Stump Speech Murder

by Patricia Rockwell

  “My sensitive nature!” cried Pamela, “Joan Bentley! You’re smitten! With a gumshoe!”

  “He’s completely different from your average academic,” continued Joan, “who are mostly totally predictable. Now, Conrad, on the other hand, never ceases to surprise me.”

  “Surprise you?” exclaimed Pamela. “You sound as if you’ve already been out . . . . Joan, have you gone out with that man?”

  “So what if I have?” chirped Joan, sweetly, smiling benignly at Pamela over her shoulder.

  “You barely met him,” shrieked Pamela in a stage whisper.

  “Who are you, my mother?” responded Joan with a huff. “I’m of age. I don’t need your approval to date.”

  “But, Joan!” continued Pamela, “The man is so far beneath your usual . . . choices. I mean, you typically have much better . . . taste.”

  “Oh my, aren’t we superior!” scowled Joan. “You think you’re better than anyone else because you married an Army cook!”

  “That’s not the point!” she shot back.

  “What is the point?” asked Joan, now nose to Pamela’s nose.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Pamela, leaning back in the hospital chair. She looked around and was gratified that there were no other people in the maternity ward waiting room at the moment. The last thing she should be doing is fighting with Joan while they sat here and waited for Arliss’s baby to be born.

  “How long have we been here?” asked Joan, changing the subject, much to Pamela’s relief.

  “At least six hours,” replied Pamela, looking down at her watch.

  “Do you want to wait here while I go down to the hospital cafeteria and get us some sandwiches?” Joan asked.

  Pamela’s stomach lurched at the thought of sandwiches made by anyone except her sandwich king Rocky. Eating a regular sandwich was like eating raw cardboard, she surmised.

  At that moment, Bob came out of Arliss’s room. Pamela realized that the agonizing cries that had been coming from the room over the last few hours (and that she had been trying to ignore unsuccessfully) had slowed and ultimately ceased. Bob looked around quickly and then noticed Joan and Pamela sitting alone in the small waiting room slightly past the nurses’ station. He hurried over to the two women.

  “It’s a boy!” he beamed.

  “Oh, Bob!” exclaimed Pamela, “we’re so happy for you and Arliss!” She flung her arms around Bob’s neck and squeezed him tight.

  “Wonderful!” added Joan and also gave Bob a small hug.

  “Here,” said Bob, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out two pink cellophane-wrapped cigars. “They’re bubble gum.” He handed one to Pamela and one to Joan.

  “How is Arliss?” asked Pamela, tucking the cigar in her purse.

  “Tired but happy,” he replied. “Oh, and the baby weighs seven pounds, fifteen ounces. We’re going to call him Noah.”

  “Very appropriate,” noted Joan, unwrapping her gum cigar and taking a bite.

  “Ideal,” added Pamela. “I’m sure he’ll turn out to be an animal lover just like his parents.” She beamed at Bob and they hugged again.

  “I’m going to go back in. The doctor says you two may come in for just a few minutes.”

  “Wonderful,” replied Pamela. “Is that okay with Arliss?”

  “She wants you to come in. She knows you’ve both been here the whole time.”

  Bob led the way into the small room. Arliss looked much calmer than she had when they brought her in. She was sitting up in bed, her black kinky curls drenched and plastered to her head. In her arms she held a tiny bundle in a blue blanket. His small pink face with his eyes closed faced directly at the newcomers.

  “Oh, Arliss, he’s beautiful!” whispered Pamela as she came over and bent down to get a better view. Joan followed and stood beside Pamela, squinting at the tiny face.

  “Look at you,” Joan said, chewing her cigar gum, to the baby, “your mother surely gave us a merry chase today! We thought we’d have to deliver you ourselves on Aunt Pamela’s office floor!”

  “If you had,” replied Arliss, beaming, “I know you would have done a wonderful job!”

  “Arliss is right, Joan and Pam,” said Bob coming up behind the two women, his arms around their shoulders. “We can’t thank you enough for helping her out. Who would have thought that Noah would pick right during my mass lecture class to make his entrance? He obviously has two very good aunts.”

  “We were glad to help,” said Pamela.

  “Two very hungry aunts,” added Joan, gnawing on the gum. “I think we’re going to let you and your baby get some rest, Arliss. Pamela and I need to get going and get some supper.”

  “Oh, absolutely!” replied Arliss. “Thank you, again, you two! I’ll never forget how you helped me today!” Each new aunt gave one last glance at their new nephew and then headed out of Arliss’s room. Bob followed and said farewell to them outside of her door.

  “It’s after six,” noted Joan as they headed through the hospital’s main lobby.

  “Right,” said Pamela. “I’m going home. Rocky will probably warm up something for me. Shall I drop you off on campus so you can get your car or do you just want me to take you straight to your apartment?”

  “Umm,” said Joan thoughtfully, “you can go on without me.”

  “What?” asked Pamela. “How are you going to get home?”

  “Um,” hesitated Joan, looking around, then turned to her friend and whispered, “Conrad will take me home.”

  Pamela looked up to see the seedy investigator leaning against a pillar near the entrance to Reardon General, a stereotypical toothpick in his teeth. He grinned as he saw Joan walking towards him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  She had arrived home after eleven that night and had collapsed in bed after a quick supper. Rocky, bless his heart, had not hounded her about her day–evidently helping a pregnant friend give birth was an acceptable reason for being six hours late. She had slept soundly and awakened refreshed. Amazingly enough, she felt a new insight into how to proceed with her investigation of the 911 recording.

  At her office, she immediately sought out Willard. As he had not yet arrived, she went to her office. After settling in, she called Ginger Cooper at WRER. The reporter was in early today and anxious to hear how Pamela’s sleuthing was coming along.

  “Dr. Barnes,” greeted Ginger, “have you found anything from those samples of Stacy Grant’s voice we sent you?”

  “Miss Cooper,” responded Pamela, “I’ll tell you that they’re proving very helpful. Unfortunately, we’re finding that we now have an even bigger mystery on our hands. It appears that we’re going to need a much larger sample than just the few seconds you sent us.”

  “Bummer,” retorted Ginger Cooper. “That’s a problem. My assistant sent you the only recording we have catalogued just for Stacy Grant. I’m sure we have additional footage of her on b-roll in our archives, but it’s probably catalogued differently–maybe under the various court cases she worked on, maybe under the DA’s name, or any number of other possibilities. It would take quite a bit of manpower and lots of time to track down every audio segment we might have for Stacy Grant. If it were just up to me, Dr. Barnes, I’d do it in a heart beat, but I don’t think the station manager would sanction the time and personnel involved in such a task.”

  “I understand,” replied Pamela, “I’m just wondering if there’s any way we–I mean–I could get access to your archives and search for Stacy’s audio myself.”

  “I don’t know,” said Cooper. “I could talk to the station manager. We usually don’t have non-station personnel working in the editing suite. You’d have to use the editing suite to go through all that b-roll and we only have three units. If you tied up one of our units for a long time, it would make our work pretty difficult.”

  “I see that, “ noted Pamela. “There’s no way we could get a hold of the b-roll for these various court cases or the prosecutor’s office an
d go through them on our own?”

  “Afraid not,” replied the reporter, “as our videotape is designed to run only on our special machines. It’s not like you can play it on your home DVR. I mean, I can certainly keep looking for more segments of Stacy Grant’s voice, but I can’t guarantee when I’ll be able to track any of it down.”

  “Ginger,” said Pamela, after a pause, “how would someone get access to any of this b-roll? I mean, I’m contacting you directly. What if someone else wanted to use some of your footage? Is there a method for obtaining it? Do you ever loan it out? Or is what I’m doing–by asking to see it–unusual?”

  “No, not really,” replied Ginger Cooper, “sometimes we loan out footage to individuals to make local commercials or as legal evidence–or any number of other reasons. But usually, the person who needs it knows pretty much what they want. Or they know how to find it. There are a number of people in town who are proficient with our type of editing suites.”

  “What about that recent Brewster ad?” she queried. “The slick one with the cartoon characters that makes Brewster look like a super hero? Seems there was quite a bit of footage of Brewster in that.”

  “Yeah,” replied the WRER anchor, “that was certainly one of the better local spots I’ve ever seen. The Brewster campaign is definitely getting more sophisticated in their PR.”

  “Do you know anyone in their campaign?” Pamela asked.

  “No,” said Ginger, “I pretty much try to keep out of both campaigns personally. You know, to remain unbiased. Believe me, it’s hard to do, what with Brewster running this town into the ground for . . . . Please don’t get me going.”

  “I’m sorry,” replied Pamela. “I’m not trying to cause you any trouble. I’m just trying to figure out where to go from here. We really need more footage of Stacy Grant speaking. We need a large sample and we need it quickly.”

  “You might check the DA’s office,” suggested Ginger. “I mean, Stacy is–was one of theirs. Maybe they kept video or audio records of her court cases.”

  “I’ll certainly try that,” agreed Pamela. “Anyway, thank you, Miss Cooper . . . Ginger. You’ve been more than helpful.”

  “You’re welcome, Dr. Barnes. Good luck.” With that, Pamela hung up. The DA’s office. At Ginger Cooper’s suggestion, she called the local office of the prosecuting attorney and explained her request. She was informed that the DA did not maintain any video or audio records of their assistants in court.

  “Pamela,” she heard Willard’s voice as she looked up from her desk and saw her friend standing in her doorway leaning on his cane. His face gleamed with a broad smile.

  “Oh, Willard,” she sighed. “I’ve tried both WRER and the DA’s office to try to get us additional footage of Stacy Grant, but no luck.

  “Then my news will be most welcome, my dear,” said Willard. “I believe I know where we can get exactly what we need.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “At WPUR,” replied Willard.

  “What?”

  “Yes,” said Willard, with a gleeful grin and wobbling in to her office. “Martin informs me that our campaign–I mean, James’s campaign–has produced several clever video ads which utilized footage that they got from some local television stations. Of course, none of this footage includes Stacy, but Martin contacted the person who did our ads and found out where she got the footage she needed.”

  “And?”

  “The local access station.”

  “What?”

  “Local access,” repeated Willard. “It’s WPUR. It’s very shoestring, you know. Lots of Grace students evidently use it. Amateur shows and so forth. The Grace media department often produces programs on it. Anyway, WPUR maintains an extensive library of b-roll of all sorts of documentary-type footage. Martin spoke with them and we are more than welcome to come down there and go through their library of material. They actually are delighted to have us, particularly since you’re involved.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” she asked. “Can you contact Martin and set up a time for the whole team to meet down there? Maybe later today?”

  “I’ll call him right away,” replied Willard, hobbling out of her office and down the hallway. He almost smashed head on into Joan who was entering just as he was exiting.

  “Where’s the fire?” called out Joan to Willard’s rapidly departing figure. “I’ve never seen him move that fast,” she remarked to Pamela as she wandered into the office and casually placed herself on her favorite chair.

  “We may have a break in the case,” said Pamela. “Can you meet with us this afternoon? Probably around four?”

  “I can,” said Joan, perking up, “but I was planning on going over to the hospital to visit Arliss and the baby.”

  “Maybe we can sneak out at lunch time for a quick peek,” suggested Pamela, as she too wanted to get another view of the new baby.

  “Won’t do,” replied Joan. “Have to go during visiting hours, two to five.”

  “Hmm,” sighed Pamela. “It’s going to have to wait. If we find what we’re after right away, maybe you and I can stop by the hospital after we leave WPUR.”

  “WPUR?” asked Joan. “Isn’t that public access? What do we need to do there?”

  “Listen to acres of b-roll footage for audio of Stacy Grant,” replied Pamela.

  “Ugh,” responded Joan. “That sounds boring!”

  “Conrad will be there,” insinuated Pamela with an inviting leer.

  “Of course, then, I’ll do my part for the cause,” said Joan, lifting her chest proudly.

  “I figured as much,” said Pamela with a sneer. “How did your date go last night?”

  “Swimmingly,” replied Joan, stretching out, arms behind her head. “He’s such a fascinating man!” She placed one heeled foot neatly over the other.

  “I hope you continue to believe that when you start to regale him with tales of your latest ed psych report and his eyes glaze over.”

  “I can make dry prose sound entertaining,” said Joan with a gestural flourish.

  “I don’t doubt it,” offered Pamela, “I certainly hope that Mr. Gates appreciates how lucky he is.”

  “I have talents, Pamela, of which you are unaware,” whispered Joan conspiratorially.

  “My ears, Joan!” cried Pamela, covering them with her hands in mock horror.

  Willard popped back inside her office door.

  “We’re on for four this afternoon, ladies,” he announced breathlessly. “WPUR, south on Highway 22 about six miles south of town.”

  “I know where it is, Willard,” replied Pamela. “We’ll be there.”

  “With our magnifying glasses in tow!” added Joan. They all laughed and Willard headed back to his office.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Pamela drove up outside of public access television station WPUR, located out in the “boonies” just off the highway. With Joan in the front seat, the two professors pulled into the small gravel lot in front of the white clapboard building which sported a dilapidated set of four giant black call letters carved out of wood and each surrounded with what appeared to be blinking Christmas tree lights. A large number of cars were already gathered and Pamela could see Martin and Willard who had obviously come together surrounded by Conrad Gates and a group of young college students standing in front of the main entrance. The women got out of their vehicle and headed over to their group.

  “Dr. Barnes, Dr. Bentley,” greeted Martin Dobbs warmly, “as you can see, we’re here in force. I hope we have a sufficient number of people to accomplish this task for you.”

  “You probably have more than enough,” responded Pamela, “I don’t know how many video editors this station has. We’ll see.”

  “Shall we go in?” Dobbs asked and pointed the way for the group to enter the building.

  Inside, Martin encountered a secretary or clerk seated at a desk immediately before them. He spoke quietly to the woman and s
he left through a door in the small wood-paneled lobby. Shortly after, she returned with a small man wearing a huge pair of horned-rimmed glasses and wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt. The man came immediately to Martin and greeted him and all of the adults in the entourage. Martin spoke with the man briefly and then the man led the entire group through the lobby door. They followed him through a maze of hallways past various small recording studios and editing stations. At the end of a long hallway, he led them into a large room outfitted with several tables. On one table were placed four large television monitors with additional equipment surrounding each of them. Pamela recognized these units as the editing bays. On the second table, piled up high were a dozen or so DVRs–each marked with a hand-written label.

  “We’ve set this room up just for you, Dr. Barnes,” the glasses-wearing man said to her, and then turning to Martin, he added “and Mr. Dobbs, you can assign four people to actually sit here at the monitors and look at the video. You may want to have your other folks, go through the stacks of DVRs my staff has pulled for you from our archives. We’ve pulled anything labeled ‘Stacy Grant’ or ‘DA’s office’ or ‘prosecutor’ or anything similar to that. As you can tell, there are dozens of DVRs. I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, so I really don’t know how long it might take you to find it–if you can.”

  “Um, thank you, um . . .” Pamela began.

  “Peter Simms,” he said. “I’m the manager of WPUR. As a public access station, it’s our duty to assist the . . . uh, public to obtain access to media. This is, admittedly, a strange request, but certainly within our mission.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Simms,” she continued. “You’ve been extremely helpful.” She shook his hand and the man left the group to their own devices. Immediately, Pamela looked around at the potential manpower available.

  “How do you want to proceed, Pamela?” asked Martin Dobbs, his sparkling smile never more gleaming than today.

  “I think we’ll probably need to take turns at the editing bays,” she suggested as she looked at the massive amount of material they would have to view. “Why don’t we start out by taking hour-long shifts and see what we find. Who wants to view video and who wants to keep records?”