Chuck pulled the van to a stop in front of Raven House.
Half a dozen Estes Park police sedans lined the parking lot in front of the dorms. A shiny white recreational vehicle emblazoned with the words “Estes Park Police Department Mobile Command Unit” was positioned in the middle of the gravel lot. A group of uniformed officers stood outside the command vehicle, arms folded, observing the return of the van.
The students stared, speechless, at the officers, prompting Chuck to say as he parked, “I’ll head over and see where things stand.”
“What about Clarence?” Sheila asked from the back row.
Clarence, in the passenger seat opposite Chuck, looked straight ahead and said nothing.
“They’ll be talking to him, too,” Chuck answered.
“But what about his knife?”
Chuck gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “There’s nothing at this point—nothing—linking the blood found between the dorms with what happened last night. For now, I’m sure, the police are focusing all their efforts on the murder.” He shut off the engine. “Straight to your rooms, please. Wait there until you’re called for your interviews. Then you can head over to the lodge cafeteria for dinner; I’m sure the dining hall will be closed.”
He climbed out of the van without waiting for anyone to respond. The gathered officers parted as he approached the command vehicle. At Chuck’s knock, Hemphill opened the door and motioned him inside.
The new-vehicle smell of off-gassing plastic filled the interior of the vehicle. Everything was bureaucratic gray and off-white. Formica cabinets and countertops lined the walls except where a small table and facing bench seats were bolted in front of the vehicle’s sole window. A built-in television, tuned to a news channel and muted, glowed from the wall of cabinets opposite the table. Below the television, a two-way radio sat on a small counter.
Chuck recognized the only other person in the vehicle, the older cop, Harley, who’d come to Estes Park from St. Louis. Harley sat in a wheeled office chair at a counter running the width of the rear of the RV. He nodded at Chuck before going back to studying a pair of laptop computers arranged in front of him. A wire led from one of the computers to a small microphone on a plastic stand.
Chuck took in the high-tech interior of the vehicle. “Pretty nice setup for a town your size,” he said to Hemphill.
The officer waved dismissively. “Homeland Security money.” He slid into the bench seat on the far side of the small table and motioned Chuck to the seat opposite him.
Chuck slid behind the table. “Arrested anybody yet?”
Hemphill opened a narrow notebook on the otherwise empty table and pulled a pen from his front pocket. He laid the pen on the notebook.
“I take it that’s a no,” Chuck said.
“Correct.” Hemphill pointed out the window at the students, who worked with Kirina and Clarence, unloading the gear boxes and tools from the roof of the van and carrying them into Raven House. “Your crew, how well do you know them?”
“They’re good kids, if that’s what you’re asking,” Chuck said. “Friendly, outgoing. Nothing about them suggests any involvement in what happened last night.”
Hemphill put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Nothing?”
The hair on the back of Chuck’s neck stood up.
The officer cleared his throat, still sitting forward. “Parker tells me this is the first time he’s ever had a college group like yours stay here for the summer. Said he didn’t think much about it to begin with. It was extra income for the resort, making use of the old dorm. He says he’s had the international college student worker program for several years now, so he figured American students would be fine.” Hemphill paused. “But he says your kids have been pretty active—at night.”
“Active how?”
“He used the term ‘cross-pollination.’ Said that, from what he’d heard—” and from what he’d seen, Chuck thought, remembering the binocular case on Parker’s windowsill “—there was lots of movement back and forth between the two dorms, between your students and the international workers.”
“Huh,” Chuck said. He’d caught enough snippets of conversation between the students over the summer to know Parker’s report had an element of truth to it. The students and the international workers ate together in the dining hall behind the dormitories, and they socialized together in the evenings outside the dorms as well, tossing horseshoes and sharing music playlists. It made sense that the commingling between the Raven House and Falcon House residents extended beyond Clarence’s start-of-summer hook-ups with Nicoleta.
Hemphill continued. “Parker says he thinks the most active one of all was your brother-in-law.”
“You’ve been after Clarence from the start, because of his knife. But he’s got nothing to do with this.”
Hemphill lifted a hand. “You have to understand. If we—”
“You’re supposed to be working on finding the real killer,” Chuck broke in. “Clarence isn’t him.”
Hemphill spread his hands. “I’m just giving it to you straight. Do you really think I’d be telling you this if I believed Clarence was the perpetrator? You know good and well if I thought he was the guy, I’d take him in without telling you a thing.”
“Okay,” Chuck said grudgingly. “Fine. Am I to understand that, based on what Parker told you, you’re going to focus on my entire group, not just Clarence?”
“Yes.”
“Have at them, then.”
Hemphill’s brows came together in question.
“I want this thing settled as much as you do,” Chuck told him. “I was there. I held her in my arms. I saw what happened to her.” He worked his jaw. “I want to see whoever did that to her brought to justice.”
“Fair enough,” Hemphill said. “How about we start with you?”