Scoop to Kill

by Wendy Lyn Watson

  She winked at us. “George is not amused.”

  Despite my anxiety over Sherbet’s tummy, I found myself smiling back at the woman. That little bit of gallows humor showed a strength at odds with her delicate femininity. I pegged her as a tough old bird, and I had a soft spot for tough old birds.

  “Detective McCormack, isn’t it?” she asked. Cal nodded. “I’m Rosemary Gunderson. My husband is George Gunderson, one of Bryan’s professors. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Cal’s fingers tightened around mine.

  “Thank you,” he said gruffly.

  Rosemary stared at me expectantly. I didn’t feel like making small talk, even with this charming woman, but good manners demanded I introduce myself.

  “I’m Tally Jones, and this here’s Sherbet,” I said, raising the cat a couple inches in greeting.

  “Tally Jones, Tally Jones,” she muttered. Then her eyes lit up. “Of course, the ice cream lady!”

  I laughed in spite of myself.

  Rosemary prattled on. “Etta Harper is a dear friend, and she’s been urging me to come try your ice cream. Unfortunately, George doesn’t care for sweets much. I’ve been trying to tempt him into a lemon soufflé or a square of tiramisu at the Hickory Tavern every week for two years, and I still have yet to succeed. Their desserts are absolutely heavenly. Every now and then he’ll order one, but he never even touches it. Either I eat it for breakfast the next morning or he takes it to work to butter up the secretarial staff.”

  That introduction packed a wealth of information about the Gundersons’ position in Dalliance society. Etta Harper was Finn’s mother, and the Harpers had helped found Dalliance. Etta Harper never socialized much with women outside her social stratum, and she’d been housebound for almost a year following a series of strokes. If Rosemary Gunderson still had contact with Mrs. Harper, she was a dear friend, indeed.

  A comfortably wealthy dear friend, at that. The Hickory Tavern boasted the most upscale and expensive menu in town. My ex, Wayne, was a successful businessman, but the Hickory Tavern was still a special treat, the sort of place we went for anniversaries and birthdays. Yet the Gundersons dined there every week. Reggie had made it sound like professors lived in poverty, but apparently, being a professor could pay pretty well.

  Rosemary looked from my face to Cal’s and back again. An impish sparkle in her eyes, she glanced down at our hands, once again clasped together on Sherbet’s back.

  “I didn’t know you two were . . . close,” she said.

  Cal and I jumped apart like we’d been stung.

  I felt the blush licking up my cheeks. I cut my eyes to the side to catch a peek of Cal. To my surprise, his mouth twitched in something like a smile. And I can’t say I approved of the mischievous glint in his narrowed eyes.

  “No, ma’am. I’m gonna have to get in line behind Tally’s other suitors.”

  “Cal McCormack,” I gasped, mortified. “You make it sound like I’m the town tramp.”

  He smiled for real at that, and a tiny corner of my heart fluttered to see him forget his troubles, even at my expense. “I think you and I have very different ideas about what that word ‘tramp’ means. I’m just saying you’re popular with the fellas these days. Not that you’re returning the favor.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered, hugging Sherbet closer.

  Rosemary giggled. “I think this young man is pulling your pigtails, dear.”

  Cal laughed. “I might be at that.”

  The vet tech came into the waiting room and called Sherbet’s name, saving me from having to respond to Cal’s teasing.

  I picked up my little bundle and headed back to see the doctor.

  “Don’t worry,” Cal called behind me. “I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

  chapter 8

  Two days later, on the Wednesday after the funeral, I emerged from my bedroom to find Alice waiting for me at the kitchen table, two cups of freshly brewed coffee and toasted bagels already laid out. Beneath the scent of French roast and warm cinnamon, I smelled a con.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Can’t I make you breakfast without it being some scam?” she responded, eyes wide with forced innocence.

  “You can make me breakfast, but you don’t. And given the events of this past week, I’m a little suspicious of your motives.”

  Alice reached out to pick up my cup and plate. “Does that mean you don’t want it?”

  I rapped her gently on the head with my knuckles. “Put that back, kiddo. Even a blackmail bagel is tasty.” She smiled as she let my breakfast go.

  I slid into my chair, pulled my bagel a little closer, and took a sip of my coffee. “Spill it.”

  “I made you a date,” Alice said.

  I did an old-fashioned spit-take.

  “You what?”

  Alice laughed, a delighted musical sound. She snagged a handful of paper napkins out of the holder—fashioned out of two plaster of Paris handprints, Alice’s pudgy little toddler fingers splotched with red and yellow paint—and passed them to me.

  “Not a real date,” she said, as she helped me mop up the drops of coffee. “I e-mailed Reggie Hawking last night to tell him you were interested in coming back to school and wanted to talk to someone about getting into Dickerson as a nontraditional student.”

  “Nontraditional?”

  “Not eighteen,” she clarified.

  “Well, I’m definitely not eighteen, but I’m also not particularly interested in being a college student right now.” And I was crazy-not-interested in spending alone time with Reggie Hawking. Alice might be crushing on the boy, but I found him pompous and self-absorbed.

  Sherbet, who had already recovered from his recent yarnectomy, leaped onto the table. His flexible Elizabethan collar, meant to keep him from chewing out his stitches, folded beneath him, and he had to scramble his front paws for traction, but he was highly motivated. He had a sixth sense about possible people food, and before I could push him back to the floor, he snatched half a buttered bagel and bolted. I sighed. Sherbet had wretched manners, but I didn’t know how to socialize him. Besides, after the yarn scare, I didn’t have the heart to chase him down and wrestle the bagel away from him. His bald little tummy broke my heart.

  “I know you don’t want to go to school,” Alice said, unfazed by the pilfering feline. “I just need you to keep Reggie occupied for about fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  I had gone from suspicious to downright distrustful. “Why?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “Oh, all right. I want to look around in his office a bit.”

  “For what? Evidence of a girlfriend?” I teased.

  She looked flummoxed, but then she laughed. “I guess I’m my mother’s daughter after all, huh?” She sighed. “Yeah, I was in his office every day last week, but he’s always there, too. He has one of those electronic picture frames, where you can keep lots of digital images, but it’s always on a picture of him in a cap and gown. He’s a puzzle, you know? An enigma. I just want to flip through the pictures and try to get a better feel for who he is. Look for pictures of his parents, his friends, his pets.”

  “I don’t know, Alice. That’s not a very healthy thing to do.” Not to mention that it was weird that the only picture on the boy’s desk was of himself, alone. That didn’t bode well.

  “Relax, Aunt Tally. I’m not turning into a stalker. I was, uh, thinking of asking him out, and I don’t want to put myself out there if he has a girlfriend.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat, nodded once, and said it again more forcefully. “Yes. I think Reggie Hawking is cute and smart, and I want to ask him to go to the movies.”

  She sounded so earnest, like she was planting her flag on virgin ground, and I almost laughed. One small step for Alice, one giant step for girlkind.

  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea to snoop.”

>   “Really? You did a little snooping last year, didn’t you? And I seem to recall helping you with that.” She had a point. I hadn’t even given her a choice, simply impressed her into service as a diversion so I could chat up Crystal Tompkins about the murder of my ex’s girlfriend.

  “But how old is this Reggie person?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. He’s finishing his fourth year of grad school, so maybe twenty-five? Twenty-six?

  “So, eight or nine years older than you? That’s a pretty big age difference.”

  Alice sighed impatiently. “Aunt Tally, I spend my whole life hanging around with people who are older than I am. Geez, if I’m stuck dating boys my age, I’m stuck with Kyle.”

  She managed to make it sound like dating Kyle was a fate worse than death. Poor Kyle. He looked at Alice like she hung the moon, and there was a time when she was equally fascinated with him. She was the gilded princess, with porcelain skin and pure heart. He was the tarnished knight, with brooding eyes and a gift for getting into trouble.

  Where Alice excelled in school, taking honors classes and graduating early, Kyle had long been labeled a troublemaker and shunted off to remedial classes. He could hold his own when he and Alice sparred, so I had to assume his academic woes were a result of his bad attitude rather than some lack of ability. Still, the two would never have met if Kyle hadn’t taken the job at the A-la-mode so he could make restitution for a mailbox-smashing spree from the summer before. But once they entered each other’s orbit, the peculiar physics of attraction took over and they became locked in a tug-of-war as inevitable as gravity.

  Then, something over the past year—either a fight they’d managed to keep private, or simply the shifting circumstances of their lives—had changed that dynamic, left it lopsided and sad.

  “Besides,” Alice added, “I’m going to do it one way or another, even if I have to pick the lock to get in there. So you may as well stop trying to talk me out of it. If you help me, at least I won’t get caught.”

  I took a bite of my bagel and chewed thoughtfully. Baked goods came dear, it seemed.

  “Fine,” I said. “What do I have to do?”

  Dickerson’s student union looked like a boutique shopping mall. The Gish-Tunny Center, named for the two alums whose generous bequests funded its construction, housed student-organization offices and a ballroom on the third floor; a bookstore, copy center, and elegant meeting rooms on the second floor; a large lounge and small eateries on the main floor; and a state-of-the-art performance space in the basement.

  Reggie Hawking leaned down so his mouth was close to my ear. “It’s too loud to talk in here. We can get a drink and take it out to the patio.”

  We’d left Alice back at Sinclair Hall, setting up a grade book for their American literature class on Reggie’s desktop computer. He led the way to the counter of the Jump and Java, a standard-issue espresso bar with a pastry case bursting with baked goods. He ordered a large coffee. “Make that two,” he said, glancing at me.

  “Make that one,” I said, reaching a hand to get the clerk’s attention. Whether I wanted coffee or not, it wasn’t this kid’s place to order for me. “It’s hotter than a whore in a church out there. If we’re taking this outside, I’ll stick with iced tea. And a brownie.” To get through even ten minutes with this guy, I needed chocolate to sustain me.

  Reggie paused in the act of rummaging in his pocket, met my eyes, and smiled. For the first time since we’d met, I felt like he didn’t just look at me, but actually saw me. When all that scattershot boy-genius energy focused on me, and his mobile features settled into sensuous lines, I could sorta see why Alice had a crush on him. He was still not my type, but I could at least wrap my brain around his appeal.

  “That’s a dollar fifty for the coffee and four dollars for the tea and brownie,” the clerk said.

  I laid four bills on the counter. Reggie picked them up and slipped them in his pocket. “I’ll pay for both with my i-Cash,” he said.

  He pulled a yellow plastic card from his wallet and swiped it across a small black box with a glowing red eye.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s my student ID,” he said. “Students and faculty can put money in an account and use our ID’s to pay for stuff at the campus stores. We get a discount when we use them.”

  Neat. That meant he was paying less than four bucks for my drink and snack, but he sure wasn’t handing me back change. Oh, well, I thought, I guess this makes me a patron of the arts.

  “We can even use them in the vending machines,” he continued. “Of course, some of the wingnuts over in the art department complained that the university is trying to keep tabs on us, tracking us like animals in the wild. But I think it beats the heck out of carrying around change or trying to get a dollar bill flat enough to feed into the machine.”

  We found a table out on the student union’s shaded patio. The damp weekend had evolved into a muggy Monday that likely signalled the beginning of the unrelentingly brutal Texas summer. Reggie pursed his lips and blew gently across the surface of his coffee. The thought of drinking hot coffee in the middle of that saunalike weather made my neck prickle with sweat. I took a big gulp of my sweet tea, relishing the tingle of the crushed ice against my upper lip.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, as I tried to think of something clever to say. A thought popped into my head that it might someday be this awkward to converse with Alice.

  “It must be interesting working with all these bright young students every day,” I offered.

  Reggie shook his head. “College kids are basically sociopaths.”

  I laughed.

  “No, really,” Reggie insisted. “My first year in grad school, I had a roommate, a doctoral student over in the psych department. One night after we finished grading a stack of finals, we broke out a bottle of tequila and started bitching about our students. He showed me the definition of a sociopath in one of his textbooks. I don’t remember it exactly, but it was something about being completely self-absorbed, lacking empathy, and being willing to lie and cheat to get what you want. Pretty much sums up most college kids.”

  It seemed like it came reasonably close to summing up most of the adults I knew, too, but I kept that observation to myself. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

  Now it was Reggie’s turn to laugh. “Not harsh, just realistic. I had a kid last year actually lie about his mother dying to get out of a midterm. That’s some serious bad karma.”

  “Sounds like he was desperate,” I said.

  He shrugged his wild, spastic shrug. “Maybe,” he conceded, “but when I called him on it, demanded to see a death certificate or an obituary or something, he just smiled. Like ‘Oh, well, I guess you caught me.’ No tears, no apologies, nothing.”

  I broke off a corner of the brownie and popped it in my mouth. “Okay, so he was kind of a sleaze. But that’s just one kid. Surely they’re not all that bad.”

  Reggie sipped his coffee, slurping noisily. “That was an extreme case,” he admitted, “but I catch them lying all the time about being sick, having their cars broken into . . . and about halfway through the semester, grandparents start dropping like flies. Some of them are good kids, but they just don’t have any perspective, you know?”

  Now that was something I understood. It had been less than a year since Brittanie Brinkman had died, and I had had to come to grips with the fact that my ex-husband’s chippie girlfriend was more immature than evil. She just lacked perspective.

  “Especially these days,” Reggie continued. “Kids today have so much structure in their lives: every minute of their day is some scheduled event or activity; they’re told exactly what they have to learn for every test; and they all know they’re going to college when they graduate high school. At least the kids who end up at Dickerson know they’re going to college. They never have to make decisions for themselves, so they never have to make good decisions, you know?”

  I f
ought a smile at the notion of this boy in his midtwenties complaining about “kids today.”

  “So that’s what you do? Teach them to make good decisions?”

  “Me?” Reggie leaned back in his chair. His gaze grew distant, and one corner of his mouth quirked up in something like a smile. “Hardly. At best, I teach them to write.” He made some inarticulate sound in the back of his throat.

  “So if you don’t like teaching, why are you studying to be a professor?”

  It seemed like a reasonable question to me, but Reggie snorted.

  “I’m not studying to be a professor; I’m studying to be a scholar.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Most people don’t.”

  Well, la-di-freakin’-da.

  “Most civilians,” he said with a small smile, amused at his own joke, “don’t realize that college professors teach, but that’s only a small part of the job. Most of the job involves doing research in our field, publishing in scholarly journals and writing books.”

  To be honest, I didn’t understand the world in which Reggie and Emily lived, the world into which Alice was plunging headlong, but I did know that I had no patience for this sort of pompous BS. I was itching to show this kid that I wasn’t a total bumpkin.

  “It must be tough to do all that without grant money,” I said, and smothered my smile of triumph over the look of surprise on his face.

  “How did you . . . ?”

  “I guess I pay attention pretty well for a civilian,” I said. “You said at Bryan’s funeral that there wasn’t much grant money for the humanities.”

  “Oh, right. I guess I did.”

  I glanced at my watch. I’d promised Alice I’d keep Reggie out of Sinclair Hall for twenty minutes, but time was dragging. I needed to keep him talking. Alice had suggested asking questions about being a nontraditional student, but I hadn’t prepared any questions and none were coming to mind. In the end, it didn’t matter what we talked about, as long as I kept him occupied a bit longer. So I decided to keep him on the subject of grant money.