Particles of Murder (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) Read online

  The smallest smile tugs on Kiona’s lips.

  “Yeah. We made chocolate chip muffins a few days ago.”

  “Did you two talk about anything while you were baking?” John asks. “Maybe something had been bothering her or she was stressed out about something?”

  Kiona shakes her head. “She had been pretty happy. We talked about normal things—classes, jobs, her boyfriend.”

  “What about your R.A.?” I ask.

  Kiona’s smile disappears. “She was having issues with him. He’s a bit creepy, but she didn’t want to move, and he never did anything that would cross the line. He just showed up wherever she was and always tried to talk to her. It was annoying more than anything, but she was always aware that something worse could happen.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Justin…Brewster? Or Brewer? I don’t know. He lives in room 301.”

  “Do you think Justin would hurt Victoria?”

  “I…honestly, I don’t know. I want to say that he wouldn’t, but I’d known him since he was a freshman and I hadn’t thought he’d stalk someone until he began following Tori around.”

  “Tori is Victoria?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I think her boyfriend and her professors are the only ones who called her by her full name. I—”

  She stops talking as a lanky man with short brown hair stops in front of us. His shoes are worn out and caked with mud, but the rest of his clothes are brand new. Not sure what to make of that—he either wears down his shoes through athletics and can’t afford to constantly replace them, or he’s oddly attached to those particular shoes.

  “Uh, Mira and Professor Zimmer, this is Justin…our R.A.,” Kiona says.

  I look closer at him, but it’s not like insanity is detectable on someone’s clothes or hands.

  “Hi,” he says. “I was just wondering what’s going on. Is this about Tori?”

  “Why?” I ask. “Did you want to be part of the investigation? We could start a Scooby Doo gang—me, you, the professor here, Kiona…all we’d need is a dog and we’re set.”

  “Uh, no,” he says. “I just wanted to know if you found out what happened to her. There are a lot of rumors going around, but it seems like nobody knows what really happened.”

  “Or maybe you just came around because you wanted to appear innocent while also figuring out what we know,” I say. “You were stalking Victoria, weren’t you?”

  He frowns. “That was a misunderstanding. It’s a small campus—at least in comparison to some other campuses. We just ran into each other a lot and I thought we were on friendly terms. Apparently, she didn’t think so. I backed off after that.”

  “But, then, she dies and you become interested again?”

  “I’m just being a concerned R.A.,” he says, balling his fists. “Is that against the law now?”

  “I’m just asking questions,” I say. “Why are you getting so angry?”

  “I’m not,” he snaps. “I just don’t appreciate being interrogated for being a friendly guy.”

  “You seem to be getting angry to me.”

  “I am not getting fucking angry. I’m just—” He slides his hands in his hair and grips onto it as if he wants to tear it out. “You people keep talking like I’m a lunatic, but you just didn’t see Tori like I did. She was amazing. She was so passionate and I…I was enamored with her passion. She was in love with everything. She threw herself into her writing and I just wanted to be there for her. I wanted her to see me and throw herself into me in the same way she did with everything else. But, she just…didn’t see it that way.”

  He turns to John. He points straight at him.

  “But you…you two were close. She looked up to you. Why you? What’s so special about you? What did you have that I don’t?”

  “Nothing,” John says. “Absolutely nothing. I was just her professor. She looked to me for approval. I was like a father-figure to her except…more present. People in the writing community can become very close to each other because we share our personal stories—even in fiction there’s always a kernel of truth—but I always made sure she knew our relationship was strictly between a professor and a student. She had no interest in me either. She was in love with her boyfriend.”

  “Dominic,” Justin scowls. He releases his hair, shaking his head. “What an asshole. He doesn’t care about her at all. But the two of us…we could have been something great. Now she’ll never know.”

  “We can honor her memory by finding out what happened to her,” John says. He keeps a couple inches between Justin and himself, but there’s a warmth that radiates off of John that makes it seem like he’s being more physically comforting than he actually is.

  “Thanks, we gotta go.” I grab John’s arm and pull him away from Justin and Kiona. When we’re a few doors away from them, I face him.

  “Are you sure there wasn’t something going around between you and Victoria?” I ask.

  He gapes at me. “I already told you there wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, except you seem awfully determined to find a killer, Justin seemed to think there was something going on between you two, and you got defensive,” I say.

  “Justin is a stalker with jealousy issues,” he says. “I was just trying to placate him.”

  I shake my head. “How can I trust you?”

  “Why would I be searching for a killer with a forensic scientist if I were guilty of something?”

  “So, your relationship with her was strictly platonic?”

  “Absolutely,” he says. “I’m fairly certain that the most physical contact I had with her was shaking her hand once after the end of a semester and, like I told Justin, I made sure she knew that our relationship was strictly between a professor and a student.”

  “You say that like you think she may have expected more,” I say.

  He shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “Some students become…attached,” he says. “They tell you their deepest secrets, fears, hopes, and memories through their writing. You learn things about them that they haven’t told people who are closest to them, and they imagine that you understand them more than anyone else.”

  “Do you know students feel this way because you’ve had problems before?”

  “I’ve heard other professors having problems and I looked up to my writing professors in college more than I did with any other professors for the same reasons,” he says. “But I wasn’t even interested in her in that way. She was young and she wasn’t my type. You can ask anyone. I always kept my office door open when there was a student inside, and I always kept my distance.”

  “Like you just did with Justin.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “Trust me—I’ve seen my fair share of meltdowns, but I know I can’t hug a student without risking them thinking that there’s something more there. I wouldn’t lead on a student that way.”

  I turn back toward Justin, who’s a little ways down the hall from us.

  “Where were you this morning?” I call out.

  “Uh…when?” he asks. “I had an eight o’ clock class, but I was there at seven forty-five because I had to do a presentation.”

  “I found Victoria a little before 8:20,” John says. “Her body was still warm. He couldn’t have done it.”

  “Done what, though?” I ask. “We still don’t know how she died. I’m beginning to think we’re chasing our tails.”

  “She has a memorial tomorrow afternoon in the quad,” he says. “At least come to that so you can see how much she was loved. Maybe you can find more information.”

  “Why don’t you tell the detectives actually working on the case to go to the memorial?” I ask.

  “Because I already asked them and they brushed me off,” he says. “And I can see what kind of person you are. You feel others’ pain, even if you don’t know them. You see injustice and you feel it in the same way you would feel it if it had been committed against you.”

  I cross my ar
ms over my chest. “I’ll go to the memorial. But if we don’t find anything, you’re going to have to accept that she’s gone and it was likely by natural causes.”

  “That’s all I could ask of you.” He offers his hand and I shake it. Just like when he was comforting Justin, a warmth spreads through me. I can see why people get attached to him, but that’s not why I’m continuing this investigation. He’s right. I could never let any form of injustice pass me by without fighting against it.

  The quad is an octagon of grass in the center of the academic buildings with a few benches and trees inside it. In the very center is a metal statue. It’s some kind of abstract form, although I see both a shark and a chicken in its shape.

  Candles are lit all around the quad and a large photograph of Victoria is propped up in front of the statue. Over a hundred people fill the quad. It’s been two and a half days since Victoria passed away, so it seems like a pretty decent amount of people.

  “Tori was a shining beacon to everyone who knew her,” a woman in her late teens says into a microphone, standing by Victoria’s photograph. She has wavy light brown hair and her face is scrunched up as she tries to not cry.

  “That was Victoria’s best friend, Alicia,” John says as we stand about fifteen feet away from her. “I’d only met her a couple times when she stopped by the classroom, so the two could get lunch or something together. Victoria mentioned her in a couple stories she wrote. They were friends in high school and decided to both come here. I think her major is in social policy or something like that.”

  “I thought you said you were going to be helpful,” I say.

  He points to a man in a striped sweater. “He’s one of my students, but I don’t think he and Victoria spoke outside of class. I mostly only recognize people from the English department. Oh, there’s Cameron. Dr. Cameron Pierce. He’s also a writing professor, but he does more in poetry and fiction.”

  I keep my eyes on Dr. Pierce. His eyes are glossy and his hands look like they’re trembling the slightest bit, but he’s concentrating all of his attention on the program pamphlet that had been handed out.

  “He seems to be trying to appear like he’s not grieving,” I whisper. “I know you said people grieve in different ways, but you would think that at a memorial, everyone would be at least trying to show that they’re sad.”

  “He usually is very open emotionally,” he says. “I don’t know why he would be holding back.”

  “How close were he and Victoria?”

  John doesn’t say anything. I look over at him. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are filled with uncertainty.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit,” I say. “You recruited me to help you with this. You can’t go saying nothing now.”

  “It’s…rumors,” he says. “There have been whispers that he sleeps with students. But he’s married and he always seemed happy in his marriage. I can’t—”

  “That’s motive,” I say. “I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me that.”

  “I just don’t think it’s pertinent,” he says. “He’s not violent. He wouldn’t—”

  “Professor Zimmer,” Alicia calls out. The crowd turns toward the two of us. Heat rushes to my face. I step away from him. “Would you like to say some words about Tori? You were very important to her.”

  “Of course. I’d love to talk about Victoria. She was a wonderful woman.” He doesn’t look at me as he praises Victoria’s strengths and character, but his gaze keeps falling back to Dr. Pierce. There’s a flicker of doubt in his eyes that slowly grows into suspicion.

  A new body arrives in the morgue. Tim is jotting notes down beside the dead man as I step in the room.

  “What happened to that guy?” I ask.

  “He was shot three times,” he says. “I just needed to remove the bullets so the detectives can have something to compare if they find the killer’s gun. Ed Bunt already took his clothes back to your lab. Did you need something? You know you can just call.”

  “Well, I figured I’d come down and talk to you personally because…it’s not the senator that I want to talk about,” I say. “It’s the student.”

  “Victoria Glassman?” he asks, setting his clipboard down. “I thought I told you that death was undetermined.”

  “I’m not telling you to reopen it,” I say. “I just wanted to know if you found any evidence that she was sexually active right before she died.”

  He exhales loudly. “No. There was no sign that she had sex.”

  “Was there anything else you found?”

  “No,” he says. “Nothing. You think I would have put the case aside if I had found something other than the asphyxia? I get that she was young and her death is tragic, but I have a stabbing victim and a shooting victim. I don’t have a lot of time to wonder about a young woman whose death doesn’t appear violent.”

  Before I can answer, the morgue door opens and Detective Stolz walks into the room. She stops when she sees me.

  “Solano, what are you doing here?” she asks. “I didn’t think you were even working today.”

  “I was just—”

  “She was asking about Victoria Glassman,” Tim interrupts. “I already told her that I had to focus on the other cases.”

  She stares at me. “I thought I made it quite clear that you also needed to focus on the other cases.”

  “I just wanted to be thorough.”

  “Look, I know you’re not a team player, but we have murderers walking around this city,” she says. “They need your attention. You can’t find every murderer and you won’t find one for a woman when we don’t even know how she died. In all likelihood, it was perfectly natural causes, so you’re chasing a ghost. Stop wasting your time, stop wasting Dr. Lindhal’s time, and let it go.”

  “I am a team player,” I argue. Tim and Stolz raise their eyebrows. “Sometimes. When I have team members who want the same things I do.”

  “We all do want the same thing,” Stolz says slowly, as if she’s talking to a dimwitted child. “To solve murders. So let’s focus on the cases that we know are actual murders. If you don’t, I will go to the Lieutenant or even the Captain and I can assure you they won’t be happy to hear that you’re lingering on this case.”

  “I understand,” I say, standing up taller.

  “Do you?” she asks.

  “No,” I admit. “But I’m not going to risk my job over it.”

  She nods. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Magician’s Suitcase is a magic shop that my family has owned for a few generations. My father says it was named after his great grandfather, who had traveled with all of his tricks in a suitcase that was constantly falling apart. I worked here all through college and I honestly don’t miss it.

  The shop is overstocked like it always is. It's divided into different kinds of magic tricks. In the front center, there are card tricks and other close-up magic (detachable thumbs, cups and balls, magical coins). In the middle on the right are stage illusions (such as the infamous boxes that a beautiful woman could lie inside and be sawed in half without getting hurt). In the middle left is escapology (handcuffs, locks, chains). The back is reserved for literature about magic—biographies about the best magicians, how-to books on becoming famous, step-by-step instructions on how to do certain magic tricks (apparently, magicians do tell their tricks), and calendars with a different magician or magic trick featured for each month (or as my brother calls it: a virgin's porn calendar).

  It also smells like cigarette smoke and cinnamon, and the dim lighting casts eerie shadows while also hiding the dust bunnies. I'm sure my mother considers that to be the greatest magic trick of all.

  It’s almost eight o’clock at night, so nobody is here except my father and me. He adds a couple of trick card decks to a display. He winks as he passes by, but doesn’t say anything. He’s never been a man of many words, though I suppose when he’s lived with my mother for so long, h
e’s used to her filling up the silence with her constant chatter.

  A man steps into the store and walks straight to me. He has pitch black hair that looks like it was cut haphazardly, and the body frame of an ancient Roman sculpture except it appears like the muscle around the left side of his chest is slightly underdeveloped. I could tell you a thousand things about him—by analyzing his body and threadbare clothes, or just by shared history.

  He sits across from me at a table near the cash register.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I peek in once in a while. I saw you here, so I thought I’d come say hi,” he says.

  “That doesn’t sound like you’re stalking me at all.”

  “I’m watching out for you,” he says.

  “The last time you did that, I ended up nearly getting fired and arrested,” I say. “So, if you could stop caring, that would be best for me. You need to leave.”

  He reaches across the table and grabs my hand. I jerk it out of his grasp.

  “Mira, I know I messed up in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t mean…you know…that I didn’t have your best interest in mind.”

  “You never had my best interests in mind!” I spit out. The store door opens and John Zimmer steps in. It’s the first time I’m grateful to see him. “John!”

  He notices me and walks over.

  “Hey, I need to talk to you,” he says, looking between Andre and I. “Privately.”

  “He was just leaving,” I say.

  Andre grimaces, but stands up. He sizes John up for a second before striding out of the store. John watches him leave before turning back toward me.

  “I’m sorry…did I interrupt something?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “But, I’m sorry. I can’t help you with your case anymore. I’ve been told that I could get in trouble if I continue to look into this, and I like my job. I truly am sorry, but I think you’re going to have to accept that her death was natural.”

  “I know you don’t want to risk your job, but I think Dr. Cameron Pierce could be guilty. I questioned him about Victoria. He denied that he was seeing her, but his body language and the way he talked about her…everything was off. I’m certain that he’s lying.”