Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

“It’s due Thursday,” she said, “and I’m, like, way behind. I planned to work all night. But around nine o’clock, Fletcher — that’s Fletcher Cantrell the Third — stopped by and happened to see me. Anyhows, we got talking, and he’s like, ‘Vertigo is showing at this art theater,’ and I’m like, ‘I love that film,’ and he’s like, ‘Wanna go?’ and I’m like, ‘Why not?’ And afterwards we stopped by his fraternity’s Hell Night party. Some guys were miffed with Fletcher for showing up late. He was the entertainment chair, or something, and he was supposed to bring some videos or something but I guess he got distracted cause we were having such a nice time.” She smoothed back her hair, sighing happily. “Anyhows, it was, like, two o’clock before I got back to the room. Maggie wasn’t here, so I figured she was staying at the Pi Alpha house. I didn’t check my messages until I got up for church this morning. When I found out Maggie never showed at Pi Alpha last night, I, like, freaked. Then Dean Collard called, and I, like, really freaked.”

She sniffled; Bolt handed her a tissue. “Poor Maggie,” she said. “I always tried to be there for her, but I guess I wasn’t really. The dean said she was blindfolded. She must’ve thought she couldn’t go through with it if she could look down and see the falls.”

Go through with it? “You think she committed suicide?” I asked.

Pamela blinked at me. “Well, obviously, Officer. She must have jumped. Dean Collard said something about an accident, but Maggie wouldn’t walk across those stepping-stones just for fun. What do you think she was — stupid?”

“I wouldn’t say stupid,” I said, blushing. “You wouldn’t have to be stupid to — never mind. Any other reasons for thinking she might have wanted to kill herself?”

She tilted her head to the side, considering. “Sort of. She worried about money a lot

. I mean, a lot. She’d paid her first year’s tuition herself, but this year she had to let her parents pay, and she was all stressed out about tuition for next year.”

“Her parents weren’t willing to help?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re willing,” Pamela said. “Her mother cashed in half her retirement fund to cover tuition this year. But they’re also putting her older brother through law school, and they just spent a bundle on her older sister’s wedding, and her little sister has orthodontist bills. Maggie hated being a burden to them — that’s the way she put it. So I guess she decided she’d relieve them of the burden by... by... you know.”

She blew her nose, and I sneaked more crackers. “Did she talk about these problems a lot?” I asked, swallowing hard and reaching for the Tang.

“She used to.” Pamela accepted a fresh tissue. “And I tried to, like, sympathize. But my parents have real jobs — I just don’t have those problems, y’know? I don’t even have to work part time. Maggie worked at Burger Bonanza, but minimum wage doesn’t make much of a dent in tuition. And she was working so many hours her grades went down, and she was worried she’d lose this tiny merit scholarship she had. The whole thing was making her real tense. Then she started acting, like, irrationally.”

“In what way?” I asked.

Her face shifted from sorrowful to sour. “She pledged Pi Alpha. That made no sense. Last year, we got lots of invitations to rush parties, and we just, like, laughed them off. We both thought sororities were so dumb; you waste so much time and money, and most of the girls are so stuck up. And then this year, when Maggie has absolutely no time or money to spare, she’s all of a sudden like, ‘Maybe I’ll pledge Pi Alpha.’ And I’m like, ‘Why?’ But I wanted to support her, so I went to the rush party with her.”

“But you decided not to pledge?”

She pursed her lips. “I didn’t get a bid. See what I mean, about the girls being stuck up? They only take really skinny girls, girls who look so... so just so, y’know?”

“Well, not all of them,” I said, remembering. “When we were at the Pi Alpha house, we saw this Billie or Jillie or—”

“Willie Fenz,” Pamela said. “Well, yeah. But she’s a computer genius. She maintains the college’s Web site single-handedly, and she’s got, like, a four-point-two-million GPA. Everybody figures the Pi Alphas let her in so they’d never have to worry about keeping their own grades up. All fraternities and sororities have to maintain a group GPA of at least 2.5. With Willie pushing their average up, the Pi Alphas are set.”

Maybe, but Dean Collard had said all the Pi Alphas were honor students anyway. “And all the other members are very attractive?” I asked.

“Flat-out gorgeous. But they’re not from good families or anything — just regular families, all of them. Anyhows, when they turned me down, I thought Maggie would refuse her bid. I mean, we were best friends, almost. You’d think she’d be loyal. But no. And after she pledged, she stopped really talking to me. It was just like, Pi Alpha this, and Pi Alpha that — no real conversation. I wasn’t the only person she shut out, either.”