Angel Food and Devil Dogs (36 page)

"OK, OK, I just wanted to know... come here." She moved closer to me along the couch. I took her in my arms and held her tightly, kissing her hair, "When you have it, is there anything I can do to help it go away?"

"I'm not sure about that either. No one has ever asked me that before," she said in a softer tone, relaxing in my arms and kissing my neck softly. "Did I thank you for giving me that wonderful massage last night? It was... please don't take this the wrong way... but it was almost as nice as making love. I only woke up once. That's rare for me."

I let go of her and got up. I took a soft pillow from the bed and sat back down with the pillow in my lap. "Lie down on your back and put your head on the pillow."

"Is this just a comfortable place for me to lie, or do you have something special in mind?" she said easing onto her back.

"If I stroke your face with this paint brush, will it relax you or will it tickle you and make you tense?"

"Do it."

I gently brushed the curves and contours of her face and throat for a long time. I could feel her head become heavier as her neck muscles eased. I concentrated on the beautiful lines of her face, the firm jaw, the elegant hairline, expressive eyes, her nose, her lips, and those cheekbones.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked lazily.

"About painting you. I'm thinking about how I would use the color and shadow to capture your mood and expression."

"Tell me what you'd be doing," she said quietly.

So as I moved the brush over the contours of her face, I described what each brush stroke would achieve. She enjoyed the narrative as much as the sensation; I'd have to remember that.

The firelight cast a golden glow over her features. As her expression changed from relaxation to anticipation, I used the paintbrush to trace along her clavicle and down her sternum. I opened her robe and used the brush on her breasts. She exhaled sharply as I discarded the brush and caressed her with my hand. When I reached down her body and slipped my fingers into the soft hair between her thighs, she responded at once. I stroked her slowly, taking my time. I whispered, "Come to me," in her ear. She began to make pleasure noises. Then she moaned softly, but just as she was close to letting go, the phone rang.

I cursed quietly.

Her eyes blinked open, she groaned with exasperation, "Buzzers and bells may be the death of us both."

It was after 11:00 PM. The answering machine clicked on but I could hear Max Bouchet's voice say it was an emergency. I got up and picked up the phone. Kathryn sat up, staring at me with concern.

"Yes, what is it Max? Rowlina Roth-Holtzmann? Is she dead? What hospital? Are the police there? Well, why not? Where are you?... Uh huh... Is the security guard that found her still with you? Uh huh... OK, I'll be there soon."

Bouchet had told me that Rowlina Roth-Holtzmann was found injured on one of the Irwin Campus sidewalks about forty-five minutes ago, by a security guard. When the guard knelt down by her, she mumbled to him that she'd been shot. He'd immediately called the paramedics and campus security headquarters. They'd called Bouchet. Bouchet was at the hospital now.

Bouchet said Rowlina was not seriously hurt but there was a bullet hole through her coat. An exit wound seemed to show that the bullet had just passed through the folds of material, not even grazing her. The doctors had determined that she'd fainted and hit her head on the sidewalk. There'd been minor bleeding from a small cut, but no serious damage other than a possible concussion.

I relayed all this information to Kathryn who listened with her chin propped on her arm on the back of the couch. "Where was she?" she asked.

"On the east side of College Street, not far from Washington."

"Can she speak? What was she doing out in the middle of the night?"

"Rowlina was very upset and not very coherent. I have to go. I'm so sorry... and just when you were about to..."

"I'll hold the thought," she smiled the half smile. We moved together for a lingering goodbye kiss, which made me even less eager to leave.

As I drove my van to the hospital, I had a very bad feeling about this latest incident. It wasn't just that another person had been hurt. It was something else I couldn't name. It was there though, bubbling in my stomach, a nasty sensation that was much scarier than Rowlina being used for target practice. But I couldn't put it all together. Not yet.

∞ ∞ ∞

The hospital lobby was hushed by the night. Dr. Rowlina Roth-Holtzmann was in room 410, barely awake. Max Bouchet and the security guard who'd found her were waiting with her.

"Maggie, it's good you're here," said Max in an impossibly loud whisper.

"Max, I'll talk to her and look at her coat with the bullet hole, but we have to call the police, it doesn't matter that she wasn't seriously hurt. I'm obligated to report it," I said this all very quietly so the other people in the room couldn't overhear. Bouchet nodded.

I went over to the bed where Rowlina lay under the covers in a hospital gown, "Dr. Roth-Holtzmann, I must ask you some questions and you must answer as fully as possible."

She stared up at me fearfully. She nodded but it hurt her head. She closed her eyes against the pain.

"Tell me what happened?"

She opened her eyes again and slowly began, "I was coming out of the building when I heard a shot. I turned around quickly and stumbled..." she said in a papery voice.

"Did you see or hear anyone?"

"No."

"What were you doing on campus so late?"

Rowlina glanced nervously at Max Bouchet and remained silent. I said, "Max, would you step out of the room and make that call? Oh, and would you take the guard with you? "

He wasn't happy about it, but he did it.

"Why were you on Campus so late?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, took a breath and said haltingly, "I had wanted... to speak to... someone... about a problem... a personal problem and from my car on College Street, the light of Kathryn Anthony, I had seen."

Kathryn's office light, her car in the Language Arts parking lot, and her habit of
burning the midnight oil
would cause anyone to think she was in her office. Probably, over the years, many lesbian coeds had gazed with desire at Kathryn's late night office lights. Had Rowlina hoped for a midnight tryst with Kathryn? I'll admit to a certain smugness in knowing that Kathryn was resting her beautiful head in my lap, while Rowlina prowled the night looking for her.

"What did you want to see her about?"

"A serious problem I have with... government officials... and as she knows the Governor..." Rowlina touched the bandage on her head. She went on, "but that has nothing to do with this. I don't know why..." she stopped again, "perhaps a robbery? There is no reason why anyone would want to shoot me. Perhaps it is that I merely imagined it?"

I opened the closet door. A dark gray suit and an acid green polyester blouse hung on hangers with her billowy dark wool coat and red shawl. Brown leather low-heeled shoes were on the floor. On a shelf was her ridiculous fox fur hat. One side of the hat was covered with blood, a grotesque wearable rendering of highway roadkill. Maybe she'd get rid of it now.

"What do you mean, you're in trouble with the government?" I asked inspecting the coat with my back to her.

"It is the Immigration... they do not think... but it has nothing to do with me..." she sobbed.

Fear had seeped out of all the creepy little corners of her life and it had begun to push her over the edge. She was barreling toward a breakdown. I inspected her coat. Through the outer right side, at the top of a wide pocket, was a bullet hole. Another hole in the back on the right side, showed the exit path. I folded the material and could easily imagine how the bullet could have passed through without hitting her. We needed the cops to comb the area to find the bullet. If it matched the one in Skylar Carvelle's wall, it would be an important piece of evidence.

"Tell me what you did, step by step, from the time you got in the area of the office building. Where had you come from?"

She said more alertly, "I parked my car at the Architecture Department in my regular space."

"Why did you park so far from Dr. Anthony's office?"

"I always park there. It is my spot, and it is not so very far away..." It was her parking place, she always parked there. Routine was part of her identity.

"I walked through the quad... and went into the... Language Arts Building through the quad side door. To the second floor offices, I went. But there was no answer when I knocked at the door of 208. Might Kathryn have been harmed in her office and that was why she did not..."

"No, she's not been harmed." Except when I bit her shoulder in the hot tub. I mentally slapped myself.
Pay attention.

Rowlina slumped back against a pillow. "That is all right then. Ah, and so... I came down the front stairs of the building..."

"Why did you come down a different way?"

Her head moved sluggishly as she did her best to form an answer, "Because it... had been very dark in the quad. I had not been safe-feeling and so on the street with lights, I wanted to walk."

She licked her lips. Finally she said, "So, then... when I came out, there was a shot and I turned around and fell... and then I woke when the guard was there."

"Tell me about the shot... did you hear anything before that?"

"Before the shot. Before...?" she looked bewildered but tried to think, "Yes, yes, so... I heard a click and then another louder click... I turned a little toward it, like so." Her eyes went to the left. "Aand then bang and then I think maybe running footsteps."

"You turned toward Washington Street? Straight along College Street toward Washington Street?" I asked leaning over the bed with my face close to hers, forcing her to keep eye contact.

"Yes, but a little back... toward the quad." She yawned fiercely. Her stale, smoke-tinged breath made me draw back sharply.

She was nearly asleep now. A nurse came in to check her vital signs. I went into the corridor to find Bouchet. He and the security guard were sitting on a couch down the hall. They both stood up expectantly. I spoke to the guard briefly who hadn't actually seen or heard anything but a small scream from Rowlina. I told him he could go, but that the police might want to speak with him.

I said to Bouchet, "She didn't see who shot her. The bullet holes in her coat are small. I'd say they're from a twenty-two. No powder burns, so the shooter had to be a few feet away. That jives with her story. She says she wanted to talk to Kathryn about a personal problem."

"What? I want to know. I won't tell," he said boyishly.

"Well, OK, Immigration may be after Rowlina because she married that guy on the West Coast to get him citizenship." I felt a little sorry for her. She hadn't married Holtzmann to break the law, just to close the closet door on herself. I wondered if she was being blackmailed on top of it all. Which of course made my mind flit to our resident blackmailer, Shel Druckenmacher. "Max, I need to go back to the College and see exactly where Rowlina was when this happened."

Bouchet said the police were on their way and I'd better get going. "I didn't mention you were here," he assured me.

"Good, show them the bullet holes in Rowlina's coat and suggest they go to the scene and search for the slug and spent shell. If it matches the bullet that killed Skylar Carvelle, then we'll have a clear link.

I left by the stairs, checking the lobby through the landing door window for police. I ducked when I caught sight of Ed O'Brien and two detectives striding across the lobby. They sped past the desk flashing their badges officially, on their way to the elevator.

When I heard the ding and swish of the elevator doors closing, I high-tailed it across the lobby to the exit.

∞ ∞ ∞

Was it just my imagination or did it seemed darker on College Street than usual? I parked next to Kathryn's Mini Cooper and surveyed the entire scene though my windshield.

It
was
darker
...
the bulb over the Language Arts Building door had been smashed. I looked up. The light in Kathryn's office was still on. The street was deserted. A cold gust of wind shook the van. I felt vulnerable sitting there in full view of anyone. I started the engine and drove to the Architectural Design Building, where Rowlina Roth-Holtzmann's office was. Her car was in the spot with her nameplate.

I parked in a dark corner. Unlike Rowlina, I felt safer in the dark. I took out my gun, undid the safety and held it down at my side as I walked toward the Language Arts Building, following a path through the quad that had been kept clear of snow by the overhanging roofs. I took my time, somehow managing to keep my mind off Kathryn, who was waiting for me in my nice warm bed. Playing hide and seek with someone who might shoot you is not the time for your mind to wander.

When I finally got to the path that went around to the front of the Language Arts Building, I moved more slowly, sensing every noise, shadow and smell. There was an odor of something cloying. Just a whiff, then it was gone. I could see where the shooter probably waited. There were bushes to the left of the entrance, there was even a low window ledge where someone could sit and watch the door. Below it were footprint indentations. Nothing very clear, too much mulch around the bushes and too little snow because of the overhanging roof.

So, I figured the killer shot and missed, but he or she didn't finish Rowlina off because when she fell, the killer probably thought she was dead, and then heard the guard coming. If Rowlina had been shot at by the killer, then the suspect list was down to just three... and the ever-possible wild card. It might also be possible that Rowlina set this whole thing up herself. It would divert suspicion from her and after all, she wasn't hurt and nobody saw the shooter. Oh shit, this is so damn complicated. Why does there have to be all this intrigue? Give me a gang drive-by anytime. Those are a breeze to figure out. Hell, the perps brag all over the street about them.

I tried to imagine each suspect waiting here in the cold dark night to kill Rowlina. But why kill her? Why even try to scare her? She was scared enough already. Whoever it was would have had to follow her here, watch her go in and then wait for her to come out. It didn't make sense. In the back of my mind parts of an idea were beginning to take form. If I could just get the outer edge done, maybe I could finish this jigsaw puzzle.