“Because you said the Sixes was a group of girls, I first tried to think about stuff involving the coeds,” Hutch explained. “They usually don’t create much drama here—oh, sometimes they get drunk and throw up all over, and once I thought I was going to need a hose to break up a catfight between a couple of them.”
“Over a guy?” Phoebe asked.
Hutch smiled. “Yup. And I’m sure he probably wasn’t worth it. But I couldn’t recall anything directly involving a group of coeds. Girls just aren’t into pranks the way boys are.”
He took a swig of his own coffee and set the mug down on the thick wooden table.
“But then,” he said, “something popped into my mind when I was out with the dogs last night after supper. Early last fall, before I was handed my walking papers, a bunch of fellows at Lyle ended up with a big black check mark painted on their dorm-room doors over the course of a few days. They were all quick to report it because if the school thinks you’ve damaged your room yourself, you have to pay for the repairs out of your own pocket. I sent one of my deputies out to investigate. The boys claimed to have no idea who was responsible.
“Now, as you’ve probably figured out,” he continued, “kids don’t like to tattle on each other. But I ended up talking to some of these guys myself, and I got the feeling they really didn’t have a clue as to who was responsible. Last night I dug out my notes from that time. You see, I kept some records of my own over the years, in addition to what we had on file at h.q. And guess what?”
“What?” Phoebe asked. She sensed Hutch was stretching things out a bit, enjoying having her company and attention.
“Six doors had been painted in all.”
Another “signing” of the group perhaps, Phoebe thought. But what did it mean? “Was there any connection between the guys?” she asked. “Were they on the same sports team, for instance?”
“No, there wasn’t any obvious connection. Interestingly, though, the doors were in three different dorms, which seemed to suggest that it wasn’t all random—that the boys were targeted somehow.”
“That’s creepy,” Phoebe said. “Targeted for what, do you think?”
“Don’t know,” Hutch said, but Phoebe sensed he had something on his mind. He took another swig from his mug.
“Do people still use the word dork?” he asked.
Phoebe laughed a little. “I think so. Why?”
“Like I said, I spoke to all these guys myself. And I remember they all seemed kind of dorky or nerdy to me. The kind of guys who never went to the prom in high school and who are smart in things like statistics.”
“Did you think someone was bullying them?”
“The thought crossed my mind at the time, so I asked around a bit. Didn’t find anything.”
“Interesting,” Phoebe said. “Though I can’t see how it fits in.”
She glanced at her watch. It was after nine, and she needed to get her butt in motion. She wasn’t sorry she’d taken a detour to Hutch’s this morning—a connection with him could prove useful as she kept digging—but what he’d shared hadn’t amounted to much, and she was anxious to find Alexis. As Hutch escorted Phoebe down the driveway, with the dogs bounding alongside them, they agreed to keep each other in the loop. Then he told her he had one more piece of information to share that morning.
“That fella I mentioned the other day,” Hutch said. “The one who woke up in the river? I got his name for you. Wesley Hines. And I was right. He graduated last spring.”
Phoebe thanked him again, and before firing up the engine, she took a minute to program her GPS for the Crossgates Mall.
The first leg of the trip, just fifteen minutes long, took her down a two-lane road until she picked up the interstate to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The landscape constantly shifted as Phoebe drove. In between massive housing developments, which looked like eruptions of giant mushrooms, she passed sprawling old farms with silos and red barns, many with fields of dried corn stalks. Eventually a sign announced that she was now in Amish country. And then she spotted a hex sign, huge and ominous-looking, on the side of a barn.
At ten she made two calls as she drove. The first was to the Gap at the mall, asking for Alexis. Phoebe wanted to double check that Alexis was on duty today.
“She just ran down to the stockroom,” a young man replied. “Do you wanna hold?”
“No thanks—I’ll call back,” Phoebe told him.
The other was to Glenda’s assistant. Phoebe explained that as part of the investigation she was doing for Dr. Johns, she needed contact information on a former graduate, Wesley Hines. The assistant promised to e-mail Phoebe with it after she called alumni relations.
In Lancaster Phoebe picked up I-83 and headed south. The traffic was heavier here, bumper-to-bumper in places. Signs for Baltimore appeared. It all seemed so busy and oddly strange to her after the two months she’d spent sequestered in Lyle. She felt like a character in a movie who has been kidnapped and hidden someplace seemingly remote, only to discover when she escapes that the real world has been thundering by just outside the door the entire time.
Yet as surreal as the trip seemed at moments, she also felt energized. She had a mission, something she hadn’t had since before the plagiarism charges brought a halt to her world. Though she had no reason to be particularly optimistic about today, she told herself she would return with something vital after meeting with Alexis. She had to.
From time to time her mind found its way to Duncan. Last night in bed, she’d kept thinking about the sex with him, but she knew that more than lust was involved in her preoccupation. She liked the man. Maybe that was why she’d turned him down for dinner in the first place. Because she’d been fighting an attraction to him without even realizing it.
But where could this possibly lead? she asked herself. She’d be heading back to New York as early as January—and May at the latest. The last thing she needed was to become emotionally entangled with someone in Lyle. Besides, for all she knew, that was what he was avoiding as well—especially considering what he’d been through in the past two years.
Despite heavy traffic in spots, Phoebe made decent time, and at just after noon she pulled into the massive parking lot of the Crossgates Mall. It had been years since she had been to a suburban shopping mall, and she felt slightly overwhelmed when she stepped inside. There was a cacophony of sound—Muzak, reverberating voices, gushing water from the fountains—and visual noise too: endless signs, banners, and flags. Phoebe used the map to locate the Gap on the main floor, and after sliding on a pair of black sunglasses, she slipped into the store.
There were only a few customers inside, flipping through stacks of jeans and shirts. Phoebe moved toward a table piled with cotton turtlenecks and feigned fascination. After a moment she glanced up and let her eyes sweep around the store. At the moment there appeared to be only two salespeople on the floor—an African American woman in her forties and a white guy just out of his teens. No sign of a woman of about twenty. Maybe Alexis was in the stockroom again.
Phoebe moved a few feet to a table piled with sweaters. Minutes passed, and still no sign of Alexis. Just as she was starting to worry that she’d blown it somehow, Phoebe noticed a doorway that led to the Gap kids’ section. She sauntered toward it, and when she peered into the room, she saw a pretty brunette wearing a headset, folding tiny little sweaters. That’s got to be her, Phoebe thought.
She hung by the doorway of the kids’ room rather than going inside and drawing attention to herself. A short time later, the black woman drifted into the section and began talking to the brunette. Phoebe strained to hear, hoping the women might call each other by name, but it didn’t happen. By this point, though, it was clear there weren’t any other salespeople, and Phoebe was certain the brunette was Alexis.