Alan Cook - Catch a Falling Knife

After we had eaten I asked Tess if she wanted to take a stroll on the campus, but she declined. She is not a stroller. I said, “Let’s go find Elise’s apartment.”

Tess gave me her look that means she’s on to my schemes and said, “She probably won’t be there.”

“No, but at least I’ll know where it is. For future reference.”

“You’d better be careful about contacting Elise. You could get Mark into more trouble than he is already.”

“I know that. I’ll be careful. I’m always careful.”

Tess snorted. But she assumed her duties as navigator and guided me to the apartment building. It had one story and all the apartments faced the street. We found Elise’s number with no trouble and I parked on the street in front of it.

“I think I’ll go ring the doorbell,” I said.

“Big surprise,” Tess said.

I rang the doorbell, but nobody answered. I returned to the car.

“Well, what should we do now?” I asked.

“We wait,” Tess said. “I know that’s what you want to do. I blocked out the whole day for you so it’s no problem with me. We missed pool aerobics this morning. I knew we’d never make it back for the Bridge Club. In fact, I brought along a book to read.” She pulled a paperback copy of a Sue Grafton mystery out of her purse. She started reading mysteries after we solved a murder last summer. “We’re two detectives on a stakeout.”

But Tess’ idea of a stakeout was to read a book, not to watch for anything. I had to do that. After a few minutes I knew the meaning of boredom. And then Tess fell asleep, leaving me completely alone. This was not a glamorous job. I had trouble staying awake, myself. Several times I dozed off and woke with a jerk. After an hour I was ready to give up.

I heard a car pull up behind me and stop. I glanced in my rearview mirror. I got a quick look at the face of a young woman. It wasn’t Elise, but it looked familiar. She got out of the car and I could no longer see her face in my mirror. She walked around the back of my car and up the sidewalk to Elise’s apartment. From the back she reminded me of the girl from the Administration Building, the way she had looked as she had run away from me after telling me about Club Cavalier. What was she doing here?

She went up to the door, but instead of knocking or ringing the doorbell it looked as if she was using a key. The door opened and she went inside and shut it after her. She must be Elise’s roommate. Donna. I remembered her name. I pulled out my spiral notebook and checked my notes. Donna Somerset. I had learned not to rely on my memory.

I had to see her face again to make sure. I could knock on the door, but she would recognize me. If I waited, maybe she would come out. But I couldn’t wait here, because she had undoubtedly noticed the two of us sitting in my car, even though only the backs of our heads had been visible to her. If we stayed here she might get suspicious and take a closer look. And she could see the car from her front window.

I started the car and pulled ahead, intending to park a short distance up the street.

“What’s going on?” Tess asked, sleepily.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. I had a thought. “I need to get the license plate number of the car behind where we were just parked. I’m going to turn around and drive by it. You can help me read the license.”

I pulled into a driveway on the other side of the street and backed out, reversing our direction. Then I cruised slowly past the other car. It was some sort of Chevrolet model, not new, not old. Between us, Tess and I read the license plate and she wrote it down.

“There’s a girl coming out of that apartment,” Tess said. She was looking back over her shoulder.

“Damn,” I said. “I need to get a good look at her.” I pulled into a second driveway and turned the car around again, as quickly as I could, with Tess helping by warning me not to back into a parked car I wasn’t going to hit, anyway. As I drove past the girl’s car she was just opening the driver’s side door and I had to steer wide to miss her. She looked up and we stared at each other for a split second. I had no doubt that she was Donna Somerset.

I turned right at the next corner.

“She didn’t look like Mr. Hoffman’s daughter,” Tess said.

“She’s not. But I know who she is. I’ll explain later. Right now, we have to get back to that street.”

Easier said than done. The streets didn’t necessarily run in straight lines, I found out, and it took me about ten minutes to return to the vicinity of the apartment. When I did I parked about 50 feet from it instead of directly in front. Donna’s car was gone.

“This would be a lot more fun if I knew what was going on,” Tess complained.

“All will be revealed in good time,” I said. “Right now, we have to watch for Elise. We’ll give her ten minutes and if she doesn’t show up we’ll get out of here.”

To keep Tess interested I decided to tell her about Donna, and we were pondering the relevance of the fact that Donna and Elise were apparently roommates when I noticed that something looked different about the apartment window.

“It looks as if the drapes behind the white curtains have been opened,” I said. “They were closed before.”

“Donna might have opened them,” Tess said.

“I don’t think so. I’m going to the door again.”

“Be careful.”

As I walked up the sidewalk to the front door I confirmed my observation about the drapes. Somebody was inside and it wasn’t Donna. As I rang the doorbell I felt a lot tenser than when I had tried it the first time.

I heard a noise from within and the door opened. I looked into the stunning eyes of Elise Hoffman.

For a few interminable seconds I lost the power of speech. Then I said, “Hello, are you Miss Hoffman?”

She nodded and gave me a look that said, “And what are you trying to sell?”

“I’m Lillian Morgan-Professor Morgan. May I come in a minute?”

Whether it was the “professor” or the fact that I looked harmless, she reluctantly stepped aside and let me in, closing the door behind me. She remained where she was, with one hand on the doorknob, and didn’t offer me a seat. Unless I could thaw her quickly this would be a short interview. I knew I couldn’t mention her father so I had to find another way to break through her reserve.

I took a look around at the sparsely furnished front room, complete with posters on the wall. And pictures. Several of the pictures were of Elise in a leotard, doing gymnastic routines. I said, “You’re a gymnast, aren’t you?”

Elise nodded again.

“Were you on a team in high school?” I didn’t know whether Crescent Heights College had a gymnastics team.

“Yes. We went to the state championships two years in a row.”

She stated it as a fact, without bragging. She had warmed up a few degrees. “It’s wonderful to be so athletic. I was always too tall for gymnastics, but I played tennis.”

“I play some tennis too. But I wasn’t good enough to make the team in high school. And I don’t have time for any sports here.”

I had been prepared for Elise to be a conniving bitch, but she didn’t appear to be malicious or scheming. She didn’t seem hard or emotionally distant. I was sure her reticence now was normal when talking to a stranger. I decided to be frank with her.

“Elise,” I said, “I need to say some things to you. Listen to me for two minutes and then you can ask me to leave if you want to. I am a friend of Dr. Pappas, but he didn’t give me your name or ask me to come here. I discovered your name by luck. He hasn’t violated any part of the sexual harassment rules.”

Mark’s name had registered in her expressive eyes. If I had had any doubts about whether she was his accuser before, they were gone. As I paused to collect my thoughts, I waited for her to kick me out, but she didn’t say anything.