Page 78 of M for Murder

She tried to rationalise that it was probably just one of the caretakers or another student who’d forgotten the change of classroom. Nonetheless, she didn’t want to hang around. Tucking her timetable safely away inside her book, she turned and walked out of the classroom and straight into the guy in the corridor. Startled, she let out a yelp and stepped back, crashing into the wall.

The guy in front of her looked equally surprised and as she looked at his wide eyes and open mouth, she immediately recognised him.

It was the guy from the grocery store.

Screaming, Kylan dropped her books and ran.

29

L uke Williams had arrived back at the college late Monday morning and, still tired from his bus journey, had spent most of the afternoon in bed.

Knowing that Justine’s last class finished at four, he set his alarm to wake him at three forty-five and, stopping long enough only to wipe the sleep from his eyes, he ran across campus to the English building to meet her. His weekend had been good. He had returned to the family home in Seattle for his parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary party and there was a lot of news he wanted to share with her.

Leaning back against the lockers that faced Justine’s classroom, he watched the students disperse, wondering if he should tell her first about the Corvette that his older brother Steve had bought and fixed up for him or about the vacation to Mexico that his family were planning for July and that they’d asked him to invite her along to. As the last students left the room, followed promptly by Mr Parker, he stepped up to the door and peered inside, knowing that Justine often dawdled and expecting to see her still gathering her books together.

The classroom was empty.

Luke frowned, wondering where she was. He knew that she had stayed on campus all weekend and it was unlike her to miss one of her classes. Feeling a pinch of concern, he decided to go over to her dorm and see if she was in her room.

As he crossed the campus, his mind turned over various possibilities and he wondered if she was sick or had perhaps decided to go home after all.

The murders had scared a lot of people and he knew that a few of the students had decided to pack up and return home until the killer had been caught. Maybe Justine was spooked and had decided to do the same. Even so, he thought it a little odd that she hadn’t called him or slipped a note under his door. He pushed open the main door to her dorm, quickly ascended the three flights of stairs to her floor and followed the hallway along to her room at the end of the block. Unlike most of the other students on campus, Justine was lucky enough to have a room to herself, the girl who she was supposed to have shared with, becoming homesick three weeks into the first term and deciding to drop out. Luke liked her having her own room. It meant that they always had somewhere to go where they knew they wouldn’t be disturbed.

He rapped his knuckles against the door, aware there was no noise coming from the other side. He wondered if she had perhaps caught the bad bout of flu that had been going around the campus a couple of weeks back and was doing what he himself had done earlier, getting a few hours’ sleep. There was a slightly pungent odour in the air that reminded him of sickness and he guessed he was probably right.

Getting no answer, he knocked again, this time louder. ‘Justine? Justine? Are you in there?’

Still no answer.

Luke shrugged to himself, guessing that she couldn’t be in her room after all.

Instead of walking away, though, his gaze slipped to the door handle, and he found himself questioning if the door was locked. It was silly really. He had knocked and Justine hadn’t answered. There was no need to believe she was in her room and certainly no need for him to look. Still, he found his hand pushing down the handle to check the lock.

There was a slight creak and the door swung open.

Luke glanced into the room, taking in the open curtains, the two neatly made beds and the stack of books piled up on top of the dresser. In the middle of the floor was Justine. She was lying face down on the carpet, completely naked apart from a black-and-green checked tie that was wrapped around her neck. The skin beneath the tie looked as though it had been cut and the carpet beneath her was covered in crusts of dried blood.

Luke blinked hard and took a step back, not really registering what he was seeing. Suddenly finding his voice, he turned and ran screaming down the hallway.

Unlike the other victims, Justine Orton had been killed in her room and, with the exception of Emma Keeley, her body had not been dumped in the sewer.

Either the killer was changing his pattern, or he had been unable to get the body off campus without being seen.

Neither theory seemed likely. So far, all of the victims had been found in water; both Rodney Boone’s and this guy’s. There was absolutely no reason to suggest why he would suddenly decide to change location.

Justine’s body had been found by her boyfriend, a freshman called Luke Williams, who had gone to her room looking for her and discovered her lying dead on the floor. Within seconds of finding her most of the dorm knew what had happened and a couple of the students had gone running across campus to find Joel and Angell, who were busy taking prints in the main block. Joel had sent Angell on ahead of him to secure the crime scene before calling Max and then Greg Withers, telling both men to go get the team together and meet him over at the dorm. When he arrived at Justine Orton’s room five minutes later, Angell had closed the door and was standing guard outside, trying to prevent the growing number of students that had already gathered outside from getting any closer.

Greg Withers arrived ten minutes later and quickly confirmed what they both already knew, that the killer had claimed his sixth victim. He also pointed out an inconsistency with the other killings: Justine Orton appeared to have put up a struggle.

So far all the victims had been either drugged or knocked unconscious with a blow to the back of the head before they were killed. Justine Orton had been wide awake at the moment the tie was slipped around her neck. Joel wondered why this time the killer had decided to leave the murder weapon behind. The green and black checked tie had been bagged and taken to the lab. He doubted they would get any prints, but it would be interesting if they could find out who it belonged to.

Maybe Justine? Maybe a friend? Maybe her killer, though it was unlikely. Their killer might be inconsistent, but he had already proved that he wasn’t stupid.

Once the pathologist and the photographer had finished and Justine Orton’s body was zipped up in a bag and taken back to the lab, Max returned to the precinct with the unenviable task of calling her parents back in Missouri, leaving Joel and Angell to question Luke Williams and the students who shared her dorm.

Joel suspected that none of them would be able to help shed any light on Justine’s murder and he was right. Nobody had seen her since early Saturday evening. She hadn’t told anyone of any plans she had had, and not one person had seen or heard anything strange in the dorm over the weekend. Their killer was managing to be extremely elusive. The lock on the door to Justine’s room had not been broken or tampered with at all, so it appeared that either she had let her killer in willingly or had opened the door to a stranger who had then forced his way into the room.

If it was someone she’d let in willingly, it was likely to be someone she knew, someone who was probably in attendance at the college; if that was the case then the list of suspects would be narrowed considerably.