Chapter 69
“She’s not here.”
“Where did she go?” Vaughn asked the portly man named John—just John. Had an effeminate air about him, but also gave Vaughn the impression that he wasn’t a pushover.
“Dr. Reeves wandered off again. Ms. Kachinski went to look for him, I presume.”
“He’s gone?”
“Yes. Second time this week. Management—”
Vaughn had heard all this before.
“When?”
“I don’t know. An hour ago? Two?”
“Mind if I see his room?”
John’s thick shoulders lifted. Fell.
“Won’t be his room for long.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Management’s fed up. Insurance isn’t going to cover him anymore—too many field trips, if you know what I mean.”
Odd choice of words: “field trip.” Delaney had come across Dr. Reeves in a field by the second murder scene.
This wasn’t good.
“Can I see his room?” Vaughn asked again.
“Sure.”
Vaughn knew the way. John unlocked the door.
“Suit yourself,” he said, holding it open for him.
Vaughn looked around. It was identical to the last time he’d been here. The small chess board, this time the sole piece, the rook, lying on its side.
Nothing of interest.
Vaughn was desperate to find a link between Zeke and Gene Reeves. And there had to be one. Except . . . there wasn’t.
Other than the chess board, the room was devoid of personal items. Made sense for a man in Gene Reeves’s state.
It did seem a little odd that Ivy wouldn’t have put up something representative of the man her father used to be.
One of his degrees, a photo of Gene receiving what was likely one of many prestigious awards.
Only, she hadn’t. The walls were bare, save a motel quality oil painting. No signature.
“See?”
Yeah, Vaughn saw.
“Let me ask you something, John.”
“Shoot.”
“You ever see this kid before?”
Vaughn showed the man a photo of Zeke Godfrey. John took the phone, brought it close to his face. Rolled his head around.
“I don’t . . . think so?”
Not exactly a firm ‘no.’
“Take another look.”
John did, spoke as he stared at the screen.
“It’s the shaggy blond hair . . .” he trailed off.
“What about it?” Vaughn pressed.
“About two months ago, we had a break-in. I think someone came in through that window there.” John, still focused on Vaughn’s phone, raised a finger and pointed at the window leading to the outside. “Went through Gene’s things while he was on an outing. Also went through the main office.”
“Really?”
Vaughn thought that if something like this had been reported to the PPD, Darnell would have probably come across it while he was digging into Dr. Reeves. Only, Darnell was a loose cannon who could no longer be trusted.
“Yep.”
Vaughn frowned.
“Anything stolen?”
“Don’t think so. Management decided not to report it because—”
“Let me guess? Insurance?”
John pursed his lips.
“Yep. That and the fact that they passed it off as a resident snooping around, that no one came in from the window. They suggested that Dr. Reeves might have just left it open. Some of our residents have . . . issues. Once, we had this sex addict who made his rounds of the place. Slept with pretty much everyone. We had this one woman, Ms. Murphy, who had a colostomy bag. Right before management cut our resident nympho loose, she curiously developed a case of genital herpes . . . around the colostomy hole.”
It took a few seconds for Vaughn to clue in to what the man was saying.
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yeah.”
Vaughn shuddered at the thought.
“The thing is, one of our residents is a bit of a savant. A savant with a prostate the size of a grapefruit—no lie, the guy goes piss every hour. Also has a bit of OCD, doesn’t like to piss in the same bathroom twice in a row.
Don’t ask me why. Anyway, he said he saw a young guy in a mask around the time of the break-in.
” John put air quotes around the final word.
“Said he had blond hair coming out of the eye holes.”
“Was it the guy on the phone?”
John rolled his eyes.
“He was wearing a mask.”
“Right. Okay, thanks. Do me a favor?” Vaughn handed the man a card. This is what his job had come down to: handing out cards like candy at a carnival. For fuck’s sake. “Give me a call when Gene comes back?”
“Sure.”
Vaughn returned to his car, thinking about colostomy holes, grapefruit-sized prostates, a rook lying on its side on a miniature chess board.
The Bae-sian Prof.
Zeke posted the video of Ivy. Zeke paid bots to pump it up. Zeke drew attention to himself even though he was engrossed in a complex plan to murder people in the name of math?
Ugh, he didn’t like it.
Vaughn pulled up the TikTok video on his phone.
It wasn’t as popular as it had been when it was first posted—welcome to the new age where your fifteen minutes was cut down to mere seconds—but it had still amassed nearly two million views.
Someone did call out during the lecture, as Ivy had told him, joking about Zeke maybe not having the clap after all.
This, in turn, made him think of Ms. Murphy and her colostomy adventures.
Another shudder.
Vaughn was about to close his phone when he noticed something in the video. Ivy had told him that she always confiscated the students’ cell phones before class. Only, on this particular day, she’d been late.
Vaughn had just assumed that no one had taken their phones. But while the video showed all of the students, he could only see three-quarters of Ivy. Vaughn had never been in the classroom that Ivy taught in, but could get the gist of it from the video.
Lower bowl, podium at the center, digital screen behind—barely visible. The angle was off. If a student had taken the video, he would have seen Ivy straight on. Vaughn paused the video.
There—Zeke. Clearly visible. Scowling, angry.
How was that possible? Vaughn thought back—thought hard.
The TA. If Ivy took the phones every day and she was late, it made sense that the TA would have done the same in her absence.
Vaughn immediately called Bowes.
“Detective Ryan, the captain was—”
“Bowes, I need you to do something for me. I need you to look into Dr. Reeves’s TA. His name is Tristan something . . .”