Sounds of Murder

by Patricia Rockwell

  “Nothing more,” said Arliss. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t a power cord around her neck mean she was murdered?” Arliss whispered this last part.

  “Surely not,” said Joan, eyes wide.

  “I saw it, and it certainly didn’t have the appearance of one of those freak accidental power cord strangulation deaths,” said Pamela.

  “I can’t believe that someone would intentionally kill Charlotte,” maintained Joan. “Yes, she was an overbearing, obnoxious prima donna, but you don’t kill people for that. Besides, we were all beholden to her, financially at least. She had national recognition. She had clout. And that brought in money this department would never have seen if she hadn’t been the star that she was."

  "Too bad she had to have such an unpleasant personality," noted Arliss.

  "Isn't it?" sighed Joan, shaking her head. "I don't know why we can’t all behave like professionals and not little children. I mean, we’re psychologists; we study behavior. You’d think we’d recognize unpleasant patterns in our own behavior when they occur, that she would have recognized the unpleasant patterns in her behavior."

  "At least she wasn't an addict--not that I know of, anyway. She was an expert on addiction," added Pamela.

  "She was addicted to cigarettes," noted Arliss.

  Pamela and Joan both laughed.

  “I suppose she was especially testy lately because of the pressure she was under as Chair of the Tenure Committee,” said Joan, with a coy smile.

  “Pressure?” asked Pamela.

  “From the Dean, to curtail our number of candidates,” responded Joan.

  "But, Joan," responded Pamela, “I thought she was fighting the Dean on this tenure business. At least, that’s the impression I had.” That, thought Pamela, was probably what her complaint was about the Dean in her fight with Mitchell last night. “Besides, we can't choose or not choose who goes up for tenure based upon the Dean’s request. That’s a departmental decision."

  "Don't be naive, Pamela," whispered Joan, bending closer to the younger professor, "I’ve been in this department and on this campus longer than any of you, and I know our Dean. He’ll do what he has to do to make ends meet, and if that means limiting tenure candidates—so be it. Besides, why would Charlotte have had any compunction about dropping one or more of the candidates? Well, maybe not Laura; she was her protégé, but certainly not Rex or Phin. It was nothing to her and she might even have used her chairmanship of the committee as a bargaining chip with the Dean."

  "You mean, she would have offered to cut one of our tenure candidates from the list if..." Arliss asked.

  "Certainly, to get the Dean to do something she wanted, or even to get retribution against Mitchell. He was not her favorite person," noted Joan.

  "Joan, I can't believe Charlotte would do something like.... Oh, I just can’t stand even thinking about it any more." Pamela sighed audibly and wrapped her arms around herself. The other two women looked at her with concern and then glanced at each other.

  "I believe there's only one solution," said Joan, with delight.

  "What?" asked Arliss, with anticipation, sitting up straight and turning directly to face her more sophisticated friend.

  "A night of riotous drinking at Who-Who's," Joan answered.

  "Yes," Pamela agreed. "It's been ages since we 'owls' have put our heads together and solved all the world's problems while downing a pitcher of Margaritas."

  "I for one,” said Arliss, perking up, "could use several pitchers. The situation with the animal lab has me in such an emotional pit that I just can't think straight."

  "Arliss, you can't let the animal lab become your personal crusade," said Pamela.

  "Yes, dear," added Joan to Pamela's concerned comment, "Make Bob Goodman handle it. He’s in charge over there—not you. He needs to solve the financial problems in the animal lab."

  "But, Joan, Pam, if he doesn't solve them soon, he’ll be gone, and I’ll be out of a job," said Arliss, her shoulders sinking in dejection.

  "Now, dear," said Joan, "you’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you. What about going on for your Ph.D.? Didn't you tell us that was your ultimate goal? If Grace University's animal lab folds, it would be the perfect opportunity for you to strike out on your own."

  "But, I don't want the lab folding to be my motivation. I want my motivation to be something positive." Arliss sat with her elbows on her knees looking down at the floor. She shivered. "This lab means so much to me, to Bob; we’re doing such important work there. I just don't see why the department can't come up with enough funds to help us maintain it better."

  "There, there, dear," said Joan. "I’m sure something will happen soon. You never know what’s around the corner." Joan reached over and placed a soothing hand on Arliss’ shoulder.

  "I say we plan our Who-Who's outing for this Friday, ladies," announced Pamela suddenly. "Okay?"

  Both women immediately perked up and nodded in agreement. Joan smoothed her flowered dress. Arliss poked her glasses up her nose. Both women seemed to realize at that moment that it was getting late and that they needed to go.

  "Well, dears," announced Joan, grabbing her keys from Pamela's desk and standing abruptly. "I must be going. I have that paper for Educational Psychology Abstracts that must be finished and off to the editor by tomorrow. It’ll be a late night for me." She stepped lively to the door and turned, "Friday it is. Who-Who's." Then she was gone.

  Arliss remained seated. Pamela looked suspiciously at her friend.

  "What is it, Arliss?"

  "Joan talking about me going back for my Ph.D. just made me even sadder. I hadn't thought about that in ages." Arliss lifted her head. "Pam, all I can think about is the lab. You just don't know what a mess it is. I’m trying so hard, but we don’t even have a graduate assistant. We have over 40 mice and the two chimps, Sheila and Bailey. Bob’s making so many advances with Bailey. You wouldn't believe how much progress he’s making with the little fellow. Bailey is really recognizing and expressing different human emotions. I mean, Bob’s close to a breakthrough. And it all could be jeopardized because of Charlotte Clark and her stupid million-dollar grants depriving our animal lab from getting even the most meager of maintenance funding. Now that she’s dead, there’s probably no chance of our lab ever getting any of that funding."

  "Arliss," Pamela said, moved to see her friend in such turmoil. "I wish there was something I could do."

  "Just listen," replied Arliss. "Just listen." The two friends sat like that for a second or two.

  Suddenly, Kent, appeared at the door. He was wearing jeans and his customary black t-shirt, today with a flaming dragon design on the front.

  "Hey, Dr. B, I contacted all our experimental participants and cancelled them for today. I figured with the police in the lab, you know, that we couldn’t collect data. Do you think I should cancel our subjects for the rest of the week too?" asked the energetic young man.

  "Kent, thank you for thinking of that. Yes, cancel all week. Our experiment totally slipped my mind, what with…" stammered Pamela.

  "It’s okay, Dr. B. I figured you’d be upset after what happened last night," he said softly.

  "Kent, this is Miss MacGregor, from the Animal Lab," introduced Pamela. “Arliss, this is Kent Drummond, my grad assistant.”

  "Hey, Miss MacGregor, I know you. The rat lady—ooops--no offense," he stammered; his spiky hair edged in purple remained rock solid as if his head had been dipped in glue.

  "None taken," answered Arliss, laughing. "You’re not the first to call me 'Rat Lady,' Kent.”

  “I’ll touch base with you later, Dr. B!” announced Kent. Pamela waved to him as he disappeared down the hallway.

  Pamela heard the sound of two sets of footsteps coming down the hallway. Bob Goodman and Willard Swinton came into view in her doorway.

  "Dr. Barnes," greeted Willard with a slight bow. He was a large, rotund African-American man, dressed nattily in a brown suit with an orange s
hirt and matching bow tie. He was leaning on an ivory-handled cane. "Dr. Goodman and I thought we should come and see how you’re doing," he said, his buttery voice sonorous enough to be doing food commercials. Willard was a departmental fixture, his warm, courtly demeanor always upbeat, even though his physical health seemed to be deteriorating more and more each year. His smiling face belied the pain he obviously felt with every slow step he took. Pamela and Willard shared research interests in linguistics and often conferred on various research problems.

  "Yes, Pam," agreed Bob Goodman, a tall, slim, even emaciated, man, his hands embedded tightly in the pockets of his jacket, "We heard about your ordeal on the news and from Jane Marie. My God, what a terrible thing for you, for the department, for all of us." Pamela was surprised to see Bob on her side of the building. He was typically ensconced in his animal lab or teaching one of the several courses the department offered in animal psychology. She kept up with his activities mostly from reports from Arliss, who, as his laboratory director, worked closely with him.

  "Absolutely," intoned Willard, "Absolutely terrible for all of us." His bow tie wobbled as he spoke. Pamela looked around at the small crowd that was beginning to form in her office. She had nothing against popularity. In fact, she liked being popular, but she surely didn't want to acquire popularity by finding dead bodies--particularly the dead bodies of her colleagues.

  "Thank you, everyone, really," she sighed, "But, truly, what I need is...."

  Just then, the phone rang. She stood up and went to her desk to answer it. After listening for a brief period, she groaned, placed her hand over the receiver, and spoke to the entire group, “It’s Jane Marie. Mitchell’s called an emergency faculty meeting for tomorrow morning at seven a.m.!”

  Arliss threw up her arms and spun around on Pamela’s desk chair. Willard sighed and leaned more heavily on his cane. Bob groaned.

  Pamela turned back to the phone. She heard Jane Marie then inform her that Detective Shoop was on his way up to her office. He had a few more questions for her.

  "Wonderful," she replied, "Can this day get any better?"

  Chapter 8

  She didn't know how it happened but Shoop was again seated in her office, his lanky body draped over the back of her sofa. He had greeted her colleagues officially and then requested some private time for additional questioning "if she didn't mind." Of course not, she thought, I love being grilled about a murdered colleague by the police. I love recalling every ugly moment of finding Charlotte's body in the lab.

  She was seated on her desk chair, no longer in her comfortable spot on her sofa. She felt robbed. This big giant of a man was not only invading her privacy, he was invading her space. She steeled herself for the onslaught of questions.

  "Now, Dr. Barnes," noted Shoop, as he pulled out his trusty black notebook.

  At least he’s using my title today, thought Pamela.

  "Let's go over your testimony from yesterday." His lack of enthusiasm radiated from his droopy eye lids to his slumped posture.

  Testimony, she thought. He makes it sound as if I'm in court. I'm not certain if anything I said yesterday is accurate. I was so distraught, she thought. She put her hand to her head and rested her elbow on her desk.

  "I know that it's hard to think back," he started. Out came the handkerchief. Pamela tried to avoid cringing.

  "Detective," she interrupted, "To be frank, thinking back is all I can do. I can't get any of it out of my mind. I’d like a break from it for just a brief moment, but no one will let me do that." She contorted her face and rubbed her eyes.

  "I'm truly sorry, ma'am," he said, reaching for a tissue from a container at the edge of her desk and handing it to her.

  "No, no," she said, brushing it away, thinking of the germs transferring from his large hanky to her tissue. "I'm fine, really. Let's just get on with it. What else do you need to know?"

  "Dr. Barnes," he said, "You say that you can think of nothing else. While you’re thinking...have you remembered any information that you didn't mention when we spoke yesterday? I mean, you were traumatized. You’d just discovered a colleague, murdered. You undoubtedly were upset and not thinking clearly. Now, after a passage of time, you might remember things that you didn't yesterday."

  "Detective," she said simply, "To be frank, I don't remember what I said to you yesterday."

  "Let me review the highlights of your testimony," he replied, opening his notebook. At this, he quickly ran through several pages of his notes, very thorough ones, she observed.

  "All right, all right," she said, thinking. "One thing I did remember was the computer screen--it was on."

  And that was strange to you?" he asked.

  "Not strange," she said, "But it did suggest why Charlotte was in the lab. The computers in the first row are equipped with special subscription databases that we don't have available on our office computers. I believe I mentioned that."

  "And you think," he completed her thought, "that Dr. Clark was probably in the lab using this subscription service?"

  "I would say it was likely," answered Pamela. "Charlotte visited the lab often to check on research studies of hers being conducted there, but there were no subjects or graduate assistants there last night, which I know because my assistant Kent checked the lab sign-up sheet and my experiment was the only one scheduled in the lab this week and there was no one scheduled to be working in the lab last night because he was in class—with me. So, I can only assume Charlotte was there to use the databases."

  "All right," he said, jotting this information in his notebook. "Is there any other reason Dr. Clark might have been in the lab late at night at that carrel?"

  "It would be unlikely," responded Pamela, "that she’d be recording. Her uses of the lab tend toward survey data collection for her studies on addiction. She's world famous, you know."

  "So I keep hearing," he said, reaching again for his hanky and letting loose another blow. He replaced the hanky in his pocket and Pamela breathed in relief. “Would the computer screen be on if Dr. Clark were recording?"

  "Not necessarily," said Pamela, "You can record directly by using the toggle switch on the computer desk. However, if you want to keep a copy of what you record, you’d have the screen on and a file selected. I didn't see anything like that, so I doubt she was recording."

  Shoop paused and stared at her a bit, then scribbled a few notes in his small pad. Then he asked, "So, would there be anything else she might have been doing there in the lab in that first row of computers?"

  "No," said Pamela firmly, "she’d either be using the databases or recording. If she wanted to do anything else, such as general Internet research or writing, there’d be no reason to do it in the lab. She could use her office computer."

  "Good," he noted. "Assuming she was using this special database service, what sorts of things might she be doing with that information?"

  Pamela rolled her eyes and said, "Detective, I’d have no idea what sort of topic Dr. Clark was investigating--if she was--probably something to do with addiction. If you really must know, you can probably contact the subscription services-–Dr. Marks can give you their contact information--and they could track it down. But, anyway, I just don't see how knowing what she was researching would help find who killed her."

  "Dr. Barnes," he said, staring at her intently, his shaggy brows lowered, "It may not have anything to do with her murder, but we’re investigating all possibilities. We’re working on the assumption that this was not a random killing. We believe--and I am guessing you might be too--given you have 'thought about nothing else,' that Dr. Clark was not the victim of a random crime. We believe, at least at the moment, that someone sought her out and intentionally murdered her."

  Pamela cringed. Yes, she’d thought that. But to have Shoop say it formally was frightening for Pamela.

  "Just because there was no evidence of theft in the lab?" she asked.

  "That," he responded, "and other things. For one, the killer di
dn’t appear to be looking for anything. Apparently, the killer went directly to Dr. Clark and strangled her. Also, there is the fact that the killer picked a time when Dr. Clark was alone, a time when it would be unlikely that anyone else would be around and the killing could be accomplished without witnesses. This murder has all the hallmarks of an intentional crime, Dr. Barnes. That’s why I’m back here talking to you. I want you to dig deep into your memory and pull out anything you remember, either from the events that took place when you discovered the body or any other occurrence that might--even in the slightest way--relate to this crime.” He leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial voice, “Because, Dr. Barnes, this is a murder. There is a killer out there and we don't know who he--or she--is."

  "You don't suspect me, do you?" she asked, suddenly flustered.

  "No, not at the moment," he responded, "But for the moment, you--and your young assistant--are our only sources of concrete information. We really need your help."

  "Are you telling me, Detective Shoop," she phrased her words carefully, "that you believe Charlotte's killer is someone in our department?”

  "It’s quite possible, Dr. Barnes," he replied, "and until we’re certain otherwise, I'd advise you to be very careful who you talk to and what you say. As the person who discovered the body, you may have special knowledge that may lead us to the killer--even if you don't realize it. The killer may perceive you as a threat and your life could be in danger. I don't say this to scare you, Dr. Barnes, but only to urge you to be cautious in what you say and do. If the killer is one of your colleagues or a staff member or a student, you might inadvertently reveal information which the killer might consider threatening and thus jeopardize your own welfare.”