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  I decided to leave the next morning and drive to Austin. There might be someone at the law school who would remember Camarena, although I didn't have a clue what I was looking for. I wanted to see Cate again, and Camarena was going to be my excuse for seeing her. I thought about calling Sarita but decided against it. Kyle would probably be at home, and I didn't want to cause any problems between them. Pauli planned to keep an eye on the Produce Terminal Market to see if anything interesting got off the trucks besides cantaloupes and lettuce.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I LEFT EARLY the next morning in an attempt to avoid the traffic but was only successful until I reached Austin. Traffic periodically came to a complete stop on Interstate 35, with cars lined up on every on- and off-ramp. As I inhaled early-morning exhaust fumes, I wondered if there was ever a time when Austin traffic could be avoided. As I crossed the bridge at Town Lake, I could see the Capitol Building and knew I would be exiting the highway soon. I reminded myself that patience is a virtue even when all you can see in the rearview mirror is the grill of the tractor-trailer kissing your bumper.

  Driving conditions improved only slightly after I left the interstate and made my way toward the University of Texas campus. I stopped several people to ask directions to the law school, but apparently orienteering wasn't part of the university curriculum. Most of them knew UT had a law school even if they didn't know where it was. I finally flagged down a campus cop who offered to lead me to the correct building.

  The law school is located in Townes Hall, a multiple-story building located on the far side of the campus, at Twenty-Sixth and East Campus Drive. UT is built smack in the middle of the city, and apparently no one thought Austin would grow to its current size. As a result, the university didn't have the physical space to grow out. Instead it grew up. Virtually every building has multiple stories that have to accommodate the more than fifty thousand students who cram themselves into the classrooms on a daily basis. Out of necessity more than anything else, most students had abandoned any hope of driving to classes, and there were thousands of bicycles and mopeds on the campus.

  I felt out of place among the students and tried for a professorial look as I entered the main doors of the law school. I looked around but didn't see a receptionist. Instead, a large sign hanging in the main hallway contained a listing of offices, and I decided that Admissions would be as good a place to start as any. Admissions was on the first floor, and after wandering through a number of corridors, I located the office. A young man behind a desk looked up when I entered.

  "Excuse me," I said. "But I'm looking for some information about a graduate of the law school."

  "Try Records," he said. "Second Floor on your left."

  There was a staircase nearby, and I opted to take the stairs instead of the elevator. This time I found the office I was looking for immediately and felt I was making progress. I explained to a young woman what I was looking for and she frowned.

  "When did you say the person graduated?"

  "Nineteen eighty-one."

  "You might want to try the Law School Alumni Association," she said.

  Beginning to feel like a rat in a maze, I asked, "Why don't you give them a call and ask them if that's where I need to be?"

  She picked up the phone and spoke to someone for a minute before hanging up. She looked at me and smiled. "That's where you need to go. The Alumni Association, but it's not in this building."

  "Do you have a map?"

  She dug through a couple of desk drawers. Finally, she dragged out a college catalog. Opening it to the front page, she ripped out a page containing a small map. I followed her finger as it moved across the map.

  The offices of the Alumni Association were in a small single-story building a few blocks from the law school. There was a homey look about the place, and for the first time that day, I didn't feel intimidated about entering a building. An older woman was typing on a computer keyboard when I entered and explained, again, what I was looking for.

  "That's a long time ago. I'm not exactly sure what we'd have that could help you."

  "I just need some background information. Mr. Camarena is mentioned in a story I'm working on, and I'm trying to find out as much as I can about him. I already have the basic stuff but would like to find something to make it more personal. Would there be anyone here who might have gone to school with Mr. Camarena, or perhaps a teacher who would remember him?"

  "After twenty years, it would have to be a very old teacher. Just a minute," she finally said, getting up from her desk. She walked down a short hallway and into an office. A few minutes later she stuck her head out of the doorway and motioned for me to join her outside the office.

  "You can try talking to Professor Evans. He's been here longer than anyone I know. He might remember something, but his mind isn't always as sharp as it used to be. You know how it is," she whispered.

  "Yes, I do," I whispered back even though I didn't have a clue how it was.

  As I followed her into the office, I saw a distinguished-looking man in his eighties sitting behind a huge walnut desk sucking on an unlit pipe.

  "Professor Evans? This is the woman who wanted information about one of our graduates." Turning to me she said, "I'm sorry, but I didn't get your name."

  "Joanna Carlisle."

  She turned back to the old man. "This is Ms. Carlisle."

  The old man pushed himself halfway out of his chair and extended a liver-spotted hand. I was afraid to grasp it too tightly for fear of crushing what remained of the bones beneath the skin.

  "Thank you, Sarah," he said in a pleasant voice as he sat down again. He took the pipe from his mouth and smiled at me. It was more of a half smile as only one side of his mouth had moved, leading me to suspect that he might have had a stroke at some point.

  "I appreciate you taking time to speak to me, Professor Evans," I began.

  "There aren't a lot of demands on my time anymore, young lady. They only give me this office so I'll feel useful, but they don't think I know that," he said with a twinkle in his milky blue eyes.

  I liked him immediately. If he knew anything I was certain he would tell me. He was too old to keep secrets or to care who found out about them.

  "Who was it you wanted to know about?"

  "Felix Camarena. He graduated from the law school in nineteen eighty-one."

  "Not long before I quit teaching full time. Do you have a picture?"

  "No, I'm sorry, I don't."

  "No matter," he said swiveling around in his chair. He pushed a button on the intercom and waited until a voice responded. "This is Cedric Evans. Would you bring a copy of the nineteen eighty-one law school annual to my office, please?"

  He released the button and leaned back in his chair, still sucking on the pipe.

  "Would you like a light for that, Professor?" I asked.

  "Yes, I would, but the law says no smoking in public buildings."

  "At your age, do you really care?" I smiled.

  He laughed. "Not really, but the law is the law, and since I've spent a lifetime dedicated to teaching the glories of the law, I don't believe I'll start breaking them now. What is it you do for a living, Ms. Carlisle?"

  "I'm a photojournalist. Or I was. I'm sort of retired now."

  "And yet you're working on a story."

  "Just helping out a younger reporter with less experience."

  "Ah! So you're a teacher, too," he said with another smile. "You know, no one wants to teach anymore. No monetary reward in it, really. But what most people today don't realize is that as we get older, we all teach everyday. The young have a lot to learn if they only remember to listen."

  "Some people are better at it than others."

  "Even a thug on the street teaches. No one is born a thug. They learn it as they grow up —from older thugs."

  A knock at the door interrupted our conversation. A young woman entered the office and handed a volume to Evans. He thanked her and flipped through the pages un
til he found what he was looking for, his eyebrows knitting into a frown as he closed the book.

  "What do you want to know?" he asked.

  "Do you remember him?"

  "Very well. There are some students you never forget."

  "What made him so memorable?"

  "He was an extremely poor student. Had to repeat my course in torts, as a matter of fact."

  "But he did manage to graduate."

  "Yes, eventually. I don't know what he's doing today, but I can't imagine that he'd be more than a mediocre attorney at best."

  "He's a legal counsel for American Beef and Pork."

  He raised his eyebrows slightly. "I'm surprised to hear that."

  "Do you know anything about him that might have taken place outside the classroom?"

  "Well, I know he didn't have any money. At least not at first. I believe he worked for one of the fraternities. Doing cleanup, that sort of thing. In fact, I seem to remember seeing him at a couple of parties where faculty were invited."

  "He didn't belong to the fraternity?"

  "No. And I doubt they would have let him in even if he could have afforded it. During that time period, they wouldn't have pledged a Hispanic student. He was abrasive and always seemed out of place. As a matter of fact, after he failed my class, I checked his admissions papers thinking there had been a mistake made in admitting him."

  "But there wasn't?"

  He shook his head. "He made the lowest acceptable score on his entrance exam, so I'm sure he was an affirmative action admission. I love the law, Ms. Carlisle, but I had to disagree with the courts on that one."

  "Is there anything else you can think of about him?"

  "Not really. At least not anything that I know for a fact. There were some rumors after that girl died though."

  "What girl?"

  "I don't remember her name, but I think she dated a member of one of the fraternities. When she was murdered, the police questioned everyone at the fraternity party she had attended as well as the hired help. I believe Felix worked that party, so he must have been questioned about it."

  "Do you remember the year it happened?"

  "Lord, no. Probably in the late seventies or early eighties though."

  "Did the police arrest anyone?"

  "They finally chalked it up as a random killing."

  "Was she killed at the fraternity house?"

  "I believe they found her downtown someplace, but I really can't remember the details."

  "Did the police suspect someone at the fraternity house?" I asked, becoming intrigued by the story even though it wasn't what I was looking for.

  "I'm afraid you'd have to ask the police about that."

  "I appreciate your time, Professor Evans. You've been very helpful," I said as I stood up.

  Evans seemed to be in a trance of some kind.

  "Professor Evans? Are you all right?"

  "What? Yes, I'm fine. You know, something a little unusual did happen involving Mr. Camarena. I didn't remember it until a few minutes ago, but it was around that same time that he began receiving financial assistance to complete school."

  "What kind of assistance?"

  "A private grant of some kind. I presumed it was from a Hispanic organization eager to support minority students."

  "Is there any place that would have a record of the grant?"

  "I'm not sure, but I'd be glad to see what I can find out if you think it's important. It would give me something to do today besides sit here and suck on this damn pipe."

  When I shook his hand before leaving, his grip felt stronger. I made a mental note to keep busy until I croaked.

  Chapter Twenty

  BY THE TIME I reached my car, it was ten forty-five. If I didn't get lost again, I still had time to swing by the American-Statesman. I would contact Pauli later to see what he could find out about a murder that was more than twenty years old by now. Mentally I figured it must have happened around the same time I met Cate or while I was out of the country, because it didn't ring any bells. Of course, I had been totally absorbed by Cate then and wouldn't have been paying much attention to anything else when we were together.

  After twenty-plus years, there weren't any active files on old unsolved murders, but the clerk in the newspaper morgue handed me five or six spools of microfilm covering 1978 through 1982 and pointed me to a machine to look for stories covering the case. I was midway through 1980 before I looked at my watch. Twelve fifteen. I hoped Cate would be able to take a late lunch. I hadn't called to tell her I was in town, so she had no reason to expect me even though I was anxious to see her again.

  Microfilm for late 1980 ran past my eyes as I quickly scanned the headlines on each page. There was no way to tell how important the newspaper had thought a dead coed was, so the story could have been anywhere, except possibly the society or sports pages. My eyes were getting tired, and I was near the end of the spool when a thirty-six-point headline sped past me. I rewound the film and read quickly over the story. The body of a UT coed, Julianne McCaffrey, had been found by someone taking a shortcut through an alleyway near Sixth Street early on the morning of November 9, 1980. She had been raped and strangled. Police believed her body had been dumped in the alley. Julianne McCaffey was a member of the Tri-Delta sorority, and the evening before her body was found, she had attended a bash at the Kappa Alpha house, according to her roommate. A picture accompanying the article showed a beautiful blonde young woman of around twenty. From the stories I had heard, every Tri-Delt was beauty queen material, and she seemed to fit that image. The police had no suspects in the case but were questioning the members of the Kappa Alpha fraternity.

  A small obituary the following day listed her parents as Mr. and Mrs. Albert McCaffrey of Houston. I made a copy of the article and the obituary, paid the clerk, and made a dash for my car again. Noontime traffic was horrendous, as usual, but I was becoming accustomed to it by this point. The only advantage I had on this trip was that I had already been to Cate's office once before and wasn't totally lost. Then God must have decided to smile on me because I found a parking space in front of the Travis Professional Building. Twelve-forty-five. Not bad timing.

  Peggy was sitting behind the reception desk as I burst through the glass doors of Bradley and Hammond. The look on her face indicated that she remembered me.

  "Ms. Hammond, please," I said as pleasantly as possible.

  Without speaking to me, she punched buttons on the phone.

  "Ms. Hammond. Ms. Carlisle is at the reception desk. Do you have a few minutes?" She listened and hung up. "Ms. Hammond will meet you in the conference room. It's down this hall, last door on the left."

  I thanked Peggy and tried to straighten my clothes as I walked down the hall. The thought of seeing Cate again brought a smile to my face, which was quickly erased when I opened the conference room door. She wasn't alone. The woman who had stuck her head into Cate's office during our argument a few weeks before was sitting at a large oak library table, with short stacks of law books in a semicircle in front of her. Cate was leaning over her shoulder, her hand resting easily on the woman's shoulder, and they appeared to be reading a passage from one of the books.

  Cate looked up and smiled when she saw me in the doorway. "Come in, Jo. We'll be through here in just a second." Turning back to the woman, she said, "The statute is fairly ambiguous, Susan. You should be able to bend it far enough to satisfy your client."

  "I know, but I'd like to find something a little stronger."

  "You should have hired that law clerk we interviewed a couple of weeks ago," Cate said. "It would have saved you a lot of hours looking all this up yourself."

  The woman smiled up at her. "But they're all billable hours."

  The smile remained stuck on her face as she looked in my direction. Cate must have realized that we hadn't been formally introduced.

  "Susan, this is Joanna Carlisle. Jo, Susan Bradley, senior partner."

  I crossed the room toward her
, and we shook hands. So this was my adversary for Cate's affections. She certainly had me outdressed. There didn't appear to be a wrinkle in her long-sleeve silk designer blouse, and every hair on her head was in the right place.

  "Why don't we go into my office?" Cate asked. "Please excuse us, Susan."

  Susan nodded and dove back into her book of statutes, whatever those might have been. I followed Cate out of the conference room and down a longer hallway that led to her office. On the way, we passed a partially open office door with Susan's name on it. Cate opened her office door and walked straight to her desk, sitting down in a comfortable-looking chair that I hadn't noticed before.

  "God, I hate research!" she said.

  "Then you'd make a lousy reporter."

  "When did you get in town?"

  "This morning. Just doing a little research," I answered with a smile.

  "About Kyle's story?"

  "It's becoming more interesting by the day. I can see why he'd want to go after it, and he doesn't know half of what I know."

  "Can you tell me about it?"

  "I thought I might do that over lunch unless you've already eaten."

  "We've been buried in law books all morning. I am a little hungry."

  "You might want to take a little longer than an hour. It'll take me a while to catch you up on the story. Right now it's mostly bits and pieces, and I thought you'd be able to see an angle I hadn't found yet."

  "I doubt it, Jo. You're closer to it than I am."

  "You know what they say about the forest and the trees."

  "Just let me tell Susan I'm leaving," she said as she got up and pulled a small handbag from a desk drawer.

  I walked with her toward the conference room. As we passed Susan's office, the door was open all the way, and Susan was parked behind her desk writing on a legal pad. When Cate saw her, she stopped and tapped at her door.

  "I'm going to lunch, Susan. Can I bring you back something?"

  "No, thanks, I'm fine. Can you spare one more minute before you leave?"

  Cate looked at me, and I shrugged. I wasn't being nosy, but I walked into Susan's office behind Cate and leaned against the doorframe to wait for what I was sure would be longer than a minute. Susan's office lacked the little feminine details of Cate's office. No plants, no color-coordinated furniture. The carpeting throughout the offices was the same, but her office was almost Spartan compared to Cate's. There were a number of prints and family pictures hanging on the walls of Cate's office, while Susan seemed to be more into official-looking documents, matted to make them look bigger than they actually were. Out of boredom more than anything else, I glanced at a few of the plaques and framed documents. There was a diploma from the University of Oklahoma granting her a degree in business administration in 1978. Under that was a larger, more ornate sheepskin announcing that she was a graduate of the University of Texas Law School. Texas-OU football weekend must be a real dilemma for good old Susan, I thought. To either side of her diplomas were citations for editing the law review and a Certificate of Recognition for her service as President of Delta Delta Delta Sorority while at Oklahoma. Glancing back at her law school diploma, I searched for a date. Graduated June 1981.