The Sorority Murder (Regan Merritt, #1)(8)

“No progress was made until Candace’s body was found Sunday morning by the maintenance crew at Hope Centennial Golf Course.”

“And because it’s a golf course, people were there on Saturday but no one saw a body,” Regan guessed. “Could her body have been weighed down? Perhaps rising to the surface after a week?”

“That was, I believe, the assumption, except that the autopsy report revealed that Candace was killed between ten o’clock Saturday night and one o’clock Sunday morning,” Lucas said. “No signs of long-term restraint, sexual assault, or malnourishment were present—nothing to indicate that she had been held captive. A rock was used to weigh her down, but it wasn’t tied on well, and she surfaced. The autopsy was clear. Candace was strangled, but that wasn’t what killed her. She drowned.”

“Perhaps,” Regan offered, “she was strangled to unconsciousness, and the killer thought she was dead and pushed her into the lake.”

“That’s a theory. Except she didn’t drown in that lake.”

“Now you have me intrigued.” She took another sip of her Scotch. “How do you know this?”

“I interned at the morgue last summer as part of my degree program. I read the reports. The water from her lungs was highly chlorinated. I talked to the maintenance crew at Hope Centennial. They don’t chlorinate their water because they stock fish to keep the eco-balance. But just to check, I took samples of the water, and it’s nowhere close to being a match.”

It was definitely an interesting fact, but there could be other explanations. “No court would accept water samples three years apart. Too many other factors could change the outcome.”

“That may be true, but it doesn’t discount the fact that Candace drowned in heavily chlorinated water. My problem with the entire police investigation is that they fixated on Abernathy and, I believe, excluded all other possibilities. Abernathy was known to be belligerent, but not violent. Maybe he could have killed her. He was an alcoholic. He might not even know or remember what he did. But then how did he transport her to the lake? He didn’t have a car. Was he strong enough? Possibly. Evidence from the autopsy indicates that Candace was dragged postmortem. I tried to talk to the police, but they just gave me the standard media line—the case is open, inactive, pending new evidence.”

“And you’re looking for new evidence,” Regan concluded.

“Witnesses. Someone must have seen Candace during the time she was missing. She didn’t disappear into thin air, even though she wasn’t seen in the sorority, didn’t attend any classes, and didn’t have her car or phone with her. So where was she? I’m using the podcast to...well, I guess you could say to crowdsource the information. By going over the facts that we know, encouraging people to search their memories. One of my problems is that the sorority doesn’t want to be involved.”

“What about her family?”

“I interviewed her sister, Chrissy Swain, and aired part of the interview on the first episode of the podcast, a short snippet on the second, and I have more to share. Her parents weren’t responsive. Chrissy says they’re still grieving, but I had the sense that Chrissy is the one who cares the most and her parents were using grief as an excuse. She wants to help, but she’s in South Carolina.”

“Why are you doing this? Why pick this cold case?”

He hesitated, just a second too long, and Regan wondered if he was going to tell her the entire truth. He’d been so forthcoming up until now. “I was interested in Candace’s murder mostly because I kinda knew her. She worked in the writing lab when I was a freshman and helped me get through English comp. She was a senior nursing student. We talked about some of the classes she took that I was going to have to take for bio, and so, you know, I was as surprised as anyone when she was killed.”

“What else?” Because there was more.

He hesitated again, then rubbed a hand over his face. “I saw her that night,” he said with a sigh. “Outside the party. I saw her talking to the homeless guy, Abernathy. She convinced him to leave. I learned later, through the media reports, that he’d been banned from the campus and that Candace didn’t want to call the police on him. I saw him walk away.”

“Did you talk to the police?”

“I didn’t know that I should have. I didn’t know she was missing, and I only heard through the grapevine that she was killed, but none of the details. It wasn’t until weeks later that I heard about the theory that Abernathy had killed her and jumped on a train to escape.”

“It’s plausible.”

“Could he have kept her captive for a week? She was a healthy young woman. She had no drugs in her system, no physical signs of captivity. I don’t see it. Her phone was found in her dorm room. Who leaves without their phone?”

“You mean, who leaves willingly without their phone?”

“Right,” he said.

“Are you reaching the right audience?” she asked. “I would imagine that most people who were at that party have graduated and are no longer in town.”

He conceded that might be an issue. “Still, there are others like me who were freshmen then and are still on or near campus. They may not have thought about the case or even realized it’s still open. Professors. Staff. The show is broadcast live from the campus studio and reaches Flagstaff city limits and part of the county. It’s also streamed on our website and then archived as a podcast, and anyone can listen through podcast apps. Another student, Lizzy Choi, is helping me. She knows everything about the campus radio station and is acting as my producer. We’re hoping to grow our audience through word of mouth. The first two episodes aired last week. I’m running the next one tomorrow night, at eight. I’d like to interview you on air. After listening to you today, I think you’ll be able to shed light on criminal procedure and help me frame questions, maybe even spur more call-ins.”