FM for Murder (9 page)

“Oh, hi! Come on in! I’m Theodore Ballard—Black Vulture to my fans. You a fan of alternative rock? What the? That’s a gun! What do you need a gun for? Why’re you pointing it at me? Wha--? No! No!”

The blast of the gun shook her as the acoustic profile of the explosion filled the screen. “Okay,” she said, “let’s see if there’s any sound hiding in the background. Using her cursor to zero in on various peaks and waves in the acoustic profile before her, she highlighted a segment below the regular line of Ballard’s speech. This small, faint wave appeared immediately after Ballard had said, “alternative rock” and before he said “What the?”. The acoustic program revealed that the segment lasted a fraction of a second. She set her cursor on the small wave and highlighted it. When she pressed “play” the overlapping sound of Ballard’s speech was eliminated and the only sound audible through Pamela’s desktop speakers was the brief sound of what seemed like a gasp. Yes, it seemed like a gasp, she thought. The strange sound must have come from the killer because it would have been impossible for Ballard to produce a totally separate sound wave while in the process of speaking something else. To verify this, she decided to establish an identity profile for Ballard and the suspect sound. This was a procedure that she had developed in the course of her research on vocal linguistics. All voices varied and those variations could be identified acoustically. Some variations occurred across individuals depending on various factors such as emotion, age, gender, geographical location, and a variety of other features. That is, there were certain acoustic features that all men shared—acoustically--and all women, just as there were certain acoustic features that tended to appear in all people as they got older. But there were other acoustic features that discriminated between groups. Some researchers were primarily interested in the similarities (or differences) of a certain group. Others—like Pamela—were interested in using acoustic technology to identify specific individuals. Her research and that of others like her had been instrumental in helping develop protocols for using acoustics to aid in criminal investigations as well as many other areas where the ability to identify a person was crucial. Her students had taken what she had taught them and had gone on to acquire interesting careers using this very technology.

Now that she had separated the suspect sound—the one she believed belonged to the killer—she worked to amplify the sound and stretch it out so that she could investigate each part of it and ultimately try to identify the killer. Of course, she realized that it would probably be unlikely that she would be able to actually identify the killer because the concept of identification implied that there was a pool of suspects from which to choose. As far as she knew, no such pool existed. Even so, she believed she might be able to provide some clues for the police—something she might discover from this short gasp that the killer had probably uttered just as he (or she—a woman could wield a handgun just as well as a man) revealed the gun.

She pressed “play” again and the brief sound jumped from her speaker. Yes, it did sound like a gasp. She felt certain it wasn’t a word. It didn’t sound as if the killer was attempting to speak. Maybe it was a snarl or a growl. She kept imagining what the killer might feasibly say or mutter just at the moment of revealing the murder weapon. As she played the sound again, she had the sense that the killer was gasping. She could hear what sounded somewhat like an intake of air. As air passed through the vocal folds, no sound was actually produced by the larynx. There was something registering on the spectrograph so some laryngeal activity took place—something like the killer producing intake of air while producing an open vowel such as “o” or “ah.” Unfortunately, no actual word appeared to be said. Even so, the small voiced vowel gave her something to go on as far as identifying the killer. It was extremely soft, far away, and very short, but she marked the wave and recreated it in an accompanying analysis program. Here she asked her software program to tell her what the fundamental frequency was. Soon she knew one thing about the killer, she was sure. It might be the only thing she would ever know from the acoustic output, but it was more than the police probably had. Pamela Barnes was quite certain that Theodore Ballard’s unknown killer was male.

She was so totally engaged in her investigation of the murder tape that she didn’t notice when Willard Swinton, one of her colleagues entered her office, puffing.

“Pamela!”

“Willard,” she said, looking up at the older African American gentleman, leaning somewhat uncomfortably on his silver-topped cane. Always nattily dressed, Willard today sported a dark green suit with a bright yellow vest. His curly hair with a few wisps of grey topped his perfectly round head. “Come, look at this, will you?”

“What have you got?” asked Willard with excitement. The two researchers had often collaborated on various linguistics projects. Willard was an expert on accents and regional dialects. If anyone could recognize a particular voice and where it was from by just a brief gasp it was Willard. He rounded her desk and peered over her shoulder at the array on the screen.

“See this segment,” she said, pointing out the brief wave she had just listened to.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Let me tell you that after you hear it,” she said, coyly. She pressed “play” and the enhanced gasp was audible and then immediately disappeared.

“That’s it?” asked Willard. She nodded. “Again,” he directed as Pamela repeated the sound.

“Not much to go on, is there?” he asked her.

“No, but, anything you can tell me, Willard…..”

“I’d say, from the quality of the vowel…definitely Southern….”

“And male, right?”

“Oh, yes, male.”

“Southern meaning local? From around here?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I don’t think I can pin it down that much from just ‘ah’”

“What kind of man is it?” she asked.

“You expect a lot from just a vowel, Pamela. What project is this for, anyway?”

Pamela looked at the door and then back at Willard standing beside her. She motioned him down and whispered in his ear. “It’s a recording of the murder of that disc jockey at KRDN on Saturday night. You heard about it, didn’t?”

“How could I not? That’s all the students are talking about. But, I don’t get it. Why just the one vowel? If this guy was a disc jockey don’t they have a longer recording?”

“Not him, Willard. I think—I’m not positive—but I think this gasp—or vowel—might have been from the killer—not the victim. The police can’t identify him and they asked me to listen to the recording and see if I could discover anything about the killer.”

“My goodness, Pamela, you do get yourself into the middle of things, don’t you?”

“I do, don’t I?” she responded smiling.

Willard hobbled to Pamela’s couch where he carefully lowered himself. “My dear, I can’t say much more from just those few repetitions of that vowel, but if you’d be so kind as to make me a duplicate CD, I would be ever so delighted to join your efforts in crime detection and see what I can do to assist you.”

“You would?”

“Of course,” he replied, “That last caper of yours I only got to experience at the very end when the police stormed your office and saved you at the last minute from the dastardly villain.” Pamela smiled brightly at him, opened her desk, removed a blank CD and quickly duplicated the original CD and handed it to Willard.

“Welcome aboard, detective,” she said, handing him the CD, eyebrows raised.

“I will treasure this disc and guard it with my life,” he said.

“You don’t need to do that. Just see what you can figure out about that gasp—and anything else about the recording that you can.”

“You have my word.”

With that, he lifted his body with difficulty, leaning on his cane and headed jauntily down the hall, whistling.

Chapter 12

Previous week--Thursday, morning, December 13

“Good morning, Mr. Bridgewater,” greeted Bernice, his secretary as Daniel strode towards his office, his face buried in a folder.

“Good morning, Bernice,” he replied. The darkly-dressed woman started to rise hesitantly, clearing her throat.

“How is your father, sir?” she continued. Daniel stopped beside her desk and smiled.

“He’s holding his own, Bernice,” he said, “thank you for asking.”

“Mr. Bridgewater,” she said, clutching her wool skirt, “Everyone here is concerned about Mr. Bridgewater. He’s in all our prayers.”

“Thank you, Bernice,” said Daniel, closing the folder and leaning over her desk, “My father considers all of you—all of the employees of the company his family. I know it means a lot to him to know you all care about his welfare.”

“We do, sir. We do,” she said, nodding. Daniel smiled again, hesitated and then abruptly continued towards his office. At the door, he turned and said, “Oh, Bernice, I’m expecting a Mr. Jax sometime this morning.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied crisply and returned to typing at her computer.

Daniel entered his office. At once, silence surrounded him. The small noises of the outer office—typing, printers, and the soft music wafting throughout the main office facility—were no longer audible. He sat at his desk and reached for the photograph album that had remained on the left-hand side since the previous day. He removed the photograph he had taken out yesterday from his inside suit coat pocket and open the album to the page from where it had come. Looking back and forth between photo and page, he contemplated the pictures—and people—represented. The intercom on the right hand side of his desk buzzed and he responded.

“Yes, Bernice?”

“Mr. Bridgewater, Mr. Jax to see you.”

“Send him in.”

“Yes, sir.” Immediately the door opened and Bernice ushered in a short, middle-aged gentleman carrying a brief case. He looked for all the world, thought Daniel, more like a banker than a private investigator. A navy blue pin-stripe suit, a red tie, and a crisp white skirt with honest-to-god cufflinks constituted his outfit. Daniel hadn’t seen any one wear real cuff links in ages.

“Mr. Jax?” questioned Daniel, his hand extended, walking to the man.

“Mr. Bridgewater, delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.” Jax provided a perfunctory handshake and remained standing until Daniel escorted him to one of the chairs facing his desk.

“Have a seat.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Jax, placing his briefcase on the floor beside the chair and sitting formally in the leather chair, knees together and feet on the floor and together. “Now, I understand from your attorney, Mr. Vickers, that you would like me to undertake a private investigation involving a family disappearance.” Jax raised his arms and pulled neatly on the cuffs of his shirt.

“Yes, true,” answered Daniel, “Just how much did Harold tell you?” He leaned back in his chair and twisted his pen back and forth.

“He gave me the basics, I believe,” said Jax, smiling a little half-grin, “at least as far as he knew. Before I came, I did a preliminary check to see what was available in public records.” He lifted his briefcase from the floor, opened it, and removed a thin folder.

“On David?” asked Daniel. Jax thumbed through several items in the folder.

“Yes,” said Jax as he glanced at one of the documents in the folder, “Mr. Vickers, as I said, provided me with the pertinent background information, so I have the birth certificate, obviously…”

“Obviously…
“It appears we have extensive records for David up until about—let’s see—“ he paused as he flipped over one of the documents and ran his finger down a list of items, “1997. Does that seem right?”

“Probably,” responded Daniel, his brain trying frantically to keep up with the little man’s speed. “Yes, 1997 would be about the time he…disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” asked Jax, setting down the folder on Daniel’s desk and posing his pen as if to write, “is that actually what happened?”

“He did disappear,” said Daniel.

Jax set down the pen and looked directly into Daniel’s eyes. “There is disappear and there is disappear, Mr. Bridgewater. Mr. Vickers was not terribly clear as to any particular cause for David’s…disappearance. I was hoping you might be more enlightening.” He pulled his suit coat as if straightening it, gave a bit of a shrug, and faced Daniel with a smile, his eye lids partially closed—somewhat like a cobra.

“There is really no great secret, Mr. Jax,” said Daniel, “There was quite a row between David and my father—Charles Bridgewater. They disagreed about many things—in particular David’s chosen career path. David fancied himself an artist and my father fancied him a business man. This was right after my mother’s death.”

“Your mother died how?”

“In a car accident. She was driving; David was in the passenger seat. He was in the hospital with broken bones for several days afterward.”

“So, soon after your mother’s death, David abruptly leaves home and your father disowns him—or your father disowns him and he leaves home.”

“I really can’t say, Mr. Jax. It all happened so fast and nobody at the time kept me informed of what was going on. I know what I know from what I overheard. My father refuses to talk about it.”

“I can see how all this has been a source of great family friction,” replied Jax, now running down a list in his folder with his gold fountain pen. “If I am to track down David, sir, it would be helpful if I could interview your father…”

“That’s not possible,” said Daniel, quickly. “My father is quite ill and is in no condition for visitors, Mr. Jax. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me. I will certainly try to answer any questions you have.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jax, “but, truly, if I could question Mr. Bridgewater, if only for a minute or two—to discern the nature of the disagreement….”

“Mr. Jax,” repeated Daniel, now becoming noticeably frustrated, “as I said, that is impossible. The doctor only lets me visit him for a very brief time each day. This morning when I was there, Father hardly recognized me. I’m sure he would never let a stranger see him and upset him—which I guarantee your questions would—you’ll just have to trust me and the information I provide you.”