Stump Speech Murder (26 page)

“Harold calls anything technical ‘the basement,’ Dr. Barnes,” whispered Katherine.  “Harold, this is Dr. Pamela Barnes from Grace’s Psychology Department.  Mitchell Marks asked me to show her around.”

Pamela realized that Katherine was lying because she herself had asked for the tour.  Even so, Katherine lied effortlessly and her fib only managed to provide an excuse for their presence in a place where they probably shouldn’t be. 

“Dr. Barnes,” said Hap Brewster to Pamela, with a short, polite bow.  The two men behind Brewster remained quiet.  Victor Baines gave Pamela a slightly threatening stare.  “We’re happy to have you visiting our headquarters.”

“Thank you, Mayor,” responded Pamela.  “Actually, I’m delighted to find you here–particularly with Mr. Baines–who I met the other day.   There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Really?” asked the mayor, looking quizzically from his wife to his two aides.

“Yes,” Pamela continued, “Ever since I saw that commercial for your campaign–you know the one with you as a super hero and all the cartoon character villains–I was curious just how such an amazing piece of art could be constructed.  I wondered if–perchance–you hired a specialist from outside–maybe New York or Los Angeles–to create it.  It was so clever, it was just hard to believe that someone right here in Reardon actually made it.”

“I’m happy to tell you, Dr. Barnes,” said Brewster, puffing up, hands on his lapels, “that that ad was totally home grown.  We had a number of our people working on it, didn’t we, Kevin?” he asked the younger man behind him.

“Yes, sir,” replied Kevin Sturges, hands in pockets.  “Several of us worked late hours on that one, Boss!”

“You see, Dr. Barnes,” said Brewster, “we don’t need to ship out anything to some high falutin’ New York or Los Angeles firm.  We can do all that fancy pro-duction stuff right here at home!”  He rocked back and forth on his heels, arms folded.

“I see, Mayor, that you truly do have the technical facilities to accomplish practically anything your campaign needs done,” she said pointedly looking from Brewster to Baines to Sturges.

“Just as I said,” agreed the mayor, smiling. 

“Of course,” continued Pamela cautiously, “you surely wouldn’t sanction your amazing technical suite here being used to manufacture false evidence?”

Brewster laughed and looked around at his wife and his men. 

“What are you gettin’ at, lady?” he asked, annoyed.

“I’m suggesting,” she said, “that you–or one of your assistants–created the 911 tape that Stacy Grant supposedly sent to authorities out of segments of previous speeches she had given.  You used the equipment here to splice those segments together so they sounded like a desperate woman who felt her husband was trying to kill her and was calling for help.”

“What are you talking about?” Brewster shouted in annoyance.

“Just this,” she said, pulling her small tape recorder from her purse.  She pressed the ‘play’ button and the 911 call from Stacy Grant filled the tech room.  “My husband . . . outside . . . trying to . . . break in.  Please help!” 

“Look, Dr. . .  uh. . . Barnes,” continued Brewster, “I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at.  That sure sounds like that call from Grant’s wife to 911.  What makes you think it was made here?”

“I don’t know for sure that it . . .”

“Oh, you’re just guessing,” interrupted Brewster.

“Harold,” cautioned Katherine, “your blood pressure!”   She grabbed his arm in an attempt to calm him.

“What I do know, Mayor Brewster,” continued Pamela, “is that I–we–have proof that the 911 call from Stacy Grant was doctored.”

“Doctored? How?” asked Victor Baines.  He looked sick and redder than he had when he banged on her car door.  Kevin Sturges grabbed Baines’s arm and attempted to hold him up.

“That 911 tape was composed of phrases from speeches Stacy Grant had given in her capacity as an assistant DA.  She was either speaking to a jury or the press or in several other situations.  We tracked down these audio recordings at WPUR and compared them acoustically.  They match perfectly.  And I don’t just mean that the 911 tape is just Stacy’s voice.  I mean the phrases on the 911 tape are identical to those phrases.  That is, someone spliced the phrases from these previous audio recordings of Stacy Grant and edited them together to make a fake 911 call that they then sent, which caused the police to come to the Grant home where they found Stacy dead.”

“I don’t get it,” muttered Brewster.  “Why would anyone do that?  Besides, as long as the police got there when they did and arrested the killer, isn’t that what counts?”

“If they actually arrested the real killer,” said Pamela pointedly.  “But, think about it, Mayor.  Why would anyone go to all the trouble of faking a 911 call?  Especially when the person who supposedly makes that call ends up dead?  The obvious reason is to divert attention from the real killer to someone else through use of the fake 911 call.  And who does this particular fake 911 call implicate?  James Grant.  Here’s what I think happened.  The real killer kills Stacy Grant, sends the fake 911 call and then leaves, just before James arrives, and just before the police arrive.”

“But, Dr. Barnes,” interjected Katherine, “that doesn’t make any sense.  How would this killer–even if this killer made this elaborate fake 911 call–how would this killer know that James Grant would show up and be kneeling over his wife’s body right before the police arrived?  It all seems ridiculous.”

“I agree,” said Pamela, “if it were just luck that James arrived when he did.  But what if our clever killer not only made a fake 911 call, but also made a fake call from Stacy to her husband asking him to come home right away because she was scared.  According to James and the phone company’s records of a call made from the Grant home to James’s cell, that is exactly what happened.  James claims that Stacy called him at the rally and urged him to rush home–which he did.  James says that he had just found his wife’s body and was trying to resuscitate her when the police arrived.  James tells us that the call he got from Stacy was very short and disjointed–just like the fake 911 call.”

“It sounds fascinating, Dr. Barnes,” said Brewster, “but really a bit far-fetched.  Don’t you think, guys?”

“Definitely, Hap,” agreed Baines.

“Totally,” said Sturges with a nod.

The door to the technical suite opened and Detective Shoop entered followed by two uniformed officers.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.  Detective Shoop, Reardon City Police,” said Shoop, opening his shield and flashing it at Brewster.  “I see that Dr. Barnes has explained her theory to you.”

“A very interesting theory, Detective,” said Brewster, “but I don’t see how she can prove it.”

“Actually,” continued Shoop moving further into the room, the officers standing guard at the door, “her theory has been confirmed.  The phrases on Stacy Grant’s 911 tape have been verified as coming from various audio recordings of speeches that Mrs. Grant had made in the past.  Dr. Willard Swinton, one of Dr. Barnes’s colleagues has extracted the actual splice marks on the 911 recording indicating exactly where the killer edited the recording together.  Dr. Swinton tells us that the quality of the splicing is so good that the recording could only have been made on the most sophisticated of equipment.  Possibly something like what you have here, Mayor.”

“My people have not been involved in murder, Detective,” huffed Brewster.

“That remains to be seen,” observed Shoop, looking around the small room from one person to the next, his eagle eyes alert to any sign of guilt.  “Certainly, everyone here had a motive.  James Grant was pulling ahead in the polls, Mayor.  Possibly you or one of your aides feared he’d run away with the election and your desire to win and remain in power was so great that you concocted this elaborate scheme to incriminate your opponent . . . .”

“Really, Detective,” huffed Brewster, “no one on my staff would do such a thing.  Besides, even if Grant got a slight uptick in the polls, we’re confident in our strength to regain our support before the election . . . .”

“With strong arm tactics,” suggested Pamela.

“Dr. Barnes,” snapped Brewster, “I believe we’ve been more than gracious to you here today.  And you turn around and attack us for no reason.  Your Mr. Grant is the one sitting in a jail cell for murdering his own wife.  That hasn’t changed!”

“Actually, Mayor,“ noted Shoop, “I forgot to mention that we petitioned for and received a search warrant for this headquarters.  While you and Mr. Baines and Mr. Sturges were here in your control room discussing fake tapes with Dr. Barnes, my men were going through your offices upstairs . . . .”

“What?” exclaimed Brewster.  “You can’t do that!”  He surged forward.  Baines and Sturges looked at each other with wide-eyed expressions.

“Harold!” shrieked Katherine, reaching for her husband to restrain him from attacking the detective.  The officers at the door moved into the room but Shoop held up his hand.  Pamela watched the mini-debacle play out like a movie.  The whole event lasted a second but the entire room appeared to explode with emotion.

“Calm down, gentlemen,” said Shoop, hands up.  The officers held their hands on their weapons.  “We didn’t find anything.”

The trio of politicians relaxed noticeably.  Brewster turned and motioned for Baines and Sturges to retreat.  He shook off his wife who was clinging dramatically to his arm. 

“Of course, you didn’t find anything, Shoop,” sneered the mayor.  “There’s nothing to find.  I hope you didn’t leave our offices in a mess.”

“Actually, we didn’t find much of anything,” continued Shoop, “except this.”  He removed a small tape recorder from his overcoat pocket.  The expressions on the three men’s faces froze.  “It doesn’t have much on it, but I think you’ll find what it does have quite interesting.”  He pressed the “play” button and the recorded voice of Stacy Grant filled the small room.  ‘My husband . . . outside . . . trying to . . . break in.  Please help!’ 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” cried Brewster as Shoop stopped the recording.  “It’s been playing on TV for weeks!”

“True,” noted Shoop, “but this part hasn’t been,”  He pressed “play” again.  This time Stacy Grant’s voice produced a different message, “Jim . . . come home . . . hurry!”  Shoop stopped the recorder and looked around the room.  Every face was riveted to the message that had just emerged from the tiny device.  “That recording is definitely the voice of Stacy Grant,” he continued, “but it’s not something she said to 911.  It’s a totally different message.  Obviously, it’s a message designed to get her husband James to come home.  It’s the message that James claims that Stacy sent to him at the rally which caused him to rush home–where he found her dead body.  This message was sent to James Grant either immediately before or immediately after the 911 call was sent.”

“Detective,” said Katherine Brewster, speaking up bravely, “I don’t see how these recordings implicate my husband.  He couldn’t have sent them.  He was at the rally being interviewed by Ginger Cooper.”

“True,” noted Shoop.  “We don’t know how–or if–your husband is involved in Stacy Grant’s death, Mrs. Brewster.  This recording device that holds the specially spliced and editing phrases from Stacy Grant was found on Mr. Sturges’ desk.”

“Kevin!” exclaimed Brewster.

“They’re trying to frame me, boss,” cried Sturges, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his face a mass of lines.

Shoop continued.  “We have additional proof from station WRER that indicates that Mayor Brewster could not have made those calls personally, as he was engaged in the interview at the time the 911 call was made.”

“And Ginger Cooper, the reporter who conducted the interview with your husband and with James Grant, confirms that, Mrs. Brewster,” agreed Pamela.  “She is a remarkably observant woman–a good quality to have if you’re a newspaper reporter.  Indeed, Ms. Cooper not only remembers the mayor’s presence during the interview, she also recalls seeing James Grant leave–shortly after he received a call on his cell phone.  Not only that–she further recalls seeing Kevin Sturges leave shortly before she began interviewing the mayor which occurred maybe ten or fifteen minutes before James received his phone call.”

“It’s not true!” cried Sturges, backing away.

“Yes,” Shoop proceeded with the narrative. “We believe Mr. Sturges snuck out of the rally, drove to the Grant house, gained entrance through some excuse, and while Stacy Grant’s back was turned, hit her with a candlestick from her own fireplace.  Then, he quickly used her landline phone to call 911 and also to call James where he played the appropriate fake messages that he had prepared in advance in this editing suite.  As soon as he made the calls, he left and returned to the rally, arriving just in time for the conclusion of the interview with the mayor.  You probably didn’t even notice his absence, Mayor.”