Polished Off (28 page)

He nodded reluctantly. “What is your interest in Ms. Oliver?”

“I just need her phone number,” I said, not wanting to color his opinion of his student by mentioning she might be sabotaging the pageant.

“I can’t give it to you, Grace,” Kwasi said in a reproving tone. “The students have an expectation of privacy.” He pursed his lips.

Reluctantly, I explained why I needed the number. “It’s important. What if she’s planning something for tonight’s competition? Someone could get hurt. If you don’t give me her number, I’ll have to give her name to the police.”

He shook his head. “I have trouble believing that Ms. Oliver is a threat to anyone, but if you believe she is, then you should take your concerns to the authorities. I will not betray her trust by giving you access to her personal data.”

It’s a phone number, I wanted to say, not her social security number or her diary. I switched tacks. “You knew Audrey Faye better than you let on, didn’t you? Someone overheard you arguing, heard Audrey say something about ‘what happened at Berkeley.’ Why haven’t you told the police about your prior relationship with her?”

He stiffened and his eyes narrowed. “You take a lot for granted, Grace. My relationship, or lack thereof, with Audrey Faye or anyone else is none of your business. Ditto for what I may or may not have told the police. If you must know, I was surrounded by students from late afternoon until well past the time of Audrey’s death. I believe several of them have already corroborated this for the police.”

The coldness in his voice intimidated me, but I kept on. “Does Althea know why you left Berkeley?”

He removed his glasses and polished them with a cloth he took from a desk drawer. “Are you implying you do?” he asked, pushing the glasses back up his nose.

I didn’t answer.

A sardonic smile twisted his lips. “Whatever you may have heard, I repeat: it’s none of your business.”

“Althea’s my friend,” I said heatedly. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“If you were really a friend, you would respect her enough to trust her judgment.”

This was not going the way I had planned. Trying to come to grips with Kwasi was like wrestling the greased pig at the county fair. Every time I thought I had a grasp on him, he slid off in another direction. Time was zipping past and I still didn’t have a way to reach Daphne.

“Can you please just give me Daphne’s phone number?” I asked, tacitly giving up on discovering what lay between him and Audrey. If she knew about his plagiarism and was threatening to reveal it, that would give him a darn good motive to kill her since it might well cost him his job. Still, it sounded like he had a rock-solid alibi. “Althea’s the one who suggested you would have it.”

“Are you implying that you’ll tell Althea whatever you think you know about my sojourn at Berkeley if I don’t give you the number?” His thumb tapped rapidly against his desk.

“Of course not!” I stood up angrily, accidentally knocking a stack of papers off the corner of his desk. They cascaded to the floor and I felt like a clumsy idiot. Damn. “I’m sorry!” I didn’t like having to apologize when I was furious with him.

“It wouldn’t matter if you were,” he said, shooing me away from the papers when I bent to pick them up. “You won’t get Daphne’s—or any other student’s—phone number from me.” He managed to make his stubbornness sound as noble as a freedom fighter’s refusal to give up his comrades under torture.

I spun around and left, not even bothering with a goodbye. The man was infuriating, even though I couldn’t help admiring—a teensy-weensy bit—the way he stuck to his principles. The concept of an ethical plagiarist made my head hurt. The way he refused to give me any information . . . wait a minute! He
had
given me an important piece of info: Daphne’s real last name. I fumbled for my cell phone and called information, netting a phone number and address for Daphne Oliver. Hah!

 

 

I CALLED DAPHNE’S NUMBER BUT GOT NO ANSWER. Darn the girl. If I hadn’t simultaneously felt so sorry for what she’d been through and worried about what she might do, I’d have dropped it. Instead, I drove to the Davenport Apartments, just blocks from the college, and knocked on the door. Cream paint was peeling from it, revealing a puce layer beneath. Tiny balconies fronted the second-floor apartments, and Daphne’s first-floor abode had a cement patio with a George Foreman grill and an aluminum folding chair. I was about to knock again when I heard footsteps. Hallelujah.

But my celebration was premature. The girl who opened the door was not Daphne. She was about Daphne’s age but was shorter and African American, wearing shorts and a tube top that emphasized a thick waist and generous bosom. A weighty biology textbook rested in the crook of her arm. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for Daphne. Is she here?”

“No.”

Miss Monosyllable started to close the door, but I asked, “Do you know where she is? I really need to talk to her.”

She shifted the book and sighed heavily. “What’s today? Friday? She doesn’t have class. And I don’t think she’d be at the library on a Friday afternoon.”

Great. She was going to list all the places Daphne was
not,
one at a time.

“She might be over to the theater with those protestors.” She put a verbal sneer into the last word.

“You don’t agree with her about beauty contests?”

“Do I look like beauty pageant material?” Thankfully, she didn’t wait for an answer. “Damn straight I don’t. So if I were to protest beauty pageants, it would look like I was just envious of girls who were ahead of me in line when they were handing out Barbie bodies and long eyelashes. I’m a straight-A student and I’ve been accepted to Wharton for my MBA. I don’t have time for pageants
or
protesting. Try the theater.”

I stared at a bouncing curlicue of peeling paint on the closed door. Fine. I’d tried to help Daphne, but I had limited resources for my detecting. It was time to let the professionals in on it. I dialed Agent Dillon’s number as I returned to the car.

“We’ve talked to the Wissings, of course,” he said when I explained my fears. “In fact, Thad Wissing was on our short list before we nabbed Michaelson; he blames the pageant and everyone associated with it for his daughter’s death and he has no alibi for either murder.”

I was relieved but a bit deflated to realize the police were ahead of me. “So what about Daphne?”

“I didn’t realize there was another daughter in the area,” he admitted. “The son lives in Arizona and has a rock-solid alibi for the time of Faye’s death. His last name’s Oliver, too. All the kids except Leda kept their dad’s name when their mom remarried. The youngest daughter’s doing a semester abroad in New Zealand.” He hissed air through his teeth. “I don’t like it that the Wissings didn’t mention this Daphne.”

I didn’t like it, either. “Do you think the same person is responsible for everything—ruining the gowns, the skunk, the murders?”

“The jury’s still out on that,” he said. “Michaelson looks good for the murders but I can’t see him hacking up ball gowns. Unless, of course, he’s trying to muddy the waters.”

I told him about Morgan Smith being hounded out of the pageant the year Leda died. I felt a bit like a snitch, but couldn’t reconcile it with myself not to mention her when she had motive, means, and opportunity.

“Sounds like a long shot,” he said dismissively, “but I’ve heard stranger motives. I’ll put her name on the to-do list for when one of my guys has time. Maybe I’ll see you at the pageant tonight.”

And with that he hung up, leaving me uneasy. Dillon’s planning to be at the theater told me he was worried that something might happen. He could add two and two just as well as Marty and I and could figure out that the sabotage incidents were getting more extreme. On impulse, I drove to the theater again, pulling around to the lot in the back. No cats lingered near the Dumpster today and there were no cars in the lot. I drove slowly past the back of the building, looking for reassurance that the theater was secure and no surprises awaited us that night. Something shiny winked from the newly weed-whacked grass near the door I’d found open the day before. Marv must have mown it when he put on the padlock. With a little trepidation, I put the car in park but left it running, getting out to see what had caught my eye.

A lock. I nudged it with my foot. A brand-new padlock with the shackle twisted in two, probably by the bolt cutters lying almost concealed against the building. I crept to the door which hung open a bare inch. The raw scent of gasoline stung my nostrils and I cringed back. I was turning away, headed for my car and my cell phone, when a faint voice inside the theater yelled, “Help!”

I froze, one foot literally an inch off the ground as the panicked voice cried, “I’m trapped! Please help! Someone!”

Taking a deep breath, I plunged into the building.

“WHERE ARE YOU?” I CALLED, STUMBLING ACROSS the crowded basement to the stairs. I banged my shin on the spinning wheel. “Ouch!” I hopped the remaining distance to the stairs and started to climb. The gasoline smell grew stronger as I went, but thankfully I smelled no smoke.

Cautiously, I opened the door to find a single light burning in the hallway. Thank goodness. I’d been afraid it would be pitch-black like yesterday. The meager light showed great splotches of liquid staining the walls and carpet, like someone had sloshed a gasoline can around indiscriminately. I followed the trail of gasoline blotches and was unsurprised when it led to the Green Room.

“Hello? Are you okay?” I called. I hesitated in the hall, made uneasy by the lack of response. I finally forced myself to push at the door, thinking Daphne—I was sure it was her—had been overcome by the gas fumes.

She stood with her back to me, calmly emptying the last of a five-gallon red container of gasoline over an overstuffed chair by the window that faced the parking lot. Cutoff denim shorts dripped strings down the back of her thighs and her sandy hair was caught in a ponytail at her neck. A green tee shirt with a “Save the Rainforest” message on it showed sweat stains in the small of her back and under her arms. She dropped the empty can, sniffed at her fingers, and then caught sight of me.

“That’s okay, then,” she said, with no expression in her voice or on her face.

Absolutely nothing in this scenario was okay. Least of all me and her standing in a room primed to burst into flames. My head ached from the fumes. “What’s okay?” I asked, starting toward her, intent on dragging her out of the theater.

“You. Here. I just needed to make sure you wouldn’t sound the alarm until the fire had truly taken hold. Nothing else worked. I’ve got to burn this place to the ground. Then it will be over.” She pulled a blue disposable lighter from her jeans pocket. “Dad’s. He took up smoking after Leda . . . well, you know.”

“Lighting that in here would be suicidal,” I said, freezing. The fumes would ignite instantaneously. Could I jump her and overpower her before she could flick the lighter? The gap between us was too wide.

“Oh, I know that,” she said. She giggled. The sound was eerie coming from a face with almost no affect—no smile, no hint of mirth. “I’m not going to light it in here. I’m going to light it out there”—she pointed to the hall—“and toss it in here. You can come with me.”

Come with her? I was closer to the door. I darted through it and was halfway down the hall, thinking maybe I could find a phone in Marv’s office when Daphne came into the hall. She clicked the wheel on the lighter. Nothing happened. She shook it, then clicked it again.

“Don’t do it—” Instinct took over and I ran toward her. I dove at her knees as a small, steady flame erupted from the lighter. My arms encircled her ankles and she kicked at me as I thudded full length against the floor. My knees and elbow scraped along the industrial carpet and my head whacked against her shin. Stumbling, she still managed to pitch the lighter into the Green Room. I hid my face in my arms. A
whumpf
blasted hot air back at us and the room was engulfed in flames when I risked a peek. Sheets of flickering red and orange ate greedily at the curtains and floor, running up the walls and seeking access to the rest of the theater. Daphne, closer to the Green Room than I and still standing when she tossed the lighter, was flung backward against the wall and slumped there, dazed.

I struggled to my feet, coughing, and grabbed for her hand. “Come on.” Using all my strength, I hauled her up and got an arm around her waist. Half dragging her, I started toward the front of the theater. Flames had already spread into the hall and oily dark smoke clogged the air. I was wheezing after just a few steps and remembered the fire safety advice to keep low. Unfortunately, I couldn’t drop to my hands and knees and still drag Daphne out of danger.

The crackle of flames behind us kept me moving and I resisted the urge to see how close they were getting. It seemed that the air was just a bit clearer as we turned the corner and I picked up the pace, urging Daphne onward in a hoarse voice. “Come on. Come on.”