Good Girls Lie(51)

The woman in plainclothes joins them, glances at the sheet-covered body dispassionately. “Who’s the deceased?”

Ford deliberately ignores her. “Sheriff, let’s go inside.”

“Dean, this is Kate Wood. My niece. She’s here visiting.”

“Oh. I thought—”

“I’m with Charlottesville PD. Homicide.”

“How are you enjoying Marchburg?” Ford sounds inane, and hiccups back a tiny sob. “I’m sorry. This is all so terrible. To lose a student like this... Truly, Sheriff, may we?” She points to the back door of Main Hall, and he nods, following her up the back steps.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” his niece says. Those dark eyes are cool, shrewd, and Ford squirms a bit under her attention. They’re probably the same age, but Ford has the distinct feeling she is being judged and found lacking. She draws herself up to her full five feet six, squares her shoulders. Their footsteps echo on the tiles.

Her office is quiet, and she gestures for the sheriff to enter. “Have a seat. I’ll be right in. I just need to wash.”

Her bathroom is attached to the office, and she shuts the door with a shaking hand, starts running the water immediately.

Holy shit. Holy shit. What is she going to do? How in the world did Camille end up in the bell tower, how did she fall, and who, or what, had Ford seen up there?

The water is too hot but she doesn’t care, she needs the blood off. She scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until her hands are raw.

Finally, knuckles stinging, she makes her way to her desk. The sheriff is on his phone but puts it away the moment he sees her approach.

“They’re going to take her to Charlottesville for autopsy. You say she’s a sophomore?”

“Autopsy? Is that entirely necessary? We’ll need to get the parents’ permission, and we haven’t even told them she’s dead. Oh, my God. This is a nightmare.”

“It’s necessary. We have to find out what happened, and we don’t have the capabilities here, you know that. We always send our bodies to Charlottesville. Now, this sophomore, Camille Shannon. Who’s her daddy?”

Ford bristles—though this is the truth of things, all the girls here are “someone’s” daughter.

“Her father is the US ambassador to Turkey. Her mother is a lawyer in DC. They’re divorced but it’s amicable. Her mother remarried recently.”

“Oh, great. Had to be a politico.”

“Tony, really. I have to call her parents. Her mother first, she’s custodial, but the father, too.”

“We usually like to have local police do the notification. Where is the mom exactly?”

“Northern Virginia. Falls Church.”

“I have a friend in Fairfax County. I can give him a ring. They’ll have a chaplain on call who can go to the house.”

“I really think she should hear it from me. I am responsible. Camille is my—”

Tony puts his hands on her desk, leans toward her. “Listen, Ford. There’s protocol. Let us follow it.”

“She’s my student, and I want to be the one to tell her mother I’ve failed her.”

“You’re being noble, and I appreciate that. But it’s really something best left to the professionals. Once they’ve broken the news, they’ll let us know and we’ll get you on the phone with her. All right?”

Ford nods, rubs her temples. “I don’t know what happened, Tony. I heard a scream and heard her hit the ground... I rushed out of my cottage, found her lying on the concrete. She was dead before I got here.”

“Oh, yeah, she went splat all right.”

Ford feels her face flush, and the sheriff stammers out an apology.

“Sorry, Ford. That was inappropriate. Was she having problems? Fighting with anyone?”

“Not that I know of.”

“If you weren’t aware of anything, we should probably check with the nurse, too. See if she confided in her that she was feeling suicidal.”

“You think she jumped?”

“You think she was pushed?”

Ford settles deeper into her chair. “I hadn’t thought it through, to be honest. I haven’t gotten past the pool of blood. And the noise when she landed... Tony, she’s just a child.”

Her phone rings. A quick glance showed the very last number she could possibly want to see at the moment. She clicks Decline, feels the phone shimmy a moment later to let her know she’s received a message. Yes, Mother. I’ll get back to you.

A knock sounds and Ford looks up to see Tony’s niece standing in the door.

“Come in.”

“We’re just discussing whether she jumped or was pushed,” the sheriff says.

“She could have fallen, too,” Kate says. “It doesn’t always have to be diabolical, you know, Uncle Tony.” To Ford, “Do you have any idea what she was doing up there? Your security says it’s always locked.”

“I don’t know. Erik’s right, the bell tower is always locked. It’s too old to let people roam around up there, we’re very careful to keep it off-limits. The bells are controlled from the outer office here. It’s all computerized. There’s no reason for anyone to be up there.”

The sheriff looks from Ford to his niece and sighs.