Voice Mail Murder

Chapter Eighteen





She now found herself sitting in the front passenger seat of a non-descript black sedan, a crumpled old paper coffee cup under her foot. In the driver’s seat, Detective Shoop sipped coffee from a new paper cup, steam rising up the side of his nose. He guided the car with his left hand, steely eyes on the road. She couldn’t imagine drinking any caffeinated beverage this late in the day. Shoop had called her around five o’clock, just as she was ready to leave. She had glanced out her window to see him standing beside his official cruiser in the Blake Hall parking lot.

“What if I’d already left for the day?” she questioned, carefully sliding into the front seat of the old sedan. The musty smell made her think of disinfectant and dead bodies.

“You hadn’t,” he responded.

“How would you know?” she continued, somewhat annoyed. “You could have called.”

“I did.”

“I could have left.”

“You didn’t.”

“But you wouldn’t know if you didn’t call,” she responded, getting genuinely annoyed with the man.

“I’m a detective, Dr. Barnes,” he answered, his face impassive, his voice monotone. “I have a way of finding things out.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed. The man was insufferable. Even so, they were on their way to interrogate the major suspects in the Coach’s murder—something she had pushed him for, so she realized that she’d better just go along with his ingrained habits and adjust. She placed a quick call to Rocky on her cell phone and told him she was running late and not to hold dinner. She didn’t tell him why she was running late.

“The protective husband,” muttered Shoop, smiling his Cheshire cat grin as she put away her cell phone.

“At your suggestion,” she glared at him, “if I recall. You always agreed with Rocky when he reamed me out for my attempts at investigating.”

“It was merely an observation, Dr. Barnes,” he chuckled, “not an indictment.”

“Sure,” she retorted. “I’ve noticed that you always have some sort of opinion on my marriage. It feels at times as if you and Rocky gang up on me. Maybe it’s because you’re both men. Or both married men. Or are you? I don’t even know if you’re married . . .”

“Which is as it should be,” he said cryptically. Then he nodded as if agreeing with his own observation.

“What?” she exclaimed. “What’s as it should be? That I have no information about you or anything related to you? That I know nothing about you? Such as whether you’re married or not.“

“What do you think, Dr. Barnes?” he asked, glancing in her direction. “Can’t you tell from my voice?” He laughed wickedly, his beady eyes peering at her.

“You’re impossible!” she concluded, folding her arms and squeezing closer to her window. She stared out at the scenery. This other side of the campus was someplace where she rarely ventured. They drove by a large, three-story brick home, elevated on a large plot of immaculately tended lawn. This, she knew, was the official home of Grace University’s President. It was near enough to campus to allow the school’s top official to have a short commute, but distant enough to keep the man sheltered from the often loud goings-on of the local dormitories and other campus shenanigans. She had been in this home once—long ago when she was hired, along with the dozens of other new faculty members who had joined the Grace University faculty that year. Further down the street from the official Presidential residence, Pamela recognized other homes belonging to major figures at the school. The Dean of her College resided in an old, but graceful two story home on the corner. A large enclosed porch that surrounded the main level gave the house a quaint feel, but Pamela remembered being inside numerous times where the Dean’s massive library took up half of the first floor. He even had one of those rolling ladders that could slide along his built-in bookshelves, allowing him to climb to top shelves for out of the way special volumes. Next door to their Dean, a home of one of the school’s Vice Presidents—the one in charge of Finance, she thought—was equally imposing. She’d never been inside of it, nor was it likely that she ever would be. As a lowly associate professor, she was relegated to living in the boondocks in her pleasant but modest ranch-style, three bedroom home. However, she mused, she was content. She probably wouldn’t know what to do with a home as large as these, anyway.

Shoop continued to chuckle. She’d probably never learn anything about the man—not that she yearned to do so. However, it appeared they’d be spending some time together—at least today. It would be nice if she had at least a basic working knowledge of her investigative partner.

“Our first stop is the wife,” he told her, effectively cutting off her reverie. “They know we’re coming. The daughters are there. Did you develop me a personality profile of any of the three women on the voice mail?”

“They’re all over forty,” she replied, somewhat belligerently. It seemed she was always supplying the man with information—and he was never reciprocating. “The first one and the third one are local, but the second speaker—I mean, second in chronological order on the recordings—is from the Boston area.”

“Boston?” he asked, his face lighting up. “Now, how do you suppose that happened?”

“What do you mean, how did that happen?” she screeched. “The woman was probably born and raised in or near Boston. She probably lives there.”

“If she lives there,” he noted, “how would she get together with Coach Croft?”

“You forget,” she lectured the policeman, “they do play away games.”

“So, she’s a floozy he picked up when the team was playing in Boston?”

“Oh, Detective,” she continued, now definitely feeling the upper hand, “she’s no floozy. This lady is from money. Her accent places her in some of the higher rent districts in upper Bostonian society.”

“Really?” he scoffed.

“Really. And your other two speakers. Both are from around Reardon, but quite different. Your first speaker is a lower middle class woman. The third one is a sophisticated, well-educated woman.”

“Intriguing,” he nodded, musing over the new information. “And that’s all?”

“That’s all?” she yelled. “I churned that out in a few hours. What have you produced of similar quality?” She neglected to add that Willard Swinton had assisted her with the geographical analyses.

“Actually, Dr. Barnes,” he said, smiling, “I’m surprised you weren’t able to determine the race of the three women.”

“Their race? I can’t tell that from their voices.”

“You can’t tell that our third speaker is an Afro-American?” he questioned.

“She is?”

“We do believe.”

“And how do you know that?”

“It appears that Coach Croft had his mistresses register for the room when they planned their . . . get-togethers, probably because he was so well-known here in Reardon. Our third lady—Speaker Number Three as you say—and the one we believe was in the room at the Shady Lane Motel with Coach Croft where he was killed, was the one to register. The clerk remembers her as an attractive black woman. She paid cash for the room; that’s why he thought it was strange.”

“Did the clerk remember seeing her in the past?”

“No,” he noted, “and, we’re guessing there may be an explanation for that. If you’ll recall, all the speakers mentioned the hotel room number in their messages. The last message said the room was 211 and told Coach to take the outside stairs. This configuration fits the lay-out of the Shady Lane Motel. That is, it would make sense to take the outside stairs to get to Room 211.”

“I understand, Detective,” she agreed. “Surely, you went back and questioned the clerks about the other rooms in the messages and tried to find other women who registered and were assigned these rooms. Possibly the clerks would remember them and—“

“Wait a minute, Doctor,” said Shoop, holding up his right hand in her direction. “Way ahead of you. We’ve already done that!”

“And?”

“Turns out that the Shady Lane Motel is only two stories.”

“But one message says Room 360 and there’s one that’s 402.”

“I know,” he nodded. “And there’s a 228, but unfortunately, the Shady Lane Motel’s rooms only run through 220.”

“How can that be?”

“It appears that the Coach and his ladies moved around from motel to motel.”

“You mean each time they—got together, they went to a different motel?”

“It appears that way. They were very discreet. Each message on the Coach’s cell phone we traced to a disposable cell phone that was no longer in service. The Coach probably gave each of his mistresses one of these disposables to use to set up their assignations and then had them dump them. The women evidently registered, paid cash, and probably disguised themselves someway. They would enter the room separately and leave separately. They really did everything they could to keep from being discovered. At least, that’s what we’re guessing. It’s a miracle that anyone found out, although the man was juggling at least three different women!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Detective,” she announced. “Somebody did find out. And it looks like somebody didn’t like what they found.”

Shoop rounded a corner of a wooded neighborhood. Pamela admired the two-story colonial homes with beautifully landscaped yards. It seemed darker here; the trees, many of them resplendent in fall foliage, hung like a large draped canopy overhead. The detective suddenly turned into a driveway of a white wooden home with dark green shutters. A small, wrought iron jockey beckoned near the concrete front steps. In the driveway, two small foreign cars were parked on one side—one behind the other. The garage door was dark green like the shutters. Over the garage hung a banner in the Grace University colors of red and gold, the words “Go Tigers” prominently displayed.

“First stop,” he told her, “The wife and family.”

He wasted no time in getting out of the car, crumpling his paper cup on the way and tossing it in a trash can near the garage. She followed him, grabbing her purse and clipboard, but leaving her thermos and books on the front seat. They stood on the concrete steps of the front entrance. She could hear noises inside and someone talking quietly as they moved to the door.

“Let me do the talking,” said Shoop in a whisper. “You just stand around and listen—and listen carefully.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him, in a like whisper, “That’s what I do.”

The door was opened by a young woman wearing black slacks and a black turtle neck sweater. Her unkempt but glowing long, black hair maintained the color theme. Her eyes were swollen and red.

“Detective,” she said, with somber recognition. “My mother and sister are in the family room.” She turned and led the man across a marble foyer and down a step into a thickly-carpeted den. The dark blinds were tightly closed. Pamela followed Shoop, feeling very much out of place and uncomfortable in this house of mourning.