  “Bother the dinners! We’ve got to go now!”

  John Jackson stared at this woman who both fascinated and puzzled him, but something told him he’d better listen to her. He would later wonder if he left that steak behind because he believed Jenny about Susan being in trouble or simply because he would do anything for Jenny. “I’ll have to pay for the dinner.”

  Their waitress was puzzled. “You didn’t like the salad? I can bring you soup instead.”

  “No, no,” Jenny said, “please just hurry. We have to leave right away.”

  Still holding the judge’s credit card, the young girl looked at Aunt Jenny. “Did you get an emergency call on a cell phone?”

  “You might say that,” the judge said dryly, rising and holding the chair for Jenny. “Just bring me the ticket right away.”

  The girl scampered away, and John called after her. “Where’s your phone?”

  “Who are you going to call?” Jenny asked. “Susan won’t answer her phone.”

  “If she doesn’t,” he said, “I’m going to call Jake.”

  “Oh, my,” Jenny said, her voice tremulous.

  “Jenny Hogan, don’t you faint on me.” The judge’s voice was stern.

  * * *

  Both Eric and Susan had been silent for a long while, Susan absorbed in pain and Eric in whatever thoughts were tormenting him when the phone began to ring.

  “Don’t answer it,” he said.

  “Everyone knows I’m home alone,” she said. “They’ll worry if I don’t answer it.” If she could only talk to Jake, she’d find some way to tell him that she was in trouble—real trouble.

  “Don’t answer it,” he repeated.

  Grinding her teeth, Susan listened to the phone ring eight times, then grow silent again.

  “It won’t matter who it was,” Eric said. “Nobody can change what’s going to happen.”

  Susan shuddered.

  * * *

  Jake was spending the evening just as Susan had pictured him—sitting in his favorite chair, reading The Cattle Killing by John Edgar Wideman, sipping on a few beers. He felt a certain complacency—the Missy Jackson case was closed, Brandy Perkins seemed to be recovering, Susan was safe and off the hook, and tomorrow he and Susan would have a long talk about what had gone on—or wrong—between them. After all, he reasoned, crises like they’d gone through were bound to affect even the best of relationships. Maybe Susan hadn’t even realized she had lied to him.

  When the phone rang, his first thought was, Damn! I won’t go out again tonight! “Phillips,” he barked into the phone.

  “John Jackson, Jake. Don’t know how to tell you this, but Jenny is convinced Susan is in serious trouble. And she doesn’t answer her phone.”

  Jake shook his head, puzzling out what he was hearing. “I thought you were in Mineral Wells eating dinner.”

  The judge sighed. “We are… or were. Just about to be served the steak I’d ordered when Jenny announced we have to get back to Oak Grove right away. You know how she is.”

  “Her intuition, right?” Jake said.

  “Right.”

  “Well, I don’t much believe in intuition in
police matters, but then again Aunt Jenny…” Jake’s voice trailed off.

  “She won’t let me talk any more. She’s pulling me out the door. Just go check on Susan, will you, Jake?”

  “Sure, right away.”

  In the car, speeding toward Oak Grove as fast as the judge dared drive over dark country roads, Jenny said, “I signed your credit card slip.”

  “Forged my name?”

  “No, I signed Jenny Jackson.” She said it without self-consciousness.

  In spite of the situation, the judge laughed aloud. “Did you leave a good tip?”

  “Fifty percent. I figured we owed them something extra after leaving the meal.”

  The judge groaned this time. “We should have asked for to-go boxes,” he said.

  * * *

  As he pulled on his shoes and grabbed a jacket against the cool night, Jake Phillips felt a sudden rise of panic. If something happened to Susan, he’d never forget that he should have stayed there with her this evening, should have overcome his stiff-necked pride. He stuck his service revolver in his belt, checked his flashlight. The truck held rope, handcuffs and anything else he might need.

  As he drove, squealing around the corner and speeding down the highway, taking corners at a wide turn, Jake considered whether or not he should have called Dirk Jordan’s office or his own people. He decided against it. Any of those calls would have brought cars with flashing lights and would have meant danger to Susan. If there was any trouble, he’d rather handle it by himself.

  He parked a block from Susan’s house and walked softly along the edge of the houses, cursing the wide spaces between houses and praying no neighbors came out to demand what he was doing. At Martha Whitley’s house, he stopped and stood peering at Susan’s house. It was totally dark. Jake considered. Then he went back quietly to Mrs. Whitley’s front door and knocked softly. When she answered, he explained that he thought Susan might be in trouble and Mrs. Whitley should turn out all her lights, inside and out, and stay in the house no matter what alarming noises she heard. No, she should not call the police unless she heard him yell directly to her to do that.

  She was flustered, protesting, until he said, “I can’t stand here and talk. Please do as I say.”

  Jake looked through Mrs. Whitley’s flowerbed until he found a good-sized rock. Then he eased down the driveway and standing at the corner of the house, in the shadow of Mrs. Whitley’s house, he took careful aim and shattered Susan’s outdoor floodlight. The noise echoed through the night but brought no immediate response from inside the house.

  * * *

  Inside, both Susan and Eric jumped at the sudden sound of shattering glass, but Eric calmed immediately. “Someone’s here. But I told you, Dr. Hogan, it won’t matter.”

  Susan wondered if he would simply kill her right now. If so, maybe she should yell a warning rather than lie here waiting to be slaughtered. But if she did that, Eric would come after her for sure, and it would be a question of who was outside and how fast they were. As she weighed her odds, Susan felt her heart pounding.

  Eric paced the room, looking out the sliding glass door, then peering out the windows over the kitchen sink, but it was pitch black without the light. He whirled at an imaginary sound, peered where he thought he saw movement, but, in truth, he could see nothing. And it made him furious to know that someone was outside, trying to outsmart him, to stop him.

  “We may not be able to wait for Miss Hogan,” he told Susan.

  Susan had been trying to figure out if it was Jake who knocked out the light. If she had known for sure it was, she could yell and bring him inside in time; if it was Aunt Jenny, there was no hope—but how would Aunt Jenny knock out the light? Or even Judge Jackson? And besides, they were still in Mineral Wells. No, it had to be Jake out there. Besides, Susan truly believed that Jake would always keep her safe. I just never told him how much I trust and need him, she thought bitterly. She made up her mind.

  When Eric went once again to the kitchen window—with the cooking island and two chairs between him and Susan—she yelled at the top of her lungs, “Jake! Eric! Knife!”

  * * *

  “Can’t you go any faster?” Jenny asked impatiently.

  “Jenny, I’m doing sixty now. I know this road but not that well… and not at night. I go any faster, we might not get there at all.”

  “Well, couldn’t you have taken the interstate?”

  John Jackson was faintly amused. “It doesn’t go from here to there, Jenny. Try to be calm. I’m doing the best I can.”

  “But it’s been thirty minutes already. Oh, I’m sorry, John. I’m just so worried…”

  “Think about Jake, Jenny. He’ll take care of Susan.”

  * * *

  Before Susan yelled out her warning, Jake had inched his way carefully to the edge of the sliding door, hugging the side of the house so that anyone looking out the door wouldn’t see him. He’d circled the house carefully and heard both voices and movement, so he knew Aunt Jenny wasn’t having idle premonitions—Susan was inside and in trouble, and she wasn’t alone. Jake’s plan was to attack suddenly, surprise whoever was inside.

  So he was already poised when Susan made her dramatic choice. And she chose three words that could galvanize Jake Phillips into action—when she called his name, if he’d have thought about it, he’d have known that she was telling him she needed him and that she trusted him to be there, and when she identified Eric, he knew Aunt Jenny was right. And “Knife!” told him what kind of opposition to expect.

  But Jake Phillips didn’t really think any of those things as he burst through the door, yelling, “Police. Stop! I’ve got a gun!” He had a moment of gratitude that he knew where the light switch was inside the door. In a quick gesture, he flipped it on and flooded the room with light.

  Susan’s scream had caught Eric unprepared. He truly thought he had her frightened into silence. Instead, that loud voice broke through the night—and through his nerves. Knife in hand, he whirled and started toward her, forgetting momentarily the layout of her house. He crashed into the counter that separated kitchen from the family area where she still lay on the floor. He almost dropped his knife.

  When Jake turned on the light, Eric had regained the knife but still stood between the sink and the island. Jake, now between Susan and Eric, pointed a pistol at him and said, “Drop the knife, Eric.”

  “You won’t shoot me,” Eric said. “I’m a student.” He clutched the knife and moved as if to circle the counter and head toward Susan, who lay motionless on the floor.

  “Take one more step and I will shoot you, student or no.” Jake’s voice was tight. If Eric moved around the island, he would be directly facing Jake who stood just inside the sliding glass door.

  Susan saw Eric coming toward her, brandishing his knife, and then she heard the explosion of Jake’s gun, followed by a scream of anguish from Eric, and a clatter as he and the knife fell to the floor.

  “Jake, you didn’t—?”

  “I shot him in the arm. You all right?”

  “No,” she said weakly. “He broke my ankle again… and it hurts.”

  For a moment, Jake almost forgot all his professional training. He turned on Eric Lindler in such anger that he raised his fists. Only Susan’s cry of “Jake!” stopped him from beating the boy, who was whimpering and crying, “It hurts. Oh, God, it hurts.”

  “It’s all right, Susan. Lie still just a minute more. Eric, sit at the table.” He grabbed the boy none too gently and propelled him to the table, where he handcuffed Eric’s good arm to the table leg. Then he picked Susan up off the floor, being as gentle as he could, and laid her on the couch.

  “How long’s he been here?”

  “Forever,” she said. “Maybe thirty minutes after you left.”

  “Susan, I am so sorry… I should have stayed.”

  She put a finger to his lips. “Before you call the police and this place turns into a zoo, would you please kiss me?”

 
; He did, a long kiss filled with promise.

  Within ten minutes, the small house was surrounded by squad cars with lights flashing.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jake didn’t get his talk with Susan the next day as he’d planned. Having spent half the night in the emergency room, she slept all day, well medicated to keep the pain down.

  “How did you manage to rebreak this?” the doctor had asked impatiently.

  “You wouldn’t believe,” Susan told him through gritted teeth. Now that she was safe and it really was all over, she had given in to the pain.

  Jake stayed with her at the hospital, an arm protectively about her shoulders even as the doctor probed with careful fingers and announced that he would be able to recast it that night. “Now,” he said ominously, “you’ll have to stay off it at least six more weeks.”

  The pain medication had taken over, and Susan was too groggy to know what he’d said.

  * * *

  Susan and Jake had their talk two days later. Jake told Aunt Jenny that Susan needed fresh air. He bundled her into his pickup truck and drove her out in the country to a roadside picnic area sheltered by trees. Few cars went by on the highway, so they were essentially alone.

  “Why here?” she asked.

  “Because it’s a pretty place to picnic.” He leaned over and kissed her gently.

  The day was warm and sunny, a perfect fall day in Texas, and Jake had brought a blanket and a picnic: two small thermoses of his homemade chili, crackers, onion, and cheese to put on the chili, two bottles of beer for himself, and a bottle of wine for Susan. “Wine with chili is barbaric,” he said as he poured some into a plastic glass for her. He spread the blanket on the bird-splattered picnic table, since he could hardly ask Susan to sit on the ground, and then he helped her to the table.

  “It’s over, but it isn’t,” she said. “There are so many questions. What will happen to Eric?”

  “His family’s here, and they’ve hired a lawyer. They’ll plead insanity, I’m sure.”

  “What’s his family like?”

  He shrugged. “I can only give you first impressions. Father’s a physician in Dallas, very sophisticated, very busy, probably never had time for Eric. Mother’s a mouse of a woman, completely cowed by her husband. I bet he doesn’t spend two nights at home a week.”