Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

“In the morning?”

“Yeah. How long have you been here?”

“I’m not sure. Since... maybe ten o’clock last night.”

“Yeah? How do you feel?”

“Worse than I look.”

“That ain’t humanly possible, dog. You’d be dead. Might be yet unless you let me check you over. How about it?”

“Yeah, okay, why not?” I said, sagging back down on the metal bunk.

Leaning in, Lockwood aimed a narrow flashlight beam into my eyes. It pierced my brain like an ice pick. “What happened to you, anyway?”

“Long story.”

“Looks like a sad one to me. Raise up your arms.” He palpated my ribs, checked both collarbones. “Okay, good news, bad news. You’re bruised up some, but nothing serious, no sign of concussion. You’ll probably live.”

“Is that the good news or the bad?”

“Definitely the good. Bad news is, you’re still in jail.”

Not for long. Half an hour later I was ushered into a gray concrete interrogation room with a single metal chair bolted to the floor. A police lieutenant who looked too young to vote sat me down, read me my rights, then explained the facts of life.

The frat boy I decked could file assault charges against me but probably wouldn’t. He had legal troubles of his own. The officers I had assaulted could also file charges — I tried to protest, he ignored me — but... if I was willing to sign a release absolving them of any liability for the... misunderstanding, I’d be free to go.

The “free to go” part got my attention. “Basically, you’re saying... it never happened? We let bygones be bygones?” I asked.

“Exactly,” the boy lieutenant nodded.

“Where do I sign?”

The newspapers were already on stands when I hit the street. Campus Orgy Raided ! Fraternity members charged: drunk and disorderly, furnishing alcohol to minors, and — much more seriously — statutory rape. According to the papers, one of the girls at the party was only fifteen. I was fairly sure I knew which one.

Faced with photographic evidence, the Westover administration went into top speed cover-your-butt mode. Over the next few days, fourteen students were expelled or voluntarily withdrew. Drew Braxton lost his scholarship, the security guard was fired. And the boys weren’t the only ones in trouble. A half-dozen girls left school as well, including the one I’d tried to rescue in that room. The papers withheld her name because of her age, but it didn’t matter. I already knew her name. Emily. And Westover’s a small campus.

Not all the news was grim. Sara Silver, the gutsy Westover Wildcat reporter who’d gone undercover to break the story, became an overnight celebrity. A reporter’s dream. USA Today carried the story of the raid with Sara’s byline; Time and Newsweek both ran print interviews with her. She even scored face time on Oprah and Larry King .

With her star on the rise, Sara was already fielding offers from the networks. She’d have her pick of jobs by graduation.

But I wouldn’t be around to see it. A few days after the pig-party raid, Jack Shannon let me go. He said it was for my own good. If I stayed on, sooner or later there’d be trouble. He was right. And to be honest, I didn’t much care. The fun was gone. It’s tough being a bartender in a college town when the kids treat you like Benedict freakin’ Arnold.

Jack gave me two weeks’ severance pay, plus an envelope somebody left for me at the bar.

No return address. Just fifty bucks in tens. And a note from Sara Silver asking me to meet her at the Coffee Beanery on campus the next day.

A perfect Indian summer afternoon, Westover’s maples flaming red and gold. College kids strolling hand in hand. Damn. I was really going to miss this place.

I hadn’t seen Sara since the bust. Scarcely recognized her. She was sitting at an open-air table in front of the coffee shop, looking sharp enough to stop traffic.

The night of the pig party, she’d shocked me by turning herself into a brown wren, plain as wallpaper paste. Now, the transformation had gone the other way. A full-blown extreme TV makeover. The cute coed had blossomed into a picture-perfect butterfly. Honey blond hair impeccably coifed, trimmed to nape length and swept to one side. Eyebrows plucked and patterned to perfection. Ice blue contacts, Donna Karan suit. Primped, polished, and ready for prime time.

“My, my, what a difference a few days can make,” I said, taking the chair facing her. “You look absolutely dynamite.”

“I wish I could say the same, Malloy. You look like crap.”

“I had some trouble sleeping in jail.”

“I got you out as soon as I could. Did my best to keep your name out of it.”

“I noticed that none of the news stories mentioned me. I guess I should thank you.”

“No need,” she said briskly. “Mr. Shannon said you’re leaving town. Because of the pig party? Have either of you been threatened?”

“Are you suddenly worried about my welfare, Silver? Or just looking for another byline?”

“That’s unfair. If you’re having problems, you certainly can’t blame me for them. I never intended to cause you any trouble.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t. You smelled a story and went after it without a thought to what the fallout might be for me. Much less for Emily Kaempfert.”

“Who?”

“Come on, Silver, it’s Malloy, remember? Your partner in crime. We both know who Emily is. Emily Kaempfert. The underage girl I hauled out of the pig party. The one you took me there to find.”

“But her name was never released,” she said carefully. “How do you—?”

“You called out to her at the bust, remember? And Westover’s a small campus. I had no trouble finding out who she was. And where she lived.”

Sara’s face went suddenly still. Unreadable as a mask.

“Kappa Rho,” I went on. “The sorority for promising academics. And Emily was very promising. A math whiz who graduated from high school at fifteen. Valedictorian. Precocious, but also pudgy and plain. With no social skills at all. But you know all that, don’t you? Because you live at Kappa Rho, too. In fact, you’re a mentor there. For freshmen like Emily. You knew her, didn’t you?”

“I knew... who she was,” Sara said carefully. “That’s why I was so shocked to find her at that party.”

“Bull! You knew damned well she’d be there. You helped her to get in. The security guard and Braxton both knew me but they still checked your ID. They must have checked Emily’s too. The papers ran pictures of the fake ID Emily used to get into the party. Pretty lame. It wouldn’t have fooled me. Don’t think it would have fooled that security guard or Braxton either.”

“What is it you think you know, Malloy?”

“I think Emily had a much better fake ID, maybe pro quality. But she’s only a freshman and a fifteen-year-old at that. She wouldn’t have a clue about how to find an ID good enough to get her past security. But you would. You did a story on it last semester.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Is it? When you grabbed Emily’s purse in the scuffle, I thought you were trying to help me get her out of there. But now I think you swapped the crude ID for the one she actually used to get into the party. The raid would be a very different story if the star reporter was guilty of setting up the crime she helped bust. My God, how could you do it?”

“Do what?”

“A chubby geek like Emily probably never had a date in her life. Certainly not at Westover. So when she told you she’d been invited to the Delta House party, she had no idea what it meant. But you did. You should have warned her, Sara. Instead, you furnished her with fake ID, then hired me to help you get pictures. Knowing that kid was headed for total humiliation, or a whole lot worse.”