FM for Murder (13 page)

“It’s no big secret, Jane Marie,” said Pamela. Actually, she and Jane Marie had shared a number of secrets over the years. Jane Marie kept her informed of some of the best—and juiciest—departmental gossip. She was in the perfect location to hear and observe all the comings and goings of everyone. “I gave Mitchell a CD of the murder to see if he might provide some information about the gun that was used. And before you ask, Detective Shoop gave me the original CD; it’s not a secret—anyone who happened to be listening to KRDN Saturday night would have heard the same thing.”

“So, you’re in the detecting business again, are you, Dr. Barnes?”

“Not full-time, Jane Marie,” replied Pamela, turning to go, “just as a side line. I promise I won’t neglect my departmental duties.” She grabbed a cookie from the tray of Christmas goodies Jane Marie had on her desk and gobbled it down. Gym tonight, for sure, she thought.

“I’ll be checking up on you,” replied the secretary, again shaking her pencil at the teacher and smiling. Pamela headed out of the alcove, nibbling on the goodie, and immediately bumped into her colleague Bob Goodman, checking his mail.

“Bob,” she greeted him, licking her finger tips, “Good morning!”

“Hmm,” grumbled the tall professor as he bent low to peek into his mail box placed far below eye level.

“Problems?”

“You should know, Pamela,” he responded, standing upright and turning to face her directly. My goodness, she thought, this was about as curt as Bob had ever been; he was usually gracious and thoughtful. “You and Joan seem to be egging Arliss on in your hen sessions over here.”

“Our what?” Was this the real Bob Goodman? Or had Scrooge taken his place?

“I’m sorry, Pamela, if I seem insensitive (yes, you do! thought Pamela) but Arliss and I were working out our wedding situation and now---now—she’s vacillating.”

“You mean, she’s changed her mind about marrying you?” Pamela asked, aghast. She thought she had never seen a couple more in sync—and in love—than Bob and Arliss.

“No, no,” he said, gesturing wildly, “just the wedding. Good Lord, if it were just up to me it wouldn’t matter, but my mother is---Pamela, you just don’t know. This is a huge event to her. She’s planning this mammoth soiree—and Arliss just refuses to get on board. She doesn’t seem to care about a wedding at all! Does that seem normal to you?”

“No,” said Pamela, carefully, because she knew that she would be hard pressed to describe anything Arliss MacGregor did as normal. “Bob, you must understand, that Joan and I are not—egging her on—as you put it—we’re merely trying to support her. My understanding was that she wasn’t even certain she wanted to get married at all. She said to us she was completely content with the way things are—you know—just living with you.”

“Pamela,” he said, folding his hands, and appearing to set forth a lecture that a father of a teenager might give to his child going out in the family car for the first time, “Arliss and I cannot continue to ‘live together’ indefinitely. Actually, no such living arrangement exists at all—if anyone were to ask.” No, she’d change that to strict Puritan preacher giving a hellfire and brimstone sermon.

“Such as your mother?”

“I see you understand,” he replied. Then, apparently completely lost in his dilemma, he grabbed his mail, shaking his head and wandered off down the opposite end of the main hallway towards the animal psychology wing.

“Strange,” said Pamela, to herself and she too wandered off down the hallway the other way and up the side staircase to her office on the second floor.

When she reached her office door, she discovered three students sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. She recognized two of them from her undergraduate research class and the third as Kent Drummond, her graduate assistant—and would-be suitor of her daughter. She smiled at the trio and quickly opened her door. Slipping inside, she hung up her jacket on her coat tree and set her brown paper bag and thermos on her desk with her purse. Then waving her arm for the students to enter, she sat at her desk.

“What can I do for you?” she asked. Kent motioned for the other two students to go first. They had quick questions about a homework assignment. Pamela answered them to the students’ satisfaction and they were soon on their way. Kent remained.

“Hey, Dr. B,” he said, sitting on the arm of her sofa, “I just brought you the survey data from the participants I collected yesterday in the lab.” This was Kent’s second year as her assistant and she dreaded the end of the academic year when he would—if all went well—receive his Master’s degree and leave the program. Until then, she was blessed with one of the most industrious and conscientious laboratory assistants she’d ever had. In fact, he was usually a step ahead of her—anticipating situations before they became problems. The incongruity was that he looked like something out of a comic book—wild hair with purple spikes, all black clothing with strange, usually frightening designs—and, of course, the ubiquitous sneakers. Add to that the fact that he was dating her daughter—much to the chagrin of her husband—and Kent was an enigma.

“Can you go ahead and enter it?” she asked. “I don’t really need to go over the data. If it’s at all like last week’s, we should be on the right track.” Their present research study was almost complete; they almost had enough participants to start running their analysis. It would give her a lot to keep her busy over the Christmas holiday—hurray!

“Sure,” he said, “no problem. I’ll go get started on it.” He turned to exit her office.

“Kent,” she called to him, “Just curious. Did you have any more thoughts about that Ted Ballard…uh…Black Vulture? The murdered disc jockey?”

“I know who you mean, Dr. B,” he said, leaning against her doorway. “I’ve seen him around at some of the local clubs—probably in New Orleans too. There are some great alternative music groups there---a lot of them underground.”

“What do you mean underground?”

“Underground…I mean, not public. You find out about a band playing there pretty much by word of mouth.”

“And you’ve been to these underground clubs?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “some are pretty strange.” She thought, they must be if Kent considered them strange. “Some of the members even believe themselves to be vampires.”

“Vampires?”

“Not all, but there are some weirdoes in the alternative music scene. You know, goth or emo. Depends on who you talk to what they call it.”

“And you saw this Black Vulture at these clubs?”

“Pretty sure. Once or twice. I’ve seen him here in Reardon, too. Mostly at the Blue Poppy, like I told you.”

“Did he have any friends?”

“Gee, Dr. B,” he said, thinking and scrunching his face together so much that the spikes on his head tipped at a different odd angle. “I never heard anyone say they were close to him. Lot of people knew him—he was Black Vulture, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“Hey, Dr. B,” he said, looking at his watch, “I gotta get going. Got a class in a few minutes.” He waved farewell and she waved briefly to him. She sat down at her desk and got ready for a long day of classes. This was Tuesday and her longest day of the week. She had her Tuesday night graduate seminar.

Hours later, after her morning classes, she sat in a booth at the Reardon Coffee Factory, in the center of the downtown area. She had arrived early and had grabbed one of their favorite locations off to the side. The front portion of The Factory housed the restaurant; the actual factory where the plants were prepared, roasted, and brewed into coffee substitutes was in the back. When you entered the old brick building through the ancient iron-grilled doors, you felt as if you were back in 1860. Wonderful aromas of—yes—coffee, but much more assaulted the senses. In the center of the restaurant’s high beamed ceiling hung an ancient sign that looked like it might have been drawn by Romulus Reardon himself. It read, “You grow it; we brew it.”

Almost as soon as she had slid into the darkened booth, Joan and Arliss appeared and slid in beside and across from her. Joan looked concerned and Arliss looked furious. Oh, no, she thought, now what is the latest catastrophe in the Bob Goodman—Arliss MacGregor romance? They both looked anxious to talk.

“What’s wrong?” asked Pamela as she turned first from one friend to the other.

“Bob’s mother!” cried Arliss.

“The poor dear,” said Joan to Pamela, sympathetically, “the woman is the mother-in-law from hell!”

“What?” asked Pamela.

Before she could find out, their peppy young waitress appeared and took their order—fairly mundane sandwich and salad fare for all, but Pamela ordered sassafras coffee and Arliss selected dandelion coffee. Joan pondered the long list of alternate coffee choices before deciding on cottonseed coffee.

“Cottonseed!” exclaimed Arliss, “That’s like drinking a shirt, isn’t it?”

“You have no sense of adventure, Arliss,” countered Joan.

“Stop it, you two,” interjected Pamela, placing her body between her two friends. “What about Bob’s mother?”

“She’s insisting on a huge—a huge---ceremony in an Episcopalian cathedral!” moaned Arliss, beating her hands on the table.

“Is Bob Episcopalian?” asked Pamela.

”I suppose,” said Arliss, “but Pamela, you should see this place—it’s like where the Queen of England was crowned!”

“And what does Bob say about all this?”

“He doesn’t care,” said Arliss, “he’s gone along with this woman all his life. He says ‘It’s just for a day—let’s just put up with it!’”

“And I take it you don’t want the huge ceremony in the giant cathedral?” asked Pamela, carefully.

“I want to elope,” responded Arliss, “if we must get married—the simpler, the better. He should have never told this woman…”

“His mother?” asked Pamela, delicately. Was there a way to mediate this problem for Bob and Joan. She remembered how miserable Bob had looked this morning when she saw him at the mailboxes. She glanced to her side at Joan who gave her a shrug. Obviously, she had tried and failed and it was evidently Pamela’s job now.

“That’s not the worst of it!” shrieked Arliss, “She plans to get her personal designer to create a dress for me!”

“Would that be so horrible?” asked Pamela, thinking how much she wouldn’t have minded having a couture wedding dress when she and Rocky got married.

“I prefer jeans!”

“Not for your wedding!” scolded Joan, interjecting her first comment since arriving. Obviously she was tired from arguing with Arliss already.

“Wedding—schmedding!” sneered Arliss. “It’s my wedding, whatever it is! Bob’s mother shouldn’t be directing it!”

“No,” agreed Pamela, “you and Bob should. Have you told him that?”

“He’s a coward where his mother is concerned,” said Arliss, her body sliding down into the leather bench and leaning against the wall.

“Really?” queried Pamela. “Bob has never struck me as a coward. He’s probably one of the most principled individuals I know.”

“Have you seen his mother? She looks like a flower-covered truck,” cried Arliss. She was almost in tears. Pamela had never seen her friend so desolate.

Just then, the waitress arrived with their orders and the three women suspended discussion while they chewed and sipped.

“My dear,” said Joan eventually, leaning across the table to Arliss, “I’ve told you this, and I’m sure Pamela will agree. We’re happy to serve as sounding boards for you, but ultimately, you must talk honestly to Bob about this. He is your fiancé…” Arliss grimaced at Joan’s use of the word ‘fiancé’ which she obviously did not consider herself. “He is your boyfriend…mate…future husband…whatever…and I know he considers you his equal. If you can’t work together on this problem, how do you ever expect to solve problems once you’re married?” Joan glanced knowingly over the tops of her reading glasses at Arliss, holding them firmly to her face.

“All right, all right,” said Arliss, huffing. “Thank God, my parents are nothing like Bob’s mother. They could care less when...where…how…or if I get married.” She smiled smugly at her two friends.

“In the grand scheme of things,” continued Joan, “so you wear a beautiful dress and let people gush over you for a few hours. Isn’t it worth a little bit of discomfort to make Bob—and his mother—happy?” Oh, Joan, thought Pamela as she savored her cup of sassafras coffee, you diplomat. The horrible discomfort of a Vera Wang!

“I suppose,” said Arliss, now totally deflated. “I’m still going to talk to him and try to talk him out of it.”

“You do that, my dear,” said Joan, reaching over the table and patting Arliss’s hand. “Now, Pamela,” she said, turning to her, “whatever happened yesterday after we left you alone with that strange detective?”

“Not much,” said Pamela, lightly, stretching her arms out over the blue and white-covered tablecloth. “He just asked me to consult on the disc jockey murder.”

“What?” yelled Arliss, completely forgetting her wedding blues.

“Yes,” said Pamela, smiling and straightening her collar with pride, “seems he wants me to try to identify the killer from a recording of the murder.”

“Just like you did with Charlotte?” asked Joan.

“Exactly,” responded Pamela.

“So,” said Arliss, her thin frame leaning over her sandwich platter, now totally involved in the conspiracy, “did you identify him?”

“Or her,” said Pamela, “The killer used a gun. It could have been a woman.”

“It could have,” agreed Arliss. “It could have been Bob’s mother!”

“But it was a man,” said Pamela, cup to lips. “At least that’s what Willard and I believe by listening to the recording. A southern man. We believe the killer actually spoke on the recording when he—or she—brought out the gun. It’s hard to hear—but there’s a soft “ah” sound and we’ve analyzed it and that’s our best guess.”

“A Southern man,” said Joan, wiping a dab of mayonnaise from her upper lip, “describes half the population of Reardon.”

“It’s still better than what the police had on their own,” said Pamela, her chest heaving as she defended her findings.

“True,” said Arliss. “Pam, I bet you solve this murder just like you did Charlotte’s.”

“I’d like to. Of course, I can’t tell Rocky,” she added, clutching her cup with determination “He’s far too protective.”