‘The Hawk’s Nest, to be specific,’ Correll said. ‘That’s the cafeteria.’
‘Short dyed red hair, weird eyes. She was buying a sandwich, and he noticed her because she stared holes in him when she walked past his table, and then when we started passing her photo around, he said it might have been her. Can’t swear to it, though.’
‘It would be like her to stare at a cop,’ Lucy said. ‘Jerking people around is her favorite sport.’
‘I’ll also add that it’s not unusual for college kids to look like the homeless,’ I said.
‘We’re checking pawn shops around here to see if anybody fitting Carrie’s description might have bought a gun, and we’re also checking for stolen cars in the area,’ Marino said. ‘Assuming if she and her sidekick stole cars in New York or Philadelphia, they aren’t going to show up here with those plates.’
The campus was an immaculate collection of modified Georgian buildings tucked amid palms, magnolias, crepe myrtles, and lobolly and long-leaf pines. Gardenias were in bloom and when we got out of the car, their perfume clung to the humid, hot air and went to my head.
I loved the scents of the South, and for a moment, it did not seem possible that anything bad could happen here. It was summer session, and the campus was not heavily populated. Parking lots were half full, with many of the bike racks empty. Some of the cars driving on College Road had surfboards strapped to their roofs.
The counseling center was on the second floor of Westside Hall, and the waiting area for students with health problems was mauve and blue and full of light. Thousand-piece puzzles of rural scenes were in various stages of completion on coffee tables, offering a welcome distraction for those who had appointments. A receptionist was expecting us and showed us down a corridor, past observation and group rooms, and spaces for GRE testing. Dr Chris Booth was energetic with kind, wise eyes, a woman approaching sixty, I guessed, and one who loved the sun. She was weathered in a way that gave her character, her skin deeply tanned and lined, her short hair white, and her body slight but vital.
She was a psychologist with a corner office that overlooked the fine arts building and lush live oak trees. I had always been fascinated by the personality behind offices. Where she worked was soothing and unprovocative but shrewd in its arrangement of chairs that suited very different personalities. There was a papasan chair for the patient who wanted to curl up on deep cushions and be open for help, and a cane-back rocker and a stiff love seat. The color scheme was gentle green, with paintings of sailboats on the walls, and elephant ear in terracotta pots.
‘Good afternoon,’ Dr Booth said to us with a smile as she invited us in. ‘I’m very glad to see you.’
‘And I’m very glad to see you,’ I replied.
I helped myself to the rocking chair, while Ginny perched on the love seat. Marino looked around with self-conscious eyes and eased his way into the papasan, doing what he could not to be swallowed by it. Dr Booth sat in her office chair, her back to her perfectly clean desk that had nothing on it but a can of Diet Pepsi. Lucy stood by the door.
‘I’ve been hoping that someone would come see me,’ Dr Booth began, as if she had called this meeting. ‘But I honestly didn’t know who to contact or even if I should.’
She gave each of us her bright gray eyes.
‘Claire was very special — and I know that’s what everyone says about the dead,’ she said.
‘Not everyone,’ Marino cynically retorted.
Dr Booth smiled sadly. ‘I’m just saying that I have counseled many students here over the years, and Claire deeply touched my heart and I had high hopes for her. I was devastated by news of her death.’
She paused, staring out of the window.
‘I saw her last about two weeks prior to her death, and I’ve tried to think of anything I could that might hold an answer as to what might have happened.’