by Linda Ladd
“She’s a woman.”
“I don’t like shoes.”
“Those high-top Nikes you got on are nifty.”
Nifty? “Thanks, I think.”
“I’m gonna check out the bathroom. See if it adjoins another room.”
Novak tapped politely on the door, which showed he had some gentlemanly attributes—at least until he just barged into the bathroom without waiting. Claire examined the clothes in the closet, wondering how they got that many garments inside and why they wanted to and what kind of girl Andrea Quinn really was. She took her arm and pushed back a load of the coat hangers as best she could, because she had found that people had a tendency to hide things in the backs of their closets. That’s when somebody darted out at her so quickly and unexpectedly from inside that Claire didn’t have time to react. Then she cried out in pain when a sharp blade came down hard into the flesh of her left arm. At that point, pure survival instinct took over. She grabbed her screaming assailant by the front of the shirt, spun around with him, and tried to kick the legs out from under him. In moments, she had the guy down on the floor on his back, her Glock pressed against his left temple. That’s when she found out that it was a young girl struggling violently under her weight. Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t Andrea Quinn.
Novak was there in seconds, but several seconds too late. He stopped and stood over them. “I guess you know there’s a pair of scissors stuck in your arm.”
“No kiddin’, Novak. Hey, I could use some help here. You know, that partner thing needs to kick in a little.”
Novak took hold of Claire’s good arm and pulled her up to standing. Then he jerked the screaming and struggling girl up by the back of her green Tulane hoodie and flung her across the room as if she were a bag of rags. The girl landed in a heap on the nearest bed and then began to sob hysterically into the pillow. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s the devil, the devil’s in me now!”
Novak frowned down at Claire’s wound. “You okay?”
“Oh, sure, I’m just right as rain. Except for this big pair of sharp scissors stuck in my arm.” The pain was pretty massive, but Claire tried not to groan like a big baby in front of Mr. Super Sympathetic. Instead, she tried to see how bad it was. All she knew was that it had penetrated the fleshy part of her upper arm and hurt like hell.
“Looks like what they say about you is true, Morgan.”
Claire held her arm tightly against her side so that the scissors wouldn’t move around and hurt even more. She looked up at Novak. “Yeah, and what would that be?”
“You find trouble everywhere, every time. Not a good personality trait for a private dick. Not for anybody, really.”
“Oh, man, Yoda’s got nothing on you, oh wise one.” Claire ignored him then and attempted to pull the rip in her jacket far enough apart to see how much she was bleeding. Of course, the scissors weren’t of the little manicure variety that most normal people would get stabbed with. Hell no, not for her. She got the worst possible kind, of course. Great big, strike that, honking huge, dress shears. In fairly deep, too.
Not happy, she stuck her forefinger through the big rip in her favorite jacket. The leather one that she’d bought with her own hard-earned money, damn it. It appeared to be a deep puncture wound, but the blade had not nicked the bone, thank God. It still hurt like the devil, though, now that her assailant was subdued and crying over on the bed and Claire’s rush of adrenaline was petering off. Black was gonna flip out. First day on the job and this? Looked like his well-laid plans just were not gonna pan out, after all. Unfortunately for her.
“Don’t pull them out,” Novak suggested calmly. “I’ll take you to the emergency room after we question the girl. They can stitch you up.”
Claire grimaced and jerked the scissors out. Blood spurted a little bit and made a red stain on her white polo shirt and the jagged hole in the leather, but it wasn’t gonna send her to the ER. Gingerly, Claire shrugged out of the coat and reached under her shirt and applied pressure with her fingers. She looked over at the moaning girl, still writhing around on the bed.
The girl was a user of the highest and most horrendous degree, no doubt about it. If they gave awards for drug addictions, she’d win the Oscar for Best Junkie, hands down. Claire could tell by looking at her, and the kid was probably addicted to crack and crystal meth, or maybe did ecstasy and/or cocaine, or all of it. Her face was gaunt and her cheeks looked sunken, like a Halloween skeleton mask. She was extremely thin and her skin was covered with sores. Her dark eyes still darted around wildly, and her pupils were dilated, big and black. Her terrified behavior was not dissipating with Novak’s less than reassuring reassurances. She had very short black hair that looked unwashed and unkempt and oily and at least six pounds of black makeup smeared around on her eyes. Something told Claire that the pentagram poster belonged to her. Then all a sudden, the kid started screaming big time and to the top of her lungs.
“Look at her. She’s high as a kite.”
Novak said, “Yeah, she’s strung out all right. Ecstasy or PCP. Something like that. Crystal meth, maybe.”
“I guess we should get an ambulance in here. Let them check her out. She doesn’t look so good.”
“Go ahead. I’m gonna see if she’ll tell me anything.”
Claire jerked her phone out of her pocket with her free hand and punched in 911 and watched Novak walk over and kneel down in front of the girl. It was soon apparent that he wasn’t wearing kid gloves. “Hey, kid, stop your cryin’ and yellin’, and listen up. We’re not gonna hurt you. Just calm it down, already.”
“You’re the devil, you’re the devil, and she’s a demon! A she-demon!”
Well, that could be, Claire thought. In her present mood, anyway.
Novak didn’t seem to be in the mood for utter nonsense. “Hey, stop with the crazy talk. Nobody here’s a demon. We’re trying to find Andrea Quinn. This’s her room, that right? You know her?”
“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me! You’re evil, evil … you’re all evil. Witches, demons, Satan’s spawn! I wanna die! I can’t take it anymore. I wanna die!”
Novak grabbed her shoulders and gave her a rather hard shake, but just one. “Tell me where Andrea Quinn is. We’ve got to find her.”
“The devil’s got her, the devil’s got her. I barely got away. Satan’s coming, he’s coming, he’s gonna find us all, he’s gonna send us into hell’s fiery lake …”
“Who’s got her?” Novak shook her again. Once. “What’s your name? You live here?”
Two loud thuds sounded on the door, and Claire quickly pulled it open. There before her stood a couple of college girls, and behind them, a campus cop could be seen racing down the hall with some kind of nightstick clutched in his right hand.
The redheaded girl at the door said, “Hey, lady, what’re you doin’ in here? We heard screamin’ and yellin’ and stuff so we called up security.”
Claire kept on clutching her bleeding and aching arm. “We found that girl over there hiding in the closet, and she went all hysterical over nothing. We’re trying to calm her down, that’s all.”
One of the girls peeked around the corner, apparently not believing Claire’s story was credible. Claire couldn’t blame her, not with a guy the size of Colorado leaning over a screaming, weeping girl. Novak stood up and stepped away from the screeching kid as the cop arrived and stepped into the room. As innocent as a giant baby lamb, he was.
“What the hell’s going on in here?” Breathless Campus Cop demanded in his best official tone, but got no further than that because at that very moment the hysterical girl screamed even louder and jumped off the bed. Before anyone could move a muscle, she darted across the room as if the devil really was after her and took a flying, headfirst swan dive out the open window, taking the window screen with her.
Everyone just froze where they stood for a second or two, all of them gaping at the window, struck silent with utter shock and disbelief.
Then the two girls started screaming their heads off, and Claire ran over to the windowsill, where a stiff cold breeze hit her in the face. Outside, five floors below on the concrete sidewalk, the girl was lying dead, lots of blood flowing out of her head, her arms and legs twisted in grotesque, unnatural angles. A crowd of horrified college students were backing away from the broken body, their cries and screams echoing up the side of the building. In the near distance, Claire could hear the siren blare of the ambulance that she had called only minutes before.
Novak said, “C’mon, let’s get outta here.”
Before Claire could join him and fly the coop, the campus cop grabbed her by the back of her shirt. Something she didn’t particularly care for, not from him, or anybody else. He was strong, though, his big biceps straining hard to bust out the seams of his blue uniform shirt.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he told Claire, swinging her around and exhibiting quite a bit of cop fierce. Then he stopped and stared at Claire’s bloodstains. “Hey, you’re bleedin’. What happened in here?”
“Yeah, I am. That girl who jumped out the window? She stabbed me with those scissors, the ones lying over there on the floor.”
“Both of you just sit down on that bed over there and stay put. I’m calling this in and getting some NOPD detectives down here.” He already had his trusty black cell phone out and was talking into it. Very official and wannabe cop-ish. He watched a lot of dramatic TV cop shows, count on it. The cop turned back to the two kids still crying and whimpering and gawking wide-eyed at them from the threshold. “And you two girls, you sit down right there on the floor beside that door and shut up. I don’t want to hear a word, unless I ask for it. Nobody’s goin’ anywhere until we get this scene secured and every one of you is questioned by me, you hear me?”
The two kids immediately got quiet, sank down, and looked at each other with wide and frightened, yet noticeably excited, eyes. Claire looked at them, too. She had a lot of questions to ask them herself. She hoped the not-quite-a-cop-yet knew what to ask.
Novak said, “You’re losin’ a lot of blood. Better put more pressure on that wound.”
The campus cop heard him. He said, “You, big guy. See if there’s a towel or something in the bathroom for your girlfriend’s arm. But don’t make any quick moves.”
The big guy rose with nary a quick move, walked into the bathroom, and brought back a white hand towel. Good for him. She had figured he might flee out the adjoining suite and leave her to fend for herself. Maybe he was a gentleman after all. Claire pushed up her sleeve to her shoulder, and Novak wrapped the towel tightly around her upper arm and managed somehow to knot it there. She wasn’t hurt all that bad, though, and sure as hell not as much as the girl lying splattered on the sidewalk five stories below.
“Okay, I want some answers, and I want them now,” the cop said to everyone. He was young, mid-or-late twenties, probably. Not particularly tall, but muscular and wiry enough and he looked strong and fit. He probably stood five ten or so. He wore a dark blue campus police uniform, but its insignia looked like he was somehow affiliated with the NOPD, too. Maybe they had rookie officers working the Tulane campus, or wannabe cops in training while they gave parking tickets to bicycles. He did seem to have a suitable amount of smarts and acted as if he knew the score. Yep, he was most likely a cop wannabe in training with a dream to join the NOPD ranks. This incident would probably get him a leg up on his application, too. His shiny black nameplate said JASPER DANFORTH.
“Yes, sir, anything we can do to help you,” said Novak, Mr. Polite and Docile and Unintimidating all of a sudden.
“Who was that girl?” Danforth demanded, really into his cop mien now.
Novak said, “We didn’t have time to get her name. Maybe those girls sitting over there know her.”
“Do you?” said Danforth, turning toward the inordinately stunned-acting girlish duo.
They looked at each other some more; seemed like they did that a lot. One of them was a blonde, the other one had that aforementioned red hair, artificial and kind of electric red actually. The redhead looked bohemian and less than erudite; the blonde looked like a Gap model but more cerebral. The redhead’s first words were all trembling and weak and horrified, as if the girl was still half in shock.
“Oh, my God, Jasp, you saw it, too. Pru just jumped out, just took off running and dove out that window. I can’t believe it, she just dove out, man, headfirst, too.”
So the girls knew Jasper rather well, it seemed. He was a cute guy, sort of, not Black or Dean Winchester, by any means, but not too much older than the girls. Maybe he and Miss Red had a thing going. Novak looked at Claire in a significant way. She looked back at him in a less significant way. Now they were doing it, too. Man, what a day.
“Answer my questions, Nev. And who’s your friend there?”
“That’s my roommate. Poppy Randolph.”
Poppy? How unfortunate was that? Claire thought. Parents must be idiots or wont to name their daughter after the flower they smoked.
Poppy, a.k.a. the maybe smart blonde, stopped her sobbing and got control of herself. “That girl, the one who jumped out the window? Her name’s Pru Davidson. That’s short for Prudence. She used to live in this room with Andi, you know, they were roommates and stuff, but Pru just up and left a while ago and didn’t tell anybody where she was. Not even Andi.”
Claire jumped on that. “What about Pru’s family? Did anybody contact them about her disappearance? Did she just quit and go back home?”
“She didn’t have any family. She’s been on her own since she was sixteen, or something. I dunno. They died, I guess. But they left her enough money to come here, and stuff. She always has lots of money to spend on stuff and was always throwing it around. You know, buyin’ stuff. She bought me a new white cashmere sweater from Abercrombie and Fitch, and it wasn’t my birthday, or anything.”
Yeah, drug dealers could afford to be generous, Claire thought, and that would be a lucrative endeavor for a college student, and an idea backed up by Pru’s terrible physical condition.
“That girl lying down there dead on the street was hooked on drugs. How long?” That was Novak a.k.a. Brass Tacks.
Nev the Red got excited. “Oh, man, she’s always been on weed. Always freakin’ high, too. But she started using some harder stuff right before she took off that last time. We didn’t even know she was in here today. She hasn’t been back for freakin’ weeks and weeks.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Jasper Danforth butted in and halted the progress they were actually beginning to make. “Everybody just shut up. I’m gonna be askin’ the questions. Got that?”
“Of course,” Claire said, stroking his obviously rather fragile, wanna-wear-official-badge ego. “You are the one in authority here. We all know that.”
Jasper’s frown softened a tad, liking her cloying back patting it seemed, but his voice didn’t lose its official tone. “Okay, first off, who the hell are you, lady, and what the hell are you and your boyfriend doing in this dorm room? You crashin’ in here illegally or what?”
Well, now. Jasper knew something about those brass tacks, too. “Okay, my name is Claire Morgan, and this is Will Novak. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my partner. We’re private investigators looking for a girl named Andrea Quinn. This is her room. We have permission to be in here from the guy at the downstairs desk. He gave us the key.”
“Is it that girl’s room?” Jasper asked Nev of the fake Carrot Top hair.
“Yeah, used to be hers. Neither one of ’em are here much anymore, though. I think Andi’s gotten herself hooked on drugs, too. She was pretty straight when she first got here, and then Pru got her into all kinds of freakin’ kinky stuff.”
“Who’re you?” said Will.
“Nev Collins.”
“What kinda kinky stuff?” asked Will.
“You know, coke and all kinds of drugs. Crack, too, I think. Ecstasy, sometimes. I’m talkin’ real bad trips and comin�
� down hard. That gross boyfriend of hers got her into needles and all that stuff.”
“What boyfriend?” Novak said. “What’s his name?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” reiterated peeved campus cop.
“Sure,” said Novak, looking extremely annoyed by said peeved campus cop.
“Okay, what’s the boyfriend’s name?” Danforth asked the girls. Not very original of him, but Novak would get his question answered quickly enough.
“Clarence Carver,” the girl answered. “Pru called him Carvy.”
Claire hoped that rather telling moniker didn’t have anything to do with knives, hatchets, or the pair of dress shears that she’d just pulled out of her arm. Danforth turned back to Novak. “So what’s your name?”
“Will Novak. Just like she told you.”
“Let me see your P.I. licenses.”
Novak pulled out his wallet, opened it, and held his license up. “Here’s mine. She’s working alongside me until hers comes through. She’s a trained police officer, out of state. Missouri. She’ll have hers in ninety days and then she’ll be able to work alone, but not until then. We’re goin’ by the book, Danforth.”
“That true?” Danforth said to Claire.
“Yes. I’ve been a homicide cop for over ten years. I just recently decided to go private.”
“Okay, I guess. Who you workin’ for?”
Claire didn’t want to answer that. So she didn’t. “I’m afraid that’s confidential information. Our client does not want his name known. We were hired to locate Andrea Quinn, but look, man, we’re wastin’ time right now with all this stuff.” She turned back to the girls. “When was the last time you saw Andi?”
