Do or Die. Barbara Fradkin
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thought you’d probably come,” she managed as she folded her tall, willowy frame amid the sofa cushions with a sob. “None of his friends has even called me. It’s as if I don’t exist any more. As if, just because we broke up, I don’t have feelings any more.”
Green debated how to proceed. The woman clearly needed to talk, and he had no idea what might be important. Experience had taught him that letting witnesses ramble often yielded unexpected dividends. He set his tape recorder on the table and eased back casually into an armchair opposite her.
“Tell me about you and him.”
Her eyes filled again. With a grimace, she leaned over and made a half-hearted attempt to pick some papers from the floor. “I wish I could. I don’t know what happened to Jonathan and me. I thought he loved me—he said he did—but then he started giving all these excuses about working late and being busy. Usually I helped him with his work, but this time he wouldn’t tell me what he was working on. Then a couple of times when he’d said he was working, I saw him with another woman.”
“When was that?”
“It started about a month ago. Jonathan and I had a big fight over it, and he said I had to trust him. But I’m not a fool. I can’t compete with a woman like that.”
“Do you know who she was?”
Her mouth quivered. “Raquel Haddad.”
Haddad, he thought. Lebanese name. “Jet black wavy hair, olive skin?”
She glanced up in surprise. “You’ve seen her?”
He shrugged, non-committal. “Who is she?”
She lowered her eyes and twisted the kleenex around her finger like a noose. “An undergraduate troller. She hung around our floor, looking for prey. She started with another guy but quickly moved on to more promising prospects. At first Jonathan denied she was even in the picture. Then he said she was just a research assistant. Yeah, right.”
“You didn’t believe him?” “She was all over him.” The noose tightened, then she released it with a small gasp. “I…I don’t mean he lied.” She pressed her hand to her forehead and took deep breaths, striving for composure. “It was just his way of letting me down easy. Jonathan hates to hurt anybody. But sometimes being wishy-washy hurts more than an honest yes.”
“How did he seem recently? Anything different? Was he troubled?”
“He felt bad about me, I could tell. He avoided me at the university. He’d leave the room if I came in or pretend he was engrossed in a book. Jonathan was never very extroverted, but he seemed quieter than before.”
“Sad?”
She put the shredded kleenex aside and smoothed her bathrobe, in control again. “You know—” She raised her eyes thoughtfully “—sometimes he did look a little sad. I thought maybe she was giving him a rocky ride. She looked a little too…hot-blooded for his temperament.”
“Did you notice anything different between him and his friends or classmates?”
“He didn’t hang out with them as much as before. He seemed buried in his work. They made snide little comments like ‘Blair thinks he’s going to find a way to make cats talk’.”
“That sounds jealous. Were others jealous of him?” “Jonathan had no airs. He was handsome and brilliant, but he was also modest and unassuming. I think some guys were even jealous of that. They’d like him to be an arrogant creep, so they could put him down without feeling guilty.”
“Are you saying jealousy was a major problem?”
“Jealousy is always a problem in the academic world, Detective. That’s one of the first things my father warned me about.” She smiled wryly. “But then, my father would say jealousy makes a good incentive.”
Or a good motive for murder, he thought to himself, but did not say it. He wanted to keep her soft and pliable. “Any particular person more jealous than the rest?”
Suddenly, she unfolded herself from the sofa and drew herself up to her full height, careful to arrange her dressing gown. “I’m sorry, do you want a cold drink? I didn’t realize this would take so long. I should fix myself up a bit.”
Gone was the moment for pliability. She glided into the kitchen, head high and back straight. Unlike the living room, the kitchen was spare but spotless, every pot neatly stacked on the shelf. She plucked some items from the fridge, tossed them into the blender, and disappeared, giving Green a chance to snoop. He could tell a lot about a person by the way they arranged their kitchen. In his own home, three half-empty boxes of Cheerios and a lidless ketchup bottle were likely to fall on your head when you opened a cupboard door, but there was no such danger here. There certainly wasn’t much money either, but the neat, organized inhabitant was making the most of it. The kitchen table doubled as a desk, and a painted bookshelf held cans and boxes neatly arranged by type. The food was simple and utilitarian—no spices or exotic grains.
Green revised his initial impression of Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend. The mess in the living room was superficial, created in a day of shock and grief. Marianne Blair was right; Vanessa Weeks was very much her own woman, practical, organized and used to being in control. True to this insight, she returned a minute later dressed in shorts and a pink T-shirt over a lean, muscular body. Her hair was combed back into a pony tail and her face was freshly scrubbed. He could see now that she was pretty in a wholesome way. She flipped off the blender.
“Joe Difalco,” she replied as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “Joe hates his guts, and it’s pure, simple jealousy. Joe thinks he’s God’s gift to women, but he’s just a swaggering Latin pig. He’s supposed to be Professor Halton’s golden boy, but people went to Jonathan when they needed brains. Joe grew up in a sixteen-room mansion in Cedarhill, and his daddy owns five cars, including a Lamborghini, but Jonathan gets invited to 24 Sussex Drive. Joe thinks the world is at his feet because his parents always told him it was, but it was really at Jonathan’s feet.”
“You don’t like this guy much, do you?”
To her credit, she managed a laugh. “When you hold Joe and Jonathan up together, there’s no comparison. If someone had to die…” Her voice trailed off as she busied herself setting out glasses. He tried to imagine mentally how yogurt, carrots, club soda and wheat germ would taste.
“Did you ever hear Joe threaten Jonathan or act as if he wanted to harm him?”
“No. Joe’s strategy was to pretend Jonathan didn’t exist. Joe is a doctoral student in the final stages of his dissertation. He’s one of Halton’s most senior students. Jonathan’s a lowly Masters student. Final year, so higher than me, who’s just beginning, but I’m not sure Professor Halton would even have noticed him if his mother wasn’t made of money. Jonathan presented a threat, but more for his potential than his present status.”
“Does Joe have a temper? Ever seen him angry?”
“I’m sure he does. He can be very intense. Wound up like a spring, impatient, restless.” She poured a yellow sludge into each glass. “It suggests inadequate cortical control of the limbic system.”
He skirted the editorializing deftly as he took his glass from her. “What does this guy look like?”
“Good-looking, I suppose, if you like the Mediterranean look. Dark, curly hair, big brown eyes. Compact but muscular. I’d say he does weights.”
“Mustache?”
She shuddered. “No, at least not that.”
“Do you think he is capable of murder?”
“Absolutely.”
They returned to the living room and, as casually as he could, he set his drink on the floor by his side, out of sight. Over the next half hour, he probed her knowledge of the routine details of Jonathan Blair’s life. Blair enjoyed cycling, boating and skiing, but in recent months