to do with Kristen. He only thinks he’s the type of guy who gets laid a lot, a guy who can shift effortlessly from charm to callous indifference.
“Who was that?” he asks as they make their way down the stairwell.
“That,” Gwen says, “was C. J. Watkins. He’s a junior and, as you can see, a little full of himself.”
“What’s his story?”
“Kath thinks he’s gay. Isn’t that so, Kath?”
“I definitely get that vibe, don’t you?” Kathy says.
He can’t tell whether she’s asking him or Gwen, but no, he says, he didn’t get a gay vibe.
“Good-looking guy, though. Lots of girls like him,” Gwen says.
“A lot of stupid girls,” her friend opines.
“Oh, come now, Miss Jorgenson,” Gwen mocks her goodnaturedly. “Don’t insult yourself like that.”
“OK, I had a crush. Freshman year. For like fifteen minutes. I admit it. Guilty as charged.”
Forgetting who she’s with, she doesn’t think anything of the last remark—and neither does he—until Gwen makes a face, admonishing her.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, mortified. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
He smiles, opening the front door to the frat for them.
“I know,” he says. “Don’t worry.”
May 11—5:21 p.m.
“Hank, I lost him. I could swear he gave me the slip.”
Madden’s in the apartment of a rape victim, a twenty-six-year-old woman who alleges she was accosted by an upstairs neighbor. In the living room, Burns is interviewing the roommate of the victim. He’s stepped into the kitchen to take Billings’s call.
“Where are you?” he asks in a low voice.
“I’m over at the university. He drove over here around five and went to the bookstore.”
“So you think he saw you and purposely gave you the slip?”
“I don’t know for sure. But he was there in the stacks, looking at some books, and he went behind a row, and the next thing I know, he’s gone.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m back at the parking lot. I went to see if his car is still here.”
“Is it?”
“Affirmative.”
“Shit.”
“What do you want me to do, Hank?”
“What’s he doing over at the university?”
“I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing here. I’m just following the fuck.”
“Sorry, I was just thinking out loud.”
“What’s the name of the frat?” Billings asks. “I was going to check over there, but I don’t know which one it is.”
“Rejection House. It’s the old admissions building, right in the middle of frat row.”
“Rejection House?”
“Yes, just ask someone when you get close. Don’t worry, they’ll know. I gotta go. We’re doing an interview. Call me after you get there.”
May 11—5:31 p.m.
“No, I don’t know anyone personally who had an STD,” Jim Pinklow says a few minutes later in his dorm room.
“Not personally?” Cogan asks.
“Well, I mean I heard this story about how these two guys went to Miami a couple of years ago and got totally trashed and one of them ended up sleeping with a stripper and getting some STD from her—I think it was chlamydia. And the other guy ended up sleeping in the bathtub in the hotel room while the other guy was having wild sex all night in the bed. That was the big joke or irony or whatever you want to call it. The guy who paid for all the drinks didn’t get laid and the other guy did, but he ended up getting an STD. There was something karmic about that, you know.”
“That was two years ago?”
“Yeah, these guys are seniors now. I know who they are, but I’m not friends with them or anything. That’s what I meant by not knowing them personally.”
Cogan looks at the kid, taking in his features. It’s not immediately apparent, but when you look hard, you can see his sister, Carrie. The eyes are the same, blue and set wider apart than average. Similar builds, too. He’s pretty short—maybe five-foot-seven or five-foot-eight—and slightly stocky. He’s also tense. He isn’t sure who’s making him more anxious, him or Gwen, who’s decided to take a stroll around the room and give his personal effects the once over. The other girl volunteered to stay outside (“Me and Jim had a little falling out after that night,” she says), so it’s just the three of them standing there. But it still feels plenty crowded in the small room.
“Who’s this?” Gwen asks, pointing to one of three framed pictures on top of a bureau.
“Someone I met in Germany last year,” is Jim’s perfunctory reply.
While she quizzes him on the blonde in the shot, Cogan does his own little sweep of the photo gallery, not sure what he’s looking for, but confident