The Sixes Page 5

“Yes. She’s barely recognizable, but the clothes and jewelry match. Phoebe, do you know Madeline Bloom—our VP?”

  “Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances,” Madeline said, offering a very firm handshake. She was probably close to sixty, short and shaped like a fireplug. She looked like the kind of person who got the job done, no matter what it was.

  “Did the cops use cadaver dogs?” Phoebe asked.

  “No, a boater spotted the body a little north of here, bobbing in the water. This was the easiest place to bring it to shore.”

  She was floating along the river as I rode my bike, Phoebe thought sadly—maybe just a short distance from me through the trees.

  “Do they have any idea what happened?” Phoebe asked. She kept her voice low, aware that they were the focus of attention now. Phoebe realized that even if some Lyle residents had never seen Glenda, they probably knew that a tall, attractive black woman ran the college, and this had to be her.

  “They were pretty tight-lipped,” Glenda said. “The only thing they volunteered was that there doesn’t seem to be any obvious sign of foul play—though of course, nothing is certain until they do the autopsy.”

  Then what happened? Phoebe wondered. Could Lily have killed herself? That thought was as chilling as the notion that the girl had been murdered.

  “I overheard one interesting tidbit when you were talking to the detectives,” Madeline volunteered in a near whisper, and Glenda and Phoebe turned to her in unison. “A couple of the cops were talking about a sweater. I got the feeling Lily was wearing one earlier, but they haven’t been able to find it.”

  “That could be a key detail,” Phoebe said. She turned to Glenda. “And what about Lily’s parents?”

  “The police are going to break the news, but Tom is planning to head over to the hotel later,” Glenda said. “I need to get back to campus and deal with everything else.” She glanced down at Phoebe’s bike. “You biked down?”

  “No, I came by car.”

  “Give me a lift back to campus then, will you? That way Madeline can hang here and see if she can pick up any new information.” She turned to the VP. “Stay on top of Craig, okay?”

  Madeline snickered. “Oh, that sounds like fun,” she said.

  “He’ll want to box you out, but don’t let him,” Glenda said.

  “I hear you,” Madeline said, and held Glenda’s eyes knowingly. “I’ll call you with an update in a little while.”

  While Glenda slid into the passenger seat of the car, Phoebe loaded her bike into the trunk. Backing out of the parking lot a minute later, Phoebe saw people trailing Glenda with their eyes. Her friend kept her own eyes ahead, her expression neutral, until they were two blocks away. Then she covered her face with her hands.

  “What a nightmare,” Glenda said, her voice muffled.

  “I know,” Phoebe said. “I just keep wondering how in hell she ended up in that river.”

  “No matter what happened, it’s bad for the school, of course,” Glenda said, lowering her hands. “If she got drunk and fell in, that’s bad. If someone killed her, that’s bad. If she killed herself, that’s bad. We’re expecting a record number of applicants this year. Can you imagine what this could do to admissions?”

  She looked over at Phoebe. “Sorry, I know I’m sounding selfish. I feel terrible about this poor girl. And I feel sick for her parents. But I have to think of the college, too.”

  “Of course,” Phoebe said. “By the way, I talked to Lily’s roommate yesterday. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know a thing about any secret society. But Tom Stockton and I are supposed to meet in a few hours, and once he’s briefed me, I can really dig in.”

  Glenda shifted in her seat, and Phoebe could sense her friend studying her with her deep brown eyes.

  “You’re okay with this, right? I mean, looking into the Sixes.”

  “I told you, I don’t want Stockton thinking I’m stepping on his toes, but I’ll make it work.”

  “No, I mean are you okay digging into something like this, considering . . . considering your own experience?”

  Phoebe cocked her head and smiled faintly. “Well, isn’t that partly why you asked me to do it?” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” Glenda admitted. “I thought you would bring an understanding to the task at hand. But you must let me know if it hits too weird of a nerve with you.”

  “I’m okay. I made a vow a long time ago to never let what happened control my life. If anything, it only makes me more determined to help out here. I know just how evil girls can be.”

  “Do you think if the Sixes really do exist, they could be connected to Lily’s death?”

  “It’s possible. A prank gone wrong. Or maybe she wanted out and they were tormenting and bullying her the way they’d done to that other girl. That could be the mess she was referring to. And she decided to ‘escape’ by drowning herself.” She told Glenda about finding the flyer with the number 6 scrawled across Lily’s face.

  Glenda sighed loudly. “It would hardly be the first time a student killed themselves because of bullying.” Her voice hardened. “If the Sixes really are tormenting students, we need to shut them down. We’ve got to use every possible resource the college has.”

  “What’s the deal with the campus cop?” Phoebe said. “You seemed a little wary of him.”

  “Craig Ball. He’s fairly new in the top job, and so far his performance has been good—he’s been able to make a dent in the drug problem on campus. But he’s a bit of a glory hog. Plus, he seems to like to hoard info. I’m not a hundred percent sure I can trust him.”

  “I’d have a hard time trusting anyone that orangey-looking,” Phoebe said. “The guy looks like he’s starting to rust.”

  Glenda scoffed. “I think he’s a regular at the local tanning bed. And he seems to take every vacation in Miami Beach.”

  “Was he hired on your watch?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t some conscious decision of mine. There was an older guy in charge when I started here—Hutch Hutchinson. Kind of crusty, but a real gem. Craig was his number two, hired a couple of years ago. We’ve got mandatory retirement here, but we’d found a way to ignore it with Hutch because he was so good at his job. Then word started getting around about it, and people were asking why I was playing favorites. The next thing I knew, Hutch was bowing out late last fall, and we had no legit reason not to give the top job to Craig. Later I came to realize Craig was the one who stirred the pot about Hutch and helped push him out.”

  “Too bad.” Phoebe couldn’t imagine the headaches Glenda had to deal with. “So what’s next for you today?”

  “Devising a press strategy. And trying to figure out how to inform the students. Feels weird to put news like this in an e-mail blast, but that’s how it’s generally done these days.” They’d reached East Gate, and Glenda pointed toward the curb. “Just let me off here, okay? I want to walk around campus and take the pulse.”

  “Call me if you hear anything,” Phoebe said as Glenda stepped out of the car. “I’ll do the same.”

  As soon as she was home, Phoebe phoned Stockton on her cell. She wondered if he’d try to blow her off again, using the latest news as an excuse.

  “My, you’ve had a busy morning,” he said as soon as she’d identified herself. “Glenda just filled me in.”

  “Yes, pretty harrowing,” Phoebe admitted.

  “You can tell me more when we meet today.”

  So he wasn’t blowing her off after all.

  “Noon still good?” she asked.

  “Yes, see you then.”

  She stripped off her bike clothes and showered. As hot water streamed over her, the image of Lily’s dead body fought its way into Phoebe’s brain—the sodden jeans, the long, wet hair clinging to the bloated face. And then she could see Lily underwater, submerged, terrified. Don’t go there, she told herself, fighting back tears. Stay focused.

  Thirty minutes later, she was headed toward campus. Berta’s was to the
east of the college, but Phoebe first wanted to check the mood on campus, just as Glenda had. Passing through the western gate, she saw that the Lily flyers were still up—though some had come partly unstapled and now flapped forlornly in the wind.

  How many people know by now? Phoebe wondered. The campus seemed busier than she expected. Bunches of students, dressed in jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers, stood gathered together at various spots, talking. Phoebe guessed, from the troubled expressions they wore, that the talk was of Lily.

  It was a relief to enter Berta’s. Something about the atmosphere there—the raffia-wrapped dried herb bouquets and the countless rooster tchotchkes—seemed to repel anyone under twenty-five, giving the town at least one student-free zone besides Tony’s. The crowd was generally a mix of faculty and administration, as well as locals, who sat for hours drinking lattes and eating muffins the size of cantaloupes. She surveyed the half-filled room, first for Tom, and then, when she didn’t see him, for a table with a little privacy. There was an empty one against the back wall, and Phoebe snaked her way toward it. Though not even crowded, the place seemed to be oddly energized. People surely had heard about the body pulled from the river and were buzzing about it.

  Phoebe ordered coffee and waited. Finally, nearly twenty minutes late, Stockton arrived, ducking his six-something length under the upper doorframe as he entered. He was good-looking in an uptight, Waspy way, and probably in his late thirties. Catching Phoebe’s hand wave, he wove through the tables to the back of the café.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, pulling a chair out. “It’s been perfectly crazy.”

  “I can only imagine,” Phoebe said.

  “Nice to officially meet you, by the way,” he said, reaching across the table to shake her hand. His grip was so hard it pinched her fingers. He shrugged off his navy barn jacket, letting it sag behind him. He was wearing pressed khaki pants with a crisp blue cotton shirt and a belt of buttery brown leather. His dark blond hair was short, worn in a classic side-part style, and his skin was smooth and clear, except for a tiny razor cut on his strong chin. He looked like the kind of guy who should be working at a distinguished college like Williams or Middlebury; she wondered how he’d ended up at Lyle.

  “Same here,” she said, forcing a smile. There was a snootiness to the guy that was already rubbing her the wrong way.

  “How are you liking teaching?” he asked. “It’s a whole different ball game for you, isn’t it?”

  “Completely different ball game,” Phoebe said. “But I’m enjoying it.”

  Enjoying was a stretch, but Phoebe was hardly going to be candid with Stockton.

  “And I hear you and Glenda go way back,” Stockton said, his slate-colored eyes curious. “You went to boarding school together.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said, hurriedly. She was anxious to abandon that topic and get on to what mattered. Thankfully the waitress came by to take Stockton’s order.

  “So, tell me about this morning,” he said, turning his attention back to Phoebe. “You just happened to be downtown in the park when they found the body?”

  What the heck was he implying, she wondered. That she was some sort of ambulance chaser?

  “Actually I was coming off the bike path after a ride,” Phoebe said. “I saw the commotion in the park and headed over.”

  “Was there any bruising on the body? Any indication that she’d been attacked?”

  “I never got that close.”

  “Did you have any sense of what might have happened?”

  “No, just that she’d clearly been in the water for a while. Are there surveillance cameras downtown, do you know? I’ve been wondering if one of them picked up something the night Lily disappeared.”

  Stockton scoffed. “I’m afraid we local yokels in Lyle haven’t quite caught up with New York and London in that regard,” he said. Was that a dig? she wondered. Regardless, she wasn’t going to snipe back and risk pissing him off.

  “At least more eyewitnesses may come forward now that they’ve found her body,” Phoebe said. “Glenda says Lily was last seen going up Bridge Street—after she’d left the Cat Tails bar. For some reason she turned around and ended up back down at the river.”

  “Don’t you think it’s obvious that someone intercepted her walk home?” Stockton said.

  “And convinced her to go back down along the river?”

  “Convinced isn’t the word I had in mind,” he said.

  “What about the possibility of suicide?” Phoebe asked.

  “Why start up the hill if you were planning to drown yourself ?”

  The waitress arrived with a mug of black coffee for Stockton and slid it in front of him.

  “Do you mind if we switch gears for a minute?” Phoebe said. “As you know, Glenda wants me to look into this secret society—the Sixes.”

  “I’m more than willing to discuss it, though I must admit it’s fairly low on my list right now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because Lily Mack’s death is one through ten on that list.” His voice sounded impatient. “Don’t get me wrong. We don’t want any kind of secret society on our campus. But the death of a student takes precedence over everything.”

  “But don’t you think there’s a small chance that Lily’s death might be related to the Sixes somehow?”

  Stockton leaned back in his chair and pinched his lips together.

  “As I said, I’m concerned about the Sixes,” he said. “But even if they do exist—and that’s still an if—I don’t think they had anything to do with what happened to Lily.”

  “What do you think, then?” she asked, because it was clear to her now that he had a theory. She took a sip of her coffee.

  Stockton narrowed his eyes and stared intensely at Phoebe.

  “I think we may have a serial killer on our hands.”

  5

  P HOEBE GULPED DOWN her coffee in surprise.

  “What?” she said.

  Stockton quickly turned his head to the right and then to the left, making sure no one was eavesdropping.

  “This has to be under the cone of silence, all right?” He waited for Phoebe’s nod. “I think there may be a predator out there who gets his jollies from drugging college students and drowning them in the river.”

  “But who are the other victims besides Lily?” Phoebe asked, still taken aback. She wondered why Glenda hadn’t mentioned anything about this.

  “We had a student drown in the Winamac the April before last. A senior named Scott Macus.”

  “But Glenda told me he’d been out drinking and stumbled into the river.”

  “That’s what everyone assumed. But after I heard about Lily this morning, I went back and looked at Scott’s file. The blood alcohol report indicated he’d had about three beers. Hardly enough to make most guys disoriented. The last place he was seen was at Cat Tails—sound familiar? Then, according to his friends, he just disappeared. They said it was totally unlike him to go off without telling them.”

  “Were there any marks on his body?” Phoebe asked.

  “Nothing to indicate a struggle. But if someone’s been drugged, it wouldn’t take much to force them into the river.”

  “Two deaths don’t necessarily add up to a serial killer,” Phoebe said.

  “You’re right,” Stockton replied. “But those aren’t the only deaths. Ever hear of Parker-Hyde College? It’s about an hour and a half north of here on the river. A male student drowned there a year ago. And there have been a number of similar cases in the Midwest—all involving college students who mysteriously drowned after a night out but who didn’t appear to be inebriated.”

  “How awful,” Phoebe said. “Have any of the drowning victims other than Lily been female?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. But I’ve just begun to look into this. I haven’t even had a chance to mention this to Glenda.”

  Phoebe glanced away, thinking. Stockton’s theory made her skin crawl. Could it real
ly be true? It seemed far-fetched, and yet she’d read that serial killers did migrate from one area to another. God, she thought, if Glenda was concerned about the impact of a secret society on Lyle’s admissions, Phoebe could only imagine what news of a serial killer would do.

  “Do you mind if we get back to the Sixes for a minute?” Phoebe asked. “Lily’s death might not be connected to them, but Glenda wants me to look into the group regardless. As you said, it’s a problem in its own right.”

  Stockton pinched his lips together again and examined some imaginary thing floating on the top of his coffee.

  “I hope you won’t take offense,” he said, lifting his head up. Then he shot her a patronizing smile. “But I’ve got to be perfectly blunt here. This kind of problem should be handled by someone from the administration, or at the very least by a regular faculty member. Not . . . an outsider.”

  Phoebe took a breath before answering. “But as we both know, sometimes an outsider has a better shot at obtaining information,” she said.

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.” Stockton sniffed. “But you’ve been at the college for less than two months.”

  It took everything Phoebe had to smile nicely at him. The guy was pompous and arrogant, but she needed his full cooperation.

  “Why don’t I start with my research and see how it goes,” Phoebe said. “If it doesn’t work, or if it creates problems, Glenda certainly isn’t going to want me to continue.”

  He shrugged, forced to resign. “Okay. What do you need to know?”

  “Glenda said you first heard about the Sixes when a student ended up in the ER last spring.”

  “Correct. It was early May. I received a call one night from the manager of the ER at Cranberry Medical Center—it’s about ten miles north of here. A student named Alexis Grey had arrived there hyperventilating. She was alone, by the way, and it was unclear how she’d gotten to the hospital. After they examined her, it was obvious she was having a panic attack, which intensified when they suggested having someone from the college come and fetch her. She blurted out something about having been a part of this secret society called the Sixes, and that when she’d quit the group, they’d begun to torment her. But that was the most anyone was ever able to get out of her. I went to see her that night, but she refused to talk to me. Her parents arrived the next morning, and brought her home—she’s from the Baltimore area—and she refused to return to Lyle. There were only a few weeks left of classes, but she chose to forfeit the entire term. I tried to get the parents to talk to me, but either Alexis had forbidden them to or they knew nothing.”