Mean Sisters

by Lindsay Emory

  ‘Is she afraid that my phone’s tapped, too?’ I whispered.

  Casey’s grim look was all the answer I needed.

  Because Casey couldn’t stay in the sorority house (yes, I know, I said he was as good as a member but he still had a penis and rules are rules), I went with him to the Fountain Place Inn, an historic motel just off campus. I remembered the place well, from my college days. It was where my mom and dad always stayed when they visited me, in separate rooms, sometimes on separate floors. The story was that Mom snored. Or that Dad slept around with every slut on the Florida panhandle. It was one or the other.

  Casey checked in and I went up to his room with him, still feeling a little uneasy about the news from Atlanta. Plus, at the Fountain Place, we could talk more openly. I didn’t think the Tri Mus had the wherewithal to bug every room in Sutton.

  We laid back on the bed and Casey popped open a flask with the Deb crest on it, mixing drinks with the over-priced sodas from the motel vending machines. I told him everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours, knowing that he would understand both my heartbreak and my concern for the chapter.

  ‘Oh!’ I sat up reaching for my phone. ‘We need to get together with Amanda!’ It was too exciting, the thought of my two best friends finally meeting each other. We could go out and hit the Sutton bar scene, which consisted of three establishments lined up on the north side of campus. The town’s forefathers had been pretty strict about that aspect of city planning. I tried calling Amanda three times, but it went to voicemail each time. On the fourth try, I received an automated message that said her voicemail was full. There must have been a Panhellenic emergency to deal with.

  When it got too late to go out (we were, after all, in our late twenties), Casey drove me back to the Deb house. I entered the secret door code that was the same code at every Delta Beta sorority house around the country. Our tech guys at HQ said that was a security risk, but tradition was more important than potential intruders.

  As Chapter Advisor, it was my duty to check the house and make sure all was well before going up to my room. I wandered through the first floor, picked up a few pieces of trash and stacked a few magazines. It may surprise some to know that college women aren’t always the neatest people. I opened the door to the chapter room, which was still lit softly by the small bulbs in the wooden display cases, accenting just some of the trophies and awards that the house had won in the past seventy years. There were a lot: national awards from HQ, to Panhellenic awards, Sigma Chi Derby Day trophies. Looking at these physical reminders of Delta Beta’s excellence only reinforced my belief that Mrs Barbra Kline of Mu Mu Mu was full of it. Nothing was bringing this chapter down.

  The last stop on my rounds was the Chapter Advisor’s office. I flipped on a light as I went through the kitchen, turned left down the back hall and noticed at the last minute that the office door was cracked. I was one hundred percent sure that I had locked that door when I left with Casey. Of course I had, with the tale of inter-sorority espionage that he was weaving. I’d never underestimate those Moos.

  But the door was definitely cracked. With a pounding heart, I reached my hand out and slowly pushed the door open. Halfway through, I paused. It was absolutely idiotic to go through this door. There could be anyone in there, just waiting to murder me like they murdered Liza. I tiptoed back to the kitchen, grabbed a large stainless steel spatula and headed back. If someone was in there, they were going to get slapped upside the head. This spatula was industrial strength. I bet it could do some damage.

  I peeked my head into the office and gasped at what I found. Just like in the movies, the place had been torn apart. Papers and books had been knocked to the ground, the Deb Busy Bee ripped apart, the computer smashed on the floor. Next to the wreckage of the computer was the tool that had seemingly smashed the computer monitor. It was Liza McCarthy’s Chapter Advisor of the Year Award, given by Panhellenic.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As late as it was, I was tempted to go upstairs to the chapter guest room, crawl under the T-shirt quilt and sleep until the next morning brought sunshine, smiles and a nice big non-fat, three-sweetener, three-shot latte.

  But no. As much as I wanted to protect my sisters, this was serious. A stuffed bee had been destroyed, for heaven’s sake. I looked up the number for the police station.

  Ty Hatfield drove into the parking lot without any sirens or flashing lights, which disappointed the Law & Order mega fan in me. On the other hand, as Chapter Advisor pro tem I was grateful for the lack of attention. On sorority row, police lights could haunt us for years during rush conversations – especially two police visits in one week.

  When he stepped out of the car, Hatfield didn’t look as pressed and put together as he had the previous times we’d met. Instead of a police department polo, he had on a non-regulation T-shirt with the Sutton Eagles logo on it, jeans and boots. Seeing him in off-duty clothes sparked a memory inside me, but it quickly flitted away from all my current stress and worry. Anyway, I was pretty sure he’d been messing with me when he implied I should remember him from … something. Seeing him like this confirmed my first impressions. If I’d met him before, I’d definitely remember Ty Hatfield.

  I sat on the front steps of the house, my knees drawn up against my chest. ‘You rang,’ he said, walking up the path. His tone was low and a little uncertain, which made sense since I hadn’t told him what was going on when I called. Some things needed to be seen for themselves. And there was still the potential that secret microphones were lurking inside the house.

  I led him back to the office and let him see the damage. His relaxed and laid-back demeanor changed in a split-second, as he subconsciously adopted the same stiff and business-like posture I’d seen in all our previous visits. I kind of liked the relaxed Ty Hatfield better. He made me feel more comfortable.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  I knew what he was asking. Like I said, I watch a lot of Law & Order. No matter where I travelled, there was always a station that had re-runs on. It helped fill the spaces between sorority emergencies.

  The details spilled from me. How I’d spent the whole day in here, getting organised and sorting through Liza’s papers and then some very rude person trashed the place and ruined all my hard work!

  He gave me a level look. Oh. ‘I locked up about six or so. My colleague Casey just got here from headquarters. I went with him to his hotel and I came back about half past midnight. I was checking the house before bed when I found this.’

  I didn’t miss the speculative glint in Ty’s eyes when I mentioned going back to Casey’s hotel.

  But he managed to move on. ‘Did you see anyone else in the house?’

  I shook my head. It was a Wednesday night. Most of the women had retired to bed or to the upstairs TV room. I hadn’t seen anyone else downstairs.

  With an unemotional ‘hmm,’ he took his phone out and made a quick call to campus police, asking them to check out Liza McCarthy’s office in the sociology department.

  ‘She has an office on campus?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Ty said sharply. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’

  I looked around the torn up Chapter Advisor’s office and the pile of sociology papers that had been previously neatly filed. ‘Because it looked like she did all her work here.’ I pointed and explained my thought process. For once, Ty didn’t act like I was completely worthless.

  ‘I’ll check out her office,’ he said, more to himself than to me.

  ‘Is anything missing?’ he asked. I startled. I hadn’t even thought about that. I was mostly pissed that someone had the gall to mess up a very organised office.

  ‘It’s hard to tell,’ I murmured, but I looked around anyway. After spending the whole day in the office, I had a pretty good mental list of what was in all the piles. I checked the drawers last. That’s when I realised that something had been taken.

  ‘The S&M forms,’ I said.

  Ty’s eyes nearly popped
out of his head.

  I sighed impatiently. Really? ‘Standards and Morals. They’re for bad behaviour.’

  His lips quirked distractingly. ‘S&M is for bad behaviour?’

  ‘I’ve heard it before, Hatfield!’ I said, holding up a hand to cut off any other snarky comments.

  The usual anti-sorority expression was back on the police officer’s face. ‘Bad behaviour, huh? What do you do, put them in time out for not eating their vegetables?’

  I ignored that. For a police officer, he sure didn’t respect organizational rules. ‘They’re gone,’ I repeated. ‘I put them all in a folder, right here. And someone took them.’

  ‘What kind of information was in them?’

  ‘Confid–’

  Ty held out a hand and interrupted me. ‘Don’t say it.’

  ‘Habit,’ I tried to smile. But it was confidential information. And it was hard for me to share it. Protecting Delta Beta secrets had been an integral part of my life for nearly ten years. To talk about it with a non-initiated person was against almost everything I stood for.

  But whoever had taken confidential files had violated that confidentiality first. Going to the police was ensuring that other sisters would have their disciplinary consequences kept private.

  ‘It was paperwork for a disciplinary hearing,’ I said with resignation.

  ‘For who?’

  ‘A sister.’ At Ty’s flat look, I continued reluctantly. ‘Stefanie Grossman. I’ve never met her. I just looked at the papers this afternoon.’

  ‘What was she being written up for?’

  This was the yucky part. ‘Sexual misconduct.’

  Ty rolled his head back. ‘What is with you people? I thought women were over that Puritan shit.’

  I shifted uncomfortably. ‘It’s a rule. It’s not like the women can’t … engage … in stuff.’

  ‘But they get sent to their rooms without supper if they enjoy themselves?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ I insisted. ‘It’s about …’ I searched for the right word, ‘… discretion.’

  Ty paused. ‘Okay, got it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They can do it, but they can’t let anyone know about it?’

  I scrunched up my nose. That was pretty much the rule. Yes, it was old-fashioned. Yes, it wasn’t particularly enlightened. But it was tradition. It was the rule. And those of us that disagreed with the rules were going to change them the Delta Beta way: slowly and with little to no fanfare.

  Ty shook his head again. ‘I’ll never get sororities.’

  Well, at least he was admitting his prejudice. Admitting you had a problem was the first step.

  I gave Ty the contact information for Stefanie Grossman from the chapter roster. He walked around the office again, taking notes and gently moving items with his pen, taking care not to touch anything. ‘We’ll get the place fingerprinted in the next few days.’

  ‘Few days?!’ I was aghast. On Law & Order, the fingerprinting team was Johnny-on-the-spot.

  Ty was nonplussed. ‘We use a contractor. He has to come in from Greenville.’

  ‘On TV it goes much faster.’

  ‘Well, it’s not like this is an emergency.’

  Ty was failing to see the problem.

  ‘But what about … Liza?’ I dropped my voice when I said her name, out of respect and solidarity. And because of Tri Mu bugs.

  Ty’s eyes sharpened at me. ‘You got some reason to believe these are connected?’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ This was Liza’s office, after all. ‘First she dies and then her office is destroyed.’

  Ty shrugged. ‘Could be. Could be some co-ed doesn’t want her friends to know what she does to her boyfriend on the weekends.’

  I threw up my hands. ‘It’s not like that.’ But I stopped there. Because sometimes, it could be like that. Maybe Ty was onto something about these rules.

  ‘What about the computer?’ Ty asked.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘What was on it?’

  I pushed back my overgrown bangs behind my ears. ‘Nothing much. Just chapter accounts. Financial records.’

  Ty nudged the plastic remains with his foot. ‘Can I take it in?’

  ‘Why?’ I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘Tech guys on campus might be able to retrieve the files.’ His voice was overly calm and casual. I knew what he was waiting for. My objection. He knew he didn’t have a warrant and couldn’t look at the files without my permission. I could tell he was dying to see what was on the computer, even if he was trying to act all cool about it.

  I could object, but, really, as Chapter Advisor pro tem, I would probably need those files to do my job. Why not let the nice police officer try to retrieve them for me?

  ‘Sure,’ I said, keeping my voice as casual as his. ‘See what you can get.’ When he looked at me in barely concealed surprise, I added, ‘I’ll just need a copy of the files on a thumb drive, please.’ Our eyes met and I could see that he knew what I was doing. And for the first time, I caught a glimmer of respect in Ty Hatfield’s very blue eyes.

  We scooped up the remainder of the hard drive into a Delta Beta tote bag and, on his way out, Deputy Hatfield paused and inspected the door frame. ‘Someone with a key got in here.’ I was as alarmed at him freely providing information as I was at the assertion itself. He knocked on the door frame. ‘No forced entry.’

  A key. Something cold slithered down my back at the word, bringing it all back home again. Someone with a key meant it was someone I had sworn to protect and that sucked. Hard.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I slept fitfully that night, probably not getting a full hour in at a time. As a result, not even a three-shot, non-fat, three sweetener latte had me ready for the next day. I had scheduled interviews with all the chapter officers throughout the day, in-between their classes. It was imperative that I presented an alert, calm and competent demeanor to inspire these young women. Instead, I feared I looked less than the perfect Deb woman in my rumpled blouse and jeans. Real pants were beyond me today. Jeans were the most I could muster. At least they were designer jeans. That earned me some respect, I was sure.

  First up was the scholarship director, Jane Anderson. We discussed the grade reports for the chapter, provided by the college to both Panhellenic and the chapter each semester. Sutton College was a private, elite liberal arts college. Grades weren’t usually a problem with this chapter. If they were smart enough to get into Sutton, they were smart enough to carry the required GPA, or they were rich enough to hire a tutor to help them out. I asked Jane a little more about the girls, the study hours programme and what kind of issues she was facing.

  As always, there was way more drama than I would expect from someone whose primary job was to encourage studying. This sister always blasted music in the dining room. That sister always turned down the thermostat. She was pretty sure another sister was going to flunk chemistry even though she had the best tutor on campus.

  Forty-five minutes in, I could barely keep my eyes open. I found that I could not care less about the study peccadilloes of this chapter. Whether someone got a 3.2 or a 3.3 didn’t matter all that much, did it? Who gave a flying fart if Alicia Zeck copied an American history paper from Mary-Kay Henson? But I smiled, I was supportive and I did what a good Chapter Advisor was supposed to do. Except for the caring part.

  What was wrong with me? This wasn’t like me, I thought to myself as Jane left the chapter room. For the first time in my Delta Beta life, I felt really guilty about not being one hundred percent invested in chapter issues.

  A few minutes later, the social activity director Asha Patel hustled into the room. She was all social and all activity. Asha talked fast and used her hands even faster. Her face was a fascinating slide show as every emotion she could ever have flitted by as she talked. At the mention of a date party, she lit up like a neon sign. When she talked about the Tri Mu Bowling Tournament on Sunday, she bared her teeth and practically growled.
I liked Asha and she seemed like she had her act together, but just watching her exhausted me. Dutifully taking notes on all the flurry and frenzy of a typical collegiate social calendar darn near sent my head spinning. It hadn’t been that long since I had been a part of the mixers and the crushes and the formals and the fundraisers, but I felt like I was as out-of-place as Leticia Baumgardner. I resolved to add extra shots to my lattes. As Chapter Advisor, I’d have to keep up with these young ladies.

  After lunch, Cheyenne Contreras, the pledge trainer, had her interview. She’d had a very successful pledge semester, dutifully raising the seventeen pledges in the way they should go, teaching them sorority history, chapter rules and the S&M requirements and hosting weekly sleepovers at the house so the class could bond. In fact, Cheyenne added with a smile, there was one on Friday night. It was clear she was inviting me and I unfortunately had no out. I smiled weakly and said I was looking forward to it, wondering if anyone would notice if I tucked my head under a pillow and went to sleep early.

  Aubrey St. John was scheduled next. ‘I know you’re on a tight schedule,’ I said apologetically, ‘If you want to meet later, we can.’

  ‘No, no,’ Aubrey said, settling into a chair across from me. ‘I’m good.’

  ‘We covered most of the chapter stuff the other night after the meeting,’ I said. ‘I guess the big thing I’m trying to figure out is the chapter financial information.’

  I was interrupted by a shrill ring from Aubrey’s phone. She shot me a nervous look. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered before reaching into her purse and clicking something to either disconnect or silence her phone. ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘The chapter accounting records,’ I repeated. With a slight pause, I remembered the fate of the records in the crunched up computer that Officer Hatfield had toted to some nerdy IT guy on campus. Looking into Aubrey’s sweet, pretty face, I felt she of all people, deserved the truth about what was going on. As Chapter President, she had almost as much, if not more, responsibility to lead these sisters than I did.