17

She tilted the mug back, letting her fingers arch out, letting the initial mouthful linger in her mouth. She eventually swallowed; without haste, without barbarity. "This is good."

I stared at my mug. The pitch liquid stared back, strands of steam lapping against my chin. Too hot to drink, I assumed. "I'll try some in a second."

"It's complex." Linda adjusted in her booth, curled her legs up under her. "Nutty, slight hints of citrus."

"Oh, cool." The surface of the liquid shimmered as a newcomer shut the coffee shop's door. "I don't know that much about the stuff."

She took another sip, with more gusto. "That's fine. Most don't, I'm realizing. And much to my chagrin."

I bounced a leg against the ground, nervously. Less steam pour from my mug, so I took it up in both hands and had a sip. It tasted like coffee. "Huh."

Linda continued. "When you enjoy something this much, when you're passionate--" her fingers hooked through the mug handle and slowly pulling in like a scorpion's stinger, the hard consonant sound at the end of her last word thudding across the table into my lap "--about something, especially something most people take for granted, they called you a snob and elitist."

I saw my CD tower spinning. "I think I can relate."

"Because if you end up chatting with people about something you're passionate about, they start to assume you're trying to warp their way of thinking, like, like their actions or perspectives aren't good enough."

"Like they're getting defensive."

"Exactly." She looked down into the cup, as if she'd find her answers there. "Sometimes I keep a low profile, because."

"Because?" My leg slowed down, cut the beats-per-minute to a slight thump.

"Because when I start getting involved in things, I start caring. A lot. And that just results in ostracization for piercing peoples' comfort zones, or whatever."

"Can you give me an example?"

"Well." She looked up, at me, eyes on eyes. "We'll use coffee as an example. I started drinking coffee when I was younger. Nine, I think." I raised my eyebrows. Her eyes did not move. "My parents drank stuff from the grocer's, the stuff in the can. You know. They'd always let me try it. So I got hooked. I never thought twice about it until high school. One of my friends, she was really into coffee. Would go out of her way to buy coffee for herself, get little bags of un-ground beans from a co-op nearby. I thought she was crazy."

"Huh."

"Well, she was. But that's not the point--she'd store a small grinder, this little burr grinder with its own cleaning brush, in her locker, take it out during a study hall and actually make coffee in the art room. No one was there during that period. She got me hooked. I could actually taste the difference, so it wasn't some sort of caffeinated brainwash session. But she explained a lot about the beans, where they came from, the different nuances you'd usually find from the various origins. And the more I drank the good stuff," she circled the rim of her mug with a fingertip, "the more I distanced myself from what my folks drank."

"I take it your parents didn't take too kindly to that."

"I don't think they cared. But after a while, they did notice that I was drinking something different. And I explained what it was, they got defensive."

"Agitated."

"Right. They made these comments, ones that were laced with criticism, like I was too good or high-brow for their coffee. Like that."

"Yuck." I took a sip from the coffee; it had cooled considerably, and was pretty good. My palette grasped for the nuances Linda spoke of, though, only letting them slip through the metaphorical fingers. I tried to generate adjectives, but none that could be applicable--'swarthy,' for instance.

She shrugged. "So now I just avoided showing how much I care about certain things."

The coffee felted thicker going down. "Student activities isn't exactly the best place for keeping a low profile."

"No, it's not. But I feel like I'm able to do what I need to do--call shots, even--without really letting people know about, you know..." She drifted off as she refilled her cup, tipping the cylindrical press pot like so.

"Without letting them think you're so into it that you're part of the elite."

"Yeah."

My leg had stopped drumming. "Should we get another?" I pointed to the press pot.

Linda sipped and looked up, to the wall-mounted clock near the espresso machine. "No. I need to be back soon." She brushed a bang back, around the curve of ear. "I'm thinking about round two."

"Oh."

"You can do better than that."

"Huh. Well," my mind flipped through an appointment book, "are you doing anything Friday night?"

Linda swung her legs from under her, brushed past my pant legs. Tactile exclamations ran marathons up and down my shins. She cocked a ghost of a grin. "Why, no, I'm not. Besides meeting you again, I mean."

16

The next few days were intangible, a sticky morass of emotions tangled amidst interspersed events. I finished a test on auto-pilot, chewed and swallowed without realizing what food was in my mouth, and came and went from my dorm in a sort of seamless haze that did not actually involve entering or leaving the dorm.

I called to add the last bit--presumably the most important--to the band profile in the SA office, foregoing the trip with a cocktail of cowardice and uncertainty. Having relayed the change to one of the male activities staff, I found Linda's apartment number in the student directory, called it, and left asked her to call me back sometime that night, all underscored by a voice taut with immature, fragmented desire.

I disconnected the call, let the receiver dangle from slack fingers. After several minutes I set the phone back in the cradle and geared up.

Across campus, the band competition posters really started to draw some attention. It seemed like the murder was fading further and further into the rearview, and the campus could put both hands on the wheel and steer through the rest of the semester. I hadn't paid much attention to them either, honestly; but seeing a gaggle of undergrads shuffling around the poster piqued my interest some.

'Garish' was probably the best word to use; the sign sagged under the oversized fonts and screeching colors, a text bubble with "ROCK AND ROLL" in it blimping above the rest of the poster and crowding out any breathing room for the poor letters and clip art at the bottom. The date and time--less than two weeks--were staggered across the bottom, all underneath a strip that read: "BATTLE OF THE BAND'S COMPETITION--THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE WITH PRIZES" 'Horrible,' as a descriptor, could probably have worked as well.

I tried not to snicker, letting out something that I managed to cover up with a cough. The students looked at me, then back to the sign. "This is so going to rock," one announced, almost to reassure herself that it was, perhaps, going to rock.

"I hope Wes's band wins," said another. Wes's band was terrible.

"Yeah, 'there can only be one.'" The two girls nodded to their male companion.

I spoke up. "Or is it, 'there can only be one with prizes'?" They looked at me like I'd just urinated on their thrift-store loafers. "Which seems kind of redundant. I mean, usually the prize goes to the winner. Unless there are lots of prizes. Or if prizes go to someone who isn't the winner."

The pack of students scampered away. I hadn't even gotten to my question about how complex the battle between competitions could get. Grabbing a to-go sandwich from the Snack Shack, I went back to my dorm room with hopes of getting some studying in; finals for the semester were the same week as the competition, with the actual concert acting as a send-off for the students until January.

As I unlocked my door, the phone began to ring. I set my sandwich down on the desk and answered.

"Why, hello," was the response. "You wouldn't happen to be busy tonight, would you?" It was Linda.

15

I didn't tell the guys about Linda, nor the coffee rendezvous; I was still in a state of shock, not sure how to ship it to them in a way that wouldn't immediately be scuttled. I did relate the rest of the student activities trip, though.

Matt set his novel down, squaring it with the edge of the table. "We need a name. Pronto."

"I was thinking the same thing," Steve said.

"Stat!"

"Right." This would be tough--we decided earlier that we needed something that we not only liked, but wasn't in use. We'd all seen short-lived bands unknowingly use monikers all ready in use by indie bands, and attempts to let someone know were always derailed by the student bands folding after one (usually disastrous) gig. We didn't want to repeat this ourselves. Matt acted as some sort of fact-checker, since he stored an unparalleled amount of music trivia in his noggin.

"We can always use 'Supreme Catholic Finger.'"

"Hell no."

"We don't want to sound too smart."

"'Supreme Catholic Finger' does not run the risk of sounding too smart."

"I wasn't necessarily talking about that, I mean--"

"How about 'the Beetles,' like with an 'e' in pl--"

"How about no."

"How about you j--"

"How about 'Karate'?"

"That's taken."

"Then 'Judo CHOP,' with more emphasis on the chopping."

"Or 'Fecal Tower.'"

"I would quit the band."

"'Jackie Gleeson's Understudy'?"

"'Death Pinwheel.'"

"We would draw lots of metal heads, for sure. And make lots of enemies."

"I'm thinking 'Swiss Water Process.'"

"We can go the one-word route--'Pain.'"

"Yow. Some names just beg, beg for insults."

"'Dump.'"

"'Stained Mattress.'"

"Wow, we are definitely vomiting out the worst ideas ever."

"'The Happiness Band'?"

"'Give Us Money.'"

"'Palpable Darkness.'"

"Again, metal fans..."

"'Film Noir.'"

"'A John Ford Western.'"

"'The Constipation Band.' No, 'the Constipation Diary.'"

"Steve, there's a theme in all of y--"

"'The Robber Barons.'"

"Taken, but that's a good one."

"'Captains of Industry.'"

"Taken as well."

"'Captain of Industry'?"

"Ditto."

"Dammit!

"'Supreme Catholi--'"

"Time to stop it, Steve."

"'Boredom.'"

"Sounds too much like the Boredoms."

"'Unquestionable Lovechild.'"

A group of sophomores walked by our table, goggling and squinting and puckering lips.

"That might mean no."

"Why are all of the good names taken?"

"'Favoritism.'"

"Good, we need more abstract ideas coalesced into band names."

"OK. 'Politics.'"

"'College.'"

"Huh. 'Job Description.'"

"'Favoritism in Politics.'"

"'Flaming Shit Bag.'"

"'Hulkamania.'"

"'Face vs. Heel.'"

"'Rage Virus.'"

"'Airborne Sickness.'"

"'Widescreen.'"

"Hmm. That's getting better. But people will think we're fat."

"'Candygram.'"

"Getting colder..."

"'Epicenter.'"

"Warmer..."

"'Twilight Eyes.'"

"Frigid. Is that a Blue Oyster Cult song?"

"'Fell On Hard Times.'"

"Oh, we're singin da blues!"

"'Rationale.'"

"Whoa, I'm a fan."

I drummed my pencil. "Keep going, though. This is fun."

"OK. 'Wickett.'"

"Bzzt. Next."

"'The Retarded Men.'"

Matt and I pretended we didn't hear anything. "'The Royalists.'"

"That's a good stand-by, at least."

"'Beastmaster.'"

"'Stabbity Stab.'"

"'Altered Beast.'"

"'Ticket Taker.'"

"'The Bottle Rockets.'"

"That's taken. And they're good, too."

"OK. 'The Bottle Rockets UK.'"

"You're kidding."

"Hey, it's worked before."

"This is starting to become decidedly not fun."

"'Old Boys Club.'"

"That's another good one. Keep it on deck."

I held up my pencil, like a flagpole quaking under duress. Steve and Matt stopped mid sentence and looked at me. "Let's just go with the Rationale, OK? I have a feeling we're going run into a brick wall, like, really soon if we keep this up."

Matt nodded, slowly at first. "I can live with that. It has class."

"And style."

"And it appeals to the intellectuals, but rolls off of the tongue in a delightful manner so that the commonfolk can feel at home. 'Hey honey, fix me up some er them flapjacks. Ima puttin on the Rationale.'"

"It sounds like a cologne in that context."

"At least no one will confuse us for angry white kid music."

"Excellent," Matt said. He batted his novel between his hands, a real-time reenactment of Pong. "I'll call student activit--"

"I can do it," I said. I tightened my grip on the pencil.

Matt narrowed his eyes. "OK."

And they did not see my hand, under the table, shaking.

14

"Oh."

"Linda."

She wore a vermillion cardigan, the sleeves rolled back. The cinnabar lip gloss embraced light, offset by the gentle curve of teeth. Her hair bobbed in a pony tail.

I didn't know what to say.

She blocked the exit. "You're keeping well?"

I nodded, the specter of a question taking shape somewhere in my brainpan. I knew I wanted to ask her something, but...

She locked her eyes on mine, the tips of her mouth arcing wide. My mouth was a desert.

"Dobbs," I blurted. That was it, springing out like a copperhead. I couldn't believe that I didn't make the connection sooner.

Linda pursed her lips. "It's the same as the fellow that was murdered, right?" She lent a pause. "No relation." A loose end, tied up just like that.

The doorway was still plugged, but I couldn't move. Nor did I want to. "I, hmm."

I shifted; she stood monolithic. "You're going to buy me coffee some night, aren't you?"

"OK."

"We can talk. Learn some things."

"Yes." I clung to my book bag straps like a paratrooper. "Yes. OK."

The overhead light peered through her hair, light through sandstone crevices in a canyon. She started moving, leaving the doorway, and we circled in an awkward roundabout, me with shuffled loafers and her with precise heel clicks.

She halted, her back toward the activities office. "Is your band ready?"

"We're working on it."

"Please do." Vermillion sashayed. "There will be rewards."

13

Weeks passed. Matt, Steve and I tightened as a trio; my rust flaked away, Matt learned to adjust his playing with the loss of the second guitar, and Steve started branching out quickly with the bass. We practice more often, covered more hours. We worked on a few new songs, too--the kinks weren't worked out of them yet, but they were great as far as first runs go.

The murder investigation seemed to reach an end, but we barely noticed. A suspect had been apprehended, as promised: a vagrant spotted prowling the campus that night. The prints on the pipe were too smudged to fly through any sort of reconstructive software, but as far as time and place went, they had him.

I'd also forgotten about Linda, possibly out of necessity. Something bothered me, though; something I missed, a point I didn't absorb when I first met her. I never saw her, either. Not in any of my classes, in the cafeteria or Snack Shack, nor in the library or fieldhouse or faculty offices. The day after the murder was the first and last time I'd seen her at the college. A shade in maroon, tethered to darkened corners and eclipsed offices.

But the office was lit. The boxes were gone from the floor, the sprawl of debris reined within the confines of each desk. Three seats were occupied, three heads looked at me as I poked my head in the door.

"Hey," one of the staffers tossed at me. It was a trapdoor sort of comment; offhand, sure, but it would either elicit an explanation for my presence or make me feel really, really awkward.

I nodded, offered small half-waves to everyone in the office. "Yeah, hi. Um, I'm here to finish filling in the rest of the, uh, the form for my band for--for the band competition."

The staff guy furthers from me dug through a manilla folder, looked up at me. "What's your band's name?"

"We don't, uh, have one."

The staffer immediately looked back down and pulled out the papers I'd worked on a few weeks ago. Handing them to me, he asked whether it was the correct one. I told him it was, and he tossed me a pencil.

"Feel free to take a seat, if you want."

Having gathered the info I needed off of the other two guys--both at class--I plugged the empty gaps. Except for one--band name.

I stood and handed the sheet back to the staffer, who flipped through it. "Looks good. Huh." He flipped back to the first page and paused. "Band name?"

"Still don't have one."

The staffer tossed the form pack back into the folder. "Well. You're gonna need to eventually."

"I reckon I knew that."

"At least before the concerts." He chewed on his snack mix.

"Yeah. Got it." I hung in the doorway, a clothesline teetering with the weight bowing it. "Is there anything else I need to do?"

More snack mix tossed into the maw. "Nope. We'll probably contact the band members later on and let them know what you need to do by next month." His enameled cheer was mostly gone. "And come up with a damn name, capisce?"

"Right."

I swayed a moment more and turned to leave, walked the short hall that led to the meaty body of the student center, and ran headlong into Linda.

12

The rapid succession in which everything happened still seems incredibly, in hindsight: the power returning; the news report; Matt letting it go; Guy quitting; my assumption that Steve would take over bass duties. And, to add to it, the three of us ceremoniously storming out of the Shack to practice in a gym that we were probably going to be barred from, only to find the entire murder scene wrapped out, shipped out and carted away.

We said nothing, continued to stomp toward the gym, past the gawkers that replaced the police at the murder spot, into the gym through unlocked doors. Steve hit the breaker box and shunted the lights on, the halogen humming to life in unison. He went to set up amps, I started assembling Guy's drum kit--what was he going to do to stop us?--and Matt turned on his heel and left, presumably to get the bass I left in the music building the previous day.

Centering the kick drum on a rug, I asked, "Are you comfortable playing bass?"

"I've got two hands, don't I?"

"It's a lot different from guitar, I mean."

"Yeah, I can--"

"--not saying that you can't handle it or any--"

"--I think I can hack it."

Matt returned, set the three guitar cases down, and moved to help Steve. It took us a bit longer than we were used to, but we got set up. Matt strummed his Telecaster and adjusted knobs on his effect pedals while Steve worked his way around the bass fretboard. "Would you suggest I use a pick, or what?"

"I'd say try using your fingers--go with the pick if that doesn't work."

Matt stood and looked at us. "Let's try 'Respite.'" I got sat on the drum stool, completely forgetting how Guy played when we practiced. They looked at me to click out a tempo on the drum sticks so, without thinking about it too much, started with a count of four and began a steady, simple drum beat.

The other two guys started playing, but almost immediately Matt let go of his guitar, the body swaying from the strap, and shouted, "Whoa, whoa, wait--that's too fast!"

I kept going, as did Steve. He was plucking the strings with apprehension, but he seemed to have the knack. He grinned. I continued to lay down the beat, adopting a swinging ride cymbal scheme as Matt frowned and gripped the neck of his guitar. He started playing again, notching his part up to tempo.

It'd been a few years since I seriously played the drums. My brother got me listening to Coltrane and Monk when I was a freshman in high school, lending me cassettes he made for his drives to and from grad school. I loved the music, but was hypnotized by the drumming. Elvin Jones and Max Roach got me on my brother's spartan drum kit, which had collected dust while he was at school; those guys steered me away, at least partially, from the bad radio pop I'd waterlogged my mind with. I couldn't get the exact groove down--I had trouble using my left foot and right hand separately from each other--but I was enamored with the minimalist jazz approach. Screw the fills, love the silence.

We wrapped "Respite" up, and as soon as I set the stick down, Steve cheered. "That was great!" He rattled his right hand a bit and we both turned to Matt.

"I don't know. I still think it's too fast." He took his guitar off, turned the volume down, and set it on his stand. But he was wrong; in fact, this was the turning point we experienced as a band.

11

Steve noticed it first. The city maintenance vehicle was gone, the monolithic cherry-picker with it. On the hill, the traffic lights blinked steadily. But they were blinking. Which meant....

"Look." Matt directed our attention to the one of the lamps outside of the Snack Shack. It was lit.

We scrambled inside, past lockers and student mailboxes, into the Shack. Several food service staff were already prepping machines that had jolted back to life. The few students inside looked bewildered, like they'd never seen artificial light before. Steve pulled out a chair and sat as I switched through the channels on the large TV set in the front of the Shack. Matt stood next to him, keeping oddly still and stiff.

I found the local news on one of the network stations. They were winding up the news blurbs they would cover in the 5 o'clock block, cameras switching to give a puppet-show effect of the three anchors poised symmetrically.

The top story was the murder. "Police in New Dordrecht continue to investigate yesterday's murder on the Oakholm campus," the male anchor dictated. "Though no suspects have been produced, hopes are high." The screen cut to a rain-backed shot of a balding man, mugging the camera. "We're making, uh, some swift progress here." A twitch in the camera brought a few campus buildings into background. "We have some good leads. Good leads, and, uh, some--and we hope to have a suspect in custody before the week's end."

The newsroom facade returned to the screen. "New Dordrecht was among several other towns affected by last night's power-outage, but thankfully students are taking it well." Another shot of a student."

"Guy?" Matt nearly doubled over.

Guy stared at the microphone in front of him while speaking. "Classes were canceled, but it seems like, you know, spirits are high." A quick cut bypassed the next question and made it look like Guy was a twitching hologram. "I'm sure the police will solve it soon; it shouldn't affect life on campus. I mean, why try to play detective when someone is getting paid for it?"

Steve made a moaning noise, and Matt looked at me. "What was...? I mean, what? He just--"

One of the female anchors took over, talking more about the damage caused by the power outage. I turned the volume down significantly. "What do you think?"

"Other than 'Guy is a traitor'?"

"Yeah."

Matt straightened himself out again, reaching out to shut off the television. "I don't know." He looked over toward the big windows.

"Do you believe the cops?"

"Do I--" he drifted his attention back to me. "Sure. Why not?"

I looked to Steve for some support; his head was still buried in his cupped hands. "Isn't that the standard line the police use?"

Matt's mouth lengthened, eyes narrowed. "We really can't much else, man. We got the 'how' portion. That's it. We don't have the resources or ability that the police have. Like, I mean--they actually have enough manpower to scour the county, dust for prints, the works. We can sneak on roofs with binoculars. Big deal."

I started saying something but stopped. I didn't know what I wanted to say. Steve kept up the palm inspection.

"I guess we did what we could," Matt said.

And Guy walked in, stopped with his mouth half-open, a sentence forming on his lips like water pooling at the drooping tip of a leaf. "Hey," he managed.

We didn't say anything, our eyes and unwilling ears readied on him.

"I'm quitting." He paused. "I'm quitting the band."

Matt responded with a succinct "OK" before letting his eyes swivel elsewhere. Guy turned on one foot and marched away, his mouth swinging back into a Nutcracker impersonation.

Steve--head still cradled--said in a soft monotone, "I'm not entirely sure what just happened."

"We need to find a new drummer."

"Who?"

"Most of the ones I know are either in a band already," Matt explained, "or just terrible."

"Or terrible and in a band."

"That too. We could--" Matt looked at his hands, his fingers, moving them slowly to see if they were actually responding.

I cleared my throat a little. "I could drum."

Matt continued flexing fingers, first his pointer, then pinky; he tried flexing them together without moving the others. It worked, but his ring finger was shaking. He looked up, like he heard someone shouting beyond a far hill. "What?"

"Me. I can drum."

"I didn't know you played drums."

"I do. I'm rusty, but...."

"We'll only have one guitar, then."

"Better than no drums, right?"

Matt conceded the point. Steve finally picked his head up, his face slightly red and his eyes out of focus after spelunking for so long. Matt looked up at the lights. "I guess we might as well take advantage of the electricity, you know?"

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.

9

Matt passed the binoculars over. I wrapped the strap around my hand so I wouldn't accidentally drop it; put it to my eyes; thinned out the graininess by adjusting the focus; swung the business end across the campus until I'd centered on copse of detectives rooted into the ground, coffee cups billowing and keeping digits functional.

This was the first time I really paid attention to the scene. The caution tape was anchored by several trees and a lamp post set in front of the practice gym, the vertical braces tugging the material in a landscape-hugging cat’s cradle. The ground would be nondescript under any other circumstance, grass and shrubs crowding a solitary walkway; but now the white sheets and evidence tags lent morbid accents, shades and overtones straight from government payroll. Police vehicles had cut muddy swaths in the beyond the tape, from the access road surrounding the school. The catty-corner gym stood watch over the investigation taking place at the feet of its steps.

It looked like the murder happened close to the gym steps, judging by the positioning of the bulk of sheets and clear tarps. Matt elbowed me. “See the guy on the left?”

“With the camera?”

“Yeah. What’s he doing?”

I panned over minutely. "He's--hang on--he looks mad. No, upset, sick even."

Matt inched closer to the edge. "Where is he looking?"

"Um--" I followed his line of sight to something obscured on the ground. "Something metal."

"Ah." Matt put his hands down, like he was about to do a push-up. "A pipe."

I pulled the binocs away from my face and turned. "How...?"

Matt worked his elbows out from under him and rested on them. "I noticed the guy snapping photos earlier. Newspaper, I'm guessing--probably local. Catching up for when the, uh, the power comes back on. He was paying a lot of attention to a few particular areas, but I couldn't get a good view."

"Right. You're thinking that the rumors were true." It was a statement, not a question. "About the pipe being the murder weapon."

"Yes."

"Cathoway is still a lying shit, though."

Matt motioned for the binoculars. I handed them over as he responded. "I didn't hear that from Cathoway."

"Really."

"Someone else."

I didn't push it. Matt would avoid the question if I prodded him. He crawled forward an inch and peered down with the binoculars. "Yeah, definitely a lead pipe." He squinted into the lenses. "Definitely."

"Tell me what you think happened."

Matt waited, his mouth slack, for half a minute--maybe a little more--before starting. "The guy is doing what he's doing. It's early in the morning, he's out on the campus--God knows why. Someone is hiding in the gym, in the entrance. Waits 'til he's close; maybe his back is turned or his peripheral vision doesn't catch someone sneaking around." He made a motion with his free hand, swinging it down. "Clunk. Probably got a pipe from the gym--it's full of them--and just left it there when done. It's quiet, effective, doesn't require permits or a lot of money."

"Yeah. I can see it."

"What I want to know is...." He let the declaration float in midair before picking up again. "What I want to know is the 'why?' bit."

I stared down at the figures on the ground, then turned to look at the jimmied trapdoor hiding a ladder. Inside was warm, and my hands were getting cold despite the gloves. Maybe if I got to know Linda better she'd warm my hands for me. "Hmm?"

"'Why?' is what I'm asking."

I gave a shrug, half-hearted, tightened the strap on a glove. "Eh."

"Someone had a reason."

"Maybe not," I suggested.

Matt set the binoculars down, put the caps on the end of the lenses. "I hope there was a reason."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Matt scooched back, down the slope of the roof behind us, and found purchase enough to skim back to the trapdoor. We'd propped it open with the same screwdriver used to pop it out of its housing, and used it again to replace the screws once we both crawled in.

With care, we descended a few ladders into a storage area on the third floor of the humanities department building. Sneaking out was easy; classes were canceled, for one, but all four of the guys in the band were fairly adept at getting in and out of places were weren't supposed to be. Came in handy when you needed to access gear or practice space that you weren't really allowed to access.
Hands in coat pockets, we sat a wooden bench outside. "I have an idea."

I hooked my heel against the curve of the bench. "Go."

"By this point, I'm guessing the faculty and staff knows who it was. I'm sure the police told them already, and I'm sure they'll tell us once the power is restored. But I don't plan on waiting that long."

"The idea."

"Right. You keep track of the albums you own, don't you?"

"I do. Where i--"

"Someone borrowed one of your CDs, but you can't remember which. How do you find out?"

I paused, bit my lip. "I'd, well--I'd probably see which ones I do have befo--ah, OK, I see what you're saying."

Matt removed a hand from his pocket, pointing toward the student center. Toward the duplicating office. "We see who is there today, mark 'em off in the directory. That'll narrow it down." Before I could ask another question, he cut me off. "And duplicating isn't that big of a department, so we can find out who is missing like this," he finished, snapping his fingers, the gloves muffling most of the sound.

I stared at the student center. "I can do that if you want."

"Why don't you let me do that. How about you..." he scanned the campus, whistling something off-key. "Try brainstorming, see if you can come up with a reason someone--someone from duplicating--was out in the wee hours."

"Sure," I accepted begrudgingly.

"We'll meet up in an hour. How does that sound?"

I looked back at the student center, then Matt, then started walking back to the crime scene, a maroon fire lapping in the back of my mind.