Page 21 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)

“I felt like he cared about me as a person. You know, if I’d been in any sort of trouble, I could have gone to him, instead of the school counseling service. I mean, Taneesha went to them after she broke up with Zachary, right, and they just gave her Zoloft…”

Kate flashed five fingers at Marcus to indicate that this was the fifth eulogy she’d heard from one of Whitman’s students. Winding up the call, Kate drew a line through the name on her list.

“Someone got to them. I’m wondering if the Dean has bribed or threatened them.”

“Why would he do that, though?”

“The Dean good as told me it’s all about image. Carefully-managed PR. They’re the type of school that depends on generous donations and the right sort of media attention. They don’t want anything putting that in jeopardy.”

“Ok, but isn’t it possible that they’re telling the truth, and he was just very popular with his students? He seemed very popular everywhere else, so why not there?”

“But they’re telling me in such a similar way. That’s the third one who said Whitman was better than the college’s own counseling service!”

“Ok, well, just be careful not to – “

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

There was an awkward pause. They were both tired, Kate reminded herself. Even the most perfect partners got on each other’s nerves from time to time.

“How are you getting on with the CCTV?” she asked.

“The killer’s very savvy,” Marcus said, a certain relief in his voice.

“There’s a way you can get from the main entrance or the library, to the professor’s building without your image being captured once, and he’s done it.

I’m going to see if there’s any incidental footage, but that’ll take some time.

I almost wish we did have Huntley as backup. ”

“Do you?”

Miracles did come along sometimes. The sixth name on Kate’s list was one Tibor Schulz. At twenty-eight, he was somewhat older than the other members of Whitman’s courses. Which might explain why he seemed somewhat less dazzled by the man.

“He was very fond of anecdotes, particularly about the year he spent as a cowboy in Salamanca. He had these like… I called them the Manson Girls. The whole front row of his lectures was like solid Whitman groupie-chicks, gazing at him. They even copied down his jokes, man.”

“Do you think Whitman ever crossed a line?”

“Actually, I don’t. Not that line.”

“But others?”

“Well, totally. Like, what happened to Brandon? That was triple O.”

“Triple O?”

“Out of order.”

“And Brandon’s a student, I take it.”

“ Was . I used to sit next to him. He was okay. Dude got dealt a shitty hand, if you get me.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Dude’s overweight, bucky teeth, a bit awkward. Very awkward. And his mom used to drop him off on campus, every morning. I got the impression it’s just the two of them. Doesn’t drink. Very religious.”

“Did that cause problems in the class?”

“See, this is why I didn’t rate Whitman.

I’m sorry for what happened to him, but there’s something ugly about a man like him making fun of a kid like Brandon.

Maybe he should have taken a different course of study.

Maybe he’s not an intellectual giant. But he had a right to be there.

Whitman basically teased him out of the class.

It was uncomfortable to watch. I saw Brandon, coupla weeks after he quit, working in Denny’s.

I said he shoulda complained. He said – ‘he’s gonna suffer. ’”

“Brandon said that?”

“Yeah. It was kind of chilling. Like to me, Brandon’s always been this big, teddy-bear of a guy. But I realized then, someone’s made him hate that much. And Whitman did that. Whitman was an a-hole to him, man.”

+++++

Brandon Montgomery lived with his mother about twenty minutes’ drive from the college.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Kate noticed the subtle shift in the surroundings, as they moved from a region of tailored lawns and chic little bakeries into a sketchier part of town, where men gathered listlessly on street corners and the liquor stores had reinforced doors.

“Look at him,” Kate said – angling her phone so Marcus could see the photo on Brandon’s student ID.

The camera had caught the young man smiling: it was a big, artless grin, at odds with the smart collar and tie.

She was sure that not one single other Brantley student would have worn a collar and tie for their ID photo.

“He looks like the kid with the note,” Marcus said.

“What?”

“You know, in every class, there’s that kid with asthma or allergies. He gets picked on. And he’s always got a note from his mom.”

“Kids can be horrible to each other. But you don’t expect the teachers to join in.”

“True. But do we think a kid like him is capable of planning and carrying out a brutal murder?”

“Actually, I do. For exactly the reasons you’ve pointed out.

Imagine it. Being that kid with the note.

The kid who doesn’t get invited to the party.

The jokes, the pranks, the mean little remarks.

The teacher who joins in. And imagine it carrying on.

You get through high school, and you think, ‘Thank God.’ But then you discover that real life is more of the same.

You’ll never fit in. Never be accepted. Always be a target for ridicule. And one day, you’ve just had enough.”

“Point taken,” Marcus said, quietly.

The Montgomery house was small and tired-looking; a gutter was shearing away from the building at a crazy angle, and the gate appeared to have been mended with a wire coat hanger.

But the windows were clean, the garden boasted an array of flowering plants, and a cheery little handmade sign on the front door said, “God Bless This House.”

They rang the doorbell, but it only made a faint grinding sound, so they knocked and waited.

Marcus knelt and peered through the small window.

Kate was aware of curtains moving in the home next door, a skinny man in an undershirt watching from across the road.

Their FBI jackets and ID cards were unnecessary; people knew who and what they were before they’d even parked their car.

There was a small garage-like structure to the side of the house, and Marcus tried the door.

“Excuse me, sir?” Kate called out to the neighbor in the undershirt. He darted, cat-like, back inside his house.

“Seems they keep a car in there,” Marcus said. “But it’s gone.”

Kate checked the mailbox.

“Look at this.” She pulled out a handful of letters. “No one’s emptied this for a while.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. Maybe Brandon took revenge on Whitman. He could have confessed to his mom, and they’ve gone on the run together. But where would Father Tom fit into that?”

“Maybe one of them confessed to him,” Marcus suggested, with a shrug. “So, it was like a rerun of what happened between Tom and Ray. They expected forgiveness, understanding, absolution. Instead, they get the hardline. Tom tells them to hand themselves in…”

At that moment, a large lady emerged from the house next door, a tiny baby over her shoulder.

“Judith is not here. She went out. Who are you?”

She had a deep voice and a melodic way of speaking that Kate associated with West Africa. They showed their IDs.

“We’re actually looking for Mrs. Montgomery’s son, Brandon.”

The lady made a sound, halfway between a tut and a click. “You won’t find him.”

Kate and Marcus exchanged a glance. “Why not?” Kate asked.

“Because Brandon is dead. He took his own life a month ago.”

The news hit Kate like a brick. It wasn’t, in that moment, anything to do with the case.

You followed leads, and some didn’t take you anywhere.

Another way of looking at it, in fact, was that everything took you somewhere; it was only by discounting theories, ruling people and possibilities out, that you groped your way towards the truth.

No, it wasn’t about the case. It was the sadness of it.

Of a young life snuffed out. Of a kid who goes to college, full of hope, excited about the future, maybe hoping that this time, things will work out differently for him.

And instead of that, it’s an action replay of high school.

He’s shunned and mocked, made to feel ashamed of his background and his beliefs, picked apart with such precision that he comes to feel he doesn’t have a right to walk the earth.

She felt sick. She wanted to sit in the car and cry. But she couldn’t. Her phone was ringing. She didn’t recognize the number.

“Detective Charles Esterhaus, County PD. I’m told you’re investigating the murder of Professor Alan Whitman?”

“That’s right,” Kate said, snapping back into professional mode. “How can I help you, Detective?”

“We’ve got someone in custody downtown. They were apprehended inside Professor Whitman’s home with weapons.”

“Who are they?”

“A Mrs. Judith Montgomery.”

+++++

“What were you intending to do with the stun gun, Mrs. Montgomery?”

“I told you; I’ve carried it for my own safety ever since I was attacked three years ago.”

The woman went back to muttering soundlessly to herself.

Is she praying?

Kate took a deep breath. She was getting nowhere.

“And the knife?”

Judith gazed at Kate, blinking, as if she’d suddenly appeared in front of her.

“I put that knife in my bag some weeks ago because it’s the sharpest one in the house, and I was afraid my son might harm himself.”

“That makes sense, but why are you still carrying it around now that…” Kate paused. “After Brandon took his life?”

“I failed to stop him,” she said, harshly. “I deserve to be reminded of that.”

Kate had heard some lame excuses in her time.

People “looking after” various quantities of drugs for complete strangers they’d recently met in bars.

The guy who said the .44 Magnum revolver belonged to his six-year-old daughter.

But Judith Montgomery’s explanation for carrying a knife could have been true.

A slight, nervous, and wide-eyed woman sporting a roll-neck pullover and a large wooden crucifix, she clearly lived by different rules than most people.

And in Kate’s view, you could live by whatever rules you liked.

But when you terrified a pair of little girls who’d just lost their father by appearing in their kitchen armed with a stun gun and a knife, you deserved to get locked up.

On top of which, she thought, being locked up might actually be Judith Montgomery’s best chance of getting some help.

“I need to understand what you were doing there.”

The woman stopped muttering. She had a silvery page-boy cut, and one those faces, Kate thought, that could be any age, between twenty-five and fifty. “God spoke to me this morning. And He told me to go to see the man’s widow and comfort her.”

“You say you were there to comfort her, but can you see how walking into her home uninvited, when her two little girls are on their own… can you see how that wouldn’t comfort Mrs. Whitman? That it would actually terrify her?”

It seemed that Dr. Nardone, Whitman’s widow, had popped next door for a moment, leaving the girls eating pancakes in the kitchen, and the back door ajar.

Judith Montgomery – possibly seeing the open door as encouragement from God – had simply walked in.

On returning home and finding a stranger in the kitchen, Dr. Nardone had screamed so loud that the neighborhood security patrol came barreling in with their guns drawn.

“We have both suffered at the hands of that man. We have both lost. The Lord in His mercy gave me this task so that I might better understand His love.”

Kate sighed. Anyone who could lose a son to suicide and still talk about God’s love was a better believer than her. Or more deluded.

“But most people won’t believe your explanation.

Most people would look at the evidence and conclude something different.

They’d look at the fact that your son had a bad experience in Professor Whitman’s class, and that you blamed him for your son’s suicide.

They’d look at that letter you wrote, in which you accused him of killing your boy, in which you also quoted the Book of Deuteronomy. ‘Vengeance is mine.’”

“If you studied your Bible,” Mrs. Montgomery said, “you would know that the verse goes ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord .’ In other words, God will take revenge, not me or any other mortal human. God alone.”

Debating Bible verses in a downtown police precinct. Not what the FBI stand had promised at the careers fair.

“You also said ‘all sinners will be destroyed, there shall be no future for the wicked,’” Kate said. “I believe that’s Psalm 37.”

“Again. God’s work. Not mine.”

“What about ‘I intend to make you suffer as I have suffered?’ I don’t believe that’s a Bible quote at all, Judith. It’s a clear threat.”

“For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”

“Which means what? God doesn’t want us to be angry? I think you are angry, though, Judith, and I don’t blame you. Nobody would blame you. It’s what you decided to do with the anger.”

“I allowed it into my heart, and it clouded my sight.”

Was that from the Bible? Kate decided to change tack.

“Judith, where were you on the evening of the twelfth?”

Judith continued to mutter for a moment or two. “I was at home all evening.”

“Talk to anyone? Receive any visitors?”

“Virtue paid me a call.”

For a moment, Kate thought this was another scriptural quote. Or a song title. Then she remembered that the next door neighbor with the baby was called Virtue.

“She invited me to supper, but I didn’t want to see anyone.”

Kate felt momentarily glad that Judith had someone looking in on her. It was another reminder of how bizarre this case was turning out. She was interviewing a murder suspect. And yet she felt concerned for her welfare.

“What time was that?”

“Around seven.”

Based on temperature readings at the crime scene, forensics estimated the fire to have started at some point between nine and eleven in the evening.

“Anyone else?”

“Someone from Church called me, maybe half an hour after Virtue.”

Kate sighed. Judith lacked a decent alibi. But Kate doubted she was a killer. Whoever it was had been able to overpower Whitman, a sturdy man in good health, sufficiently to get him in cuffs and attached to a radiator.

Someone could have assisted Judith, though. Assisted her, or straight up done the deed on her behalf. A friend at the Church. An admirer, even. She was an attractive woman. Muttered prayers aside.

“I’m going to keep you in custody for now, Judith, while we do some checks.”

“If God wills it.”