“Pretty good, thanks.”
She waited while he ordered a coffee himself and walked out with him onto the quad. It was much cooler today than yesterday, and the wind was driving crinkly maple and oak leaves across the grass. Students were bundled up.
“I take it you didn’t check the weather forecast last night,” he said with a smile, nodding toward her lightweight coat. Duncan himself was wearing a suede jacket.
“Um, actually I bunked down at Glenda’s last night.” She relayed the story about the apples.
“That’s pretty damn nervy,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Shouldn’t you turn this investigation back over to the administration?”
“I think I’m okay for now.” His concern was making her feel anxious. “So the memorial’s tonight. Do you think there’ll be a big turnout?”
“I would guess so. Are you going?” He seemed to study her closely. Her hair was whipping around her face, and she could feel that the tip of her nose was reddening from the cold.
“Yes. Definitely.”
“By the way, thanks again for dinner Sunday night,” he said. He held her eyes, as if he was about to say something else, and she thought, Okay, here it comes—a request to get together again—but suddenly he broke his gaze and glanced at a group of students rushing by. “Oops, I’ve got a student meeting now. Take care—and please be careful, okay?”
She watched as he dashed across campus, his strides long and easy. She felt a twinge of disappointment. She’d wanted that invitation, she realized.
Taking sips of her coffee as she walked, she made her way to the small building on the eastern edge of campus that housed security. Since a student had just died, she expected to step into a scene of jangling phones and tense activity, but the room was quiet and there were only two people there—a pretty young woman manning the front desk and an older man, probably early seventies, on the other side of it. He was wearing a parka plastered with strands of yellow dog fur. It was clear Phoebe had interrupted a conversation between the two, but the man stepped off to the side to let Phoebe speak, as if he had the time to wait. He was tall, with a large frame, but there was something hat-in-hand about his stance.
“Is Officer Ball available?” Phoebe asked the girl at the desk.
“I’m sorry, he’s not,” she said with a light southern accent. “But if you leave a message, I’ll make sure he gets it.”
Phoebe offered her name and number, which the girl typed into the desktop computer, her nails clacking against the keys. Phoebe started to leave but then turned back. “Oh, just one more thing,” she said. “I need a locksmith. Can you make a recommendation?”
“Mmmm, lemme see,” the girl said, sliding open the top drawer of her desk. “I’ve got some cards in here.”
“You lock yourself out?” the old guy said. Gruff voice, but his nearly translucent blue eyes were kind.
“No, just want to change one of my locks,” Phoebe said.
“There’s a place called Reliable Locks over on Broad. Tell them Hutch sent you.”
“Thanks a lot,” Phoebe said. She realized that this must be Hutch Hutchinson, the security head that Ball had nudged out of his job.
As Phoebe pushed the door open to leave, she could sense the old guy sidling back up to the desk.
“Well, tell Craig I stopped by again,” she heard him say. His comment was followed by the sound of his parka being zipped.
“I will, Hutch,” the girl said almost tenderly. “I’m so sorry he hasn’t had a chance to call you back. It’s been just crazy around here, you know.”
Outside on the path, Phoebe called directory assistance on her phone and learned the exact address of the locksmith. She could swing by there right now, she thought. She was putting her phone back into her purse when she nearly collided with Hutchinson. In the bright light of day she saw that his face was leathered with age, but thanks to his striking blue eyes and thick head of gray hair, he was still a handsome man.
“You’re the former head of campus security, right?” Phoebe said. “I’m Phoebe Hall, an old friend of Glenda’s. I’m teaching a couple of classes here this term.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Hutch said and pumped her hand with a firm grip.
“Glenda tells me you did a great job here.”
“Well, I sure enjoyed working with Dr. Johns,” Hutch said. “She’s one of the best things that ever happened to this college.”
“Do you still keep in touch with many people on campus?” Phoebe said, thinking of the comment he’d made inside about stopping by again.
“Not so much. But with this girl drowning, I thought they could use an extra pair of hands in the investigation.” He didn’t add that Craig was obviously not responding to his overtures. She bet Craig would rather be caught drinking a cocktail with a pink umbrella in it than encourage any help from his former boss.
“What’s your take on the situation?” Phoebe asked.
Hutchinson puffed up his chest, clearly pleased to be asked. “Hard to say when I don’t know any details. Could be suicide, but when a young lady ends up dead, there’s often a guy in play. Could be a bad catch she picked up in a bar—or a boyfriend she dumped. One of the most dangerous things for a girl this age is breaking up with a guy who doesn’t want to be broken up with.”
Interesting, Phoebe thought. “Someone in the administration has a theory there’s a serial killer on the loose,” she said, deciding it was okay to mention it to him.
Hutchinson harrumphed. “By definition, then, I’d say there’d have to be more than one dead body.”
“There was another drowning, though, right? The spring before last?”
Hutchinson looked off and didn’t say anything
“Scott Macus,” he said after a few seconds. “A crying shame about that. But the cops ruled that an accident. Besides, there’s a year and a half between the two deaths. Serial killers like a cooling-off period, but it’s rarely that long.”
He tilted his head and scratched his neck with a knotted finger.
“Unless,” he added, “you count the kid who ended up in the river but survived.”
Phoebe felt cold in her thin jacket. “When was that?” she asked.
“Last November, just before I retired. A kid came into the security office one night, sopping wet and shivering his butt off. A senior, I recall. Said he’d come to in the river and didn’t know how he’d gotten there. Last thing he remembered was being at that damn bar, Cat Tails. He managed to kick off his shoes and swim to shore. I wasn’t on duty that night, but I followed up with him the next day. He didn’t have a scratch on him, so there was no indication of foul play. My determination was that he’d been inebriated and had fallen in accidentally.”
My God, Phoebe thought. Cat Tails was the bar that both Lily and Scott Macus had last been seen in. Could there be a serial killer?
“Does Craig know about this?”
“It’s in the database, but since he didn’t handle the call, he might not know to look there.”
“Should you tell him?”
He smiled. “Craig doesn’t seem to care about what I have to say. Besides, in my opinion, if you put a college next to a river, kids are always gonna fall in. This serial killer angle seems pretty out of the box to me.”
“I have another question for you,” Phoebe said, knowing he wouldn’t mind. “Glenda asked me to look into whether there may be a secret society of girls on campus, called the Sixes. Ever hear anything like that?”
Hutch cocked his head, clearly surprised.
She continued. “They apparently sometimes leave their mark—for instance, the number six painted on a wall, or six objects clustered together.”
Hutch shook his head. “Nope, never got wind of anything like that. But I’ll keep my ears open.”