Grave Surprise Page 0,51

car left at St. Margaret's?"

Tolliver nodded.

"Why should I tell you?"

"After all we've shared, and you're not going to let us know?" My tone may have been a wee bit mocking.

"I think we can take it that the car was Dr. Nunley's own vehicle," Tolliver said. "Just a guess on my part."

"Yeah," Koenig admitted. "It was Nunley's car. It wasn't there at nine last night, but it was there early this morning."

We tried not to look too startled. We'd been there earlier; the body had been in the grave, but the car hadn't been there, for sure.

"How do you know that?" I asked, and was proud that I sounded so unconcerned.

"The campus police take a turn back there every night about nine, and no one was parked in the St. Margaret's parking lot. Since they're campus cops, they just cruise through the lot. They don't even get out of the car, much less check the inside of every grave. The strange thing is, Nunley was probably in the open grave already. The time of death was way earlier than that. He couldn't have died after nine. The body temperature indicates he was dead by seven at the latest, and the stomach contents tend to bear that out. Of course, the lab results aren't back, and there's a lot more to be learned from the body."

Tolliver and I exchanged a glance. It took all my self-control to keep from covering my eyes with my hand. We hadn't known how lucky we were. If the campus police had caught us there with the corpse, no way in hell would anyone have believed we were innocent.

"So, Agent Koenig, why do you think the killer drove the car away and brought it back?" I asked. "Let me put on my thinking cap." I held a finger to my cheek in a parody of concentration.

Actually, I already had a pretty good idea. Or rather, three ideas. One, the killer wanted to get the car cleaned to erase any forensic traces. Two, the killer had to fetch something and take it back to the cemetery to complete the picture he was trying to paint. Three, the killer heard us coming and wanted to get the car out of there while we were approaching, so we wouldn't see who was driving.

Seth Koenig looked from me to Tolliver with a stony face, not amused in the least. He said. "That man is dead. If you can't take that seriously, you're just not human."

"Playing the not-human card," I said to Tolliver.

"As if we hadn't heard that one before," he said.

"I know what you're doing," the agent said. "And you're good at it, I'll give you that. Were the rocks in the grave when you saw the body?"

"We didn't see the body," I said flatly.

"They were big rocks. Big enough to crack a skull," Koenig said. "I think that's why the killer had to come and go. He had to go get a couple of big rocks. He threw them down in the grave so they'd land on Nunley's head--might have taken a couple of tries. The killer wanted the scene to look as though Nunley might have tripped and fallen into the open grave. But we're pretty sure that just didn't happen. Dr. Nunley was almost certainly murdered."

"Dum-dum-dum," I said.

"I know you're not laughing inside about this," Koenig said. "I know you want me to leave so you can talk about it. I'm letting you know I'm available for further conversation. And if you remember anything, you're smart enough to realize we need to know about it." He rose, in an easy motion that made me envious.

"We understand," Tolliver said, getting up at the same time. He stood between Koenig and me. "We'll be talking to you." He hesitated. "I appreciate that you're doing your best with this case. It's bothered Harper a lot, too." He looked back at me, and I nodded. Though we were ready, past ready, for Koenig to leave, this had been a much more amicable interview than we usually had with anyone who carried a badge.

When the door shut behind Koenig, Tolliver didn't move for a long moment. Then he turned to me with raised brows.

"That was different," I agreed.

"The bad thing about him being halfway nice is that I almost don't like lying to him," my brother said. "The good thing is, he gave us a lot of useful information." His face darkened. "Like the time of death."

I nodded. "That's pretty scary, huh? That