Cold Winter Rain

Cold Winter Rain by Steven Gregory Page B

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Authors: Steven Gregory
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of the basement.
    An efficient-looking woman wearing a dark blue police uniform, who could have been any age from late twenties to fifty, sat at a computer desk.  She had short dark brown hair and unpolished fingernails.  She was busy at a keyboard but paused when I walked in.
    “ You must be Mr. Slate,” she said.
    “ It’s just Slate.  I have an appointment with the chief.”
    She nodded without smiling.  “The director is expecting you.  It will be just a moment.  Take a seat if you wish.”  She turned back to the keyboard.
    On the wall facing her desk were framed photographs of a man in a police uniform with persons of note who had presumably visited the campus at some time:  George H. W. Bush, Eddie Murphy, Hillary Clinton, William F. Buckley, Jr.
    The odds of my appearing on the chief’s wall seemed slim.
    “Mr. Slate?”
    “ Just Slate.”
    “ Oh, yes.  Slate.  Well, the director is ready for you.  You may go on in.”
    Chief John Miller looked too young for a Southern police chief, even of a college police department.  The face was unlined, and the nearly-black hair looked as though he spent too much to maintain it.
    Miller wore a dark gray business suit with a white button-down shirt.  The coat hung on a wooden coat rack in the corner behind the door.  His tie had red and white stars sprinkled on a blue background.  I felt more comfortable already.
    We shook hands, and Miller sat behind a large desk with lots of overhang.  I sat across from him in a dark red leather chair.  More photos of Miller with celebrities hung on the wall behind the desk.  I didn’t see any family pictures.
    Miller got right to the point.  “I understand that Don Kramer hired you to investigate the disappearance of his daughter.”
    “ Your understanding is correct.”
    Miller shrugged.  “I’ve always tried to know something about the people who come to see me.  Especially if they’re coming to investigate a missing student.  Kris Kramer’s disappearance takes on a little more meaning for all of us now that her father appears to have been murdered.”
    I shrugged.  “For some maybe.  Any young woman’s unexplained disappearance merits immediate investigation.  Miss Kramer became important to me when her father hired me.”
    “ Understood.”  Expressionless, Miller nodded.
    “ How long have you been Director of Campus Security?”
    One corner of Miller’s mouth turned up, just a little.
    “They gave me that title in January of 2002.  I’ve been chief of the campus police here for almost fifteen years.”
    “ Lots of policemen became directors of security after September 2001.”
    “ Lots of new titles, a little more money.  Nothing else different.”
    “ You have a lot of missing students here at Southern?”
    Miller shook his head.  “Three in my time here.  One turned up in New Orleans with her boyfriend.  Another turned out to be a Jane Doe admitted to the psych ward at the charity hospital in Atlanta.”
    “And then Kris.”
    “ Then Kris.  I was counting Kris in the three, but the other two were last seen on this campus.  Officially, Kris Kramer is not missing from campus.  She was last seen somewhere else.”
    “ Where?”
    Miller’s eyes widened a hair.  “I would have thought you already knew that.”
    I shrugged.  “You don’t know, you ask a question.”
    Miller nodded.  “My department’s investigation showed that Kris was last seen by her mother when they were both leaving Park Plaza downtown.”
    “Her father’s law office.”
    Miller opened an ivory folder on his desk and scanned it.
    “Correct.  Afternoon of Thursday January 19.  Mother and daughter had been to see the father at his law firm.  My notes say the mother drove to Indian Hills Academy to pick up Kris’s little brother.  Kris has not been seen on campus since.”
    Susan Kramer had told me Kris’s suitemate saw Kris the evening before she disappeared, not that she was the last person to

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