Point Blank

“Yes, I did. It was very difficult. They couldn’t think of anyone who disliked their daughter, much less enough to kill her. No recent boyfriend problems they were aware of. They’ll be coming here to take her back home to Iowa. Helen gave us Erin’s address. Do you know if she had roommates? Lived alone?”

Gordon shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“No matter. Thank you, Gordon, for your help. I’m very sorry about this. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to do now. Especially when this gets out to the media.”

“Oh yes, the media will see to it everyone at Stanislaus is crucified over this. I’ve got to take steps to protect my students from them. Well, we’ll deal with it, no choice.” He was no longer Gordon, he was Dr. Holcombe again. “Please keep me informed if you learn anything. I will call Erin’s parents myself. We’ll set up a memorial here for her.”

Helen was silent when they came out. There were tears in her eyes. “This simply doesn’t seem possible. Erin, dead. I’m so very sorry. She was a fine young woman, really nice at least around me. I was at a couple of faculty parties where she was present. She didn’t drink much, I remember, seemed rather shy, but friendly if anyone made the effort. This is tragic, Sheriff, it really is.”

Ruth lightly patted her arm. “Thanks for your help, Helen.”

Helen said, “Erin didn’t have any roommates. She lived alone.” She handed Dix a card.

They watched her walk into Dr. Holcombe’s office and speak quietly to him for a moment as they left. The air outside felt heavy, and cold.

“What’s on the card Helen gave you?” Savich asked Dix when they’d climbed back into the Range Rover.

“Gloria Brichoux Stanford’s cell phone number and address. We’ll visit her tomorrow. Let’s take thirty minutes now to stop by Erin Bushnell’s apartment, see if we can find anything.”

“Some torn-up love letters, signed, might be nice,” Ruth said.

“I’ll settle for some nice clear fingerprints,” Dix said. A couple minutes later he turned onto Upper Canyon Road, only three blocks from campus. It was an old neighborhood lined with brightly painted wooden houses, some of them Victorians. Ancient snow-laden oak trees filled the deep yards.

“She lives on the second floor. There it is,” Dix said.

There was no answer when Dix rang the bell. He knocked, waited, and knocked again. He yelled out his name. Still no answer. He tried the doorknob, and it opened.

He said over his shoulder, “This trust in your fellow man is good for us. Let’s go.”

It was a large house, an apartment on each of three floors. There was no number on the second-floor apartment. He turned the knob. The door opened. “I can’t believe she didn’t lock her door,” Ruth said. “The front door’s one thing, but this is asking for trouble of a bad kind.”

Sherlock said, “Maybe the killer took her here and he was the one who left the door unlocked.”

They walked into a large, high-ceilinged living room with cushioned window seats lining a turret to the right, facing the street. The living room connected to a dining alcove and a kitchen on the other side of a long serving counter.

Even though no lights were on, it was bright and made brighter by colorful throw pillows and pastel walls covered with huge posters, mostly of Brad Pitt.

“Okay,” Dix said. “Let’s split up and check it out quickly. My deputies will be here to check for fingerprints when they’re done at the crime scene.”

They all knew what they were doing, and in ten minutes they were together again in the living room.

“She needed to go food shopping,” Ruth said. “There was a packet of carrots and a carton of nonfat milk in the refrigerator. I didn’t want to smell it. Only junk in the junk drawer, no memos, no notes.”

The living room, the single bedroom, and the bathroom looked almost unlived in.

But not Erin Bushnell’s music room. It was shuttered and small, but they could tell this was the room where the young woman spent all her time. There were piles of neatly arranged musical scores for violin and orchestra. On a chair sat an open violin case with her violin tucked snugly inside it. Sherlock eased it out of its case, held it in her open hands. She said, “It was made by Hart and Sons in London in the nineteenth century. You rarely see these. It’s exquisite.”

Sherlock glanced through the music, didn’t see anything that didn’t belong.

There was no address book, no diary, no stray pieces of paper with notes or names for appointments. She did have a small laptop and Dix took it with him. “I’ll have our resident Weenie check it out.” At Ruth’s raised eyebrow, he smiled. “His name is Allen. Everyone calls him Weenie. He actually likes it.”