Then I remember Howard’s desperation in the office, the tears in his eyes as he asked how his parents were going to pay for both him and his brother to go to college at the same time.
Was it possible the murder of Jasmine Albright had nothing whatsoever to do with Prince Rashid and his secret bride, and instead had to do with a boy, distraught over losing a lucrative student employment contract—as Howard must surely have known he would, if word got out that he’d been at an alcohol-fueled rager while serving as the RA on duty?
Was that the photo that Jasmine had snapped on her phone, and threatened to Tweet? Howard Chen, drunk while on duty?
But that’s ridiculous. No one would kill for such a reason. Except . . . people had killed over much less.
Who benefits?
Howard.
Eva would never have detected the tooth marks on the back of Jasmine’s lips if I hadn’t found out about the party and asked her to take a second look.
Detective Canavan had said whoever had nearly succeeded in strangling Cameron had known what he was doing, and knew something about human anatomy.
Howard’s major is premed.
“Gavin,” I say in a tight voice. I so want it to not be true. “How many residents have checked into the fourteenth floor so far?”
Gavin pulls out my check-in binder and flips to the fourteenth floor. “Not that many. It’s mostly upperclassmen, so we probably won’t get the rest until this weekend. So far it’s only the girls in fourteen-twelve. And Jasmine, of course, but she’s—”
“Never mind that,” I say. “Check the registration cards of the girls in fourteen-twelve. See if any of them had a lockout the night of the party.”
“All of them?” Gavin asks dubiously. Looking up one registration card is a pain in the ass. Four is beyond tedium.
“All of them,” I say.
“Okay.”
He sighs, and gets to work. Nothing at the desk is computerized, a result of New York College’s outdated conviction that if it supplied the residence hall public areas with computers, the student workers would immediately steal them and/or spend their shifts looking at pornography, when in fact what I know from experience they’d most likely do is spend their shifts writing screenplays.
It can’t be Howard, I tell myself as I wait, idly flipping through a copy of Cosmo I find at the top of the mail forwarding pile. Howard spent the entire time after the discovery of Jasmine’s body vomiting down the trash chute. What cold-blooded murderer does that?
One who regrets his actions, but can’t go back and change them.
How had Howard known I’d been at the student center, talking to Cameron Ripley?
Oh God. That’s right. Howard had run into me and Lisa as we were returning from the meeting with President Allington. He’d been trailing along behind the campus tour Jasmine Tsai was giving her residents. Howard could easily have left the tour and followed me to the student center—I’d never have noticed, I was on the phone with Cooper—then walked into Cameron’s office after I left, and—
Well, we know what followed. At that time Howard didn’t know all the RAs who’d gone to the party were getting fired. He’d thought he still had a job to save.
Cooper was right. I was lucky to have escaped Cameron’s office with my life.
My cell phone rings. I reach—very carefully—into my bag to retrieve it. It’s Cooper.
“Hi, honey,” I say in as normal a tone as I can muster considering I’ve just realized how close I came to being killed by a deeply disturbed homicidal maniac in my own place of work—and not even the one I thought was a homicidal maniac, a different one altogether. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good,” he says. His voice sounds sexily sleep-roughened. “But I’d be better if you were here, in bed with me, so we could play nurse and patient some more. That’s a very good game.”
“I know, I enjoyed it too. Sorry I had to go, but my shift at the hospital was over. I’ll be back in a little while to check on you and give you your next injection.”
I notice Gavin giving me an odd look from over the tops of the registration card boxes, so I get up and walk toward the front desk window for more privacy.
“I believe I’m the one who gave you the injection,” Cooper says with a happy growl.
“You certainly did.”
I notice out the window, which faces Washington Square Park, that Howard Chen, Joshua Dungarden, and several of the other ex-RAs are returning to the building from wherever it is they’ve been. Howard in particular does not look happy. He’s lagging a little behind the others, staring at his own feet. Apparently, their attempts to get their jobs back from either the president or Joshua Dungarden’s father’s friend who works in the law school have not gone well.
“Cooper,” I say as the RAs stop to talk to the residents protesting on their behalf in front of Fischer Hall. “I have to finish up something here at work. I’ll talk to you as soon as I’m done, okay?”
“You sound weird,” Cooper says. “Is everything all right?”
“It will be,” I say. “I think. In a little while. I’ll call you back.” I hang up.
“What was that about?” Gavin asks curiously.
“None of your business,” I say. “What have you found out?”
“Only that none of the girls in fourteen-twelve has had any lockouts whatsoever.”
“What?” I leave the window to go to the desk to see for myself, but he’s right. The back of each girl’s registration card, where lockouts are listed, is clean.
There’s only one reason Howard Chen could have checked out the master key to the fourteenth floor at a quarter to three in the morning the night Jasmine Albright died.
And that was to kill her.
33
Fischer Hall Cafeteria Worker Shocked
Fischer Hall cafeteria cashier Madga Diego (voted “Most Popular Employee” on the New York College campus) has stated that she is “shocked” that New York College housing and residence life staff (as well as the president’s office) has chosen to terminate the employment contracts of over half the RA staff of Fischer Hall, giving them less than a week to find alternative housing before classes begin and leaving the residents of nine floors of one of the most popular dorms on campus without effective leadership or guidance as they enter the fall semester.