by Diana X Dunn
Sara opened her mouth to object and then snapped it shut again. There was no point in arguing with Robert.
“That would be great, actually. I’d prefer to keep the entire investigation as quiet as possible. I could get into a lot of trouble if people find out what you and your group were doing here,” Jacob said.
“We’ll inform Mark’s family that he was killed during a training exercise. Hopefully, they won’t push for more information than that,” Robert said. “He didn’t have close family, just a few distant cousins. I can’t imagine they’ll be especially interested.”
Luke squeezed her hand and Sara knew that he was struggling to keep his mouth shut, too.
“Robert, there needs to be a full investigation into exactly what happened,” she said in a low voice.
“And there will be. I’ll take charge myself. I’m more eager than anyone to learn what led to this tragic accident,” Robert replied.
“Tragic accident,” Luke echoed as they followed Robert out of the park a short time later. “He’ll never convince me that it was an accident.”
Sara nodded grimly. It seemed very much as if someone was going to get away with murder again.
“Sara, ride back with me,” Robert said when they reached the parking lot. “Luke, you can go on the transport with the rest of the students.”
Luke nodded and then looked at Sara. She could read indecision in his eyes before he pulled her into an embrace. “Meet me behind the weapons range at nine,” he whispered in her ear before he kissed her. When he lifted his head, he winked and then walked away.
“I guess that answers one of my questions, anyway,” Robert said. “You and Luke are involved now.”
“We’re just having a bit of fun,” Sara replied. “He’s only here for another five months or so.”
“Five months is a long relationship for an agent,” Robert suggested.
“But I’m not an agent any longer.”
Sara followed Robert to his transport. Dr. Freeman was sitting in the back again.
“Ah, Slade, you should probably go and talk to Jacob. He’s going to release the body to you so that you can perform the autopsy.”
Dr. Freeman nodded and climbed out of the car. “I’ll probably have to stay here for a few nights,” he said.
“Of course. The school will cover all of your expenses.”
“It seems strange to me, having Dr. Freeman do the autopsy,” Sara said as she climbed into the transport.
“He’s fully qualified, and to be honest, I’d rather have him busy here than at the school. His position there isn’t working out the way I’d hoped.”
“Really?”
“I do think he’s a valuable resource for both the students and the staff, but no one seems at all interested in working with him. The students did a few tests with him, but beyond that, there’s very little for Dr. Freeman to do unless someone has issues they want to discuss with him.”
“That doesn’t seem likely.”
“No, probably not, although I understand several of the students were upset about Mark’s accident. Perhaps some of them will want to discuss the matter with Dr. Freeman.”
“They should be discussing it with the police,” Sara said softly.
Robert glanced at her and frowned. “You aren’t suggesting that Mark’s death was at all suspicious?”
“Let’s see, he was meant to be hiding, but for some reason he decided to climb into an alligator enclosure. No, nothing suspicious about that.”
“Sara, my dear, I know you’re used to a rather different way of life, but in the real world accidents happen all the time. You can’t chase shadows simply because they’re what you’re expecting. I knew Mark well. He was determined to evade you for the entire two hours, so determined that I actually had a chat with him just before the challenge started. I warned him to keep to the rules and reminded him that Ethel and Candie would be tracking him the entire time.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He just laughed. He said he had everything well in hand. You saw that he’d done himself up to look like Luke. He was sure that would fool you.”
“Except everyone was meant to be in disguise. There’s no way Luke would have skipped the disguise and just walked around the park looking like himself.”
“Yes, well, as I said, he had a plan.”
“So what was his plan?”
“I wish I knew. He refused to tell me anything. I should have insisted. I’m sorry now that I didn’t. If I’d known he was contemplating anything as dangerous as climbing over an alligator pond, I would have stopped him, obviously.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Sara sighed. “What could he have hoped to accomplish by climbing that tree?”
“You had to get within five feet of him to make the tag. Perhaps he was planning to stay more than five feet off the ground.”
As much as she hated to admit it, the idea made sense. She could imagine Mark coming up with it, as well. “Coming right on the heels of Jake’s death, it just feels off to me.”
“Jake had a heart attack,” Robert said tightly. “The two deaths are completely unrelated.”
“Maybe I’m not as sure about Dr. Freeman’s competence as you are. He might have missed something when he was examining Jake.”
“You think Jake was murdered?” Robert sounded shocked.
“I don’t know what to think. The man was disliked by just about everyone. He made frequent references to knowing secrets, especially secrets about you that meant that he could keep his job no matter what he did. Murder seems a distinct possibility.”
Robert chuckled. “He did know all of my secrets, but I’d have let him share them with the world before I’d have risked the school’s reputation over Jake’s behavior. None of my secrets are particularly interesting, anyway. If I’m guilty of anything, it’s of caring too much about my friend. I let him keep his job because he’d been let go from his last position and needed the work. I was getting very close to relieving him of his teaching duties and keeping him on staff as some sort of consultant, just so that I could keep paying him.”
“Why?”
“When we were partners, he saved my life. Not once, but twice, actually. I owed him everything and I could afford to pay him to sit around and do nothing for a year or two while he worked out what he wanted to do next. Losing his job was difficult for him. He started drinking more and stopped taking care of himself.” Robert stopped and passed his hands over his eyes. “I should have done more,” he said softly.
“You gave him a job and put up with his behavior. He should have been grateful.”
“I wanted to fix everything for him. I left policing and set up my security company. Within a few years, I was making ten times what I’d made in policing. I wanted to bring Jake into the company back then, but he loved being a cop. It was his whole life. I almost wish he had been murdered. I’d feel less guilty about everything.”
“What do you feel guilty about?”
“I should have made him talk to Dr. Freeman and I should have made him go for a physical. I could see that he was making himself sick, as much with his drinking as with his poor eating habits. I never thought that he’d have a heart attack, though.”
“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Dr. Freeman got it wrong.”
“You’re suggesting that one of the students killed Jake.”
“Or one of the staff.”
Robert gave her a grim smile. “Of course, we have to include everyone in the list of suspects, don’t we? I suppose I’m top of the list, really.”
“You need to protect the school’s reputation. Jake could have done a lot of damage if he’d have continued to behave in the same way.”
“Except, as I said, I was ready to remove him from teaching and just keep him on as a consultant. I was even going to send him to Dallas or Boulder, just to get him away from the students for a while. I didn’t have to kill him to get rid of him.”
“So who did
?”
“You know as well as I do that he was difficult to like. Several of the students had complained to me about him. I can’t imagine any of them were upset enough to murder the man, but maybe I’ve underestimated someone.”
“What about Dr. Freeman? I know he and Jake didn’t get along.”
“Sadly, that’s very true, but Slade is a psychologist. Surely he’s the most mentally stable of all of us.”
Sara shrugged. “How much do you know about Ethel?”
“I know a bit about her background, what was in her files, anyway. Of course, they’re incomplete.”
“Could Jake have found out something about her that she’d have preferred to keep hidden?”
“I suppose that’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely. I think Ethel’s secrets are too well buried for anyone to find them.”
Sara nodded. That was the same feeling she had about the older woman. “What about the couple who look after the buildings for you?”
“The Hendersons? Neither of them would hurt a fly. I don’t know that they’d ever met Jake, anyway. They keep to themselves, mostly.”
“Which brings us back to the students.”
“And here we are,” Robert said brightly as the transport pulled into the parking lot in front of the housing building. “We’ll have a memorial service for Mark at six, I think. I’ll see you then.” He was out of the transport and walking away before Sara could reply.
The bus transport pulled in as Sara began to walk toward the building. She stopped and watched as the students emerged. Tamara had clearly been crying and Lacey looked upset as well. Donna’s face was set in a grim frown. The men looked less concerned, but no one was smiling as they gathered their bags and made their way toward the building.
“There’s going to be a memorial service at six,” Candie announced loudly. She, too, looked as if she’d been crying.
Ethel was the last to leave the transport.
“You look upset,” Sara told her as she caught up to the older woman. In truth, Ethel appeared to have aged twenty years in a single afternoon. She looked at Sara and sighed.
“I liked Mark. I thought he was clever and that he had a bright future in front of him. I still can’t quite get my head around what’s happened. I’m sorry, but I need to go and lie down.”
Sara walked silently with her back to Ethel’s room. “I hope you feel better later,” she said at the woman’s door.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel better, but I’ll be at the memorial service, regardless.”
Back in her own room, Sara paced anxiously. Robert hadn’t immediately dismissed her suggestion that Jake had been murdered. That seemed like progress. It was a shame she’d run out of time before they’d been able to discuss what had happened to Mark. Of course, she didn’t actually know what had happened to the man. Ethel and Candie had been tracking him, and all of the others, though. If it was murder, there was a good chance Ethel and Candie would be able to identify the killer.
Frowning, Sara sat down and tried to think. The two women hadn’t been tracking Robert or Dr. Freeman, at least as far as she knew. It was time for a conversation with Candie, she decided.
“I’m incredibly busy right now,” Candie told her. “You wouldn’t believe how much paperwork has to be done when a student dies.”
“I just wanted to go through everything that happened this afternoon, a quick debrief, if you will, while it’s still fresh in my mind. As sad as Mark’s death is, we still have students to train. Today’s outing turned out to be a great training exercise, and I’d hate to lose out on our chance to build on what happened today.”
Candie frowned and then nodded. “Give me a minute,” she said. While she tapped away at her computer screen, Sara pulled out her M-ped. WorldNet had nothing more than a very short article mentioning a tragic accident at the zoo. She could find no mention of the school in the news. Mark’s name was also absent.
“Right then, what did you want to discuss?”
“I’d like to watch the footage from your surveillance,” Sara said. “I’d like to track each student as he or she walked through the park. Obviously, I’m curious about Mark and Luke, too, as I didn’t mange to find either of them.”
“I’ll talk to Robert about that. I’m not sure if the surveillance was recorded or not.”
Sara knew Robert well enough to know that it would have been. Whether he would admit to that now was another matter. “I hope it was. It should be very valuable in helping the students understand where they made their mistakes.”
“I hope you’ll have some suggestions for them, anyway.”
“Oh, yes, of course. The video would just be the icing on the cake, if you will. I have a lot to tell them anyway.”
“If we do have the footage, I’ll have it sent to your M-ped. It may be tomorrow before I can talk to Robert, though.”
“That’s fine. I’m sure no one is going to want to start going over the day’s events tonight. After the memorial service, I think I’ll have an early night.”
“I suspect the students will want to go and have a few drinks at Michael’s. You should go along.”
“That’s a tempting thought. I could do with a drink,” Sara laughed. “We’ll see how I feel after the service.”
She ate a bar for dinner and took a neutralizing tablet before she changed into a black dress and made her way to the meeting room. Robert and Ethel were talking together in one corner.
“Ah, Sara, I’m glad you were thinking about how to further the students’ training after today. I was able to get the footage from the transport from when Ethel and Candie were monitoring the exercise. I’ve sent it to your M-ped. If you hadn’t mentioned it, it probably would have been overwritten tomorrow,” Robert said as Sara joined them.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how many times I walked past one of them and didn’t notice,” Sara said with a grin.
“You did very well,” Ethel told her. “I believe the only student you walked past was Jeff.”
“He was very well disguised. It was his voice that gave him away,” Sara answered.
“Really? I’m fascinated. I may have to sit in on your class when you discuss everything,” she replied.
“It’s probably going to take me several classes to go over everything, but you’re more than welcome in all of them.”
“I may just take you up on that,” Ethel said.
“Here we are again,” Lloyd said from the doorway. “I’m genuinely sorry about Mark. He was a good guy.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Tamara countered as she followed Lloyd into the room. “He might have been a good guy before he got tangled up with Jake.”
“Isn’t it weird how both of them have ended up dead?” Bill asked as he came into the room.
“Weird isn’t the word,” Jeff said. He stood in the doorway and looked around the room. “I just came to say goodbye,” he announced. “We’ve only been here a few weeks and already two people have died. I’m not a fan of the odds, really.”
Robert immediately stood up and walked toward Jeff, while speaking loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Jake had a heart attack. He wasn’t taking proper care of himself. That should have been obvious to everyone. As for Mark, it appears he met with an unfortunate accident. Neither death had anything to do with the school,” he said quickly.
Jeff shrugged. “I’m not a fan of coincidences and the two deaths, coming so close together, worry me. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
“You understand that there are no refunds?” Robert checked.
“Yeah, I got it,” Jeff said with a small chuckle.
“Is everyone here?” Robert asked, looking around the room.
Sara noted that the rest of the students had come in while Robert and Jeff had been talking. Luke caught her eye and smiled at her. She felt herself blush as she looked away. As Robert moved to the front of the room, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson appeared in the doorway. They stood t
ogether, staring at Robert, with solemn expressions on their faces.
“Today is another sad day,” Robert began. “Mark was a brilliant young man who had come to us with excellent credentials. I know he was looking forward to completing this course and getting back out into the world. I’m sure he would have been a great success, wherever he had ended up.”
Sara glanced at Luke. He was staring at her and when their eyes met, he shook his head slightly.
“In some ways, I blame myself for Mark’s death,” Robert continued.
Tamara gasped. “What?” she exclaimed.
Robert gave her a sad smile. “I should have made it more clear to all of you that today’s exercise was just that, an exercise, not a test. I knew Mark was desperate to succeed, but I never expected him to go to such lengths. Obviously, if I’d have known what he was planning, I would have put a stop to it.”
“He told me he was going to walk around and not worry about Sara,” Tamara said. “He reckoned that if she saw him, she’d try to tag him as Luke and that would give him ten minutes to get away.”
“Except Luke was in disguise,” Donna said. “Sara isn’t stupid.”
“Whatever he was planning,” Robert interrupted, “he clearly made a decision to do something incredibly dangerous. Sadly, he was unsuccessful.”
“You really want us to believe that he climbed into the gator pond willingly?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t think anyone is suggesting that he climbed into the pond,” Robert replied. “We believe that he chose to climb a tree that extended over the pond area. It’s possible that he thought that Sara wouldn’t be able to tag him if he was more than five feet off the ground.”
“How long was he in the tree?” Jeff asked. “He was supposed to keep moving.”
Ethel sighed. “We weren’t aware that he was in a tree, but we did note that Mark was only barely moving for about ten minutes. It was so close to the end of the challenge, that it seemed a shame to interfere, but I did send a message to his wrist-con.”
“Maybe he was trying to read it and that’s why he fell,” Tamara said.
Ethel turned pale. “What a horrifying thought.” She walked to the nearest couch and sank into, burying her head in her hands.
