“Do we know who she is?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” Bolt said, pushing his wispy gray hair back from his face. “We found her coat neatly folded on the bank, with her purse and some other items tucked underneath. Her ID indicates she’s Maggie Warren from Indianapolis, twenty-one as of last month, a sophomore at Culbert College.”
A college kid. I glanced at the coroner. “Cause of death definitely drowning?”
She glared, like she always does when I’m around. “Nothing’s definite till I get her to the lab. But drowning looks right. She’s got some bumps and bruises, including two big bashes on her forehead, but nothing that couldn’t be accounted for by a tumble over Petite Falls and close encounters with the rocks at the bottom. If you ask me, she tried walking across the stepping-stones above the falls, slipped, knocked herself out on the rocks, filled her lungs with water, and that was that.”
I’ve never admitted this to you before, Mother, but you’ve probably always pretty much known: I’ve walked across those stepping-stones myself, lots of times. You always warned me not to, but jeez. It didn’t seem like much of a risk — the stones so flat and close together, and the drop barely ten feet, and the current of Slushy River so sluggish. Even if you slipped, it wouldn’t be a big deal if you had friends standing by — and I always had friends standing by, ready to fish me out or pay me off, depending on whether I made good on the dare. It was dumb, I know, but sometimes, when I really needed a few bucks, it seemed almost sensible. It paid for your Mother’s Day present my junior year in high school, and that’s the last I’m going to say about it.
But this girl — hadn’t she had friends standing by when she started across the stepping stones? Why hadn’t they fished her out when she slipped?
Crouching down, I pushed up the blindfold. She was pretty, but not spectacular: long blonde hair, slender build, and that fresh, open look most girls that age have; even a night in the water hadn’t obscured that. She was well groomed too, from the perfectly rounded fingernails polished a pale pink to the black high heels with thin silver straps around the ankles. The clothes looked expensive — a sleeveless silvery top and sweater made of some soft, slightly shiny material and a black skirt that managed to look short and snug but not sleazy. She wore small silver hoop earrings, a silver necklace that looked sort of lacy and scoopy, and a small, round gold pin on her sweater.
The pin seemed worth a squint. It had a design on it — two squiggles followed by a letter, all in a row. I tried to make sense of it but gave up.
I sat back on my haunches and pointed to the pin. “All Greek to me,” I said.
Bolt squinted in turn. “You’re right, sir!” he said, his eyes taking on that familiar, adoring glow. “It is Greek! Pi Alpha Kappa. A sorority pledge pin, would you say?”
Well, naturally. Bolt reads Greek, or at least knows the alphabet. And naturally, when I’d repeated a cliche as a way of admitting I didn’t know what something meant, Bolt interpreted it as a brilliant observation and was probably already building it into a clue that’d solve the case. It’s like that every time. I know you tell me not to worry, I know you say Bolt’s happy the way things are, but it’s not fair to him. He thinks I’m this great detective and he’s my humble assistant, when really I’m just blurting out dumb stuff, and he’s somehow interpreting the blurts in a way that leads us straight to the murderer before I’ve even figured out if the victim’s really dead. It’s not right, and it’s rough on my nerves. Some day, I’ll make him see the truth.
This time, though, I was too distracted to focus on being fair to Bolt. Evidence was actually sliding into place for me. Culbert student, pledge pin, November — wasn’t that when fraternities and sororities had their Hell Nights or whatever they call them?
“About five years ago,” I said. “That boy from Ohio, the booze — remember?”
“Yes, sir.” Bolt nodded promptly. “1998. Brian Abbott from Akron, eighteen, pledging Beta Gamma Omega at Culbert, told to chug a fifth of vodka on Hell Night, comatose for six days before, thank God, he came to with no apparent ill effects, though four years later he graduated with a GPA of 2.4, which didn’t seem commensurate with the promise he’d shown in high school. I see what you’re suggesting, sir.”
For once, so did I. “What was the name of that dean of students we talked to back then?” I asked. “Cauliflower? Broccoli?”
“Edward Collard,” Bolt said. “Shall I call him, sir?”
“Soon. But let’s not jump to conclusions about how this happened.” I turned to the coroner. “Any signs of a struggle or sexual assault, or of drinking or drugs?”
She shrugged. “Nothing I can see now. I’ll know more when I get her to the lab.”
“Get her there, then,” I said curtly. “Meanwhile, Bolt, let’s have a look around the scene, see if the uniforms have turned up anything.”
They’d turned up a broken bottle of Merlot — good brand, no prints — below the falls, and a hundred and ninety-eight blue M&M’s scattered near the stepping-stones. An earnest rookie said he felt sure two more M&M’s were lurking in the vicinity, and he was determined to find them. I wished him Godspeed, checked the pockets of the girl’s coat, and found a two-inch gold-plated flashlight on one of those little snap-apart chains you use to attach things to other things. A copy of the Atlantic had been tucked under the coat, along with a long-stemmed blue carnation and a small black purse. Sighing, I opened the purse.
It’s a poignant part of the job, Mother. Looking through purses makes victims come alive a little, and that’s tough to take. Not that this purse contained anything remarkable — except the bag from Dollar Delights containing a pink plastic Donny Osmond lint brush and a receipt saying the $1.06 purchase was made at seven twenty-seven last night. Odd. I mean, I like Donny fine, but this girl looked too sophisticated to appreciate a guy who’s just a little bit rock and roll. Everything else seemed normaclass="underline" a cell phone; a compact; a key ring with a few keys, plus a rabbit’s foot, a small plastic flashlight, and a tiny ballet slipper, all attached to the ring by snap-apart chains; an appointment calendar; an address book; an inexpensive, silver-banded wristwatch; a checkbook; a wallet.
I flipped through the wallet. Eight dollars, no credit cards, an Indiana driver’s license, a Culbert student ID, and pictures — the girl and three other young people, maybe siblings; a middle-aged couple, probably her parents; a clean-cut young man in a blazer with a crest on the pocket, her boyfriend, possibly; and a snapshot showing the girl and four other young women, all very attractive, standing with their arms around each other.
I showed the last picture to Bolt. “Sorority sisters?” I suggested.
He nodded. “Pledge class, most likely — rather small, but as I recall, Pi Alpha Kappa takes just a few girls each year. It does more community service than the larger sororities, though, including youth outreach programs promoting healthful lifestyles.”
Now that he mentioned it, I remembered Kevin had gone to a sorority-sponsored event at his school — a Have Fun Without Alcohol Halloween party, I think it was. Later, Ellen had to tell him to watch his language when he made a crack about Putrid Alpha Krappy parties; maybe that was middle-school code for Pi Alpha Kappa.
I handed the purse to Bolt. “We’ll go through this more carefully later,” I said. “Right now, let’s call that dean.”
We got a recorded message at his office — on a Sunday, I’d expected that. When we tried his home, his wife answered. “He’s on campus,” she said peevishly. “Where else would he be? Home with his wife? Don’t be stupid. Call the student center. He said he was going to an alumni luncheon. If he’s not really there, call back and let me know.”