Voice Mail Murder

by Patricia Rockwell

  “Right,” said Shoop, nodding and continuing to rub his chin. “I agree that his mother is probably our second speaker. My dilemma is the next step. And—how to find the third speaker.”

  “You said the motel clerk remembered an African-American woman,” noted Pamela. “If our third speaker is black, that would narrow it down.”

  Shoop glanced over at a photocopy of the team picture that Pamela had seen in the lobby of the Athletic Department’s main office. The twenty-four young men smiled benignly. Below the photograph ran a list of their names from left to right. “Have you looked at this photograph?”

  “I get it. There are a lot of African-American guys on the team.”

  “Yeah. And most of them are local. That fits your two main features for our third speaker.”

  “Detective,” said Pamela, “It appears you’ll have to question them all.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. An officer appeared at the office door.

  “Hey, Detective, we’ve got that Terlinger woman here for questioning. You want her in Room A?”

  “No, Sikes. Bring the lady in here. I’d like Dr. Barnes to hear her speak.”

  “You got it, boss.” The man disappeared.

  Shoop stood up, looking at Pamela. “You up for this—or do you need to get home to your hubby?”

  “No, no,” she replied. “I’d like to hear what this mother of a teenage boy has to say about how she got involved with her son’s football coach.” She rose and followed Shoop to the door. The officer reappeared with a blonde woman, neatly dressed in a simple flowered sheath. Her hair was short and framed her heart-shaped face. The lines around her eyes were the only indications that this woman was old enough to have a teen-aged son. Otherwise, she looked around twenty-five.

  “Mrs. Terlinger?” Shoop ushered the woman into his office and seated her on the chair where Pamela had recently been, next to his desk. He resumed his seat behind his desk and Pamela sat on the couch. The young officer shut the door and left the trio in private.

  “I don’t understand,” said the woman. “The other officer said Ricky wasn’t in trouble. Is this about Coach? About his murder?”

  “Yes, it is, Mrs. Terlinger,” continued Shoop.

  “Is Ricky in trouble?”

  “No, he’s not,” said Shoop. “Mrs. Terlinger, we’d like you to hear something.” Shoop reached to his right where he had placed his portable CD player. He hit the “play” button and immediately Charlene Terlinger’s voice filled the office:

  “I’m really excited to see you. I’m here, just like you said. Can you come over?”

  Charlene Terlinger froze in her chair, a look of terror on her face.

  “Oh, no!” she said. “You think I killed him!”

  “We don’t know that,” said Shoop, “but that is your voice, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” agreed the woman, “but I would never hurt Coach! Never!”

  “You do know, Mrs. Terlinger, don’t you,” continued Shoop, now in full interrogation mode, “that the police have been searching for Coach Croft’s killer for days now with no viable suspects in sight. Finding his cell phone with a message from his mistress—you—on it, is very suspicious.“

  “But, Detective,” she cried, “I wasn’t with Coach in that motel last week when he was murdered! Honestly, I wasn’t! Yes, I’ve met Coach at motels before. We’ve been together. He’s a wonderful man. And he’s been wonderful to Ricky! But I would never hurt him!”

  “Does your husband feel the same way?” asked Shoop, now pacing behind the woman’s chair and bending over her in his most threatening manner. Pamela cringed at his Gestapo tactics.

  “I don’t have a husband!” she declared. “Well, I did, but he left me—and Ricky when Ricky was just a baby. Eventually, I divorced him. I’ve taken care of both of us ever since. When Ricky got a scholarship to Grace and made the team, we were both thrilled! It was like a dream come true for us both! And Coach Croft was wonderful to him—and to me! He really helped Ricky—like a father.“

  “So you felt obligated to him—sexually?” prodded Shoop.

  “Oh, no!” she continued. “I genuinely like him. He’s a wonderful man. He helped me find a better job than that horrible one I had at the tire factory. It was killing me. I was sick all the time from the fumes. Coach knew people and he helped me get a job as an assistant manager at this little boutique in downtown Reardon—right across the street from the Reardon Coffee House.”

  “It never occurred to you, Mrs. Terlinger, to come forward to the police when Coach was found murdered?”

  “No,” she said, eyes blinking rapidly. “I mean, I would never want to embarrass him—or his family. You know. And I didn’t know anything about who killed him. But it wasn’t me! It wasn’t!”

  “So, let me get this straight,” said Shoop. Pamela realized that he was attempting to find out what this woman knew about the Coach’s extra-marital affairs without actually informing her that she was just one of a group of at least three mistresses. “You and the Coach got together in a motel room regularly. . . .”

  “Oh, not regularly!” she exclaimed. “Just every once in a while!”

  “We have the messages you left for the Coach on his cell phone.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “He gave me a disposable phone. He’d call me and suggest a motel and a day and time. Then I’d go to the motel, check in, and call him and leave a message when I got there with the room number. Then, well, then, he’d show up and we’d spend the afternoon together. . . you know. . . and then he’d leave and a little later I’d leave. It was the way we did it.”

  “He set up this method?”

  “Yes,” she said, “he said we had to be careful because too many people recognized him and nobody recognized me.” She laughed a little and rubbed her hand over her cheek.

  “Did he pay you?”

  “Pay me?”

  “You know, did he give you money afterwards?”

  “No!” she screamed. “Detective, whatever you think of me, I’m no prostitute. I really cared for Coach. I can’t believe he’s gone. I didn’t want his money.”

  “Did your son—Ricky—did he know about all this?”

  “Oh no,” she said. “That was one of my fears—that Ricky would find out. He worships Coach. This is going to crush him. He’s already heart-broken about Coach’s death—his murder. Just sick. Now, to find out that his mother was involved with. . . oh, it’s just too awful!” She placed both hands on her temples and dropped her head to her lap. “How could I have done this to him?”

  “Mrs. Terlinger,” asked Shoop, “to your knowledge, were you the only woman the Coach was involved with?”

  “I thought I was the only one, but now I don’t know,” she said. “Coach felt guilty about our relationship—his sick wife and all. He really loves her, but. . . .”

  “So, the Coach never had relationships with any other women to your knowledge?”

  “No, Detective! I’m sure he didn’t!” She looked up adamantly, the tears in her eyes drying suddenly.

  “What do you suppose the Coach was doing in that motel room the day he was murdered?” asked Shoop. “He wasn’t there to meet you, was he?”

  “No,” said Charlene Terlinger. “I don’t know. I don’t think we were supposed to meet that day.” She continued to cry and Pamela was flabbergasted that the woman was oblivious to her lover’s deceit. Either that or she was simply too dim-witted to figure out that she wasn’t his only mistress.

  Shoop continued to question the grief-stricken woman for a while longer. Eventually, satisfied apparently that she was telling the truth, he allowed her to leave with the admonition that she not discuss her situation with anyone else and that she contact him if she remembered anything at all that might be connected to the Coach or his murder. Charlene Terlinger agreed and Officer Sikes drove her home.

  “Is she telling the truth?” asked Shoop after Charlene had departed. Pamela, now comfortably ensconced on Shoop’s
uncomfortable divan, perked up.

  “She exhibited no vocal signals that I would read as deceptive,” she said, “but I told you, Detective, that those signals are only to be used as guidelines—not absolutes. Otherwise, no one would ever be able to lie to me.” She smiled benignly at the man. She was too tired to spar with him now. All she wanted was to go home to her husband, a hot meal, and a warm bed.

  “I can’t imagine anyone lying to you, Dr. Barnes,” snickered Shoop. Pamela realized that sarcasm was Shoop’s most endearing quality. “Why don’t we try one more before we call it a night?”

  “Why not?” she shrugged.

  Shoop ran his finger down the team roster list and selected a home phone number, which he placed on the landline phone on his desk. He hit the microphone button and the sound of dialing filled the room. Almost as soon, a male voice answered the phone.

  “Prescotts.”

  “Mr. Prescott?”

  “Yes,” the gruff, obviously tired voice replied, “what do you want?”

  “I’m calling about your son’s football coach. . . .”

  “This is about Jeremy?” said the voice on the speaker.

  “Yes, sir. Jeremy Prescott. On the Grace University Football team.”

  “Is Jeremy okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” continued Shoop, “this is Detective Shoop from the Reardon Police Department. You may have heard that Coach Croft. . . .”

  “Yes, I heard. Murdered, wasn’t he? Jeremy told us.” Then his voice was muffled as he could be heard speaking to someone in the background. “Abigail, it’s about Jeremy’s football coach. That Croft fellow. The one who was murdered.” There was more muffled discussion and a female voice came on the line.

  “Detective,” said an elegant-sounding female voice—and one that Pamela instantly recognized. “What is this about Coach Croft? Is Jeremy involved? What is going on?”

  Shoop glanced over at Pamela who nodded in agreement. It was clear that Shoop also recognized the woman’s voice.

  “Ma’am —” began Shoop. Pamela was curious how he was going to broach this topic to her over the phone with her husband hanging in the background. Care would have to be taken as they didn’t want two murders on their hands.

  “Yes, Detective?”

  “Ma’am,” said Shoop. “This actually doesn’t concern Jeremy at all. We’re calling all the parents of Coach Croft’s team to enlist their help in tracking down a woman who left a message on Coach Croft’s cell phone. This woman may or may not be a suspect in the Coach’s death. We don’t know, but we need to question her.“ The wife’s sudden intake of breath was audible.

  “And you think I might . . . know this woman?” Abigail Prescott asked carefully. How much of this conversation can her husband hear, wondered Pamela. Pamela felt from the sound of the woman’s voice that she knew exactly what they knew.

  “It’s possible. When did you last . . . see the Coach?”

  “I . . . I believe I . . . saw him when the team was here last February. They played an away game just outside of Boston where we live. It was wonderful because we got a chance to see Jeremy again. “

  “And you saw the Coach then?”

  “I believe we may have . . . spoken to each other then—after the game.”

  “Ma’am, it would be very helpful, if you could think of anything you . . . noticed about the coach at that time that might assist us . . . if you would call us.”

  “Yes, Detective,” said Abigail Prescott. “I can’t . . . think of anything right now, but if I think of anything . . . later, I will certainly call you.”

  After providing the Bostonian matron with his contact information, Shoop hung up the phone. As Pamela suspected, Shoop had also immediately recognized the proper high-bred lilt of Abigail’s voice.

  “Do you think she’ll call back when the husband isn’t around?” he asked. “What did her voice tell you?”

  “I’m guessing she will—when the husband isn’t hanging over her shoulder.”

  “Husbands do cramp a woman’s style, don’t they?” he asked slyly.

  “You would know,” she tossed back at him as she left his office. “I, however, am thoroughly happy to be heading home to mine.” She gave him a jaunty wave, much jauntier than she felt, and trudged out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  How fast had she fallen asleep? It probably really didn’t even require Rocky’s special milk ambrosia that he had concocted for her along with a nice bowl of his minestrone. What was in it? Surely not alcohol, because she didn’t feel tipsy; she just felt blissfully floating. Floating on water, like a very calm ocean—maybe the Caribbean. It felt good. Warm, soft, gently rocking her.

  It was almost possible to forget about the hectic day she’d just spent or the horrific events of the last week. It was wonderful to experience this relaxing sensation—like a vacation. She felt the waves lapping at her feet, pulling gently at her sides, but still allowing her to sleep, to rest. She could see—well, maybe not see—creatures floating by. Fish? Maybe. Large creatures, coming closer. One looked very much like—Shoop! One looked like Shoop. Yes, there he was standing up on some sort of surf-board, his long, grey trench coat flapping in the tropical breeze. And the man was barefoot! What! she thought. Shoop would never walk around barefoot. Oh, it was a dream, she remembered.

  It was Shoop, all right. He was motioning to her, his face frozen in that infuriating smirk of his. She couldn’t help but laugh as she glanced down at his shoeless feet. He had his pant legs rolled up, supposedly, she presumed, to keep them dry, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was drenched. Still, he beckoned her—wherever she was. She wasn’t sure. But he was looking right at her. She could hear music—like that tinkling island marimba band music playing in the distance. Shoop did a leap in the air and he and his surf-board flipped around and headed out into open waters, overcoat flying in the breeze. She followed—she didn’t know quite how.

  Shoop twisted and turned over one wave crest after another. When they had reached a point far from—where would it be far from? She wondered. When they had reached wherever Shoop intended, he did a huge spring in the air and dove, surf-board and all, straight down in the ocean. Now how did he do that? Why would he do that? She followed, foolishly, she thought. I don’t have a snorkel, she was thinking. Shoop doesn’t have a snorkel. Stop this, Pamela. It’s a dream. Go with it! Shoop glided on his board underwater, leading Pamela around various coral structures until they finally reached the opening of an underground cave. Shoop sped through the entrance.

  I guess he wants me to follow him, she thought languidly. Not really wanting to venture into a dark cave, and enjoying the beauty of the undersea landscape, she hesitated. Shoop suddenly appeared at the cave entrance waving at her frantically. She entered the dark, foreboding waters of the underground cave. Everywhere she looked, strange creatures glided past her, some coming within inches of her face. Yet, she felt strangely calm and safe. She could see Shoop ahead in a somewhat lighted area. The area was an indentation in the sandy floor. Here discarded objects from above had accumulated. In the center of a pile of detritus was a dilapidated old bed frame, including the box springs and even a mattress, its tufting now water logged. As Pamela looked down, another object beside the mattress came into view—the body of a man lying face down.

  Shoop swam to the body and pulled the mattress off the bed frame. Pamela moved closer. She could see a shiny object—red and silver. It was new although how it could have been there hidden under this bed and still be new she didn’t know . She reached out in her dream to grab the object and the man on the ocean floor grabbed her leg. She could feel his hand on her flesh in her dream. The calm, relaxing quality of her lovely dream was morphing into a nightmare. She felt herself twisting and turning in her sleep. In her dream, she dropped the object and pulled away from the dead body’s grasp.

  Just as she pulled back, a group of football players, all in uniform, and all wearing cleats, stormed through the water like an
underwater ballet. In formation, they crossed over the body and stepped on his back with their cleats. As each cleat punctured the man’s skin, a geyser of blood spurted into the surrounding water, taking the surrounding liquid from clear to murky almost instantly. The team of men seemed oblivious to the body that they were stepping on; they moved with graceful precision and uniformity. When all of the men had crossed the man’s torso, Shoop reached down and picked up the shiny red and silver object and swam back to her. It was not the cell phone that she assumed it would be. It was the remote control to their living room television set. Shoop handed her the device. She clicked it on and Rocky suddenly appeared on a screen above the antique bed. His head was swimming on the water screen like that of the Wizard in Oz.

  “Pamela,” Rocky intoned from high above them, “What are you doing down here?”

  She felt guilty. How would she explain to Rocky what she was doing underwater in the South Caribbean with Shoop? How would she explain what she was doing with a dead body and a team of football players in a motel room? This was her worst nightmare. This was a nightmare.

  “I can explain,” she cried out in her dream. “I can explain, Rocky!” Shoop just laughed as she reached out to the large Rocky head on the screen above them. Suddenly, Shoop took the red and silver remote and pressed the button and Rocky disappeared, screen and all. But Shoop evidently had other goodies to show her. He flapped his overcoat in the water again and headed off on his surfboard. She followed because she didn’t know what else to do.

  Around a coral reef, Shoop stopped and motioned for her to stop. In the distance they could see a group of fish—or something—coming towards them. Shoop motioned for her to hide behind the reef. She crouched down behind him. Soon, it became apparent what the creatures were a troop of mermaids. At least, she assumed they were mermaids. They had fish bottoms and human tops. She and Shoop watched as the mermaids—at least a dozen of them—gathered around the body of the man on the ocean floor.