“You don’t have to cut someone’s head off just to shut them up,” Magda says indignantly.
“Yeah,” Pete agrees. “I mean, murder’s pretty extreme, don’t you think? Just because your girlfriend’s a little gossipy, you don’t have to kill her.”
“Maybe he killed her as a warning,” Sarah says, from the bar where she’s sitting watching a college basketball game on one of the overhead television sets. “To his other customers. Warning them to keep their mouths shut, or suffer a similar fate. Oh, Jesus! Charging! CHARGING! Is the ref blind?”
“Maybe,” Pete says, poking at the microwaved burrito he picked up in the deli down the street. But that’s the price you have to pay when the cafeteria at your place of work is shut down again so forensic teams can extract body parts from the kitchen slop sink. The burrito is the first thing Pete’s had a chance to eat since breakfast. The beer and popcorn I’m currently enjoying is mine. “Or maybe it was just the kind of thing a sick pervert like Winer thinks is funny.”
“We don’t know for sure it was the Winer boy,” Magda points out.
Both Pete and I stare at her.
“Well,” she says, “you don’t. Just because that girl said he was the one Lindsay was supposed to meet doesn’t mean he was the one who did meet her. You heard what the detective said.”
“He said we should mind our own business,” I remind her. “He didn’t say anything about whether or not he thought Doug—or his brother—did it.” Even though I’d taken him aside and, after telling him what I’d observed at last night’s frat party, had added, “It’s obvious that Doug—and Steve, remember what Manuel said, that Steve was the name Lindsay mentioned—killed her for shooting off her mouth about their drug dealing, then left her head as a warning for the rest of their clients. You have to arrest them. You HAVE to!”
Detective Canavan, however, hadn’t appreciated being told that he “had” to do anything. He’d just frowned down at me and said, “I should have known that was you at that party last night. Can’t you go anywhere without causing bedlam?”
At which I took umbrage. Because I’ve been lots of places where fights didn’t break out. Lots of them. Look at me here at the bar across from Fischer Hall.
And okay, it’s only, like, four minutes after five, so hardly anyone else has gotten off work yet and the place is pretty much empty except for us.
But no bedlam has broken out. Yet.
“So when are they going to do it?” Magda wants to know. “Arrest those boys?”
“If they’re going to arrest them,” Pete corrects her.
“But they have to,” Magda says, blinking rapidly over her alcoholic beverage of choice—a White Russian. Pete and I can’t even look at it without gagging a little. “I mean, they took that Kimberly away with them to interview her after she said all those things in front of us…even if she lied to them later, they heard what she told us in the cafeteria.”
“But is that evidence?” Pete asks. “Isn’t that—what do they call it on Law and Order? Hearsay?”
“Are you telling me they didn’t get one fingerprint from that kitchen?” Magda demands. “Not one stray hair they can get DNA from, to find out who did it?”
“Who knows what they found?” I say, mournfully shoving a handful of stale barroom popcorn in my mouth. Why is stale barroom popcorn so delicious, anyway? Especially with a cold beer. “We’ll probably be the last to find out.”
“At least Manuel’s going to be all right,” Pete says. “Julio says he’s getting better every day. Although they still have policemen posted outside his hospital room.”
“What’s he going to do when they discharge him?” Magda wants to know. “They aren’t going to post a policeman by his house, are they?”
“They’ll have to have arrested Doug by then,” Sarah says, from the bar. “I mean, Doug has to be the one who strangled her. The only question is, did he do it accidentally? Like did he asphyxiate her during sexual play, then panic? From what you told me, he doesn’t seem like the type who has much control over his temper—”
“Yeah. Did I mention he totally head-butted me in the gut?” I ask.
“But putting her limbs down a disposal to get rid of the evidence?” Sarah shakes her head. “Doug doesn’t have the brains for something like that—even if it did turn out not to work thanks to the disposal breaking. Oh, my God, foul! FOUL!”
I look up from the empty popcorn basket and notice that Pete and Magda aren’t the only ones staring at Sarah in disbelief. The bartender, Belinda, a punk rock waif with a shaved head and overalls, is blinking at her with astonishment as well.
Sarah notices, looks around, and says defensively, “Excuse me, a person can have multiple interests, you know. I mean, I can be interested in psychology and sports, too. It’s called being well-rounded, people.”
“More popcorn?” Belinda asks her, looking pretty scared for someone with so many nose rings.
“Uh, no,” Sarah says. “That stuff is stale.”
“Um,” I say, “I’ll take some. Thanks.”
“On that note,” Pete says, rising from his chair, “I have to get home before my kids tear the place apart. Magda, you want a ride to the subway?”
“Oh, yes,” Magda says, getting up as well.
“Wait,” I protest. “I just got more popcorn!”
“Sorry, honey,” Magda says, struggling into her faux-rabbit fur coat. “But it’s about twelve degrees out there. I’m not walking to the subway. See you on Monday.”
“See you guys,” I say mournfully, watching them leave. I’d leave, too, but I still have half a beer left. You can’t just leave a beer like that. It’s un-American.
Except a minute later I’m regretting not having made my escape when I had the chance, since the door opens, and who should walk in but…
Jordan.
“Oh, there you are,” he says, spotting me at once. Which isn’t hard, since I’m the only one in the bar, with the exception of Sarah and a couple of Math Department types, who are playing pool. Jordan slides into the chair Pete just vacated, and explains, as he peels off his jacket, “Cooper told me you sometimes come here after work.”