The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 6-10 - Catherine Coulter [621]
“It’s going to start snowing soon,” he said into his glass. “I’m wondering when I leave here with all this scotch in me whether I’ll be able to get back to Stanislaus. You know the media are there, Dix. Soon our donors will be on the line, asking to talk to me. What am I going to tell them? That their director is a murder suspect? I can’t even imagine Helen being gone, much less dead.” He raised pain-glazed eyes to Dix’s face. “She’s always been there for me, my guardian angel. After I left Tara, I was going to my office, but I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Helen wasn’t there, you see. You’ve got to believe me, I didn’t kill her.” He lowered his forehead to the table.
Savich went to the bar and asked for four coffees and a cup of tea.
“If that’s true, Gordon, you’d best start convincing me you didn’t. Tell us about Helen’s phone call.”
“I want another drink first.”
When Savich came back to the booth, he heard Dix say, “No more, Gordon. You need to stop with that stuff. Here’s Agent Savich with some coffee.”
Savich handed him a cup. Gordon stared at it, gave a little shudder. He picked up his scotch glass, tipped it, but it was empty.
“Talk to me, Gordon. Don’t even consider lying, or I’ll give Chappy a free pass to have a field day.”
“All right. Helen was whispering on the phone—it was absurd, really, her whispering like that. She told me she was worried for me, that I had to be careful. She told me you and Agent Warnecki and the other two FBI agents were snooping around, asking her about our affair.”
No one spoke: They simply waited. Gordon sipped at his coffee, unaware of what he was doing.
Ruth finally said, “This is a nice quiet place, Dr. Holcombe. I can see how you could view it as a sort of sanctuary, a place where you can be by yourself, away from students and colleagues. Do you always come here alone?”
“Sure, always alone, Agent Warnecki.”
Dix asked him, “What else did Helen tell you, other than to be careful and that we’re snooping around?”
“She said you told her that you knew about my relationship with Erin and some of the other students, that she’d already given you some names but you wanted all of them. She said she didn’t have a choice but to help you. She started crying, begging for my forgiveness.”
There was only the soft sound of Dr. Holcombe’s palms rubbing the sides of his scotch glass.
“That’s a pretty sturdy motive, Gordon,” Dix told him. “Your ex-lover spilled the beans, starting a scandal that might get you fired from your prestigious job, and giving parents an excellent reason to yank their kids out of Stanislaus. I could arrest you right this minute.”
Gordon nearly knocked over his glass. He grabbed it, righted it. His breath was coming hard and fast. “I didn’t do it, Dix, I swear to you. I couldn’t kill Helen. I loved her, in my way.”
“What is your way, sir?” Ruth asked.
“She was my anchor. She knew people, understood them in ways I couldn’t begin to; she gave me comfort and advice. I’ll never forget how I was interested in this viola student, and Helen told me she wasn’t stable, that she’d cause scenes and probably hurt me, so I stayed away from her. A couple of months later, she accused a boy from town of rape.”
“I remember that,” Dix said. “Kenny Pollard, but he had a rock-solid alibi. Seems clear to me now, Gordon, that Helen actually helped you seduce your own students.”
He shook his head back and forth, obviously shaken.
“When you realized she had told us about you, you killed Helen for revenge, didn’t you? That, and you couldn’t stand the world knowing you’re a philandering old fool.” Savich’s voice was so hard, so brutal that Gordon froze like a deer in headlights. Savich sat forward, grabbed Gordon’s wrist and squeezed. “You will tell me the truth, you perverted old man. Why did you kill Erin Bushnell? Did she of all the music students see through you? Did she threaten to tell