SUPERGIRLS:
The Co-Ed Murders: Synopsis
1989
A series of bizarre co-ed murders have occurred on college
campuses across the United States. Even though one occurred
at Sonoma State University, Cassandra Brenner knows nothing
about it. However, her life and that of Zandra Hillis, a New
York stock analyst, will soon be altered by the presence of
the murderer in California.
When Cassandra Brenner's husband ran away with his 19-year-old
secretary, she was 27 years old. A full-time accountant, Cassie
quit her job when she gave birth to Jamie, a daughter. A year
later Cassie and Harvey adopted a four-year-old boy named
Daniel. A year after that Harvey absconded, leaving Cassie
to support the two children. She went back to work (again
full-time) for a Napa Valley winery, but found herself increasingly
under strain in balancing her long working hours with the
needs of her two children. She and Harvey had purchased a
large, run-down house in Santa Rosa with money Cassie inherited
from her mother, and they had been in the process of renovating
it. Now she had neither the time nor the money to finish the
job.
During this period of time Zandra Hillis was living the good
life in New York city. A stock analyst for a major Wall Street
brokerage house, Zandra made nearly $100,000 a year, lived
in a gorgeous Manhattan high-rise and was able to enjoy life
to the fullest. Never wanting to settle down or marry, Zandra
was in her element in the New York career high-life. When
her employer `cleaned house' and fired half its' employees,
the cleaning hit Zandra with the force of a hurricane. At
27, a woman with no one to support but herself, Zandra was
considered one of the more expendable employees of the firm.
Every other firm in New York apparently felt the same way;
glutted with a huge pool of workers, even when they began
to hire people back again it was only a select few, and Zandra
wasn't one of them. She had enough money saved to live comfortably
for several years, and decided to return to her home state
of California and see what she could find in San Francisco.
Cassie and Zand had been close friends in college, and were
glad to renew their friendship. But the more they explored
their options, the more they realized they were both looking
for something it seemed impossible to find. Cassie needed
a job with some flexibility but good pay -- something very
difficult to find in the financially retarded job market of
the North Bay. Zand realized, after interviewing with a few
financial firms in San Francisco, that the way they worked
and did business was light-years away from the way she had
been taught in New York, and she didn't much like it. She
didn't care for the people, either -- they were stuffy and
conservative, and nothing like her friends in New York. The
only people she felt comfortable with were further north,
in the Wine Country.
So Cassie and Zand conceived the idea for Supergirls, realizing
they had a wide scope of talents that could be converted into
a money-making proposition. Between them they could do practically
anything, and intended to hire themselves and others out as
first-rate temps for any and all odd jobs. Zandra moved into
Cassie's house with the intention of helping her care for
the children and continue the renovation process. Within a
short period of time Supergirls was doing well enough that
Cassie was able to quit her job (though she took a drop in
income, the rent Zand paid her made up for it) and they devoted
their time to making the agency a going concern. They teamed
up with a friend of Cassie's, who had her own house-cleaning
business but was wallowing in ill-health, taxes and overhead
-- she became the agency secretary/housecleaner. Though Estelle
was a little unusual (Zand would have said strange), she was
a wonderful housekeeper. In the similar position of having
to work and having two children (somewhat older than Cassie's),
Estelle was in worse shape financially because she and her
husband Mitchell were wiped out in one of California's freak
floods and then cheated by an unscrupulous insurance company.
Zand had a number of talents she considered hobbies, but she
now realized that gourmet cooking, clothing design and interior
decoration are hobbies that people will gladly pay to have
in their lives. Cassie concentrated mostly on the business
end -- small office accounting and home office setup at the
beginning, but was soon drawn, as Zand was, into more unusual
requests. They met both the men who would figure importantly
in their lives at a cocktail party they threw to advertise
SuperGirls -- first Rob Barnes, publisher of the internationally
known alternative literary journal, Conspiracy; and then Pal
Karpati, professor of Middle-Eastern Politics and History
at Sonoma State University.
When Rob broke his leg, Zandra went to assist him with the
magazine and his household problems. This proved to be a more
complicated job than she had first anticipated, and one look
at his house, decorated in what Zand considered the worst
of `70's bad taste, sent her on a crusade of redecoration
that infuriated Rob's sometime girlfriend, Colleen. When Supergirls
got a call from Pal Karpati to house-sit his condo and pets
while he was away on a business trip, Cassie went to this
new assignment. Cassie and Pal met only briefly before his
departure.
While Zand was working with Rob, a friendship developed, and
Rob's girlfriend and editor at Conspiracy, Colleen, made herself
obnoxious over Zand's presence. Rob ended his relationship
with Colleen, and a tentative one began with Zand (though
it was difficult to date or do much else while he had the
broken leg).
When Rob could walk on his cast, Zand cut her visits down
to every other day. One of the days Zandra was still at Rob's,
Cassie took the children with her to Pal's condo -- she smelled
something strange in the garage, and went to investigate.
She discovered the frozen food had all been thrown out of
a large chest freezer, and opened the freezer to investigate.
It was then that she discovered the body of a girl, who appeared
to have been approximately 20 years old at the time of death.
She had no idea how long the body had been there -- it could
have been put in before Pal left on his trip, or, if someone
knew he was going, after his departure.
Uncertain what to do (Cassie was afraid if she called the
police that Pal would be blamed for the murder of the girl)
she called Zandra at Rob's house, and Zandra came to the condo
with Rob, hobbling over on his crutches to take a look. He
determined that the body had only been in the freezer a few
days (this man seemed to have some strange skills, they thought)
but it could be as much as a week -- the freezing made it
impossible to tell. Rob insisted on calling the police, and
Pal arrived home only to be arrested for the murder of his
student, Ashley. The murder was a particularly gruesome and
distinctive one, and resembled, in execution, the prior co-ed
murders, including the one at Sonoma State University the
previous fall. Pal was released, due to lack of evidence and
his sound alibi, and the SuperGirls, assisted by Rob, decided
to solve the murders. When Rob went to discuss the case with
his friend at the Santa Rosa Police Department, he learned
that the police were completely baffled by the crimes.
The theory they came up with had to do with the subject matter
Pal taught -- Middle-Eastern Politics and History. All the
murdered girls had been taking classes in these subjects,
and were particularly outspoken regarding their contempt for
the Islamic way of life. It was Rob's contention that the
murders had to have been committed by more than one person
-- perhaps a group of students following the Islamic religion
and wishing to silence the voices of the women who vociferously
opposed them; perhaps to teach all women a lesson.
Cassie went undercover at the University, and posed as a student
in one of Pal's classes. She attracted the attention of some
Islamic students, but didn't progress very far in the investigation
before the semester ended. Zandra's father Stan separated
from her mother, who had become an avid follower of a strange
Christian sect, called `The Church of Eternal Enlightenment
and Chastisement', and of its' leader, The Right Reverend
Billy-Bob Savage. Stan came to live in the carriage-house
in Cassie's backyard, and help with the SuperGirls jobs. He
became involved in their investigation, acting as bodyguard
to Cassie and Zandra when they went to the university. The
romantic interest between Zandra and Rob was first to come
to culmination, though Pal wished it was otherwise, and felt
frustrated by his lack of progress with Cassie. He knew she
was attracted to him, but she held back her feelings, because
of the situation surrounding the murdered girl, and also because
she had her children to consider. Zandra, however, had no
such considerations or qualifiers, and she became Rob's lover
while she was redecorating his house.
Another student was murdered, and Rob started a series of
articles about the murders in Conspiracy Magazine. He became
so involved in the production of the articles that his romance
with Zandra nearly fizzled out soon after it began. On the
night of their reconciliation, Rob was attacked by three Moslem
men while on his way to pick up Zandra. Though the men were
never identified, Rob refused to end his series of articles.
There was a copy-cat murder, which made it more difficult
than ever for the police to pursue the chain of mutilation
murders. Pal and Cassie consummated their relationship, and
he asked her to marry him. Rob presented himself as a substitute
professor in one of Pal's classes with Cassie as his assistant
and Zandra as a journalist investigating the murders. Two
students came forward to give information regarding the murders,
and the following week they were killed by a sub-machine gun
while driving on the freeway.
Pal made a trip to Los Angeles to gather information about
the Moslem community there. He went to some Moslem clubs and
talked to men he had known when he was in college. One of
them, Hakim, obviously had knowledge and was involved in some
way in the murders. At this point in the investigation, two
F.B.I. agents were called in to work on the case. When they
were unable to convince the four friends to stop investigating,
they actually worked with them. At the suggestion of the two
F.B.I. agents, Pal and Cassie attempted to secrete her children
with a friend. This ploy failed, and two Moslem men tried
to kidnap them -- the result being that the friend's husband
shot one, fatally, and the other was captured. Pal received
a copy of a letter sent to the police that made him out to
be a Moslem sympathizer.
Cassie received a letter from The Church of Eternal Enlightenment
and Chastisement. Not remembering that this was the church
her mother joined, Zandra replied to the letter as a joke.
The result of this was that two people showed up on her doorstep,
attempting to convert them. One of these people, Martha, was
actually converted away from her church by Zandra and Rob
and the precepts of Secular Humanism.
Pal and Cassie were married, and Cassie's son Daniel was put
into a special children's program having to do with self-sufficiency
and interpreting problems. At this point the reader is given
another clue to the person behind the murder conspiracy. Daniel's
class is broken into by a group of Moslem men and Fundamentalist
Christians -- Daniel recognizes the man from The Church as
one of the attackers. This man, James, is arrested and taken
to jail. He was the protege' of The Right Reverend Billy Bob
Savage.
Billy Bob was in league with the Moslems to bring women in
line through the threat of the murders, which he termed `sacrifices'.
But it was James who mutilated the bodies. James' obsession
alienated the Moslems and the hired thugs Billy Bob got to
liberate him from jail. F.B.I. Agents Clark and Brownlow deduced
that Martha, the Church deserter, would be the next `sacrifice'.
With the help of a probation officer who was kidnapped by
James during his escape, Rob, Pal, and Cassie set up a trap
for the murderers, using Martha as the bait. During the ensuing
chaos, Stan's girlfriend Clara kills James by hitting him
repeatedly with a cast-iron skillet.
Although they are unable to implicate Billy Bob Savage, they
later learn that he has had a heart-attack and died while
engaged in a sexual act with Zelda, Zandra's mother.
Copyright
© 2002 by Sandra Brandenburg and Debora Hill
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