Mike Noble leads with his heart. It belonged to Lou Ann until she was killed in a highway crash. He can't give her up. Mike is a graduate professor and vice president at Great Rivers University (GRU). Students are his escape from his grief. One of Mike's students, Lynn Bosen, looks the part of a beautiful university junior that she is, but her beauty and her body belie her age. There is a big place in her heart for Mike. Security Director Bob "Bear" Drummer telephones Noble in the night to tell him that Lynn, in her half-time security role, has found the seminude body of a petite girl encased in four black plastic bags. Bob has a big heart. Those who love him most, fear it may betray him. Lynn, Mike, and Bob are brought together by the first of incidents that take the lives of more coeds. In a unique combination of events, they will all be involved in solving the murders.

SEEKING ABSOLUTION

A Novel in The University SeriesBy Bruce R. Swinburne

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Bruce R. Swinburne
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6058-6

Chapter One

In the spring that Lou Ann and I were married, we got up early and met to gather bridal wreath for the arch in our little Iowa church. Lou Ann was killed twenty-one years later when an inebriated truck driver crashed into her as she was driving to her school. After a service in our church, our children, Harry and Sarah, Reverend Crist, and I flew from University City, Illinois, in a Cessna 310 to Iowa with Lou Ann's ashes.

With Harry and Sarah sobbing and touching my shoulders, I poured her ashes from a temporary container into the small hole I dug as Reverend Crist repeated the prayer for the dead. My tears moistened her ashes. I filled the small hole with dirt and covered it with a bouquet of bridal wreath.

This is my story of how I dealt with the loss of my wife, not always admirably, and it is the story of my response to tragic events that occurred in my university. The above thoughts flashed through my mind after the ringing telephone interrupted a comforting dream of Lou Ann-a call that foreshadowed a difficult and terrifying year.

I tried to ignore the irritating sound of the telephone ringing. I called to the Lou Ann in my dream to get the telephone. Like a blow to my gut, I realized Lou Ann isn't here-she will never be beside me as she had been in my dream. She's gone, killed nearly a year ago. With my waking reality, I felt constrained by a full-body mourning band-barely managing a facade of control.

Calls at odd hours were common. We had kept our numbers listed. Lou Ann, principal at University South Elementary, wanted to know of anything affecting her students or teachers.

As a graduate professor I could be more oblivious, but as vice president for student affairs, I wanted to be kept informed of any kinds of emergencies at Great Rivers University (GRU). My calls usually came from families, students, or one of the lieutenants at Security.

"Damn," I muttered, finding the light and picking up my pen and a pad to write on. "Mike Noble."

"You all right, Dr. Noble?" The talking through a pipe sound and the voice of a trusted friend, Director of Security Robert (Bob) (Bear) Drummer, told me this was not routine.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"You always tell me you want to be kept informed."

"I do. What's up, Bob?"

"We've got a dead girl. She may be a GRU student. No ID on her."

"No ID," I repeated. On a 35,000-student campus, I've learned to anticipate alcohol-related automobile crashes or suicides-two major killers of college students. I don't anticipate students being murdered.

"Lynn Bosen found her-you know her-she was checking the Lakeside Family Housing area."

"I do know Lynn-she all right?"

"She needs a little time. She will be. It was a domestic disturbance."

"Lot of stress there." here too.

"Lynn started to return to Lincoln Square. She saw a big black plastic bag at the edge of the road-big lawn and garden bag."

"South side?"

"Yes. Family housing residents adopted that stretch of road. Lynn knows procedure, and she should've radioed for backup-she was Lynn being Lynn-pissed that someone had dumped trash there. It felt heavy. She opened it and discovered the dead girl."

"Surely not related to the housing incident?"

"We don't know anything, yet."

"I'll be right down. Where exactly are you?"

"You know you don't have to come. I'm 100 yards west of the entrance to Lakeside Park-between the family housing entrance and the park entrance. Lots of lights."

"Be there in twenty minutes."

I switched the coffee pot from automatic to on. I dressed, grabbed my Marine Corps flight jacket, my iPhone, and took off with a thermos of coffee and cups on the seat beside me.

The streetlights emitted a golden haze through the fog scrim as I accelerated out of the neighborhood.

Chapter Two

I slowly approached the scene where the body had been discovered. Through the fog, I could see two county police cars, three university security cars, a couple of crime lab vehicles, and some other vehicles. I was comforted by the substantial silhouette of Bob "Bear" Drummer caught in a light sandwich between my Taurus lights and the lights at the scene. I liked and respected the gentle "Bear" of a man: six feet six or so, graying, and some place well on the north side of 300 pounds. Students created the moniker, and it fit. I greeted him, "Know anything more?"

"Not much, Dr. Noble."

"It's Mike."

"I knew you'd want to be here. Nothing other than what I told you. No ID on her. She's partially unclothed."

"Partially?"

"Wearing what may be designer blue jeans. She's naked from the waist up. At first I thought she might be a little girl. She can't weigh 100 pounds."

"Anything else?"

Drummer lowered his voice. "Looks to me like she was dead before somebody stuffed her into, not one, but four black trash bags-the big lawn and garden kind. She's been stabbed in the left side of her neck with a thin-blade knife."

"Blood all over everything?"

"Small trace. If she'd been alive when she was stabbed, there would have been blood. She was dead, or he did a hell of a job cleaning up what would have been a mess."

"I'd guess it was a man, too. You said, 'he.' You know it's a man?"

"I did say, 'he.' I think a man did it. I think she died from some other cause. He wanted to be sure she was dead, so he slipped a knife into her neck. That's my theory."

"Antiseptic." Visions flashed through my mind's eye of Lou Ann's broken body nearly a year earlier when that truck driver had crashed into her. "I asked, "No dismemberment, right? Her body's intact? She sexually abused or assaulted?"

"Body's intact-looks like she just went to sleep if it wasn't for the knife puncture. Her eyes were closed when Lynn found her. We know nothing about any sexual activity yet."

"Thank God her body's intact," I said.

Drummer pointed toward the scene.

"Looking for clues?" I asked.

"Trace elements on her or in proximity to her-anything inside the bags. Body's often a garbage dump of clues. From what I hear, the package is unusually pristine."

"They seem to be obsessively careful."

"They always are. When they get her in the lab, more trace evidence will be found. Lots of law enforcement-The crime lab people got here just before you. They'll gather as much evidence as possible before they take the body. The killer may have done us a favor."

"How's that?"

Ordinarily they bag hands and feet. I think they'll enclose the body in the plastic sacks. Removing her body could cause something to be brushed off her."

"I get your point."

"It's also possible to get fingerprints from plastic."

"Any theory on the possibility of sexual assault?"

"No indication other than her being partially disrobed, whatever you can read into that. Except for the cut in her neck, she shows no signs of assault. Once in the lab, who knows what they'll find. Come on-have a look."

The softly coiffed blond hair of the girl was revealed. She was on her knees, supported by a county officer who appeared to be holding her upright-an image like she was in prayer. She looked like she had been a beautiful girl-my olfactory system revealed perfume and the stench of death warmed by her body. Drummer was standing next to me. In a low voice, I said, "You feel the warmth-her scent?"

"She hadn't been dead long when Lynn found her and opened the bags. She saw the girl and immediately closed them. They were reopened minutes before you arrived. Loose plastic provides dead air insulation."

"I felt that. How can parents live through such a devastating loss like this?" I said to Drummer as we walked away.

"Nothing worse." We stood silent. Then Drummer spoke. "You sure you're all right, Mike? You've been through hell this past year."

"I'm fine," I lied again. "Everyone has been kind and no one more so than you, Bob. What can I say? Lou Ann was my life."

"Mike, Betty and I lost one of our daughters when we lived in Madison, Wisconsin. You wonder how you can live through it."

"I didn't know. I'm sorry for your loss."

"The pain is constant. You know, Mike-you learn to love the pain.

We've got to get her identified, help her parents through it, and find who did this."

"Bob, a point we make in alcohol education is the smaller the person, the greater the impact of alcohol. It takes less alcohol to debilitate or kill a smaller person. The principle also applies to drugs. She could have died of alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose and he used the knife to be sure she was dead before he dumped her body."

"I don't know. The knife wound and the body in plastic hardly fits an accidental death from someone wishing to quickly get rid of the body."

"You're right. If you're trying to get rid of a body, you could find a lot of places less obvious than this."

"Yeah, about any other place," Drummer responded.

"No blood-no gore-her body here where she couldn't be missed."

"Yeah-damn him!" Drummer blurted. "He wanted her to be found."

Chapter Three

Through the fog and the lights, Drummer and I saw Drummer's boss, Pat Newcomb, vice president for campus services-Newcomb, 57, about five feet eight, and a muscular 230 pounds: a pit bull of a man. Seeing Drummer and me together, Newcomb scowled. He gathered up University City Police Chief, Harry Logan, who towered nearly a foot above him. The Mutt and Jeff pair walked around the body being examined.

"There's a pair to draw to," Drummer smiled.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" I responded.

"Forgive me if this offends you, Mike. I'm thinking of that Halloween night when a kid threw a bottle through the window of Logan's new Police Outreach Center."

"I remember well-and with the fuss that followed, Lou Ann witnessed one of University City's finest slug a kid on the side of his head."

"How'd that turn out?"

"Logan asked me to tell Lou Ann to cool it-to forget what she saw. I told him neither of us was inclined to lie, and he could talk directly to her if he wanted. Logan wanted it to go away, and the kid wanted her to be a witness for him. Lou Ann wasn't excited about being a witness. It went away-that's all I know. Lou Ann and I had a few laughs about it after it was over. By the way-no offense taken-I'm not that fragile."

"Logan was pissed with me for a while, but he's decent now. And my good friend, how about your boss, 'Little Napoleon,' are you still remembering to stand at attention when he enters your staff meetings, Mr. Director of Security?"

"Like I said-a pair to draw to."

We stifled our inappropriate snickering with a murder victim still in sight, and with Logan and Newcomb, the victims of our irreverent humor, about to greet us.

Drummer paid homage to his boss, Newcomb, and then to Logan. Newcomb extended his hand to me in greeting-a hand missing his ring finger and his pinkie. I took his hand with less than a firm grip, concerned that I could injure his fragile-appearing hand.

"Hello, Mike," Pat said. He spoke in an artificially low confidential tone. "Terrible thing-just terrible. It's a shame what some of these kids get mixed up in. We'll have our people figure out who she was if she was a student." Pat hesitated, then added, "This will drive any fee and rate increases off the front page of Doggin'It. and Everyday."

In the cold damp morning, my mind flashed on Lou Ann and how gracious she always had been. "Gentlemen," I said, "I brought along a thermos of coffee. How about a cup?" The four cups emptied the thermos, and the four of us stood quietly sipping the coffee until I asked, "Any theories?"

Newcomb responded, "It's hard to understand how this kind of thing can happen." Drummer repeated what we had discussed, emphasizing the possibility of drug involvement. He added, "Incredibly, the body remained in an upright position."

Logan replied, "I agree with the drug involvement. The shit is messing up a lot of lives."

I noted, "The knife wound and four plastic bags doesn't fit with someone panicky about disposing of a body, nor does the location."

Logan agreed, and with Drummer nodding, Logan stated, "With all the woods, streams, and out of the way places where a body could be lost for days or weeks, why would the body be left here on a well-traveled road next to university property? Whoever did this, wanted her to be found."

"Rush minute" started about 6:30 a.m., a light hearted reference to a pleasant quality of life apart from "rush-hours" associated with many urban centers like St. Louis and Chicago, home for many GRU students.

The body was moved carefully, using care to keep the victim's body, and any material that might provide clues, inside the plastic bags. The package was placed on a gurney with a sheet covering the body still enclosed in the plastic bags.

I said farewell to Newcomb and Logan and thanked Drummer, telling him I'd keep in touch. Walking back to my car, I saw Adrian Baylor, a reporter who covered the university administration for Everyday, the regional newspaper. I walked a bit faster and climbed into my Taurus.

A collage of thoughts flashed through my mind as I drove home: Without Lou Ann, I feel so fragile. The president will be very upset. I tried to focus on my calendar for the day and week. What was Lynn Bosen doing down there on her own, anyway? I thought of the pain Drummer must feel as the incident brought back the loss of his daughter. Lord, please don't let it be a student. Way to go Noble-get your priorities in order-show some courage in the face of this and help those affected to find a way to get through it and go on. I have to handle this with some compassion for her parents. Others will look to me for strength. Got to handle this with some dignity. Lou Ann always helped me be strong,

I felt grateful that, unlike Lou Ann's body, the victim's remained whole. Her lifeless body will be systematically and unemotionally disemboweled and examined by forensic pathologists to determine the cause of death. I thought of the young woman's parents, who might be going to work about now-who could be missing her or learn that the unthinkable had happened to their daughter. My heart ached for them, but through the fog of the morning and my mind, it was all Lou Ann.

I called, "Lou Ann," as I entered our door. I had called her name out of habit. Get a grip, Noble, I commanded. As much as I wanted to share the events of the morning with Lou Ann, that could never be.

Chapter Four

The answering machine in my kitchen blinked. My assistant, Barry, had updated estimates of fringe benefit costs for the president's staff meeting. I called the president. The maid answered and quickly said, "One moment, please."

"Yes, Mike, what can I do for you?"

"Sir, are you aware of a homicide victim found down by Lakeside Family Housing?" "Pat filled me in. Let's not speak to any reporters. We don't know that it's one of ours. We'll bring Jake Byer into the meeting and discuss how we'll handle our responses when we know more. You'll be there." (An order, not a question.)

"Yes, sir. See you there."

I arrived at my office early. Barry King came in with figures and a question. "You jogging or swimming? I called and got your machine."

"We won't be addressing fringe benefit costs in president's staff today, Barry. You'll have to excuse me. We've got an emergency."

I spent early morning in a race to keep up with demands for information, and coordinating identification procedures with Drummer, housing, and student life. Finally I had a hurry-up meeting with my immediate staff. As they started to leave, I anticipated an unasked question. "Yes, we'll have SAACOM (Student Affairs Advisory Committee) this afternoon. Barry, don't go. I need to review those figures."

In the best of times-I'm more global than sequential-and this was not the best of times. My thoughts focused on Lou Ann's battered face and the face of the girl in the plastic tomb. All I could feel was the chill of death.

Normally, I enjoyed president's staff meetings. They are found in virtually every university-dictated by presidential style, from informal to highly formal. Under President Albert Goldman, the meetings tended toward the middle of the continuum-agendas were prepared in the president's office from submissions by the vice presidents and university legal counsel. Each Wednesday, a staff member arranged for donuts.

The usual players were at the meeting. I assumed all knew the items on the agenda would be scrapped because of the events on Lakeside Road. If I was wrong, they'd guess something was up with the unusual presence of Public Relations Director Jake Byer.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from SEEKING ABSOLUTIONby Bruce R. Swinburne Copyright © 2012 by Bruce R. Swinburne. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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