Death by Dissertation (A Cassandra Sato Mystery Book 1)

by Kelly Brakenhoff

  It took a few minutes to wipe her face and wash her mouth. Back in the bedroom, she stared at the black screen. She whispered, “Namu Amida Butsu.” For extra protection, she invoked the phrase she’d heard Meg plead many times, “Lord, have mercy!” Help was welcome from any available prophets or deities at this point.

  She scooped up her phone from the night stand and fumbled through the contacts until she found Fischer’s number. Without thinking about college politics or the rules, she held her breath until he answered.

  “Fischer. What’s wrong?”

  “Someone. Was in my house . . . again,” she stammered. “Please c-come back. Now!” She couldn’t control the neediness in her voice. She was way beyond chicken skin. Probably she should’ve called 911, but she figured Fischer would get there faster.

  Fifteen minutes later, Cassandra heard pounding on the back door. She slid her feet into warm crocheted slippers and turned on lights all the way. Yanking open the door, she lost all professional pretense and the tears flowed again. She pointed towards her bedroom. “In my room. On my pillow.”

  Fischer stalked through the kitchen, around the hallway and into the living room. He quickly assessed the room and moved toward the lights in her bedroom. Without touching any hard surfaces, Fischer bent down and scanned under the bed. Using his t-shirt to open the knob, he inspected inside the closet, then checked out the bathroom. He looked behind the armchair she’d slept in a couple of nights ago and where the photo frame was still lying on the cushion.

  Cassandra followed him, and they nearly collided when he turned around. “Is anyone in the house now?”

  She wiped her cheeks and exhaled an unsteady breath. “Not in here, the kitchen or the basement. I haven’t looked upstairs.”

  He turned left and took the curved wooden steps two at a time, checked the bedrooms and upstairs bath. “No one up here, either.”

  Meeting her in the hallway, he led her to the living room couch. “Let me get you some water.” He didn’t wait for her answer, just headed into the kitchen. She heard cupboards opening and closing until he found glasses and the tap. Moments later he handed her a large glass of water. She drank some, surprised by how much calmer it made her feel. Or maybe it was his presence.

  “You gonna be alright?” He ran a hand through his dark hair and looked around the room again, taking in the neat modern furniture, dark colors and simplicity of the space.

  She nodded, suddenly aware that she sat on her couch in her pajamas with an employee. Probably this broke several rules. Too bad. She had bothered Andy last time for the plant. Fischer was the right man for this . . . incident. Must be his military experience that made him seem so controlled and competent. She placed the glass on the end table and held up a finger. “Be right back.”

  Returning to the couch with her laptop, she rewound the video and handed it to him. “This thumb drive was on my pillow when I came home.”

  She made it through half the video before lurching into the bathroom again. That jerk had stood outside her house, filming her this morning. Had any neighbors noticed him? Then he’d broken in. Again. And touched her pillow while he placed the memory stick there. Staring at her reddened eyes streaked with mascara in the mirror above the pedestal sink, she splashed cold water on her face and spoke to the reflection. “Get it together.”

  When she returned to the living room, Fischer’s face was an expressionless mask. She sat on the couch and pointed at the guy on the video. “I saw Zorro. Everywhere I looked tonight. Him.”

  She pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged her shins. Then the trembling began. She couldn’t stop. First Austin, then the plant. Then the nitrogen in the lab. Now this. What else had this creep done?

  Her skin prickled with imaginary bugs crawling down her arms, and she started hyperventilating again with the thought of Zorro in her bedroom.

  Fischer reached a hand into his jeans front pocket. Pulling out a small zipper bag, he opened it and fished out a little yellow pill. Reaching for her right hand, he turned it over and gently opened her fingers. He placed the pill on her palm. “Valium. It’ll help you stop shaking.”

  For a millisecond, she hesitated. Fischer seemed so composed, but carried his own personal stock of anxiety medicine. She didn’t know him much outside of work, but this was no time for scruples. Popping it in her mouth, she gulped some water to wash it down then held out her hand. “I think I need two.”

  Frowning, he said, “I don’t know. These are pretty strong. They’ll help you relax.”

  Her hand didn’t waver, and after a few seconds he added a second pill. She would remember to ask him about the pills later. Easing into the couch, she let it swallow her up and hugged a pillow in front of her stomach.

  Fischer moved to the armchair flanking the fireplace and sunk into its wide brown leather seat. Silence settled over them, the only noise was the furnace cycling on from the basement and blowing warm air through the vents.

  “We need to call the sheriff. They’ll want to file a report and check for evidence, if there’s any left. You should’ve left the house and called me right away. What if that creep had still been inside?” His words scolded, but his voice had a note of respect. “You’re pretty fearless. Lotta people would be more freaked out.”

  Cassandra drank more water. “Seems like if he wanted to hurt me, he could’ve done that already.”

  She didn’t look at him closely or study his responses. They just sat, thinking and occasionally kept the conversational strings loosely tied together. “If he’s trying to scare me, it worked.” She addressed the floor and the coffee table. “Maybe I should make ‘em all happy and just quit.”

  “The texts and the politics seem to be personal. That creep . . . is after you.” Fischer paused a long time. “The stuff in the lab with Austin and the nitrogen don’t connect.”

  “That’s where I got stuck too. There’s more. We just haven’t put it together, yet.”

  After twenty minutes, Cassandra felt her shoulders relax and the cramping in her stomach subside. Like she’d drank a large glass of wine. She crossed her slippered feet on the coffee table, and tossed the small pillow aside. Resting her head back against the couch, she sighed.

  Fischer said, “I like your house. It’s cozy. Especially this chair. I need a chair like this in my place.”

  Turning her head, she admired his profile. The messy dark hair, shadowed chin, narrow nose. He filled the chair like a king on his throne. A relaxed king, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Legs wrapped in denim, but she could see the muscle definition under the fabric.

  Whoa, where did that thought come from? Why was she staring at his legs?

  She was a little too comfortable . . . He’d asked about her chair. She laughed a little.

  “Found it at an estate sale the week after I moved in. The leather’s all broken in and buttery soft. It’s an expensive brand, so I figured it’d last a while longer . . . My dad had one like it at home, and it reminded me of him.”

  When she was quiet for a long time, he whispered. “You still awake?”

  She smiled at the intimacy of his soft voice. “Yep. But I could sleep here.”

  She reached over the couch for a fuzzy fleece blanket, but struggled to pull it onto herself. The corner was stuck; she tugged a few times ineffectively. Giggling, she gave up, placing the free part over her right shoulder. Giggling wasn’t dignified. She didn’t hear him stand up.

  Suddenly he leaned over her, freeing the whole blanket and gently tucking it around her shoulders. He smoothed it out over her legs and studied her a long moment. His woodsy, leathery scent hovered in the air between them. “You have some issues.”

  “Not right now, I don’t. Well. Maybe I have issues, but I don’t care . . . anymore . . . Will you stay tonight, please? I . . . don’t . . .”

  Fischer stood up and shook his head, smiling. She couldn’t tell if that was a smiling-AT-her or a smiling-W
ITH-her kind of smile, but she was beyond caring. Those pills had definitely done the trick.

  “I’m not leaving you alone tonight. In the morning, we’ll call the sheriff and go from there.”

  He used the bathroom, turned off the house lights, positioned himself in the large leather chair and removed his shoes. Moonlight filtered onto the wood floor from the windows on either side of the fireplace. Her limbs felt heavy, her muscles like putty. Her eyelids had been closed for some time when she heard him ask, “That photo . . . on your bedside chair? Of you and that guy? You looked . . . radiant.”

  She considered how much to tell him. “My smile that night went all the way through me. I was very happy, then.”

  When she didn’t add more, he prompted, “But . . .”

  “Paul Watanabe and I were engaged the weekend after I graduated with my Master’s. He’d worked as an Ocean Engineer . . . My parents loved him nearly as much as I—”

  Everyone back home already knew this story, and she rarely had to tell it. The Valium had taken the edge off her anxiety, but couldn’t mask the lump in her throat. “Two months after our engagement, Paul got a virus. First we thought he had a cold, then maybe the flu. By the time he realized something was terribly wrong and went to the hospital, it was too late. He slipped into a coma. They tested and treated him for four days, but he never woke again. He was 26 years old.”

  Her cheeks were damp. You’d think after eight years that wound would be scarred over.

  “I’m sorry for you and both your families . . . That must’ve been . . . hard.”

  She sniffled. Her voice quieted to barely above a whisper. “The Plumeria plant the creep smashed against my garage door . . . was a cutting from one that I got at his funeral. I hand-carried it on the plane when I moved here.”

  The last image that flashed in her mind before she drifted off to sleep was Marcus Fischer dressed like an old-fashioned British gentleman, chivalrous and gallant. She smiled because the real Marcus Fischer had hard edges to him. She didn’t know which version she liked more.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “What’d you do—sleep on da kine couch?” Michiko Sato’s loud voice scolded from the MacBook screen on Cassandra’s desk in the dining room/den. She stilled. Her mother couldn’t possibly know that, right?

  “Mom, I’ve been up for hours. Why would you say that?”

  “Your eyes look tired. Why aren’t you sleeping? Sleeping on the couch pillows give you wrinkles.”

  Cassandra might switch up the weekly call home by using a telephone instead of video if this lecturing kept up. She was old enough to sleep where she wanted without explaining herself to her mother. Maybe that was too grouchy. “Work has been hectic this week. We’ve had some problems with students, and I’ve been busy with evening Homecoming events. Next week should be easier.”

  The online chat had already lasted half an hour, and she needed to head to the football game soon. She forced a cheery tone into her voice. “I’m going to a football game today. Morton’s Homecoming day. Meg and Connor will be there, too.”

  “That sounds fun, dear! Good for you getting some fresh air. Bring your heavy coat. Your dad checked the weather in Omaha. Can you believe the high will be 65-degrees? Aiyee, that’s chilly!”

  “Meg took me shopping in Lincoln Wednesday, and I bought a new hat and some gloves. I’m all ready . . . Actually, Mom, I have to go now. Time to head to the game soon . . . I love you. Kiss Dad and Gran for me.”

  “Have fun today. Get some sleep! Love you!” The chat window closed and Cassandra’s eyes watered up. She was beginning to have a love/hate feeling about these calls. She loved talking to her parents and seeing their faces. When Mom turned the iPad screen and showed her blooming garden or the window view, she loved the vibrant colors of the water and flowers. She hated the tightness in her chest, the physical longing for a place so far away. She snapped the laptop shut.

  * * *

  Cassandra’s back and behind were numb after sitting on the cold metal bleachers for two hours watching the Morton Maples Homecoming game against the Iowa Christian Crusaders. The home team was down 24-14 in the fourth quarter, but they had the ball and had switched to short running plays with some success. Cassandra, wearing a Navy-Blue Maples fleece jacket and the jeans Meg had goaded her into purchasing at the Buckle, felt toasty warm sandwiched by Meg and Connor on one side and Lance Erickson’s parents on the other. Meg had advised her there was no way to prepare herself mentally for Nebraska winters so she should resign herself to wearing three layers, a hat and gloves from November until April.

  “We’re glad to know Lance has supportive ties here at school, Dr. Sato,” Lance’s mother told her in between plays. “We feel so bad for Austin’s family; we’ve known them since the boys were in junior high.”

  Cassandra replied, “I can’t imagine what they’re going through, either. I only hope we can get answers for them soon. We’re doing our best.”

  Mrs. Erickson patted her knee. “I’m sure you are, dear.”

  She must have been old when Lance had been born because she looked around 60.

  Mrs. Erickson said, “Although it’d be nice if we could get email updates. Are you sure the campus is safe? That lab explosion sounded dangerous.”

  Her voice was kindly, but Cassandra caught the underlying tone that she was concerned for her son, too. “It was a leak, not an explosion,” she corrected automatically. “The staff person in charge knew what to do, and no students were harmed. We don’t want to cause undue worry by constantly contacting parents until we have definitive information. Believe me, we’re doing everything possible to find who’s responsible.”

  Connor had insisted on escorting Cassandra on the field at half-time, even against Meg’s stink eye stare. He and Fischer must’ve talked about the break-in. Connor had gone full bodyguard on her fifteen minutes after they met at the ticket entrance. Cassandra couldn’t even go to the rest room alone. She’d caught Meg up to speed on the video, the sheriff taking her statement, the deputies dusting for fingerprints and questioning the neighbors. Her inner feminist felt offended that Fischer had set a watch on her, but the practical part of her brain was grateful for the extra protection. She couldn’t get that creeper’s synthesized voice out of her head.

  Standing on the 50-yard line during half-time, she and Dr. Bergstrom handed out commemorative plaques and shook hands with the returning Mid-Plains Conference champion football team from 1975. When she became university president someday, the half-time presentations, reporter interviews and donor special events would be frequent requirements of the job. She should be relaxed and happy as she stared into the grandstands. Instead every dark, hooded figure made her want to hide, and she felt more queasy than excited.

  During the fourth quarter, Meg pointed to a skinny wide receiver and leaned in to whisper, “He’s in a Statistics class I work in. Kid sleeps through class unless the teacher calls on him. Waste of a scholarship. Why don’t these kids realize how lucky they are to be in college?”

  Cassandra nodded; her own student loans wouldn’t be paid off for another five years. Funny how when you’re a student you try to get away with stuff. When you’re an adult you do the math, and calculate cost per class meeting.

  Meg gasped, “Did I say that out loud? Oh my God! I sound like my mother! It’s happening. I’m only 33, and I sound like my mother.” She slapped her leg for emphasis then turned to Cassandra. “Yesterday I found a gray hair. Make it stop!”

  As they laughed together, the crowd hushed. The players on the field walked away from a big pile at the end of a play except one lineman, Frank Thompson. A trainer and a coach trotted out to help him. A few minutes turned into ten while they decided how to handle him. He moved his legs, but he wasn’t getting up.

  Craning her neck, Meg asked Connor, “Can you see where he’s hurt?” Finally someone brought the little golf cart over, five workers surrounded him and hoisted him into the
back. The delay was a buzzkill on both sides of the ball, but the remaining players finished the game. The crowd was mostly out of it by that point anyway, and the game finished without further scoring or injuries.

  Connor and Meg had parked in Cassandra’s driveway to avoid the crowded campus lots. Inside, she grabbed Connor a beer and herself some chardonnay. While Meg texted Tony’s babysitter to update her on their estimated arrival time at home, she declined the wine offer by holding up her unfinished water bottle. Filling a bowl with pretzels, Cassandra carried it outside to the back deck where they sat around her plastic table.

  Cassandra’s small yard featured a smooth grass expanse stretching from the deck to the green boxwood hedge that fenced in two sides, with the third side being the garage. She apologized for her barely furnished deck. “Sorry the back is so bland; I hardly ever sit out here.”

  She looked forward to planting flowers in container pots come Spring. By the time she’d moved in August, the grass already had a brown tinge to it. Luckily, the underground sprinklers operated on a timer so her only chore was paying a neighbor kid to mow weekly.

  An hour later, a car door slammed in the driveway and Fischer appeared between the garage and house, following the pathway to the deck. Surprised, Cassandra raised an eyebrow at Meg. She tilted her head towards Connor and made a texting sign to show that he’d told Fischer where to find them. Cassandra stood up to greet him. “Aloha!”

  Fischer said hello, shook Connor’s hand, and joined them at the table.

  Cassandra replayed that moment in her head just after dawn when her eyes had opened to him sound asleep draped all over her leather chair. His head had tilted left, and light snoring came from his slightly open mouth. At rest, his face had looked younger than the rugged, purposeful expression he usually wore at work.

  She recalled hurrying into the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair, noting the deep pillow lines across her cheek. Changing into baggy sweats and a hoodie, she pulled her hair into a ponytail and padded into the kitchen. Soon after the smell of fresh Kona coffee filled the room, she heard him in the bathroom. Minutes later she had handed him a travel mug. Her face flushed. “Good morning.”