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

“We cops keep the streets pretty safe,” I said, faltering. “This talk about random crime — well, I don’t know.” Damn, I thought. I should be talking about Maggie, not doing a police promo. I should say I realized how senseless her death was — but how? “I never knew Maggie,” I said, “but I got vivid images of her from talking to folks. I can see her getting all dressed up and fussing over her makeup, just to get ready for an evening with her sorority sisters. I see her and the other pledges buying the Atlantic, carrying blue carnations, setting off on their scavenger hunt. And it — well, it all seems wrong. I mean, it just doesn’t make sense. And I can see — hell. What can I see?”

Fresh out of images, I glanced around for inspiration and spotted the Pi Alpha banner. “There’s your slogan,” I said. “I know those three words mean a lot to you.” Unfortunately, they didn’t mean a lot to me. How could they? They were Greek. I’d found the oath so moving I’d felt sure I’d remember all three words; but I had to strain for even one. “Loyalty,” I said, floundering. “That’s the first word in your slogan. While people were speaking, that word that kept coming back to me. Loyalty. And I thought it was, well, poignant, and — hell.” I gave up. It was humiliating, and there was only one way out. “Bolt,” I said, “take over. Say what needs to be said.”

Startled, he scurried to the podium, evidence envelope tucked under his arm. “You’re sure you want me to take over?” he whispered. “To say what needs to be said?”

“Hell, yes,” I whispered back. “I hate public speaking. You know that.”

“Well, yes, sir, I do,” he said, lowering his voice still further. “But do you think it’s best to say what needs to be said now, in public? Not later, in private?”

What sense would that make, to give a memorial speech in private? “It has to be now, Bolt,” I insisted. “You’ll know just how to put it, you always do.”

He gulped, pushing his glasses back so they’d sit more firmly on his nose. “Very well, sir,” he said. “But stay by my side.” He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, then looked up. “Dean Collard,” he said, “President Flanders, ladies and gentlemen. It has fallen to my lot to finish what Lieutenant Johnson so courageously began. I can do no better than to echo the last note he sounded. Loyalty. This room is filled with people who should be loyal to Maggie Warren — her sorority sisters, her dean, her former boyfriend, her roommate. But what, I ask you, does loyalty truly mean?”

He looked out, the intensity of his gaze seeming to melt the thick lenses of his glasses. Just about everybody wilted — or, at least, looked away, or looked down.

“Loyalty,” Bolt continued, “demands that everybody who cared about Maggie should be eager to see the truth about her death established, to see anyone responsible brought to justice. And many people in this room have offered theories about Maggie’s death. One of those theories, I believe, is sincere but mistaken. The rest? Not only mistaken, but also insincere. Many people in this room know more of the truth about Maggie’s death than they will admit. And one person in this room knows the full truth about how Maggie died, and about who killed her.”

He paused. I don’t have to tell you it was a dramatic pause.

“We know quite a bit,” he continued, “about the night Maggie died. And most of it, as the lieutenant said, does not make sense. She planned, supposedly, to dine with her sorority sisters, go on a scavenger hunt that might require hours of walking, then go to a party where no men were allowed. Does it make sense, then, that she’d borrow a seductive outfit, put on high heels, and lavish care on her makeup? As the lieutenant says, that seems wrong. We must assume, therefore, that she did not plan to spend the entire evening with her sorority sisters. She planned to meet a man.”

She did? Damn — I never would’ve guessed. But what man had she planned to meet? I remembered her appointment calendar, the dates she’d set for the next weeks. I tugged on Bolt’s sleeve. “John,” I whispered. “Don’t forget John.”

He nodded. “The other image the lieutenant described was of Maggie and her pledge sisters carrying blue carnations and buying copies of the Atlantic. What sense does that make? None, if they were going on a scavenger hunt and then to a women-only party. The only explanation that does make sense is that they were all going to meet men — men they had not met before. That’s why they carried the carnations and magazines — so they and their designated men could recognize each other.”

“That’s enough,” the guy from the mayor’s office said, pointing furiously. “Maggie Warren was a victim of random street crime — everybody agrees about that.”