Page 91 of M for Murder

Max picked up his spoon and began to idly stir the black liquid in the coffee cup. ‘It would sure explain where little Rodney got his screwed-up genes from: an abusive mother, a father who blackmailed his students into having sex.’ He glanced up at Agnes. ‘You said they hanged him, right?’

‘That’s right, Mr Sutton.’

Max thought of Boone’s victims, all of them killed by asphyxia. Several of them had been strangled. Had he chosen this particular method of death because of what had happened to his father or was it just some sick coincidence? His mind turned to Lawrence Parker, currently being held in custody back in Juniper, suspected of murdering six students. He was also suspected of having affairs with at least two of them.

Another coincidence, or had Lawrence Parker inherited rogue genes from a father he probably never knew existed? It was a far-fetched theory: Lawrence Parker, son of Myron White and brother of Rodney Boone.

Agnes had said that Myron White was killed back in 1963. That would mean all three sons would have to be at least thirty-four.

How old was Parker? Thirty? Thirty-five?

Maybe it would be a good idea to call Joel and check. If the age was right then they could look into his background, see if he was adopted.

Max sighed deeply and rubbed his palms across his face. It all sounded good, but wasn’t he getting a little carried away? It seemed at the moment that all he had was an old lady with a story and a whole bunch of coincidences.

He glanced up at Agnes. ‘This stuff about Rodney’s father, it’s all definitely true, isn’t it, Ms Barnes? I mean, it’s not like one of these dumb folklore stories that gets passed around town?’

Agnes narrowed her eyes, looking a little offended at the insinuation.

‘It’s all quite true, I can assure you of that,’ she told him, smiling thinly. ‘I should know better than anyone. You see, Mr Sutton, Carolyn Mayo is my younger sister.’

35

JUNIPER, OREGON . WEDNESDAY 7TH MAY 1997

R ebecca had awoken on Wednesday morning expecting to spend the day over at the college helping to collect prints, but when she arrived at the precinct Hickok had already dispatched a couple of the other officers, and instead he asked her to sit in on the Lawrence Parker interrogations with him. She was pleased, knowing the job would be far more interesting, but she also suspected he was trying to make it up to her for losing out to Vic on the California trip.

She wondered how her patrol partner and Sutton were getting on. They had left at seven that morning so should have arrived in San Palimo around lunchtime.

Had they spoken with Agnes Barnes yet?

Her own morning ended up being pretty uneventful. Hickok had been down to the courthouse first thing to apply for a stay of arrest on Lawrence Parker. Both agents had decided to put off applying for the search warrant on the house until Sutton had a chance to see what he could uncover in San Palimo, but they were keen to prevent Parker from going anywhere.

When Hickok returned, he had Parker brought up from the holding cells and, with Rebecca looking on, had started to thoroughly grill the professor. She had watched his relentless attack of blunt and aggressive questions, a little surprised by the cool façade Lawrence Parker was managing to keep up, while trying to ignore the long, lingering, almost flirtatious looks he kept giving her across the large wooden desk.

Hickok didn’t seem to notice and, while it was probably because he was on a mission to break Parker into confessing, Rebecca preferred to put it down to her own paranoia. It was stupid to believe that this mild-tempered married man, who might not even be guilty of anything, was flirting with her. He was being held on a possible charge of murder. Why the hell would he want to do anything that might jeopardise his chances of leaving this room a free man?

Admittedly, things weren’t looking too good for him at the moment. Aside from the black-and-green check tie that had been used to strangle Justine Orton, he wasn’t having much luck with his alibis. Scott Jagger had been murdered on a Friday night and Parker claimed to have spent the entire evening marking test papers in his classroom at the college. Unfortunately he had no witnesses to collaborate his story. On the two Tuesday nights when Rufus Lind and Kevin North had been killed, Kylan Parker had been out with friends and he swore blind he had spent both evenings home alone. Again, there were no witnesses. And when Emma Keeley had been murdered, Parker claimed he couldn’t remember what he had been doing. The two Saturdays when Catherine Maloney and Justine Orton had been killed were looking his best hope at the moment.

Well, they would do if his wife could be found.

Parker insisted that Kylan would be able to confirm his story that the two of them had been together on both nights. Unfortunately, until she returned, he was left dangling by a thread.

Hickok insinuated that she might not be coming back, that perhaps Parker might have killed her.

Rebecca thought the idea pretty stupid, believing that if Parker was their killer he would have enough sense not to kill the one person who could provide him with a solid alibi. Even so, she had to admit that the evidence piling up against the professor was beginning to look fairly overwhelming. Maybe she was wrong about him. After all, what would she, a rookie police officer, know? Hickok had experience and, as he had already proved to her, he also had pretty good hunches.

After two hours of solid questioning, Hickok decided to go and get coffee – and, Rebecca guessed, to go bang his head against the wall. Cracking through Parker’s hard exterior was proving to be harder than she had imagined and, whilst Rebecca was still unsure about him being a murderer, she didn’t doubt for a second that he was hiding something.

But what?

He swore blind that he and Emma Keeley were no more than friends, claiming that the note Hickok had found in his desk drawer was completely innocent. Then there was the tie that had been used to strangle Justine Orton. It was his and he didn’t try to deny it. What he did do, though, was insist that the last time he’d seen it had been over a week ago, sitting in his closet.

Was he telling the truth?

Alone in the room with him while she waited for Hickok to return with his coffee, she studied Lawrence Parker’s face, wondering what was going on behind the calm, impassive mask he wore.

He glanced up, startling her with hooded black eyes that seemed to bore right through her.