A Faint Cold Fear (12 page)

'Your work could help people one day,' she said, but Jeffrey sensed some animosity in her tone. This wouldn't be the first time a wife resented her husband working long hours.

'That's his car in the driveway?' Jeffrey asked the mother. He noticed Keller look away.

Rosen said, 'We'd just bought it for him. Something to… I don't know. Brian wanted to reward him for doing so well.'

The unsaid implication was that Rosen had not agreed with her husband's decision. The car was an extravagant purchase, and professors were hardly millionaires. Jeffrey guessed he was probably paid more money than Keller, which was not a hell of a lot.

Jeffrey asked, 'Did he usually drive it to school?'

'It was easier walking,' Rosen said. 'Sometimes we all walked over together.'

'Did he tell you where he was going yesterday morning?'

'I was already at the clinic,' Rosen answered. 'I assumed he would be home all day. When Lena came…'

Her tone of voice put a familiarity on Lena's name that Jeffrey would have liked to pursue, but he could think of no way to introduce it into the conversation.

Jeffrey took out his notebook instead, confirming, 'Andy worked for you, Dr. Keller?'

'Yes,' Keller answered. 'There wasn't much for him to do, but I didn't want him spending a lot of time by himself at home.'

Rosen added, 'He helped at the clinic as well. Our receptionist isn't that reliable. Sometimes he would man the desk or do some filing.'

Jeffrey wondered, 'Did he ever have access to patient information?'

'Oh, never,' Rosen said, as if the thought alarmed her. 'That's kept under lock and key. Andy handled expense reports, scheduling, phone calls. That sort of thing.' Her voice trembled. 'It was just busywork to keep him occupied during the day.'

'The same at the lab,' Keller provided. 'He wasn't really qualified to help with research. That work belongs to the graduate students.' Keller sat up, hands on his knees. 'I just wanted him close so I could keep an eye on him.'

'You were worried he would do something like this?'

Jeffrey asked.

'No,' Rosen said. 'Or, I don't know. Perhaps subconsciously I thought he might be considering it. He was acting very strange lately, like he was concealing something.'

'Did you have any idea what he was hiding?'

'No telling,' she said with true regret. 'Boys that age are difficult. Girls, too, for that matter. They're trying to make the transition between being a teenager and being an adult. Parents go back and forth between being a liability and a crutch, depending on the day of the week.'

'Or whether or not he needs cash,' Keller added.

The parents smiled at this, like it was a shared joke between them.

Keller asked, 'Do you have a son, Chief Tolliver?'

'No.' Jeffrey sat back, not liking the question. When he was younger, Jeffrey never thought he would want a kid of his own. Knowing Sara's circumstances, he had put it out of his mind. Something about the last case he had worked on with Lena had made Jeffrey wonder what it would be like to be a father.

Keller said, 'They'll tear your heart out,' in a hoarse whisper, dropping his head into his hands. Rosen seemed to go through some silent debate with herself before reaching over and rubbing his back. Keller looked up, surprised, as if she had just given him some kind of gift.

Jeffrey waited a few moments before asking, 'Did Andy tell you that he was having problems coping?'

They both shook their heads. 'Was there someone or something that might have been upsetting him?'

Keller shrugged. 'He was trying very hard to forge his own identity.' He waved his hand toward the back of the house. 'That was why we let him live over the garage.'

'He was taking an interest in art,' Rosen said. She pointed to the wall behind Jeffrey.

'Nice.' Jeffrey glanced at the canvas, trying not to do a double take. The drawing was a rather one-dimensional rendering of a nude woman reclining on a rock. Her legs were wide open, her genitals the only color in the picture, so that it looked as if she had a plate of lasagna between her thighs.

'He had a real gift,' Rosen said.

Jeffrey nodded, thinking that only a deluded mother or the editor of Screw magazine would think whoever drew the picture had a gift. He turned around, his eyes finding Keller. The man looked squeamishly uncomfortable, mirroring Jeffrey's own reaction.

'Did Andy date much?' Jeffrey asked, because as detailed as the drawing was, the boy seemed to have missed some important parts.

'Not that we know of Rosen answered. 'We never saw anyone going to his room, but the garage is in the back of the house.'

Keller glanced at his wife before saying, 'Jill thinks he could have been doing drugs again.'

Jeffrey told them, 'We found some paraphernalia in his room.' He did not wait for the question Rosen was obviously about to ask. 'Squares of tinfoil and a pipe.

There's no telling when they were last used.'

Rosen slumped, and her husband wrapped his arm around her, holding her close to his chest. Still, she seemed apart from him, and Jeffrey wondered again about the condition of their marriage.

Jeffrey continued, 'There was nothing else in his room that pointed to a drug problem.'

'He had mood swings,' Keller said. 'Sometimes he would be very melancholy. Sullen. It was hard to tell if it was from drugs or just his natural disposition.'

Jeffrey thought now was as good a time as any to bring up Andy's piercings. 'I noticed he had a pierced eyebrow.'

Keller rolled his eyes. 'It nearly killed his mother.'

'His nose, too,' Rosen added with a disapproving frown. 'I think he had something done to his tongue recently. He wouldn't show me, but he kept chewing it.'

Jeffrey pressed, 'Anything else unusual?'

Keller and Rosen both looked at him in wide-eyed innocence. Keller spoke for both of them. 'I don't think there was anything else left to pierce!' he said, not exactly laughing.

Jeffrey moved along. 'What about the suicide attempt in January?'

'In retrospect, I'm not sure he meant anything by it,' Keller said. 'He knew that Jill would find the note when she woke that morning. He timed it so she would find him before anything got desperate.' The father paused. 'We thought he was just trying to get our attention.'

Jeffrey waited for Rosen to say something, but her eyes were closed, her body folded into her husband's.

Keller said, 'He acted out sometimes. He didn't think of the ramifications.'

Rosen did not protest.

Keller shook his head. 'I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say something like that.'

'No,' Rosen whispered. 'It's true.'

'We should have noticed,' Keller insisted. 'There must have been something.'

Death was bad enough, but suicides were always particularly horrible for the people who were left behind. Either the survivors blamed themselves for not seeing the signs or they felt betrayed by their selfish loved ones who'd left them to clean up the mess. Jeffrey imagined that Andy Rosen's parents would spend the rest of their lives swinging back and forth between the two emotions.

Rosen sat up, wiping her nose. She took another tissue out of the box and dried her eyes. 'It's a wonder you found anything in that apartment at all,' she said.

'He was so messy.' She had been trying to collect herself, but something about her words brought it all back to her.

Rosen broke down slowly, her mouth twitching as she tried to hold back her sobs, until she finally covered her face with her hands.

Keller put his arm around his wife again, pulling her close. 'I'm so sorry,' he said, burying his face in her hair. 'I should have been here,' he said. 'I should have been here.'

They stayed like this for several minutes, as if Jeffrey were no longer there.

He cleared his throat. 'I thought I'd go out back and look at the apartment, if you don't mind.'

Keller was the only one to look up. He nodded his head, then went back to comforting his wife. Rosen slumped into him. She could have been a rag doll in his hands.

Jeffrey turned to leave, coming face-to-face with Andy's reclining nude. There was something oddly familiar about the woman that he could not place.

Aware that he might be gawking, Jeffrey let himself out of the house. He wanted to follow up with Keller and find out exactly what it was the man could not speak about in front of his wife. He also needed to talk to Ellen Schaffer again. Maybe getting some distance from the crime scene had helped jog her memory.

Jeffrey stopped in front of the Mustang, admiring its lines again. Washing the car this early in the morning so soon after Andy Rosen's death was odd, but certainly not a crime. Maybe Keller had done it to honor his son. Maybe he'd been trying to hide evidence, though Jeffrey was hard-pressed to think of anything that could connect the car to this crime.

Other than the attack on Tessa Linton, Jeffrey was not even sure a crime had been committed.

He leaned down, running his hand over the tire treads. The road leading to the parking pad by the bridge was paved, and the pad itself was gravel. Even if they were able to match treads, Andy might have driven the car to the site himself a hundred times before. Jeffrey knew from patrol reports that the area was a prime make-out spot.

Jeffrey flipped open his phone to call Frank but stopped when he noticed Richard Carter coming up the walk carrying a large casserole dish in his hands.

Richard's face broke into a wide grin when he saw Jeffrey, but then he seemed to catch himself and put on a more serious expression.

'Dr. Carter,' Jeffrey said, trying to sound pleasant.

Jeffrey had more important things to do than field prying questions so Richard could look like a big man on campus.

Richard said, 'I made a casserole for Brian and Jill.

Are they in?'

Jeffrey glanced back at the house, thinking of the oppressive atmosphere, the raw grief the parents were experiencing now. 'Maybe now wouldn't be the right time.'

Richard's face fell. 'I just wanted to help.'

'They're pretty upset,' Jeffrey told him, wondering how he could ask Richard some questions about Brian Keller without looking obvious about it. Knowing how Richard operated, he decided to approach the subject from a different angle. 'Were you friends with Andy?' he asked, thinking that Richard could not have been more than eight or nine years older than the boy.

'God, no.' Richard guffawed. 'He was a student.

Barring that, he was an obnoxious brat.'

Jeffrey had gathered as much about Andy Rosen on his own, but he was surprised by the vehemence behind Richard's words. He asked, 'But you're pretty close to Brian and Jill?'

'Oh, they're great,' Richard said. 'Everybody likes everybody on campus. The whole faculty is like a little family.'

'Yeah,' Jeffrey agreed. 'Brian seems like a solid family man.'

'Oh, he is,' Richard agreed. 'The best father in the world to Andy. I wish I'd had a father like that.' There was an edge of curiosity to his voice, and Jeffrey could tell that Richard had realized he was being questioned.

With this realization came a sense of power, and Richard had a smirk on his face as he waited for Jeffrey to ask him for dirt.

Jeffrey jumped in with both feet. 'They seem to have a good marriage.'

Richard twisted his lips to the side. 'You think?'

Jeffrey did not answer, and Richard seemed to take this as a good thing.

'Well,' Richard began, 'I don't like to spread rumors…'

Jeffrey suppressed the bullshit that wanted to come.

'And it was just that a rumor. I never saw anything to give it credence, but I can tell you that Jill was acting mighty strange around Brian at the last department Christmas party.'

'Y'all are in the same department?'

'Like I said,' Richard reminded him. 'small campus.'

Jeffrey stared silently, which was all the encouragement Richard needed.

'There was rumor of a problem a while back.'

He seemed to need Jeffrey to say something, so Jeffrey provided, 'Yes?'

'Mind you, just a rumor.' He paused like a true showman. 'About a student.' Again he paused. 'A female student.'

'An affair?' Jeffrey guessed, though it was hardly a difficult leap. This would certainly be something that Keller would not want to talk about in front of his wife, especially if Rosen already knew about it. Jeffrey knew from his own experience that Sara's even alluding to the circumstances that had ended their marriage made him feel like he was dangling his feet over the Grand Canyon.

'Do you know the girl's name?'

'No idea, but if you believe the gossip, she transferred after Jill found out.'

Jeffrey was dubious, and he was sick of people holding things back. 'Do you remember what she looked like? What her major was?'

'I'm not sure if I believe she even existed. As I said, it was just a rumor.' Richard frowned. 'And now I feel bad for talking out of school.' He laughed at the double meaning.

'Richard, if there's something you're not telling me…'

'I've told you everything I know. Or at least heard.

Like I said-'

'It was just a rumor,' Jeffrey completed.

'Was there anything else?' Richard asked, a pronounced pout to his lips.

Jeffrey decided to parry. 'That's nice of you to bring them food.'

The corners of Richard's mouth turned down. 'I know when my mother passed away a few years ago, having people bring things was like a ray of sunshine in what was arguably the darkest period of my life.'

Jeffrey played back Richard's words in his head, alarms going off like crazy.

'Chief?' Richard asked.

'Sunshine,' Jeffrey said. Now he knew what was so familiar about Andy Rosen's lewd drawing. The girl in the picture had a sunburst tattooed around her belly button.

A patrol car and Frank Wallace's unmarked Taurus were parked outside Ellen Schaffer's sorority house when Jeffrey pulled up, though Jeffrey had asked for neither.

'Shit,' Jeffrey said, pulling into the space by Frank's car. He knew that something was horribly wrong even before he saw two girls coming out of the dorm with their arms around each other, sobbing.