Voice Mail Murder

Chapter Two





The first day of the semester always felt like a new beginning to Pamela; it was appropriate that the new school year started in the fall when the seasons were changing, although in Reardon, a sleepy college community in the deep South, fall typically remained far into the winter months. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen any snow—probably when she and Rocky had taken one of their few vacations north to New York City to shop and go to Broadway musicals and dine in elegant restaurants.

The sense of new beginning came, she realized, because each fall meant new students, a new crop of possibilities. Of course, she was jaded at times because of her many years of teaching, but she was ever the optimist, a personality trait that was ingrained and so much a part of her nature that no amount of natural or unnatural catastrophe could alter her innate qualities.

There always seemed to be excitement in the air on the first day of class. Of course, she saw her colleagues almost every day (although some had been away for the summer—on lengthy vacations or sabbaticals), but all members of Grace University’s small Psychology Department were now officially back at work and she savored that sense of group commitment, of a team preparing for a game, or a battalion readying for battle.

The hub of the action was the Department’s main office, on the first floor of old Blake Hall, centrally located at the intersection of two hallways that connected it from two separate wings and a grand stairway winding down from the second story. As Pamela entered the open door into the main office, she found herself in a massive group of students congregated around the lone desk in the small outer office. The students were jockeying for position as they waved schedule cards in the air at the young woman seated at the desk.

“Dr. Barnes,” called out the seated secretary, brunette curls gently bobbing, her hand in the air, gesturing towards Pamela among the throng of students.

“Good morning, Jane Marie,” responded Pamela, “Glad it’s you dealing with the onslaught and not me!” She laughed heartily and Jane Marie chuckled, grabbing a schedule card from the student standing nearest to her. She quickly scanned the request form, deemed it acceptable, and picked up a signature stamp which she then slapped perfunctorily on the bottom of the waiting student’s card.

“There you go,” she announced to the young man, “You’re registered!”

“Thanks,” he replied. “That was easy.” He wound his way through the crowd of waiting students and was out the office door before the next student could slam her registration card in front of Jane Marie’s nose.

“No,” said the secretary to the young woman. “You don’t have your advisor’s signature!” She handed the card back to the girl who was scowling dejectedly. Pamela turned to the row of faculty mailboxes on the far wall of the small office and reached into her cubby hole. Flicking through her mail, she tossed what appeared to be ads from several textbook companies into a nearby waste basket and tucked a letter from a journal editor onto the large clipboard that she carried. Hmm, she thought, it’s fairly thick—a good sign. A rejected manuscript would be whisper thin. Waving good-bye to Jane Marie, always amazingly in charge no matter how frantic the circumstances, Pamela headed out of the office and down the hallway, taking time to wave at some of her colleagues, busy at work in their offices.

Laura Delmondo was talking intently to a student seated beside her desk. The young professor was glowing as she spoke with animation to the young advisee. Pamela knew that Laura’s beaming expression was only partially due to the first day of school excitement. She and her husband Vito had recently had their first child—a long-awaited baby that had been very difficult to conceive. Pamela had suffered with the popular young teacher as she experienced various set-backs in her pregnancies, and she was now happy to see Laura so joyous and fulfilled. Giving Laura a discrete wave, she headed on her way.

Towards the end of the hallway, she saw several of her graduate students milling around outside of their office, which was located down the left side hallway, right off the computer laboratory. Her new assistant Claire waved, but continued chatting with one of the other TA’s. Pamela could see at the end of the side hallway, the entrance to the computer lab, where several years ago, she had discovered the body of Charlotte Clark, one of her colleagues, strangled to death. That had been a terrifying experience, and one that had led to Pamela’s involvement with the local police department. She had assisted them in tracking down Charlotte’s killer using her knowledge of acoustics. It seemed so recent. Every time she saw the computer lab, she remembered it. Maybe that was why she seldom ventured into the lab.

She headed into the side stairwell and up the stairs, their echo rich with the sounds of people bustling through the old building. Each rung of the stairs creaked with each step—like an ancient lighthouse. The only thing that reminded people inside this stairwell that they were still in a college were the flyers that plastered the walls announcing meetings of various clubs, touting the merits of different students running for campus offices, and here and there, ads for local businesses. She could get half off a large pepperoni at Red’s Pizza Parlor all this week.

On the second floor, it was a bit quieter than the main floor, but only a bit. As she rounded the corner into the left upper hallway, she passed the offices of her closest campus neighbors. Willard Swinton was seated at his desk in the office next to hers, engrossed in his computer screen, headphones on. She smiled and withheld a greeting. She and Willard shared similar research interests and she was hoping he was investigating something related to one of their joint research projects. They both focused on linguistics, but Willard was an authority on the cultural aspects of language and her concentration was more on psychological aspects. Even so, they often worked together on papers—and had used their combined skills to aid the police in solving not only Charlotte Clark’s murder, but the murder of a local disc jockey only last year.

She looked across the hall from Willard’s office and saw that that office was also occupied. Joan Bentley sat at her desk, chatting on her phone, apparently to a student. Joan was explaining why it would be impossible for the student to register for a particular course. Pamela wasn’t certain whether it was one of Joan’s courses or just a course Joan believed the student shouldn’t take and expected the student to follow her advisorly advice. Hmm, thought Pamela. Advisors. They were all advisors to many students. It was their job to give advice—academic advice to these young people, but so much of the time—particularly during the first few days of class—that advice was flaunted and disregarded with impunity.

Waving briefly at Joan and receiving a wave in return, she moved towards her own office, across the hallway. Several students were seated on the floor next to her door, their arms piled with college catalogs, schedule cards, and newly purchased books. It was truly the first day of class—and a Thursday at that. She felt into her purse and grabbed her keys. Opening her door, she scooted inside as the group of students rose from the floor and followed her.

She plopped her belongings on the top of her desk, pulled out her chair and sat down.

“Okay,” she announced. “What can I do for you?”

The students lined up. They obviously had remembered the order in which they had arrived at her door and they intended to maintain this order as they presented her with their problems. Quickly, she dealt with each academic dilemma—catastrophe—in the students’ eyes. Of course, she noted, none of these problems would have reached the stage of severity that they had if the students had sought out her help earlier—earlier than the first day of class.

In twenty minutes or so, Pamela had ironed out most of the students’ problems and had sent them on their ways with schedules corrected and approved. As she glanced up at her wall clock, she realized that she now had only a minute or two before her first class. It was a good thing that she was prepared and had gone over her lesson plan the night before although she had taught her first class—‘The Psychology of Language’ —so many times, that she believed she could probably teach it blindfolded without any prep at all. In fact, some of her best teaching was done when she was ill-prepared or, at least, when she veered off her lesson plan for the day. But ‘Psychology of Language’ was one of her special courses. It was a general elective, something that many professors hated to teach, but one that Pamela relished, because she loved to introduce her specialty to new students. She always searched for possible future linguists in this course—and she usually found some. Some students from her earlier ‘Psychology of Language’ courses were now graduate students in the department.

She grabbed her clipboard. Yes, her notes were here. They were ready as far as she was concerned. The letter from the journal she had received that morning but had forgotten about it in all the activity with the students called to her. She quickly opened the thick envelope. The cover letter fell out first and delineated a response typical of many of her submissions to academic journals. “Revise and resubmit.” the checked box said. She remembered the early days of her career when such a verdict on one of her papers brought her dismay. Now, she took it in stride, realizing it was actually a positive response. She glanced at the accompanying critiques from peer reviewers. They appeared reasonable, requesting changes that she believed she could accomplish fairly easily. Hmm, she thought. Good job, Pamela. This paper will probably get published. With a proud little smile, she grabbed her class notes and headed out the door to her first class, being certain to lock her office behind her.

The large classroom was just steps away from Pamela’s office, at the end of the second floor hallway. It was immediately above the computer lab and was outfitted with white boards and various types of audio/video equipment. The room had tall ceilings with windows that lined the side walls. The teacher’s podium was at the far end on a slightly raised platform. The students’ desks were arranged in a large semi-circle facing the platform. Pamela strode to the front, easily, greeting students as she passed. Several followed her with schedule cards in their hands.

“Okay, okay,” she called out to the large room. “This is Psychology of Language 201. I’m Dr. Barnes and this is Blake Hall 232. I’ll be happy to sign add slips for you as long as there is space, so why don’t you all find a seat and let’s see how much room we have.” Quickly, the entire group of students swarmed to find seats as if they were playing a giant-sized game of musical chairs. When all were seated, Pamela looked around, counting heads and desks. She noted that with everyone seated, there were still three or four desks available. She pulled out an enrollment list and began to call names in alphabetical order. Most students responded, and she made a check mark by each name as she heard the student say “here.”

When she finished roll call, she announced to the students that she would be happy to sign their add slips after class. Then, with no further discussion, she began her introductory lecture, “What can you tell about a person from the language they speak?” she asked the class. She knew that if this were a class of Psychology majors, they’d all be flinging their hands in the air to get her attention. Now, with a group of non-majors, probably with no background in Psychology whatsoever, her question came out of left field. She waited and smiled. When no one responded, she turned and was about to speak, when the door at the back of the classroom flung open.

A young man stood in the doorway, breathing hard, a look of fear on his face.

“Hello,” said Pamela to the young man. She could sense his dread, probably because he had arrived late to class and was afraid of antagonizing the professor, she thought. “It’s all right. You can come in. This is ‘Psychology of Language.’ Did you have trouble finding the building?”

“Uh, no,” responded the student, moving into the room, and slowly down the center aisle towards the front where Pamela stood. “I, I, just heard something on my cell phone while I was on my way here. I, I don’t know if it’s true, but . . .”

“What?” Pamela asked.

The young man looked around at his fellow students who glared at him expectantly. “Our coach—Coach Croft.”

“The football coach?” she asked.

“Yes,” responded the student, his face contorted, breathing hard. “He was murdered.”