Voice Mail Murder

Chapter Twenty-Nine





Her monitor gleamed with the lines of spectrographic data on the various suspects in what she was now calling the voice mail murder case. As she ran her cursor down the various samples of voices, she realized that they now had dozens of viable suspects. They could no longer maintain that the three mistresses who had left messages on the Coach’s cell phone were the only—or even—main suspects. Anyone who knew the man and who was aware that he was at the Shady Lane Motel that afternoon was a suspect—and that could be almost anyone.

It was late on Monday afternoon and she had spent the weekend pleasantly with Rocky. Her forehead was almost back to normal—only the vestiges of a blister remained, the vibrant colors that she had sported last week now subsiding.

As she ran her finger down the spectrograph lines for each of the suspect voices, she compared each to a list on her clipboard. My God, there are so many possibilities. So many individuals apparently had a motive or an opportunity to kill Coach Croft—and Skye Davis. But who, out of all of them, had both, and acted upon them?

She grouped the suspects mentally into categories. There was the family. The wife, Sheila Croft, was handicapped and ostensibly unable to get herself around, let alone injure or stab another person. At least, that’s what she appeared to be—and neither Pamela nor the police seemed to have any reason to doubt her condition. Pamela wasn’t certain if the woman could maneuver her wheelchair around or drive a car with handicapped attachments, but she guessed not from what she had seen of the woman at her home. Of course, it would seem that Sheila Croft had the most obvious of motives—a cheating husband, but her opportunity—and ability--to commit such a violent crime seemed unlikely.

Her daughters, however, were another story. The eldest, Elizabeth, seemed incensed about her father’s misbehavior and extremely protective of her mother. That was also the opinion she had secured about the young woman from Margaret Billings, the girl’s advisor. Elizabeth Croft was intelligent, resourceful, and highly motivated—but was that enough to prompt her to murder her own father, even if said father had caused her invalid mother such horrific shame and hurt? The younger daughter Emily seemed much less likely to initiate any aggression, but who knew what teenagers might do. She was at that delicate age when everything tended to be blown out of proportion—and her father’s philandering would certainly count as an embarrassing event.

The next group she looked at was Croft’s colleagues in the Athletic Department. Assistant Coach Jeff Dooley. The young man had an aggressive streak she had seen personally and the Coach’s death pushed him up the career ladder overnight. But would that be enough to cause him to commit murder and would he have known about his boss’s infidelities? The Coach’s long-time secretary Rosemary Ellis was also a candidate. Obviously she knew Croft well and was probably aware of his comings and goings, but did she know about his afternoon trysts or had he managed to hide this part of his life from her as she claimed? And if so, what would motivate the assistant to kill her employer? The cheerleading coach Hannah Schlegel was another possibility. She was an attractive young woman and probably spent a lot of time around the Coach. Was she one of his former conquests—or a possible future one? Or was she siding with Jeff Dooley, in an effort to help the young man obtain the older coach’s job? Pamela had seen Dooley and Schlegel together and they seemed tight. Could they have committed the crime together?

She couldn’t ignore the mistresses themselves. Skye Davis was no longer around to defend herself and Pamela felt instinctively that she had not murdered the man. There was the testimony of her secretary regarding her return to work following her final meeting with the Coach—at a time before the coroner noted the Coach’s time of death. Also, the secretary Derlinda Washington had not noticed any unusual behavior on her boss’s part that day—unlikely if the woman had just killed her lover.

The second mistress, Abigail Prescott, was also an unlikely killer—unless she contracted a hit man—but that would seem unlikely as the police had indicated that the Coach probably knew his assassin as he let the person into the room and then promptly turned his back on the person. The police had verified Abigail Prescott’s statement that she had never even been to Reardon and that her only involvement with the Coach occurred in Boston during one of the team’s away games the previous spring. They, of course, had confirmed this when the woman had called Police Headquarters the day after Shoop had contacted her home and had spoken to her in the presence of her husband.

The only other mistress that remained a suspect was Charlene Terlinger. She was a resident of Reardon and could have followed Coach to his meeting with Skye Davis, waited for her to leave, then gone to the room and stabbed the Coach. To do this, Pamela realized, Charlene would have had to be following the Coach around for days waiting for him to meet with one of his mistresses. As it was evident from the chronology of the voice mail messages, she would be following him for quite some time as the Coach did not indulge in these afternoon affairs with any regularity. The first recorded voice mail messages from Charlene had occurred, according to Charlene, in January. The second voice messenger—Abigail Prescott—left her message in February. The final message left by Skye Davis had occurred just a few weeks ago on the day of the murder—in early September. So, Pamela figured, over the course of seven months, Coach Croft had had relationships with three women—once with Abigail in Boston, and twice each with Charlene and Skye. That was five times—out of seven months—less than once a month. Of course, she didn’t know what he had done before January or if he’d had any meetings that had not been recorded for posterity on his cell phone’s voice mail. It was possible that at the end of the year, he had cleared his voice mail and that many other messages from the previous year had been sent. For all she knew, there were more mistresses than just these three. If there were, unless those women came forward, no one would ever know.

There was obviously much they didn’t know about Coach and his mistresses. There were also the sons of these mistresses. Ricky Terlinger, Demetrius Davis, and Will Prescott. The interviews of these young men were heart-breaking for Pamela to listen to—especially that of Demetrius Davis—whose mother had been killed by the same person who had murdered the Coach—they assumed. She had listened to these three young men speak and she simply couldn’t detect any hint that any of them had known about their mother’s involvement with the man. She also remembered back to her conversation with Jesse Portillo—the young football player who wanted to register for her Psychology of Language course. He too seemed incredibly saddened and shocked about his Coach’s tragic death. Could any of these three young football players have discovered what was happening between their Coach and their mother and have taken it upon themselves to seek vengeance upon the man for their mother’s sake?

How could a man who was so devious and so venal in his behavior had received such universal adoration from virtually everyone around him? The only person who seemed furious at the man for his actions seemed to be his eldest daughter, but she seemed an unlikely candidate for a killer. Pamela realized that she would have had opportunity—actually, almost all of the suspects had opportunity in that most of them could not account for their whereabouts during the time of the murder. Sheila Croft claimed to be at home, but it was only her word because both of her daughters had claimed to have been at school. The youngest daughter Emily was in school until 3:30 p.m. and after that she said she was driving around running errands. The oldest daughter Elizabeth claimed to be on campus in the library during the afternoon and early evening working on a paper. Neither of the daughters had anyone who could corroborate their stories for the later part of the day. Both girls had their own cars and came and went at will.

Jeff Dooley said he was in his office—where he usually was most afternoons, waiting for practice which typically began around four o’clock. No player came to visit him that particular afternoon so there was no way to verify his statement. Even so, Dooley showed up for practice at four o’clock and took over for the absent coach. Likewise, Rosemary Ellis said that she was working at her desk the entire afternoon but that no one came in as she remembered. Again, there was no way to verify her claim. Hannah Schlegel said she was on the football field—alone—during the early afternoon working out a new routine for her cheerleaders until Dooley arrived at four to start practice. Her squad of young women typically practiced at the same time as the football players and she said she wanted to be ready for them at that time. She worked on her own. No one saw her or claimed to be looking for her.

Abigail Prescott was in Boston on the day of the murder as was her husband. She had no contact with Coach Croft or her son during the afternoon. Charlene Terlinger was at work that day and her claim was verified by her employer—except for a brief break she took late in the afternoon around five to run an errand at a local drugstore. No one at the drugstore remembered her. The police doubted that she could have driven from the boutique in downtown Reardon where she worked to the Shady Lane Motel and back in the time that she took for her break.

Pamela mulled over all the information before her. She listened to all of the voices again—trying to hear something that someone might be hiding. She considered all of the additional information the police had gathered and how it impacted the case.

She glanced up and the shadows from the trees outside her windows floated over her curtains in a rolling pattern. It was starting to get dark earlier. She rolled her head around on her neck, carefully checking her forehead scar. It didn’t hurt, but she could still feel its presence. It served as a reminder to her to be careful. She looked back at her screen, using her mouse to scroll up and down through the voice prints. There were so many! So many suspects. Where they had originally thought they were only dealing with three suspects, the field had now opened up to dozens—and maybe even more, because they didn’t know for certain that they had included all the possible individuals who might have wanted to kill Coach Wade Croft.

The only thing she knew for certain was that something she had done—or said—had frightened the killer and caused the person to target her by cutting her brakes. That was a message, for certain. The killer wanted her to stop—but stop what? And why? What did she know? Or what did the killer think she knew that would cause the person to risk exposure in order to send her that message? She racked her brain trying to figure out what it could be—but nothing became obvious.

The late afternoon sun dipped behind a cloud and her office filled with shadows. Joan had left earlier and she no longer heard Willard typing away next door, so she assumed that he too had headed home. She hadn’t seen a student in over several hours so she figured it was probably time to gather her belongings and head home herself before her husband became worried. Besides, he had said he was making a pot roast tonight and that sounded perfect for this bleak day—all warm with mashed potatoes and gravy.

With books, clipboard, and thermos in hand, she slipped on her jacket and placed her purse over her shoulder and headed out the side entrance into the parking lot. When she’d arrived in the morning, her little white rental car had been one of just a few vehicles in the lot. Now, the small white Fiesta looked isolated between two large SUV’s. She hiked up all of her paraphernalia and reached in the side pocket of her purse for the key chain. Giving a push on her automatic door opener, the car beeped and she grabbed the door and opened it, tossing her belongings across the driver’s seat to the passenger’s side. As she stood up and was almost ready to slide into her seat, a soft swishing sound behind her caused her to turn abruptly.

A huge pair of what looked like scissors was rapidly descending towards her face.