Voice Mail Murder

Chapter Fifteen





She cringed and cautiously stepped over an electrical cord running from the space heater in the corner to an outlet on the other wall. She brushed off a layer of dust from the olive green Naugahyde sofa before perching on the edge of it. She had sat here several times before and each time, she felt she was surrounded by strange strains of unknown viruses. At least, Shoop’s large handkerchief remained in his shirt pocket today—she could see it peeking out over the edge.

“Detective,” she continued as Shoop looked up at her, now comfortably in charge from her higher position on the sofa. His facial expression revealed nothing. “I figured I’d bring these back.” She plopped her purse on her lap, opened it, and removed the two plastic CD cases.

“Those are copies, Doctor,” drawled Shoop, files still poised in his left hand. “You can keep them.”

“I know they’re copies, Detective,” Pamela spat out, setting her purse and the CD’s on the ground. “I just took them out to make a point. You need to realize that what you’ve provided me here—with these recordings . . .” She waved the CD’s in the air. “What you’ve provided me are just tidbits, uh, just minute instances of these individuals’ voices. This may be enough to allow me to compare and identify two samples—but this much audio of a person’s voice is simply not sufficient for me to draw up a complete personality profile. I’d need much more vocal input to do that . . .”

“We could—“ he mused, leaning forward, “have our technicians make you another CD with longer sample segments . . .”

“No!” she exclaimed. “You’re not getting the point. This is time-consuming. I’m not on the police payroll . . .”

“Now, Dr. Barnes,” said Shoop, his voice and eyes softening. “I thought you believed in public service?”

“Don’t start on me, Shoop,” she said, a finger snapping in his direction. “I’ve bent over backwards to help you—and this department—and you know it, and I’ve never asked for anything in return—and I don’t intend to! That’s not the issue!“

“Then what is?” he questioned with an intake of breath.

“It’s that I’m supposed to provide you with information at your command, but you provide me with nothing . . . I mean no information . . .”

“We provided you with these CD’s . . .”

“No! I mean I’m just supposed to be an underling working in the background. You’re not sharing anything pertinent with me that might help me make sense of what’s actually on these CD’s.”

“I don’t get what you’re saying, Dr. Barnes,” replied Shoop. He leaned forward in his chair and slammed his elbows on his desk.

“Look,” she told him as she stood and walked to the window. She bit her lip, looking out at the parking lot. “Look, right before I came here I was at the Athletic Department and I was talking to two of the women I am sure were interviewed on that second CD. I recognized their voices. One was the Coach’s secretary, Rosemary Ellis, and the other was the cheerleading coach, Hannah Schlegel. It was clear to me almost immediately which voices they were . . .”

“Dr. Barnes,” Shoop scowled. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“What . . . why?” She turned back to him, flustered.

“I’ve told you to stay out of the investigation. It’s unwise.” Then under his his breath he said, “Now, I’ll have your big, ex-military husband on my case.”

“Good Lord, Detective,” she continued, walking to the edge of his desk and speaking in an intense whisper. “I was merely conversing with colleagues. You don’t mean to tell me that I can’t talk to people from other departments at the University?”

“Not if you’re going to be discussing the murder.”

“We weren’t discussing . . .” she started, then stopped. “Well, we were discussing the murder, but I wasn’t grilling them, if that’s what you’re suggesting. It was just a normal conversation to which I was listening very carefully.”

“That may be how you see it,” he said quietly, now very close to her face, “but must I remind you that someone killed this man? We don’t know who it is. You’re better off letting us do the questioning and you just listen to our interviews after the fact.”

“No!”

“What?”

“I said no!” she exploded, hands on hips. “Listening to segments of recorded interviews is not going to work for what you want me to accomplish. I need to hear these people speak face-to-face.”

“Too dangerous,” he said, shaking his head. “And too suspicious! You can’t go around interviewing all of the suspects and people involved in this murder yourself.”

“No,” she agreed, “but I could accompany you as you interview—or re-interview them. I assume you will be interviewing most—or all of them again, won’t you?“

“Probably,” said Shoop. “And I’m supposed to drag you along on all of these sessions? How would I explain that to the suspects?”

“You could say that—you could say—“

“See,” he gestured in her face. “It doesn’t make any sense, and nobody would fall for it!”

She walked back to the sofa and gingerly sat back down, this time leaning forlornly into the dilapidated cushions. Rocking her upper body back and forth, she thought.

“Let me ask you this,” she queried, sitting bolt upright. “Why are you going to interview any of the suspects again?”

“What do you mean?”

“For what ostensible reason would you return to any—or all—of these various suspects and question them again?”

“The police can always re-question suspects; we don’t have to provide them with reasons.”

“I know, but in your own mind, what would the purpose be?”

“Possibly to see if any of them had remembered anything they hadn’t told us since the first time they were interviewed, or possibly to see if any of them changed their story since the first time they were interviewed . . .”

“What about the voice mail recording?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What do the various suspects know about the three women on the voice mail recording?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I told you. That information is being kept quiet. We haven’t revealed the existence of the cell phone—or the messages on it—to the press, so obviously none of the suspects are aware of it.”

“Have any of the suspects mentioned Coach having a private cell phone or even having affairs?”

“Now, Dr. Barnes,” Shoop huffed, folding his arms, “aren’t you overstepping your bounds?“

“Here’s why I ask,” she said quickly. “If none of the suspects is aware of the voice mail recording—or the messages on it, then it seems to me that it would be possible to set up a simple test.”

“What sort of test?” he asked wearily.

“Surely the suspects must have guessed that Coach was probably having an affair. You did ask them if they knew why he was at that motel, didn’t you?”

“We did,” he said, nodding, “and most expressed shock. I don’t know if this was a true reaction or if any of them actually were aware of the Coach’s infidelity. If anyone was aware—no one we interviewed said so—not even the wife and daughters.”

“They were all trying to protect his image.”

“That or they simply weren’t aware of his sexual activities.”

“It just doesn’t seem possible that he could be meeting three—maybe more—mistresses on a regular basis in the afternoons and that none of his colleagues—no one in his family—his wife—his two daughters—no one tumbled to the fact.”

“Stranger things have happened,” sighed Shoop. “He was a very clever football coach; he won almost all of his games. Evidently, he transferred those strategic skills to hiding his infidelity from everyone around him.”

“And these three mistresses?” she questioned. “None of them have come forward? None of them have contacted you to provide information about the killer of the man they were sleeping with?”

“Nope,” he replied. “Why would they? They probably realize that they are our primary suspects. After all, he was killed in the motel room. The obvious assumption is that he was killed by one of these women—maybe because she found out about the other two—or maybe because she wanted Coach to divorce his invalid wife and marry her. Who knows?”

“I see, “ she answered, “but assuming the three mistresses didn’t kill him together as some sort of group revenge plot, surely the ones not involved in the murder would come forward and try to help find the killer?”

“Dr. Barnes,” he said slyly, looking at her above the tops of his horn-rimmed glasses, “if you were having an affair with a famous football coach who was then murdered, would you leap forward and announce your adultery to the police?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It would be embarrassing, of course, but it’s a man’s life we’re talking about.”

“But, that’s not the issue,” Shoop said. He stood up, in an attempt to get Pamela’s mind back on track. “You said something about a test?”

“Right,” she agreed. “I’m thinking. You’re going to interview all of your suspects again anyway. Why not, this? When you do, you play the voice mail messages and see if any of the suspects recognize any of the voices?”

“Hmm.” Shoop chewed the eraser on his pencil. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Right now, no one—you being the exception—knows about the voice mail recording. We assume the killer doesn’t know that we know. If we start playing the recording for people, we let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.”

“But don’t you—at some point—need to take the next step, particularly if you aren’t making any progress towards finding the killer? Surely, the next step seems to be—to me at least—to see what happens when the suspects you do have realize that you have this recording, when they realize that Coach was obviously seeing these women regularly for these . . . trysts . . . if they didn’t know it already.”

“The minute they hear the voice mail recording,” he suggested, “you know they’ll realize the implication. They’ll know we know about the three women—that we have those three suspects. And they’ll realize—probably—that we don’t know which of the three women—if any of them—is the primary suspect.”

“So?” she asked. Shoop gnawed on his pencil eraser. Little flakes of pink rubber drifted to his desktop.

“And your part in all of this?” he asked.

“I would like to be there to see—and hear—their reactions when you play the recording. I believe I’d get a much better sense of their voices—and probably a much better sense of their voices under pressure--which would really provide me with more data to give you some better profiles.”

“It would have to be done carefully,” he said. “We’ll have to be careful what we tell them about your presence there—and the sample voices.”

“Don’t tell them anything,” she suggested. “Just play the recording and ask them if they recognize any of the voices.”

He stood there, nodding quietly.

“It could be done,” he agreed.

“Then, let’s do it,” she responded, smiling broadly. She reached her hand out over his desk and they shook on it.