The light finally dawned. “So you decided to move her?”
“Yes. I—”
“Why take her back to the dorm? Why not just dump her in the woods somewhere?”
He stared at me blankly. “I have no idea,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking, I was in shock. I waited until I was sure everyone would be in bed, and then I put her in my car and put her bike in my trunk and drove her back to Stewart. It was late, around three. I put her bike in the rack and carried her up the steps. I didn’t want to use my access card—that would have left a record of my having been there on the computer. Hers was in her back pocket, though, so I just touched her jeans to the pad and the door clicked open. I put her in the bathroom and—came home. I thought that, if she was still alive, someone might find her there and—I didn’t—didn’t find out she was really dead until this afternoon.”
“But why did you take her clothes?” I demanded.
He sat there on the sofa, hands clasped in his lap, blinking at me. He seemed completely bewildered.
“I—fingerprints,” he said. “I thought the police might find my fingerprints on her clothing. I stripped everything off her and brought it home and put it all in the hamper until I could figure out what to do with it. I was going to burn it tonight, out in the woods.”
I stood over him, watching him wash and wash his hands. The silence between us stretched out in every direction.
At last I said, “It was an accident, Professor. You might get in a little trouble for moving the body, but—”
“No,” he said decisively. “No, Max, I can’t let you tell them. It would—I can’t—it would destroy my career. I can’t afford to be dragged into another scandal.”
He leaned forward, put his hands on the coffee table and pushed himself to his feet. Like a robot from one of those corny old science-fiction movies, he began to move jerkily towards me.
He didn’t leave me any choice, really. When he moved into range, I did what any good hockey player would do and punched him, right in the face.
* * * *
“—so when I retired in ’94, my wife and I moved up here. She grew up in Winooski, and we always talked about eventually settling in Vermont. I couldn’t stand the peace and quiet, though, after 30 years on the NYPD, so when I heard that Burlington was looking for an experienced homicide guy, I clipped on a new shield and went back to work.”
It was three days later, and I was sitting across from Detective Branigan in the Juice Bar, the oddly named coffee shop in McCullough Hall, at his invitation.
“I wish my grandfather would go back to work,” I said. “He just putters around the house all day and drives my gramma crazy.”
“If I hadn’t taken this job,” he joked, “I think my wife would have divorced me by now.”
I laughed.
“That’s nice,” he said. “That’s the first time I’ve seen a smile on your face. You’re a good looking girl when you smile, Max.”
I looked down at my coffee, embarrassed.
“I wanted to tell you a couple things,” he said, after a while, “now that it’s all over.”