Chapter 4
A s I and the other two female students sat on the overstuffed upholstered furniture in a lounge area just across from the security office, Jenna tried to make conversation, but Piper and I weren’t feeling very talkative. Although it would be light out for another hour, the sun had set behind the mountains to the west and the halls and lounge were bathed in soft artificial lighting in addition to the natural glow that would soon be fading. I was glad I’d had my cell phone in my pocket, because I wanted to update my dad.
I sent him a simple text message: Don’t wait up for me. This is going to last longer than I’d anticipated. I didn’t want to worry him with details. I’d let him know the whole story in the morning.
Unless I wound up being arrested or having to stay overnight.
The acid in my gut churned once more. Although I planned to tell the officers the whole truth, I didn’t know what they’d seen on the cameras yet—or if they’d even looked. They seemed to be following the orders of the plainclothes cops working in the lab.
The security guard stood just outside his office, having been kicked out for the greater good, left to watching over us to make sure we didn’t “escape.” I wondered if Dr. Rakhimov had managed to take advantage of her misfortune, getting more donors to cough up cash to help the school in time of its greatest need. I didn’t know that that was actually true—but I could hear Dr. R. asking it in just that way, her voice tinged with a hint of compassion for the students. That compassion didn’t really exist, but her performances were often Oscar worthy.
It made me wonder what she got out of all this—but I knew. Dr. R. wielded great power with the school, far more than the actual president of campus. What Dr. R. wanted, Dr. R. got. I knew too that, as head of the ever-growing nursing and health sciences programs, she earned far more than other professors—but I wondered if she earned bonuses for bringing in more students or money, or if it was just the power she enjoyed.
When the door to the security guard’s office opened, we three girls startled and looked over. One of the cops was escorting the male student, accompanied by the security guard. Before he was out of sight, he said, “Don’t get any bright ideas.”
Jenna smirked, but I didn’t know if it was because she was considering it anyway or shocked that the security guard thought we were stupid. But this was Jenna, so I wasn’t about to ask.
The other cop exited the office holding a clipboard. He looked up and said, “Miller.”
That had to be directed at me, as I was the only one there with that last name. Still, I was used to being addressed by my first. Pointing my hand at myself, I asked, “Me?”
“Your name Miller?”
“My last name.”
“Then yeah, you. Unless you wanted a red carpet or something.”
I tried not to look as scared or nervous as I felt, but I still had a hard time getting up from the soft chair. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, no doubt a return message from my dad, but it would have to wait. I suspected pulling out my phone and reading through messages like Jenna often did no matter what was going on would not be tolerated by the man in front of me.
When I reached him, he waved me into the office. “Have a seat.” Before he entered, though, he said to the girls outside, “You’re not under arrest—but I promise your life will be miserable if you leave before we have a chance to ask you questions.”
As he closed the door, I was certain Jenna would be whining to Piper again about being treated like a common criminal, but it was obvious she was enjoying the change of pace. Although she’d been told to refrain from posting about the vandalism on social media until the cops had had a chance to process the crime scene, I had no doubt she had let several of her select friends know what was happening nonetheless.
As the cop turned around, I realized just what a tight space the security office was. There was a huge desk in the middle of the room and multiple monitors lined the wall beside the desk. It made me wonder if they’d already looked at the recordings—but if they had, why would they be questioning us?
“All right, Miss Miller, I want you to tell me about your day in regard to the lab in as much detail as you can. Something you might remember that seems insignificant could turn out to be important information, so don’t leave out anything.”
“Um…okay. I, uh…I arrived on campus at eleven AM, and I was in and out of the lab off and on all day, but I wasn’t there making final preparations until around three.” I explained to him how I’d gone through all the simulation stations three times to make sure everything Dr. Rakhimov had wanted to demonstrate was working perfectly. If I hadn’t done each three times, she would have made me go back and do them again.
“You could have lied about how many times you tested them.”
“Yes, I suppose I could have, but Jenna was there—and, even though she wasn’t exactly paying attention, the time it took me to go through each station would have been evident.” Jenna wouldn’t have had any problem lying about helping or about testing each station three times if she’d only done it once, but I just knew if I hadn’t told the truth, Dr. R. would somehow know.
“Jenna— Haskell ?”
“Yes.”
“And what was Jenna doing in the lab?”
The easy answer would have been to say nothing and that would have almost been the truth. “She was supposed to be testing the stations as well but she was on her phone a lot…so I would ask her to do certain things when I needed a hand.”
“Like what?”
“Like filling up the cotton ball jar in one of the stations and making sure there was another box of small gloves in another. Just things like that.”
“And how long did this go on?”
I was not about to tell him that I’d moved slowly through the lab on purpose, but I had—for two reasons. One was to avoid being around Dr. Rakhimov as much as possible, because her mood had been worse than usual, and the second was so that I could honestly say I’d painstakingly tested everything and knew it was working perfectly. Had I known it would all be destroyed later, I might not have cared as much.
“Are you Haskell’s supervisor?”
I didn’t laugh but I almost wanted to. Even had I been, I doubted she would have been much more help to me. “No. I’m Dr. Rakhimov’s Teaching Assistant. Jenna and the male student usually work in the Admissions Office and I think Piper works in the Media Center but Dr. Rakhimov borrowed them just for today. After tonight, they’ll be going back to their usual work-study jobs.”
“Do you—” He paused when there was a sharp knock on the door before it swung open and the other police officer entered. As he got situated, I stole a glance at the bank of monitors and noticed one of them looking out over one of the parking lots where several cars were leaving.
I knew that had to be some of the people Dr. Rakhimov had invited.
“I’m gonna have you give Officer Silva a quick summary of what you just told me.”
I did as told, but I hadn’t finished by the time there was yet another knock on the door. This time it was the female plainclothes officer. “I need you to move to the classroom so I can begin reviewing the footage.”
“Can do,” said the first officer, motioning me with a mere eyebrow to stand. Soon, the three of us were in the hallway. The security guard was back at what I thought of as his post, and Jenna and Piper were once again joined by the male student—but they weren’t talking and I got the feeling they were told not to. Evidently, the cops hadn’t realized the students could easily communicate through our phones if we really wanted to, because they hadn’t confiscated them from us. As we walked down the hall and turned the corner past the vending machines, I wondered what my rights were in this situation. They’d said we could leave but implied that we wouldn’t want to and I thought it best to just get it over with. After all, if I’d refused, they might think I did have something to do with what had happened.
Soon, we entered one of the smaller classrooms, filled with two rows of desks, the walls lined with tables and PC stations for students who needed computer access but didn’t have a laptop or tablet. Officer Silva said, “We might as well get her prints before we finish questioning her.”
The first officer nodded his head, and Silva led me to the desk at the front of the room. “Miss, uh—”
“Miller.”
“Miss Miller, I do have to inform you that you have a right to refuse to be fingerprinted, but we already know your prints will be in the lab, and if you consent to fingerprinting, we’ll have an easier time identifying which prints are yours. If you don’t consent, we’ll find a way to legally encourage you to give them to us, but I do have to let you know that you don’t have to do it right now.”
“No, that’s okay. You can take them.”
The officer put on latex gloves and wrote my last name in a square on top of a card. “What’s your first name?”
“Annalise.”
“Could you spell that, please?”
I did and it wasn’t long before he was getting my fingerprints—taking each one of my digits on both hands, rolling it on the ink pad and then rolling it in its specific square on the card, leaving behind an image of the unique loops, arches, and whorls of the pads of my fingers. Although I didn’t think the fingerprints would prove my innocence, they were absolutely right that my prints would be all over the lab. Aside from Dr. Rakhimov, I had spent more time in there than anyone else. And even though Jenna and I had wiped everything down later in the day, I had no doubt they would find my prints there.
When he was done, he gave me a packet that held a wet wipe to remove the ink, and I was surprised how easily it came off.
Then we sat down again and they resumed questioning me. Soon, I’d caught Officer Silva up to what I’d told the other officer before and I picked up from there. “Dr. Rakhimov paged me for a progress report and, after I updated her, I went to get the programs for the event at the print shop.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s in this building. If you follow the hallway outside the classroom door and take a right, it’s at the end of the hall near the east entrance.”
“So what happened?”
I needed to make sure they understood exactly what had transpired. “I left Jenna in charge of the lab and hurried to the print shop because they close at five. When I got there, they’d already locked the door, but it wasn’t quite time yet. There was still a student in there and I persuaded him to let me get the programs. Then I headed back to the health and science building and sat at a bench outside so I could talk to my dad really fast.”
Officer Silva raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Meanwhile, the other officer continued taking notes.
I continued. “After that, I headed back to the lab. When I got there, I called out for Jenna, thinking she was in one of the back rooms of the lab, and then Dr. Rakhimov paged me again.”
“You keep using the word paged . What exactly do you mean by that?”
“We were all wearing walkie-talkies on a belt so she could reach us.”
Silva snickered. “Why didn’t she call you on your cell?”
“You’ll have to ask her…but I think she views them as unreliable.” The woman had actually used that word more than once. Every project I’d been involved in where I wasn’t directly under her nose (which was rare) involved using the walkie-talkies. Phone sounds were usually turned off on campus so students didn’t have them ringing or making other noises during classes—and when Dr. R. wanted your attention, she wanted it immediately. Old-fashioned walkie-talkies were her solution.
When he didn’t follow up with another question, I continued. “She wanted me over at the auditorium immediately and said Jenna was already there—which explained why she wasn’t in the lab when I got there.” Silva got ready to ask something, but I knew this was important. “The lab doors were open when I got here—meaning they were unlocked—so I pulled them closed when I headed to the auditorium.”
“What did the lab look like when you left?”
“I only walked a little way in—just inside the first room—and it looked normal, and when Dr. Rakhimov called, I left.”
“To be clear, you didn’t look inside? So the damage could have already been done?”
“Maybe—but the first room, the one that looks like the reception area to a clinic—it was fine.”
Silva looked skeptical, but the other officer kept writing—and I was grateful he was taking down everything I was saying.
And then I remembered something else. “Oh…there was one other thing. I don’t know if this is important, but I think you should know. When I was talking to Dr. Rakhimov, I thought I heard a noise deep in the lab. I thought it was Jenna until Dr. R. told me she’d already left.”
“And you didn’t investigate?”
“No. In hindsight, I guess I should have. But, um…if you know Dr. Rakhimov, when she asks, you don’t delay. After I got done talking with her, I forgot about the noise and locked up.”
The two officers exchanged a look—but before either could say anything else, the female plainclothes officer rapped on the door and entered.
Up to that point, I hadn’t felt like I’d been treated like a criminal—but things were about to change.