Bombshell Part 12

"Dr. Salazar's secretary emailed me a couple of weeks ago, said I'd been invited to his lovely new-semester get-together. I didn't want to go, so I told her I had a long-standing date with my best friend, Anna, to go ice-skating here in Henderson. Before I knew it the great man himself called me and didn't leave me any graceful way I could get out of going.

"I'd already heard what his parties were like-booze-laden, bawdy Spanish fiestas. Henry Stoltzen, you know, the cellist and my upstairs neighbor, was right. Most of the students there were women, with a few straight and gay men sprinkled in along with some faculty. And, of course, Dr. Hayman, Professor Salazar's brother. Yeah, I know, more different last names. That's because the mom took Professor Salazar to Spain and left Dr. Hayman behind with the dad. New name for one brother when she remarried, and the dad's name for the other."

Dix said, "I'll need a list of all the faculty you remember being there, Ms. Freestone."

She grinned up at him. "Since your wife and my brother are colleagues, please call me Delsey."

"Delsey, not a problem." He eyed her for a moment. "Call me Dix. A booze-laden Spanish fiesta with the students? Stanislaus is a world-renowned inst.i.tution. What is wrong with these people?"

"Well, the fact is the students at the party were older, graduate students, anywhere from, say, my age-twenty-five-to Marjorie Hendricks, an incredible flautist, who's in her forties. Stanislaus is a rather isolated environment, and Maestro is a small town, so I suppose it's more accepted here that, ah, friends.h.i.+ps spring up between some of the faculty and the older students."

"Maybe so, Delsey," Griffin said, "but what I saw at Salazar's this morning was something different."

"Not so different. The reality of it is, Griffin, that a small group of women enjoy being groupies to the great Professor Rafael Salazar himself. He's visiting Stanislaus for a year, he's in the boondocks, hardly knows a soul, and he wants companions.h.i.+p, so he finds it where he can-namely, at Stanislaus. Why are you smiling, Dix?"

"My uncle-in-law, Dr. Gordon Holcombe, who was director at Stanislaus until circ.u.mstances forced him to leave last year, would agree completely with you. I remember he called some of the undergraduate students he slept with his muses."

"I've heard some stories about Dr. Holcombe," Delsey said. "Usually with whispers and rolled eyes."

"Whatever their age," Griffin said, "the faculty is in a position of power over all of them. Salazar pressured you into coming to his party, for example."

"And why, I wonder? I remember thinking-before I got so drunk I couldn't see straight-that Professor Salazar didn't seem all that involved. I mean, as the host, he made the rounds, gave students and faculty drinks and munchies, but he seemed sort of set apart from his own party. I remember thinking it must be driving Gabrielle DuBois mad. The drunker she got, the more she stuck next to him, trying to get him to dance, but-"

"But what?" Dix asked.

"I just remembered. Professor Salazar was watching me, and I wondered why. Here I was, trying to fend off Dr. Hayman, and I remember seeing Professor Salazar standing across the room, his very expensive cashmered back leaning against the fireplace mantel, a drink in his hand, looking my way."

Sat.u.r.day evening

Griffin hunkered down in Delsey's room, alternately studying her face while she dozed, reading a biography online about Stanislaus, and keeping half an eye on the national news on TV. When he heard Savich's voice, he jerked around, then realized his new boss was on TV, not in the room with him. Savich was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, thick swirling snow piling white on his black hair, talking about the murder of a young man. He spoke briefly, went into no detail. The clip looked to have been recorded that morning.

Griffin's cell phone buzzed. He looked down at a message from Ruth.

Body found at Lincoln Memorial this a.m.-grandson of Palmer Cronin, ex-chairman of Fed, body staged for max effect-see YouTube.

Griffin stared at the message, then back to the TV, where a bundled-up Was.h.i.+ngton correspondent stood, mike in hand, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, finis.h.i.+ng up his story about the murder victim found at Lincoln's feet. The coverage switched back to the newsroom, where the anchor, trying to look properly somber but looking excited instead, gave the "just in" update that the dead young man had been identified as Thomas Malcolm Cronin, age twenty, the grandson of Palmer Cronin, retired chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. The scene switched to a view of Palmer Cronin's tall iron fence and gate in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where another reporter, her face under an umbrella in the heavy snow, spoke of the victim's ill.u.s.trious family.

Suddenly Delsey said clearly, "No, shut up! You can't be, you can't!"

He was at her side in an instant, saw horror on her face. "Delsey, wake up, you've having a nightmare. Wake up."

But the nightmare didn't let her go. She jerked straight up in bed and screamed in his face, "No!"

"Delsey!" He took her shoulders in his hands and shook her hard as her eyes flew open, blind and wild. She was panting, still terrified.

He sat beside her and drew her up in his arms and rubbed her back. "It's all right, Dels. Hold on to me, you'll be okay."

He felt her slowly get herself together. Her arms fell away, and she leaned back in his arms.

"Tell me," Griffin said.

He saw it was tough for her, and waited. Finally she whispered, "I dreamed I was in a small room-about the size of my bathroom-no windows, only white walls, but they weren't plain white, Griffin, they were splattered with blood from the men lying dead on the floor. Then they all sat straight up and stared at me and I know they blamed me, and then they started screaming at me, but it wasn't words, only sounds that didn't make any sense. There was so much blood, fountains of blood-and it was thick and red and I was naked and I felt the blood splas.h.i.+ng on me, streaking down the front of me. The blood was so hot, Griffin, and it was like the blood wanted to burn through me."

Griffin thought her subconscious had torqued the truth of what had happened to her into a crazy dream, and he wondered whether what her subconscious had dished up might have a kernel of truth lurking in the craziness. He said, "It's possible when the dead men sat up and looked at you, started screaming at you, that it was your dream trying to tell you that you'd seen or heard something more, Delsey. Get your brain together. Think about this."

But she couldn't reason yet, her brain was still frozen. "All those dead men in my dream, Griffin, all of them looked exactly like him, they were all the dead man in my bathtub. Who is the dead man, Griffin?"

"We'll find out. Now, close your eyes a moment. Think-no, picture-your bathroom in your mind. Do you see or hear anything else?"

She was breathing fast, and he smoothed her hands to calm her. "Yes, that's right, steady yourself."

"Yes, now I realize there are two other guys there and one of them is yelling in Spanish, words, curses, I don't know, but not jumbled sounds like from all the dead guys. Wait, I see one of them, Griffin-only a glimpse, really-a young Hispanic guy. And then something hits my head and I'm gone."

"So one of the Hispanic guys struck you down. Were any of the dead men Hispanic?"

"No. Like I told you, they were all like him, Caucasian."

He squeezed her hands. "It shouldn't be much longer before we know the dead man's ident.i.ty."

"So Anna didn't know who he was?"

"Anna told Ruth she'd spoken to him only a couple of times, said he was friendly, but she didn't know his name, or anything about him, only that he was new in town."

"Where is Anna? Why hasn't she come back to see me?"

"She'll show up when she can. Tell me more about the men in your dream."

"His face is here in front of my eyes, Griffin, all their faces, really, plaster white, like they aren't real, but I can see dark whiskers on their cheeks. They won't go away."

"Tell me about their faces."

"Their faces are full-well fed, I'd guess you'd say-boyish, and their eyes are open like his were. They look surprised, Griffin, their mouths open, too, showing their front teeth. But the blood, so much blood." She fell silent, looking inward, then, "I told the sheriff I'd seen the dead man near Holcombe's Bank and in Maurie's Diner, but I remember now I might also have seen him on Breaker's Hill, Griffin, three days ago, when Anna and I were s...o...b..arding. Anna took a wild turn and went skidding toward the trees and fell on her b.u.t.t. I was yelling at her and laughing, and I saw a man standing in the maple trees beside the trail and I remember wondering what he was doing there, since I didn't see him holding a sled or a s...o...b..ard. He moved back, really fast, like he didn't want anyone to see him. But Griffin, I think it could have been the dead man in my bathtub."

Now, this was interesting. "In your dream, all of the dead men screamed something at you-think about this, Delsey. Can you now make sense of any of the sounds?"

She eyed him for a moment. "No, it's just jumbled noise. You're thinking the dream was a sort of message to me? You think they were telling me it was my fault the man was murdered?" She looked beyond him, at the drifting snow outside her window. How beautiful the scene outside looked from inside the warm hospital room. But the man in her bathtub wasn't warm, not any longer.

He felt her corrosive fear and dropped it. "Nah," he said, and gave her a final squeeze. He'd bet his favorite Rossignol skis the dead man in her bathtub had been the same man she'd seen in the woods on Breaker's Hill. Was he following her? Surveilling her? It sure sounded like it. But why, for heaven's sake? Because she saw something she wasn't supposed to see, or overheard something she wasn't supposed to hear?

Griffin eased her back down, patted her cheek. "You did good. Now, for a reward I'm going to get you pistachio-pineapple ice cream. Used to be the only flavor you'd eat. Can you get it in Maestro?"

"Look, Griffin, I'm being crazy, I mean, look at what my mind conjured up-a whole bunch of dead men. Why would I deserve a reward for that?"