Terrence Arceneaux parked his unmarked car a little off-campus. He had been called all the way from the 5th precinct down in Bywaters - which was rather unusual. He passed the PJ’s before the clock hit 9 o’clock, the flocks of students in need of their morning caffeine fix still encircling the place.

Terry hurried towards the Newcomb Quad, the smaller lawn on the West of the Tulane University campus. A group of students and teachers was massed around the visible “police, do not cross” ribbons. Terry hated the demonstrations of shock and excitement that these situations provoked in people. It made him sick, because he knew what he was about to find.

He made his way through the crowd and one of the uniforms let him in the closed off building. Newcomb Hall was a majestic brick and stucco building, with a triangular tympanum supported by 4 columns. Terry thought the whole Greek temple aesthetic to be a bit over the top, but the architectural feats were sought after - Tulane was no Ivy League, but it was still the Harvard of the South.

In the main hall, he saw Millard, who waved him to come closer.

“Eric - I got the call fifteen minutes ago. What else do you know?”

“Female, nineteen, Afro-American, found dead this morning by the cleaning guy. She was identified as Toni Clark, an English Major. Gunshot wound to the temple. Prints match. It was the class she was in for Creative Writing, so she knew the place.”

“How did she get the gun?”

“Ruger Blackhawk, .44, belongs to an uncle down in Lafayette. We’re in touch with the local PD to give him the news and bring him in for questioning, but I don’t really know what else we can do here. It’s clearly suicide.”

“Note?”

“Not that we’ve found.”

We arrived at the classroom door, guarded by another agent. The team was waiting to collect samples, so I just had a couple minutes before they would storm the scene.

The smell was horrid. The girl’s body was sprawled across the teacher’s desk. She’d been sitting down and she had collapsed sideways and forward, her face turned, showing the gaping wound on the right side of her head. Blood had splattered the desk, the walls and ceiling, and had been dripping down her lifeless arm onto the dark linoleum floor. The pink and brownish mass in her hair had coagulated, making it obvious that she’d been here a while.

“Tsk, a damn shame.” Millard did not cross the threshold.

Terry stepped in, his shoes covered in sterile cloth. He did his best to avoid all the splatters. She was wearing sweatpants, trainers, a short- sleeved hoodie.

“Did she have a bag?”

“No bag in the room - her keys and phone were in her jacket, phone turned off. Otherwise she had the gun and that’s it.”

“How did she bring in the gun without a bag?”

“Probably concealed it under her clothes. Forensics might be able to tell but I doubt it.”

Terry kneeled closer. He could now see her back under the matted black kinky hair. Her eyes were open. Glassy.

On the underside of her arms, he saw a tattoo.

“Did you see this?”

Eric nodded no.

“It’s fresh. And it looks weirdly familiar.”

Terry could not put his finger on it.

“Alright. Let me know when toxicology is done. And get the team in.”

“Due diligence, yeah? Poor kid.”

Terry stepped outside. This drawing on her arm, that kept bothering him. He went down with Millard, who offered to go with him tell the family. Not far from Holy Cross, where Teddy lived.

They followed Saint Charles Avenue, and Loyola. It was when they passed the cemetery that Terry realised.

“Eric - the symbol on her arm. I think it might be voodoo.”

Millard glanced at him.

“Bad taste for a tattoo.”

“That’s what I think as well. Not a thing you want on your skin.”

“Unless you’re an idealistic college student who needs to find an identity by using symbols she barely understands.”

“Or unless it wasn’t a tattoo she got.”

“What are you saying?”

“That she was marked. And if she was marked, she was murdered.”