Allison Brennan - Cutting Edge

“Noted,” Duke said. He introduced his brother. “Sean, this is Special Agent Nora English and Sheriff Lance Sanger with Placer County.”

Sanger asked, “Are you a student here?”

Sean hesitated, and Duke explained. “I got him in so he could keep an eye on Cole and his activist group. Nora didn’t know, it was my call.”

Sanger looked impressed. “Well Nora, I guess you don’t mind bending the rules.”

He didn’t believe she hadn’t known, and Nora didn’t correct him. What would be the point? Instead, she asked Sean, “Were you at the meeting last night?”

He nodded. “They really didn’t have a meeting. Mostly, they ranted about the ducks being killed at Lake of the Pines. It broke up early, a little after eight. I went to Anya’s room to see if she was okay.”

Duke said, “So you knew her?”

“I met her Monday morning in class. We had lunch together.”

“What was her behavior like then?” Nora asked.

“Cheerful, I guess. Normal. She invited me to the meeting and I said she would see me there. She was distracted near the end of lunch, though, and so I followed her when she left. She met Professor Cole in the organic garden. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it seemed obvious that he told her something that upset her. And I had the impression they were involved.”

“Involved?” Nora asked. “Romantically? Did they kiss?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“It wasn’t like a passionate kiss, but it was more how they touched and stuff. They stood really close, not like us here, but like this.” He stepped close to Nora and took her hands. They were about a foot apart. “Yeah, like that. And they held hands.”

He stepped back, embarrassed.

“Why did you go up to her room?” Nora asked.

“Because she didn’t show up at the meeting and she’d invited me.”

“Did you talk to her in her room?”

“Just briefly at the door. She said she was studying and time got away from them. But Chris, who I saw through the door, had been at the meeting. He left early, before it started.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No, but I heard someone. A girl.”

Nora straightened. “A girl?”

Sean paused. “I can’t swear by it. I only saw Anya and Chris, and part of another guy-he had big feet in white sneakers. But I heard another person. Maybe it was a guy.”

Nora went with Sean’s first impression, which was probably accurate. But it wouldn’t hold up in court because he was already backtracking-if in fact there had been another female in the room who knew what the three were doing and didn’t do anything to stop them, she could be in serious trouble. Suicide was still a crime in California.

“What else did Anya say?” Nora prompted Sean.

“I told her I’d see her Wednesday in class and she said maybe we could have lunch again.”

“She was making plans?”

“Well, it wasn’t set in stone,” Sean said. “More like if we saw each other at the cafeteria we’d eat together.”

People who were contemplating imminent suicide did not generally make future plans, even lunch in two days.

Sean added, “When I was leaving the meeting, I asked Professor Cole about Anya. He said she wasn’t feeling well.”

“So he already knew she wasn’t coming to the meeting? Why would he say she wasn’t feeling well if she was studying?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Sean answered anyway. “Professor Cole seemed very protective of her. But I already knew they had something going on.”

“Thank you, Sean. Oh, one thing, you heard a third person, thought it was female. Was there another reason you felt the third person was female?”

He shrugged. “The door was closed-almost. Closing, I should say. But it wasn’t Chris.”

It wasn’t definitive. There were three dead, and three known people in the room, and perhaps Scott’s voice had been effeminate. But three college students who were environmental activists slitting the throat of an I.T director to steal security plans? Or torturing Dr. Payne and letting him bleed to death? None of it made any sense to her. But she had to go with the evidence, and the evidence right now had the three confessing to arson and murder.

Three deputies came down the stairs carrying an evidence box. They wore booties, gloves, and face masks.

“Sheriff,” one of them said after removing his mask, “we found four bottles of one-fifty-one proof vodka and green spray paint. We also found Ballard’s computer. And a journal. It doesn’t appear to claim credit for the arsons, but it documents the so-called crimes of the businesses that were attacked, plus others that weren’t attacked. We’re still bagging up evidence, it’ll take the rest of the day.”

Nora said, “Did you dust for prints?”

The deputy glanced at her, but the sheriff answered. “I know how to process a suicide. It’s always treated as a crime scene.”

“Can you send me a copy of the pictures?”

“I’ll get you copies of everything. You may get a chunk of the evidence as well, because I’m sure the U.S. attorney is going to want undeniable proof that the arsonists are dead.”

A deputy walked into the lobby with an evidence bag, and Sanger motioned for the two other deputies to take the other boxes to the crime-scene van. Sanger handed the letter, wrapped in plastic, to Nora.

The short letter was written on college-ruled notebook paper, one side only, in blue ballpoint pen. The paper had never been folded, though half was crinkled. There was some biological matter dried on the letter. It read:

To our parents and friends:

We’re so sorry for the pain we’ve caused you and we’re sorry that we have to do this. We never wanted to kill anyone. Things just got out of hand and then we couldn’t stop .

We only hope that maybe a tiny good can come from our actions. People need to wake up and look at how we’re destroying our planet. Stop screwing with nature. Stop polluting the water and the plants and the air. Stop eating genetically altered food. Stop before it’s too late .

We all agreed that this is the best way .

Anya, Chris amp; Scott

Nora read the letter three times and didn’t quite know what to make of it. They didn’t come right out and say they were responsible for the four arsons and murdering Jonah Payne or Russ Larkin. It was short-common with suicide notes-but suicide notes themselves were rare. Only one in four suicides left a note. Most were impulsive acts.

Many suicides did occur to avoid imprisonment or other punishment, but these kids weren’t yet on Nora’s radar. She’d been to the college several times to talk to Professor Cole, but she hadn’t brought any students in for questioning because no evidence had pointed to any individual student. Why would they kill themselves before there was an active investigation into their actions? Out of guilt? Nora would have to pull out her old psychology books, but suicide for guilt alone was somewhere at the bottom of the list.

“What?” Duke asked. “You’re frowning.”

“I’m thinking,” she said.

“What’s the problem?” Sanger said. “It’s pretty cut-and-dried.”

“They don’t admit to the arsons or murder.”

“They say right there that they didn’t want to kill anyone but it got out of hand.”

“They could be referring to the suicides themselves. That they planned it and didn’t know how not to go through with it. We don’t know, but-”

“The evidence is coming out of the room right now,” Duke said. “The vodka and the paint-”

She nodded. “I know. It seems convenient.”

“You can’t possibly think that they were framed,” Sanger said. “You’re really stretching this.”