Sounds of Murder

by Patricia Rockwell

  Pamela started out of the office and decided to take the central staircase to the second floor--not her usual route. As she arrived at the first landing, she heard voices coming from the floor below. Bob Goodman and Arliss had just entered the stairwell from the animal wing and were intently involved in a discussion. They didn’t notice her presence on the landing above--or anyone else's presence it appeared, if anyone had been there. Pamela couldn't make out exactly what they were saying; she assumed it was about the animals, but as Bob and Arliss moved into the small alcove under the staircase which afforded them some privacy, she noted that their voices diminished somewhat, and some other sounds--not of the talking variety--took over.

  The sound of keys on Bob's key chain--the ones to the animal cages, no doubt, caught her attention first. They made a sort of clicking noise. Quickly and quietly, she recorded the jangling keys. Bob was a genuine and sweet person. Pamela couldn’t imagine him hurting anyone. However, he lived for that animal lab of his and it was drowning in financial woes—no thanks to Charlotte and her penchant for scattering her beneficence on all of her colleagues except Bob and the animal psychology program. Would he kill her for that? As Pamela listened to Bob’s keys, other sounds caught her interest. This was flagrant eavesdropping, she realized, and she remained frozen in place. She felt terrible spying on Bob and Arliss like this, but couldn't help herself. Her temptation to peek over the railing was overwhelming and, as there appeared to be no one else around, she allowed herself a quick look.

  There she saw her good friend Arliss and Dr. Bob Goodman standing very close together, leaning against the side of the staircase. Bob had one arm around Arliss' back and his face snuggled into her neck. Arliss did not look as if she minded this one bit.

  “You looked so pretty yesterday at the chapel,” cooed Bob.

  “Oh, Bob,” responded Arliss, in a sweet, soft voice that Pamela would never have imagined coming from Arliss’s lips.

  My God, thought Pamela. Arliss, you devil. And I thought I was the one with all the secrets. She quickly pulled back from her hidden position before the couple below noticed her on the staircase above. As soon as she’d tip-toed the rest of the way up the stairs to the second floor, she quickly added her vocal label for the sound of Bob’s keys—leaving out any mention of the less metallic sounds of human smooching. Arliss had kept her little romance completely quiet all this time. If she was an accomplice to murder or even a murderer herself, would she be able to keep that quiet too? It was obvious that Arliss had no love for Charlotte and blamed her for the mess the animal lab was in. Pamela was still trying to digest her new discovery as she walked the slightly further distance to her office at the other end of the second floor hallway.

  As she rounded the corner, she saw Joan in her office with a student. Pamela’s tape recorder was still on record mode. Joan obviously had just arrived and was opening her briefcase while the student waited patiently. Pamela heard the briefcase click as it popped open. Now, she thought, there was a loud click. But was it the click on my murder tape? Oh, my, she thought. There’s no way that Joan Bentley could have killed Charlotte. She may not have liked her any better than anyone else, but Joan was no killer, of that, Pamela was certain. Why would Joan kill Charlotte? Joan didn’t seem to have a jealous bone in her body. Or did she? With Charlotte’s death, Joan was now the Chair of the Tenure Committee, a very important position. Would she kill for that? Joan didn’t even seem to be particularly annoyed by Charlotte, when everyone else was. Was her behavior all just an act? Of course not, Pamela was certain of that.

  Just as she was certain that Arliss was not having an affair with Dr. Bob Goodman. Right. Where had she been all this time? Obviously, way too busy with her own concerns. She needed to stop all this paranoia about the killer and the disk and focus on what she was supposed to be doing. Her job. Her students. Her classes. However, turning towards her hidden mike, “Joan Bentley, briefcase,” she said for the recorder.

  She’d just entered her office when she heard another click-click sound. Something tapping the floor. This one she thought she remembered and, sure enough, Dr. Willard Swinton appeared momentarily in her door, leaning on his antique cane, its silver handle gleaming.

  "I heard you coming, Willard," she teased, and unseen, clicked her recorder to stop, collecting both sound and label.

  "No surprise visits for me, I guess," he responded jauntily. "I hope you had a relaxing weekend, Pamela. It was a lovely memorial service, wasn’t it? Hopefully, we’ll all be able to put the horrors of last week behind us and get back to business. I’d like to chat with you about your new study when you have time."

  "Agreed," she nodded.

  "Just call me, if you need anything," he confided, stepping into her office a bit.

  "Thank you, Willard," she responded, putting her books and papers on her desk. He headed off down the hall towards his office, the metal tip of his cane, clicking and clacking on the floor. How could she even for a moment contemplate Willard as a murderer? He could barely get around, let alone strangle someone. But he was large, she noted. Maybe he was stronger than he looked. His only obvious difficulty was walking. As far as she knew, his arms worked just fine, maybe fine enough to strangle Charlotte.

  She could hear Rex Tyson in the lecture hall next door, practicing. Leaving her office, she strolled into the large room. Rex was standing at the lectern in the front of the room. Inside the lectern, she knew, was a locked cabinet where the controls for the overhead projector were housed. She had watched Rex lecture several times; he always used pre-programmed computerized slides. He would walk around the classroom like a talk show host, changing the screen image as he went. She remembered now, seeing him change the slides with a remote control device.

  “Dr. Barnes,” he called out, as he noticed her watching him at the back of the room. “Here to watch me practice?”

  “I don’t know, Rex,” she laughed, “Do you need to test some new jokes?”

  “A few juicy ones, actually,” he winked.

  “Truth be told,” she said, coming closer, “I was interested in that overhead projector. I might need it for my graduate seminar next week. Is it hard to use?”

  “Nah,” he responded, “Easy as pie. You just slip your slides in the tray under the lectern and you can run the whole thing with the remote from anywhere in the room.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep,” he said, drawing a small gray rectangular object from his shirt pocket. “Just one click for forward and two clicks for reverse.” He demonstrated the device—and its sound--for her. Quietly, her finger pressed the correct button on the recorder in her pocket.

  “That’s great,” she replied, “I’ll see if I can gather enough slides to make it worth my while. Thanks, Rex.” She clicked off her hidden recorder, turned, and started to leave.

  “Any time, Pam,” he sang out and went back to his practice session.

  She went back to her office, closed her door, and dialed the main office extension on her the phone. Jane Marie answered at once.

  "Psychology Department," she said sweetly.

  "Jane Marie," said Pamela, "Who all in our department teaches in the large lecture class next to my office?"

  "Let's see," said Jane Marie, thinking, "Dr. Tyson on Monday and, I don't think anyone else in our department on a regular basis. Sometimes faculty members take their classes there to use the projector from time to time—it’s really great. I know Anthropology uses it too. Did you want to use that room, Dr. Barnes?"

  "No," she responded quickly. "Jane Marie, who would have access to the projector remote control device for that room?"

  "The remote is supposed to stay in the main office, Dr. Barnes. But, Dr. Tyson uses it the most often," she laughed, "so he usually carries it around with him—in his shirt pocket. If someone wanted to use it, they'd have to pluck it from his cold dead fingers. Oh, sorry, Dr. Barnes—bad joke."

  “Don’t be sorry,” she chuckled, “I was just wondering.
Bye.” So, she thought, Rex could have strangled Charlotte, but why? Of the three candidates up for tenure, he seemed most likely to get it. Maybe he antagonized Charlotte with his pranks and grandstanding. She always liked to be the center of attention. It didn’t seem likely, but at this point she was willing to entertain any idea.

  Pamela scrounged in her side drawer until she found a connector cord so she could upload the data from the mini-recorder in her pocket, directly to her computer. She hooked the small device to her office mainframe. Bringing up both her acoustic program and the new data from her mini-recorder, she sat back in her desk chair and took a deep breath.

  Soon, on the screen appeared her acoustic analysis program along with both the original data—that of Charlotte’s murder--and now, this new data she had just made of the sounds she had surreptitiously recorded throughout the department. She marked the unique double-click sound from the murder recording clearly on the spectrograph with her cursor. Then, she played the new sounds she’d just recorded this morning in the second analysis line. As each clicking sound played, she froze its visual acoustic image on her screen for comparison with the double-click sound from the murder recording.

  Thus, she listened to and visually compared the sounds. Some of the sounds were similar to, but none of them was a direct match—visually and auditorially—for the double-click sound on the murder recording she now knew so well. That is, not until she reached one particular sound.

  That sound was—and it didn’t even require her professional eye and ear to make this determination—a perfect match. The sounds were identical in audio features—pitch, intensity, and duration. The acoustic images were visually identical—two short, peaked waves. The enormity of her discovery overwhelmed her. Removing her hands from her keyboard, she leaned back in her desk chair, thinking. This was what she’d been looking for. The mysterious clicking noise on the murder disk. She now knew what caused it—and she knew who caused it. She knew who had killed Charlotte Clark. Now what? She sat there for several minutes frozen with uncertainty.

  Then, with slow, but cold determination she lifted the receiver to her desk phone and dialed.

  Chapter 23

  The next afternoon, as Pamela was checking out for the day, she found herself standing in the main office by the mail boxes, where several faculty members were gathered chatting.

  “Would you mind coming to my office for a minute?” she asked one of them. “I have a research problem I’d like to ask you about."

  "Sure," was the response, "Just let me drop this stuff off at my office and I’ll be right there."

  "Great," she answered and quickly headed for her office up the central staircase.

  Now, just minutes later, as she stood behind her desk waiting, her heart beating loudly, she thought over and over how frightened she was at this important moment--possibly, the most important moment in her life.

  “Dr. Barnes?” Willard Swinton entered her office a few steps. “I thought you’d left for the day.”

  “Uh, Willard, yes. I…had to return…because I forgot something I needed at home.”

  “I hate it when that happens,” he confided. “With my cane, it takes me forever to get from one location to the other. If I have to backtrack, it’s really demoralizing.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve got what I needed,” she said, standing motionless behind her desk.

  “Good,” he smiled. “Well, have a lovely evening, Pamela.”

  “You too.” He turned and headed back to his office. Pamela stood at her desk, riveted. She looked down and took a deep breath. Too close. Simply too close.

  Rex Tyson appeared at her door, leaning jauntily on the doorframe.

  "So?" he spoke in a friendly manner, "What's up?"

  She jerked her head up and gripped her desk tightly with both hands.

  "About the overhead remote...."

  "The remote again," he smiled. “That’s your research problem?”

  "Could I see how it works?" she asked sweetly. He pulled the device out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. She examined the device and pressed it. Two clicks. Yes, the sound was identical.

  "Actually,” she said, “this is my research problem. Listen, will you?"

  As she knew exactly where the cursor button was, she clicked it with her mouse without even looking down at her computer and the sound she now knew so well emerged at full volume from her speakers. Charlotte's choking voice unmistakable, her bumps, scrapes, scratches--and then, the double clicking noise that had revealed to her Rex's obvious involvement. Click-click. Pause. Then click-click again. She watched his reaction as she listened.

  Rex's face turned white--as if the blood in his entire body had suddenly drained into a vessel beneath him—the instant he heard Charlotte's voice. It was obvious to Pamela that he’d heard this horrifying sound before—because, of course, he had. He said nothing, just stared at her, not moving even the slightest. When the recording stopped, Pamela spoke.

  "I didn't know how to connect any of the sounds I was hearing to the killer. For all I knew, Charlotte made all those sounds herself in trying to get away. Then, I realized that the clicking noise was probably not a sound that came from Charlotte--in her effort to save herself from the killer. The clicking noise was probably made by the killer—probably inadvertently. So I started to look for that sound. I remembered seeing you use that remote for the projector and I thought it might be the noise on this tape. When Jane Marie informed me that you were the only faculty member who regularly uses the remote and that you carry it with you in your shirt pocket, I knew I’d found Charlotte’s killer."

  Rex continued to remain silent. She couldn't tell if he was going to speak or do anything. She waited.

  "How?'" he finally muttered, trance-like.

  "I don't really think how is the important question, Rex," she responded, "I think the more important question is why."

  Rex slowly began to sense his surroundings. He glanced at Pamela, then at the door, and then around the room. Ever so slowly, he took a few steps towards her, raised his hand, reached behind him, and gently and quietly, closed her office door. Pamela was braced for this; she suspected he would not respond with remorse.

  "Why?" he repeated her words in a husky whisper, as he moved carefully closer to her desk. "Why? I'll tell you, Miss Busybody. Because your buddy Charlotte Clark couldn't mind her own damn business, just like you. There was no reason for her to demand that we include our dissertations in our tenure portfolios. She just did that to ruin me. I knew it as soon as she made that requirement. It was evident that she wanted that Delmondo chick tenured over me--she's always been her pet. And when word got out that the Dean was only allowing two candidates to have tenure--I knew she was out to get me."

  "But, Rex," said Pamela, her eyes never leaving his for a moment, "you were in an excellent position for tenure. Your publication record is stellar and actually far superior to Laura's."

  He chuckled. "Well, not exactly. Let’s just say that Phineas is a major part of my publication record," he noted mockingly.

  "You mean you haven’t contributed much to your articles with Phin?" she guessed.

  "I am," he mused, continuing his slow progress forward, "shall we say--the front man. A position Phin used to appreciate, but hasn’t seemed to value as much as he should--lately."

  “The two of you must have been fighting because he doesn’t feel it’s fair for you to keep on being rewarded for his work. In other words, you shouldn’t have ever gotten first author billing on any of your articles, right?”

  “That little chump has the gall to think I should remove my name from consideration for tenure,” he sneered.

  So that was it, she thought, Phineas wasn’t asking about the possibility of removing his name from consideration for tenure, he was asking about the possibility of removing Rex’s name.

  She said, "And I suppose Charlotte somehow figured out that the two of you were arguing about this, and she managed to put two and two
together and determined that your credentials were—shall we say—less than sterling.”

  "Your precious Charlotte," he scowled, "just had to go and start digging around in places where she didn't belong, thanks to that damn subscription database."

  "Just what did she discover?" asked Pamela, cautiously.

  He shrugged, his eyes still in line with Pamela's. Suddenly, it all became clear—the Culver dissertation, the secret notebook.

  "You--you plagiarized your dissertation, didn’t you?" she exclaimed.

  "Whatever," he scoffed, "It didn't matter. She would’ve made something up if she hadn't found what I’d pulled from Culver’s dissertation. She wanted her precious Laura to get tenure. She always had to get her own way. When she came into my office Tuesday afternoon and told me exactly what she was going to do, what she suspected, and how she was going to track it down, jeez, it was like she was asking me to kill her." He spoke as if he believed Charlotte’s murder was justified.

  "And you were happy to oblige," responded Pamela.

  "Of course," he smiled, getting closer to the desk and side-stepping his way around it towards Pamela, saying, "I'm always happy to oblige a lady." With that, he reached out towards her and grabbed her neck. Pamela pushed him back hard with both hands while at the same time screaming at the top of her lungs.

  "You bitch!" he snarled, but he didn't let go. He struggled to gain a tighter hold as she pushed back hard and screamed again.