Sisterhood is Deadly: A Sorority Sisters Mystery

by Lindsay Emory

  Casey quirked an eyebrow. “Sounds lovely.”

  “When I’m here as Sisterhood Mentor, it’s different. I’m temporary. I’m fun. I’m interesting. I’m not, like, their therapist.”

  “I don’t know,” Casey mused, dipping a chip into the salsa from which my hair had been saved. “Kind of sounds juicy.”

  Oh it was. And how. And because I knew Casey would love it, I started spilling the tea. Starting with the S&M tea.

  “God, I love girl drama.” Casey sighed when our dinners were brought out.

  “It’s interesting, all right,” I admitted. “I’m sure there will be more when we have this hearing on Saturday. Oh, and the mixer on Friday night.”

  Casey’s eyes lit up, like only a gay sorority sister would. “Who are we mixing with?”

  “Alpha Kappa,” I said.

  “I’m your date, of course.”

  I laughed. At social events, being Casey’s date meant that we walked in the door together, and, three hours later, he found me and we walked out together. It was more attention than a lot of my dates gave me. I never got mad about his behavior, though. He was a bona fide social butterfly and found it impossible to stay in one place for longer than sixty seconds. Ninety seconds, tops.

  A familiar dark head caught my eye. “Amanda!” I shouted at the woman walking four tables away. I’d know that superb posture anywhere. She turned, and that’s when I saw that she was holding hands with the gentleman she was walking with, immediately dropped as soon as she saw me. Or maybe he dropped her hand. It was hard to tell.

  She waved and smiled and came over to our table. I quickly introduced one bestie to the other, trying to ignore Amanda’s smile drooping a little when she heard that Casey worked with me at HQ. I resolved to let her know later that no one would take her place in my heart, not even my gay work husband.

  “Join us,” Casey urged, with such perfect manners and enthusiasm I wanted to kiss him. “I’d love to hear all about what Margot was like in college.”

  Amanda waggled her eyebrows implying all the stories she could tell. I wanted to remind her about that vow of silence we’d taken about all the things we did that summer. “I can’t,” she said sweetly. And then I looked at Mr. Hand Holder, just settling into a booth on the far side of the restaurant. She saw what I was looking at and blushed, and we shared a secret, meaningful look. You better tell me all the details later, I telepathically ordered her. Promise, she swore back.

  Casey and I resumed our Mexican-­food pig-­out session, and, after two and a half margaritas (Casey shared his, against his will), I was almost back to feeling like the confident, always positive Delta Beta extraordinaire I was. The restaurant cleared out some, and I had a better line of sight to Amanda’s table. Her date was an older man, stern and professorial-­looking, which probably made sense given that Sutton was a small college town. Probably about 75.6 percent of the population worked for the college, in some respect.

  I watched their body language when Casey got up to use the boy’s room. They knew each other well, it was clear, but I’d have to think about some way to let Amanda know that he didn’t seem as into her as she was into him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if I had to define it, Amanda seemed a little … desperate. Which made me sad, because usually Debs are the pursued, not the pursuers.

  When I got up, I was glad that Casey had driven his car to the restaurant. My body could not handle 2.5 margaritas like it used to. I had a second reason to be glad that Casey was driving when I got the call that my presence was requested at the police station. Immediately.

  ON THE WAY over, I had to update Casey on my previous visit to the police station.

  “Margot, no one gets accidentally arrested.” He sounded like he didn’t believe me. Which was strange because never in a million years would I exaggerate.

  “Can you please just focus on the important things?” I was going over the progression of events that he would need to carry out in the possibly likely event that I was accidentally arrested again. “One more time.”

  “Yes, yes, bail money, ATM, blah blah blah.”

  “And what’s my PIN number?”

  “The year Delta Beta was founded, duh.”

  We pushed through the front doors of the police station. Like before, it was very quiet. I suddenly saw why I got so much attention from Captain Hatfield. He didn’t have anything else to do with his free time. I wobbled a little going through the door. Luckily, Casey was there to take my arm and straighten me out.

  That was when Hatfield entered the front office, holding a double cheeseburger wrapped with paper and dripping with secret sauce. He stopped dead in his tracks, glaring at me like I interrupted his evening. Then he glared at Casey, who was being a gentleman and making sure those 2.5 margaritas didn’t cause another incarceration.

  “What do you want?” Ty growled with his jaw locked in very John Wayne-­esque impression.

  “Charming as ever, Captain Hatfield,” I said.

  “Lieutenant Hatfield,” he corrected me.

  Whatever. I ignored that. “You called me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Someone did.”

  “Not me.”

  I looked at Casey for some backup and to make sure El Loco Taco wasn’t putting something hallucinatory in their margaritas these days. He nodded back, knowing what I was asking silently.

  I pulled my phone out of my bag and showed him the caller ID. “Satisfied?”

  Hatfield groaned. “Our assistant. I told her to call you tomorrow.”

  I looked around the empty station. “You have an assistant? For what?”

  Casey elbowed me.

  “Who are you?” Ty asked Casey, a note of challenge in his voice. Police officers were so weird when they didn’t know everything.

  “This is Casey. He’s with me,” I explained bluntly, suddenly pissed off that I was called down here for no reason.

  “Should she come back tomorrow?” Casey used his debonair, impossible-­to-­resist voice. Maybe he wanted to smooth things over with Hatfield. Maybe he thought he had a chance. I was interested to see if he did.

  “She’s here now,” Ty said flatly.

  “What’re ya eating?” I asked, my attempt to smooth things over. In response, Ty crumpled the remainder of the burger and paper bag and threw it in the trash can. Well then.

  Ty was back in his polo shirt and khakis, which I had decided wasn’t my favorite look on him. Thanks to 2.5 margs, I didn’t hide the fact that I was checking out his butt as he went to the desk to get something. That earned me another elbow from Casey. Whatever. I knew Casey was doing the same thing.

  But then I was caught when Ty turned around, and his eyes met mine. I had a flash then, a realization that I had known him, once upon a time. The tequila just wasn’t allowing me to put the pieces together. Right when I thought I had something, it slipped through my fingers.

  “How do we know each other?” I asked, wobbling a little. Casey tightened his grip on my arm.

  Ty shrugged, a little too studied, a little too on purpose, before he held up a pad of paper. “Fingerprint guys are coming on Saturday.”

  “Saturday?” I repeated the word like it was some kind of big hassle, like that was my day for biking and picnicking and listening to concerts in the park. In reality, I’d be doing what I normally did. Saving a Delta Beta chapter and watching Law & Order.

  “Would another day work better for you?” His manners were too perfect. I knew he was putting me on.

  “No,” I said, matching my obsequious tone to his. “Saturday will be perfect. I’ll be expecting the fingerprinters.”

  My tongue had trouble with that made-­up word. Ty looked at me sharply again.

  “Have you been drinking, Blythe?”

  “Did you just call me by my last name?”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Answer mine,” I sassed back. Casey squeezed my elbow hard. I was not as padded as I looked. “Ow!” I
glared at him, then transferred my glare to Officer Hatfield. I was not deterred by either man.

  “I can’t believe you called me all the way down here just to tell me the fingerprinters were coming.”

  Ty threw his hands up. “You were accidentally summoned.”

  Casey’s eyes met mine. See? I said with my eyebrows.

  “Since you’re here, do you have anything else for me?”

  He had some nerve. “No,” I snapped. “You?”

  “No.” His answer was clipped.

  Two could play that game. “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine,” he managed between gritted teeth.

  Then I turned around and left, Casey quick on my heels.

  We were halfway back to the Deb house when Casey had the nerve to say, “He likes you.”

  I rolled my eyes. It was just my luck that the only guy who might “like” me was also someone who wanted to arrest me every chance he got.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I HAD TO get out of the house. I was going stir-­crazy: With the chapter advisor’s office still closed off, waiting for fingerprinters, I couldn’t do chapter work. I called Casey and asked him if we could dig into the paperwork that HQ had sent over, with the added bonus that I could use his brawn to help me move into the chapter advisor’s apartment. But he had a conference call with HQ until lunch over some hazing incident in Colorado. (Surprising. Coloradans seem too chill to haze anyone. Hazing takes a lot of effort, in my experience.)

  So I broke a rule and tiptoed into the office to retrieve Liza’s sociology papers. I was 85 percent sure that Hatfield would never notice they were gone. The thought of Ty Hatfield made me strangely uncomfortable. I remembered the previous night perfectly—­it had only been 2.5 margaritas, after all—­but enough to make me forget myself and taunt a sworn officer of the law. Something about him put me on edge, and it wasn’t just his piercing blue eyes that both pissed me off and made me want to confess to something. Anything.

  On campus again, I felt the romantic tug of my alma mater, the memories of late nights and late mornings, group studies, and cute fraternity boys at the Java Jimmy food cart. The nostalgia made me stop and get a double-­shot iced latte, for old times’ sake, before heading into the J. Quincy Adams Building.

  I figured the best place to start was the sociology-­department offices, which were easy to find. I introduced myself to the receptionist, and, with the gravest voice I could muster, quietly said that I was returning some of Liza McCarthy’s papers to the department. That got her all jumpy and nervous. She hustled off, saying she was going to get someone for me, which was all well and good; but the box of books was very heavy, and it was hard to hold them and drink my iced latte.

  Soon enough, the receptionist called me back to an office and introduced me to Dean Xavier, sociology department chair. Interestingly, he was also Amanda’s hot professor date from the night before. I dropped the box and stuck my right hand out quicker than gossip could fly through a sorority house. “I’m Margot Blythe. How very nice to meet you.”

  “Dean Xavier,” he said as he returned the handshake.

  This was interesting. He invited me to sit down, and as I did, I studied him closely. I had been right at El Loco Taco. He was older, maybe late thirties or early forties, but still in good shape, with salt-­and-­pepper hair and a prominent-­yet-­handsome nose. Thin, wire-­framed glasses didn’t detract from very intelligent brown eyes. Or maybe it was the glasses that made the eyes seem intelligent. Chicken, egg.

  “So is your first name Dean, or is that your title?” I asked, with my sweetest smile. Okay, I was flirting. That just happened sometimes when I was around handsome older men who were also dating my best friend. It was totally innocent.

  “My name. But I get that a lot around here.” He smiled. Minus one for me not being creative in the slightest.

  I put my grave, sad face back on as I held up the papers I had collected. “I’m not sure if you were told, but I found these in Liza McCarthy’s office at the chapter house and thought they might be needed here.”

  Xavier leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. I felt like I’d been asked to stay after school. “Thank you, but I doubt there’s anything in there that’s necessary.”

  That didn’t seem right. “Was all the important paperwork at her office here?”

  Xavier cocked his head. “She didn’t have an office on campus.”

  Stranger and stranger. “Where did her students go?” When I was in college, I had to go someplace to meet my instructors when I needed to explain why I’d slept in and missed the test. Again.

  Xavier sniffed like it wasn’t interesting at all. “To another instructor. Ms. McCarthy was no longer with the university when she passed.”

  “When did she get her doctorate?” I would have thought I would have heard about that, or she’d have the name “Dr. McCarthy” on all the papers sent to headquarters.

  “She didn’t.”

  “I don’t understand—­”

  Xavier cut me off. “She was released from the program three months ago.”

  Oh, damn. This was kind of huge.

  “Why?” It was all I could manage to say, my brain whirring at one hundred miles an hour.

  To his credit, Xavier almost looked guilty about sharing the information. “Since she’s passed, I guess there’s no way she’ll sue me. There were issues with the research for her thesis. We found that it was inappropriate and, ultimately, that it violated the Sutton College code of ethics.”

  This was crazy. I’d never heard of such a thing. “What was she researching? She studied sociology. There’s nothing controversial about that!”

  As a philosophy major, I felt I could say that about sociology. Also, I wasn’t quite sure what sociology was.

  Then Dean Xavier explained Liza’s research, and my whole world tilted and spun out of control.

  “I told all this to the police …” he said, in the same professorial, matter-­of-­fact voice that he just used to share scandalous, almost impossible-­to-­believe information.

  A foghorn blared somewhere between my ears. I excused myself, leaving the remnants of Liza’s failed degree on the floor of Xavier’s office. I had a police officer to chew out.

  I marched out of the building, down a curved sidewalk, and headed back to the parking lot, a thousand things running through my head. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t true. I was so caught up in all the legal, moral, and ethical implications of what Xavier had said, that I wasn’t watching where I was going and bumped into a pretty blond girl, whose hair was done in perfect waves and whose makeup was expertly applied. The quintessential sorority girl, Aubrey St. John.

  “Aubrey!” I exclaimed, pushing my bangs off my sweaty face. “I’m so sorry, you wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had.”

  But Aubrey didn’t smile back or apologize for being in my way. In fact, she looked at me blankly, like she hadn’t heard anything I’d said.

  That’s when I saw her shirt, a pale pink tee with bright orange Greek letters plastered across her chest. Mu. Mu. Mu.

  A horrified gasp came out of me. Aubrey in Tri Mu letters? Was nothing sacred in this world? I couldn’t even deal with this right now. ”I’ll talk to you later, young lady,” I informed her with as much menace as I could summon before I remembered where I was going. And why.

  THE GLASS DOORS at the police station slammed behind me, and I stood there, arms akimbo, for someone to ask for my name and my business.

  I waited for almost two minutes before I gave up. Seriously? They had no one at the reception desk? What would they do if someone came in to confess to something? Just let them hang around until they changed their mind?

  “Hello!?” I called out. ”Detective Hatfield!?” I decided yelling his name was the best option. If I wandered down the hall, I might be accidentally cuffed or accidentally shoved into a lineup.

  Ty Hatfield came ambling down the hall, just as cool as you please a few minutes
later.

  “You have been holding out on me,” I accused him.

  There was no change on his face except for a slight squinting of his eyes, which I took as permission to continue.

  “We made a deal,” I continued. “We were going to share information. I even let you look through the computer.”

  Ty’s face said he wasn’t impressed. “It came back by the way.” He’d just totally changed the subject.

  I had to respond to that. “That was fast.”

  He shrugged. “Turned out, whoever destroyed the computer didn’t do much to the hard drive. I have your files back in my office.” He turned and started walking back down the hall. When I didn’t follow, he looked back at me like, what are you waiting for?

  I took a deep breath before taking the chance of walking down a hall at a police station when my status as a free woman might be in jeopardy if I followed him.

  Hatfield’s office was as boring and as plain as I’d expected, with not a cute picture frame or funny card in sight.

  I accepted the thumb drive he gave me with all the icy aplomb I had in me. Then I went in for the kill.

  “I just saw Dean Xavier, and he said that you knew what he told me about Liza McCarthy and her doctorate.”

  Ty looked inscrutably at me. I wanted to scream. I couldn’t take it anymore. “How could you not tell me that Liza McCarthy was running a phone-­sex hotline as a sociology experiment?”

  “I thought you knew.” He didn’t blink, he didn’t wiggle, he didn’t cock his head. The man was really hard to get riled up.

  “How could I have known?” My voice went up a ­couple of octaves, and I threw up my hands. “I don’t even know … how to do phone sex!”

  Even a cop as chill as Hatfield reacted to that one.

  “This is dire,” I said, ignoring the twinkle in his eyes. “One, it means that Liza was in violation of about ten Delta Beta S&M rules, including her employment contract. Two, it means …” She wasn’t the person we thought she was. A chill ran down my spine.

  “I thought you knew,” Ty repeated, like it was all no big deal. “Thought that’s why HQ sent you here. To fire her.”