“They can do whatever they want,” Canavan mutters as he drives. “It’s the government.”
“But they can’t possibly argue that Cameron’s attempted murder falls under the purview of the State Department,” I say. “Prince Rashid’s room isn’t anywhere near the student center. And they can’t know why someone wanted him dead, unless they’ve figured out, like we did, that Jasmine was the leak. Have they?”
“Do I look like a guy who’s got connections with the U.S. State Department?” Detective Canavan demands. With his half-chewed cigar hanging from one side of his mouth, he looks more like a guy who’s got connections with the Mob.
“What did Cameron say he saw when you questioned him?” I ask.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Canavan sounds annoyed. “That kid’s not going to be talking for a month. His windpipe was practically severed. Whoever strangled him knew what they were doing. The hospital’s got him so doped up on painkillers, you could ask him if the sky is green and he’d write yes! on the dry-erase board they’ve given him to communicate. Nobody’s going to get anything useful out of that kid for days.”
“Well, what about the security guard?” I ask. “Did the security guard see anyone fleeing the premises when he found Cameron?”
“Fleeing the premises?” Detective Canavan echoes sarcastically. “Have you been watching Castle again?”
“It’s a reasonable question,” I say. “And Castle’s a very good show.”
“When Security Officer Wynona Perez—it was a female guard—exited the elevator to the student center’s fourth floor,” Detective Turner says, reading from notes he’d evidently taken on his iPhone, “she found the door to the New York College Express ajar, and the victim, Cameron Ripley, on the floor, apparently having been dragged from his desk chair by his headphones, the cord to which had been wrapped around his neck twice and tightened until he lost consciousness. The offices of the Express had been ransacked, pizza boxes and empty soda containers thrown across every surface—”
“Uh,” I interrupt. “The offices weren’t ransacked. That’s how they looked when I was there. Cameron’s a student . . . and a writer. That’s how writers are.” Private eyes are too, but I don’t feel that admitting this will add anything to the investigation.
“Oh,” Turner says, looking dubious, and continues, “So Perez unloosened the cord and performed CPR, requesting emergency services via radio, which responded to the student center approximately five minutes later, three forty-five today—”
“Turner,” Canavan interrupts in a bored voice. “What have I told you about using that thing for note taking? What are you going to do when there’s a real emergency in this city and you can’t access any of your data because your wireless service has crashed because it exceeded its bandwidth?”
Turner looks confused. “That can happen?”
Canavan digs his notepad from his belt. “You know what’s never gonna exceed its bandwidth? Paper. And what have I told you about sharing incident reports with suspects?”
“Not to,” Turner says shamefacedly.
I gasp. “Suspect? You think I tried to kill that boy? I thought you said you came by to pick me up because Cooper was worried about me. I thought you said you were here to protect me.”
“Well,” Canavan says with a shrug. “That, and because you’re one of only two people caught on the hallway security monitors going into that kid’s office today, besides him.”
I’m flabbergasted.
“So you are arresting me? Who’s the other person? Why aren’t you arresting him? Or her?”
“We’re having a little trouble identifying the other person,” Canavan admits. “Due to the fact that the security tapes are not in our possession.”
“What do you mean, the security tapes aren’t in your possession? Who possesses them?”
“They were confiscated from the college security office about a half hour ago by someone named Lancaster.”
Hearing the name, I begin to fume. “He’s with the—”
“—State Department,” Detective Canavan finishes along with me.
“So they do know about Jasmine being the leak,” I say, then chew my bottom lip nervously. I’d chew on my thumbnail, but I only have a month till I get married, not enough time for it to grow back, though my future sister-in-law Tania assures me I can get gel nails that will look almost completely natural.
Surely, I tell myself, it isn’t my fault Cameron was attacked. Cooper had to have been wrong about someone following me into the offices of the Express. I hadn’t seen anyone I’d recognized . . . except, of course, Hamad.
But it couldn’t have been Hamad, since I’d seen him going into Fischer Hall shortly before I had . . . unless, of course, he’d doubled back and attempted to kill Cameron.
If Hamad had been the killer, wouldn’t he be skilled enough in assassination techniques to have stuck around to make sure he finished the job?
Except who else could have reason not only to suffocate Jasmine, but attempt to choke the life out of the editor of the college’s daily news blog?
One of the first principles of criminology—which will be my major at New York College (if I ever get through all my prerequisites and am allowed to begin taking classes in my major)—is that crimes are committed for very few reasons: Financial or material gain (greed) is a major one. Passion, such as anger, jealousy, lust, or love, is also way up there, along with a desire to cover up another crime.
Whenever a crime is committed, a good detective always asks herself one question:
“Who benefits?” I ask, a little more loudly than I’d intended to.
“No shouting from the backseat,” Canavan snaps. “The no-yapping rule goes for you too, Wells, as well as Turner here. Can’t you see I’m driving? Why I haven’t put in for retirement is beyond me. I could be home barbecuing a nice juicy steak in my backyard right now if it weren’t for you two yahoos.”
“I’m serious,” I say. Detective Canavan loves his job, and he knows it, even if training newbies and “rescuing” the girlfriends of private eyes aren’t his favorite things to do. “We’ve failed to ask ourselves the crucial question of criminal investigation: who benefits from the death of Jasmine Albright?”