Playing Dead Part 18

"We know he was driving from Isleton when he went into the river. Could be the last person who saw him alive. But we don't know if this last call was made before or after he left Isleton."

"So who's the other number?"

"It matches Professor Collier's home phone." "Maddox called him three times, no answer, and then the prof calls him back."

"Collier said in the missing person report that Maddox was calling to cancel their Monday meeting."

"Why?" "Oliver allegedly didn't say why."

"Why a six-minute conversation? What'd they talk about? The weather?"

"Collier said it was cla.s.s-related. The Davis cops didn't know what Maddox was working on. Collier said it was his thesis."

"A thesis seems innocuous. Who would kill over a college thesis?"

"Maybe it's not even related. Could be he hadn't been working on his thesis because of all the time he spent trying to clear O'Brien."

"Now that makes sense."

"So he has to cancel the meeting because he doesn't have anything to show."

"I follow you," Steve said. "But one thing I can't figure out. In all this, why didn't Maddox go to the police? Or talk to someone? If he honestly believed that O'Brien was innocent-if he had found evidence to that effect-why wouldn't Maddox have turned it over to the authorities?"

"I-" Mitch didn't have an answer. "Maybe he didn't have proof. Or he could have had unsubstantiated theories. Knowing something to be true in your heart and proving it to be fact are completely different."

"Then perhaps his girlfriend or advisor will be able to shed some light on this."

Steve pulled into a security-vehicle-only parking place at Davis and put his official FBI business placard in the window. Mitch dialed the last number Maddox called the night he died.

"The Rabbit Hole."

"Where are you located?"

"Corner of 2nd and B Streets right off River Road. Can't miss it. Gotta white rabbit on the sign."

"Thanks." Mitch hung up.

"Well?"

"Bar, from the sound of it. Want to make a stop?"

"Worth checking into, but it's been nearly four months. If Maddox met someone there, the bartender may not remember."

"It's the only lead we got right now."

They exited the car, walked into the administration building, and showed their badges. "We need to speak with Professor Don Collier regarding one of his students."

"One moment." The receptionist left the room and Mitch said to Steve, "Do you have Tammy Amunson's contact information?"

"Yes, and her cla.s.s schedule." Steve glanced at his watch. "It's 1:30. Her last cla.s.s was over at noon today. I have a mobile number."

"I'm sure as h.e.l.l not looking forward to giving her the bad news."

The receptionist returned. "I'm sorry, Professor Collier canceled all of his cla.s.ses today."

"Canceled?"

"Yes, sir. I can direct you to his teaching a.s.sistant, Sh.e.l.ley Burns. She has a desk in Professor Collier's office at King Hall." She handed a card over on which she'd already written the name and number.

"Where the h.e.l.l is King Hall?" Steve muttered as they walked out.

Mitch handed Steve a map of the campus he'd pulled from the receptionist desk. "Now I know why they pay you the big bucks," Steve said.

Sh.e.l.ley Burns's office was more like an oversize closet, not much bigger than Claire's home office, Mitch thought. She had a desk and a narrow wall of tall filing cabinets. Shelves on three walls were full of thick legal tomes. One shelf tilted precariously to one side. If anyone tried to remove a book on the left, Mitch was certain everything would slide off the right.

There was the desk chair and one more chair that the door hit when it opened. She gave a shrug when they walked in and stood shoulder to shoulder. "Sorry, I'd offer you the professor's office, but he locked up and I don't have a key."

"We're trying to reach Professor Collier about a student of his who has been missing."

"Oliver." Sh.e.l.ley frowned as she bobbed her head. "He was such a geek, but I liked him. I was shocked that the pressure got to him. I mean, he lived for this stuff."

"What do you mean about the pressure getting to him?"

"Don-Professor Collier-said that Oliver's thesis wasn't going well and he was panicked. Don thought he just left, couldn't take it. The thesis has to be vetted by not only his advisor, but a committee. He might have had to stay another year. There's a lot of pressure on third-year law students."

"I'm sorry to tell you that Oliver's dead," Steve said.

"Oh, oh no!" Sh.e.l.ley looked stricken.

Mitch sat in the one guest chair and put his elbows on his knees. "We're sorry. We'd wanted to tell the professor the news in person."

"Maybe he heard and that's why he canceled his cla.s.ses," she said. "Though I can't imagine that he would do that without telling anyone about Oliver."

"You don't know why he canceled?"

"I thought it was a fight with one of his girlfriends. I was late to his eight a.m. cla.s.s and was running across the lawn. He was standing in the middle of the walkway arguing with some woman. He walked off, angry by the looks of it, and she shouted something at him, but I couldn't hear it. I got into cla.s.s like ten seconds before he did. He went to the front of the room and said that he had a personal emergency and was canceling the lecture today. Didn't even give an a.s.signment. I mean, we only have two weeks until finals. He just walked out."

"He's never done something like this before?"

"Don? No way. He's never sick."

"What was his relationship like with Oliver?"

"Like, would he be distraught about his death? I guess he'd be upset. I used to be jealous of them-Oliver was his pet, everyone knew it. But then I suspected they had some big disagreement."

"Over what?"

She shrugged. "No idea. But it had to have been major. I mean, they used to talk for hours in Don's office, Don got him a choice internship two summers in a row, and Oliver had a key to his office so he could use Don's personal law books. Then it just stopped. They barely spoke to each other anymore."

"Just like that? Do you know when this argument started?"

"Hmm, not really. After cla.s.ses began for the new term. That would have been end of August . . . maybe October? Early November? Definitely before Thanksgiving."

"Why do you say that?"

"Oliver didn't have any family nearby. Don always has his best students over for Thanksgiving, unless they go home. I was there with about eight or nine others. Oliver wasn't. And Don said he hadn't been invited. Really flip, very unlike Don."

"That's very helpful," Mitch said. "Did you-"

She cut him off. "If you're from the FBI, is that because Oliver was, like, murdered? And why aren't the Davis police here?"

"I can't really share that information with you as it's a pending investigation," Mitch said. "Do you have any of Oliver's things here? Research? Perhaps notes or an outline? His thesis?"

"Oh, no. Oliver was very hush-hush about it. He wasn't sharing anything. He wasn't even talking to Don about it. "

"Thank you for your time," Steve said.

"One more thing," Mitch said. He knew the answer, but he had to ask the question. "Can you describe the woman Professor Collier was arguing with before he canceled his cla.s.ses?"

Sh.e.l.ley said, "Pretty, dark hair. Caucasian. Twenty-five or thirty. Older than a college student. She was wearing jeans, I think. A long beige blazer. I don't remember anything else. Oh, she was kinda on the short side. Don's on the short side, so I noticed she was at least four or five inches shorter. Five two maybe?"

"Thank you for your time."

They left King Hall.

"Dammit," Mitch said. "Claire was looking at his cla.s.s schedule and left early. I knew it. What does she know that we don't?"

"I wish I knew," Steve said.

What was Claire up to? What did she tell Don Collier that had him canceling his cla.s.ses and acting strangely?

"We have to track down Collier," Mitch said.

"Got his home address right here. He's not too far from campus. And now I have a good reason to talk to Claire O'Brien again. Two people have identified her. It sounds like she's a step ahead of us, too. I don't want her to get in over her head."

Neither do I, Mitch thought.

Steve called Oliver's girlfriend as they walked, and Tammy Amunson agreed to meet them on the ground-floor of her dorm. Tammy was a pet.i.te blonde, pretty, though she dressed on the plain and dowdy side. She wore small, smart gla.s.ses. Someone that an equally brilliant geek lawyer would fall for, Mitch thought.

"Tammy?" Mitch introduced himself and Steve. "Let's sit down where it's private." He led her to a sitting area in the corner. There weren't many people inside on this beautiful May afternoon.

Her face fell as she shrank into the chair. "It's about Oliver."

"I'm sorry to tell you this, Tammy, but he's dead. His body was found yesterday morning."

Her bottom lip quivered, and she bit it to make it stop. She blinked back tears, then said in a shaky voice, "Wh-what happened?"

"His body and his Explorer were in the Sacramento River near Isleton."

"Isleton? Where's that?"

"A small town in southern Sacramento County, in the Delta."

"I've never heard of it. I'm not from around here. I can't believe he had an accident like that. Oliver was such a good driver. I mean, sometimes he got distracted, especially when he was talking, and he'd get excited about something, but he didn't drink and drive, never, and he was never reckless and I don't understand how this can happen. When? Where has he been since January? Are-" She gasped. "Oh my G.o.d, he's been dead. Since then. Since January? I knew it. I knew something bad had happened to him!" She couldn't stop the tears from flowing, and batted them away with her hand.

"We have a few questions, if you have a moment."

"Anything. I-" She stopped talking and stared at them, blinking rapidly. "Was it an accident?"

"That's unclear right now, but we're treating it as a possible homicide."

She started shaking. Mitch put an arm over her shoulders, felt her body racked with sobs he couldn't hear. Somehow that made her grief worse.

When the worst of the shakes subsided, Mitch said, "You said in the missing person report that the last time you saw Oliver was about noon on Sunday, January 20."

She nodded.

"Professor Collier had a meeting with him on Monday, but Oliver canceled it."

"Canceled it? No. That's not right." Tammy squeezed her eyes shut. "No," she said more emphatically. "Professor Collier told me that Oliver never showed up for his meeting. I'm positive. That's what had me going to the police. Because no one had seen Oliver for days, and when Professor Collier said Oliver missed his meeting-Oliver was excited about the meeting. Really excited. He and Professor Collier had a dispute ages ago, and Oliver thought this would put things right. I told the-oh. I should have known something was wrong yesterday. I got my hopes up that she would find Oliver."

Mitch wasn't sure he was hearing correctly. "What happened yesterday?"

"A private investigator came to me after cla.s.s. She was looking into Oliver's disappearance. I told her everything I told you, plus how excited Oliver was about his thesis, 'The Perfect Frame' he called it. He said he finally had the information to prove his hypothesis. I just got my hopes up that Oliver was okay. She seemed so determined to find him. I think in my heart I knew he was already gone, but-" She took a deep breath and the tears started running down her face again.

"Do you remember the PI's name? A company?"

"Claire. Um, Claire something. From Rogan-Caruso. I have her card in my desk upstairs."

"That's okay," Steve said. "We're familiar with the company."

Mitch's stomach felt like lead. What was Claire doing?

"Thank you for your time," Steve told Tammy. "Would you like me to call someone for you?"

She shook her head, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "My roommate is upstairs. I just want to go home." She sniffed. "Do you have any idea who would want to hurt Oliver?"

"No, Tammy, but we're working on it."

NINETEEN.

Claire walked through the gla.s.s doors of the Renaissance Towers at 8th and K Streets-known to locals as the Darth Vader Building because the top dozen floors had a shape reminiscent of the Sith lord. She showed her Rogan-Caruso badge to the guard, who waved her through. She was still mulling over the information she'd learned from Phineas at the morgue.