“Elise had a good voice,” June said. “If I may say so she had an excellent voice, but that doesn’t mean she could have had a career as a singer. You know how hard it is to do that. I think she was realistic about it.”
“So Donna and Elise got along well together,” I said.
“Very well,” Eric said. “They’ve known each other since the beginning of Elise’s freshman year at Crescent Heights.”
“I understand that Elise lived in a dormitory last year, even though your house is only a few miles from the college.”
“She needed to spread her wings,” June said. “We don’t have all that much money and for a long time it looked like she would have to live at home and maybe go to community college. Or take on large student loans. But we’ve always been thrifty and we didn’t like that idea. But then this scholarship came through…”
“Elise was the smart one in the family,” Eric said. “But she was awful young to live away from home. Maybe if she had been living at home, this would never have happened.”
“And then there was her boyfriend,” I said, hoping to keep Eric from dissolving, which it appeared he might do.
“His name is Ted,” June said. “He’s a nice enough boy, but he’s a bit of a wimp, if you ask me.”
“Ted is no wimp,” Eric said. “He’s just got good values. He’s even gone out with me on patrol.”
“That’s what I mean,” June said. “That’s a strange occupation for a 21-year-old. Do you know about this patrol business, Lillian?”
“You mean the website and the license plates. Eric told me about that.”
“He tells everybody who will listen. If you ask me, there are better ways he could spend his time. Such as earning some money.”
“Nobody asked you, woman.”
“How did Ted feel about the harassment charge?” I asked.
“He didn’t like it, of course,” Eric said. “Who would? He knew about it before we did. Just like you. It seems like we were the last to know.”
“Elise didn’t want you to go out and hunt down Dr. Pappas,” June said. “You’re so volatile.” She turned to me. “It isn’t all his fault. His leg pains him a lot. But as far as Ted’s reaction, I think that could be a problem. He was funny about things like that. He thinks everybody should be a virgin when they get married.”
“Girls should be virgins when they get married,” Eric said.
“Don’t get started on that,” June said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
She quickly mentioned other peculiarities that Ted had. We chatted about Ted for a few more minutes, but I didn’t learn anything more.
When that subject had exhausted itself I said, “How did you hear about Elise? Did the police come here in the middle of the night?”
“Donna called,” June said. “It was awful. She was hysterical. I was here but Eric was out on patrol. I had been asleep. I have to get up early to go to work. What a phone call to receive when your husband’s not here.” She looked at him, accusingly.
Eric looked guilty for a moment, but then he said, “It’s not my fault if the best pickings at the bars are in the late evening. But I agree it would have been better if I had been here. When I returned she was all collapsed on the couch. She could hardly tell me what happened.”
“And then you went to Elise’s apartment?” I asked.
“They wouldn’t let us look at her,” June said. “It was probably just as well. I don’t think I could have stood it, the way they said she looked. They said Donna had identified her.”
“Did you call Ted?”
“That wasn’t until later,” Eric said. “The police talked to us for a long time first. And some newspaper people. We were even on TV. When something bad happens all the sharks gather, attracted by the blood.
“Eric, don’t talk about blood.” June looked pale.
The talk wasn’t doing me any good, either. I thanked them for their time and got up to leave.
Chapter 17
“Lillian, come look at this.”
“What are you doing up so early?” I asked Mark as I hung up my coat. I had just finished taking King for her morning walk around Silver Acres. It wasn’t yet 7 a.m. Thankfully, the rain had stopped.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Mark had worked as a bartender the night before and must have gotten home very late. I walked back to my sunroom, where he maneuvered the mouse on his computer. I asked, “How did your hearing go yesterday?”
“Impossible to tell. I told my story to a sea of expressionless faces. They didn’t give me any feedback. I felt as if I were talking to a wall. I gave them a taped copy of the message Elise left for you. They said they had already heard it. The police evidently played it for them. They told me they’d let me know their decision.”
“Great. What have you found on the Internet?”
I decided to check today’s Bethany Bugle to see if it had anything new. And look what I found.”
When we had investigated getting a subscription to the Bethany Bugle Mark had found out that they published on the Internet as well as in print. That meant we could have immediate access to each edition-they published twice a week-instead of having to wait for mail delivery since we were outside the geographical area for home delivery.
Mark still wore his nightclothes, which consisted of an old pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He had extended my telephone line from the study, which also contained the spare bed where he slept, to the sunroom, and hooked it up to the modem inside his computer. That allowed the computer to dial up the Internet, as he had explained to me. I sat on the sofa beside him and said, “Is there something new on the investigation?”
“Not exactly on the investigation, but it certainly concerns one of the players. Read this headline.”
The headline for the article read, “Crescent Heights Coed Moonlights as Stripper.” The article started out, “Not many science majors have a part-time job like the one that Donna Somerset had until last week. In addition to maintaining a 3.5 grade-point average, Donna worked nights at Club Cavalier as an exotic dancer, which means she danced topless, with not much on the bottom, using the alias of the Shooting Star.”
There was a picture of her, but not in her dancing outfit. I skimmed the rest of the article. It told how she had disguised herself with a wig and a mask because, as she said, she didn’t think her parents and some of her friends would approve of what she was doing. When asked why she went public about her job, she said that the police had received a tip that Elise Hoffman had been the Shooting Star. Donna felt she had to set the record straight because this could have an effect on the murder investigation and also because she wanted to protect Elise’s reputation. Elise had been a good girl.
At one point in the article Donna was quoted as saying, “The only time I feel in control of my life is when I’m dancing.” What did she mean by that?
“Well, her secret is certainly out,” I said, as I finished skimming the article.
“It sounds as if you already knew about this,” Mark said, eyeing me, suspiciously.
“Donna asked me not to tell you about it. She said it would be just too embarrassing if you knew. She has a crush on you, you know.”
“In today’s world, crushes can only get the crushee into trouble,” Mark said in an irritated voice. “Well, I realize that you’re way ahead of me on this, but how does the fact that Elise wasn’t the Shooting Star affect the investigation?”
“Unfortunately, probably adversely for you because it eliminates some of the suspects. For example, anybody connected with Club Cavalier. And Elise’s father.”
“Are you saying that Elise’s father would only be a suspect if Elise had been the Shooting Star and he had known about it?”
“That’s about right. As far as the harassment issue, he apparently didn’t know about that until after she was killed. And he would have been more likely to kill you than her, based on that alone.”
“That’s comforting. Do I need a bodyguard?”
“Just don’t go near his dog. He’s big enough to eat you in a couple of bites.” I gave him a brief rundown on my visit to the Hoffmans’ place the day before.