by M. A Wallace
Michael said, “Am I allowed to know about the case before I make my decision? What do you have?”
“I can tell you the surface details. You know, confidentiality and all that. You ready for it? You sitting down?”
Michael sat down on the edge of the bed, his phone held in front of him on speaker. He turned the speaker off and put it to his ear. He said, “Okay, go ahead.”
“We got a dead cop. A campus cop. Shot in the chest six times, all center mass. An expert shooter, whoever it was. Time of death estimated sometime in the night, some fourteen hours after a near-riot on campus. We'll know more once the coroner gets a good look.”
Michael's mind sprung to work at once. He knew enough about college to know that it would be a difficult case with a lot of commuting involved. The majority of the witnesses would have left home for the weekend. He looked at his cell phone and pulled down his notifications. The date said Saturday, December third. He didn't know when finals were, but he suspected they would be soon. After finals came fall graduation, an event held on a Saturday when everyone, including the graduates, wanted it to be over and done with as soon as possible.
Michael was twenty-six when he graduated and remembered the ceremony as a boring, drawn-out affair full of long speeches and longer introductions for each student. His last name, beginning with the letter R, meant that he had to stand in place for an hour and a half in an eighteenth century playhouse rented for the occasion. He had taken his diploma, shook the hand of an overweight woman in a loose gown, and left as soon as he could. He hadn't invited his family. He hadn't even told them he had graduated until his twenty-seventh birthday had come in April of the following year. Then, his mother had pressed him with all kinds of questions. He had answered as truthfully as he could, indulging her, for he knew that while she lived on welfare with metal plates in her back and an oxygen tank next to the bed, she knew nothing of the outside world save what the evening news brought to her. The event of graduation itself had been so unremarkable, so commonplace to him, that he had never thought it worth mentioning. As far as he was concerned, college graduates and college dropouts could only be differentiated by the pieces of paper they possessed.
Instead of giving his partner an answer, Michael said, “A near-riot on campus?”
A rustling of papers sounded over the phone. Billy said, “As that information is pertaining to an open investigation, I can't tell you about it unless you sign on. You know how it is, red tape and all.”
Michael pondered his partner's request for a moment. His partner, who knew better than to push the issue, let dead air pass through the phone connection. Michael knew about red tape; there were times when he thought the world would drown itself in rules and regulations before too long. Some of them served a purpose. Many achieved the opposite of their intended purposes. Though he'd learned to live with it after fifteen years on the force, he'd never quite come to accept the system of rules under which he worked.
At last, he said, “All right, I'll take the case. Where's the scene? Where am I going?”
“You're going to Shippensburg University. Would you believe it?”
When he had heard the word campus, he had immediately thought of Wilson College, an all-girls institution that claimed to be a liberal arts school but was, in fact, a heavily religious institution. He'd heard of more disorderly conduct cases involving men on that campus than any other college he was aware of. There were a number of schools in the central Pennsylvania area, none of which had Wilson's particular problem. He had always thought that if any violence would be done against a campus police officer, it would be a jealous boyfriend—or a jealous girlfriend—who didn't want the police interfering in what they were doing.
He said, “The overtime is approved by Dickie, isn't it?”
Billy said, “Sure, he's the one who told me to call you. You were his first choice. Not because you're good, he says, but because you're not doing anything else today. He doesn't want to take anybody else off a case.”
Michael laughed. “Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Let the duty officer know I'm going on duty, would you? I'd like to get out to the scene as soon as possible before somebody ruins it.”
“All right, consider it done. I'll be headed over there myself. If you get there before me, save me a piece of the action, yeah?”
Michael pushed his slippers off his feet. Then, he stepped on the cold floor, colder than he expected. He said, “I'll keep the scene open as long as I can. Before you go, just so I know, is there any reason the campus police itself isn't handling this investigation?”
Billy scoffed. He said, “Those amateurs? You're kidding, right? Hey, I gotta go. See you when I see you.”
2
Since Michael Ross lived in Carlisle, he had his choice of driving down Route 81, the highway, or Route 11, the rural route. As it was an early Saturday morning, he chose the rural route, knowing that he wouldn't be forced to pass slow drivers who took the long stretches of farm country as an invitation to drive five miles an hour below the speed limit. No one drove on Saturday mornings; if he'd been asked on a Monday morning, he would not have taken the case. More than anything, he wanted an excuse to drive down the empty roads all by himself.
Next to his trailer home was parked his red 2000 Pontiac Sunfire car, which shimmered in the early morning sunlight. As he walked down the steps of his front porch, Michael saw his breath stream out in front of him. Though he had bundled up, the day felt bitterly cold. He had to remind himself that it was still early December, and not the middle of February.
He hurried into the car and started it up. He turned the heat on low, watching the engine temperature as he drove. As he drove down Route 11, he passed truck stops, gas stations, and fast food restaurants on both sides of the road, all of which were open but unoccupied. He passed a few tractor trailers sidling up into the left-hand lanes for fuel and food stops. Once he passed the Interstate 78 exit, the area grew ever more rustic until he came into the town of Carlisle. There, he passed through stoplights—all of which were green—until he turned right towards Dickinson University.
As he drove through the various pedestrian crosswalks and past the university's athletic field, he was struck by how peaceful everything seemed. Before he made detective, he had gone to Dickinson at least once a year for the purpose of networking with the campus police there. Many of them rode bikes through the town on holiday weekends, the only thing they could do to enforce the local laws, since the town of Carlisle and the university grounds melded together.
Not so with Shippensburg. While driving down the rural road, going well over the speed limit, he put a cassette tape into the car's stereo system. Before long, the familiar notes of “2112” came through the factory speakers. Michael let his mind drift. His didn't need much conscious thought to drive to Shippensburg, for he'd been down the road countless times. As one of only six detectives working out of the Shippensburg Borough Police Department, he'd grown accustomed to driving up and down the two paths that led from home to work. As a result, when he made a right turn then drove down a slight incline which led to a large red, white, and blue sign that gave the university's name, he was surprised to find that the tape had already flipped. Now, Geddy Lee sang about boarding the Thailand express. Michael turned off the stereo and pulled over to the side of the road, putting a red light on the roof of his car. He turned the flashing light on, though left the siren off.
When he drove down the first road in the college, there were no signs pointing the way towards the crime scene. At first, he saw nothing to indicate that a crime had been committed. He came to a stop sign at a three-way intersection and took a left. He passed a large building on his right with a solar energy collector placed out front. He drove slow, trying to get a feel for his surroundings. Though he had not yet found the scene of the crime, he knew that the atmosphere of the university would be an important factor in determining why a man had been murdered.
He saw on his left-ha
nd side a profusion of yellow tape run about and a group of people gathering around something he could not see, presumably a body. He found a small parking lot on his right, and parked his car there, not caring if it was the right place or not. He got out, feeling the cold air bite against his skin more than it had outside his home. He opened up the trunk of his car and pulled a black woolen cap out of a plastic grocery bag. He put it as far down on his head as he could, covering up the tips of his ears and his eyebrows.
He felt, not for the first time, that carrying a Glock to a crime scene where police officers gathered was overkill. He was required to wear his service weapon whenever he was on duty, for he never knew what might happen. The reality he had discovered proved very different from the perception that many officers had. He knew officers who saw threats in every shadow. For them, no weapon was big enough, effective enough, or deadly enough to assuage their fears. He told them, when he could get anyone to listen, that a kind word went farther than a drawn weapon and a warning.
He walked up six steps to the crime scene. He saw a man he recognized, a middle-aged man with grizzled gray hair and glasses with wide frames. Chief Richard Metzger, the man in charge of the borough police, stood with his hands in pockets, a deep frown giving away his frustrated desire to have a cigarette. Though the Cumberland County police force had phased out cigarette smoking as much as they could over the last ten years, Chief Metzger hung on with a stubborn will, as he did with everything.
The man said, “Detective Ross, glad you could come on such short notice. I trust you aren't terribly inconvenienced?”
Michael wanted to answer that he had four other outstanding cases he was working on, but he knew what the chief would say in response. The death of a fellow officer, even one who worked on a college campus, always took top priority over every other investigation. He said instead, “I wasn't doing anything today. Might as well come in for the overtime.”
“Right, New Zealand. Hope you don't burn out, that's all I'm gonna say.”
Michael did not respond. Working for weeks on end always had people telling him that he should take more time off. Yet, when he took time off, someone wanted him back on the job. There was nothing to do but take such comments in stride, accept them in the helpful way they were presented.
He said, “Thanks for your concern. As long as I get enough sleep, I'm all right. What have you got for me?”
“Campus cop shot dead sometime in the night. Kevin Bailey, thirty-six years old, white male, six-foot-three, 252 pounds. Shot six times in the chest, all in a circle, like the shooter was using him for target practice. We know the shooter has to be an expert. That might or might not help us much.”
“Why is that? Surely not many people on a sleepy campus like this one know how to fire a gun with that much accuracy.”
“Hey, you'd be surprised. Some teachers, they got black belts. You'd never even know it. Some teachers, old war vets, keep up with their practice on weekends with their buddies in the woods. Sometimes students, too. This campus wasn't so sleepy yesterday.”
Metzger waited for a moment, then continued, “A girl died in her dorm room yesterday morning, around 7 a.m. The roof collapsed from heavy snow. Well, apparently that was the last straw for the students here. A group of them went to complain to the bigwigs at Old Main—that's the administration building. One of them, a young girl named Shannon Moore, got a dislocated shoulder, four cracked ribs, and a face full of pepper spray for her trouble.”
“What did she do?”
“Shouted swear words at the university president, it seems. Some of the other students threw snowballs. This cop here, the dead guy on the ground, took Miss Moore down. Then he turns up dead the next morning.”
“So, what? Are we thinking this girl Moore is the primary suspect? With a dislocated shoulder and who knows what side effects from the pepper spray? Was she taken to the hospital? Does she have an alibi?”
“I haven't dug down that far yet. There's no one here but us and one member of the library staff. All the administrators are gone home for the weekend. It's going to be the devil itself to get them back here. Fortunately, that's your job, not mine. Your primary task will be to track all these people down by Monday. Most of them have profiles up on the university's website.”
Michael thought of a picture of himself and Billy on the Cumberland County Sheriff Office's website. The website did not list any names of its officers other than a few support staff who agreed to have their name posted. Michael had opted not to do that. He had a made a point of keeping himself off the Internet as much as possible. He had once seen a young girl doing Internet searches on his name while he questioned the girl's parents. She had done it on an old desktop computer with a large hard drive and larger screen. Ever since then, he tried to avoid the press, giving interviews, posting blogs, or writing articles. As long as he remained a detective, he wanted nothing to do with the Internet.
He said, “All right, work the phones. I got it. I'll keep watch over the scene until Billy arrives.”
As soon as he said that, Michael saw the bulky form of William McGee striding down the long pathway that led from university's playhouse to the library. When he arrived, he huffed out steamy breaths. He said, “Good, Michael, you're already here.” He nodded his head towards Metzger. “Chief.”
Chief Metzger put his hands in his jacket pockets, then said, “Well, I'll leave you two gentlemen to it. Try not to get in a pissing match with the officers on campus here, would you?”
3
Though there wasn't much for the evidence technicians to do, they recorded with great care every fact that they could about the murder scene. They recorded that the temperature in the morning was twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, that no shell casings had been found at the scene, that no bullets had passed through the decedent's body, that he had been left lying in a pool of frozen blood. They recorded that the man had been in uniform when he died. Though he had been carrying pepper spray, a Taser, and a gun, he had utilized none of these. They photographed the ring on the ring finger of his left hand, which read Erie University. The officer had a wallet on his person, though the wallet had not been stolen. In fact, when the first technician on the scene tried to pull the decedent's wallet out of his pants pocket, the wallet came out only with great difficulty, for his pockets were small, his legs muscular. He did not carry a flashlight in either hand, even though he had been walking around in the dark. He did not even have a flashlight on his person, though an empty slot in the side of his utility belt was just the right size for a flashlight. That, Michael concluded, was the most important discovery the team had made. Whoever owned an extra policeman's flashlight would be the prime suspect for the killing. The killer might think to wipe down the flashlight itself, but he might not think to wipe down the batteries inside.
Officer Kevin Bailey was also possessed of a keyring which had various keys on it. When Michael handled it himself, turning it over in his gloved hands, he observed at least one key that was old, a sentimental keepsake rather than a possession of necessity. The key was for an International vehicle, though whether it was for the old pickup trucks the company used to make or an old tractor trailer, he could not say. He only knew from personal experience that the company no longer made keys with the letters IN on them; instead, a single I was engraved on each factory key. He didn't think that to be a major part of the case, but he made a note of it anyway. Sometimes cases broke open from the smallest of details, the most inconsequential of facts.
Going through the man's wallet felt, at first, like an invasion of privacy. Then Michael remembered the murder always forced officers to strip away the privacy of anyone even remotely involved. He felt as though he should be asking permission from someone, but there was no one to ask. Kevin Bailey was beyond such concerns as who might be looking through his credit and membership cards.
He found three library cards: one to Cumberland County, one to Dauphin County, and one to the state library in Harrisburg.
He made a note of that, too. He had always found it unusual for a person to hold more than one county library card at once. Any materials not available in Cumberland County could be requested through an interlibrary loan. There was no need to have more than one library card unless he traveled regularly. Working as he did at the southernmost end of Cumberland County, he would have to drive the better part of an hour just to get to a Dauphin County library location. If his schedule was that of a normal police officer, he would have found it difficult to go from county to county. He did not, for a reason Michael could not determine, have a Franklin County library card. This would have made more sense to him, since Franklin County was closer to Shippensburg than Dauphin County was. The state library card, which allowed him access to a location in Harrisburg that was only open three out of every seven days, was for the moment a mystery.
Additionally, Kevin had possessed a PayPal card, two bank debit cards, four shopper's club cards for local grocery stores, sixty-six dollars, a laminated license to drive powered industrial trucks—among which were forklifts and other machines Michael had never heard of—and a wrinkled, slightly faded business card for St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Shippensburg. Michael knew of the church, though he had never been there. Partly because he could not remember the last time he'd had a Sunday off. He found more solace in religion through contemplation rather than instruction anyway, and so he hadn't set foot inside a church for nine years. The last time had been for his marriage; seven years after that, he had stepped inside a lawyer's office seeking advice on how to file for divorce.
