At Risk

by Judith E. French

  For a few seconds Liz considered the possibility. Seeing her daughter would be a joy. Getting away from all this would be heaven. “No, it’s not possible.” She shook her head. “Too close to end of term. I have a commitment to my students.”

  “Think about it.”

  “Why would I? There’s no logical reason to think I’m in any danger. And if I leave, I may not have a job to come back to.”

  “I thought that was what you’d say. If you won’t go, the least you can do is to take steps to protect yourself. Let me teach you to use a gun. I saw just what you need at the gun shop, a K-22 Smith & Wesson Revolver. Minimal noise and minimal recoil, with the same weight and feel as a .38.”

  “Absolutely not.” Liz shuddered. “You know how I hate handguns.”

  “Is it easier to see yourself lying on the floor in a pool of your own blood? Tracy Fleming never had a chance against her killer.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she agreed reluctantly, “but I warn you, I’m a tough sell.”

  “Think hard, Elizabeth. It might be the most important decision you ever make.”

  “They found the murder weapon,” Cameron said, taking the chair across from Liz’s in the cafeteria. “It was right there under the body.”

  Liz looked up from her untouched lunch tray. “The weapon? Where? I didn’t see—”

  “Under Tracy’s body.” Cameron sniffed his egg salad sandwich, took a bite, and chewed with gusto.

  Liz glanced away, wondering why she’d ever been even remotely attracted to the jerk. Too long without getting laid, she thought. But as much as she despised him now that she’d gotten to know him, she had to admit there was nothing wrong with the way the thirty-year-old grad student looked.

  Cameron Whitaker was over six foot with a swimmer’s sleek body and short-cropped blond hair. His features were in perfect proportion: straight nose, square jaw, and full lips almost feminine in their sensuality. Contacts tinted hazel eyes a stunning blue-green, and one tanned cheek dimpled charmingly when he smiled.

  Cameron was smiling now, model-perfect teeth gleaming white. “I saw it—the weapon,” he said. “An oyster knife.” He took another bite of his sandwich, washed it down with a half glass of apple juice.

  Liz rubbed her eyes, trying to ease the pain of her headache, wishing Cameron would go away. The morning had been bad. The kids were too stressed out to talk about anything but Tracy’s murder. She’d canceled the test she’d planned to give, and instead they’d taken turns reading aloud from the journal of Minnie Talbot, a freed black woman who’d accompanied her husband to Valley Forge and later, as a widow, had served Washington’s army for two years as a sutler.

  Liz had another class after lunch, Women and the Oregon Trail, but she couldn’t even go home after that. There was a meeting with the dean at three p.m., essays to grade, and after school she’d promised to help organize a memorial service for Tracy.

  “The blade was honed to a razor’s edge,” Cameron said. “Are you listening?”

  “What? Oh, yes.” She stirred a blue packet of sweetener into her iced tea. “You . . . you seem to be well-informed.”

  He leaned over the table, resting his elbows on an illustrated edition of Rowe and Wright’s Bible of Etruscan Pottery and lowered his voice. “I have my sources.”

  Cameron’s breath smelled of spearmint. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but I’d rather not discuss the murder. Michael said—”

  “Captain Hubbard? I wouldn’t put too much faith in him, if I were you. His security expertise didn’t work too well for Tracy, did it?”

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Liz said, rising to her feet. “I have to prepare for my next class.”

  “How did you sleep last night? Creepy out there in the boonies, isn’t it? Any night you want company, I could come—”

  “Thank you, but no thanks.”

  “You’re missing a good thing.”

  “I doubt it.” She turned deliberately and walked away to deposit her tray, tea and all, at the return window.

  Cameron was insufferable and, from what the students said, the worst grad student at Somerville. Yet Professor Steiner, his superior, positively doted on him. Since the new history wing had opened, Nancy Steiner’s ancient history classes and Cameron Whitaker were directly across the hall from Liz’s office and lecture hall. Liz couldn’t avoid crossing his path a half-dozen times a day. She tried to remain civil, but it wasn’t always an option. Cameron was as thick-skinned as a rhinoceros.

  As she left the cafeteria, Liz couldn’t get Jack out of her mind. Was it a coincidence that he should show up only hours after Tracy’s death? Why was he still in the parking lot forty minutes after he claimed to have dropped Tracy off at school? Had Jack been involved in George’s drug running? And if he had—how far was dealing in illegal drugs from murder?

  The next twenty-four hours were as bad as Liz imagined they would be. After a terrible night’s sleep, she kept her Wednesday morning appointment with State Police Detective Nathan Tarkington. He’d asked her to explain exactly what she’d seen and done when she discovered Tracy’s body, and then he’d spent the next forty-five minutes questioning her on every detail of her story. Liz thought she had her emotions under control, but by the time she left the Troop 3, she was close to tears.

  Somehow she got through the rest of the day, and when she returned for the rally and candlelight vigil that evening, the streets around the school were choked with students, parents, and the media.

  After someone pointed her car out to a photographer, Liz had to call Michael on her cell phone and ask for his help in dodging television crews who were shooting film for the eleven-o’clock news. Cameron Whitaker had no such misgivings about speaking to the press. She saw him talking animatedly to a reporter and guessed that Cameron’s handsome face would be plastered on the front page of the News Journal as well as the State News.

  Later, when she joined friends and fellow staff members Amelia and Sydney in the school auditorium for the service, Cameron appeared, well pleased with himself. He slid into a seat just behind her during the opening prayer and leaned forward to talk to her.

  “You missed the excitement, Liz. See that woman in the front row, the one with the bad dye job and the black dress? That’s Charlene Cook, Tracy’s aunt. I got a whiff of her on the way in, and she smells like a brewery. She’s so smashed, she can hardly walk.”

  “Shh,” Liz whispered. The memorial program showed the face of a younger and heavier Tracy Fleming smiling shyly in a high school graduation photo. It was all Liz could do to hold back tears.

  “No sign of the boyfriend.” Cameron raised his voice. “Wonder why?”

  Amelia turned to glare at him. “Do you mind?”

  Ignoring her, he nudged Liz’s shoulder. “There, in the third row, on the far end. See the fat woman?”

  Liz tried to give her full attention to the chaplain.

  “That’s the boyfriend’s mother,” Cameron said. “Mabel Frank. She’s another piece of work, a real redneck.”

  Charlene Cook began to sob.

  Liz felt Cameron’s breath on her neck. “The aunt and the boyfriend’s mother got into a swearing match in the parking lot. Charlene accused the boyfriend of being a murderer. I thought the fat lady was going to deck her.”

  “Will you please be quiet?” Liz whispered. “You’re embarrassing us.”

  That silenced him until the end of the service, but when Liz rose to leave, he caught her arm. “You shouldn’t be out there in that swamp alone,” he said. “Certain you don’t want me to drive you home?”

  “Absolutely certain. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have dinner reservations.”

  “I haven’t eaten either,” he replied. “I could—”

  “No,” Amelia said. “That’s not possible.”

  “Good night, Cameron.” Liz peeled his hand from her arm and followed Sydney and Amelia through the throng into the hall. “I want to offer my condolences
to Tracy’s aunt,” she told her friends. “Go ahead, and I’ll meet you at the car.”

  Amelia pursed her lips. “I admire your patience. It was all I could do not to call for security to escort Whitaker out of the service.”

  “He’s an obnoxious prick,” Sydney said. “I don’t know how Nancy tolerates him.”

  “I believe it’s his prick that got him the position,” Amelia murmured. “And helps him keep it. It certainly isn’t his teaching skills.”

  Liz grimaced. “Gross. With that personality, he’d have to be good in bed.”

  “I’ve known Nancy for years,” Amelia said. “She likes younger men, but she never stays with the same one long. She’ll tire of Mr. Whitaker soon enough.”

  “Not soon enough for me,” Liz added. “Somerville would be a lot more pleasant without him.”

  Liz spent the next few hours with Sydney and Amelia in a quiet corner of the Blue Goose Inn, talking and drinking decaf iced tea while they sipped white wine. Liz would have loved a glass, but she refused to allow herself the pleasure tonight because she was still too shaken by Tracy’s murder. She was very cautious when and where she drank. As the child of an alcoholic, she felt the threat of addiction hanging over her head like some proverbial sword of Damocles.

  She still had no appetite and barely touched her dinner. She knew she was poor company tonight, but being with friends was better than sitting alone at home facing a wilted salad.

  It was after ten when they finally called it a night, and the other two dropped her off in the faculty parking lot. Liz looked in the backseat before unlocking her car and getting in. Sydney waved, and Amelia backed up and waited until she started her engine.

  “See you tomorrow,” Sydney called as they pulled away.

  Liz was about halfway home when she noticed that the vehicle several car lengths behind her had made the same last three turns as she had. She sped up, but the headlights maintained the same distance. When a commercial van traveling in the opposite direction passed her, Liz glanced in her rearview mirror to try to see whether the object of her concern was a car or a truck, but she couldn’t tell.

  “Great,” she muttered as a chill ran through her. “Now you’re letting your imagination run wild.” But when she reached the next stop sign, she barely slowed, turned the wheel hard in the opposite direction from home, and stamped hard on the gas. The speedometer hit seventy before she glanced back. The road behind her was dark.

  Feeling foolish, she turned west and drove back toward Route 13, the main highway running the length of Delaware. She made a five-mile detour, driving past the mall, Atlantic Book Warehouse, and the Dover Downs Slots and Racetrack before heading back toward the bay and home.

  Michael’s lights were still on when she passed his house. She wanted to stop, but it was late, and she had an early morning class. She slowed, made the turn onto her gravel drive, and pulled gratefully up to the back door of the old brick house.

  “Shit.” The floodlight in the yard was out, but the kitchen lights were on. Odd, she thought. She’d been certain she’d left the outside one on as well, but after a day like this, she was lucky to remember her own name. For a few moments she sat there, uncertain what to do. Lowering the window, she listened. Other than the usual chorus of frogs, everything was quiet. “Fools rush in,” she muttered.

  Cautiously, with pepper spray in one hand and keys in the other, Liz got out. She knew that her car lights would remain on long enough for her to unlock the back door and get inside. She hurried up the worn brick walk and unlatched the gate before she noticed something lying on the porch by her back door.

  Hair rose on the back of Liz’s neck. It looked like . . . It was. “A damned trap!” She climbed the wooden steps and grimaced as she looked down at a rusty iron trap containing the mangled carcass of a muskrat. “How the hell . . .”

  Maybe a stray dog dragged the muskrat up, she thought. But where had the trap come from? She wondered if somebody was illegally trapping on Clarke’s Purchase. Her dad had never permitted the ugly practice when he was alive, and she had no intention of allowing anyone to do so now.

  Still fuming, she started to unlock the back door. But when she put her hand on the knob, the door swung open. Liz froze, and her eyes widened in surprise. Muddy boot tracks trailed across her clean kitchen floor.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. For an instant she could smell the stench of rotting flesh as the years receded and the image of a man materialized in her mind.

  . . . One eye was blanketed with a ghastly white scum. The other, faded blue and rheumy, bulging with madness, stared at her. He grinned, revealing ruined blackened teeth and spilling tobacco juice down an unshaven, pustulated chin . . .

  “No!” Liz cried. “No!”

  In seconds, she was back inside her car, trembling as she punched 911 on her cell phone. She gave the emergency dispatch operator her name, address, and cell number, and told the woman she would wait for the police at the end of the lane.

  “It wasn’t real,” she mumbled aloud as she jammed the key in the ignition. Her breath came in quick, hard gasps. Her heart thudded against her ribs. “In my head . . . just something better forgotten.” She fought to get control of her emotions. “You’re okay, girl, it was nothing. Just a bad dream.” Still, she locked her car doors and kept the motor running as she waited.

  Within half an hour, a state policeman arrived, vehicle lights flashing. Officer Weeks didn’t look much older than Katie, Liz thought, and he wasn’t nearly as tall or as imposing as the troopers who had responded the morning of Tracy’s murder. What had happened to law enforcement? If an intruder was hiding in her house, did they expect this teenager to protect her?

  After Trooper Weeks confirmed the information she’d given the dispatcher, he went inside, presumably to search for a suspect. When he found nothing more alarming than the muddy footprints, he asked Liz to come in and determine whether anything of value was missing.

  “Nothing that I can see,” she replied after a quick inspection. The twenty-dollar bill she always left on the fireplace mantel was lying in plain sight, untouched. It was one security suggestion of Michael’s that she’d taken months ago. He’d told her that if she ever came home and found the twenty missing, she should run because it meant that someone had broken into the house.

  “I noticed the cash lying on the mantel,” Officer Weeks said. “Anyone bent on robbery would have snatched that. I don’t believe we’re dealing with a criminal. My guess would be that you left the back door unlocked, and some trapper or fisherman wandered in. Either he was lost or he had boat or car trouble. Nobody was home, so he went in and used your telephone.”

  “And that’s legal?”

  “No, not legal, but understandable.”

  “And the muskrat trap on my porch? That’s as easily explained?”

  “A stray dog. Half my calls are dogs running loose.”

  “There’s something more,” she said. “I think someone followed me home from the school tonight.”

  He made a few notes on a report as she told him about the suspicious vehicle. “But you can’t be certain that you both weren’t going in the same direction?”

  “No,” she answered reluctantly. “I thought—”

  “If you were followed, that person or persons couldn’t get here ahead of you and track up the floor, could they?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  He frowned. “And no one else has a key?”

  “Only my daughter Katie, but she’s in Ireland.”

  “Have you thought that Katie might have lent her key to a boyfriend?”

  “No. I can assure you that she didn’t.”

  “Are you positive that you did lock up when you left this morning, Ms. Clarke?” The officer’s tone was patronizing.

  “Positive,” she answered. “And it’s Dr. Clarke.”

  “You’re a physician?” He glanced at his clipboard.

  “No, I’m a history pro
fessor at Somerville.”

  “I see.”

  It was plain to Liz that Trooper Weeks didn’t see at all, that he’d already decided she was a fruitcake with nothing better to do than waste his time.

  “Honestly, I don’t believe you have anything to worry about. This could be a prank by one of your students.” He handed her the clipboard. “Sign here, please. And don’t hesitate to call if there are any more suspicious incidents.” He removed his hat and slid behind the wheel of his police car. “And it never hurts to double check when you leave the house.”

  Tight-lipped, Liz watched as the officer turned his vehicle around and drove out of her yard. Maybe he was right. Maybe she’d only imagined that someone was following her tonight, but she hadn’t forgotten to lock her back door. She’d done that religiously since she was nine years old.

  If this was someone’s idea of a joke, it was a sick one. And the only person she could think of who was capable of such behavior was that ass Cameron. Still seething, she went inside, turned the deadbolt, and prepared to scrub the muddy footprints off her clean brick floor.

  Chapter Three

  Clouds held sway over the salt marsh, blocking out the thin moonlight, locking the mist-shrouded stretch of grass and water in a timeless prism of shifting images and surreal sounds. Primeval sighing was interspersed with the rustle of reeds and an occasional splash that echoed hollowly through the phragmites.

  The electric motor was nearly silent. Birds fluttered restlessly and frogs leaped as the small boat slid past, but the gray fox crouching on a spit of land barely pricked his ears as the Game Master appeared and then vanished in the fog along the course of the narrow, mud-choked channel.

  The maze of salt marsh was home to a myriad species of birds and wildlife. Few humans ventured here, and fewer still at night, but the Game Master needed neither compass nor artificial light to find his way to the exact spot where he’d dropped three commercial crab pots a month earlier.

  He cut his motor and drifted the last few yards to the clump of marsh grass that concealed a long wooden stake. Running strong fingers down the slick pole, he found the chain and began to retrieve the first trap. The rectangular wire-and-frame cage was surprisingly light as he pulled it up. A six-inch jimmy clung to the grass inside, but the Game Master hadn’t come for crabs tonight. Gently he extracted the crustacean and released it into the muddy current.