Page 21

21

Not for the first time, Stella was impressed by the speed and effectiveness of Mac’s skill set. After only a couple of hours, Mac had secured them a meeting with trippinballz12, aka Jake Tripp. Stella and Stacy were to pose as buyers for a new item Tripp had posted to his Craigslist account, a Microsoft Surface Laptop, only a couple years old.

They submitted a search warrant affidavit for the laptop and received it quickly. This request was bolstered when they’d confirmed with Marrion’s mother over the phone that the laptop on Tripp’s account was the same make as the one she’d bought for Marrion. She’d kept the receipt.

After they parked at Central Tennessee State University, Stacy pushed open the door of the Ford Residential Complex and waited for Stella. Though Stella was eager to confront this Tripp person, she needed to keep her cool and wait until he displayed the stolen goods before they let him know their real reason for being there.

The dorms were almost empty in the middle of the morning. A group of young women stood by the bank of mailboxes, talking, their books hugged to their chests. A couple of students sat by the wall, headphones on their ears, their laptops perched on their knees. The stickers on the backs of their covers bounced as they typed.

Stacy had a steely look in her eye. “I can’t imagine some teenage thief isn’t going to crack when we start interrogating him. He’ll break like a porcelain egg.”

Stella smiled, then tried hard not to. Threats didn’t suit Stacy. Stella had seen her calm and unruffled in even the most dangerous situations, lost in a cave and undercover with a killer. Anger wasn’t her thing.

“That is, if he’s just a thief. He might be much worse.”

For this undercover operation, they were dressed as college students.

Stacy had wound her long hair into a messy bun, which she fixed with a clip on top of her head. She wore jeans and a CTSU sweatshirt. For the final touch, she’d stuck a coin in a vending machine from which she bought a packet of gum. Chewing with her mouth open and her head cocked to one side, she lost about a decade.

For a moment, Stella was back at college. Her freshman year. Eager to grab the world and find out what it contained but also uncertain and full of doubts. It wasn’t a place she wanted to return.

The elevator doors slid closed behind them.

“Just remember that you’re Nicky and I’m Abigail.”

Stacy popped her gum. “I feel like a Nicky.”

“You look like a Nicky, Nicky.”

“Not sure I like being a Nicky though. Let’s get this over with.”

They emerged in front of what had once been Patrick Marrion’s room. The sign above the fire exit glowed at the end of the corridor. A heavy bass thumped from one of the rooms.

Stella knocked.

The voice that answered was deep and loud. “Yo. Come through.”

Stacy rolled her eyes. She looked even more like a Nicky now.

Stella pushed open the door.

Jake Tripp lay on his bed. His legs were crossed. One sock had a big hole in the heel. A friend sprawled on what had once been Patrick Marrion’s bed, and the floor was covered in unwashed clothes, snack wrappers, and empty cans of coke.

A fog of marijuana smoke hung in the air, and the top of a bottle of vodka poked out from under the bed. The heating vent hummed as it blew warm air into the room despite the open window.

“Ladies. Sick.” Tripp pushed himself up in bed. He tossed an empty can at his friend. “Hey, Kev, you order a couple of girls online? Man, you can get anything delivered these days.”

Kev sniggered. He picked a blunt from the edge of a glass ash tray and took a long drag, held it for a second, then blew in the direction of the window. The wind pushed the smoke back into the room.

Stacy leaned against the doorpost. She made a small bubble with her gum and let it pop loudly. “Hear you boys got a laptop for sale.”

Tripp licked his lips. “You’re the ones I’m supposed to meet, huh? I bet we can work something out. Maybe I can cut a few bucks off the price. If you and your friend help out me and my friend.” He made a show of scanning their bodies. “If you know what I mean.”

It’d been a while since anyone had spoken to Stella like that. She got an urge to push past Stacy, grab Tripp by the front of his dirty t-shirt, and throw his face against the wall while she applied cuffs.

Stacy didn’t react. “Nicky. That’s Abigail. We’re upstairs.”

“Uh-huh. Nice to meet you. Might even say,” he bobbed his eyebrows, “very nice.”

Stella barely held back a groan. Did girls actually fall for this?

Stacy popped her gum again. “So you got one or not?”

“I got something.” Tripp grinned and grabbed his crotch. “And it’s all for you, darling.”

Stella breathed in slowly. Her irritation was growing. This creep was really trying her patience.

His friend held out the joint to Stella. “Why you so quiet, huh? You want some of this?”

Stella thought about embracing her inner Chloe Foster and breaking both bros’ noses.

Stacy flicked a thumb in Stella’s direction. “She’s just a little shy.”

“Is that right?” Tripp licked his lips. “I could bring her out of her shell.” His gaze shifted from Stacy to Stella and back again. “Bring you both out.”

Against every instinct in her body, Stella played along. “That could be fun. But do you think we could see the laptop first?”

Tripp shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

He roused himself enough to stand on the bed and reach for the vent in the ceiling. Stella noticed the vent cover was held by just two screws. Their heads were painted white, but most of the paint had been scratched away. She doubted the local cops had opened that during their preliminary search.

Tripp reached in and extracted the laptop and an Android smartphone before dropping back to his previous position on the bed. He winked. “Come and get ’em.”

That was it. Stella had had enough. There was enough contraband in that room to land Tripp in more trouble than he knew what to do with.

Stella pulled out her badge. “FBI. Stay where you are.”

Tripp’s gaze locked on the badge. He froze for half a second—then bolted.

What the hell was he thinking? That he could just barrel through two federal agents?

He barely made it two steps.

Stella sidestepped, caught his wrist, and twisted his arm up. A sharp yank sent him face-first into the mattress, his breath punching out in a muffled grunt.

Kev slid off Patrick Marrion’s bed, flicked the blunt out the window, and lifted his hands, edging toward the door.

“I was just visiting. I was never here. Nothing to do with me. I don’t even know who this guy is.”

Stacy pointed at the bed. “Sit.”

He sat.

She tugged the clip out of her hair and shook out her bun, then spat the gum into the empty trash can. The freshman vanished. In her place returned the badass cop, a federal agent with nifty cat-eye makeup, but an agent, nonetheless.

Stella pushed harder on Tripp’s back. His face squished into the pillow. Holding his wrists with one hand, she applied the handcuffs and yanked him around.

She braced herself. Sometimes, after Stella snapped on a pair of handcuffs, a suspect, especially if he was young and had been arrested before, would make a crude comment. A tell-tale smirk would come over his face, which told Stella where his train of thought was leading. Usually, a hard shove into a patrol car soon wiped the smile away.

Tripp’s face was white. He tried to push himself up the bed, away from Stella, as though she were about to beat him within an inch of his life. The fear on Tripp’s face told her someone had done that to him in the past, someone close to him. Someone at home.

Stella softened, at first. And then she remembered how Tripp had treated his roommate and how he’d spoken to her and Stacy.

She stepped closer, one hand on the gun tucked into the back of her belt.

“You know that vodka bottle under the bed? That’s a Class A misdemeanor punishable by about a year in jail and a twenty-five-hundred dollar fine. Possession of marijuana? That’s a year and another fine of up to twenty-five-hundred dollars. Plus another year. Two years and five thousand bucks so far.” She loomed over him. “And if you killed your poor roommate…well, that’s the needle.”

“No, no. What are you…?” Tripp kicked at the floor with his socked feet. He shifted up the bed. The back of his head banged against the wall. “I don’t know what happened to Patrick. I didn’t kill him. Why do you think I killed him?”

Stella planted her fists on her hips, towering over the terrified young man. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Between your underage drinking, your consumption of illegal drugs, and these stolen electronics, we have cause to search your room. So we’re going to tear this place apart. You’re going to sit there, and you’re going to watch. Anything you want to tell us before we begin?”

Tripp shook his head. “No, nothing. There’s nothing here. I didn’t kill Patrick. I didn’t like him but…but I…I…I didn’t kill him . You won’t find anything here. There’s nothing here.”

Stacy opened a closet door. She dragged armfuls of clothes onto the floor. “You sure about that? We won’t find more computers? More phones? Maybe something with blood on it? A murder weapon, even?”

“I…no.”

Stella pointed to the laptop. “You want to explain that, Tripp? That belong to Patrick?”

Tripp had managed to slide farther up the wall so that he was sitting more comfortably, in the kind of low slouch that came so naturally to teenagers. “All right. Fuck. Yes, it’s his. Jesus.”

“Perfect. We get to add interfering with a federal investigation to the list.” Stella narrowed her eyes. “What did you do to him, Tripp?”

Tripp shook his arms, still handcuffed behind his back. “I stole his stuff. Sure. But I didn’t kill him. I swear.”

She needed to nail down his alibi. “Where were you last Friday night, around midnight?”

He looked nonplussed. “I don’t know. Dang. Getting fucked-up, probably.”

Kev’s hand shot up, like he was in a classroom and he was positive he knew the answer.

Stacy nodded at him. “Yes. Speak.”

Kev lowered his hand. “We were at Pi Phi…they were having a party. We were there all night.”

Recognition and relief crossed Tripp’s face. “Oh, yeah…we were there all night. Shit, tons of people saw us there.”

A strong sense of disappointment filled Stella. “Do you have any evidence that can confirm this?”

Tripp nodded in the direction of his cell phone. “Do you mind?”

She picked it up. “What’s the code?”

“Can’t I just look through it myself?”

“No chance.”

He shook his head. “Damn.” Then he gave her a string of numbers.

She tapped the numbers in, and the screen unlocked.

He flicked his head at her. “Check my messages. I bet you I was texting someone on Friday night.”

She navigated to the messages app and scrolled down. There, she found one from a certain “Manny da Plug” from just after midnight on Saturday morning. She showed it to him.

His face reddened. “Yeah, check that one out.”

The texts revealed an address and some numbers.

Tripp spoke before she realized what she was looking at. “That’s my dealer. I was picking up then. But look at the address I gave…that’s the fraternity.”

Stella typed the address into her own cell phone. Sure enough, it was adjacent to the university and belonged to a fraternity. They’d have to interview some of its members. But Tripp’s first alibi seemed to check out.

There was still the question of the second victim. “What about Otto Walker? What do you know about him?”

Tripp looked at Kev with a confused expression. “Nothing. I don’t know anybody named Otto. Sort of a gay name, right? I definitely don’t know any Otto Walker.”

He could be bluffing, though with each moment that passed, Stella’s suspicion that Tripp was involved in the murders diminished. Still, she pressed forward. “How about yesterday morning? Between nine and noon?”

Tripp’s forehead scrunched as he stared at the bed. Then he looked up at her hopefully. “I was in class. I swear. Between nine thirty and noon yesterday. I was in my psych lab. You can talk to my professor. She’ll back me up for sure.”

“We certainly will. Name?”

He gave it.

Stella caught Stacy’s eye. If Tripp’s alibis checked out, he was guilty of no more than being a class A jerk. Well, that and theft, underage drinking, and possession of a controlled substance. But none of those were worth the effort.

Stacy dropped the laptop and the phone into an evidence bag. “What do you think?”

Stella glared at Tripp. They had no evidence to show Tripp had killed Patrick. She could scare him even more by taking him in and letting him sweat it out in an interview room, but they had bigger things to worry about.

Plus, they had what they came for. “Turn around.”

Tripp shifted on the bed. Stella grabbed his shoulder and removed the handcuffs. He rubbed his wrists and scowled as though he’d just endured hours of torture.

Stella fished the half-empty bottle of vodka from under the bed. “We’ll confiscate this and let you off this time. You’ve been warned.”

Stacy grabbed the bag of weed and accompanying paraphernalia.

Stella leaned close to Tripp.

He retreated to the corner of the bed.

“And if we find you’ve been withholding information from us again, Tripp, I will make sure that your next dorm room is a Nashville jail cell and your next roommate will be a two-hundred-fifty-pound biker who eats little boys like you for breakfast.”

Tripp turned white.

They left him there on the bed and made their way back to the elevator.

The entrance of the student dorms was busier than it had been on the way in. A block of classes must’ve recently ended, and students were returning for an early lunch, a midday study, or more likely, some late-morning gossip with friends.

“Why wouldn’t Patrick have taken his phone with him?” Stacy dabbed at her eye makeup. “Who does that?”

Stella opened the door to head outside. “Who knows. Maybe his idiot roommate stole it before he took his last drive. Anyway, we have the thing now. We just need Mac to crack it.”