Mike Noble leads with his heart. It belonged to Lou Ann until she was killed in a highway crash. He can't give her up. Mike is a graduate professor and vice president at Great Rivers University (GRU). Students are his escape from his grief. One of Mike's students, Lynn Bosen, looks the part of a beautiful university junior that she is, but her beauty and her body belie her age. There is a big place in her heart for Mike. Security Director Bob "Bear" Drummer telephones Noble in the night to tell him that Lynn, in her half-time security role, has found the seminude body of a petite girl encased in four black plastic bags. Bob has a big heart. Those who love him most, fear it may betray him. Lynn, Mike, and Bob are brought together by the first of incidents that take the lives of more coeds. In a unique combination of events, they will all be involved in solving the murders.

SEEKING ABSOLUTION

A Novel in The University SeriesBy Bruce R. Swinburne

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Bruce R. Swinburne
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6058-6

Chapter One

In the spring that Lou Ann and I were married, we got up early and met to gather bridal wreath for the arch in our little Iowa church. Lou Ann was killed twenty-one years later when an inebriated truck driver crashed into her as she was driving to her school. After a service in our church, our children, Harry and Sarah, Reverend Crist, and I flew from University City, Illinois, in a Cessna 310 to Iowa with Lou Ann's ashes.

With Harry and Sarah sobbing and touching my shoulders, I poured her ashes from a temporary container into the small hole I dug as Reverend Crist repeated the prayer for the dead. My tears moistened her ashes. I filled the small hole with dirt and covered it with a bouquet of bridal wreath.

This is my story of how I dealt with the loss of my wife, not always admirably, and it is the story of my response to tragic events that occurred in my university. The above thoughts flashed through my mind after the ringing telephone interrupted a comforting dream of Lou Ann-a call that foreshadowed a difficult and terrifying year.

I tried to ignore the irritating sound of the telephone ringing. I called to the Lou Ann in my dream to get the telephone. Like a blow to my gut, I realized Lou Ann isn't here-she will never be beside me as she had been in my dream. She's gone, killed nearly a year ago. With my waking reality, I felt constrained by a full-body mourning band-barely managing a facade of control.

Calls at odd hours were common. We had kept our numbers listed. Lou Ann, principal at University South Elementary, wanted to know of anything affecting her students or teachers.

As a graduate professor I could be more oblivious, but as vice president for student affairs, I wanted to be kept informed of any kinds of emergencies at Great Rivers University (GRU). My calls usually came from families, students, or one of the lieutenants at Security.

"Damn," I muttered, finding the light and picking up my pen and a pad to write on. "Mike Noble."

"You all right, Dr. Noble?" The talking through a pipe sound and the voice of a trusted friend, Director of Security Robert (Bob) (Bear) Drummer, told me this was not routine.

"I'm fine," I lied.

"You always tell me you want to be kept informed."

"I do. What's up, Bob?"

"We've got a dead girl. She may be a GRU student. No ID on her."

"No ID," I repeated. On a 35,000-student campus, I've learned to anticipate alcohol-related automobile crashes or suicides-two major killers of college students. I don't anticipate students being murdered.

"Lynn Bosen found her-you know her-she was checking the Lakeside Family Housing area."

"I do know Lynn-she all right?"

"She needs a little time. She will be. It was a domestic disturbance."

"Lot of stress there." here too.

"Lynn started to return to Lincoln Square. She saw a big black plastic bag at the edge of the road-big lawn and garden bag."

"South side?"

"Yes. Family housing residents adopted that stretch of road. Lynn knows procedure, and she should've radioed for backup-she was Lynn being Lynn-pissed that someone had dumped trash there. It felt heavy. She opened it and discovered the dead girl."

"Surely not related to the housing incident?"

"We don't know anything, yet."

"I'll be right down. Where exactly are you?"

"You know you don't have to come. I'm 100 yards west of the entrance to Lakeside Park-between the family housing entrance and the park entrance. Lots of lights."

"Be there in twenty minutes."

I switched the coffee pot from automatic to on. I dressed, grabbed my Marine Corps flight jacket, my iPhone, and took off with a thermos of coffee and cups on the seat beside me.

The streetlights emitted a golden haze through the fog scrim as I accelerated out of the neighborhood.

Chapter Two

I slowly approached the scene where the body had been discovered. Through the fog, I could see two county police cars, three university security cars, a couple of crime lab vehicles, and some other vehicles. I was comforted by the substantial silhouette of Bob "Bear" Drummer caught in a light sandwich between my Taurus lights and the lights at the scene. I liked and respected the gentle "Bear" of a man: six feet six or so, graying, and some place well on the north side of 300 pounds. Students created the moniker, and it fit. I greeted him, "Know anything more?"

"Not much, Dr. Noble."

"It's Mike."

"I knew you'd want to be here. Nothing other than what I told you. No ID on her. She's partially unclothed."

"Partially?"

"Wearing what may be designer blue jeans. She's naked from the waist up. At first I thought she might be a little girl. She can't weigh 100 pounds."

"Anything else?"

Drummer lowered his voice. "Looks to me like she was dead before somebody stuffed her into, not one, but four black trash bags-the big lawn and garden kind. She's been stabbed in the left side of her neck with a thin-blade knife."

"Blood all over everything?"

"Small trace. If she'd been alive when she was stabbed, there would have been blood. She was dead, or he did a hell of a job cleaning up what would have been a mess."

"I'd guess it was a man, too. You said, 'he.' You know it's a man?"

"I did say, 'he.' I think a man did it. I think she died from some other cause. He wanted to be sure she was dead, so he slipped a knife into her neck. That's my theory."

"Antiseptic." Visions flashed through my mind's eye of Lou Ann's broken body nearly a year earlier when that truck driver had crashed into her. "I asked, "No dismemberment, right? Her body's intact? She sexually abused or assaulted?"

"Body's intact-looks like she just went to sleep if it wasn't for the knife puncture. Her eyes were closed when Lynn found her. We know nothing about any sexual activity yet."

"Thank God her body's intact," I said.

Drummer pointed toward the scene.

"Looking for clues?" I asked.

"Trace elements on her or in proximity to her-anything inside the bags. Body's often a garbage dump of clues. From what I hear, the package is unusually pristine."

"They seem to be obsessively careful."

"They always are. When they get her in the lab, more trace evidence will be found. Lots of law enforcement-The crime lab people got here just before you. They'll gather as much evidence as possible before they take the body. The killer may have done us a favor."

"How's that?"

Ordinarily they bag hands and feet. I think they'll enclose the body in the plastic sacks. Removing her body could cause something to be brushed off her."

"I get your point."

"It's also possible to get fingerprints from plastic."

"Any theory on the possibility of sexual assault?"

"No indication other than her being partially disrobed, whatever you can read into that. Except for the cut in her neck, she shows no signs of assault. Once in the lab, who knows what they'll find. Come on-have a look."

The softly coiffed blond hair of the girl was revealed. She was on her knees, supported by a county officer who appeared to be holding her upright-an image like she was in prayer. She looked like she had been a beautiful girl-my olfactory system revealed perfume and the stench of death warmed by her body. Drummer was standing next to me. In a low voice, I said, "You feel the warmth-her scent?"

"She hadn't been dead long when Lynn found her and opened the bags. She saw the girl and...