Free The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders by Mignon F. Ballard Page A

“Carla Martinez.” She looked at me across her rat’s nest of a desk. “Happened in early October—just like the other two.”
    Nine years ago in October. That was about the time our daughter Julie, still in high school, had been hospitalized with a severe bout of flu that developed into pneumonia. I had been so preoccupied with worry I hadn’t kept up with what was going on at the college—or anywhere else in town. If there was a connection with the three girls’ deaths, that would mean a gap of five years between the first two, yet it was hard to believe it was coincidence. I also considered the fact that Stone’s Throw was usually a slow news town and that Josie Kiker rarely had a chance to unearth a good story. Her hands paused now over the keyboard, aching back apparently forgotten in her eagerness to dig up old bones. “And guess who discovered the body?” she said.
    I frowned. “Not Londus Clack?” I darted a look at Augusta, who was making her way to the door with a look of purposeful intent, and I knew she was headed for the bound copies.
    â€œThe very same. Found her early in the morning as he was setting out mums—always plants that pretty purple kind along the flagstone walk there. Everybody seemed to think she’d fallen the night before. Died of a broken neck. Doc Worley—he was coroner then—said she’d been dead about six or seven hours.”
    â€œWhat was she doing in the Tree House that late at night?” I asked.
    â€œWho knows. Some of the girls in her dorm said she’d gone over to the practice rooms like she always did after supper—she was a piano student, you know—and she was wearing the skirt and sweater she’d worn to class the day before.” The editor nodded toward the door behind me. “I left that issue out if you want to see it, but I doubt you’ll learn much there.”
    Carla Martinez had large dark eyes and long straight hair that could have been light brown. She wasn’t smiling in the picture and looked as if she might be the studious type. In fact, the article revealed she had come to Sarah Bedford on a partial scholarship and planned to major in music. She was a freshman.
    I looked up at Augusta, who stood waiting. “What now?” I asked. She didn’t answer, but as she fingered her glowing necklace the stones turned from brilliant sapphire to the mesmerizing cobalt of deep, deep water.

    â€œBrendon Worthington—he was dean of the School of Music then—said Carla was one of the most promising pianists he’d ever taught,” Joy Ellen Harper told me a few days later. “It just tore him up when that happened. She was only seventeen, you know.”
    â€œWhat do you think happened?” I asked. “She doesn’t sound like the type to be hanging out in a tree house in the middle of the night.”
    â€œCould’ve been a prank, I guess. Underclassmen aren’t supposed to go up there. The Tree House is off limits to everybody but seniors, although I doubt if any of them give a hoot about it. The college makes a big deal out of it on Class Day.” Joy Ellen shook her head and frowned at the blue book she was grading. “What in the world’s gotten into that girl? Didn’t even try to answer half these questions.” She slashed a red F on the inside cover and tossed the book aside.
    â€œI really didn’t know the Martinez girl,” she continued. “She wasn’t in any of my classes, but you’re right, she didn’t seem the type for midnight stunts. Kind of a shy little thing. We all just assumed she fell.”
    I glanced at the name on the failed exam. Leslie Monroe . I knew she had studied. I’d seen her cramming with a stack of books the day I’d brought the cookies from her aunt. She had seemed worried even then. Poor Leslie! She wasn’t going to take this well at all.
    â€œWhere