Got Your Number

by Stephanie Bond

  A rap on the window caught her attention, and when she saw Capistrano’s mug peering in, her heart lifted crazily. She hated to admit it, but there was something reassuring about having the big lug around.

  “Is that your boyfriend?” Jaffey asked.

  “Acquaintance,” she corrected.

  He gestured for Capistrano to come in and the men introduced themselves. Capistrano flashed his badge, for professional courtesy, she assumed. He was a good head taller than anyone in the room. And he looked remarkably put together to have rolled out of bed fifteen minutes ago. She didn’t want to think about how she looked.

  “You look like hell,” he said.

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Has she been charged?” he asked the room in general.

  “Not yet,” Jaffey said.

  Capistrano walked around to lean on the wall facing her. “What happened?” he asked Jaffey.

  But Warner took the lead. “Paper boy noticed Seger’s door was open this morning around five o’clock, and went to investigate. Found him dead in the library, strangled by a scarf that belongs to your girlfriend here.”

  Roxann pursed her mouth. “Except I don’t know how it got there. Was I wearing it last night when we”—she frowned—“said goodbye?” The cops gave each other knowing looks that infuriated her.

  “I don’t remember,” Capistrano said. “I wasn’t looking at the scarf.”

  How did he do that? Make it seem as if there was something between them? In fact, why the devil had she even called him?

  He looked back to Warner. “The scarf is purely circumstantial evidence anyway. What else do you have?”

  “Mud on her jeans,” he said, pointing. “And a pair of running shoes, caked with dried mud.”

  Capistrano looked back to her with a raised eyebrow.

  “I… couldn’t sleep last night, so I went jogging.”

  “Where?” Jaffey asked.

  She closed her eyes. “To Dr. Seger’s house and back.”

  Capistrano averted his gaze.

  “That’s all I need to hear,” Jaffey said, reaching for his cuffs.

  “No, wait,” she said, holding up her hand. “I jogged to his house because… “

  “Because?” one of the other cops prompted.

  She inhaled. “Because someone told me that Carl was a philanderer, and I was worried about my cousin being with him.”

  “She outbid you for a date with the professor,” Jaffey said.

  “It was for charity.” A dumb argument, even to her own ears.

  “What time did you jog over to Seger’s house?”

  “Around two-thirty a.m.”

  “And what happened when you got there?”

  “Nothing. I realized how stupid it was of me to be concerned, so I simply turned around and ran back to the house where I was staying.”

  “Right,” Jaffey said, his sarcasm thick.

  She leaned forward. “I could have lied just now. Why would I tell you I jogged over there unless I was innocent?”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  She turned to Capistrano. “I don’t guess you could have been following me then?”

  He shook his head. “I gave up.” His gaze was pointed.

  She looked back to Jaffey. “I didn’t see anyone else, although someone could have noticed me, maybe someone driving.”

  The cop gestured to her black sweatshirt. “You weren’t exactly dressed to be noticed, now were you?”

  She didn’t answer—her humiliation was complete.

  “Do you have a history with Carl Seger?” Warner asked.

  She sat back. “He was my professor when I went to school here from ninety-two through ninety-six, and I had a work-study under Dr. Seger my senior year.”

  “Let me rephrase. Do you have a personal history with Carl Seger?”

  Roxann inhaled and exhaled, wondering how much to tell. But really, how much was there to tell? “We were fond of each other, but we didn’t have a sexual relationship.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Capistrano straighten, edge closer.

  “Did you see him after you graduated?” Warner continued.

  “No. Just before I graduated, Carl was accused of having an improper relationship with a student. I left campus and… I didn’t see him again until this week.”

  “Did the two of you stay in touch?”

  “He called twice—once a few months after I left to say he was sorry how things had ended, and a few weeks ago he left a message on my phone in Biloxi asking if I would consider accepting a Distinguished Alumni award. But I didn’t return his call.”

  “Because you were still angry over how things had ended?”

  She frowned. “No. Because I wasn’t interested in receiving the award.”

  “So there was nothing personal in the message?”

  “He said that he missed me.”

  “But you didn’t call him back?”

  “I said that already.”

  Warner sat down to her left. “Ms. Beadleman, were you the student that Dr. Seger was accused of having an improper relationship with?”

  She blinked. “Yes… I always assumed.”

  “Did you ever hear of him being involved with other students?”

  She shook her head. “All the girls were crazy about him, but Carl was a gentleman around me.”

  “Who told you he was a philanderer?”

  “I did,” Capistrano said. When all eyes turned in his direction, he shrugged. “Just a hunch. Plus last night at the auction I overheard a couple of coeds talking about his technique outside the classroom.”

  “You never said why you were in town, Detective,” Jaffey said.

  “You never asked. I followed Ms. Beadleman here from Biloxi. She’s involved in a case I’m working on, and a thug named Frank Cape was on her tail.”

  “That’s why I came to South Bend,” she added. “To stay with Dr. Nell Oney for a few days until Cape lost interest.”

  “When was the last time you saw this Cape fellow?”

  “Little Rock,” she said, then looked to Capistrano, who nodded agreement.

  “Why is he following you?”

  She looked at Capistrano, then back to them and sighed. “Frank Cape is an abusive man. I work for a women’s advocacy group, and I helped his ex-wife and daughter relocate. He thinks he can threaten me into telling him where they are.”

  “He threatened you?”

  “And my family.” Suddenly she stopped and looked at Capistrano. “In Little Rock he said if I didn’t tell him where Melissa was, the people I cared about would start dropping like flies.”

  “The guy’s no honor student,” Capistrano offered. “He put my partner in a coma.”

  All the cops straightened and fingered their weapons involuntarily. Then Jaffey scoffed. “You’re saying that this Cape fellow stole your scarf and used it to strangle Carl Seger so you would tell him where his wife and kid are?”

  “I didn’t say that, but right now it makes as much sense as anything. Officer, don’t you think if I were going to kill Carl, that I would have chosen something a little less obvious than the scarf that at least a thousand people saw me wearing last night?”

  He chewed on his tongue, then retrieved the pencil and pad of paper. “Ms. Beadleman, I think you’d better tell us exactly where you were last night, when, and who you were with.”

  She recited her schedule and timetable as best as she could remember. Capistrano corroborated her story until the time he dropped her off. Then she was on her own.

  “Nell was asleep when I came home, so that’s when I decided to go to Carl’s. No wait—I lay down first, and received a phone call.”

  “From?”

  “From an ex-roommate of mine in Biloxi, Elise James. She went to grad school here and came up for Homecoming.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Around midnight.”

  “What did she want?”

  “It was a strange conv
ersation. She was stoned, I think. She said something about wanting to tell me everything and asked me to meet her at the chapel today at noon.”

  “Do you know what she was referring to?”

  “We had a falling-out when she lived with me, after which she moved out. I assumed she wanted to apologize. Elise can be dramatic.”

  “What did the two of you argue about?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “We can always ask her,” Jaffey said.

  She sighed. “Elise got it into her head that she was… attracted to me.”

  All the men smiled, even Capistrano, the lout.

  “She’s a lesbian?” Jaffey again.

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Are you a lesbian?”

  “No.”

  “Bisexual?”

  “No.”

  “So this girl hit on you and you threw her out?”’

  “What does this have to do with Carl being murdered?”

  “Just amusing myself,” Jaffey said with a nasty little smile.

  “Let’s get back to the subject,” Capistrano said.

  She smirked at him—he could pester her, but no one else could?

  “What happened after the phone call?”

  “I dozed off for a couple of hours, then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I changed into these clothes and my tennis shoes, ran over to Dr. Seger’s and back, then went to bed.”

  “Dr. Oney said she didn’t hear you leave or return.”

  “I tried to be quiet. And the bedrooms are on opposite ends of the house.”

  “What did you see when you got to Seger’s house?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing. I saw his car sitting out front.”

  “A black Volvo.”

  “Right.”

  “What else?”

  “Some lights were on, in maybe two or three rooms.”

  “You didn’t see anyone inside?”

  “No. I didn’t get close enough.”

  Jaffey sneered. “Are you sure you didn’t see your old flame boinking your cousin?”

  She bit down on the inside of her cheek and maintained eye contact. “I’m positive.”

  “So where does she come into all this?”

  “Angora?”

  “Yes.”

  “We went to school here at the same time.”

  “Did she know Dr. Seger?”

  “Everyone knew him.”

  “Did she know him in the biblical sense?”

  “No.”

  He looked at his notes. “She lives in Baton Rouge?”

  Roxann nodded.

  “Why did she come back to South Bend?”

  “I stopped in Baton Rouge for her wedding, then she decided to come with me. She didn’t know about Cape following me.”

  “What happened to her groom?”

  “He changed his mind at the altar.”

  Jaffey made an amused sound. “A jilted bride might just be mad enough to nail the first guy she meets.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Although the same thought had crossed her mind last night.

  “When did your cousin return from her evening with Dr. Seger?” Warner asked.

  “I don’t know. When I woke up this morning and went outside—”

  “To clean your incriminating shoes,” Jaffey cut in. “We saw the roll of paper towels.”

  “When I went out on the back porch to clean my running shoes,” she continued, “Angora was asleep on the chaise.”

  “Did you notice the bruises on her neck?”

  “Immediately.”

  “How did she say they got there?”

  She took a drink of the coffee.

  “Ms. Beadleman?”

  “She said that Carl put them there.”

  “How?”

  “She said they were getting ready to… have sex and he started choking her.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She said she’d told him something that made him angry, but she wouldn’t tell me what.”

  “Can you make a guess?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “What else?”

  “Angora said she passed out, and when she came to, she was alone in his bed. Then she left.”

  “Did she walk back to the house you’re staying in?”

  “I assume so—her dress was a mess, and she was barefoot. I didn’t see her shoes.”

  “We found them on the porch. Muddy, same as yours. And we found a tiara on the dresser in his bedroom. Someone told us you got a crown last night for some kind of award?”

  “Yes, but the tiara is Angora’s. Mine is—” She stopped. Where was that thing?

  “In my truck,” Capistrano supplied.

  Good grief, she’d misplaced everything last night. Including her good sense. Why else would she have run over to Carl’s like some lovestruck stalker? She froze. Years of working with obsessive people had rubbed off. Dear God.

  Jaffey toyed with the pencil. “Here’s what I think—I think you jogged over there for a peek and found Dr. Seger choking your cousin for whatever reason. You pulled your scarf out of your pocket and killed him. Maybe you didn’t mean to, but it happened.”

  “That’s absurd,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t kill Carl.” She choked on the last word, then recovered. “I couldn’t have.”

  “Will you take a lie detector test?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So if we believe your story,” Warner said, “you didn’t kill him, but your cousin certainly could have.”

  He had vocalized her own fears—especially considering what Nell had told her about the Tammy Paulen incident—but she tried to keep a poker face. “I have a difficult time believing that Angora could do something like that.” But Capistrano was looking at her strangely.

  “Do you know anyone else who could have killed him?” Jaffey asked.

  “No, but I don’t know much about Carl’s life. Talk to Nell Oney and some of the other professors.”

  “We did. By the way, she had access to your scarf, didn’t she?”

  Roxann narrowed her eyes. “Since I don’t know where I lost it, I couldn’t say. But Nell Oney is one of the few truly good people I know. She and Carl were friends. She would never hurt anyone.”

  “The woman is ill,” Capistrano said. “Barely strong enough to turn a deadbolt, let alone bring down a man the size of Seger.”

  “The same for Angora,” she added.

  A knock on the door interrupted them, and a female officer stuck her head in. “The Ryder woman’s lawyer is here.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Jaffey said. When the door closed, he shook his finger at Roxann. “We’ll need your clothes and your fingerprints. And don’t leave town.” He looked at Capistrano. “Can I trust you to keep an eye on her?”

  “Sure thing.”

  The detective looked at her and she had the distinct feeling of a hen being handed over to a chicken hawk.

  Chapter 21

  Angora looked up and dubiously shook hands with the man who introduced himself as her lawyer. Mike Brown was a short chunky man with curly brown hair and glasses that wouldn’t stay up on his nose. He looked all of nineteen and was dressed like a farmer—smelled like one, too.

  “Please excuse my appearance,” he said in a boyish voice as he sat down heavily. “I was working my compost pile when my phone rang.”

  She had no idea what compost was, but the man must have some means if he had a pile of it. At the moment, however, she had more pressing matters on her mind. Carl was dead. Dead. Dead. The more the word revolved in her head, the less it even seemed like a word, much less one that was so… final. Dead, just like Tammy Paulen. And these visions of her strangling Carl—were they real? Or had hearing the graphic details of his death put them there? Her head was too full to think.

  Her lawyer pulled out a pad of paper and went through three pens from his briefcase before he found one with ink. “Here we go. Now Ms. Ryder, h
ave you spoken with anyone about the murder?”

  She shook her head and massaged the pain just beneath her breastbone. A foul-tasting blend of indigestion and grief and guilt. She’d already been sick twice, once before they left Dr. Oney’s and once on the ride over in the police car. Good God Almighty, when Dee found out what had happened, she’d have her birth certificate changed. And if everything unraveled, then she might as well go to prison for all the life she’d have.

  “Ms. Ryder?”

  “Yes?”

  “I asked if you’d like something—coffee, soda?”

  What she wanted was to sit on the floor and cry like a baby. “N-no, thank you.”

  He cleared his throat. “Ms. Ryder, do you understand that you’re a suspect in the murder of Carl Seger?”

  She squinted. “How old are you?”

  He blushed. “Thirty-five. I know I look young, and I did just pass the bar, but I got a late start.”

  Boy, did she know all about that. “How do you know Dr. Oney?”

  “She’s an old friend of the family, encouraged me to go to law school.”

  “Mr. Brown, I don’t have a lot of money.” She doubted if she could get a refund on the money she’d bid for Carl, and she couldn’t go to her parents.

  “That’s okay,” he said cheerfully. “I’m doing pro bono work on the side until I get my soybean crop harvested.”

  Her attorney was a soybean farmer? What were soybeans, exactly? Her doubt must have been apparent because he smiled.

  “I’m not a trial lawyer, Ms. Ryder. I’ll only advise you through the police interviews.” Then he frowned. “How did you get those bruises on your neck?”

  “Carl Seger choked me.”

  His face darkened. “Do you need medical attention?”

  She shook her head. “I just want to get this over with and go back to Baton Rouge.”

  “Is that where you live?”

  “Yes.”

  He wrote it down. “Are you married?”

  A lump formed in her throat, forcing her to swallow. “No.”

  He took down a few more vitals, then withdrew a limp blue bandana and wiped his shiny forehead. “Ms. Ryder, I read the police report, and I have to tell you it doesn’t look good.”

  “But I didn’t murder Carl.”