Читать книгу Killer Takes All - Erica Spindler, Erica Spindler - Страница 20

Saturday, March 5, 2005 12:30 a.m.

Spencer greeted the officer standing sentinel at the door of the UNO library. He was an old-timer. “How’s it going?”

The other man shrugged. “Okay. Wish spring’d get here. It’s still too damn cold for these old bones.”

Only a New Orleanian would gripe about nighttime temperatures in the sixties.

The man held out a clipboard; Spencer signed in. “Upstairs?”

“Yeah. On four.”

Spencer found the elevator. He had been asleep when he’d gotten the call. At first he thought he’d misunderstood the dispatcher. Nobody was dead. An attempted rape. But the victim claimed it had something to do with the Finch murder.

His investigation.

So he’d dragged his butt out of bed and headed what seemed like halfway across the world to the UNO campus.

The elevator reached four; he stepped off and followed the sound of voices. The group came into view. He stopped. Killian. Her back was to him, but he recognized her, anyway. Not just by her glorious blond hair, but something about the way she held herself. Erectly. With a kind of confidence that had been earned.

To her left stood a couple of the campus cops and John Russell, from DIU, Third District.

Spencer closed the distance between them. “Trouble follows you, doesn’t it, Ms. Killian?”

The three men looked his way. She turned. He saw that her shirt was bloodstained.

“It’s starting to seem so,” she said.

“Do you need medical attention?”

“No. But he might.”

He wasn’t surprised she’d gotten the best of him. He motioned toward the library table nearest her. They crossed to it, then sat.

He took the spiral notebook from his pocket. “Tell me what happened.”

Russell wandered over. “Attempted rape,” he began. “Same MO as three earlier, unsolved—”

Spencer held up a hand. “I’d like to hear Ms. Killian’s version of events first.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It wasn’t an attempted rape.”

“Go on.”

“I was working late.”

He glanced at the material on the table, scanning titles. “Research?”

“Yes.”

“On role-playing games?”

She lifted her chin slightly. “Yes. The library was deserted, or seemed to be. I heard someone, behind the stacks. I called out. Got no answer and went to investigate.”

She paused. Smoothed her hands over her thighs, her only outward sign of nerves. “When I reached the stacks, the lights went off. The stairwell door flew open and someone darted through. I started to go after him. That’s when I was grabbed from behind.”

“So there were two people besides you here?”

Her expression registered something akin to surprise. He’d only repeated her words in a different way; clearly she hadn’t put the two together.

She nodded. He looked at the other officers. “Any of the other victims report more than one attacker at the scene?”

“No,” the youngest of the university officers replied.

Spencer returned his gaze to hers. “He grabbed you from behind?”

“Yes. And held me in a way that indicated he knew what he was doing.”

“Show me.”

She nodded, stood and motioned to the campus cop. “Do you mind?” He said no, and she demonstrated. A moment later, she released him and returned to her seat.

“He was several inches taller than me. And quite strong.”

“So how did you get away?”

“Drove a ballpoint pen into his belly.”

“We’ve got the pen,” Russell offered. “Bagged and tagged.”