Love Can Be Murder

looking none too pleased to have been dragged down to the police station late at night, scoffed. "Oh, yeah, especially Ms. Beadleman and Ms. Ryder—they get to pin Dr. Seger's murder on a dead man."
    "Did you find Cape's prints on the scene?" Capistrano demanded.
    Jaffey pulled on his chin, then looked to Mason and back. "Yeah," he finally admitted. "We matched three partial prints lifted from the library to Cape. But that doesn't mean he killed Seger. In fact, Officer, I think it's pretty coincidental that you happened to kill the man who's accused of shooting your partner."
    "I wanted Cape punished," Capistrano said flatly, "not dead. If you check the butt of Cape's gun to the wound on the back of Seger's head, I think you'll get a match."
    Jaffey's expression told him they'd already done just that—and it had matched. "Why wouldn't he just shoot Seger?" he asked, playing devil's advocate.
    Capistrano shrugged. "Maybe he didn't want to alert the neighbors, maybe that cheap gun jammed on him—we'll never know."
    "Because you shot him," Jaffey said.
    "In self-defense. He admitted to Roxann that he killed Seger."
    Jaffey turned to her. "He killed Seger to scare you into revealing the whereabouts of his wife and daughter?"
    "That's my understanding."
    "Will you take a polygraph test?"
    "Yes. I offered to take one before. Detective Jaffey, if you don't believe us and you don't think that Cape did it, fine." She pointed to the ruined books. "The journals prove that my cousin was telling the truth about what Dr. Seger was doing to and with his students."
    "Thanks to you and Detective Capistrano," Jaffey said, "these journals will tell us very little."
    "But there are others," Roxann said, then looked at Mason. "And I read enough of those pages to know that you suddenly have dozens, maybe hundreds of suspects, old students and new, any of whom might have been in town for Homecoming. So, I can understand why you'd suddenly have doubts that Frank Cape committed the murder—there are so many other possibilities."
    Mason rubbed his eyes as if when he opened them, they might all be gone. Then he blinked bleary eyes and nodded to Jaffey. "Can we have a word outside?"
    The men left, and Roxann pulled the blanket she'd been given tighter around her shoulders. She didn't think she'd ever be warm again. "What do you think?"
    Capistrano sighed. "I think they don't want to believe us, but they don't have a choice. The DA and Jaffey's boss just want this mess to go away."
    She gave him a rueful smile. "That makes all of us." She sipped the coffee sitting in front of her. "Detective, I'm sorry."
    He seemed surprised. "For?"
    "For dragging you into this tonight. I got this crazy idea in my head and went off half-cocked."
    "But you were right."
    "And you had to kill a man because of me."
    He leaned forward. "I had to kill a man because of the man. Which never feels good, but at least I know Cape was guilty of some pretty crummy things. End of story."
    Roxann glanced to the window—both men had their backs turned, their heads close in discussion. She reached for the journal that covered 1996 and flipped through the distorted pages.
    "What are you doing?"
    "Just let me know when they're coming back."
    Depending on what kind of pen he'd used, the words were sometimes blurred, sometimes merged, sometimes gone. She recalled that, unfortunately, Carl had preferred to use a fountain pen, which ran easily. The entry on the date Angora had given her—April 21, 1996—was blurred, but she was able to make out the shadows of some pertinent words: blonde...theology class...office... fellatio...shoes. Bile backed up in her mouth—he hadn't even mentioned Angora's name. He probably hadn't even known her name, or hadn't bothered to remember it.
    "Bastard," she muttered.
    "Was that meant for me?" he asked wryly.
    "No, keep watching."
    Another volume covered 1992. Thanks to the date on their life lists, she knew the date of Tammy Paulen's memorial service. The girl had died two days prior, so Roxann quickly found the relevant pages, but they were a soggy mess. She thought she made out the capital letter T on a couple of pages, but she couldn't be sure.
    "Better wrap it up," Capistrano said. "I think they're finished."
    A few seconds later, Mason and Jaffey returned, neither one of them looking fulfilled.
    "I'll drop the charges pending against you and your cousin," Mason said, "but only if you two pass polygraphs, and I mean with flying