Voice Mail Murder

Chapter Eight





She had gone on to confirm for Shoop her finding that three different women were speaking on the Coach’s voice mail. She provided the detective with a list of each of the three unknown speakers and which of the seven messages they had recorded. They then contemplated for a few minutes as to the order and arrangement of the messages, wondering if that provided any information. Shoop verified for Pamela that the Reardon Forensics team had been able to determine exactly when each message had been sent, and that they were in chronological order on her CD. That is, the first message was sent first, the second message sent second, and so on. Not much help, they both agreed. Shoop had thanked her and grumbled as he encouraged her to “keep digging” and attempt to uncover additional information about the women. For her part, Pamela suggested to Shoop that identifying the voices was virtually impossible unless there were sample suspect voices she could use for comparison. Shoop pondered her request, said he would get back to her, and then abruptly hung up.

She gave a shrug. After all, this was the third time she’d been involved with this strange man and she realized that his social skills left much to be desired. She was determined not to let his curt behavior get to her.

“Dr. Barnes?” asked a tall, young man at her door, dangling a schedule card in his hand and looking around from her office to Joan’s across the hall. His black back pack was slung over his shoulder and a loose lock of dark hair fell over his left eye in a cavalier fashion. “Is this Dr. Barnes’s office?”

“I’m Dr. Barnes,” responded Pamela, smiling. She was surprised to see any student showing up at her office door this late on a Friday afternoon—even on the second day of the semester.

The young man smiled, set his bag down on the floor, and stepped inside the office, holding out the schedule card in front of him.

“Uh . . . is it too late to sign up for your class?” he asked sheepishly, that lock of hair bouncing back and forth, forcing him to push it out of his face in annoyance.

“Which class would that be?” she asked sweetly. Students always assumed that professors only taught the class in which they were enrolled.

“Uh . . .” he continued, flustered, turning the schedule card around and reading the course title, ‘Psychology of Language?’”

“Why don’t you come in . . .?”

“Jesse. Jesse . . . Portillo,” he said, rocking back and forth on his heels. She motioned to her comfy couch and the young man grabbed his bag from her doorway and lumbered over and plopped down on the sofa with a sigh. She recognized the sound because she had heard many students make it before and it usually indicated that they would be glued to the spot while they rested their feet for a while.

“You realize . . . Jesse . . . don’t you,” she scolded gently, causing the boy to flush a bright red as she leaned towards him and directed a finger his way, “that this is the second day of class? Psychology of Language met yesterday for the first time. Why didn’t you come see me earlier?”

“I . . . I. . .” he muttered, looking down between his legs at the linoleum floor, rocking almost painfully back and forth. She cringed because she certainly didn’t intend to make him feel this badly about registering a few days late. There were numerous valid reasons for a late registration and she was happy to entertain his. But this student seemed mortified by her question.

“It’s okay, Jesse,” she assured him. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to make sure you understand that you’re already behind in my class and . . .”

“Dr. Barnes,” he looked up at her, big soulful eyes pleading, but of course, she was used to students with big soulful eyes pleading for all sorts of things—late entry into a course, higher grades, excused absences, and more. “I’m really sorry. I was registered for another Psychology class for my general social science requirement, but it had a lab that conflicted with practice, so I had to drop it and take something without a lab—and your class doesn’t have a lab, so I thought it would be perfect!”

Pamela laughed to herself. Yes, she was sure many students considered Psychology of Language a perfect option because it didn’t require a lab session as did many of the science and social science courses that students had to take for their core requirements. She, however, considered it perfect because of the subject matter which she loved—but she would have time to convince young Jesse of this fact as time went on, she thought.

“Yes, you are probably right,” she assured him, noticing him calm, “Psychology of Language is a perfect course. At least I think so. What do you have to practice that prevents you from taking a lab?”

“Oh. Football.”

“Football? You mean you’re on the football team?” she asked him.

Yeah,” he shrugged, “but not on the starting line-up. I just sit on the bench.”

“Even so, that’s very impressive,” she told him. He smiled, then his face broke and his head fell into his hands.

“Jesse?”

“Sorry, Dr. Barnes.” He glanced shyly up at her, his face awash in pain. “It’s been really hard, you know, with what happened to Coach.”

“I can imagine,” she said quietly, and waited for the boy to speak further. She could sense that he had more to say.

“I can’t think about class. I’m sorry. I didn’t even go to the classes I was scheduled for yesterday. I went today, but that’s when I found out about the lab and . . . everything got all mixed up . . . and Coach Dooley told me I’d have to change my schedule, but I just can’t concentrate on school . . .”

“Of course, you can’t,” she said softly. “No one would expect you to. This must be a traumatic experience for you—for all the team.“

“It’s horrible,” he said, again, staring intently at the pattern on her floor. “Why would anyone hurt Coach? Why? He was the best . . .”

“I don’t know, Jesse,” she said, her heart breaking for this young man who obviously had far more important problems to deal with than which social science course to register for. Her breath caught as she listened to him speak.

“He was great to us . . . to every one of us . . . not just the starters. Yeah, he pushed us; he pushed us really hard, but he cared about each one of us. I mean, Dr. Barnes, he knew what each guy’s major was; he knew what classes we all were taking. Sometimes he’d call our teachers personally if any of us were having a hard time. He wanted everybody on the team to do great—not just on the field, but in school too. He was like a parent. I mean, he was so proud when we got good grades. He would call out the guys who got A’s and praise them at practice. If you made the Dean’s List—Oh my God—he, like, had a ceremony at practice for you! And, if you had trouble, he was there too. He was just the best guy in the world. I can’t understand why . . .”

“I’m sure he was very proud of you,” she said. “What year are you?”

“Oh, I’m a junior,” he replied. “Business major. But I really love being on the team, even though I don’t really get to play much. “

“Maybe you’ll get to play this weekend,” she offered. “They did decide to go ahead with the game, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “but it’s a terrible idea, Dr. Barnes. Coach is dead and they’re just going on like nothing has happened. Coach Dooley says Coach would have wanted us to play. I don’t know. Maybe he’s right.”

“I believe I heard President Foster say that the University would be dedicating the game to Coach Croft’s honor?” she hinted. Personally, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea either to continue with the scheduled game following so closely on the murder of the team’s coach.

“Yeah,” agreed Jesse, “but I don’t like it. It’s not right. Nobody feels like playing. We’ll probably lose. We’re all way too upset.”

“Is that what Coach Croft would want you to do?”

“Hell, I don’t know what he’d want!” he shouted. “They don’t care about what he’d want. They just don’t want to upset things; they’ve got media contracts and stuff. They don’t care about how the students feel.”

“Maybe you’ll feel differently when the time comes,” she suggested.

“I don’t know,” he said, calming down somewhat. “That’s tomorrow night. Maybe. I mean, his wife said we should play. If she says it’s okay, maybe we should. I just don’t know. Somehow it just doesn’t feel right. But . . . but . . . you know . . . I guess we should because of . . . where they found him. I mean, he was in a motel room. I mean, he must have been . . . you know . . . sleeping around. I just can’t believe Coach . . .”

“Jesse,” said Pamela, shaking her head sadly as she realized how terrible it must be for this young man to have his hero’s feet of clay crumble beneath him so dramatically. “Jesse, Coach Croft was not perfect, but that does not mean that he was still not the great coach and mentor that he obviously was to you and to all the team. If you focus on that—on those memories of him—those positive memories, then maybe it will make it easier for you to play tomorrow night with the enthusiasm that you know he would want you to have.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, looking at her face for the first time. “You’re probably right, Dr. Barnes. I gotta remember the good part about Coach—and he was really good—to me. I don’t think I’d have made it to my junior year—like I am—if Coach hadn’t pushed me the way he did. I gotta remember that.”

“Yes,” agreed Pamela, and then she stood and reached out her hand. “And why don’t you give me that schedule change card? I’ll sign for you to add my ‘Psychology of Language’ class.”

He beamed as he reached the small blue card over her desk and into her hands. She placed it on her desk and signed it with a flourish. Handing it back to him, she added, “Make sure you take this to the Registrar’s Office right away or you won’t be officially listed on my roll. And it’s—“ she said as she glanced at her watch, “almost 5 o’clock, so you’d better hurry. I believe they close at five.”

The young man stood and took the card from Pamela. He bent over, grabbed his back-pack, and slung it over his shoulder. Striding to her doorway, he turned and spoke.

“Thanks a lot, Dr. Barnes,” he said. “Thanks for letting me in your class. And thanks for listening to me—to me complain.”

“Jesse,” she told him, “listening to students complain is all part of my job. And if I could help you deal with this horrible ordeal with what happened to the Coach, I am very grateful. Good luck tomorrow!”

“Thanks!” he smiled. “Will you be there, Dr. Barnes?”

“I . . . don’t know,” she stammered. She was not really into sports and had never attended any athletic events in her fifteen years of teaching. “Maybe. But, good luck, and remember that Coach Croft will be there in spirit. Do your best for him!”

“I will!” He hoisted the back-pack higher on his shoulder and with a brief wave, disappeared down the hallway.