The Mind Virus

Chapter 6 - Part 2

Detective Smith, huh? "No, I'm with the insurance company. Jess Van Zandt. Good to meet you." She shook the young woman's hand. This must have been Anne Hanscombe, Carol's roommate.

"I'm feeling popular today. Two visits in one morning. Then again, I suppose with what happened to Carol..." Anne's expression turned somber. Poor girl. A friend's death is never easy, as Harriett knew all too well in her line of work.

"I understand this must be very tough for you, so don't worry, I won't keep you long. Mostly I just need to go through Carol's things."

"You're the third person to do so. What's the big deal?"

Third person? though Harriett to herself. Assuming the doleful Detective Ford was the second when he took away the girl's diary, there was someone else. "It's just procedure, Miss Hanscombe. Nothing too sinister." Harriett tried to think of how to phrase her next few questions without seeming suspicious. "Who was the first?"

"Another cop. Not the guy that was just here. I don't remember his name."

"Did he give you a card?" tried Harriett.

"Yeah, he did. It's somewhere. I don't know."

"Could you perhaps find it for me? I would very much like to talk with him, if possible."

"It's kinda buried somewhere probably. I really don't know where to look."

Harriett wasn't impressed, but pushing this issue further might alienate the lazy student too much, and that wouldn't be good for her investigation. She moved onto another question – a more important question – instead. "Did the first officer take anything away with him?"

"Yeah, there was something. Don't remember what it was, though. Sorry." Anne shrugged indifferently.

A vein was beginning to bulge on Harriett's temple. Perhaps questioning this girl was of no use. A search through Carol's room would probably be more fruitful, in spite of the fact that at least two important items had already been taken away. "I'd like to have a look through Carol's room."

"Sure, whatever, go for it. It's just down the hall over there." Anne mustered the effort to point at a closed door with the dead girl's name on it.

"Thanks," Harriett said as she walked over to it.

The doorknob was slick with sweat as she turned it. That hapless detective must have been really nervous. Something wasn't quite right about him, Harriett thought again. He was fairly young, so it wouldn't be a stretch to consider that he hadn't been a detective long, but still, someone like that being made a detective – or even surviving long in the police – seemed unusual. And now that she was thinking about it, she was sure that she hadn't seen the name "James Ford" anywhere in the massive stack of documents that she got from the bespectacled old man. She'd have to have a look when she gets back to the motel.

Walking through the doorway, Harriett scanned the room. It was small, with not much furniture and fewer still personal effects. She couldn't decide whether to be happy that she didn't have to invest a lot of time going through everything or be upset at the chance that anything of consequence might have already been taken away.

No computer, Harriett noted. I'll have to ask that gormless twit about that. The girl's room had no desk, but it's not inconceivable that she may have had a laptop and used it on the bed. It was far more inconceivable for the girl to not have had a computer at all. Or perhaps she used her smartphone for that kind of stuff. A look at her bedside table showed no signs of one. Did she have it on her person when she left home to end her life? It was time to take a closer look.

The drawer opened easily enough, revealing a mishmash of mostly college-related materials. Textbooks, club pamphlets... none of this would be useful. Harriett let out a sigh thinking about the diary that she missed out on by a few minutes. It was no sure thing, but there was a considerable chance that it had mention of Carol coming into contact with the missing item, and in the perfect world, mention of where the item was or to whom it was given.

Resigning herself to her fate, Harriett began looking through all the textbooks and other garbage in the drawer.

"The detective already searched through here. Nothing useful, apparently."

Harriett jumped at the sound of the girl's voice. How did she move so quietly? She really didn't enjoy being sneaked up on. "Except for that diary," Harriett replied.

"Oh yeah, that."

There was really nothing else to search through in the room, so Harriett moved onto her next line of questioning. "Did Carol have a computer? Do you know?"

"She did. Now that you mention it, I remember that was what the other cop took away with him when he was here."

"The other cop whose name you don't remember," and whose card you can't be fucking bothered to find, Harriett held her words, but she feared that her tone was sounding incendiary enough without them.

"Yeah, him."