Sounds of Murder (3 page)

Pamela and Kent sat close together on their
lab chairs. Pamela was clutching her jacket and purse and Kent was
still holding tightly to his backpack. Shoop straddled the small
rolling lab chair from behind.

"Now, start at the beginning," said the tall
detective, leaning over the back of the chair and sleepily eyeing
the two of them

"We’d just finished Dr. Barnes’ seminar,"
stated Kent. He glanced at Pamela.

"When was that?" interrupted Shoop.

"About five to nine," answered Pamela, "I
checked my watch as I was leaving the seminar room."

"Good," nodded Shoop, then he pointed to
Kent, indicating that he should continue. Shoop reached in his suit
pocket and pulled out a large cloth handkerchief and wiped his nose
firmly. Then he replaced the hanky in his pocket.

"Uh, Dr. Barnes wanted me to check to see if
the lab was locked, so I came down here to check."

"Is this laboratory typically left unlocked?"
Shoop asked, directing this comment to Pamela.

"No, never," she responded firmly. "There is
so much expensive equipment here. Only faculty members have keys,
and graduate students can check out keys only with a faculty
member's permission."

"Hmmm," said Shoop, thinking and biting his
lower lip. "Continue."

"When I got here," said Kent, "the door was
open..."

"Open?" asked Shoop, “Is that normal?”

Kent thought a moment. "Not for this time of
night, no. That's what struck me as odd right away. I mean, it’s
usually closed and locked when the last grad assistant leaves for
the day. Hardly anyone uses it this late. I figured that a faculty
member must be in the lab working late and when I saw Dr. Clark,
that's what I thought it was--until I saw how she was..."

"Yes," said Shoop, cutting him off. "Then
what did you do?”

"I ran back to the seminar room to get Dr.
Barnes," he responded.

"Did you see anyone in the lab? Or near the
lab, either before or after you first entered at nine o’clock?"
Shoop asked the young man.

"No. No one,” replied Kent. “The building was
deserted except for Dr. Barnes and me."

Another man in a suit and overcoat arrived
and waved a greeting to Detective Shoop, who pointed him towards
the body.

"The coroner," announced Shoop. He redirected
his interest back to Pamela and Kent. "Now, Mr. Drummond, did you
or Ms. Barnes touch the body or anything around the

body or in the lab after you entered?"

"No," said Kent, "I didn't touch
anything."

"I touched Charlotte," responded Pamela. "I
checked her pulse and listened for breath sounds. The police
operator directed me to do that."

"Yes," nodded Shoop, "yes, that's fine. Did
you touch anything else?"

"No, nothing." she responded.

"All right," Shoop said, standing. "Mr.
Drummond, I'm going to have you go with Officer Kline, here." He
motioned for one of the uniformed officers to come over. "He’ll ask
you some more questions, standard procedure, and then he’ll see
that you’re returned safely to your residence." The uniformed
officer escorted Kent out of the laboratory. Pamela remained
seated.

"Now, Ms. Barnes," began the lanky detective,
looking around. "Is there some place more private we could
talk?"

"Tonight?" she asked. "Couldn't this wait
until tomorrow? I'm so tired. So drained emotionally. I really need
to go home."

"I understand, Ms. Barnes," said the
detective, "But, I'm sorry. I must ask you some questions right
now, while all of this is still fresh in your mind." He looked at
her expectantly.

"I guess we can go to my office," she said,
sighing, "It's upstairs."

"Fine," he responded and started to lead her
out of the lab, his dark overcoat flapping against his legs as he
walked.

"Detective," she said, stopping him,
hesitating, "Could I first please call my husband? He's probably
worried that I'm not home yet."

"Sure," stated Shoop, returning to his chair
and reseating himself, obviously intending to wait for her while
she made her call. Pamela again reached into her purse and pulled
out her cell phone. She pressed the number key for her home. Her
husband answered almost immediately.

"Hey, Babe," he said, "Where are you?"

"Oh, Rocky," she said, tears now welling up,
"I...I ...won't be home for a while. There was an...an accident
here." Then she added quickly, sensing his concern, "I'm fine. I'm
fine, but...one of our faculty has died. The police are here. I'm
going to be here a bit longer."

"Do you need me to come get you?" he asked.
She could hear his voice catch.

"No," she said, gulping. "I'm really fine. I
just need to talk to the police a bit more. I'll explain everything
when I get home. Oh, Rocky..."

"Yes, Babe?"

"Please, wait up."

"You know it."

She hung up and slowly put her phone away.
Then as Detective Shoop gestured for her to lead the way to her
office, she headed out of the lab, with a quick final look toward
the carrel that contained the body of Charlotte Clark.

Chapter 3

She couldn't believe she was still
here--still in the building this late at night. She placed her key
in the lock and opened her office. Shoop immediately brushed past
her, reached for the light switch, which he found instinctively to
the left of the door. Bright stark fluorescent light illuminated
her usually cheerful space. Shoop strode to her paisley sofa,
removed his overcoat, and laid it over the arm. Then he sat
perfunctorily in the middle. He gestured for her to take a place at
her desk.

"Have a seat, Ms. Barnes," he motioned,
pulling his small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. She moved
to her desk, dumped her belongings on top and sat in her swivel
chair. Usually she preferred to lounge on the sofa. It was more
comfortable and she had discovered over the years that if she
allowed students to take up a position on her couch, they had a
tendency to stay there for a long time. Please don’t let this be
the case with Shoop, she prayed. She desperately wanted to go home
to Rocky. She needed to feel his arms around her and hear him tell
her this was all a bad dream.

Shoop crossed one leg over the other and
leaned back in the soft pillows of her sofa. He looked entrenched.
Not what she wanted.

"All right, Ms. Barnes," he started, flipping
through the pages of the notebook and glancing at the notes he’d
taken in the lab. "Let's start at the beginning. When did you
arrive here?"

"You mean tonight?" she asked, somewhat
confused.

"Yes," he answered. "You weren't here all
day?"

"No, sir," she said. She was sitting up
straight in her desk chair, not feeling one bit relaxed. She knew
she had nothing to hide and yet this was quickly beginning to feel
like an interrogation.

"When did you first arrive at the building
today?" he asked, rephrasing his question, and poising his pen for
her response.

"I got here this morning around nine o'clock,
but I went home for dinner about five o'clock and then returned at
six," she described.

"Is this your regular daily pattern?" he
asked, now munching thoughtfully on the end of the pen, his sleepy
brown eyes watching her, as he glanced over the tops of his rimless
glasses.

"No," she said, swallowing, "only on
Tuesdays. I have a graduate seminar on Tuesday nights."

"I see," he nodded. "Hmm," he added, changing
positions. "All right, take me again through every step from the
time you entered the building at six."

"All right," she said. "I parked in the lot.
One of my students, Kent Drummond, you know, you met him ...”

"Right," he cut her off. He pulled his
handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. "Continue with
your story."

She suddenly felt defensive. "It's not a
story," she said. "I'm just telling you what actually
happened."

"Right, right," he said in a practiced
soothing voice, "Just continue." He shoved the hanky back in his
pocket.

"Kent met me at my car."

"Where did he come from? The building?" asked
Shoop.

"No, I believe he’d just arrived. His car was
parked behind mine."

"Fine," answered the detective. "Go on."

We walked into the building together," Pamela
continued, "He went directly to the seminar room and I stopped at
the main office."

"Did anyone see you in the office?"

"I was just going to say, I stopped at the
office because Phineas Ottenback, one of my colleagues, wanted to
talk to me. I stood in the hallway for just a few minutes talking
to Phineas and then he headed upstairs to his class and I went into
the office to get my mail."

"Where did this Phineas Ottenback come from?"
said Shoop, holding up his hand to slow her down, "Did you
see?"

"At first, from the main office. But,
originally, I suppose, he came from his office. That's at the other
end of the hall."

"Near the lab?" he asked.

"Yes, near the lab. Several faculty members
have offices in the side hallway that ends at the lab."

"Who?" he asked.

"Let's see," she answered, "Rex Tyson is on
the left as you face the lab, the graduate students' office is on
the right, Phin's office is next to Rex's. Then Charlotte's office
is at the end of the hall, directly opposite the lab. Laura
Delmondo's office is next to Charlotte's. Dr. Marks's office--he's
the head of our department--is off the departmental office which is
directly opposite the main entrance to the building."

“Are those the only faculty offices on the
main floor?"

"They’re the only ones in this wing. There
are two other offices in the other wing of the building--the animal
wing. Bob Goodman and Arliss MacGregor teach all the animal
psychology classes and their offices are located in that wing."

"And your office is here on the second
floor," he said. "Are there any other faculty offices up here?"

"Yes," Pamela answered, "Just Dr. Bentley's
which is directly across the hall from mine and Dr. Swinton's which
is next to Dr. Bentley's."

"Other than this Dr. Ottenback," he noted,
jotting down this information in his notebook, "did you notice any
other faculty members in the building tonight?"

"Yes," she answered. "Dr. Marks was in his
office talking to Charlotte, but I just heard them, I didn’t really
see them."

“You’re sure you heard the victim, Charlotte
Clark in Dr. Marks’ office?”

“Yes,” answered Pamela, “and I heard her
leave and walk down the hall shortly after I entered my classroom.”
She looked down at her hands folded in her lap. Just how much of
what she’d heard between Mitchell and Charlotte should she
reveal?

“Did Dr. Marks remain in his office or did he
also leave?”

“As far as I know, he remained, although I
don’t know for sure, because I started class almost immediately and
when class was over, I went immediately to the lab when Kent called
me.”

“Yes,” said Shoop. “I see.” He jotted away in
his small notebook.

Now," said Shoop, his droopy eye lids
crinkling, "back to your activities following your arrival at the
building tonight. After you spoke to. . ." he trailed away,
checking his notes, "Ottenback and overheard the conversation
between Marks and Clark, then what did you do?"

"Do?" she questioned. "As I told you, I went
to my class, spent three hours teaching, and then a few minutes
before nine I dismissed class. I asked Kent--he's my assistant, so
he's used to running errands for me--I asked him to run down to the
lab and make sure it was locked."

"Why did you do that?" he queried. "Was there
some reason you feared that it wouldn't be locked?"

"No," Pamela hesitated, "but we’ve been
warned lately from upper administration and from Dr. Marks to be
ultra careful about lab security. The lab contains some extremely
expensive equipment and it wouldn't take much for someone to steal
it if the door was left unlocked."

"Who, again, has keys?" Shoop asked.

"Every faculty member has a key of their own.
I assume Jane Marie, the departmental secretary, has a key--or at
least access to one," she pondered. "A graduate student can check
out a key when they’re conducting their own research or aiding a
faculty member with research."

"So, how many keys to the lab, would you say,
are out there?" he asked directly.

She thought, counting faculty, Jane Marie,
and adding an extra few for graduate students. "I would guess that
there are probably 15 or 20."

"But you don't know for sure?"

"No," she answered, "But Dr. Marks, the head
of the department, could tell you that."

"And I’ll be talking to him, you can be
assured," noted Shoop. "Now, Ms. Barnes, please continue with your
stor--your description of events."

"I asked Kent to run down to check on the lab
to be sure it was locked.," she said, "He did and as I was heading
towards the exit, he came running toward me, horribly upset. I
followed him to the lab and that's where we found Charlotte."

Shoop bent forward on the sofa, looking at
her pointedly.

"Tell me precisely what you saw from the
moment you entered the lab."

"The door was open, as Kent told you. He went
in and went straight to Computer Carrel #4 and I followed. As I
rounded the first row of computers I could see a woman seated in
the carrel, bent over the computer desk. I could see the glare from
the computer screen so I assumed the person was working at the
computer."

"You say 'Computer Carrel #4,'" he stopped
her. "Did you know the number of the carrel before you got
there?"

"Yes, actually. All the carrels in the first
row are numbered. The computers in the first row have more
technological features than those in the other rows. The department
has subscriptions to several expensive online data bases, and
faculty and graduate students can tap into those from any of the
computers in the first row. Also, there are sophisticated recording
capabilities in each of the first row computers--sensitive
microphones and recording paraphernalia that don't exist on the
other computers."