Cutting Edge: A Novel of Suspense

by Allison Brennan

  “Sheriff,” she said as she approached.

  “Agent English,” Sanger said formally. “That was fast.”

  She raised her eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “I just talked to your office ten minutes ago.”

  “Funny. I heard about the suicides forty-five minutes ago, and even then the information was old. I should have been contacted as soon as the suicide note was found.”

  Sanger’s jaw tightened. He introduced the dean. “Greg Holbrook, Special Agent Nora English. And Duke Rogan.”

  “We’re all in shock,” Holbrook said. “All three of them exemplary students. All seniors with promising futures. Suicide—”

  “I need to see the letter,” Nora said.

  “Excuse us, Dean Holbrook,” Sanger said, moving away. Nora and Duke followed.

  Once they were out of earshot, Nora said, “Why did you wait so long to contact me?”

  “First, the letter isn’t a full-out confession, and it took responding officers time to put it together. By the time they did and I came on scene, I called your office.”

  Nora released her pent-up anger. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat, Lance, but we just came from the scene of another homicide; Russell Larkin, the head of Butcher-Payne’s I.T. department, had his throat slit.”

  “I didn’t hear about that,” Sanger said.

  “It happened in Reno, and he’s been dead a couple days. Probably since late Sunday morning.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Sanger said to Duke.

  Duke acknowledged his condolences and asked, “What happened here?”

  “Three seniors dead. The dorm room is a mess—they all vomited violently. The medics came in and tried to resuscitate the female, who still had a pulse, but she was declared DOA at the hospital. She never regained consciousness. We found the letter on the desk. The M.E. took the bodies about twenty minutes ago, and my deputies are upstairs collecting evidence.” In Placer County, the sheriff’s deputies doubled as crime-scene investigators, which was common in many of California’s smaller counties.

  “Pills?” she asked.

  “Seems so, but until the autopsy we don’t know what they took.”

  “How were they discovered?”

  “The girl across the hall smelled something foul and knocked on the door early this morning. She didn’t get an answer, went to class, and then when she came back she tried again, and found the door unlocked. It was a pretty ugly scene. The poor girl is a wreck.”

  “And the three just stayed in the room vomiting and didn’t try to get help? Did the female have a roommate?”

  “No, she didn’t. And apparently, they wanted to die,” Sanger said.

  Or maybe the ingested drugs had a paralyzing effect, Nora thought. Still, it didn’t seem right to Nora. She’d seen pill-related suicides. They weren’t pretty, but she wouldn’t call them violent. Generally if vomiting began, the individual would purge enough from their system to survive or regret their decision and seek help. “Such a violent reaction seems unnecessary,” Nora said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “If they planned it, they would know how many pills to take to do the job, and what type of pills would minimize pain and suffering. Most suicides try for the most painless, easiest out they can find. They also talk about it to someone—even if that person doesn’t know the suicidal person is talking about killing themselves. They show signs of despair and depression—”

  “But they faced prosecution for arson and murder,” Sanger pointed out.

  “Did they? I don’t have a suspect right now, do you?”

  Sanger hesitated. “I see what you mean.”

  “Do you have an ID on the three?”

  Sanger checked his notes. “Anya Ballard, twenty-two, originally from Portland, Oregon. She’s been here for four years. Chris Pierson, twenty-three, from Richmond, California, also here for four years. Scott Edwards, twenty-two, from Los Angeles, California. He transferred two years ago from UCLA. He was a computer engineering major until he came here, then switched to environmental studies, like the other two.”

  Sanger looked at her. “I pulled their schedules. I wasn’t surprised that all three of them are in Leif Cole’s Social Justice class.”

  Nora raised her eyebrows. “Did the letter incriminate him or anyone else?”

  “No. It’s bagged and in the van, but I’ll have someone fetch it.” He spoke into his walkie-talkie.

  Duke asked, “Do we know about what time this happened?”

  “Just sometime last night. They weren’t at a meeting people expected them at, but no one thought twice about it. My deputies are interviewing everyone in the dorm, their political groups, and their classes. Holbrook has given us the student union for the duration of the interviews and investigation. As soon as we clear the dorm room, we’ll release the third floor.”

  “Duke!”

  Nora turned and saw a kid who could have been Duke’s younger twin on the opposite side of the crime-scene tape.

  “It’s my brother,” Duke said.

  Nora said to Sanger, “Can you let him through?”

  Sanger frowned, but motioned for the deputy at the door to let the younger Rogan in.

  Nora glanced at Duke. “I’m still not happy about this,” she said quietly.

  “Noted,” Duke said. He introduced his brother. “Sean, this is Special Agent Nora English and Sheriff Lance Sanger with Placer County.”

  Sanger asked, “Are you a student here?”

  Sean hesitated, and Duke explained. “I got him in so he could keep an eye on Cole and his activist group. Nora didn’t know, it was my call.”

  Sanger looked impressed. “Well Nora, I guess you don’t mind bending the rules.”

  He didn’t believe she hadn’t known, and Nora didn’t correct him. What would be the point? Instead, she asked Sean, “Were you at the meeting last night?”

  He nodded. “They really didn’t have a meeting. Mostly, they ranted about the ducks being killed at Lake of the Pines. It broke up early, a little after eight. I went to Anya’s room to see if she was okay.”

  Duke said, “So you knew her?”

  “I met her Monday morning in class. We had lunch together.”

  “What was her behavior like then?” Nora asked.

  “Cheerful, I guess. Normal. She invited me to the meeting and I said she would see me there. She was distracted near the end of lunch, though, and so I followed her when she left. She met Professor Cole in the organic garden. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it seemed obvious that he told her something that upset her. And I had the impression they were involved.”

  “Involved?” Nora asked. “Romantically? Did they kiss?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “It wasn’t like a passionate kiss, but it was more how they touched and stuff. They stood really close, not like us here, but like this.” He stepped close to Nora and took her hands. They were about a foot apart. “Yeah, like that. And they held hands.”

  He stepped back, embarrassed.

  “Why did you go up to her room?” Nora asked.

  “Because she didn’t show up at the meeting and she’d invited me.”

  “Did you talk to her in her room?”

  “Just briefly at the door. She said she was studying and time got away from them. But Chris, who I saw through the door, had been at the meeting. He left early, before it started.”

  “Did you see anyone else?”

  “No, but I heard someone. A girl.”

  Nora straightened. “A girl?”

  Sean paused. “I can’t swear by it. I only saw Anya and Chris, and part of another guy—he had big feet in white sneakers. But I heard another person. Maybe it was a guy.”

  Nora went with Sean’s first impression, which was probably accurate. But it wouldn’t hold up in court because he was already backtracking—if in fact there had been another female in the room who knew what the three were d
oing and didn’t do anything to stop them, she could be in serious trouble. Suicide was still a crime in California.

  “What else did Anya say?” Nora prompted Sean.

  “I told her I’d see her Wednesday in class and she said maybe we could have lunch again.”

  “She was making plans?”

  “Well, it wasn’t set in stone,” Sean said. “More like if we saw each other at the cafeteria we’d eat together.”

  People who were contemplating imminent suicide did not generally make future plans, even lunch in two days.

  Sean added, “When I was leaving the meeting, I asked Professor Cole about Anya. He said she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “So he already knew she wasn’t coming to the meeting? Why would he say she wasn’t feeling well if she was studying?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but Sean answered anyway. “Professor Cole seemed very protective of her. But I already knew they had something going on.”

  “Thank you, Sean. Oh, one thing, you heard a third person, thought it was female. Was there another reason you felt the third person was female?”

  He shrugged. “The door was closed—almost. Closing, I should say. But it wasn’t Chris.”

  It wasn’t definitive. There were three dead, and three known people in the room, and perhaps Scott’s voice had been effeminate. But three college students who were environmental activists slitting the throat of an I.T director to steal security plans? Or torturing Dr. Payne and letting him bleed to death? None of it made any sense to her. But she had to go with the evidence, and the evidence right now had the three confessing to arson and murder.

  Three deputies came down the stairs carrying an evidence box. They wore booties, gloves, and face masks.

  “Sheriff,” one of them said after removing his mask, “we found four bottles of one-fifty-one proof vodka and green spray paint. We also found Ballard’s computer. And a journal. It doesn’t appear to claim credit for the arsons, but it documents the so-called crimes of the businesses that were attacked, plus others that weren’t attacked. We’re still bagging up evidence, it’ll take the rest of the day.”

  Nora said, “Did you dust for prints?”

  The deputy glanced at her, but the sheriff answered. “I know how to process a suicide. It’s always treated as a crime scene.”

  “Can you send me a copy of the pictures?”

  “I’ll get you copies of everything. You may get a chunk of the evidence as well, because I’m sure the U.S. attorney is going to want undeniable proof that the arsonists are dead.”

  A deputy walked into the lobby with an evidence bag, and Sanger motioned for the two other deputies to take the other boxes to the crime-scene van. Sanger handed the letter, wrapped in plastic, to Nora.

  The short letter was written on college-ruled notebook paper, one side only, in blue ballpoint pen. The paper had never been folded, though half was crinkled. There was some biological matter dried on the letter. It read:

  To our parents and friends:

  We’re so sorry for the pain we’ve caused you and we’re sorry that we have to do this. We never wanted to kill anyone. Things just got out of hand and then we couldn’t stop.

  We only hope that maybe a tiny good can come from our actions. People need to wake up and look at how we’re destroying our planet. Stop screwing with nature. Stop polluting the water and the plants and the air. Stop eating genetically altered food. Stop before it’s too late.

  We all agreed that this is the best way.

  Anya, Chris & Scott

  Nora read the letter three times and didn’t quite know what to make of it. They didn’t come right out and say they were responsible for the four arsons and murdering Jonah Payne or Russ Larkin. It was short—common with suicide notes—but suicide notes themselves were rare. Only one in four suicides left a note. Most were impulsive acts.

  Many suicides did occur to avoid imprisonment or other punishment, but these kids weren’t yet on Nora’s radar. She’d been to the college several times to talk to Professor Cole, but she hadn’t brought any students in for questioning because no evidence had pointed to any individual student. Why would they kill themselves before there was an active investigation into their actions? Out of guilt? Nora would have to pull out her old psychology books, but suicide for guilt alone was somewhere at the bottom of the list.

  “What?” Duke asked. “You’re frowning.”

  “I’m thinking,” she said.

  “What’s the problem?” Sanger said. “It’s pretty cut-and-dried.”

  “They don’t admit to the arsons or murder.”

  “They say right there that they didn’t want to kill anyone but it got out of hand.”

  “They could be referring to the suicides themselves. That they planned it and didn’t know how not to go through with it. We don’t know, but—”

  “The evidence is coming out of the room right now,” Duke said. “The vodka and the paint—”

  She nodded. “I know. It seems convenient.”

  “You can’t possibly think that they were framed,” Sanger said. “You’re really stretching this.”

  Nora wasn’t going to get into an argument with Sanger in front of his deputies with college students coming and going. They’d sealed off the third floor of the dorm, but the other floors were accessible to residents; soon, they’d release the third floor as well.

  Something bothered Nora about the letter, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Had they left evidence of their crimes, but the police just hadn’t yet found it? Or had one of them felt guilty? Perhaps it was a murder-suicide. The letter was written in feminine script, difficult but not impossible for a man to forge. Pills and other poisons were commonly chosen by female suicide victims, while men preferred firearms. Ironically, perhaps, the choice of weapons for female killers was poison as well. Could Anya have killed her partners, then herself?

  “Did you find any empty pill bottles, a knife? We have two victims, Jonah Payne and Russell Larkin. Neither fit with the M.O. of this group.”

  “What M.O.?” Sanger said. “We know the same people were involved with the four arson fires—your sister proved it, right? Same accelerant, same bomb, same type of target. We’ve matched the spray paint. They escalated—they often do. Serial arsonists want bigger, more violent fires.”

  “But serial arsonists set fires to watch the fire and achieve sexual satisfaction. Anarchists set fires to make a political statement and damage the offending businesses economically.”

  “Why are you so antagonistic?” Sanger asked. “You should be happy that the case is solved.”

  “Solved? It’s far from solved.”

  “What the hell do you mean? We have three dead college students who have claimed responsibility, or at least have provided good solid evidence of responsibility. It’ll take a few days to match up, but I’ll bet it matches the evidence we found at the crime scenes. They fit the profile that you yourself gave me: early-to-mid-twenties, college-educated, Caucasian, known environmental activists.”

  What he said was true, but, “That was before someone was killed. If Dr. Payne had died in an accident, then yes, I could buy this. But he was tortured and murdered, his body moved from his vacation house to his business. His colleague Larkin had his throat slit while he sat in his car behind a deserted building. These are not the acts of traditional anarchists.”

  “Maybe they’re just plumb crazy.”

  Nora remembered her conversations with Megan Kincaid and then Hans Vigo earlier this morning. That the manner in which Jonah Payne was killed was the work of a psychopath. “Maybe you’re right,” she said quietly.

  But she wasn’t done, not by a long shot. She needed to be one hundred percent sure that the three suicides were solely responsible for the murders and the arsons. She wasn’t closing the case anytime soon.

  “Sheriff, I’m going to talk to Professor Cole. He knew all three students, he may have some insight or information. Would you like to
join me?”

  “I was getting ready to talk to him as well. I’ll give you a ride.”

  She frowned. “A ride? His office is just on the other side of campus.”

  “As he’s been so reluctant to comply with this investigation, I had him taken into custody. He’s at the county jail.”

  Duke and Sean followed Nora back outside to the car. “You did good, Sean,” Duke said.

  Sean seemed surprised by the praise, and Nora wondered if Duke was that rare with compliments.

  “Thanks,” the young man answered.

  Nora grabbed her briefcase from the backseat of Duke’s car. “I just emailed Pete and asked him to stick with the evidence, I want everything to come through my office, but I didn’t want to say that to Sheriff Sanger. I’m hoping Pete can convince him that we have more resources to quickly process it.” She pulled out a notepad and copied the names and stats of the three suicide victims, then handed it to Duke. “Would you mind running backgrounds on these three? I sent the information to my office, but it’s getting late and I don’t think I’ll get answers tonight. And”—She glanced from Sean to Duke. —“your backgrounders on Butcher-Payne staff were extensive.”

  “The Butcher-Payne employees agreed when they applied to provide us with Social Security numbers and other vital statistics. With those, I was able to go deeper.”

  “What I want is basic, but I’m looking for any further connection between these three and Leif Cole, and anyone at Butcher-Payne. Specifically look at Payne himself and his son, Trevor.”

  Duke was stunned. “Why Trevor? You don’t think he’s—”

  She shook her head and interrupted, “Of course not, but he’s twenty and college age, even though he’s in the military. Maybe one of these kids went to high school with him. Maybe they played on the same Little League team. I don’t know, but it’s just bugging the hell out of me that these kids killed themselves when they didn’t have a good reason. We weren’t investigating them!”

  “But you were investigating Cole,” Duke pointed out. “Maybe Anya Ballard was trying to protect him.”

  “I wasn’t officially investigating Cole,” Nora corrected. “I just suspected that he knew more than he was saying.”