Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar

by Gray Cavender

  “Well done. I guess being observant is a part of the job of a detective. And yes, I teach poetry. Know who this is?” he asked, pointing back over his shoulder without turning to the photo behind him.

  “No, sorry. A famous poet, maybe?”

  “Yes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ever heard of him?”

  “Oh, sure, I’ve even been to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. I just didn’t remember what he looked like.”

  “Again, you are full of surprises, Detective Warne,” oops, he raised his index finger, Detective Sergeant Warne.”

  “If that’s a compliment, thank you,” she said and smiled. “But let me change gears and ask what you can tell me about Professor Siemens’ personal life.”

  Gilroy looked away for a few seconds, then returned to eye contact. “Well, Nelda’s not married, to my knowledge. But I don’t know if she’s single, a divorcee, or what. I’m afraid ‘not married’ is the extent of my knowledge. Nelda and I ain’t buddies, Detective Sergeant Warne. She’s always been …stand-offish toward me. No doubt somebody told her my objection to having her position foisted-off on us when we have other, more pressing needs, as well as my views about Ayn Rand’s literary standing. So, there you go,” he said, holding both hands palm up.

  She finished her notes, then said, “Got it,” and smiled. She closed her IPAD, then said, “OK. For now, I think that’s it, Professor Gilroy. I’ll leave my card with you, and please call if you think of anything that you think I should know. Detective Sergeant Webb will leave his card as well at the front desk. If this turns out to be a murder investigation, Tempe PD will be in the lead.

  Nice to meet you, Detective Sergeant Warne. And I do want to add one thing…maybe I was against the Center for Rand Studies Center and against hiring Nelda, but…I would never wish her any harm. Please understand that.”

  “I understand, Professor Gilroy. And thank you for your time and also for explaining the situation about the Center. And the opposition to it.”

  As Jillian walked away from his office, she thought, “Not a bad sort, really…just a guy…who’s a little full of himself.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Jillian left Professor Gilroy and returned to Professor Siemens’ office. She wanted to see how Forensics was coming along and also to find Wes. She’d brief him on the interview with Gilroy.

  The office was taped-off, of course, so she twisted and limbeod her way in. The EMS guys were gone, but the Forensics Team was hard at it. Becca Jamison looked-up, waved, and asked, “How’s it going Sarge?”

  Jillian shook a finger at her, laughed, and then watched all of the activity, from dusting for prints to measurements, to photography…all surrounding Professor Siemens’ body. She watched silently.

  In police movies some hardened, world-weary cop talks to the corpse, either with some witty repartee or maybe to invoke its help by asking “who did this to you?” Jillian had been at this for a while, but she was still enough of a newbie that for her, it was nothing like the movies: seeing a body was jarring. Even more so when she put a name to the victim: Nelda Siemens, English Professor.

  Angelica (aka Angel) Pera, the head of Forensics, was shooting photos with a digital camera first from one angle and then another. From her perspective near the door, Jillian could only see the legs…Professor Siemens’ legs…but watching Angel shooting these photographs made her want to get to the bottom of this, for justice generally, but also for the Professor personally. Maybe it was the head wounds that made her feel this way. Someone hit her while she was down! Who’d do that? She would find out!

  “Any questions, Jillian?” Becca asked, bringing her back to the here and now.

  “Just, do you know where Wes went?

  “He had an interview he wanted to do, with the head of English, I think. He said he’ll meet you here when he finishes.”

  “When Wes and I were here earlier, we noticed that she had a trauma to the temple, but also maybe several rear head wounds, too,” Jillian said, and pointed in the general direction of the professor’s legs. “Couldn’t tell much about the rear wounds, though.”

  “Trauma to the left temple, and yes, you’re right, two more to the rear of the head. Actually, those were more to the upper head, so…”

  “That’s what Wes and I thought, too, although we couldn’t see much... It’s like she was down, maybe on her knees, when they kept hitting her.”

  Becca nodded. Both women were quiet for several beats. Then Becca said, “An English Professor for Christ-sakes. As least in Chemistry, there would’ve been a big grant or maybe some kind of intellectual property payoff as a motivation. But English, give me a break.”

  Jillian nodded, remembering that Becca had been a Chem major, which is how she got to be a CSI. It also explained Becca’s view of the hard sciences vs. the Humanities. But, Jillian thought, “There are motivations and there are motivations,” and wondered if what Gilroy had said about all the anger at the Professor’s hiring could be a motive. “Thanks, Becca, gotta go find Wes.”

  “Hey Jillian, are you happy you left…is it working for you?”

  “Well, I miss everyone, but yes.”

  “Good enough,” Becca said, and she was immediately back at it, absorbed in what she was doing.

  Jillian gave Professor Siemens’ office another look, then stepped deeper in, and took several photos with her IPAD. She always like having her own photos of the crime scene. Angel looked up, saw Jillian taking the photos, smiled, and snapped her picture. Jillian gave her a little wave.

  Seeing the posters in Professor Gilroy’s office had reminded her of the ones behind Professor Siemens’ desk. She studied them. She didn’t recognize the woman, but thought that the other photo, the one of a guy…maybe was George Orwell. She thought she remembered his face from the paperback of 1984 they’d read in freshman English. She snapped photos of both of them. Mainly, she tried to stay out of everyone’s way. There were six other people in the office, seven counting her, and it was crowded.

  Jillian thought about beginning an interview with Grace Wilson, the English Department’s Assistant Chair person, but decided against it. She would wait for Wes to see what he suggested they should do next. At this stage, they needed to coordinate everything. While she waited, she reviewed the notes that she’d taken during the interview with Professor Billy Gilroy. She mentally arranged them so she could give Wes a good summary. As she thought, she walked out of Professor Siemens’ office, away from all the forensic activity and wandered back to the main corridor.

  Then, standing there, she did a slow 360 and thought of how different this building looked from when she was last here. Today, it looked like any other academic office building: long, fairly sterile hallways, offices on both sides, mostly with closed doors. She wondered if the doors were usually closed or if it was only today because of Professor Siemens. Along the corridor, there were chairs and small tables…”probably for students,” she thought. Today, they were empty.

  The last time she was here—this would have been maybe three years ago—she’d come to check-out a book, a law treatise on corporate legal responsibility (as she recalled) for a research paper, ironically, for Professor Naremore’s class. Jillian closed her eyes and remembered. Back then, this entire floor was filled with metal book shelves loaded with university law reviews, legal codes from the states and the federal government, and law treatises like the one she checked-out. The room had seemed a bit dark, certainly not as well-lit as now, and those shelves had looked flimsy. But, back then, the room was open and she could see across to the far side.

  She opened her eyes. It didn’t even look like the same building…except for the area over behind the stairs that strangely narrowed so that it resembled the bow of a ship. Jillian had noticed that as they hurried up the stairs on the way to the second floor and Professor Siemens’ office. There at the rear of the staircase, you could
walk to this narrowest part and look down onto the floor below and see students at carrels reading, at least they were back when she was a student. Jillian smiled and thought, “A lot has happened since then.”

  Which made her think about Becca’s “are you glad you left” question. Yes, she was glad, although “it’s complicated, that’s for sure,” she said to herself. Sometimes it seemed as if the past several years were a blur, and a confounding one at that. First, an ASU honors thesis and then a master’s degree had led to opportunities that she would have never imagined or imagined that she’d want, for that matter…a job, a series of jobs at Tempe PD, initially as a civilian employee, and eventually as a sworn police officer, a detective, no less, and now at ASU Campus Police. And a promotion to detective sergeant. She shook her head in disbelief.

  Her undergraduate honors thesis had focused on women in policing. Professor Carolyn Patek, from Justice Studies, her honors thesis director, specialized in women who worked in traditionally men’s occupations, like engineers, fire fighters, or lawyers, although these days women lawyers are not so unusual, but still… She’d learned about lawyers and the rest of those occupations in Carolyn’s undergrad Women, Work & Justice course. That’s when she’d started what would become her honors thesis.

  It had begun as a research paper on the topic: the culture of women in policing. She was taking the class for honors credit, which meant that her research project was a fifteen-page paper, not the seven pages required for the other students. Carolyn was a demanding professor, which challenged Jillian, who had her own obsessive side, and went all-out on the project. Carolyn not only gave her an A+ on the paper (and for the course), she also had encouraged Jillian to keep working on the project, to pursue it for her honors thesis. Which she did.

  Jillian had taken the course during fall semester of her junior year. During the spring semester, she took a one-on-one Independent Study with Carolyn and completed an extensive reading list…what would become the literature review for the honors thesis.

  Carolyn then had introduced Jillian to Linda Timms, a Lieutenant with Tempe PD. Linda headed the PD’s Research Division. Linda had helped Jillian in so many ways, from sitting for an interview herself, to setting-up interviews with policewomen in Tempe and in other jurisdictions in the Phoenix area, and arranging for her to ’shadow’ some of these women as they did their police work.

  Jillian had worked her butt off on her honors thesis, and because she had, three amazing things followed: she and Carolyn had published her thesis in an academic research journal; Carolyn had encouraged her to enter Justice Studies’ master’s program; Lt. Timms had hired her to work in Tempe PD’s Research Division. Which, in turn…

  “OK, Jilly, so Keefer’s done…at least for now. How about you and Gilroy?”

  She’d been lost in thought, reliving her “how she got here” story and facing back toward Professor Siemens’ office at the end of the narrow corridor, so she had not heard Wes come up from behind.

  She rebounded quickly from her reverie. “I’m finished, too”

  “And…”

  “Well, the quick summary is that Professor Gilroy said there were a lot of bad feelings generated by the Center for Ayn Rand Studies AND hiring Professor Siemens…basically what he was saying earlier to Professor Keefer and to us. Something he told me that was interesting is that one of the faculty who was the most vocal about the situation—and in a critical way—was Ian Naremore. I know him, Wes. He’s a Justice Studies prof.”

  “Ever have a class with him?”

  “A couple…one as an undergraduate and one as a grad student. Plus, he was a reader on my honors thesis AND on my MS project, too. So, yes, I’ve had a lot of interactions with him.”

  “All of which is why I wanted you on this, Jilly,” Wes said, and motioned his hand toward her. “I thought you might actually know some of the players.”

  “Well, sure…I just didn’t think it’d hit so close to home.” She was quiet for a second, then, “How about you and Professor Keefer?”

  “Well, here’s something I learned from Keefer.” They started walking along the main corridor, back toward the stairs. “OK, remember when Gilroy said that the Business school had gotten a grant for this Rand Studies thing?”

  “Yes, and Professor Gilroy told me more about that just now.”

  “Right. And Gilroy said that Professor Siemens had what he called a joint appointment…she was in English AND Business…” Jillian nodded, and Wes continued. “Well, get this, Keefer said that she also had two offices. The one here,” he pointed back over his shoulder, “and one over in Business. He said her other office was in…” Wes referred to his notes…”BAC. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, it’s over behind the Business Administration Building; there’s an entire complex over there…it’s all the WP Carey College of Business. It’s that direction…” she pointed. “Actually, it’s over toward Campus PD. Should we go over there to check-out her other office?”

  “Absolutely. We can compare notes about Keefer and Gilroy on the way over. First, though, let’s leave our cards with Ms. Wilson, and let her know that we’ll be back later to interview her”

  “Sounds good.”

  They headed down the stairs and Jillian noticed the bow-of-the ship shape with the wall behind the staircase. It was as she’d remembered despite all the other changes on the floor. Downstairs, they took a right into the English Department office and left several cards at the front desk. Wes told the work student that they’d be back later.

  Once outside, Jillian said, “Hop in, Wes.” She laughed and motioned to her golf cart.

  “Nice ride, Jilly, is this one of the perks of being a detective at ASU?”

  “Don’t make fun. Remember, I beat you here.”

  “Point taken. You got a siren on this thing?”

  “No, and no blue light either. By the way, where is your car? Where’s Officer Voss?”

  “While we were doing our interviews, Peter finished crowd wrangling…getting everyone’s contact info—especially the student, Carla Nagel, which he got from Grace Wilson—and headed back to Headquarters. He’ll be working with some other uniforms and with Crim Intel, too, on the hands-on details, like locating the professor’s car, her address, and all that…you know the drill.”

  As he spoke, Wes lowered himself into the cart, looked around, and added,” Maybe you should take-up golf.”

  “No thanks, it’s too pricy; I’ll stick with judo.”

  “Yeah…you still doing that?”

  “I am. I like it, Wes. It gets me some exercise—I go twice a week—I meet different sorts of people, and, I don’t know…I just like it.”

  “Well there’s that, and it’s useful training for a detective, huh?” He smiled, then added, “Anyway, good on you then. Keep it up.”

  Before Jillian could respond, her cell phone buzzed. She opened it, read the message, and showed Wes the screen. It was a message via the campus security alert system, noting that there was a criminal investigation at Ross-Blakey and that the area should be avoided.

  Wes asked, “You think they’ll shut down the entire campus?”

  “That is the protocol.” She exhaled, then said, “Brother!”

  “And so it begins,” he answered.

  As she drove to the BAC, Jillian briefed Wes on her interview with Professor Gilroy. He listened, nodded several times, but also looked from side to side as if taking in the sights on that part of the campus.

  As they neared the MU, she slowed, took a left, and angled the cart toward the BAC. She’d taken the back way to avoid the crowds around the MU. There had been fewer students along the way, but construction cones and barricades still lined the right side of the drive.

  Wes said, “That was quick. We didn’t even have time to discuss my interview with Keefer. We can do that later. What is this, the b
ack way?”

  “OK. And, yes, this is the back way. We went behind the student bookstore and the Computer Commons building, so there’s less traffic. If I’d come this way earlier, I would have beaten you even more.” She laughed.

  “Yeah, but it’s still busted-up with construction over here, too.”

  “There’s construction all over campus, Wes. There are a bunch of different projects underway, but maybe the biggest is they’re doing asbestos abatement down in the tunnels. You know about them, right?”

  “The tunnels? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I even had an assignment down there…this was when Obama was on campus several years ago.

  “I knew you had something to do with security, but don’t think I knew it involved the tunnels.”

  “Oh yeah…and it wasn’t just Tempe police…police from across the Valley were brought in for his visit. OK, so the Secret Service was trying to lock-down the entire campus, and when they learned about the tunnels, they wanted them buttoned-up, too. They were going to put me down there along with, I don’t know, fifteen or so other cops…plus guys from the cable company…because of all the com equipment down there. Apparently, the plan was that we’d be stationed throughout the system of tunnels, and once we were all in, they’d seal them. Fortunately, the cable guys—they’re down there all the time—warned them off…said that we’d all die from asbestos poisoning if they sealed us in. The cable people wear respirators if they’re down for long. That’s the D.C. types for you.”

  “Wow.” Jillian shook her head in disbelief. Then, “OK, this is BAC.”

  The BAC was one of several buildings in the Business College complex. It was a two-story brick building set at an angle, and with a small mall area. The pavement in front of the building was dotted with sitting areas…benches, tables, and so on. They even had their own Starbucks. It was a hot day, but students still were seated here and there anyway, most with laptops and IPADS.

  As they rolled to a stop, Wes said, OK, to be continued.” He eyed the building and asked, ”Ever been in this one, Jilly?”