The Bride Wore Size 12 (Heather Wells 5)

I’ve hurried up the steps to the student building and am flashing my staff ID at the security guard at the entrance. He nods and allows me through the gate. “Special Agent Lancaster seemed just fine, Eva. Why, do you miss him?”

“That jackass?” Eva sounds indignant. “No! He’s so not my type. He looks like he goes home every night and listens to podcasts about the rise of the Aryan Nation while polishing his gun.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on him,” I say, fighting my way through the crowds of students to the elevator, “but whatever. What’s the news on the autopsy?”

“Oh,” Eva says. “So I told the chief what you said to me this morning about the party the vic was at the night before she died. Even if we put a rush on the tox screens, it will still be a few days before we get the results—better than a few weeks, though. Hey, what’d you hear about the trash from the party the vic went to? Get anything?”

“I don’t know yet, I’ve been away from the office almost all day. As soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. Anyway, they looked a little closer at your vic during the postmortem because of your info and also, I’ll be honest, because of all the pressure they were getting from upstairs. And guess what they found.”

I’ve pressed the up button for the elevator. “I have no idea.”

“Nothing. No sign of sexual assault, no sign of overdose, no sign of obvious trauma. The vic was in perfect health . . . except for one thing, which the chief wouldn’t even really have looked for if you hadn’t said anything.”

“Really? What?”

“Teeth imprints. And you’ll never guess where. Inside the victim’s upper lip.”

I stand in front of the elevator bank, pressing my smartphone as hard as I can to my ear, since it’s difficult to hear with all the noise from the students. The Gottlieb Student Center, in addition to being an architectural blight on the south side of Washington Square, houses many of New York College’s student clubs, the student government, and a dining center that offers selections from such culinary luminaries as Pizza Hut and Burger King, making it one of the campus’s most popular eateries. This is why the student center is always packed and why the wait for an elevator can sometimes be as long as the wait for an elevator in Fischer Hall.

I can tell that Eva is expecting some kind of reaction from me, but I have no idea what, since I don’t understand what she’s talking about. Tooth imprints inside the victim’s upper lip? How could someone die from that?

“I don’t understand,” I finally admit.

“Heather,” Eva says, in a tone that suggests she believes I’m a little slow. “Jasmine didn’t die of an asthma attack. Well, the asthma certainly helped speed things up, but we’re listing the manner of death as homicide.”

“Wait,” I say. A group of musical theater students nearby me have burst into a chorus of “Magic to Do” from Pippin, which I’m sure they find charming but I’m finding extremely annoying since I can barely hear Eva. I stick a finger in my nonphone ear. “What?”

“We see this kind of thing a lot, almost exclusively in women and children. Someone of superior strength holds a hand over the victim’s lips and nose until she stops breathing. If they hold it there hard enough, it can cause lacerations inside the victim’s mouth. The teeth imprints were Jasmine’s own as she struggled to open her mouth, trying to breathe.”

The elevator doors slide open in front of me, and a flood of students comes pouring out. I’m buffeted by the tide, but can’t move out of the way because I’m too stunned by what I’ve just heard. Behind me, the musical theater majors are still insisting that they’ve got magic to do.

“You mean—”

“That’s right,” Eva says. “Jasmine was suffocated to death.”

17

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I knock on the open door beside the sign that reads nyc express. It’s a single office in a hallway on the fourth floor of the Gottlieb Student Center. Unlike the lobby of the building, the fourth floor, which is carpeted in New York College blue and gold, is not at all crowded.

I used to do a lot of media and press tours back in my “Sugar Rush” days. As far as press rooms go, the one for the New York College Express is not very impressive, housing only four desks containing a few computers and a single phone.

Then again, as the sign says, they’re a poor, student-run organization.

There is only one person inside the office, a boy wearing jeans and a blue New York College hoodie. He’s typing on a laptop in front of one of the building’s massive floor-to-ceiling windows, which is covered in crooked blinds that have seen better days.

The boy doesn’t answer my knock. I soon see that that’s because he’s wearing earbuds. I enter the office—which is mostly devoid of human activity, but filled with empty pizza boxes and soda containers—and tap his shoulder.

The boy jumps, startled, and pulls out the earbuds, allowing them to dangle from a thin white cord down his chest.

“Oh, shit, you scared me,” he says, leaping from his chair. His smile is crooked and charming. He’s a white boy with adorably mussed dark hair. He clearly belongs to the Gavin McGoren why-bother-showering-before-work? school of thought. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I think you can,” I say, looking around for a place to sit. It’s impossible to find one that isn’t covered in empty food containers. “You know if you don’t take the trash out once in a while, you’ll get mice in here, right?”

“Oh, we already have one,” the boy says, hastily pulling some pizza boxes off a chair for me. “Well, it could be a baby rat. I can’t really tell which it is. Anyway, I named him Algernon. He’s supercute. I don’t have the heart to let them set up traps for him. He’s the only other living being I see in here most days, since the rest of the staff hasn’t come back to the city from break yet. Al’s my only IRL friend until classes start.”