by M. A Wallace
Michael took a deep breath through his nostrils, preparing himself for the worst. He said, “Can I ask you where you were last night between the hours of 1 and 4 a.m.?”
She recoiled as if physically struck. He saw fear in her eyes, then a familiar anger he had seen before. No one liked being accused, least of all those who had done wrong. They felt the sting of censure more than others, for they censured themselves, even if obliquely.
She said, “Surely you cannot mean to imply that I am a suspect in the death of Officer Bailey, can you? Surely not.”
He continued as though she had not heard her reply. He said, “Would you answer the question, please?”
“Not that I have to tell you, but I was here, in my living room, the whole night. There, are you satisfied? Have you gone fishing enough for one day?”
Seeing that he had pushed past the limits of her patience, he stood up and said, “Thank you, ma'am. You've been very cooperative. Now if you don't mind, I have other lines of inquiry to pursue.”
As he showed himself out, she said, “I don't mind at all.”
5
At the health clinic, which sat on the farthest side of campus away from the president's residence, Michael was told that he would have to come back with a warrant if he wanted any information about patients who might or might not have visited. He saw that the old woman behind the counter was a stickler for rules, the kind of person who would have done well if she had come to work as support staff for a police department. Nevertheless, he told her that a young woman might have suffered severe injuries the previous day, and that he was looking for her. The receptionist's face softened, but she gave him the same reply.
Walking back and forth in the chill morning air, which did not grow any warmer as the sun rose through the sky, made him appreciate how much fortitude college students really had. By 10 a.m., he found himself sick of the cold and ready to go home. Since he had no other leads on Shannon's whereabouts, he decided to use the university's website. Maybe, he thought, her name would turn up as an executive board member of some group, or as a columnist for the paper.
For that, he needed an Internet connection. He asked at the university library whether he could access one of their computers on a guest account. The student worker had to call over his supervisor, who told him that she was not authorized to create a guest account. He would have to wait until Monday when the head librarian came back. He thanked for her assistance and left for his car. He found it in the same spot where it had been before. Though no parking ticket had been placed on the windshield, frost had accumulated so thick that he had to scrape the windshield off. He drove out of the campus and took a right turn down Main Street. He passed through several traffic lights before he encountered the Shippensburg Public Library. The library had opened ten minutes before his arrival.
The inside of the library had a musty smell which came from old books and old wood. The floorboards creaked beneath as he walked. Past the circulation desk, he came to a wide, open area with six computer terminals, only one of which was occupied. He sat down in front of one, then entered his library card number and four-digit pin. A splash screen came up telling him that he had an hour of Internet usage. At the bottom right-hand side of the screen, a clock started ticking away from 1:00:00.
He went to ship.edu, and looked around the page for a search box. Smiling, happy faces of students and faculty alike scrolled sideways across the main page. The website made much of the word ship—internship, friendship, mentorship, leadership, scholarship. To Michael, the website rang false. He could not imagine anyone being happy when they had to walk through below-freezing temperatures just to get to class. He wondered if the university had used models or paid students for those images.
He found the search box and typed in the name Shannon Moore. The webpage loaded slowly, as he expected it would. When the results page loaded, he found a strange acronym: TWOLA. Shannon was the president of a student group bearing that name. He clicked on the link and found a group photo of smiling young men and young women. The caption read 2015 To Write Love on Her Arms student group. He right-clicked on the image to bring it up in a new tab. He pressed the control button and the plus button at the same time to enlarge the image. He saw at once that there were too many women in the group to tell who Shannon might be.
He went back to the first tab and scrolled through the list of names on the executive board: Shannon Moore, President; Carly Louis, Vice President; Violet Rasmussen, Secretary; Zachary Tyler, Treasurer. The name Tyler rang a bell in his head. He pulled his notes out and flipped through a few pages. He read Zachary Tyler—pos. of guns. He felt a chill run down his spine when he realized that the person with the most motive to kill Kevin Bailey could have had the means to do so.
He continued searching by looking up the phone numbers of the various hospitals in the area. He wrote them down on his notepad one by one until he had six numbers to call. He logged off of the computer, then went outside to make calls. He tried two numbers before the third—Chambersburg Hospital—gave him a hit. Shannon Moore was a patient there, in room 407. The woman who had answered the phone would not give him the date or time when she had been admitted.
He thanked her and hung up the phone. He circled the number he had called, then put his notepad back in his pocket. He got the distinct feeling that the murder of Kevin Bailey would prove to be anything but an open-and-shut case.
6
With an hour and a half to spare before lunch, Michael decided to browse the Internet for any other information pertaining to the case. Nothing that he found on there would be admissible in court as evidence, yet it was often the case that clues were there to be found, hiding in plain sight. Just about every newspaper and television station had reported on Jolanda's death, but no one had mentioned anything about the other two incidents. He knew bad press when he saw it; every article he read used the roof collapsing as an excuse to talk about Shippensburg's other problems, of which there were many. He wrote down each point that he could find until he was left with a page full of concerning incidents. Taken separately, they could be dismissed. Taken together, he saw a pattern of administrative incompetence. That made him wonder whether the university trained officers properly, or whether such training had any effect on officer performance.
When the timer on the library computer had gone down to five minutes, Michael's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He turned off the computer and left the library. He looked at the number of the missed call, then dialed t. A single ring, and then there was a man's voice. “Hey Ross, what's shaking? You hungry?”
“Actually, I am. Where do you want to go, McGee? It doesn't look like there's too many places around here worth going to. Just a lot of gas stations and beer distributors. We might have to go out of town to get anything good.”
“Hey, you know what? I had an idea.”
Michael tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He said, “Oh great. You had an idea. Now I know I should stay away. There's trouble brewing.”
“Don't kid a kidder, all right? I just thought, seeing as how there's this great big dining hall and the campus is almost empty, we should sit down and have our lunch there.”
“Are you sure? You know what they say about college food.”
McGee chuckled. He said, “My man, you know me. As long as they have banana peppers and pickle slices, that's all I need.”
“Probably a bad day for that. I bet you anything they'll serve a limited menu with so few customers expected.”
“Let's try it anyway. What do you say? Come on.”
“All right, but only if I get to choose where we have supper.”
“It's a deal. I'll be waiting.”
A blast of cold wind struck his face. Michael turned his back towards it. He said, “You're already there?”
“Yeah, waiting in the lobby kind of thing. Where are you?”
“I'm in town doing research. I found Miss Moore.”
“Oh yeah? Good on your
father. See you soon.”
Billy hung up, leaving Michael feeling cold and hungry. He found his way back to campus with difficulty, then came in front of the dining hall. He saw Billy and waved. Billy waved his index finger in the air in a circular pattern, his way of saying hurry up. Finding a parking spot for the dining hall was not as easy as he had expected. He entered a lot designated for staff and faculty only. He parked in it anyway, then walked down a length of sidewalk. When he got to one of the glass doors behind which Billy waited, Michael found it locked. He went around and tried another door. That one opened.
Billy patted him on the shoulder. He said, “Hey, what took ya?”
“Parking. I really don't know why they don't just build a ten-story parking center or two here. Seems like it would solve all their problems.”
“Well yeah, if wishes were horses....”
They waited on someone to come to the register to take their credit cards, then seated themselves in a sunny, warm corner away from the few people who did show up. Since the dining hall did not serve a limited menu, Billy returned with a plate full of banana peppers, round pickle slices, and a hamburger that he had drowned in a pink-colored sauce that was a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise. Michael picked out the first foods that caught his eye, so that by the time he sat down at the table with a glass full of lemon lime Gatorade, he wasn't sure what he had picked out. He poked his fork at a green and white slushy mixture. Then he found corn mixed with lima beans. He had forgotten that he didn't like lima beans.
Michael put a spoonful of the slush, which turned out to be creamed spinach, into his mouth, then said, “McGee, what did you find at the station?”
Billy McGee sucked Mountain Dew out of a straw. He burped, then patted his stomach. He said, “Now I know why I gave up on soda. So okay, the police chief here, man by the name of Theodore Kenny, was very helpful and forthcoming. He told me a lot about Mr. Bailey. Apparently he'd had several reprimands in his record for excessive use of his force. One such incident happened when he'd been asked to unlock a student's car. The student didn't have a parking decal on his car. It must have been a bad day for Bailey, because he smashed the car's window in with his fist. Had to have stitches after. He was placed on a fifteen-day administrative leave while the university paid for the repair costs to the vehicle. Chief Metzger also said that before coming to work here, Bailey had resigned from the Hampden Police Department, apparently some kind of excessive force there, too. The guy was a loose cannon. Every now and then he would just go off.”
“Did the chief say anything about anyone who might have had a vendetta against Bailey?”
“Yeah, I did ask that. The chief said anyone and everyone hates cops these days. You see a cop in Ferguson or Baltimore or New York shooting a guy in the back, kicking a woman in the face, beating up an old lady, maybe it's easy to think that all cops are bad. They don't count on guys like us, ground-pounders going out there every day trying to do our best. I mean, what's the world coming to anymore when the people who are supposed to inspire trust instead inspire suspicion and fear?”
Billy held up a hand. Then he continued, “Okay, okay, I know. You don't have to tell me. I know that look on your face. Stop beating around the bush. All right, just the facts. The facts are these. Officer Bailey kept a list of names in a notebook. There's no title to it, just a long list of names. The chief says it was found this morning when Bailey's locker was being cleaned out. You want to take a guess whose name was on it?”
Michael didn't have to guess. He said, “Shannon Moore.”
“Bingo. What happened between Bailey and Moore was a revenge thing for Bailey. What caused him to have a grudge, I don't know. Only it seems that one existed, and that's why he assaulted her yesterday.”
“So there may have been a history of personal animosity between those two, right? And maybe yesterday was the culmination of something that had been building up for a while.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too. But we can't prove any of it, not with a notebook alone. All we've got is a supposition.”
He then remembered why his partner had gone out to the police station in the first place. He said, “Did the chief tell you anything about why Bailey was out there so late at night?”
“Nada, he's in the dark as much as anyone. Bailey wasn't on the duty roster until next Monday. He had no reason to be on campus, much less in uniform with all his gear.”
“So what we're saying is, a cop on campus took it into his head to get some extra overtime duty without being paid for it. For what purpose, only he knew. Do they have a sign-out log for each piece of equipment? Sign out your gun, your flashlight, your spray can, your belt, that sort of thing?”
Billy sighed. “I asked that, too. First thing that came into my head. No, they don't have a sign-out system. They've never had a problem with theft, or property going missing. Never.”
Michael laid back in his seat, thinking. He said, “You know, when I first got into the force—this was a few months after leaving the service—my instructor gave a welcoming speech to the class. He said some of us are born to be officers, some of us look at it as just as job. A handful of us are criminals. Even after all these years, after seeing everything I've seen, I couldn't quite believe that some officers are just felons in training.”
“Oh? And Bailey has changed your mind? Because he was out there doing god knows what in the middle of the night on a Friday?”
“I don't know, maybe. It's more like, the lines are lot more blurry than they used to be. There's a lot more gray, and a lot less black and white. The truth is twenty-five-sided die whose numbers keep changing. Roll it once, and who knows what will turn up?”
Michael took a gulp of Gatorade. He said, “Well, what we have to do now is talk to Shannon. Guess we'd better mosey.”
“In the hospital, treating her as our primary suspect? You think that's gonna fly?”
“She might not be our primary suspect. I don't know yet. I checked up on her while you were at the police station. Apparently, she's a member of this student group called To Write Love on Her Arms. Recovery from violence and abuse, that sort of thing. The executive board was listed on the university website. Would you believe who was also on that board?”
Billy put down his fork, upon which he had speared three pickle slices. He said, “I don't know, who?”
“Zachary Tyler, the kid who brought a gun to campus three years ago. He's the treasurer of the group.”
“No bueno, man. For real? So what, you think Tyler provided the gun and Moore took the shot?”
“Either that, or Tyler did it himself. You know what I'm going to ask when we get to the hospital, don't you?”
“I know what I would ask. But man, sometimes you're still a mystery to me. I've known you all this while, and still I don't get you. You have more money than god, but you live in that glorified shack of yours. You're ahead of your time with all the technology you have, but you drive that old car. When I try to figure you out, I just go around in circles.”
Michael grinned. He said, “I just believe in using everything for as long as it can be used. But I guess, since you don't know what my questions will be, I'll leave that for later.”
“And have me going in blind, not knowing what the game plan is? Come on man, fill me in.”
After Michael ate the last of his creamed spinach, he told his partner everything he wanted to ask, and everything he wanted to find out.
Chapter Three
1
At first, it had been the switch, a length of plant taken from she knew not where. Then, as she grew older, it had been the belt. As a child, she had never truly understood why her father beat her with a switch, why he came home some nights reeking of alcohol and furious at the world. She blamed him, then she blamed herself. She blamed her mother for being quiet as a mouse on those nights, never standing up to him. He had never beaten his wife, never in the eighteen years she had suffered in that spotless, antiseptic house. All she
knew was that she was the only one who got beaten, the only one who had her pants taken off while an erection grew inside his pants.
She began cutting at age nine. One day, she found a used-up kitchen knife in the trash, replaced with something new. It had been the knife her mother had used to cut cantaloupe. That was also the way of it in her father's house: nothing was ever valued, nothing ever lasted. As soon as something new came around, into the trash with everything old. That her father made enough money to buy new things on a regular basis had never been a comfort for her, or for him. The excessive amount of money he made working for the state government had only been a curse. It gave him more opportunities to throw his weight around the house, which made everyone miserable.
The first cut was on her forearm. Rivulets of blood dripped into the toilet, making red wavy lines that she stared at for a long time. Then, she cut her other arm in the same place with precisely the same pressure, watching more blood drip slowly into the toilet. Then, she felt a wave of shame crash upon her—shame that she would try to injure herself when her father did his best at a job he hated just so she could eat and have clothing to wear. She put Neosporin cream and bandages on the wounds, then shrugged her long-sleeve shirt over her head. That she wore long sleeves for the next two weeks suited her father just fine, for he made a point of grabbing her arms with such fierceness that afterward, she found finger-shaped bruises on her arms. She didn't mind the bruises; she found them comforting. She traced the tips of her fingernails across the outline of the bruises while she lay in bed at night. Abuse was the only attention her father gave her; she both valued it and despised it.
She tried not to cut herself after her tenth birthday. She had always been careful not to cut too deep, and to always wait before the last batch healed before she started another. There were times, in the interlude between cuttings, when she felt a strong urge to go to the bathroom, flip open the toilet lid and put the knife against her arm. Some nights, she sat in bed crying, so strong was the desire to wound herself. When finally the time came, she felt a blessed relief as of the release of tension when she was finally able to let her tainted blood flow out of her.
