Mean Sisters

by Lindsay Emory

  ‘So is your first name Dean, or is that your title?’ I asked, with my sweetest smile. OK, 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. Score 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 I 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 programme 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 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 apologise 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 shoved into a line up.

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

  ‘It’s Lieutenant,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been holding out on me,’ I accused him, ignoring his correction.

  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.

  So of course, 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 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.’ That was it. Not a thing about him changed. 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.’

  I sank into a chair on the visitor side of Ty’s desk. Casey had asked me that, when he arrived in Sutton. Why had I come? I remembered what else Casey had said, about an upset Liza calling Mabel at HQ. Had she called when she’d been fired from her doctorate programme? Or was there even more going on in Liza McCarthy’s secret life?

  ‘Does this have anything to do with her death?’ I was surprised at how weak my voice was. But I had never been good with people disappointing me.

  Ty tilted his head, as if he was considering the possibility. ‘Maybe.’

  I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ty Hatfield was never going to be upfront about Liza’s death with me. He was never going to be honest, or share information, or treat me like I had a legitimate stake in this investigation. From the beginning, he had dismissed, ignored, or mocked me. That was going to end today. From now on, I was going to find out the truth about Liza McCarthy, her life and her death. It was my responsibility to my sisters. Ty Hatfield could bite my big fat Delta Beta butt. Well, the butt I had before kickboxing DVDs took care of that particular problem area.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Casey and I set up a new office in the Chapter Advisor’s apartment. Like the office, the apartment was tucked aw
ay in the back of the house, almost as an afterthought, when someone realised that a Chapter Advisor might want a little separation from the young women of the chapter. After only three days on the job, I could definitely see why some space was a good idea.

  Basically a small studio, there was a bedroom that opened up into a sitting area, just big enough for a love seat, a recliner and a desk. Casey set up his laptop and the files on the desk while I updated him on all that I’d learned about Liza McCarthy.

  Casey, of course, was as horrified as I was. The thought of a Delta Beta woman phone sex-ing for money was scandalous. Combined with the fact that she’d been dismissed from her academic programme and had lied to the chapter and headquarters for months, it was essentially unheard of. But Casey was also a man. And though he tried to hide it, I could tell he was titillated by the whole phone sex thing.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Casey asked, plugging in the thumb drive.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I guess we have to make sure that the chapter was still run competently, even with all the drama in Liza’s life.’ Casey nodded in agreement. Our first priority was protecting the sorority.

  With that thought in mind, it generated a second, scarier idea. If Liza had been murdered, then I needed to protect the chapter from whoever had done that. And to do that, I needed to solve the murder.

  I’d never solved a murder before. But at the Miami chapter, I had disciplined a sister for chronic shoe theft and that was pretty bad.

  Casey pulled up the spreadsheets I had reviewed earlier in the week on the Chapter Advisor computer. Rows and rows of numbers meant almost absolutely nothing to me. Casey stared at them with a blank face as well. Some headings or something would have been helpful. Finally, I realised that the far left hand column were dates, separated by hyphens instead of slashes.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, pointing at the screen. ‘These must be dates of when the chapter received money, right?’ The second column was some sort of code. It didn’t make sense to me, but the same ones were repeated, but in no particular pattern. 902, 812, 421, 902, 902, 902. Probably some accounting thing from HQ. So glad I hadn’t taken that job. The third column had monetary amounts. I could tell these were monetary because they each used a dollar sign and period. The final columns were a mix of codes and dollar amounts. Maybe they were account numbers? Disbursements to savings and checking accounts?

  Casey thought my interpretations were reasonable and I was about to move on until I realised what had bothered me about the spreadsheet before.

  There was no consistency. No patterns. No similarities.

  Ten years in a sorority and I was very aware of the ebb and flow of the academic calendar and the sorority calendar. No money would come into a sorority during summer breaks because women weren’t in school. Same with winter breaks. On the other hand, financial records would show many, many cheques received during rush, the beginning of the pledge semester and the beginning of each month, when dues were assessed and paid. Those patterns weren’t reflected on this sheet. At all.

  ‘These aren’t the chapter financials,’ I breathed. They were something else entirely.

  A quick review of the papers Casey had brought from HQ proved that whatever we were looking at from the Chapter Advisor’s computer wasn’t the report on finances that had been submitted to headquarters. I could actually decipher those. Maybe there was hope for me in the accounting department, after all.

  ‘So what are these?’ Casey asked, looking back and forth between the laptop and the print outs.

  A feeling of dread settled into my stomach. ‘I think Liza had another business on the side.’ Casey couldn’t hide that he was a little excited by what the other ‘business’ entailed: men.

  ‘I wonder what her phone sex name was?’ His voice had all the wonder and anticipation of a five-year-old boy at Christmas, waiting for Santa to bring him a special edition Versace Barbie.

  I crinkled my nose. ‘What’s a phone sex name?’

  ‘Well, I’m guessing she didn’t tell people her name was Liza McCarthy, sorority advisor.’

  Oh, Lord in heaven, I hoped not. A horrible thought occurred to me. ‘If Dean Xavier knew about Liza’s research, how many other people knew?’ I gasped. ‘Do you think the girls knew?’ I asked Casey in a voice just above a whisper.

  His eyes went wide with the thought. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

  I groaned and fell into the recliner, an arm across my face. ‘There has to be another way.’

  ‘Well, let’s think this through,’ he said in his best matter-of-fact way. Casey didn’t get dramatic like me. That’s what made him the best at public relations. ‘If you were running a phone sex business, what would you need?’

  ‘I cannot believe I’m having this conversation.’ It was both mortifying and hilarious. I could only do this with Casey. ‘Okay.’ I tried to focus. ‘I’d need a phone.’ I thought through what I knew about phone sex operations, which was all based on one Law & Order: SVU episode. ‘Privacy. You can’t take those calls just anywhere.’ Casey snorted. I ignored him. ‘Some way to collect payment.’

  ‘And you need some way to get customers …’

  There was a note in Casey’s voice I didn’t like. I really, really, really didn’t want to pull my arm off my face.

  There was a long silence from Casey and I knew it was inevitable. I kept my eyes closed, lifted my arm and then peeked. The website on Casey’s laptop was exactly my worst nightmare.

  ‘Sorority Girls Gone Wild. All your wildest fantasies come true. $1.99 for the first minute. $2.99 for each additional minute.’

  A seriously unattractive groan came out of me. For the first time in my life, I really hated a dead sorority sister.

  ‘How do we know it’s hers?’ I asked weakly. Silently, Casey pointed to the pictures on the screen. Someone had photo-shopped pale pink and bright orange Greek letters onto the silicone enhanced blessings. It was too hideous a colour combination to be an accident. Whoever ran the site was someone who despised Tri Mu. And although that didn’t narrow it down definitively (after all, this was Tri Mu we were talking about), it was a pretty big clue.

  ‘Now what?’ he asked.

  I picked up his cell phone from the desk. ‘Really?’ His voice was half interested, half horrified.

  ‘Dial,’ I said, pushing his phone toward him.

  ‘Why me? Why can’t you do it?’

  I gave him a ‘duh’ face. ‘You’re a man.’

  He pushed the phone back towards me. ‘So? I’m not any more interested in those things than you are.’

  ‘They’ll be suspicious if they hear a girl’s voice.’

  ‘They? They is dead.’

  I pushed the phone back at him. ‘Then you don’t have to talk to anyone.’

  He took the phone in resignation. ‘Do you know how expensive this is going to be?’

  ‘That’s a corporate phone. You don’t pay the bills.’

  Casey brightened. ‘Oh yeah.’

  I was sure the sorority wouldn’t mind at all.

  Casey put the phone on speaker and dialed, holding up a finger to his lips while he did. Like I was going to say anything. My mouth was sealed shut from humiliation.

  A canned voice finally picked up. ‘Hi, Heather speaking.’ The ‘h’s’ were thick and breathy. ‘I’m so glad you called. My sisters and I are wet from our shower and are waiting for you.’ The ‘w’s’ were wide and deliberate. ‘Just one sec while we fight over who gets to make you …’

  ‘Ohmygod!’ I squealed, holding my hands over my ears. This was all kinds of wrong. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but the greeting sounded like Liza’s voice. She was very breathy.

  Hearing a sister talk like that was just … weird. Then the music came over the line, bow chicka wow wow stuff. ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘How cheesy.’

  Casey agreed. ‘Do you think we’re paying for this right now?’

  ‘Ew,’ I said, although I had to r
espect the business strategy of making perverts pay through the nose for a cheap porn-reject soundtrack.

  Finally, after three long minutes of synthesiser slow jams, we heard a click. A squeal came out of me and out of Casey too. We were both ridiculous.

  ‘Hello, this is Hailey.’

  Casey’s wide eyes met mine in an ‘oh crap’ expression. I rotated my finger in a circle to get him to start talking.

  ‘Um, hello.’ I had to swallow a laugh at the look on Casey’s face, like a gay deer caught in heterosexual headlights.

  ‘Hi sexy,’ the voice said, just as breathy and X-rated as you’d imagine.

  ‘Hi, yourself.’ Sweet child of mine. This was going to take all night and be painful besides.

  ‘Oooh, you sound hot.’ She sounded like she was constipated.

  I bit back a giggle. Casey did not sound hot. He sounded nervous and awkward.

  ‘What do you want to do to me today?’ The voice on the other end sounded really sincere, like she really wanted to know what Casey wanted to do to her. Meanwhile, Casey was looking at me like he’d been caught in his mom’s closet with her high heels on, completely clueless. Again, men. When you want them to bring their A game, they act like they’d never seen girl parts before. Which in Casey’s case, could be the truth.

  I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote, shoving the message at Casey’s face.

  ‘Um … I’d like to talk?’ Casey’s voice lifted on the end as he directed a silent question to me. I nodded, using my finger again in the universal ‘keep ‘em rolling’ sign.

  ‘I love to talk dirty,’ she said.

  ‘How old are you?’ Casey read off my page.

  The girl giggled. ‘Barely legal, if you know what I mean.’

  Oh lord. I shoved the paper at Casey again. ‘Do you do this full time?’ He asked the question and then mouthed ‘WHAT?’ to me. I know, I wasn’t sure why I was asking that question either. I was under pressure.

  ‘Oh … yeah, I do it all night long.’

  We weren’t going to get anywhere with this. Casey read the next question and shook his head. I mimed ramming the pen up someplace personal and he relented. ‘Do you know Liza McCarthy?’