Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar

by Gray Cavender

  She thought about what ZZ had said, about how she’d felt when she first learned that Jillian was going to work for the police. She’d had a particular reason, of course—being a Roma—but still…

  Jillian wondered what Professor Naremore thought, especially after today. Could he have killed Professor Siemens? She thought about the argument between them…of their ‘confrontation’ at a university committee meeting.

  Just for a second, as she remembered Professor LeJohns’ description of their confrontation, she flashed on how she and Doc must have looked when Wes ran into Doc’s office…the only thing separating them had been his desk.

  She thought about the argument between Professor Naremore and Wes, and wondered if that made Wes more suspicious of him…she couldn’t really tell.

  She thought about what Wes had said about building a ‘better cop?’ Was that ever going to be possible with people like Doc Halliday, much less Larry Gruber? Wes had said training would help but he’d also mentioned the police culture. She thought, “Man, did he get that right!”

  Still, she appreciated that, despite how bad Wes had felt after the interview with Professor Naremore, he was there and in between her and Doc in an instant. He knew exactly what to say…how to defuse what was escalating into…whatever it was escalating into. He was such a stand-up person…a stand-out person really. She was lucky to have had him as a partner…and a friend.

  After she’d gone around and around on this for a while—back to ZZ, then doubling back to Professor LeJohns—Jillian said “enough,” and opened her IPAD. She figured the best thing to do was what Wes had asked to do…re-read the case file.

  CHAPTER 16

  First things first…Jillian called Professor Russell Griffiths’ ASU phone number. He answered and she identified herself.

  “Ian said you’d be calling, Detective Sergeant Warne. He also told me why.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Before Jillian could speak, he said, “As he told you, I was in San Diego at a conference. I was there two nights…the night before and the night of Professor Siemens’ death. So, unfortunately, I cannot provide Ian with an alibi. But Detective Sergeant Warne, need I say this…I do not understand why he needs an alibi…not with you, of all people. You know him…”

  “Professor Griffiths,” she tried to interrupt.

  “No, as the risk of being rude, allow me to finish, please. You know Ian…you worked with him for several years. He was always so proud of you as a student, in your undergraduate days, and then as a graduate student. And then when you became a detective, he was a reference for you.”

  All of this gushed out in that lovely British accent of his, which somehow even made it harder. For an instant, Jillian was at a loss for words.

  Professor Griffiths continued, “I know that Ian can be…he can be quite full of himself. And yes, he can be relentless, tediously so. But, he’s no killer. And after working together so closely, you surely must know this.”

  Jillian had dreaded making the call, and it was going as badly as she’d feared. Professor Griffiths never raised his voice, he was never insulting. If anything, it seemed to Jillian that he was somehow ‘hurt’ by having to have this conversation. Or, maybe he was concerned because he couldn’t provide a now-needed alibi for his partner.

  She explained that this was a murder investigation and that, given the bad feelings between Professor Naremore and Professor Siemen…and on it went.

  In the end, Professor Griffiths said he’d email her a PDF (immediately) of the conference details, including proof that he’d attended—the cover page of the conference program, boarding passes, Lyft receipts, and all the rest. He said he’d already pulled together this information to file a travel reimbursement claim.

  It wasn’t much…Jillian thought it wasn’t really needed, but she didn’t know what else to say, so she said, “Oh, yes, that would be a great help. Thank you.”

  When the call finally ended—it seemed as if they’d talked forever, but it was less than ten minutes—Jillian felt drained. Before starting anything else, she went to the restroom and splashed water in her face. She also walked around in the corridor for a while, trying to clear her head.

  Back in her office, Jillian adjusted her IPAD, then pulled-up her file on Professor Siemens. It was hard to focus. She was distracted by…what had Wes called it…”all that stuff.” And, brother, there was a lot of stuff.

  She tried to do what Wes has asked…to dig into her files in a way that would let her spot any inconsistencies, for example, between the two interviews with Professor Naremore, or, between his statements and what Professor LeJohns had said about the run-in at that committee meeting.

  At the same time, she genuinely felt shamed by Professor Griffiths’ comments, and so she had to admit to herself that she was reading almost as if she was an advocate for Professor Naremore. She was looking for things, either in what he’d said or inconsistencies in what others had said, that would exonerate him…something to show, something to prove, that he didn’t murder Professor Siemens. She looked away from her screen, angry at herself…she had no business reading the file from this perspective. She was a homicide detective, and this was still a homicide investigation.

  She turned back to the screen and kept pushing, and was eventually able to get into her file…to a degree. For almost an hour, she slogged through the file and the crime scene photos. Still, nothing jumped-out to her. Then, she realized that she was reading the words, but that they weren’t sinking-in. Frustrated, she closed the IPAD and left for the day. The Jupiter on the ride home was one of the older, more funky-looking models.

  Jillian sat on the inside, facing the front and leaned her head against the window. It had been a long, intense day and she was tired and depressed. Between what Professor LeJohns had to say and then Professor Naremore’s attitude, and then seeing Wes so upset…it all bothered her. And the run-in with Doc Halliday was another worry that she did not need. The only bright spot about Doc was that engaging him seemed to have perked Wes up a bit.

  She kept returning to Professor Naremore…his situation really troubled her, and for all sorts of reasons…some related to the case…others were at a much larger level. Her mind flashed to his Black Lives Matter flyer. Jillian knew that she if she was still a student, she would be there with him at the demonstration, probably along with a lot of other Justice Studies students.

  And that flyer and the interview…she couldn’t get out of her mind her conversation with Wes about policing. There was so much going on…her mind was in a muddle.

  Jillian tried again. Having just re-read her case notes, they were up front in her mind. Even though she’d seen nothing new, she mentally replayed them again. She hadn’t been very successfully when she’d tried reading her file…maybe she’d do better if she could think it through.

  What about President Davidos? During both interviews, he made her uneasy….it was almost as if he wanted to make her uneasy. What was that about? And, all these professors were telling her how broke universities are these days, and here he was flying first class…personally, she didn’t like that. Professor Siemens seems to have been part of that academic elite, just as Rand was part of an intellectual elite. She remembered what Wes had said: ’rank hath privileges.’

  But, just because she didn’t like President Davidos didn’t mean that he was a murderer. Wes kept saying that, too.

  And what about Professor Naremore? Wes had said that just because he had a temper and a motive didn’t necessarily mean… It still troubled Jillian that he didn’t have an alibi for the night Professor Siemens was murdered. Plus, he had a history of bad interactions with her, including several in the last few weeks. And worse, there was that grievance. And obviously, from his perspective, a grievance could derail his chances for promotion and was therefore a solid motive.

  And what about Professor Roberts? He seemed
to be wound tight. So? Jillian again thought about the biopic and Ayn Rand’s disdain for conventions, like being monogamous. She didn’t know if she could buy Roberts’ comment that Professor Siemens was tired of the single life and that they might get back together. It seemed too pat, and it did go against the movie depiction of Rand’s personal life…whatever Doc Halliday thought.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jillian saw her reflection in the window. She was frowning. Maybe Doc was right about her being too influenced by a movie. Or by what she’d googled about Ayn Rand. On the other hand, this is how she did detective work, and, well, it usually worked out for her…that’s what Wes had told Doc, anyway.

  The Jupiter stopped at the four way stop at the intersection of College and Alameda. In a spur of the moment decision, Jillian decided that she’d change clothes and go to a movie. There actually was a Nancy Meyers film playing at the Scottsdale Fashion Square mall. She could grab a bite to eat at the concession stand. She laughed because the movie had been listed in the section of The Republic that Doc had left on her desk.

  She hoped that getting away from the case tonight would get her out of her funk and maybe recharge her batteries…give her a fresh perspective. And, maybe figure out what it was that she was missing. She certainly wasn’t making any headway playing and replaying the file, either on her IPAD or in her mind. Her brain felt so cobwebby.

  Whether going to a movie and getting away from the case had cleared her head was yet to be determined, but at least she’d enjoyed the movie. And, when she got up the next morning, she felt refreshed.

  Jillian’s plan was to spend all morning and part of the afternoon working at ASU PD. Wes would be in court most of the day, and she did need to catch-up on her assignment on the Sexual Assault Task Force.

  For the first 30 minutes that she was at work, though, she sorted through her email, and read notices and updates that were circulating through the department. Given the size of ASU’s student population—tens of thousands of young adults living in what essentially was a small city—some updates were wild. Several times, Jillian shook her head in disbelief at the crazy things that students did and what happened to them as a result.

  She then turned to her assignment, reading and organizing her notes from the several Task Force meetings. Ersula arrived at 9:30, excited to see where Jillian worked and what the offices were like…she’d never been in a campus police station. Jillian introduced her around. She met just about everyone except Al, who was out for a meeting.

  Ersula brought her draft of the Tempe PD component. Jillian apologized for being behind on her portion. Not only had Ersula finished her draft, Chief McCaslin had already marked it up. Ersula laughed and reminded Jillian that she’d been “a little busy on something else.”

  Still, Jillian had actually spoken with Al about his ideas on the earlier policy proposals that had been circulating. She’d made notes from these conversations so at least she wasn’t starting from scratch. She worked on her draft while Ersula worked on a revision that incorporated Chief McCaslin’s comments. By late morning, they had drafted consistent statements for their departments. These would still need another round of comments from their respective chiefs, and then approvals from ‘higher-up.’

  They broke for lunch at 12. Jillian suggested that they eat on campus and even gave Ersula a ride in ‘the Batmobile.’ She loved it. Afterward, Jillian ferried her across campus over to University, then returned to ASU PD.

  Jillian had enjoyed the morning, working on the Task Force report and hanging with Ersula. Of course, the case drifted into her mind every so often, but each time that it did, she tamped it down, and moved on to something else. She did have other things to do, but she also was trying free-up her mind so that when she did return to the case, she’d be eager to work through the file…as opposed to yesterday when she was numbed by it all.

  Around 3pm, Wes texted. They were on a 20-minute recess, but he was still on ‘the stand,’ and it was going slowly. He said that under intense cross-examination, he’d broken and admitted that he’d been the second shooter at Dealey Plaza. He ended with a laughing emoji.

  She had put it off as long as she could stand it, so just before 4pm, Jillian logged-out of what she’d been doing and returned to the case. She told herself that she was going “all out Jane Tennison on this.”

  As the files were pulling-up, she thought about how to proceed. She decided not look for inconsistencies—sorry Wes—and definitely not read as if she was Professor Naremore’s advocate. Instead, she wanted to come at this as if it was a blank slate. She would review her file, as much as possible, from Georgia Ronson’s perspective. They had sent Georgia all their info so she’d be reading everything—the interviews and all the rest—for the first time. Jillian wanted to adopt that ‘fresh eyes’ perspective of an imaginary Georgia.

  She nodded, and began.

  She didn’t speed-read, but she did work through the interviews—all of them—fairly quickly. But, when she read the first interview with Professor Naremore, the one she’d done alone, she couldn’t help but cringe when she came to his comment about it being a good thing that Professor Siemens was dead. Jillian looked away from the screen and thought about this. Mainly, she was glad that she’d told Wes about that comment.

  Back to the screen, she hurried-up again, and didn’t stop to think any more about the specifics of Professor Naremore’s statements. She wanted to roll though her entire file, uninterrupted, even by her own thoughts.

  She moved quickly through all of them: Gilroy, Roberts, Davidos, Moser, Seay, Disis, and LeJohns, and even the students, Nagel and Paxton, and her own interviews with Carolyn and ZZ. She read the notes from Wes’ interviews the same way.

  When she’d finished reading the interviews—for now, anyway—she opened the photos. She started with the ones from Angel’s forensics team. She went through them…all of them…both of the professor’s offices and then the condo. She scrolled through them carefully, but kept moving.

  Next, Jillian switched to the photos that she had taken: the condo first, then the Professor’s office in English, then the one in Business. She went through them at the same speed as ones from forensics.

  When she’d finished scrolling through her photos, she put them in a ‘slide show’ and watched again as they materialized on her screen in five second intervals. When the ‘slide show’ ended, Jillian stopped, tapped her lips with her pen, and then backtracked to four photos. These, she reviewed slowly: the professor’s book shelves in her condo, the bookshelves in both offices, and her file cabinets in Business.

  Jillian turned away from the screen, and, as she thought about the photos, recalled a comment from an interview with Professor Roberts—the first one, she thought. She returned to and scanned the interview, and found the comment that she had remembered. Her eyes narrowed as she read the comment, and highlighted it.

  Then, she looked at the four photos again. Then again.

  And she smiled. Her smile widened. She mouthed a silent, “Yes!” This was a small thing, or maybe not so small...

  The smile disappeared. Jillian rested her chin on her knuckles, staring at the screen without seeing it. There was more…had to be.

  She called Wes’ cell, got his voicemail, figured he was back in court, and left a message. “Wes, I’ve been reviewing the files, and I saw something in the photos. Call when you can.”

  Not knowing what else to do for the moment, Jillian left the ASU PD building, walked across College and waited for a Jupiter. There were a few others waiting, too, although she didn’t really notice them or anything else, for that matter. She was lost in thought.

  The Jupiter turned onto College and stopped. She boarded, essentially on automatic pilot, found a seat by a window, and the bus moved on. Unlike earlier in the day when she avoided thinking about the case, Jillian was thinking and processing and was, for the most part, oblivious to
her surroundings.

  When the bus stopped at College and Alameda, it brought her back to the present. She had to pay attention to the streets so she could pull the ‘request stop’ cord before Geneva, well before the traffic light at Southern. Jupiter drivers couldn’t stop too close to major intersections. It was the early stages of rush hour so College was getting crowded…the bus was third in line at the four-way stop.

  Eventually, the bus was through the intersection. Paying attention to her surroundings now—Geneva was still several blocks away—she noticed that the water main construction was still underway. She wondered if they would ever finish this project. Even though it was getting late in the afternoon, the construction crew was still at it.

  Between Cairo and Del Rio, the bus passed close by two workers. One worker was on the street and he was handing something to his partner down in the trench. The trench guy, who was standing almost chest high in there, had to reach up for the object, which looked like some kind of a big wrench.

  And in that instant, with those construction workers now frozen in time, Jillian literally sucked in a breath and held it…and she knew. Maybe there was no Indiana Jones soundtrack with John Williams’ trumpets to herald it, but this was her ‘ah ha’ moment. The pieces, most of them anyway, had come together. She knew. SHE KNEW!

  She could barely wait for the bus to stop near her condo. She didn’t want to say anything in the bus in front of the other passengers, but she was dialing even as she exited. Instead of walking to her condo, she went directly to her car. Before backing out of her parking space, she called Wes.

  When he didn’t pick-up, she waited for his voice mail, then said, ”Wes, I’m home but driving back to ASU PD. Now! I’ll head immediately over to the BAC Building. It’s Professor Roberts, Wes. He killed Professor Siemens. In her BAC office. And I think he moved her body across campus IN THE TUNNELS! I’ll call for back-up.”