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

“Many people do agree about that,” Bolt admitted. “Many important people — many important men. The lieutenant and I first heard the random-crime theory put forth yesterday by Pi Alpha’s president. By morning, many important men were echoing that theory. Did Miss Flanders call them after our session yesterday, asking them to publicly support the random-crime theory? Did these men have a special reason for spreading that theory, and suppressing the truth? As Lieutenant Johnson drolly remarked to me, some men care about young women who walk the streets. Not that Maggie Warren was a streetwalker — she was a call girl, like the other members of Pi Alpha Kappa.”

Now Bianca Flanders stood up. “That’s slander,” she said icily. “Another word, and you’ll hear from our attorney.”

“Would that be Phillip Easton?” Bolt inquired. “Maggie had his phone number in her address book — do you give it to all your pledges, in case they’re picked up for prostitution? When we called Mr. Easton’s office, the secretaries could find no record of Maggie, but Mr. Easton called back minutes later with an obviously fabricated story, trying to explain things away. Is he a customer, as well as your attorney?”

Bianca barely flinched. “Now you’ve slandered Mr. Easton too. You’ll be lucky to keep your job, Sergeant Bolt.”

“However long I may keep it,” he said, “I can count on you to get my title right. Everybody else here calls me ‘Officer,’ but you and Miss Rogers always carefully noted policemen’s ranks — the lieutenant remarked on that. Did Mr. Easton teach you that point of etiquette, to prepare you for dealings with the police? If so, he coached you well. But I doubt he can make a slander charge stick. Pi Alpha takes only a few pledges each year — all attractive, all from middle-class families that find tuition a crushing burden. You rejected Maggie’s roommate, Pamela. She thinks you didn’t consider her attractive enough. Perhaps. Or perhaps you judged her too rich to be tempted by promises of quick cash, or too straightlaced to countenance your activities. A churchgoer who gasps when the ‘b-word’ is uttered doesn’t seem a strong candidate for prostitution. But Maggie, desperate to make money any way she could, had scheduled three meetings with ‘John’ — a discreet designation for the next three customers your sorority had lined up for her.”

Yikes, Bolt, I thought, that’s awful flimsy. And Dean Collard had said the Pi Alpha girls were really nice. I tugged on Bolt’s sleeve again. “Don’t forget their good reputation,” I warned. “Perfect behavior, charities, activities. That’s evidence too.”

“Evidence of a negative sort,” he agreed, “but damning. Your sorority takes such elaborate precautions to safeguard its reputation, it stands to reason you’re covering something up. Then there’s the list of activities we saw yesterday. Workshops in makeup and self-defense, in health precautions and investment strategies, all perfectly suited to young women who need to look their best and to know how to protect themselves, who face certain health hazards in hopes of benefiting financially. Maggie obviously hoped to reap such benefits: She opened a savings account the day she died because she expected to start earning that very night. The scavenger hunt was just a ruse to fool the dean; Maggie bought her Donny Osmond lint brush so quickly that you must have told her where to find it. Her actual quest was to find and satisfy her first customer. That is the true nature of your Hell Night initiation.

That is how your pledges prove themselves.”

“Absurd!” Dean Collard protested, so pale his lips had faded to a beige blur. “I watch the sororities and fraternities so closely — how could they ever manage it?”

“Sometimes,” Bolt said grimly, “it takes a genius. As Lieutenant Johnson noted, communication is important, but some things are so delicate you can’t broadcast them

— you have to be more sophisticated. That’s why Pi Alpha admitted Willie Fenz, the only member who doesn’t participate directly in its distinctive form of free enterprise. Instead, for a percentage of the others’ earnings, she manages a Web site so discreetly that neither the college nor the police detected it. This Web site offers visitors glimpses of scantily clad young women, their faces obscured by blue silk scarves. That’s how Pi Alpha screens customers and sets up assignations. Miss Fenz has admitted as much.”

So many people gasped that I expected the walls to cave in because of the sudden change in air pressure. People whipped their heads around, looking for Willie Fenz. But she’s a genius, not a dummy; she had taken off long ago. Then Pamela started crying.

“So that’s why Maggie killed herself,” she sobbed. “At the last moment, she couldn’t, like, go through with the ickiness. She went to the Falls, and she must have been, like, ‘Whoa! I can’t do this!’ So she blindfolded herself, and—”