Free Ornaments of Death by Jane K. Cleland

said.
    â€œCan you tell me the format of e-mails? First name, dot, last name, for instance? Or last name, first initial?”
    â€œNo. Sorry.”
    I randomly clicked on a professor’s e-mail link. Instead of an auto-filled e-mail opening up, though, a contact form popped up instead.
    â€œGrrrr,” I said aloud. Using my pen, I rat-a-tat-tatted a frustrated drumbeat on my desk. “There has to be a way.”
    I IM’d Sasha and Fred and asked if either of them knew anyone at Reynard. Sasha reminded me that she’d spoken briefly to a professor in the university’s Film Studies Department when we’d been trying to authenticate a series of silent movie posters. *
    She gave me Dr. Marcus Achen’s cell phone number, and I got him.
    â€œLet me check,” he said, in heavily accented English, once I’d explained who I was and what I was after. After a brief pause, he murmured, “Da ist sie.”
    There she is, I translated, pleased I recalled even that amount of my mostly forgotten middle school German.
    â€œHer e-mail address is [email protected],” he said. “She’s based at our Plymouth campus.”
    â€œPlymouth, Massachusetts?” I asked. “No, of course not—‘uk,’ got it. England.”
    â€œExactly. But she’s obviously here, since her phone number is for this campus.”
    He read it off. The number listed for her was the same as the department’s number, not an unusual occurrence, Dr. Achen explained, when a researcher spends most of her time in the field.
    I thanked him, but my sense of accomplishment was short-lived. I didn’t want to e-mail Becca. I wanted to talk to her, face-to-face, to be there for her if Ian wasn’t with her, if I was the bearer of bad news.
    Hank mewed as he walked up to my chair. He stretched, first his top half, then his bottom half; then he jumped into my lap and licked my chin.
    â€œDo I have a dirty spot?” I asked him, stroking his back. “What would you do, Hank, if you were me?” I scratched behind his ears, one of his favorite spots. “She has to live somewhere. She has to have a phone. How can I find her?”
    He mewed again, louder this time.
    â€œYou know, you’re right. What a smart fellow you are. When in doubt, call Wes.”
    *   *   *
    â€œBecca Bennington lives in Boston,” I told Wes, “and I need to find her. Her full name is Rebecca Anne Bennington.”
    â€œIan is still missing,” Wes said.
    â€œDon’t sound so happy about it.”
    â€œI’m not happy. I’m intrigued.”
    â€œDon’t sound so intrigued.”
    â€œYou’re the one who called me, remember? Is he missing or not, Josie?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat do you think she knows?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œThen why do you want to reach her?”
    â€œBecause I don’t know what else to do,” I said, my throat tightening as I spoke, causing me to stumble over the last words. “I don’t want to raise a ruckus, but I need to do something. I’m upset.”
    â€œI’ll check it out.”
    â€œThanks, Wes.”
    It took Wes five minutes to find Becca. His contact at the electric company gave him her address, an apartment on Park Drive, across from the Fens, not far from the Museum of Fine Arts, and only a ten-minute walk to Reynard University. I was out the door and in my car two minutes after we hung up.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    Becca Bennington lived in a real beauty of an 1850-ish three-story brick town house. Built originally as a single-family home, it had been converted, along with scores of similar homes, into apartments sometime during the mid-twentieth century. Inside the vestibule, I counted buzzers. There were six apartments, two to a floor. The sign next to the 1R buzzer, which I assumed referenced the rear apartment on the first floor, read FERGUSON/BENNINGTON . I