loved them.
My mind had wandered, but the knock recalled me to the here and now.
We looked at each other. Tolliver rose. He looked through the peephole.
"It's the FBI guy again," he said.
"Shit," I murmured. I was wearing a hotel bathrobe and nothing else, since I'd showered again this morning after doing my time on the hotel treadmill.
"You'd better let me in, I've got news for you," the voice on the other side of the door said.
Tolliver glanced back at me.
We considered.
"Okay," I said. "Better find out what he wants."
Tolliver opened the door, and Seth Koenig stepped in at once and closed the door. His eyes flashed to my legs, and then away. "I taped the news this morning, since I thought you two might not have seen it," he said. He waited for us to respond, and we both shook our heads. We don't turn on the television as a matter of course. From the expression on his face, I felt pretty bad about what was coming.
He strode over to our television and popped the tape in the hotel player. He used the remote to turn on the set. After a moment of sports scores, Shellie Quail filled the camera. She looked resplendent in a bright fall suit and her usual gleaming makeup. Shellie had on her sober newscaster face. Clearly, she was going to deliver Grim Tidings.
"A groundskeeper at Bingham College made a shocking discovery early this morning. Dennis Cuthbert was sent to the site of the old St. Margaret's church and cemetery to make sure the garbage had been picked up after the discovery, two days ago, of Tabitha Morgenstern's remains interred in an ancient grave in the cemetery. What Cuthbert found was just as shocking. Inside that same grave, he found another body."
They sure did love the word "shocking."
The camera cut to a husky black man wearing a dark blue uniform. Dennis Cuthbert looked mighty upset. "I got here, and I see the car parked in the parking lot," he said. "Wasn't anyone supposed to be here, so I began looking around a little."
"Did you think at that point that there was anything wrong?" Shellie asked, her face in a sober mask.
"Yeah, I did wonder," said Dennis Cuthbert. "Anyway, I started walking around, and soon I notice that the grave look a little different."
"How?"
"The edge look a little collapsed. So I go over there and look down, and there he was."
Good. He'd walked over the area where I'd lain to touch the corpse.
The camera swung back to Shellie, who said, "Inside that grave, Cuthbert found the body of a man, tentatively identified as Bingham College professor Dr. Clyde Nunley. Dr. Nunley was dead."
Switch to the outside of an older home probably dating from the 1940s, the kind yuppies bought and restored. "Dr. Nunley's wife, Anne, told the police that her husband had left their home for the second time between six and seven o'clock last night to check something out, he said. He didn't give any details. When he hadn't returned home at his usual time, she went to bed. When she woke this morning and found him still missing from the home, she called police."
Evidently, Anne Nunley had declined to be interviewed, because she didn't appear on the screen. Smart woman.
Close-up of the gleaming Shellie. "Police aren't saying how Dr. Nunley died. But a source close to the investigation said his death could have been an accident, or could have been murder. Apparently suicide has been ruled out. Back to you, Chip."
The picture turned into gray lint right after that.
I didn't dare to look at Tolliver. I didn't want to look at Seth Koenig, either. He stepped forward to turn off the machine, and then he faced me. "What do you make of that, Miss Connelly?"
"I think it's very strange, Agent Koenig."
"Please call me Seth." He waited a beat to see if I'd return the courtesy, but I didn't. I wondered what to do now. I wanted the agent to leave with a fervent desperation, because I needed to discuss this very puzzling development with Tolliver.
"The groundskeeper noticed a car in the parking lot," Seth Koenig said. He waited for us to respond.
"That's what the reporter said," Tolliver said. He sounded as cool as ice. I envied my brother his composure and wished I could match it.
Of course, there'd been no other car there when we'd parked in the parking lot. Dr. Nunley hadn't committed suicide, and he hadn't died by accident. He'd been murdered. We