“About freaking time,” Jake muttered as he and D were led down the carpeted hallway, a corridor of closed and numbered doors, toward Edward Tarrant’s office. Sasha Vogelby, several steps in front of them, had called Tarrant back, and in a hushed but insistent voice relayed Jake’s admonition that with or without his permission, they were on their way to his office. At which point the woman turned the charm on them.
“Mr. Tarrant will be happy to see you now,” she’d gushed. As if it were his idea. As if his happiness mattered.
“Piece of work,” D said, keeping his voice low. “You think she really didn’t know? About Morgan?”
“She’s an actor, right?” Jake muttered.
“Gentlemen?” Vogelby stopped halfway along the hall, in front of a closed office door. “All set?”
Jake didn’t like her. He couldn’t help it. He knew that was a pitfall for cops—personal feelings should never get in the way. But a layer of yellowing disdain kept threatening to tinge Jake’s response to this woman. Her obsequiousness toward Tarrant, her ivory tower existence, her flouncing around this insular and otherworldly environment. He knew it well from his Harvard years, had experienced the same entitled atmosphere, the higher learning and know-it-all swagger drawing a hard line between us and them, campus and townie, the educated and the not-so. DeLuca still tormented Jake about his educational background.
“Set?” DeLuca repeated in reply to Vogelby’s question. “We were ‘set’ when we arrived, about half an hour ago.”
“Thanks, Ms. Vogelby,” Jake said. Good cop. Might as well be.
They lurched through preliminary small talk, Jake taking in the opulence of Tarrant’s office. Must make quite the salary, Jake figured, he’d check the records. After he heard the dean’s oh-so-sincere eulogy for the “intensely talented” and “much-admired” Avery Morgan, Jake had another on his personal list of “not-guilty but not-likable.”
Could Tarrant be the killer? Strangulation was most often a man’s crime. The strength it took to wrap your hands around the victim’s neck, the intensity of the proximity, the willingness to get that close to your prey. Feel their breath on you, match their struggle, hear their last gasps. It wasn’t as instant—or pretty—as in the movies. Drowning, though, that could be a woman’s crime. Especially if Kat found there were drugs involved.
Sasha Vogelby had retreated to a shadowy corner, dwarfed by the ceiling-high bookshelves behind her.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” Jake said again. They hadn’t been invited to sit, and Jake now looked pointedly at the two chairs across from Tarrant’s desk.
“Thank you.” Tarrant, big shot, gestured to the expensive-looking upholstery.
“Were you particular friends with Ms. Morgan?” Jake said after he and D had sat, taking out his notebook, mostly for show. D did the same, and licked his pencil tip like a two-bit comic cop. For Tarrant’s benefit, Jake knew.
“‘Particular’?” Tarrant seemed to taste the word, testing it. “We were colleagues, certainly.”
Jake waited, silent. Waited for Tarrant to fill the space. A shadow passed by the frosted glass of Tarrant’s outer door, then his phone buzzed. “No calls, Manderley,” Tarrant said into the speaker.
Manderley. Jake clicked his pen, wrote it in his notebook, figuring he’d spelled it correctly. Jane’d love that name. But whoever Manderley was probably knew more than she—she?—was aware. He’d check with her, for sure. Calendar, schedules, phone calls. A secretary knew them all.
Tarrant, hands steepled, stayed silent. Fine, Jake thought.
Changing tactics, Jake leaned forward. “How did Ms. Morgan come to be associated with Adams Bay, Mr. Tarrant? Did she have family? Where was she from? And where were you, sir, yesterday from noon until approximately six P.M.?”
Take that, Jake thought. He heard a sound from the back of the room, turned to see if Vogelby wanted to say something. She coughed, twice, covering her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“Sir?” Jake prompted Tarrant, as D shifted again in his apparently uncomfortable chair. Though Jake’s wasn’t bad.
“Ms. Morgan came to us from California,” Tarrant said. “She lived outside Los Angeles, if I remember, in a suburb called…” He shook his head, then spread his hands, apologetic. “As for her personal information, I must admit I am not clear on the protocol. I’ve put in a call to our president, Reginald Buchholz, but, alas, he is out of the country, and I fear the time zones don’t work in our favor.”
“Alas,” DeLuca said.
“I fear—” Jake paused, but not quite long enough to be nasty “—the protocol of the Boston homicide division takes precedence. Sir. I’m sure there’s a personnel file, and that’s what I need. We don’t need the permission of the college president, although I will want to talk with him. So.” Jake gestured to Tarrant with his ballpoint. Clicked it. “You’ll provide that information, as well as more. Was she married? Divorced? Did she have a boyfriend, for want of a better term? Or girlfriend?”
Tarrant cleared his throat. “Might I ask you, Detectives, whether the school should put out some sort of alert? Do you think there’s a danger to students, or faculty, or anyone else in the neighborh—?”
“We don’t, Mr. Tarrant,” Jake cut him off. “We would have mentioned that right off the bat. I can tell you there were no signs of forced entry, no struggle, nothing out of place.”
Tarrant’s eyes widened. “Are you thinking she knew her killer?”
Jake saw Tarrant’s face change. Did he exchange glances with Vogelby? Hard to tell.
“Or could it have been sui—” Tarrant stood, his fingers poised on his sleek black desk blotter. “Could she have—” his voice dropped to a whisper “—killed herself?”
“It’s all part of the investigation, sir.” Jake flapped his notebook shut. Sometimes that made subjects more relaxed, as if the “real” interview were over. The real interviews were never over. “So. Personnel file. Ms. Morgan’s contact information. Her acquaintances and relationships. As well as President…”
“Buchholz,” Vogelby’s voice came from the back of the room. This time they did exchange glances. Tarrant glared at her.
What was between those two? Jake needed to split them up.
“While we were waiting for you, Ms. Vogelby described student gatherings, parties, maybe rehearsals, at Ms. Morgan’s home,” Jake said. And under the bus she goes. “The house was part of her salary?”
“Part of her employment package, yes,” Tarrant said, sitting again, leaning into the dark brown leather. “Use of the house. And yes, there were—I wouldn’t quite call them ‘parties.’”
Tarrant shot Vogelby the glare again. “But certainly Ms. Morgan encouraged students to participate in group gatherings at her home. I understand they did rehearsals there, little theatricals. She was our resident expert in performance, with a specialty in opera. So obviously her students would congregate there—not unlike other professors having teas, or sherry with poetry readings. That sort of thing.”
DeLuca coughed, which Jake thought unnecessary. But funny. D was not big on poetry. Or sherry.
“We’ll need the names of her students,” Jake said. He nodded at D, whose notebook was still at the ready. “Especially those who were familiar with the house.”
“I told them, Mr. Tarrant.” Sasha Vogelby’s voice again. Jake turned, watched the woman take a few steps closer to them, her white hair emerging from the shadow of the shelved leather volumes. “I told the detectives we’d have to get permission from the families to release their names. It’s a classic privacy situation.”
“It’s a possible murder situation,” DeLuca said.
“Were you ever at Ms. Morgan’s parties?” Jake looked at Tarrant, then Vogelby, then Tarrant again. “Either of you?”