was a cautious ripple of laughter. The detectives generally shared Green’s view of the top brass, but they never knew who the spies might be.
Green shrugged, deadpan. “It is possible. So check it out, get the help of university security, ask the drug squad, poke around to see if anyone saw anything suspicious last night.”
Green dusted chalk dust off his hands and stepped away from the board. “That’s it. I don’t have any idea which motive is right. Maybe it’s something else entirely. I don’t think it was robbery, but his wallet was missing, so ask his friends how much money he usually carried around with him. I also don’t think it was a psycho. Too clean. So we have five things we need to do.” Green picked up the chalk again. “One team— Watts and Charbonneau—you search for possible witnesses to the crime. I know the guys last night did a routine canvass of people who were at the library, but I want us to do it again. Set up a hotline and advertise it on the radio stations and in the newspapers, on the University’s PA system. Another thing you can do is check the computer records of books taken out or returned on the evening of June 9, especially with call numbers from the fourth floor.”
Watts and Charbonneau exchanged grimaces. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Lots of work and very little payoff.
“The second team—Jackson and Laplante—find out all you can about the victim, including his friends and his recent movements.” Green paused as a small inconsistency niggled into his thoughts. “Blair was studying neuropsychology, which is on the fifth floor of the library. He was killed on the fourth, plus he was killed in a remote corner, not a place you’d usually pass going from one part of the library to another. Find out what he was doing in the literature section.
“The third team—Gibbs and O’Neil—get the autopsy and forensic results, bug them until every last detail is in, and follow up any lead they give. If there are none, help Watts and
Charbonneau. Don’t bug me for every little thing. You guys know your job, but if anybody gets a major break, radio me ASAP.”
He paused a moment, scanning the scribbling on the board. “The fourth team is to conduct a search of Blair’s university lab and interview all his professors, fellow students and associates who aren’t on Jackson’s list. That’s a big job. Goodwin, you better work with Perchesky and Proulx on it.” He grinned at the last remaining detective unassigned. “Brian, you’re coming with me.”
“And what are we doing?” “We’re going to start with the woman who discovered the crime.”
*
Carrie MacDonald had been given the day off to recover from the shock, but it didn’t seem to Green that she needed it. She had just washed her hair, and it was piled high on her head in a pink towel when she greeted the two detectives at her door. Her blue terry cloth robe gaped slightly over her breasts, and her cheeks were pink from the shower. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Sullivan.
“Hi, Sergeant! Are you on duty again?”
“Still,” he muttered.
“You’ll need some coffee, then.” She stepped back to allow them to squeeze past her into the narrow hall. “I sure need it. Boy, what a night we had!”
Green bristled. Carrie MacDonald seemed to have overlooked him completely as she turned to lead them down the dimly lit hall. Sullivan was five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than he was. He looked like a cop, and people responded instinctively to his authority. His ruggedness appealed to women, evoking some primal suppliant need in them, but all this was wasted on him. Sullivan had loved his wife since he was sixteen and seemed impervious to the fire in other women’s eyes.
Green, on the other hand, drifted through a crowd unobserved. His boyish freckled face evoked nothing except the occasional urge to mother him. At times it was an advantage, when he wanted to be unnoticed or underestimated, but there were times when it was a curse.
“I’m Inspector Green,” he said sharply at her retreating back. “I’m in charge of the investigation.”
“Oh!” She turned her blue eyes on him in surprise. “Sorry, I thought you were...” She let her dismissal of him go unvoiced and gestured him into her kitchen. Standing on tiptoe, she rummaged in her cupboard for two mismatched mugs, one with the university crest and the other featuring the slogan “World’s Greatest Mom”. She poured two coffees, then pulled her robe over her breasts self-consciously.
“Do you guys mind if I get some clothes on? I’ll be two minutes.”
True to her word, she emerged two minutes later, barefoot but clad in blue jeans and black t-shirt. Her hair tumbled damp and honeyed down her back, swinging as she prepared her own cup.
Joining them at the table she smiled. “How can I help you guys today?”
Her frank smile and the honey hair falling over one eye unnerved him. Control was essential during an interview, and this one was starting off all wrong. To regroup, he dropped his gaze to his notebook and riffled the pages officiously. Normally, he would have let Sullivan take the notes, but this time he sensed he was going to need the prop. “I’d like to review the information you gave Sergeant Sullivan last night, and see if there’s anything else you’ve remembered since.”
Dutifully, she related the events leading up to her discovery of the body. By the time she had finished, Green felt back in full control.
“Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Hear anything? Any voices? Signs of a struggle? Any items on the floor— money, a wallet?”
Her eyes were grave as she searched her recollections. She’s no fool, Green thought. Sexy, but sharp. She knows what she saw, and she’ll be good on the witness stand.
“It’s strange, actually,” she said, “that I didn’t notice anything. I mean, how does a guy get stabbed only a hundred feet away in a deserted room and you don’t hear a thing? Of course, my cart squeaked—I was meaning to fix it—so I only heard the guy groaning once I stopped my cart to get this book.”
“How long was it from the time you left the elevators till you found the victim?”
“Only two or three minutes. I had only returned half a dozen books.”
Green studied the diagram he had constructed. The bank of elevators in the centre was the only exit route from the fourth floor except for the fire stairs at each far corner. It would have been impossible to get into an elevator without being seen by Carrie MacDonald as she sorted books. The paramedics and other medical personnel estimated from the nature of the wound and the amount of blood lost that Blair was stabbed no more than half an hour before the paramedics arrived. If the information in the logs could be trusted, the paramedics arrived on the scene twelve minutes after the 911 call. Allowing a few minutes for university security to relay the call, that meant Blair was stabbed less than fifteen minutes before she found him. Probably a lot less.
To escape, the killer had three options. He could have taken the stairs, in which case he would have escaped unnoticed. He could have walked directly past Carrie and got on the elevator, which meant that he had to wait for it in plain view of her, covered in blood from his shirt sleeves to his shoes. Or he could have hidden in one of the side aisles until she set off with her cart and then slipped to the elevator. It was a mere two or three minutes before Carrie discovered the victim and returned to make the call.
“Did
