10

Standing a baseball throw away from the crime scene, I made no attempt to conceal myself or try to blend in. I exhaled, watched the results expand and curl and dissipate into the sky. The detective--the same one I talked to earlier in the day--looked at me curiously from a crouch in front of some evidence, smoke trailing from the corner of his mouth. It floated upward, possibly joining my breath in a chemical compound waltz. He turned back to the ground, latex gloved-hand prodding something with the business end of a pen.

I looked around the campus. What was the duplicating guy doing? The list of nefarious possibilities could be inexhaustible if you had a good imagination. He had probably been running errands, though, and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Matt's explanation--pretty credible, if you asked me--assumed it was pre-meditated, which changes things a bit. Someone knew the guy would be where he was. And then...clunk.

The door of the gym caught my attention, stealing my gaze from the crime scene and my mind from Linda. The doors were pasted over with signs and posters, most of them advertising blood drives or music events with loud clip art. Music events, like the battle of the bands competition. The signs were put--

Matt called my name behind me; he was waving his notebook around, and I thought he was going to lose it as he ran toward me.

"That was quick," I admitted.

"Yeah." Matt was still sucking in oxygen, crouched over like track coaches tell you you shouldn't do.. "Yeah."

"What did you find?"

He waved the notebook around. "Dave Dobbs."

I paused for a second. "Is that the, uh, the--"

Matt waved a finger at the crime scene, like the body was still there to aid a visual presentation. "Yes. Yes. Him."

"How?"

Standing up again, Matt coughed once and flipped to a page on the notebook. "I went to the duplicating office, to find out what I could. It was easy, though--the guys there were just hanging out, with no power and all. They said, 'Dave didn't come to work yesterday, and then we found out it was him.'" He repeated their words with a mock-gruff voice.

"Did they say anything else?"

"Yes!" Matt jabbed his finger at me, drilling the point home with tactile precision. "'We think he was trying to finish a job, putting up signs or something. He was working late,'" he continued with the Papa Bear voice, cutting me off as I tried to interject something, "and 'don't tell anyone about this.'"

I was excited enough to stammer. "He, he was--" I motioned at the door by the gym. The detective noticed our wild gesturing. "--uh, putting the signs up for the band competition."

"Exactly."

"So," this was the big question, "why the hell would anyone kill a duplicating guy hanging up signs?"

Matt flipped the notebook shut and wiggled it into his inside coat pocket. "That's what I'm wondering. There isn't too much we can do now, aside from keep our ears open. Keep 'em to the ground, as they say."

"Yeah." I met eyes with the detective, blank stares running in both directions. What did they know? And when would we find out? We knew some of the important details, but one of the most vital--the 'who?'--was still a mystery. Hopefully we could find out before it was too late.