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

“Do you mean Fletcher Cantrell?” Bolt asked. “The young man you met at the library? The young ladies at Pi Alpha called him Miss Warren’s ex-boyfriend. At what point did he cease to be her boyfriend and become her ex-boyfriend?”

“At the point when she pledged Pi Alpha.” She sighed. “He’s the nicest guy, from a great family. His father’s company takes up three whole floors in the Bradstone Center downtown. And they’d dated so long — a whole year, almost. He even e-mailed her over the summer. At first, they were real close this year. Then, right after pledging, Maggie tells Fletcher she wants to just be friends. You know what that means — just be friends.”

I knew exactly what it means. It means you’re being dumped. I cringed, remembering high school, remembering college, remembering all the girls who’d told me they wanted to just be friends. Thank goodness I finally met Ellen; thank goodness she was willing to marry me and didn’t care about being friends.

I glanced at my notes. It looked like Maggie had been under lots of pressure, had cut off some friends — did that add up to suicide? Maybe. The blindfold could fit with suicide, too — not that it takes all that much courage to look down at a ten-foot jump if you’re hell bent on killing yourself anyway. But if Maggie had a fear of heights...

The door flew open, and a young guy in jeans and a Culbert basketball jacket rushed in. “Pam!” he cried. “Is it true? Seth Baker said Maggie — but it can’t be true!”

In a second, Pamela bounced up from her perch on the edge of her bed, wrapped her arms around the guy’s neck, and collapsed on his shoulder. “Oh, Fletcher!” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, but it’s true!” Still clinging to him, she pointed at us. “These are policemen — Officer Johnson and somebody else. I told them how upset Maggie’s been this year, and that must be why she went to the falls and decided to jump and—”

“Decided to jump?” He disentangled himself from her arms and took three steps back. “No way, Pam, no way! Maggie wouldn’t do that!”

“I know it’s horrible to think she felt so hopeless,” she said, holding out her arms, walking toward him again. “You must feel like you let her down; so do I. But we can help each other through this. We can, like, comfort each other. We can—”

“The hell with that.” He looked at her for a moment, grimaced, turned to face us. “Look, I never let Maggie down. And if Pam says Maggie committed suicide — no way!”

“That’s just one theory,” I said soothingly. “You’re Fletcher Cantrell?”

He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, hunched his shoulders forward, and stared at the floor. “Right. How’d you know?”

“Your name’s come up a few times. I put two and two together.” I’d done some real detective work, all right — it was hard not to look smug. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, son, you’ve had a nasty shock. Sit down. You can have my chair.”

“And you need a drink,” Pamela said eagerly. “I’ll make Tang.”

“I don’t wanna sit down. And I don’t want Tang.” He paced four steps, reached the wall, had to turn around and pace in the opposite direction. “I gotta keep my head clear. Seth said it’s all over campus that Maggie was pushed over Petite Falls. He said she’d been blindfolded with her pledge scarf, and her hands were tied, and—”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said. “Her hands weren’t tied. And we don’t know if she was pushed.” Oops, I thought — shouldn’t have said that much, not yet.

“Then she was

blindfolded with her pledge scarf,” he said. “That settles it. It was those girls, those Pi Alpha bitches.”

“Fletcher!” Pamela covered her ears. “Don’t say the b-word!”

“That’s what they are,” he said. “Ever since Maggie got messed up with them, she hasn’t been the same. They must’ve brainwashed her, or drugged her, or something. And now they killed her. It was some sick initiation ritual, don’t you think so, Officer?”

“That’s another theory,” I admitted. “But we don’t know yet if—”

“Well, I know,” he insisted. “Everybody on campus knows there’s something wrong with the Pi Alphas. They don’t have more than a few parties a year, they never serve booze, and half the time they don’t even send a representative to Greek Council meetings. You saying that’s not weird? And none of them have steady boyfriends. Everybody says they’ve got this sick three date rule: You date a guy three times, and you gotta dump him, or you’re out of Pi Alpha. And that’s not weird?”

It did sound weird, if it was true. “Is that what Miss Warren told you?” I asked.