Chapter 32
“Guess you didn’t think you’d see your girlfriend again so soon, huh?”
They were walking down the hallway of Fine Hall again, just a few hours after they’d left.
“How do you manage your time with both a boyfriend and a girlfriend? You ever get them mixed up?”
Darnell was talking about Delaney, of course.
“You gotta lay off the guy.”
“To hell I will. Delaney—”
They turned a corner, and Ivy Reeves nearly ran right into them.
“Sorry,” she said. Then she recognized who they were.
“Detectives Ryan and—”
“Sacker, yeah.”
“Vaughn and Darnell, right?”
Vaughn smiled. “That’s right.”
“What can I do for you guys?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have had a laptop stolen from you a while back?” Sometimes Darnell liked to get right to it. No playing the dumb guy this time.
Ivy frowned.
“Yeah,” she said hesitantly. “About six months ago. I was working in the Lewis Annex and went to use the bathroom. Came back and it was gone. Had everything on the cloud though, so I didn’t lose my data. Did you find it?”
Darnell acted as if he hadn’t heard her question.
“Did you report it stolen?”
“Yes. There was this security guard wandering around at the time. Only other person in the library after hours—my card still works when it’s closed. I told all this to campus security.”
“The guard, do you know his name?”
Ivy thought about this.
“Adam . . . I think? They never found the laptop, but I heard they fired the guy. Never saw him again, anyway. Never left my computer on a desk unattended, either.”
“Dr. Reeves—”
“Please, just Ivy.”
“I’m going to stick with Dr. Reeves,” Darnell said, and Vaughn frowned. “Dr. Reeves, we found your laptop. It was indeed in the possession of the security guard—whose name is Aaron, by the way, not Adam.”
“No shit. Can I have it back? I already have another one, but—”
“It’s part of an active investigation. When we’re done, we’ll have someone in the PPD return it to you.”
“An active investigation? Into what? The theft?”
Ivy was confused, as was Vaughn.
Why the hell is Darnell treating her like a suspect again?
“No.” Darnell adjusted his belt. Hiked up his pants. “Dr. Reeves, do you think you’d recognize Aaron the security guard if you saw him again?”
Ivy scratched her chin.
“It was six months ago . . . but probably.”
“Huh.”
Vaughn took over. Darnell’s direct approach had twisted into a charade.
And he didn’t care for it.
“Ivy, that photo I showed you earlier, the guy with the thirteen on his chest? That was Aaron the security guard.”
As he spoke, Vaughn scanned Ivy’s face. Searched for any signs of deception. Shifty eyes. Toes pointed away from them. Animated hand gestures. Suspect or not, it was difficult to turn off detective mode. He saw none.
“Are you kidding?”
“No, we’re not,” Darnell said. “Did you recognize him?”
“No. I don’t get it. The security guard . . . he stole my laptop? The dead guy in the picture you showed me?”
Again, Darnell ignored the woman’s questions.
“You just said you’d recognize him if you saw him again.”
“I said I’d probably recognize him,” Ivy corrected. Her cheeks had started to turn scarlet. “I guess I didn’t. He was . . . his eyes and—”
“It’s okay.” Vaughn tried to calm Ivy’s growing agitation. “Here, take my card. If you don’t hear from someone in the PPD in the next few days, give me a call. I’ll see if I can get your laptop back to you.”
“Thanks.”
They left with Ivy even more confused than the last time they’d visited.
“Seriously?” Darnell altered his voice. “Take my card, I’ll get your laptop back to you.”
“You were treating her like a suspect.”
“Isn’t she?”
“How so?”
Darnell ticked items off his fingers as he spoke.
“The gas is taken from her university. Her laptop is stolen by the same guy whose card was probably used to steal said gas. Security guard then ends up dead. She pretends she doesn’t recognize him. And that math shit? She definitely knows that math shit.”
“I don’t think she ‘pretended’ not to know him. She was shaken by that photo.”
“Good actress.”
Vaughn clenched his jaw. He didn’t like the path they were headed down, but he knew that if he didn’t at least entertain his partner, he’d never hear the end of it.
“Fine, I’ll bite. What’s her motive?”
“No clue. But we don’t need a motive.”
They didn’t. It was a common misconception that a motive was necessary for a conviction.
It helped the DA form a narrative that the jury could follow, but killers didn’t always need a rhyme or reason.
Vaughn had learned early in his career that applying rational logic to irrational actions was pointless.
“Look, Vaughn, I know how you feel about my hunches, but I got a big one right now. Dr. Reeves is holding something back.” Vaughn fought back a sigh, but it slipped out of the corner of his mouth. “Remember Armand Reese? The Princeton Pervert?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t something you forgot.
Vaughn expected Darnell to continue, but he didn’t. Clearly, the man thought he’d said enough. Vaughn was tempted to repeat something that Darnell liked to say—even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while—but held back.
“Anyway, you wanna go for dinner?” Darnell asked.
Vaughn checked his watch.
“Sure, why not. Maybe we should invite Delaney.”
“Fuck off.”