“I found that next to her,” I said, amazed that my explanation was so calm and so simple.
Ty held it up to the light to examine it, using only the very tips of his finger and thumb. He called out to someone, who hurried over with an open plastic bag. When Ty dropped the vial into the baggie, the whoosh of adrenaline finally wore off. I was snapped out of my fugue state and back into Margot Blythe land, where things had to be done and had to be done quickly, even if I had hands that were vibrating like a Harley Davidson transmission. Even if a policeman looked like he had a million and a half questions for me.
A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed my suspicions that the entire chapter was up, watching me, the police, and the coroner loading their friend into a bag. This would not do.
I stood up, and Ty stood with me. His hand went to my forearm where it suggested that I not leave.
“The girls need me,” I said to him under my breath.
The needs of the sorority never came first for him. “You need to give a statement.”
“I told you everything,” I insisted. My mind already had moved on, to the young women who needed explanations, too.
“Where were you tonight?”
I froze. On the TV show, even though the voice-over guy on Law & Order says it’s the story of the victims and criminals, it’s really not. It’s the story of the detectives and lawyers. Those are the characters we identify with, week after week. I had always seen myself in those roles; but here I was, where I least expected it. On the flip side.
And even on the flip side of the law, I knew my rights. “Are we really doing this right now?”
“Why are you avoiding my question?”
I tossed my bangs away from my face, a defiant gesture so I could look at him straight in the eyes. “Do you think I’m going to stand here and be interrogated while my chapter—the people I’m responsible for—look on?”
Ty’s expression held something I couldn’t put a name to. “Do you think I’m going to let you walk away?”
“Am I a suspect?” I knew that question was asked a thousand times on Law & Order. It worked just as well in real life as it did on TV.
When he didn’t answer immediately, I took the opportunity to turn and walk as quickly as possible up to the house. I hustled as many people inside as I could. Those who wanted to watch the not-quite-grisly scene could stand outside and do so. I couldn’t make their choices for them.
I had to answer questions, calm nerves, and assure people that we were all safe. Of course we were safe, we had nearly the whole Sutton police department on our front steps.
No murderer would dare show up. We could only hope the fraternity pledges showed as much sense.
Chapter Thirty-three
JUST AS I shut my eyes, I heard banging. Loud, fist on wood banging. I checked my watch. Somehow, I’d stepped into a time warp and it was almost eight in the morning. I hoped to God whoever it was had a venti four-shot, four-Equal coffee for me.
But no, the guy at my door didn’t have coffee. He had a search warrant.
The entire Sutton police department flooded the sorority house while I got on the phone with Atlanta. While I wasn’t sure of the legalities of having the girls’ rooms searched, I knocked on each door and told everyone to cooperate if asked.
Turned out, they just searched my apartment. And the office. And my personal effects. The chapter room, the dining room, and the kitchen were searched, as well. Whatever judge signed that warrant must have had the same misgivings as I did about searching the personal belongings of thirty unrelated women living in a sorority house.
After making the rounds, I headed back to the advisor’s apartment, just in time to see them zipping something small in an evidence bag.
“What are you taking?” I demanded.
Ty held up the bag for me and I saw a small glass vial, the sister of the one I had held in my hand the night before.
Of course, my only response was excitement. This was the clue we’d been waiting for. “Where did you find that?”
“Back of the medicine cabinet.”
I was disappointed with myself. The traveler that I was, I was still living out of my hanging toiletry kit and my three-ounce shampoo bottles. I hadn’t even cleaned out the bathroom cabinets. That was really sloppy of me.
In the chapter advisor’s office, police officers removed a bunch of Delta Beta manuals and went through the ritual supplies in the chapter room, which resulted in another frantic call to headquarters. There was privilege to protect, and as long as I was a free woman, I was going to try my damnedest to do it.
When the search was over, Ty walked off with his colleagues, not even staying behind to chat or give me an update. I thought we’d gotten to a better place in our relationship. Apparently not.
Fifteen minutes after the police rolled out, Casey showed up at the door, grim-faced. He shoved a printed piece of paper at me. “I’ve been working all morning on this,” he said.
I led him into the dining room because I hadn’t eaten, and served up two bowls of fruity puffs with skim milk. He took one of the bowls and started eating, which was a little annoying because both bowls had been for me. After I got a second spoon, I could focus on the sheet he had given me. A reporter out of Charlotte had an “exclusive” about investigations into sex-crazed sororities.
“It’s a five-part series,” Casey said. “I bet I know what the investigation will reveal.”
“And who gave them the exclusive,” I muttered.
Casey nodded glumly and shoved a heaping pile of milk-drenched fruit puffs in his mouth. I recognized stress eating when I saw it. A similar-sized spoonful went into my mouth. ”Guess who came by this morning,” I said with a mouthful of cereal.
“Who?”
“The police.” I paused for effect. “With a search warrant.”
Casey’s eyes rolled up to heaven. “Sweet Vidalia, could someone give me a break?”
He really wasn’t going to like the rest of it. “Stefanie Grossman is dead.”
“How?” he asked. I shook my head, thinking of the quiet, calm way she had lain in the grass. I hadn’t seen any visible cause of death.
“I found her body.”
“Oh, sweetheart!” Casey’s hand covered mine in sympathy, but I wasn’t feeling as traumatized as maybe I should have been. The night before felt like a strange, slow dream, like one of those paintings where the clocks are melting, and people have eyes in the middle of their foreheads. Plus, as harsh as it was to say, I didn’t know Stefanie. She had never been in my life; therefore, her loss wasn’t tangible to me.
When you find a body, you realize that it’s just that. Skin, muscle, hair, a shell. A little creepy, and not something that you want to do every day, but there was something peaceful about it. It was just … absence. Something else I never thought I’d know.
“So aren’t you going to tell me about the search warrant?” Casey’s question jerked me back to a problem that did seem real to me.
I gave him the few details that I could. ”They found something in your bathroom?” Casey’s eyes went wide, and I wondered if I had missed something.
“It’s not mine.”
“But it matches the one found at Stefanie’s body.”
“Oh dear,” I said, rubbing my hands over my face. “That can’t be good.”
“I am not getting paid enough to rescue you if you get arrested, too. We’ll have to just lock up the doors, and everyone will have to go home. We’re done here. Delta Beta’s closed.”
I stilled, letting all the implications roll around my brain. Surely, no one thought that I would do something like that. Not Margot Blythe. I was the defender of the sisterhood. I wasn’t the murderer of the sisterhood. Someone like me stood up for others; I didn’t cut them down.
Oh wait.
“There is the one other thing I need to tell you.”
CASEY CAME WITH me to Amanda’s office. I wasn’t sure
why he wanted to accompany me, but he seemed fired up and in his PR mode. We had stopped at his hotel, where he changed into a seersucker jacket, a crisp white shirt, and a black-and-gold-striped tie, marked with a tiepin made from his mama’s Delta Beta badge.
Amanda, on the other hand, was not in such snazzy attire. In a T-shirt and sweats, she looked like she’d been packing boxes since the crack of dawn. It had been a long time since I’d seen her look so rough. Even her usually sleek hair was a little frizzy. And that just wasn’t Amanda.
She froze when we walked through the door, like she didn’t remember who I was.
“Oh. Margot.” Well that was a less-than-welcoming greeting.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” I asked, noting the general upheaval of her office.
“What?” She looked around quickly, clearly distracted. “No … nooo …”
“I’m here about the complaints,” I said, finding it odd that I had to remind her.
“She’d like to review them,” Casey inserted.
Amanda looked irritated. “I already had this conversation with her.”
“Okay, I’d like to review them,” Casey said as smooth as you please.
Amanda cocked a finger at him. “Carey?”
“Casey.”
“Right.”
Clearly dismissing him, she moved behind her desk, and after flipping through a few things and shuffling an in-box, she handed me the papers. ”That’s Ainsley’s,” she said. “And the Eta Eps’s is somewhere …”
Casey looked over my shoulder as we read Ainsley’s conduct complaint against me. Neatly typed, it described how I had cornered her at the bowling alley and again inside a downtown restaurant and threatened her if she exposed information about the Delta Beta chapter.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered to Casey.
“What?” Amanda snapped.
“It’s not right,” I repeated louder for her.
“What part?” Amanda seemed exasperated. I could tell we’d caught her in the middle of packing up her office.
“Most parts,” I replied a little more snappish than I’d intended. She was rubbing off on me.
Amanda frowned at the paper, then seemed to decide something. “I can’t help you.”
“What do you mean you can’t help her?” Casey insisted hotly.
“After today, I’m no longer Panhellenic advisor. I’m moving out.” She spread a hand at all the boxes, as if we couldn’t tell what those strange cardboard cubes were used for.
“But you’re still her friend,” Casey said, with an edge to his voice.
“Of course she is,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. “He’s had a lot to deal with today,” I explained to Amanda.
“And this should be the least of my problems.” Casey glared at Amanda, but she looked at me instead.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I gave Casey a calm-down stare and focused on Amanda again. “A chapter member was found dead last night. The police woke me up this morning.”
Something a lot like fear flitted across Amanda’s drawn face. “That’s horrible,” she said, her attitude finally subsiding.
“It is, of course. Between that and the Tri Mu investigative reporter …”
“The what?”
Casey and I exchanged a nervous glance. I shrugged. We might as well tell her; she knew some of it anyway. “Charlotte’s Channel 5 is doing an investigative piece on North Carolina sororities and the sex trade.”
“You’ll probably need to prepare a statement,” Casey said, a little snidely, if you asked me.
Amanda’s hand fluttered on her chest. “Why me?”
“Once they find out about the phone-sex deal, you don’t think the reporters are going to tromp all over this campus talking to anyone who might know something?” Casey did a “please girl” look at her. “And you’re the Panhellenic advisor. You know everything about everyone.”
Now Amanda’s hands both pressed out, fingers spread. “Not anymore! And I never did! I mean, I just heard rumors. Are you saying …” She looked at me, and I could see the panic rising as she processed this and the many questions and alarms that were going off in her head. We were similar in our concern for our sorority. “How did the reporter find out about the s-e-x thing?”
I shook Ainsley’s complaint in my hand. “How do you think?”
Casey took that opportunity to be a little dramatic and make a point. “And that’s why you should be a little more understanding when your friend needs some help. We are dealing with issues bigger than ourselves, here.”
Amanda looked at him with solemn eyes. “What do you want me to do? Ignore a properly filed complaint?”
“Yes,” Casey said. “That’s exactly what you should do. Bury it.”
“What do you think Margot? What would you do?” Amanda was asking me for advice, her voice filled with both concern and respect. I shook my head. What a difficult position for her to be in, caught between her duties to Panhellenic and her loyalty to me.
Of course, we were dedicated to our sisters, but we also had obligations to the greater good. That’s what I told her. “You have to give Ainsley a fair hearing,” I said, even though the thought of Ainsley’s making up lies about me pushed all my buttons. “After all, the truth is on my side,” I finished confidently.
“Margot …” Casey’s mutter was disapproving.
Silently, Amanda reached out her hand and took Ainsley’s papers from me. “You are so inspirational to me,” she said.
As she knew full well, that sentiment went both ways.
Chapter Thirty-four
THE SECOND HALF of Law & Order was always my favorite part, where the pieces started to come together, and there was some big twist that had everyone wondering if they had the right guy or not. So I wasn’t too pleased when I saw the twist coming—the egotistical, cold investment banker was suddenly broke and desperate with a new motive of protecting his mother who had dementia—and there was a frantic knock at the door.
“MARGOT! DO YOU HAVE CHANGE FOR A DOLLAR?”
I sank down into the couch cushions. Maybe if I stayed very, very quiet, they wouldn’t know I was in here and could find quarters elsewhere.
Bang! Bang! Bang! “MARGOT! WE NEED QUARTERS FOR THE VENDING MACHINES IN THE YARD!”
In the … what? I was on my feet and out the door faster than Elliot Stabler could slap cuffs on.
Sure enough, there were five vending machines in the front yard. I looked up and down sorority row. Only our house had these new additions. The Debs were slowly filtering out the house, looking at the high-fructose-corn-syrup version of Stonehenge in our yard.
I looked around again, sure that I’d see a broken-down Coke or Frito-Lay truck that had to unload its vending machines in order to fix a flat.
But I had a funny feeling.
“Quarters!” I yelled. “Who has quarters?”
One girl took a debit card out of her pocket.
I shoved my bangs away in frustration. “No. Actual coins,” I bit out.
Someone else had dumped her purse to the ground, picking through the receipts and lip balms and emergency granola bars. “Here!” She yelled in triumph. “I have forty-five cents!”
A sister in running shorts ran up to me with a quarter and a dime. I eyed the machine in front of me. That would be enough. For now.
We put the coins in, hearing them slip and slither down. Then. Nothing. We all looked at each other.
“What button do we push?” The selections looked standard. Coca-Cola. Sprite. Root beer. Nothing seemed out of line. But the very fact that we had vending machines in our front yard was making me suspicious.
My fingers hovered over the buttons, like it was an action movie. If I picked the wrong one, we’d all go boom. Or we’d have a soft drink. One of those two options.
I reached for the Diet Coke button and paused. Surely, if this was a trick, someone would obviously plant
a surprise under the Diet Coke button. Because this was a sorority house. Duh.
So I went to the orange drink. No one I knew drank orange soda. “Stand back everyone,” I ordered. Twenty women obeyed, creating a ring of space between me and the collegians. With a steadying breath, I pushed the button for the orange soda. Nothing happened for a moment, and then the familiar sounds of metal machinery, maybe a lever, filled the air and an aluminum can rolled into the opening below.
Sighs of relief encircled me and ladies stepped forward to see what the can looked like. I, too, was momentarily relieved but when I reached for the can, I saw the Greek letters that had been glued onto it. Trikes.
My lips formed a warning, but it was too late, a cloud of orange smoke shot out ten feet, propelling a thick gas and covering anyone in its radius.
Like me.
“Someone call the police!” I yelled. “We’ve been hit.”
THE DELTA BETA sorority learned many lessons that day. One, no good comes from vending machines. Especially ones that show up suspiciously in your front yard. Two, the police do not take vending-machine terrorism nearly as seriously as you’d think they would.
I mean, yes, they set up a perimeter around the yard, and yes, they donned hazmat suits to come over and test the orange powder that coated my skin and, to a lesser extent, five other sisters. But once they determined that it wasn’t anthrax, it was like they couldn’t care less. Let me tell you something. If you’ve never been approached by someone in a hazmat suit with a swab, it changes your life. For real.
Of course, Lieutenant Hatfield was there, taking me oh so seriously. “When are you getting that security system?” he drawled.
I spread my orange arms at the front yard. “What security system covers the outside?”
Ty considered that. “A big fence. That’s what you need. With the rolled barbed wire on top.”
I rolled my eyes. “And maybe some big German shepherds patrolling.”
“With your luck, they’d be drugged and painted pink.”
I looked at him with accusatory eyes. “That’s a horrible plan. And I know what it’s like to be painted.” Apparently, the exploding “gas” from the can was a fine mist of paint. Like paintball, a game played by grown men pretending to be ten. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get this off,” I said, looking at my arms. It was my bad luck that I had short sleeves on today. “I’ll probably have to shower ten times in a row. I’ll be all wrinkly.”
Sisterhood is Deadly: A Sorority Sisters Mystery Page 17
