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"If you're just tuning in, you've got great timing!" The radio host sounds way too cheerful for 7:30 AM on a weekday morning. "This is Mike and Mel on WMDR, and we're asking J.B. Fletcher, mistress of murder and mayhem -"
"- and author of several best-selling novels," chimes in his co-host, "including the just released MURDER IN A MINOR KEY -"
"- to tell us everything! So, J.B. - what's your secret?"
J.B. Fletcher laughs politely. "Which one?"
"A lady with lots of secrets," Mel says approvingly. "I like you."
"I'm not sure if those are safe secrets," Mike retorts. "After all, how does a school teacher from small town Maine come up with all these ideas? A lot of people die in your books. Should I have been more worried about what my third grade teacher was thinking?"
"No, no - at least I hope not, unless there's something you're leaving out about your third grade teacher! Really, it's just that I like talking to people, and listening to people, and I like puzzles."
"So like a modern-day Miss Marple," Mel suggests.
Another laugh, more real this time. "I won't claim to be another Dame Agatha, much less one of her characters! I've moved around more than Miss Marple - my late husband was in the military, so I've lived several places besides Maine. After awhile, you start noticing that people really aren't all that different, whether you're talking about a Down East fisherman or a Russian ballet dancer."
"Especially not when they're committing murder, apparently," Mike says.
"That was what I liked to read," J.B. says calmly. "And since back when I started writing, I meant to write only for myself, I wrote exactly that."
"So that really is the trick to becoming a best-selling author? Just write what you want to read?"
"I can't claim it's always that simple. For me, it was luck, timing, and to be perfectly frank, a nephew who knew the right person."
"That explains the first best-seller," Mel says, mock-sternly, "but not all the rest. Fortunately for you, I'm getting the high sign, so we'll go after details of your latest novel - and the rest of your secrets - after this break."
*
Jessica emerges from the skyscraper that houses the radio station studios, and hesitates a second, looking around. The sidewalk is crowded with morning commuters, the street is clogged with cars going nowhere quickly, and while Grady said he'd be there to pick her up -
Then comes a welcome, "Aunt Jess!" from off to her left.
They hug hello, and then Grady tows her off down the street. "There's no on-street parking here, so Laura's circling the block. I was just glad we got here on time, with all the traffic - I mean, Laura had told me, but she usually takes the train, so -"
Grady breaks off and dives for a bright blue car on the street. A confused jumble of doors and bags later, Jessica, Grady, and Jessica's luggage have all been bundled into the blue car, and they're headed for Laura's work-place, Georgia University. "I have an IRB committee meeting," Laura says apologetically over her shoulder. "If I could, I'd skip, especially since we only have you for a couple days, but with Dr. Combes in town I didn't dare."
"IRB?" Jessica asks.
"Institutional Review Board - we're supposed to make sure everyone's doing the right thing when conducting human research. Some professors prefer to use it to play petty tyrant."
"Oh, my," Jessica says. "Suddenly I'm glad to be an English teacher rather than a college professor."
"You've taught college classes before, Aunt Jess," Grady protests.
"Not as a full-time profession. Only as a special seminar, or a guest lecturer."
"If we had the time, I'd get you to guest lecture for my classes, too," Laura says, taking a sharp turn into a parking lot. "You could come up with something for a Psychology class, right?"
She smiles back at Jessica, who smiles back, a little awkwardly. "Perhaps, although it's not my forte. It depends on whether your students want to hear about murder."
"They're college students," Laura says dryly, pulling the car neatly into a parking space. "And it wouldn't be on the final exam. Trust me, they'd love to hear about murder."
They leave Jessica's bags in the car, on grounds that unless Jessica has her heart set on a hotel, she'll be staying with Laura anyway. "I have a spare bedroom and a cat who's always up for shedding on new people," Laura says firmly. "I'll meet you and Grady after the committee finishes up, and then we can go back and I'll cook dinner."
"If you insist," Jessica says.
Laura leads the way into an impressively marbled building. As she vanishes into one particular room, Grady explains that this is the Social Sciences building. "Economics is upstairs, and the main floor is split between Anthropology and Psychology."
"No History?"
"I don't know," Grady admits. "Maybe! I only know what Laura's showed me, really."
"Yes, you mentioned you've been dating for a few months. She seems very nice! Very, um…" Jessica bites her lip, as if trying to come up with a delicate way to say not your usual type.
"She's incredibly smart," Grady says, either not noticing or politely ignoring Jessica's broken-off sentence. "She already has tenure! I sat in on one of her classes once, and wow."
Jessica watches as a few more men and women head into the same room where Laura vanished. "Smart or not, committee meetings take time, in my experience. Do you think we should wait here, or go somewhere else? Because either way, I'd like a drink of water, first."
"Of course! I'm sorry, Aunt Jess, I should've thought of that. Give me a second, I'll be right back." Grady vanishes off down the hall - to the Psychology department, presumably. Jessica looks around, and finds a bench tucked against the wall, where she sits down.
Just as she does so, one last man - a professor, presumably, with slicked-back hair and the loudest tie Jessica's seen this side of Vegas gamblers - comes down the hall, walking rapidly. A younger woman, dressed too casually to be anything but a student, half-runs to keep up with him. "--wouldn't dare," she's saying. "You can't do this to me!"
"Keep your voice down," the man snaps back. "I already told you, anything between us --" He notices Jessica, and lowers his own voice, though not enough. "It's over, Sally. There's nothing else to talk about. Now please excuse me, I have my meeting." He stalks through the meeting room doors.
Sally hesitates and looks around. She's been crying. She doesn't seem to notice Jessica. Before Jessica can say anything, even offer her a tissue, Sally turns around and runs pell-mell off back down the hall.
*
Georgia University, to be perfectly honest, looks much like many other college campuses, not that Jessica would say so: it's all marble and brick facades, and ivy that she suspects of being deliberately planted. Grady spends the tour talking less about the university and more about Laura, anyway. Jessica listens. Laura lives upstairs from him, in a sub-divided house in Decatur: that was how they met. Laura really isn't Grady's usual type - brunette, glasses, wears flats instead of heels and blue instead of pink - but maybe Grady has finally learned what sort of woman he needs. Maybe he's figured out the thing Jessica never quite dared to tell him.
When Jessica and Grady get back to the Social Sciences building, the meeting still isn't over, and a different young woman sits on the bench Jessica found. She scoots over readily enough, and she and Jessica start chatting. Her name's Kate, and she's a fan. "I listened to your interview on WMDR this morning," she admits.
"That's not so bad," Jessica says. "That's why I do them, after all!"
"After hunting up all your other interviews?" Kate says, which is possibly a point. "Not that I didn't enjoy them! But they must all sort of blur together after a while. They all ask the same questions, after all. 'Where do you get your ideas?'" Her voice drops down the octave, as if trying to impersonate Mike from WMDR. "'Tell us about your book!'"
"Well, I do try to vary my answers a bit," Jessica says. "Otherwise there's no point in me being there - they could settle for a press release and be done with it."
"Are you ever tempted to just...let loose? Like, all of them seem to ask, 'What's your secret' - are you ever tempted to tell them something really outrageous?"
"But then it wouldn't be a secret," Jessica says with a smile, which gets Kate to laugh.
The conference room doors slam open at that point, and two men come boiling out - the slicked-over man with the tie that rebuffed the student earlier, and another man Jessica doesn't recognize, whose hair is all over as if he just stuck his finger into an electrical socket. "--FIFTH TIME," the second man is yelling at the top of his lungs. "I SUBMITTED THIS FOUR TIMES, AND YOU KEPT TELLING ME IT NEEDED ONLY MINOR REVISIONS, AND NOW YOU'RE JUST FLAT-OUT REJECTING ME?"
"The committee rejected you," the first man says coldly, and turns to go.
The second man reaches for his arm, and the first man pulls free, and for a moment Jessica expects this to turn into a fist-fight right there in the hallowed halls of academe. Before that can happen, Kate jumps up and steps forward, offering the first man a thick sheaf of paper. He stops short and looks down at it as if she'd offered him a plate of rotten eggs. "What's this?"
"My Anthropology 306 paper," Kate says steadily. "The one you said was due today."
"Ah," the man says. "I believe I said you should leave it on my desk, Miss Dennard."
"Your door was locked!"
"Mmm. That would be a problem." Without taking the paper, or looking back at all, the man heads down the hall. Kate runs after him. The other man glares, but leaves in the other direction as the remaining men and women trickle out of the conference room.
Laura is one of the last. She comes over to Grady and Jessica, and says, "I'm sorry about the fireworks."
"Is it always like this?" Grady asks. "I mean, I thought colleges were safe!"
"There isn't usually yelling," Laura says. "In this case - well, it's slightly more complicated, and not just because Dr. Combes decided to be an asshole about it."
"Oh, is that Dr. Combes," Jessica says, peering down the hallway as if she could see the man in question.
"Have you met?"
"No! No, just saw him talking with two students and a fellow professor, so far, and I will confess, I'm certainly wouldn't recommend him for so much as a teaching position myself."
"From your lips to God's ear," Laura sighs. "Someday -- well. Come on, dinner won't make itself."
*
Talk over dinner, to nobody's surprise except perhaps Grady, turns to mysteries - not just the kind Jessica writes, but the kind she walks into. Generally she downplays that part, but with Grady there and able, if not exactly willing, to testify how often it happens, there isn't much point, is there?
"Wow," Laura says, chin propped on her hand. "Not just that it keeps happening, but that you try to do something, try to help? That's just...wow."
"It's not that impressive," Jessica protests. "Anyone would do the same. Police do it for a living."
"Not the way you do. It must be fascinating."
"I suspect I find it more interesting than my friends do. I'm surprised I keep getting invitations."
"Don't be silly, Aunt Jess, it's because they love you. Otherwise, after the first time…" Grady breaks off with a grimace.
"After the first time?" Laura prompts.
Grady hesitates, then says, "It's not that I mind finding dead bodies - well, no, I do mind, especially when it's a friend of mine, but I can take it. But I definitely mind the part where the police always seem to arrest me, and it takes Aunt Jess to clear my name!"
Laura laughs. "The romance is gone?"
"Yes! Yes, it is!"
Laura's phone conveniently rings while they're laughing, and Jessica leans forward to pour herself more iced tea as Laura goes to answer it. At first Jessica doesn't pay much attention, until Laura says, "No, Sally, I absolutely believe you. Do you want me to take your statement? Are you willing to testify against him?"
Grady looks up from his plate, confused and mouthing, 'Testify?' Jessica sets down her tea and turns to listen more closely.
"Uh huh... I understand... I understand. Here's what we can do: come to my office...yes, now. I'll be there as soon as I can, and I'll record your statement... And then we'll report him to the Dean of Social Sciences together...Probably tomorrow."
"What's going -" Grady starts to ask. Jessica shushes him.
"I'll see you soon," Laura says into the phone, then hangs up and turns to them. "So. I'm sorry to cut this short like this, but that was one of my grad students, and I need to go back into the office this evening."
"She's one of your students?" Jessica says, startled.
"Yes. I'm sorry, do you know Sally?"
"Not exactly. I, ah, overheard a conversation earlier, between Sally and Dr. Combes."
Laura stared at her for a moment, then said, "Grady, I'm kidnapping your aunt, do you mind?"
"Uh...no?"
"Great." She leaned over and kissed him. "I'll call when we're headed back."
"Okay," Grady said, and went back to eating his dinner.
*
Jessica tells Laura what she overheard on the way back into Atlanta (which takes a ridiculous amount of time for only five miles). Laura listens, then shakes her head. "Dammit."
"I should have said something at the time," Jessica says. "I knew she was a student."
"Said it to who? Without a last name, with just hearsay - all we could have done is talk to him. The Dean did that before, and he denied everything. We needed evidence, a student willing to testify." Laura breaks off and grimaces. "And now...dammit, Sally's one of my advisees. She was just taking a class with him to fulfill her last requirements. I should have warned her, I should've said something, I should've done something."
"You're doing something now," Jessica says gently.
The Social Sciences building is mostly deserted when they go in. Sally is waiting just outside what must be Laura's office: a friend is waiting with her, but leaves once Laura and Jessica come, saying something quietly to Sally as he goes. The statement takes about 45 minutes. Less than half of it actually involves writing down Sally's statement. The rest is Sally apologizing "for having been so stupid," Jessica and Laura assuring her that it wasn't her fault, Laura apologizing for not having protected her, and a lot of crying, from all three of them.
Sally leaves first. Her friend's waiting outside, and they'll go back to his place, she says. Laura and Jessica watch her walk down the hall to the front door. "What now?" Jessica says.
"We're going to the dean tomorrow morning," Laura says. She takes out a heavy- looking key and locks her office door, staring blankly at the window as if she's seeing something else. "After that...well, I gave her the counseling center number already. But it's not a magical cure-all." She turns away, pocketing her key. "Come on, I already called Grady to let him know we're on our way home."
When they reach the front door, though, Laura hesitates. She's looking down the other hallway. "I think - that's Combes's office, with the light on," she says abruptly. "If he's with another student, I'm going to -" She doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, she stalks off down the hallway, toward the office with its light glowing, obvious in the dimmed hallway.
The office door has a half-window, like most of the doors along this hallway, and a barely visible R. COMBES below the window. The window is partially obscured with blinds, not that Laura is looking in: she tries the knob, then shakes it as if the door will unlock from just that. "Dammit, Richard, open up!"
"Um, Laura?" Jessica can see through the blinds, better than Laura apparently: someone sprawled on the floor, only half visible, with a statue of some kind lying next to him, and a slowly spreading pool of dark red. The familiar sinking feeling tells her what she's seeing, even without being able to get in and confirm it. Richard Combes is dead.
*
First Laura has to call campus police. Then the campus police officer opens the locked office door and checks to confirm what Jessica already knows: some time in the past hour or two, Dr. Combes turned his back on someone, and in return got his head beaten in with a statue snatched off his desk. The poor campus police officer hesitates a moment, then visibly steels himself. He radios back to the campus police headquarters. Then he steps out, presumably to call the official police. Laura goes back to her office and calls Grady again. Jessica doesn't follow to listen. Instead, she looks around Dr. Combes's office, as discreetly as she can.
Most of it isn't too different from other college professor offices she's seen before now - walls of books, with scattered pictures and knick-knacks. Most of the pictures are of Dr. Combes alone in exotic locations. One picture, lying face-down on the desk, is of Dr. Combes and an attractive woman in pearls and a nice dress, presumably his wife. Off in one corner, behind a folding screen, Jessica finds a daybed, all made up. She turns away quickly.
Police arrive: two homicide detectives and a medical examiner, all at the same time. They seal off the office, dust the statue for prints (none, from what Jessica overhears, though smeared blood on the statue and a bloody tissue in the trash explain why), and herd Jessica, Laura, and the campus policeman back down the hall to Laura's office to take statements. Detective Jones has a better poker face than Detective MacKenzie: the latter's grimace tip Jessica off that the police wish she weren't there. "Nothing against you, ma'am," Detective Jones says dryly, as Jessica's being questioned. "It would just make it easier. Dr. Quick has plenty of reason to bash Dr. Combes over the head, by your own statement. But…" He spreads his hands. "She's got an alibi and a witness."
"Quite," Jessica says, and privately files Detective Jones as either under pressure to close more cases (possible) or lazy (sadly also possible).
The campus police officer, whose name proves to be Smith, has more answers than Jessica expected. Apparently the Social Sciences building is part of his regular beat, so he knows all the professors by sight and most of them by name. He also knows that each semester, a different young, pretty female student would come by Dr. Combes's office during off hours, and leave all flushed and mussed up. (That isn't the phrase he uses.) The last time he came by, about two hours ago, he walked through the Social Sciences building. He saw Sally and her friend waiting by Laura's door, and Dr. Combes walking in his door.
"Gives us a better TOD than the medical examiner could," Detective MacKenzie says with a sigh. "All he could give us was 'less than three hours ago.'"
"I asked my boss to call Mrs. Combes," Smith says awkwardly. "He said he didn't get an answer, though."
"She might be with her sister," Laura offers. "Combes complained about it to whoever would listen - that whenever they fought, she'd go stay with her sister."
"Do you have that number or address, ma'am?"
"She's also out in Decatur, but I don't know exactly where. The number might be around Combes's desk - or she's probably in the phone book. Amanda Toller."
"Right." Jones raises his eyebrows at MacKenzie, who heads down the hallway, presumably to check for the sister's phone number. Meanwhile, Jones flips the page in his notebook, and turns to Laura. "Now, then. If you wouldn't mind reviewing this evening."
They go through the same events that Jessica reported, and then Jones asks, "How did you know the deceased?"
"We've worked in the same building for five years, and I was on multiple committees and boards with him," Laura says. "And I hoped to get the bastard fired tomorrow."
Jones gives Jessica another wistful look. "Are you sure you were here earlier?"
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. So, Dr. Quick, you had a grudge against him?"
"You'll have a harder time finding people who didn't hate him," Laura says, with a shrug. "Students, faculty, staff - just this afternoon, he convinced the majority of the IRB committee not to approve the request of Professor Hamill, who's also in Anthropology."
"It was his doing, then?" Jessica asks. "Whyever so?"
Jones raises a hand as if to object, but Laura ignores him. "Officially, because Tom hadn't answered a particular question we'd asked. Unofficially? I'm pretty sure Richard had told him that question wasn't important, just to give him an excuse to reject his IRB request."
"Oh dear," Jessica murmurs, as Jones clears his throat and says, "So you'd say that Hamill and Combes had a history together?"
"Tom hasn't been Richard's fan ever since Richard failed Connie Gellis and she had to leave her Master's program," Laura says. "And before you ask: I don't know why, I didn't know Connie very well, I've only heard Tom's rants after the fact."
"Okay. We'll give Professor Hamill's office a call, see if he's around."
"Do you think it's Tom?"
Jones stands up and looks at the door. "Mrs. Combes?"
It looks like - well, it looks like the woman from the photo on Dr. Combes's desk, except her eyes are red and her clothing isn't neat. She raises her chin and says, "Yes. My sister told me - do you need me to identify him?"
"Not yet," Jones says, and glares past Mrs. Combes at MacKenzie, who's in the hallway behind Mrs. Combes, and makes a 'not my fault!' gesture. "We're sorry for your loss, Mrs. Combes. Do you have reason to think it was Professor Hamill?"
"No," Mrs. Combes says. "Detective MacKenzie told me - no. My husband was a coward, and he knew better than to turn his back on a man." She looks Jones in the eye. "I suspect his latest victim finally did what I've heard them threaten to do before."
*
Jessica has another radio interview the next morning, followed by a book signing at a local store. Grady meets her afterwards, full of nervous energy. Even if he didn't find the body this time, he's still not happy about yet another murder.
They're headed back on campus to meet Laura for lunch at the college club, when a man Jessica recognizes steps into her path. "J.B. Fletcher," Professor Hamill says. "We need to talk."
"You don't need to do anything," Grady blusters.
"Grady," Jessica says. She doesn't entirely trust the look in Hamill's eyes, but she's also not afraid of him, and in her experience, it's better to talk to these people than run away. Grady subsides, and Jessica gestures for Professor Hamill to continue.
He looks around them, smiles sardonically, then offers Jessica his arm as if he were an old-fashioned gentleman. "I promise, I only want to talk."
"Then by all means, talk."
"I heard your interview on the radio, as I was coming out from my interview, with the police." Hamill takes a deep breath, then lets it out. Jessica watches him, waiting for the explosive temper she remembers from yesterday. "J.B. Fletcher. Jessica Fletcher, the aunt of Laura's latest gentleman. I don't know why I didn't make the connection."
"Fletcher isn't that uncommon a name."
"Perhaps. It doesn't explain why the police haven't made the connection."
"Which connection do you mean, sir?" Grady says from behind them.
Hamill stops and turns to look at Jessica, ignoring Grady. "My speciality is the anthropology of murder - the survey that the IRB board turned down was to interview convicted killers in prison. I've spoken to police, collected newspaper articles, and your name comes up with almost disturbing frequency." He's trembling, now: Jessica can feel it. "You're not merely a writer, you're a detective."
She isn't sure what to say. "Well, I suppose so. I didn't set out to be -"
"But that's what makes it extra fascinating! You don't seek out murder; it comes to you. Wherever you go, people get murdered. I should go back to IRB to get permission to research you."
"Professor Hamill. You may do as you wish, but I do not give you any such permission. Now was there actually something you wanted to discuss with me?"
Hamill flushes red, but he doesn't yell. Instead, he asks, "Are you investigating the death of Richard Combes?"
"The police are investigating the death of Richard Combes," Jessica says.
"So you won't help me?"
Jessica almost laughs, before catching herself. "To do what? If you have an alibi - and I presume you do have an alibi? - then you don't need my help."
"I can prove I was in my apartment - on the far side of campus - at 5:30, 6:15, and 7:00."
Jessica glances back at Grady, who shrugs - he apparently doesn't know how far away 'the far side of campus' is from the Social Sciences building, either. "For your sake, I hope that's sufficient. If it's not, then perhaps you should get a lawyer."
She really does expect another explosion after that, has braced herself for it. Instead, Hamill breathes deeply again, lets go of her arm, bows to her, and stalks off. Grady hurries up to her side. "Are you sure that's safe?"
"Oh, yes," Jessica says, watching Hamill go. "He didn't kill Dr. Combes."
"You're sure?"
"After all Dr. Combes had done to him, all he actually did was yell - and once he was interrupted, he left rather than pursue the issue. He may rant, but ranting doesn't make someone violent. No. I don't think he's sorry that Dr. Combes is dead, but I also don't think he killed him."
"Then who did?"
"I don't know yet," Jessica admits. "Mrs. Combes said she thought it was one of his victims, which might be true. I certainly think it was a crime of passion, not something thought out ahead of time, or even really thought out afterwards. The way the body was just left there, the light still on, was asking for the murder to be discovered sooner rather than later."
"That doesn't narrow it down any," Grady mutters, but he changes the subject to how the interview and signing went.
When they reach the college club, Laura meets them in the front hall. "Oh, thank God you're here. The police have made an arrest."
"Who?"
"Kate Dennard. And she's asking for Jessica."
*
Jessica is entirely too familiar with police stations. It's very useful for her books, but sometimes she misses the days when she didn't know from personal experience that station coffee was even worse than hospital coffee. As it is, it means she knows exactly who and what to ask for, and five minutes after walking through the front door of the station, she's sitting in a conference room with Kate.
"I don't understand: what did they arrest you for?"
"Criminal trespass," Kate says. She's wearing a different sweater than she was yesterday - dear lord, was it only a day ago? "I thought - I wanted to try to get his grade book, if the cops had left it there. I just wanted to see if he'd recorded any of my grades."
"Because you'd handed things in late?" Jessica guesses, remembering the conversation, if it could be called that, she'd heard.
"He hit on me, first week of class," Kate says bluntly. "I told him to take a hike. Suddenly I'm being assigned so much extra work that I can't get everything done on time, and he's never around to accept my papers even when I did get them done on time. You heard him, didn't you? He deliberately locked the door so I couldn't turn in my paper."
"Wait, you mean - I thought that the doors automatically locked, surely."
"Nah. They changed them my freshman year, after too many professors kept locking themselves out. Now it's a deadbolt thing - you gotta turn the key from the outside."
"Oh, I see," Jessica says, and she does. It's like the light before dawn: she sees, but it's not enough. Not on its own. She needs something more. "I can certainly see what I can do about the trespass, so long as they don't try to charge you for his murder."
Kate shakes her head. "Nah - I was in the writing lab at the library, working on a paper for my English class. One of the tutors left early, because he was supposed to meet someone in Decatur and traffic's always bad, but the other one should - Mrs.Fletcher? Are you okay?"
"Yes," Jessica says. "Yes, I'm absolutely fine. I just had an idea that I need to test out. In the meantime, I'll call my lawyer for you, shall I?"
*
Detective Jones isn't exactly happy with Jessica's idea. Grady is even less happy: as he reminds Jessica, the last time he ran regularly was in college. But Jessica persuades them both in the end, and that afternoon sees Jessica, and Detective MacKenzie, seated in a police car just outside the Social Sciences building.
The radio says, in Jones' grumpy voice, "How long did the tutor say Miss Dennard was out of her sight?"
"Ten minutes," MacKenzie reports, checking her notebook.
"Dammit. All right, Mrs. Fletcher, you've made your point - it took your nephew ten minutes just to get here."
Jessica leans into the radio mike. "What about that nice young patrolman who was running from Professor Hamill's building?"
"He did it in fifteen minutes," Jones says, grimly triumphant. He relents a second later: "But he was a cross-country star in high school, he tells me, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't true for Hamill. Shall we try it with your nephew and time him?"
Faintly in the background: "Please no."
Jessica bites back a laugh. "That shouldn't be necessary - I know the distance from the library to the Social Sciences building, and I can extrapolate my nephew's time to Professor Hamill's building as closer to half an hour, one way."
"The math checks out," MacKenzie says a minute later.
"Right," Jones says. "So who's going to run to the last place?"
"I don't think running is required," Jessica says. "We should be able to walk, just like the murderer did."
The door to Dr. Combes's apartment is open, but when Detective Martinez pushes the door open, Mrs. Combes looks up from an assortment of papers and keys she has spread out on the table in front of her. "Detectives? Mrs. Fletcher? I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you. What's going on?"
"We're testing alibis," Jessica says, as gently as she can. She hates this part, especially in cases like this. "Laura Quick was with me during the window when the murder might have occurred, so she had a witness. So did Sally. Kate Dennard was alone, but only for ten minutes: we just tested, and there's no way she could have made it to the Social Sciences Building, murdered your husband, and gotten back again without being noticed in that time. And unless Tom Hamill is secretly a cross-country star, neither could he."
A shadow crosses Mrs. Combes's face. "Where are you going with this?"
"You implied you were with your sister, off in Decatur, when the police called. But as I knew from my own experience just a little earlier than evening, driving in to campus from Decatur takes at least half an hour, if not more, in the rush hour traffic, and Laura tells me that the train takes nearly the same time. You showed up only ten minutes after they called your sister. It made no sense if you'd been with her - but perfect sense if you'd never left downtown at all."
Mrs. Combes has gone white. Through bloodless lips, she says, "That doesn't - that proves nothing."
"Perhaps. But that will." Jessica gestures down to the table, to a familiar-looking key, very similar to the one she saw Laura use yesterday. "That's your husband's office key, isn't it? Used to lock the door after you left. The doors don't lock automatically, only with the key, and who else has a key to his office?"
Mrs. Combes looks down at the incriminating key. Tears well up in her eyes, and drip down her face, unnoticed. "I was so angry," she whispers. "He swore to me he'd never do it again, he swore. And then I got a call that evening...she thought I should know. So I went in to talk to him, and he laughed. He laughed! Said I was making a big deal out of nothing, and I should just go home. He said she was just a stupid girl, that apparently that was all he could find, that I was a stupid girl who shouldn't interfere. After that...after that I don't remember. Not until I got back here, and heard the phone ring, and realized they must have already found him. So I came back."
There's a moment of silence, then Detective Jones steps forward and clears his throat. "Mrs. Irene Combes, you have the right to remain silent…"
*
"I know everyone asks you this," Laura says, back in her office afterwards, "but how did you know?"
"A combination of things," Jessica says with a shrug. "The key. The timing. But also something I didn't realize until I thought about it. You said that a great many people wanted to kill him, and that was probably true, but each of them had their own different reason. Kate was a suspect because she was failing his class; Tom Hamill was a suspect because he hadn't gotten IRB approval. But Mrs. Combes insisted that it had to be because of this one thing, this one secret. It struck me as a little odd."
"Secrets," Grady grumbles. "I'm glad I don't have any."
Jessica opens her mouth, then shuts it again. Unfortunately, Laura notices, and says, "Wait, does he?"
"Er, well," Jessica says, and finds both Laura and Grady staring at her patiently. "Actually….you do, but it's not a thing that…"
"Aunt Jess, you're starting to scare me."
Jessica tries to calm herself. "You know how you so often find yourself in the middle of...oh, an attempted theft, or a murder frame-up, or dating the wrong kind of woman which leads to, well, attempted theft or a murder frame-up?"
"Yeah? I thought that was just...I don't know, bad luck."
"Not precisely. It would be more accurate to say you have the family luck. Did you never wonder why I keep stumbling across murders?"
"...not really?" Grady glances uneasily over at Laura, who's listening wide-eyed.
"Before he married me, Frank told me that he had all sorts of adventures. He said that our marriage seemed to turn down the knob - for every big thing like the Dixie Damsel disaster, there was a decade where nothing important at all happened. After he died, I began to realize that I'd inherited it, whatever 'it' is. Mine takes the form of death. I started writing mysteries in hopes it would, I don't know, tap off the ability, but it didn't."
"That explains way too much," Laura murmurs.
"Regardless, I'm afraid you've also inherited it, whatever 'it' is."
"Right," Grady says. "So how do I stop it again?"
Jessica shrugs. "In my limited experience? Marriage to the right person. Perhaps."
Grady looks over at Laura, but it's not a hopeful look. Sure enough, Laura shakes her head. "Sorry, Grady. It's stressful enough just being a professor. I don't need a trouble magnet to go with."
"Then what?" Grady says.
"You could learn to handle it on your own," Jessica suggests.
Grady considers this for a moment, then shakes his head.. "Oh, no. I'm sunk."
THE END