Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He was on his way to meet one of those administrators, the director of alumni relations who had come up with the scheme that involved Troy. Troy’s captain had made clear that this assignment was not optional.

  “You’re the logical choice,” he had informed Troy. “If you have anything urgent on your caseload, hand it off.”

  Fortunately, Troy hadn’t been immersed in the aftermath of a recent murder, kidnapping or rape. The idea of a few days spent hanging around the college hadn’t been unwelcome, especially since he’d be here for part of the festivities anyway in his father’s stead.

  Aware of speculative stares—guns weren’t a common sight on this campus—he cut across the plush green lawn and climbed the broad granite stairs to enter Memorial Building, which was fondly known at Wakefield and in town as “Mem.”

  A receptionist behind an antique oak counter directed him to a staircase that led to the third floor. Admissions, Financial Aid and the president’s office took up much of the ground floor. Made sense, he supposed, as more prospective students and their parents visited campus than alumni, who tended to show up only for their reunions. He was amused to see that Career Planning and Resources had been relegated to the basement. Students were unlikely to have their parents with them when they plunged into the bowels of Mem.

  Of course, he reflected, the basement was probably the coolest level of the building on a day like this. In the third week of September in Eastern Washington, temperatures were still climbing into the nineties. The lower floors had felt as if they might be air-conditioned, but when he emerged from the stairwell, he found the third floor to be hot and stuffy.

  Alumni Relations was stenciled in gold on the glass inset of the second door. It stood open, and he saw that the tall casement window was open, too, in an apparently futile effort to create a cross-draft. The outer office contained rows of tall oak filing cabinets, bookcases and an old desk with a very modern computer on it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, come on in,” a woman called through another door, from an internal office.

  Troy circled the large desk and entered this second office. His first impression was of elegance—warm woods that might have been cherry or mahogany, a desk with Queen Anne style legs and a Persian rug that looked like the real, gently-aged thing and not a recent knock-off. Then he focused on the woman and, stunned, lost interest in their surroundings.

  A brunette with warm brown eyes, she stood maybe five foot five and was curvaceous enough to be considered a little plump by today’s standards. That body, poured into a red suit, was perfect by his. Her hair was cut bluntly at her shoulders, thick and glossy, currently tucked behind her ears. As she looked back at him, he caught a glimpse of surprise and maybe a touch of nerves on her face before she offered a bright, professional smile.

  Not altogether professional, he decided, or if it was, it was damn good. Her entire expression was now welcoming. He felt like the lucky guy basking in the only available beam of sunlight.

  He gave his head a brief shake to clear it. “Ah...I’m looking for Ms. Laclaire. I’ve been assigned as liaison from the Frenchman Lake P.D.”

  “Oh, good.” Sounding delighted, she held out a hand. “I’m Madison Laclaire. And you are?”

  “John Troyer. Troy, to anyone who knows me.” He gently squeezed her hand—delicate but strong—then reluctantly released it.

  “Please, call me Madison. You’re not in uniform,” she observed, gesturing him toward a seating area furnished with a sofa, a low table and a couple of comfortable looking chairs.

  “Plainclothes.” He lowered himself into one of the chairs and watched as she settled at one end of the sofa. “I’m a detective in Major Crimes.”

  “Dare I ask how you got assigned to this gig?” Madison asked.

  Her snug skirt meant she had to sit primly, knees together, but the hem rode up her thighs anyway. She wriggled, as if to persuade it to cooperate, but instead managed to bare another inch of her legs. He found them a hell of a lot more intriguing than the legs of the eighteen- or twenty-year-old coeds he’d spotted out on the lawn.

  Tearing his gaze from her knees and the shadow above them, he reminded himself that she’d asked him a question.

  “My father is a Wakefield grad.” He smiled. “In fact, Dad was an English major who contributed to the time capsule. I would have been at the opening in any case.”

  “Troyer.” Tiny lines in her smooth, curving forehead cleared. “Oh! I should have recognized your name right away. Joseph Troyer. You’ll be attending in his place, I gather.”

  That was a nice way, he thought, of saying she knew his father was dead.

  “That’s right,” he agreed. “Dad’s been gone less than a year, and Mom...still isn’t getting out much.”

  “I’m sorry,” Madison said softly. “He wasn’t very old.”

  “No. Sudden heart attack.” Troy grimaced. “Lifelong smoker, which might have had something to do with it.”

  “You must miss him.”

  “I do.” In the past couple of years since Troy had returned to his hometown, he’d come to think of his dad as his best friend. Saying he missed the man was hopelessly inadequate to describe his sense of loss. He hid his shock and grief better than Mom did, but Troy knew he hadn’t even begun to adjust.

  Apparently sensitive enough to guess he’d just as soon not chat any more about his father, Madison nodded. “As it happens, you and I have something in common. My father was also an English major here at Wakefield, and put something in the time capsule. He’s in Tokyo on business and was happy to have me take his place.” She smiled. “He claims not to remember what his contribution was.”

  “Dad never said either.”

  “Maybe we’ll both get some fantastic insight into our parents’ characters.”

  “We can hope.” Damn, she had a pretty smile. Merry and open, making a man want to agree to anything she asked. Troy bet she was really good at extracting big bucks from wealthy alumni.

  “I’m grateful the P.D. offered you to help with any security issues,” she said more briskly, getting down to business. “It’s unlikely there will be any problems, of course, but I want to be particularly careful given that two of the returning alums are well-known enough in their respective fields to be minor celebrities.”

  “So I understand. Why don’t you give me the specifics?”

  She handed him the schedule that would be given to each attending alumnus. She had to excuse herself to grab a pair of black-framed reading glasses from her desk. Seeing his expression, she made a face.

  “You’re supposed to be at least forty before you need these, aren’t you? There’s no justice.”

  Personally, he liked the way the frames set off her brown eyes. He hid a smile at her disgruntled expression. He would have replied, but she had already returned to business.

  Responses to the invitation and news that the capsule was to be opened fifteen years earlier than planned had been greater than anticipated, she told him with satisfaction. Out of the 118 students who had put an item into the capsule, 83 had so far expressed the intention to be here or send a representative.

  “Some of those are sons or daughters of the students, as in our cases. But most are alumni. Naturally they’re bringing wives, husbands, partners, other family. The wonderful thing is that the lectures Gordon Haywood and Ellen Kenney have agreed to give are drawing a number of additional visitors to the campus, as well. And the current students are excited, too, naturally.”

  Haywood, Troy knew, was a third-term senator from the state of Utah. There was talk of a run for the White House in his future. Given the guy’s politics, Troy wouldn’t vote for him, but he was often described as charismatic. Meeting him and hearing him speak would be interesting. Ellen Kenney had sold her first novel before she turned twenty-five and had earned accolades and what had to be pretty impressive royalties ever since. She walked that tricky line between admired literary fiction and books regular people
actually want to read. Troy had read her most recent, which on its surface was a murder mystery involving a windsurfer on the Columbia River. The characters had real depth, the background was well researched and he’d found even the police work believable. He hadn’t loved it so much he’d delved into her backlist, but he’d been impressed. He wasn’t surprised that alumni were popping out of the woodwork for a chance to hear both Kenney and Haywood talk.

  The two were shimmering stars in Wakefield College’s firmament. It was pure luck that both had been English majors, students on campus here when Cheadle Hall was being built and the time capsule inserted behind a block in the foundation.

  Besides the lectures, as he scanned the program, he saw the weekend included a reception at the president’s house, a tasting tour at half a dozen local wineries, a golf tournament, a casual lunch with grilled burgers and hot dogs to be held on Allquist Field and finally a formal dinner Saturday night.

  Madison told him that security concerns on campus had grown in recent years, but not to the extent they had on urban campuses. Female students, she explained, were encouraged not to walk across campus in the dark; if a girl was alone and needed an escort, say to return to her dorm late at night, she could call a number and one of the male volunteers on shift would turn up to walk with her. She’d rarely have to wait more than five minutes before her escort arrived. So far theft, vandalism and the like hadn’t been huge problems.

  Madison gave him the name and phone number of the head of the small campus security department. She admitted that so far more attention had been paid to parking issues than anything else. The security plan, such as it was, consisted of having one or two members of the force mingling with the crowd at each event.

  Troy couldn’t argue too much. Police snipers on rooftops and cavalcades of escort vehicles seemed over the top.

  Stretching his legs out, he had a thought. “Do you suppose the senator travels with any bodyguards? He’s a lot more likely to be a target of a threat than Ms. Kenney.”

  “She wrote a book a couple of years ago that was rather controversial, though. It was her one foray into true crime. I never read the book, but I know it generated a lot of anger. I think there were some ugly incidents at book signings. Someone threw a bucket of cow blood on her at one.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, I’d forgotten that. I didn’t read the book, either.”

  “You don’t read true crime?”

  “I get my fair share of the real thing. I like fictional crime better. It’s more fun.”

  She laughed, a low sound that—damn it!—turned him on. He shifted to hide his response.

  “Do we have enough major crimes in Frenchman Lake to keep you busy?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said, interested to see how surprised she looked at his answer. “Me and three other detectives. Homicide still isn’t common—we only had three last year, but we’re up to four already so far this year. Mostly we deal with crimes like assault, sexual abuse and breaking and entering. The vineyards have brought a good-sized population of migrant workers to Frenchman Lake, which has increased crime overall, but people who live in gracious old houses right around the campus sexually abuse their daughters, beat their wives and get robbed, too.” He shrugged. “Then there are the tourists.”

  “I had no idea.” She sounded shocked. “I was just thinking smugly how lucky we are that crime isn’t a significant problem here. I suppose I pictured police officers mostly giving speeding tickets or scaring the daylights out of teenage shoplifters.”

  “Hate to disillusion you,” he said, “but people here are pretty much like people anywhere. You know there was an ugly murder right here on the Wakefield campus back when our fathers were students. Same year Cheadle Hall was built and the time capsule was filled, as a matter of fact.”

  She frowned, and he guessed she would rather not think about her beloved college connected to a brutal killing.

  “Yes, we had some discussion when we scheduled this event. I hope you don’t intend to bring up the subject over the weekend.”

  “Me?” His gaze never left her face. “Why would I? But I think it’s safe to say there’ll be talk about it, anyway. They’re all going to be thinking about it, you know. Murder isn’t the kind of thing anyone forgets.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “NO,” MADISON ADMITTED. “People like to talk about murder. I’m just trying not to think about it. You won’t be surprised to know the college discourages reminders, especially since no arrest was ever made. I gather the assumption was that a transient committed the crime. Anyone could have wandered in.”

  “Sure, but why would they? To take a sauna?” Troy shook his head. “I skimmed the original reports when I first came on the job here. There wasn’t any obvious thread to pull, so I didn’t suggest reopening the case. But my impression was that the original investigators thought the victim was killed by another student.”

  “But...that’s...”

  When she didn’t finish, he did it for her. “Impossible? Because Wakefield students are the cream of the crop?”

  She must have heard the irony in his voice because she flushed. “I suppose that is what I was thinking. And yes, I know that rich people sexually abuse their daughters and beat their wives, too. You don’t have to tell me again. Still...”

  “What could possibly have triggered an assault that brutal? No idea. Nobody so much as came up with a theory back then.” He frowned. “Dad said he knew the victim, Mitchell King, but not well. I seem to remember he was some kind of science major. Bio or chem, maybe?”

  Madison nodded. “My father said he hadn’t had much to do with Mitchell, even though they were both seniors.”

  “My father’s classmate.”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny that we’re both here, involved in this thing.”

  “Yes. Well, I dreamed up this thing, as you put it.” She smiled at him. “In fact, it makes sense that I’m here. Quite a few employees of the college are alumni.”

  Smiling at her was no problem. He was pleased that she was apparently as curious about him as he was about her. “You asking what my excuse is for ending up back in Frenchman Lake?”

  “I would have put it more tactfully.”

  “I worked for Seattle P.D. Got frustrated with some of the policies in the department, the attitudes that were too prevalent. I almost quit without job hunting first, but had an attack of common sense. When I started looking around, I guess the small-town boy in me emerged. I wanted a town where I could get to know people.” He shrugged. “I grew up here, you know.”

  “I saw that this was your father’s last address.”

  “Turned out that having connections in Frenchman Lake didn’t hurt when it came to getting a job. As far as I was concerned, it was time to come home. I was glad to have a chance to be closer to my parents.” He grimaced. “Lucky, as it turned out.”

  “For your mother,” Madison said gently.

  “Yeah.” Rather than let himself descend into bleak thoughts of how little good he’d actually done his mother, he decided it was time to get back to business. “Have we come to any conclusions here?”

  She studied him carefully and with a perceptiveness that was a little unnerving, but she clearly chose to go along with his effort to close the subject. “You haven’t said whether you think our preparations have been adequate.”

  “How long have you held this job?” he asked.

  “Um.” Her pursed lips suggested she was momentarily disconcerted. “This is the beginning of my second academic year.”

  Troy nodded. “I imagine you’ve handled a dozen events involving alumni, then.”

  “Oh, more than that if you include our ‘On the Road’ events. We hold a dozen or more every year across the country to keep our graduates involved. Here on campus, the biggest was the summer alumni college and, of course, the spring reunions.”

  “I don’t suppose you had any security problems at either of those, did you?”


  She smiled. “No.”

  “I doubt we will this weekend, either. I think my role is going to be an exciting one. I’ll hang around. Maybe even play golf.”

  Her laugh this time was as contagious and unintentionally erotic as the first. “Do you play golf?”

  “Poorly,” he admitted. “I’ve got a hell of a slice. On the other hand, from a security standpoint, having me lurking off in the rough probably isn’t a bad plan.”

  She giggled. “I’ll look for you there.”

  “You’ll be playing, too?”

  “No. Actually, I’ll be frantically finishing arrangements for the luncheon and dinner while you’re sweating on the golf course.”

  Troy grunted with amusement. “Smart. I hear it’s going to be sizzling by Saturday.”

  “So they say. Fortunately, the formal dinner is the only dress-up occasion.”

  “You mean, I can wear shorts and a muscle shirt the rest of the weekend?”

  Her nose crinkled. “You can wear anything you want.”

  “No such luck for you.” He grinned at her. “What’s that saying about how ladies don’t sweat? That they can only glow?”

  “I suspect I’ll be sweating like a pig Saturday.” She frowned. “Do pigs sweat?”

  “I have no idea. Never considered farming a career option.”

  “Me neither.” She rose gracefully to her feet. “Thank you for coming, Detective Troyer.”

  “Troy.” He stood, too.

  A smart man would probably bide his time, not make any move until after the alumni weekend. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable with him when they had to work together. Troy had always thought of himself as a pretty smart guy. He’d had the grades and SAT scores to get into Wakefield. Turned out he wasn’t as smart as he’d thought he was, he discovered. Either that, or his store of patience was severely lacking.

  Seeing that she had started to turn away, probably with the intention of politely escorting him out of her office, he cleared his throat. Madison paused, lifting her eyebrows in inquiry.