Catch a Falling Knife

harassment. She had decided to withdraw the charge before she died. Now it’s true that Dr. Pappas didn’t know that, but I’m convinced that he was many miles from here that evening. Although his teaching career could have been ruined by the charge, I’m also convinced that he would never kill anybody.”
    I stopped, expecting a reaction from June or Eric, but they looked attentive and said nothing. I continued, “If Dr. Pappas didn’t kill her, somebody else did. It’s the job of the police to investigate all possibilities. Maybe we can help them. They think it was somebody who knew Elise because there is no sign of a burglary. Nothing was taken. Isn’t that right?”
    “We don’t know of anything,” June said. “Her purse was there, with money and credit cards and all the stuff young people seem to need these days. It didn’t look like anything else had been touched. And Donna—that’s her roommate—said her own stuff was all there.”
    “Let’s talk about the people who knew her. First, as you said, is her roommate. She found Elise.”
    “Donna is a nice girl,” Eric said, accenting “nice.” “She wouldn’t hurt a fly. In fact, she wanted to help Elise with her singing.”
    “Donna wrote songs for Elise,” June said. “The words, not the music. When Elise was in the review last fall, Donna wrote the songs she sang.”
    “She wanted to do more of that,” Eric said. “She told me she pictured her and Elise as a team and she thought they could go far together. In a good way, of course. I don’t like a lot of what passes for modern music—rap and garbage like that. It’s junk, with terrible words, about sex and violence against women…killing cops, disrespect for authority. But Donna wrote nice words. I think she was a good influence on Elise.”
    “I didn’t know you had talked to Donna all that much,” June said.
    “She came here during the day, when you were at work. Just once or twice, of course.”
    “You never told me that.”
    “Didn’t I? Must have slipped my mind.”
    “It must have. What did you two talk about?”
    “I told you; we talked about the possibility of Elise and Donna teaming up after college. Donna would write the songs and Elise would sing them. They would be good songs, with Christian values, providing a positive influence on kids, instead of the junk they hear now.”
    “What did Elise think of this idea?” I asked.
    “She was open to it. I talked to her—Donna asked me to—and she said anything was possible.”
    “Elise had a good voice,” June said. “If I may say so she had an excellent voice, but that doesn’t mean she could have had a career as a singer. You know how hard it is to do that. I think she was realistic about it.”
    “So Donna and Elise got along well together,” I said.
    “Very well,” Eric said. “They’ve known each other since the beginning of Elise’s freshman year at Crescent Heights.”
    “I understand that Elise lived in a dormitory last year, even though your house is only a few miles from the college.”
    “She needed to spread her wings,” June said. “We don’t have all that much money and for a long time it looked like she would have to live at home and maybe go to community college. Or take on large student loans. But we’ve always been thrifty and we didn’t like that idea. But then this scholarship came through…”
    “Elise was the smart one in the family,” Eric said. “But she was awful young to live away from home. Maybe if she had been living at home, this would never have happened.”
    “And then there was her boyfriend,” I said, hoping to keep Eric from dissolving, which it appeared he might do.
    “His name is Ted,” June said. “He’s a nice enough boy, but he’s a bit of a wimp, if you ask me.”
    “Ted is no wimp,” Eric said. “He’s just got good values. He’s even gone out with me on patrol.”
    “That’s what I mean,” June said. “That’s a strange occupation for a 21-year-old. Do you know about this patrol business, Lillian?”
    “You mean the website and the license plates. Eric told me about that.”
    “He tells everybody who will listen. If you ask me, there are better ways he could spend his time. Such as earning some money.”
    “Nobody asked you, woman.”
    “How did Ted feel about the harassment charge?” I asked.
    “He didn’t like it, of course,” Eric said. “Who would? He knew about it before we did. Just like you. It seems like we were