Taylor smiled and shot Baldwin a look, but interrupted the girl’s daydream. “Susan, let’s get back to Jill Gates. You and she were in the class together?”
Susan snapped back to reality. “Yeah, we sat next to each other. She knew so much about this stuff already, you know? She sat glued to his every word, and I always saw her go talk to him after class. It was weird, though. She’d ask him questions she already knew the answers to, ’cause I’d see her write them down before she went up to him. But whatever, you know? Everyone thought he was hot. She seemed really into him.”
“Did you ever talk to her about it?”
“She blew me off as soon as I brought it up. Said she wanted to go on and get her doctorate in the classics, and it would be really helpful if she had such an influential teacher to back her up. Yeah, whatever, like I bought that.”
“Did you know Shelby and Jordan?”
“Well, sure. They were in the same class with me and Jill that first semester.”
Taylor felt a bump of adrenaline. “Who was the professor, Susan?”
“You didn’t already know? Dr. Lucas, of course.”
“Dr. Lucas?”
“Yeah, Gabriel. Gabriel Lucas. He’s not a prof here anymore, though. I don’t know where he went.”
Gabriel Lucas wasn’t one of the two professors they had come to speak with. She’d never even seen the name. Taylor made a mental note to call Fitz the second they finished and ask about him.
“So you thought they may have been involved? Romantically?”
Susan shook her head, staring over Taylor’s shoulder. A little frown started in her forehead. “I don’t know if she was sleeping with him, if that’s what you mean. It was almost like they had this strange link, like they had a secret that no one else knew. I always assumed there was something going on, but I never saw them together outside of his office, where there were always people around. They’d be in these deep conversations about Plato and stuff. We studied the Allegory of the Cave for two weeks, and she really got into it. That’s really all I know. I need to get to class, so is there anything else?”
Baldwin finally spoke up. “Susan, we’ll handle your absence from class. I want to know more about Jill. What was she like?”
Susan shrugged. “Well, she was totally gorgeous, but it was like she didn’t really know it. Never got dolled up for class and stuff. She was really natural. Not a granola, but pretty laid-back about her looks. I guess that’s what I noticed in the first place. It’s not like I’m some kind of beauty queen. Then when she gained some weight this year, I guess I felt even more at ease with her, you know? Some of us just aren’t meant to be perfect.”
Susan wasn’t exaggerating. She was plain, with unfashionably large, pink-rimmed glasses and a slight overbite, making her look like an overeager chipmunk. When she smiled, her cheeks puffed out as if she were holding a large store of nuts in her mouth. Baldwin smiled gently, catching Taylor’s eye. The weight gain. That must have been the pregnancy.
“So she was nice to you?”
“Yeah, most of the time. I’d hang around some, asking her to get coffee and stuff. Most of the time she’d come, but sometimes she just blew me off with this look in her eye, like she found me disgusting. But then she’d smile and be really nice, bring me a muffin from Starbucks or something. Anyway, whatever. I liked her.”
Both Baldwin and Taylor were starting to get the idea that Susan may have felt more than “like” for Jill Gates, but neither of them pushed the issue.
Baldwin continued trying to draw a mental picture of Jill. “So what did you guys talk about when you hung out? Class? Professors? Anything you can think of would be helpful.”
Susan teared up. “I don’t know anything else. Do you think Jill is dead? All of us were in class together with Dr. Lucas. And Shelby and Jordan are dead. Am I next?”
65
Taylor’s heart was galloping in her chest. They needed to wrap this up and go investigate who the hell Gabriel Lucas was.
“Susan,” she said soothingly, setting a hand on the girl’s pudgy arm. “I’m sure you’re fine. But we need to get an idea of what Jill was like, to see if there’s anything we need to look into. Did she ever go off like this before, without telling anyone where she was headed?”
“Well, sure, every weekend. She said she had a boyfriend down at Sewanee, and they met there every Friday afternoon, and she stayed until late Sunday night.”
“Did anyone else know about this?”