“Was Miss Warren in a car when she left for the scavenger hunt?” I asked.
“No, but she could have been run over,” Bianca supplied quickly. “I’m sure that’s what Nancy had in mind. Was that it? Was Maggie run over?”
That didn’t sound like a real question. “No,” I said. “She drowned.”
This time, they both gasped, and if it wasn’t genuine, they must both be theater majors. “Drowned?” Bianca jumped up from her chair again. “You mean she — drowned? Oh my God! Where? How? How is that possible?”
Just get it out, I decided, and see how they take it. “It’s plenty possible,” I said, my voice a tad brutal, “if you try to walk across the stepping-stones above Petite Falls and slip and hit your head, and your so-called sisters run off and leave you in the river. It’s especially possible if you’re blindfolded with a blue silk pledge scarf.”
“Blindfolded?” Nancy started sobbing again. “Oh, Maggie!”
Bianca stared at me for a full minute. “Her pledge scarf,” she said. “That’s why you asked — my God. You think it was an initiation. You think- No, Lieutenant. Absolutely not. We don’t do that. We don’t do anything like that.”
She sounded so passionate that I felt like apologizing and getting the hell out of there. Then I remembered. “It sure looked like there was a party at Petite Falls last night,” I said. “How else do you explain the wine bottle and the blue M&M’s? That’s right. Blue M&M’s, a hundred and ninety-eight at last count. Think we’ll find two more?”
That really got to Nancy. She stopped crying suddenly and looked straight at me, face hard with fury. “You’re wrong, Lieutenant,” she said. “It wasn’t us. It was — it must have been a man. It must have been some filthy pervert who — who took Maggie by surprise, I’m sure that’s what he did. And he drove her to the falls, and—”
“That’s enough, Nancy,” Bianca said sharply. “Lieutenant, you think Maggie’s death resulted from some initiation ritual. I can say categorically that it did not. If you have more questions, I will answer them tomorrow, with an attorney present. I have Pi Alpha’s reputation to consider, and I will protect it. We’ll go to court if necessary, if defamatory insinuations work their way into the press, for example. Most likely Nancy is right, and Maggie was killed by a deviant who picks his victims at random. Concentrate on ridding the streets of such criminals, not on harassing us. Now, if you’ll excuse us—”
Not a theater major after all — pre-law, no question. I felt plenty intimidated, let me tell you, but stuck to my guns. “Not so fast. We want to talk to the other pledges.”
“Not today,” Bianca said decisively. “They’re at the South Street Food Pantry, preparing dinner for the homeless. If you wish to speak to them, you may do so in our attorney’s office tomorrow. Please call if you’d like to schedule an appointment.”
That settled it. I didn’t want some newspaper to get wind of us hassling college girls busily feeding the homeless. So we headed for Schuster Hall to talk to Maggie’s roommate. As we walked, I thought about how neat those girls keep their house and lawn. When I was in uniform, I’d gone to other sorority houses to break up loud parties. Those places had been awful — rotting garbage, spilled beer, little pools of vomit underfoot, and nobody seemed to care. “These girls are more careful than most,” I commented. “Some of those others — messed up and rank.”
Bolt nodded. “Yes, many people do get messed up on rank. Dean Collard, for example, called us both Officer, without regard to our actual ranks. But those girls always called you Lieutenant and me Sergeant. As you say, they’re more careful than most, and they told a careful story. No uncertainty about details, no fumbling for words — when one finished a sentence, the other picked up the narrative without hesitation.”
He was right. Their story had seemed smooth, almost rehearsed. That’d make sense if they were trying to cover something up: they’d worked their lies out in advance to make sure we’d buy their story. “They were really determined to sell it,” I commented.
“Cell it?” Bolt repeated eagerly. “Is that a slang expression for making a call on a cellular telephone? Yes, they did seem determined to cell it. Thinking a twenty-one-year-old woman needs to borrow a cell phone when she goes out at seven — that seems over-cautious if, as Miss Rogers said, it was intended as a safety measure. Good point, sir.”
Damn, I thought. That is a good point. I only wish I’d noticed it. It’s one thing for Ellen to make Kevin carry a cell phone after dark: he’s in middle school. But it was odd that Nancy didn’t want Maggie to go shopping without a cell phone. I can be awful slow about stuff like that. But Bolt’s never slow about anything.
“Pretty quick, Bolt,” I said, shaking my head in admiration.
He gasped. “You’re right, sir! Supposedly, Miss Warren was given her scavenger hunt challenge at seven. And the receipt indicates she made her purchase at seven twenty-seven. That is pretty quick shopping, since it takes at least twenty minutes to walk from Sushi Gardens to Dollar Delights. So Miss Warren could hardly have been combing store after store in search of a Donny Osmond lint brush.”
Did that mean they’d lied about the times? But why? My head was spinning so bad that it was a relief to reach Schuster Hall and stop the questions and revelations.
Pamela Andrews has a circular pink sign on her door, divided into wedges, with each wedge labeled IN CLASS, AT THE LIBRARY, SHOPPING TILL I DROP — like that. The wedge labeled AT HOME — JUST KNOCK had a big purple thumbtack stuck into it. So we knocked; she opened the door immediately. She’s a little on the plain side, more than a little on the plump side. She was nicely dressed in khaki pants, a high-necked black cashmere sweater, and a string of pearls that looked real.
“Are you the police?” she asked. “Dean Collard called me about Maggie, and he said you might come by. Do you want to sit down?”
We sat in the thinly cushioned swivel chairs that evidently went with two narrow desks made from lacquered boards riveted to the wall. Pamela offered us Tang and crackers, and I was glad to accept — by now, I was really missing lunch.
She didn’t have much to say about last night. Maggie left the room yesterday afternoon, Pamela said, and came back looking great after her hairstyling and manicure, carrying a camelhair coat, black heels, and some clothes in a garment bag. No, Pamela didn’t think the things were new — she didn’t see any tags, so they must’ve been borrowed. Maggie fussed over her makeup for half an hour before heading for Sushi Gardens. Pamela ate dinner in the cafeteria, then went to the library to work on a term paper.
“It’s due Thursday,” she said, “and I’m, like, way behind. I planned to work all night. But around nine o’clock, Fletcher — that’s Fletcher Cantrell the Third — stopped by and happened to see me. Anyhows, we got talking, and he’s like, ‘Vertigo is showing at this art theater,’ and I’m like, ‘I love that film,’ and he’s like, ‘Wanna go?’ and I’m like, ‘Why not?’ And afterwards we stopped by his fraternity’s Hell Night party. Some guys were miffed with Fletcher for showing up late. He was the entertainment chair, or something, and he was supposed to bring some videos or something but I guess he got distracted cause we were having such a nice time.” She smoothed back her hair, sighing happily. “Anyhows, it was, like, two o’clock before I got back to the room. Maggie wasn’t here, so I figured she was staying at the Pi Alpha house. I didn’t check my messages until I got up for church this morning. When I found out Maggie never showed at Pi Alpha last night, I, like, freaked. Then Dean Collard called, and I, like, really freaked.”