Murder in the Dorm Read Online Free

Meredith. Kevin Kelsey wasn’t listed.
    Charlie had no luck at all with Barbara Kline. She was on neither Facebook nor Twitter. She wasn’t on LinkedIn. The Barbara Klines he did find were too old to be the right one and had nothing to do with Meredith. In any case, none were in Kingsford. He’d have to wait until he talked to her himself.
    Charlie felt he’d done a good morning’s sleuthing and put the list of McDermott’s three connections in his briefcase. For now he put the case aside and started on his email, deciding to pass on a third cup of coffee.
    The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Charlie and Kate had a late lunch marred only by a mediocre bottle of Chilean malbec that Charlie hadn’t tried before and wouldn’t buy again. Neither brought up the matter of Kelsey’s killing.
    Sunday morning was very different from Saturday. The sun was out and it looked like it was going to be unseasonably warm. Over a leisurely breakfast Kate and Charlie decided they’d go out for lunch after visiting a couple of the dealers whose cars Charlie wanted to check out. The dealerships would be closed on Sunday, so he could get an undisturbed look at the two cars that interested him.
    Charlie had just showered and shaved when he heard Kate calling him. She sounded odd, so he quickly put on his bathrobe and went downstairs. Kate was standing in the entryway. With her were DeVries and Matson.
    Apologizing for not being dressed, Charlie ushered the detectives into the living room. Kate stood in the doorway, undecided about sitting down and clearly not happy.
    “Charlie, we’re sorry to bother you both on a Sunday morning, but this is important. Did you by any chance make contact with Lawrence McDermott after we spoke?”
    “No; I looked him up and am going to track him down tomorrow. I thought he might tell me something about Kelsey that he wouldn’t tell you. Did you get much from him on Thursday?”
    “Ah, as I told you, we have to be careful how much we tell you, but you’d know this soon enough. McDermott was killed between one and four o’clock on Thursday afternoon, which is why he didn’t show up for our scheduled meeting and we couldn’t contact him. His body was found behind a dumpster in an alleyway next to a bistro where he had lunch on Thursday. The officers who responded canvassed the area and two servers in the bistro recognized his picture. He was something of a regular. The trouble is that his body wasn’t found until Friday during a garbage pickup in the area. To make things worse, neither the responding officers nor the homicide detective who was assigned the case knew we were interested in McDermott. No one made the connection to the Kelsey case until this morning.”
    By this time Kate had sat down. Matson had yet to say a word.
    “I assume you believe McDermott’s death is connected to Kelsey’s?”
    “It’d be a very odd coincidence otherwise. It’s difficult not to conclude that Kelsey and McDermott were involved in something serious. It seems to us that whatever prompted Kelsey’s death directly or indirectly prompted McDermott’s.”
    “Any indication that McDermott was on guard after Kelsey’s death?”
    “When we got hold of him on Wednesday he said he couldn’t go to headquarters till Thursday afternoon. He had credible reasons and we had no grounds to force him to go earlier, so arranged to have him come in to see us Thursday at two o’clock. No one we’ve spoken to seems to have seen McDermott on Wednesday or Thursday morning. Both servers were clear that he lunched alone on Thursday.”
    “That sounds like he was making himself scarce. Maybe that’s why he went downtown for lunch on Thursday, in order to avoid people at the university.”
    “That could be, but we have no idea whether his killer is or isn’t involved with the university. We should be going; we wouldn’t have bothered you except that you might have spoken with McDermott. You will appreciate that with