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  Fatal Footsteps

  A University Mystery

  Brenda Donelan

  Fatal Footsteps

  ©Copyright 2017 Brenda Donelan

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Brenda Donelan

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my dearly departed cat, Taffy. She was the inspiration for Pippa in the first four books in the University Mystery Series. Every day as I typed at my kitchen table she sat an arm’s-length away in her cat bed atop the table. I’m guessing most people don’t let their cats lounge on the table, but Taffy proved early on to be untrainable. Instead of teaching her not to get on the table, I trained myself to get over it. And that, in a nutshell describes my almost-sixteen years with the independent, lovable, temperamental, Taffy Kay Donelan.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My beta readers, as usual, are the true heroes when it comes to publishing my books. They read the manuscript when it’s still rough and in need of some guidance. They see mistakes that I don’t, firm up plot lines that I thought were finished, and contribute to an overall better end product. Thank you to Dayle Tibbs Angyal, Stacy Jundt, and Audra Bonhorst Hawkinson for reading my early work and providing valuable feedback.

  Brian Schell, my editor, gets a major shout out for helping me through this process. Thank you for your diligence, Brian.

  Thank you to Samantha Lund Hillmer, who designed my book cover and business cards and also helps me with technical snafus on my website. I’d also like to thank borchee for the cover photography, courtesy of iStock.

  Once again, the majority of the first draft of Fatal Footsteps was written in November during National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo). For the past several years, this program has been invaluable to me in starting or completing a novel. I’m already looking forward to the next Nanowrimo.

  A huge thank you to everyone, mainly family and friends, but also some people trapped in the airport with me, who’ve listened to me talk on and on about my current and future books. Some may think I can only talk knowledgeably about books, but that’s not true. I also know a lot about cats.

  How might my life have turned out differently? Would I have a successful career in business administration? A happy marriage to the man of my dreams and two adorable children? Or maybe the tables would have turned against me, and I’d be a down-and-out bar hag hanging out at the local watering hole. We’ll never know because I died when I was just 19 years old.

  Chapter 1

  “You jackass,” Marlee mumbled to herself as she sorted through the first of many boxes she had lugged up from the basement the previous day. She dug through the mishmash of papers, attempting to categorize them into some type of system. Marlee’s hands and eyes dealt with the stacks of papers before her, but her mind was focused on that no-good, cheating, lying dirt bag, Hector Ramos.

  Marlee met Detective Hector Ramos the previous year when he investigated the suspicious death of one of her college students on a class trip. The two began seeing each other off and on, and Hector eventually moved to Elmwood when he was hired on with the local police department. He was in the process of moving into Marlee’s house when a woman who worked at the Elmwood jail showed up and announced she was pregnant with Hector’s baby. That was the end of the “happily ever after” with Marlee, and she had cursed Hector’s very existence since then.

  Not one to hold grudges, Marlee tried to let Hector’s betrayal be a thing of the past. Try as she might, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t forgive, and she certainly wouldn’t forget. The mere mention of his name still made her blood boil all these months later. She had only seen him around Elmwood twice since their break-up. The first time, she was driving by the police department and saw him exiting the front door of the old brick building. Her heart raced, and she fought the urge to swerve up on the sidewalk and run over him with her Honda CR-V.

  The second sighting was in Food World, the local grocery store. As she rounded the corner to the produce section, Marlee saw Hector pushing a grocery cart with his baby daughter cuddled up in her car seat secured atop the cart. He inspected the broccoli by picking it up and turning it from side to side as the little pale-yellow bundle kicked her feet and made baby noises. Trish Riley, the baby’s mother, walked alongside reaching into the cart to adjust the baby’s blanket. Marlee turned her cart on two wheels, causing a loud screech which caught the attention of both Hector and Trish.

  “Marlee, wait up,” called out Hector as he fast-walked toward her. Marlee kept walking, pushing her cart as far away from the produce section as fast as she could manage. Of course, the cart had developed a sticky wheel which was now locked up while the other three wheels moved with ease. This slowed down Marlee’s pace and added an extra clatter to the already noisy cart. Grabbing her purse, she abandoned her cart and the intended purchases within as she rushed for the door.

  “Hey, wait!” Hector yelled, now that he had caught up to Marlee. “I know this isn’t the time or the place, but I just wanted to…” His voice trailed off as he searched for the right words to say to one’s ex-girlfriend when they see you with your new girlfriend and your baby.

  “Piss off, Hector! I don’t have anything to say to you. Go back to your little family and leave me alone!” The fire in her eyes was convincing, and Hector backed away, slack-jawed, as Marlee marched out of the store.

  She stormed into the parking lot toward her car, unsatisfied with her interaction with Hector. Turning on her heel, she marched back into Food World and grabbed a navel orange from the sale display inside the door. Rage burned in her heart as she found Hector walking back toward his family. Marlee drew her right arm back and hurled the orange in Hector’s general direction. Her aim, or lack thereof, resulted in the firm orange striking Hector in the back of the head. The dented orange fell to the floor, and Hector whirled around, his hand clutching his citrus-induced injury.

  Satisfied with how things ended, Marlee walked toward the door. She reached in her purse and pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to a shocked teenage employee who was standing near the fruit display. “This is for the orange that that idiot just destroyed,” Marlee said, nodding toward Hector, who was still rubbing the back of his head.

  Since that time, Marlee had not seen nor heard from Hector, and she was happy to keep it that way. Their relationship, which had been built on lies and deceit, was
over, and Hector had moved on with his new girlfriend and their baby.

  “We’ll just see how long before he cheats on her,” Marlee grumbled out loud to herself as she continued rifling through boxes and tubs of papers. She adjusted her glasses, which were not working as well as they should because the print on everything seemed so small. She peered at a crumpled manila folder she had just extracted from a dusty cardboard box. Marlee opened the folder, and she spread out the contents on her cluttered dining room table.

  “What’s this?” Marlee thought as she sifted through the newspaper articles, hand-written notes, and a jumble of other memorabilia. Pippa, her hefty gray Persian cat, lifted her fluffy head from the round pet bed where she napped atop the dining room table. After a mighty yawn, she readjusted herself and continued napping.

  Marlee clutched a newspaper article captioned: COLLEGE STUDENT FOUND DEAD. Her heart pounded as all the memories of Beth Van Dam’s disappearance from their dormitory and eventual death came flooding back. All of a sudden, Marlee’s memories transported her back to 1987 when she was an undergraduate student and had a front row seat at the death investigation of a friend. A friend, who as it turned out, she never really knew.

  There’s nothing quite like a college house party to get everyone stirred up. The drinking, the romance, and the backstabbing rival that of most soap operas.

  Chapter 2

  “Keep it down! I’m trying to sleep,” grumbled Marlee from her lofted bunk bed as her roommate, Jasmine, charged in. Her blue backpack landed on the floor and her coat was flung toward a chair.

  “It’s nearly noon, and you missed your first two classes,” Jasmine chided, still not reducing the noise. “And you missed The Young and the Restless!” Missing class was completely acceptable, but Marlee, Jasmine, and several of their friends and dorm-mates gathered in the first-floor dayroom to collectively watch soap operas when they didn’t have classes or chose to skip them.

  Marlee sat upright, her short stature preventing her from hitting her head on the ceiling. Flinging back the covers, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and faced her roommate. “For your information, Miss Nosy, I went to my classes, watched most of The Young and the Restless, and then just came to the room a few minutes ago to get a little shut eye before my Bio lab this afternoon.” She stared at Jasmine, hoping this would be enough to quiet her down.

  “Oh, I thought maybe you were out too late drinking at Nickel Night.” One of the local bars held a special every Wednesday night in which patrons could buy a glass for five dollars and then each refill of beer only cost five cents. Anyone who could scrounge up five dollars and fifty cents had more than enough for a night of fun. Nickel Night was the downfall of many a college student and was the leading cause of poor attendance in Thursday morning classes.

  “I went to Nickel Night, but left early and walked back with Angie and Beth. It was boring, and no one was out. We went to their room and ordered pizza. You were snoring when I came in,” Marlee reported.

  “You’re lying. I don’t snore. I’ve never snored, and I never will,” Jasmine said with a huff as she continued to pull books, art supplies, and papers from her backpack and fling them on her desk.

  She enjoyed winding up her tall, wispy roommate. Marlee struggled to get down from her lofted bed, using the built-in desk and then the wooden chair as steps. She glanced at the Jon Bon Jovi poster attached to the cinder block wall with rubber cement. It would be a bitch to remove the poster intact and then cover up the rubber cement remains, but she would do her best, so she could get her dorm deposit back at the end of the semester.

  “Did you have lunch yet?” Jasmine asked, redirecting the conversation from her supposed snoring.

  “Nah, I’ll just graze on what I have here in the room,” Marlee said, grabbing a loaf of white bread, which had been on sale for 33 cents at the grocery store near their dorm. “How about you?”

  “I’m avoiding somebody in the Commons, so I’ll probably do the same. But I don’t have any bread,” Jasmine said with an exaggerated sigh, looking forlornly at Marlee’s nearly full loaf.

  “I’ll trade you two pieces of bread for two cheese singles,” Marlee suggested, remembering Jasmine’s stash of plastic-wrapped cheese.

  “Deal.” Jasmine reached into the mini-fridge and pulled out two individually wrapped cheese slices from a twenty-four pack and tossed them to her roommate. Within five minutes, they were both enjoying toasted cheese sandwiches. Jasmine sat cross-legged on the floor while Marlee reclined in a lawn chair that doubled as her bed on nights when she was too tipsy to navigate into her lofted bed.

  “So, who are you trying to avoid, Jazz?” Marlee chewed the last of her meal and considered making a second sandwich until she remembered that her Levis were getting uncomfortably snug around the middle.

  “I think you can probably guess. He’s a sophomore, has long blonde hair, and always wears Zubas.” Jasmine grabbed a Coke from the fridge and rolled her eyes as she spoke about Nick, the cutie from Texas who was overly blessed with the gift of gab and enthusiastic about animal-print athletic pants.

  “Why do you keep avoiding him? Is he a creep?” Marlee reached behind the curtains on the window sill for a gallon-sized plastic container which originally held mustard. It had been thoroughly cleaned and now held sun tea. She balanced the full container against her stomach and glugged room-temperature tea into a stainless-steel glass, one of four her mother sent with her to college.

  “Not really. I mean, he’s nice, and he’s cute, but he just won’t stop talking to me.” Jasmine sighed. She carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  “He’s probably one of those nervous talkers who just can’t shut up when he’s around someone he likes.” Marlee giggled. “He thinks you’re foxy, and you make him nervous.” She ducked as a banana clip whizzed by her head.

  “Very funny,” said Jasmine as she searched for some other object to hurl at her roommate.

  “Did you hear about the party at Stairway to Hell tonight?” In her morning classes, Marlee heard from a friend that mutual acquaintances were throwing a party at their off-campus house. That meant lots of beer, loud rock music, and plenty of hot guys.

  “I wanna go! What’s the plan?” Jasmine asked.

  “No plan yet, but I’ll see if we can catch a ride with Lisa or Angie. I heard they are having two kegs, and it’s only three dollars for all you can drink. And there might even be garbage pail punch!” Marlee loved the concoction of apples, oranges, and other fruits soaked in Everclear and whatever other form of alcohol the makers had on hand at the time. Everything was mixed with Kool Aid, poured into a large container, often a garbage can, and people scooped up the beverage and fruit with plastic cups.

  “I’ve never had garbage pail punch before. I can’t wait to try it,” said Jasmine, already planning what she would wear to the big event that night.

  “Make sure you don’t eat too much of the fruit because that’s where the alcohol is concentrated,” Marlee said knowingly, having learned this the hard way. “If you stick with the liquid, you should be okay, as long as you don’t drink too much of it.”

  A loud knock on the open door frame interrupted their party discussion. “Did I hear something about a party?” asked Kristie, their next-door neighbor. Kristie had a heart of gold and the mouth of a sailor. She acted the same around everyone and didn’t see a need to put on airs, which was the reason she was liked by everyone in their wing of the dorm.

  Marlee and Jasmine filled Kristie in on the details, and she made plans to join them. “All we need is a ride there,” Jasmine said. Kristie, like Marlee and Jasmine, didn’t have a vehicle and was dependent upon friends for rides.

  “I can ask Polly,” Kristie said with an eye roll, referring to her roommate. “But if we ask her for a ride, she’ll want to come to the party and hang out with us.”

  The three stood silent, weighing the pros and cons of inviting Polly. She could be overbearing and kind of bi
tchy, but she had a car and was usually willing to drive. Polly wasn’t much of a drinker, so she could be counted on for a ride back from the party too, which wasn’t the case with everyone who provided transportation to off-campus festivities. In the end, the trio decided it would be easier to put up with Polly for the night than to find someone else to drive them. And there was no way they were walking to the event, even though it was less than a mile away. It was one thing to walk home from a party, but it was uncool to show up afoot.

  The outside of the two-story party house was in fair shape; at least it appeared that way in the dark, which was the only time anyone other than the renters were there. White paint was chipped and peeling in most places. Two windows on the upper level were cracked and had been sealed with duct tape. Unattended trees skirted the edge of the yard while unruly bushes and dead weeds clustered against the base of the house. Snow blanketed the unraked leaves on the ground. A widow’s walk faced the west with one of the boards from the railing hanging loosely. Bedrooms were both upstairs and in the unfinished basement. The guys renting the house had installed a bar in the basement consisting of stacked cement blocks and sheets of plywood.

  The party had yet to gain momentum by the time Marlee, Jasmine, Kristie, and Polly arrived at 7:30 pm. Marlee always liked to get to a party early, have a few drinks, and get the lay of the land before everyone else arrived. The four women stood in a corner of the living room sipping foamy beer from red plastic cups and chatting among themselves. Stairway to Hell was in dismal shape and should have been renovated decades ago. Flowered print wallpaper peeled off the walls in spots, exposing harsh yellow paint. Brown carpeting covered every room and had been matted by years of foot traffic, party spills, and grime. Holes were burned into the carpet, the orange flowered couch, and the one lumpy, stained chair from unattended cigarettes. An additional couch was normally in the living room, but had been hauled out to the front porch to air out after someone puked on it the previous weekend. After a week or two of fresh air, the cushions would be flipped, the couch would be moved back into the house, and activities would resume as usual.