Stump Speech Murder (16 page)

“Half the department seems to be rallying behind the guy,” she sighed.  “I wish Dr. Marks wasn’t so beholden to Mrs. Brewster.  He thinks the sun rises and sets on her.  There’s no way he’d even consider supporting Mr. Grant.”

“Does he know about your feelings, Jane Marie?” asked Pamela, looking pointedly at the young office worker.  “I remember you saying how concerned your husband was that Hap Brewster would be re-elected if James wasn’t exonerated soon.”

“I try to keep my political views to myself, Dr. Barnes,” whispered Jane Marie.  “Dr. Marks is a very fair boss, but he’s totally one-track minded when it comes to Katherine Brewster.  It’s not so much her husband, I think, but her.  Hap Brewster is just part of the package.”

“Mitchell doesn’t have to support James,” Pamela said.  “It’s a free country.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t strong-armed you to stay out of it,” whispered Jane Marie, bending over her desk and directing her comment at Pamela’s ear. “If he knew that you were involved in trying to clear Mr. Grant—or if he knew that Dr. Bentley and Dr. Swinton were involved–I’m afraid he’d be furious.”

“Then, please don’t tell him,” she noted.  “I certainly won’t.”

“Don’t tell him what?” asked Marks, opening the door to his office just as Pamela spoke this last comment.  “If it’s something you don’t want Jane Marie to tell ‘him,’ I’m guessing the ‘him’ is me.  Right?”  He stood inside the doorway, his arms pressed against the jamb.

“Good lord, Mitchell,” Pamela inhaled.  “You scared me to death!”

“You two shouldn’t be gossiping if you don’t want me to listen in.  The walls aren’t that thick, you know!”

“Jane Marie was not gossiping,” said Pamela to her boss, who eyed her skeptically with his blue eyes glaring. 

“Out with it, JM,” he ordered, turning to his secretary and running a hand through his thick wavy blonde hair.  “What’s the big secret about me?”

“Oh, Mitchell,” continued Pamela, feeling incredibly guilty that she had possibly incriminated the young secretary with her boss.  “It’s not about you.  I was just asking Jane Marie, about Katherine Brewster.  I was curious about her relationship with her husband.”

“And Jane Marie is supposed to know about that?” he chuckled.  “And that’s something you two have to keep quiet from me?”

“You are wining and dining the woman for contributions, aren’t you?” asked Pamela.

“Not really.  She’s very generous without any persuasion on my part,” he said.  “And, she says virtually nothing about her husband when she comes to visit.”

“And what does your wife say about all these visits, Mitchell?” asked Pamela.

“My wife? Oh, for god’s sake, Pamela!” he laughed.  “Velma has known about Katherine Brewster’s contributions to our department for years.  I guarantee you she has nothing to fear.”

“I don’t know,” said Pamela, shaking her head.  “Katherine Brewster is very attractive!”

“You two!” he huffed.  “You’re being ridiculous.  Get back to work, both of you!”  He grimaced and turned back into his office, shutting the door behind him.

“Nicely deflected, Dr. Barnes,” said Jane Marie with a high-five to Pamela.

“I just turned the tables.  Given Mitchell’s proclivities . . . .”

“You knew he would assume that we were gossiping about him and Katherine Brewster as a possible romantic item,” confided the secretary.

“ Little does he know,” chuckled Pamela.

“Dr. Barnes!  I just thought.  What if Katherine Brewster was having an affair and her husband found out?  What if she was having an affair with James Grant?”

“What?” exclaimed Pamela in astonishment.  “I think that’s highly unlikely, Jane Marie.”

“You said yourself how attractive she is—and really, Hap Brewster isn’t very attractive at all.  Why would a woman as lovely as Katherine Brewster agree to marry someone so repugnant as Hap Brewster?”

“Ummm, I’m thinking, for power and money,” replied Pamela.  “He’s the mayor and he’s rich.”

“Maybe Katherine Brewster killed Stacy Grant because she wanted her out of the way so she could get her husband.”

“If that were true, then why would she set up James for the murder?  Because if James is innocent, that’s what someone did.  If Katherine Brewster loved James, she wouldn’t arrange things so that he’d be found with his wife’s dead body.  Now would she?”

“I guess not, Dr. Barnes,” replied Jane Marie, leaning against the top of her keyboard, arms crossed in a forlorn pose.  “I wish I could figure these things out like you do.”

“I wish I could figure these things out like I do too, Jane Marie.”  She waved goodbye and headed out of the main office, down the hallway, and out the side entrance into the parking lot.

She almost bumped into Joan who was entering from the lot.

“Pamela,” Joan said, breathless, grabbing Pamela’s shoulder, “I’m glad I caught you before you headed home.”

“You’re coming back to work this late?” asked Pamela.

“It’s my night graduate class,” said Joan as a reminder.  “How did your meeting go with James at the jail?  Martin wants us all to meet—at his office.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow at four.  Is that okay for you?  I didn’t think you had class that late.”

“No, I don’t.  I’ll see if Willard can come too.  He’s been helping with some things and he has some ideas.”

“Great,” replied Joan.  “Do you know where their office is?”

“On Crawford, isn’t it?  I’ve driven by and seen all the banners for James.”

“That’s the place,” agreed Joan.  “Martin will bring sandwiches, so tell your beloved not to cook tomorrow night.”

“Can do,” she said.  “See you tomorrow.”

She hopped in her little blue Civic and headed home.

Chapter Eighteen

Sleep was elusive.  Pamela tossed and turned as she mentally reviewed all of the various pieces of information she had collected that related—or more likely—didn’t relate to James Grant’s murder case.  What was fact?  What was supposition?  She rolled over again, trying to find a more comfortable position, growling uncontrollably when she discovered that most of the covers were embedded under Rocky’s torso.  She gave a polite tug in an attempt to secure her portion of the sheets. 

“What’s going on?” he grumbled, rolling over and facing her.  “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” she replied.  She felt guilty for waking him.  They had already discussed the case at supper and more hashing it out would probably not help her figure things out.  Also, she hadn’t informed her husband about the threatening phone call she had received that afternoon in her office, because she knew that if he knew that her life was potentially in jeopardy, he would envelope her like a butterfly in a cocoon and never let her out of his sight.  Even so, she appreciated his insight and enjoyed using him as a sounding board to test her theories.

“Okay,” he sighed, propping himself up on his elbow, “let’s have it.”

“I don’t want to bother you; you need your sleep.”

“Which I won’t get with Hurricane Pamela rolling through our bed at 50 miles an hour.”

She gave him one of her skeptical looks and scooted up against the headboard, knees enfolded with her hands.

“I’ve been going over the facts of the case,” she said simply.  “And the facts indicate rather obviously that James Grant killed his wife.”

“Case closed,” he huffed, and rolled over.

“Rocky!” she cried.

“Oh, all right!” he said. “You were never one to let facts stand in your way.”  He rolled back over to her and positioned his head on his hand.

“It’s just that the facts are so obvious, it really looks like a set-up.  I mean, if a man is going to kill his wife, why would he bash her over the head then just sit there by the body trying to revive her until the police arrive.  It seems far more likely to me—and I would think to any reasonable person—that James probably accidentally walked into his house right after the murder, saw his dying wife, and stricken with grief, tried to revive her—totally oblivious of the arrival of the police.”

“He didn’t call the police. Or, at least there doesn’t appear to be a record of him calling 911.  If he really cared about the wife, wouldn’t he call 911?”

“Maybe he didn’t have time,” she responded, turning to him.  “If he just found her, he probably attempted to revive her before he even thought to call for help.”

“All the more reason to make it seem like a set-up,” she said.  “The police certainly arrived at the most inauspicious moment—at least for James.”

“But they were just responding to his wife’s 911 call,” he added.

“If it was Stacy’s call,” she said cryptically, with a devious look.

“What?” he exclaimed.  “They’ve been playing that call all over the news, Pammie!”

“I know.  I know,” she agreed, nodding and scowling.  “I haven’t quite figured it out, but there’s something odd about that call.”

“What?  Did someone else make that call?” he asked.

“I wish,” she replied.  “It would certainly steer the police in a different direction if not totally absolve James.  But unfortunately, Willard and I have examined the voice on that 911 call from here to Sunday and it does appear that it belongs to Stacy Grant.”

“So, she made the call which implies that she was frightened that her husband was trying to break into their house.  Why would that be?”

“Evidently, they had fought the night before,” she noted.  “But James felt horribly guilty about that.  Particularly that Stacy died before they had made up.”

“So it’s possible that she was still mad at him—or even scared.  Maybe she really was frightened that he might break in.  You know, if they fought and she told him to get out.  Then the next day he comes back.  She locks the door and when he shows up, she thought he might try to break in.  Maybe that’s why she called 911.  Maybe he acted really threatening outside.  You know, screaming at her, ordering her to let him in.  We don’t know.”

“But, Rocky,” she pleaded, “you’re making all your assumptions from the point of view that Stacy’s 911 call is genuine—that James showed up at their home and tried to break in and threatened her and scared her so much that she called 911.”

“Yeah?”

“Just humor me for a moment,” she suggested.

“Always delighted to humor you, Babe,” he chuckled and dipped his face towards her neck in a friendly amorous advance.

“Not that type of humor,” she scolded.  “Look at this from James’s perspective.  Assume he did arrive when he said he did, after Stacy was killed.  Assume he did find her dead and tried to revive her and was doing that when the police arrived and arrested him.  If you look at things that way, then what do you have?”

“You have nothing,” he said.  “None of the facts fit his version.  If you assume his story is true, then Stacy must have lied on her 911 call.  And why would she do that?  What motive would she have?  The woman ended up dead.”

“Maybe Stacy didn’t lie on the 911 call,” offered Pamela, with a gleam in her eye.

“You mean someone coerced her into making the call and then murdered her?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “But there might be other ways that allow for the evidence as we have it.  A 911 call from Stacy Grant reporting her husband outside of their home trying to break in.  Stacy Grant dead virtually minutes after the call.  James Grant found by police over the body of his dead wife virtually minutes after that.  Whatever happened that afternoon, happened fast.”

“If James didn’t kill her, someone else did,” said Rocky.  A light went off in Rocky’s eyes.  “Maybe someone who looked like James was trying to break in.  Stacy thought he was James and reported him.  He broke in, killed her, and then ran away just before James arrived on the scene.”

“Possible,” said Pamela, “but it was a late afternoon day in August.  The sun was bright.  I find it hard to believe she couldn’t recognize her own husband through the window.  She told the operator it was her husband trying to break in.  If it was a stranger, why not just say someone was trying to break in.  Why implicate her husband?”

“Maybe because someone wanted to implicate him,” said Rocky. “In case James didn’t show up when he did.”

“That makes sense,” she agreed.  “How could the killer know that James would arrive when he did?”