Voice Mail Murder (4 page)

Chapter Seven

After her only afternoon class on Friday, she rushed back to her office in hopes of finding some time to listen to the CD Shoop had left. Luckily for her, Friday afternoon typically meant the start of the weekend and students and faculty began heading off campus shortly after their last class. She expected that a student or two might show up for her afternoon office hours, but she usually was able to accomplish a lot of work on Friday afternoons, when Blake Hall was most often abandoned.

Now she sat at her desk alone and slid the metal disk into her hard drive. Leaning back in her desk chair, she clicked on her audio player and hit the “Enter” button. A woman’s voice spoke:

“Hi, I’m really excited to see you. I’m here, just like you said. Can you come over?”

The sound of a mechanical click announced the end of the recorded message. She waited a few seconds and soon another message began:

“I forgot. Room 228.”

The same click announced the end of this even shorter message which again was followed by a few seconds of mechanical pausing. The next message sounded:

“Hello. I’ve arrived and I have on a very short, silk, black teddy—nothing else. Would you like to see for yourself? Why don’t you. I’m behind Door 360. See you soon.“ The speaker made a kissing sound and the message ended with the click. The next message played:

“I’m running late. Maybe a half hour? I’ll call.”

The next was even briefer:

“I’m here. 402.”

Click. Pause. Next message.

“I’m here, honey bunch. I have something new to show you. I’m in Room 117. Hurry! Hurry!” The clicking sound verified the end of this message and after the short pause, Pamela heard:

“Second floor. 211. Take the outside stairs.”

She heard the clicking sound, but no further messages played. She could see why the detective was frustrated with these messages. None of them provided any clues as to the identities of the speakers. The only concrete information was the different room numbers. She assumed that the police had backtracked and had checked out previous guests at the Shady Lane Motel to see who had stayed in these various rooms. But unfortunately, to Pamela, tracking down different women who had registered anonymously at the motel in these different rooms seemed a daunting and probably ultimately unrewarding task.

There did appear to be seven messages. It would be fairly simple, she thought, to determine if there were seven separate speakers, if all the messages were from one speaker, or some combination in between. Quickly, she loaded her acoustic software program which popped up on her monitor, showing a digital spectrograph. This consisted of a single line that fluctuated on a vertical axis as the voice (which was shown beneath the line) it tracked played. The line moved up and down in response to variations in the speaker’s voice—higher up the axis when the voice was at an increased intensity and lower when the intensity was less.

Pamela placed a clean sheet of paper on her clipboard and numbered down the left side of the paper from one to seven. Starting with Message Number One, she replayed the message on the CD. “Hi. I’m really excited to see you. I’m here. Just like you said. Can you come over?” She replayed the short message several times so that she was sure that she understood the words and the syntax. Then, she wrote the message on her paper for Message Number One and examined the message for content. Before she really looked at the sound of the speaker’s voice, she wanted to consider what the speaker was saying—or appeared to be saying. The message certainly seemed to be from a woman who was anxiously awaiting her lover. The woman appeared to have just arrived at the motel room and was calling her lover to let him know and to encourage him to get there quickly. She thought about the sound of the woman’s voice. She seemed youthful, but certainly not a teenager. She sounded cheerful, excited, maybe even a little shy, as was evidenced by her asking if her lover could come over rather than just telling him to come over.

Using her cursor, she clicked on the beginning of the message and highlighted the entire text, placing it in the evaluation box on her software analysis program. Then, she tapped a button that quickly ran a check of various features of the speaker’s voice. This showed Pamela on screen what she could already hear from several listenings to the brief message. The speaker had a definite melodic pattern, with a slight upward inflection at the ends of phrases, somewhat as if she were asking questions, even on statements. There were other unique characteristics of this woman’s voice—characteristics that would make her stand out from other female speakers—and would—to Pamela’s trained ear, at least, distinguish her from other speakers on the voice mail—if there were other speakers on the voice mail. She jotted down these features on her clipboard under #1.

Satisfied that she had a good understanding of Message Number One, Pamela moved on to Message Number Two—and wrote this title on her clipboard paper. She then clicked out of the text on her screen for the first message and played the CD so that the second message became visual on her spectrograph. Then using her cursor, she again highlighted the segment denoting the second message and placed it in her analysis software. This message was much shorter:

“I forgot. Room 228.”

She played it several times. Common sense told her that this message was a companion to the first. She realized that the speaker in the first message had neglected to indicate the room number and must have called back shortly after the first message to indicate it. She tapped the analysis button and her computer whirred. Almost instantly, a series of graphs indicated frequency levels, intensity amounts, variations in tempo, and other subtle vocal changes. As Pamela glanced at the acoustic print-out, she realized that her screen was telling her exactly what her ears were telling her as she listened to Message Number One and Message Number Two—and what her mind told her as she compared the texts in the two messages. The speaker of the first two messages was the same person. Good, she thought, that limits the number of suspects from a possible seven to at least six.

She turned back to her screen and brought up the third message. She remembered that this was the longest message:

“Hello. I’ve arrived and I have on a very short silk black teddy—nothing else. Would you like to see for yourself? Why don’t you. I’m behind Door 360. See you soon.“

She smiled, realizing that this speaker seemed much more confident than the speaker of the first two messages—and much more comfortable in her sexuality. She also had a sense of humor. Pamela’s ears told her that this speaker was definitely a different woman than the first. Even so, she uploaded the text of the message into her software and again ran the acoustic checks, which reaffirmed her own judgment. This woman sounded older than the first, calmer, more sophisticated. Pamela wondered if this was her only message or if she would hear her voice in any of the remaining messages.

She moved on to Message Number Four:

“I’m running late. Maybe a half hour? I’ll call.”

She played the fifth message:

“I’m here. 402”

Her instinct told her that messages four and five came from the same speaker, but she wished the woman had said more. Darn it, thought Pamela. Why couldn’t you be more talkative like Message Number Three? She felt this was a different person than the previous speaker, but the texts of these messages were so short, she feared her acoustic program wouldn’t be able to provide much information. Even so, she placed each message in its slot and hit the button. The computer did its thing and, even with this small amount of data, the program spit out information about the speaker’s frequency, intensity, tempo, and other vocal features. Pamela stared at the output. She replayed the short messages over—and then over again. She realized instantly that Messages Four and Five were a match—that is, were produced by the same person. Then, she listened to Four and Five and compared them to the three previous messages, looking for similarities in the pronunciation or vowel formation with the other two speakers.

No, she thought. This is simply not the same voice as the other two women. This is a third woman. Oh, dear. She wished she were wrong. She knew that this finding would complicate the investigation and that Shoop was probably hoping that she would discover that only one person left all seven messages. Unfortunately, it was not the case. This woman’s voice was dramatically different and it was noticeable even by listening to these two short messages. For instance, in the fifth message, this speaker produced the “I” sound in “I’m” much more broadly than the other two. She curtailed the “r” sound in “here” and did a similar thing to the “r” in the “four” of “402.” This speaker appeared to be very curt, self-assured, prim, and not very demonstrative—not the type of woman Pamela assumed would be having an afternoon romp with a football coach. Even so, her voice was different—uniquely different and she was not one of the other two women. Three suspects—three women.

With a heavy heart and a sigh, she moved on to Voice Number Six:

“I’m here, honey bunch. I have something new to show you. I’m in Room 117. Hurry! Hurry!”

She smiled. This one, she was sure, was a repeat. She recognized the syntax, the vocabulary—and the lilting, girlish tone. She set up her analysis quickly and it showed her what she expected. Message Number Six was actually Message Number One and Two. That same youthful quality and charm.

Feeling a bit encouraged, she plunged on to the final message—Message Number Seven:

“Second floor. 211. Take the outside stairs.”

Hmm, she pondered. Could it be? Very short, curt. She repeated the message. Placing it in her analysis slot, she ran her acoustic program. The output produced a similar display as it had for Voice Number Five. Just what Pamela had anticipated. She listened again, comparing Messages Number Five and Number Seven. Yes, this was the same woman. She was sure. And that was the end of the messages. No more suspects.

She realized that she had accomplished something that would probably be very helpful to Shoop’s investigation. If he and the Reardon Police were floundering because they at present had no idea how many different women were actually speaking on this recording, she could answer that question. Unfortunately, she couldn’t provide him with much more information. She could give him a personality profile—after much more study—for each woman, but that would probably not be much help. She realized that she might be able to add more information but it would take more analysis—at a much more microscopic level. But for the moment, she grabbed her telephone receiver and called Shoop, using the number on the business card of his that she still had tucked in her desk blotter.

“Detective,” she said cheerfully when the man answered his private line, “I don’t know if you’ll be happy to know this or not . . . .”

“Dr. Barnes,” he interrupted, “any information you supply will make me a very happy man, I am sure.”

“Then,” she commenced, “be prepared to be overjoyed. I can tell you conclusively that there are three women speaking on your tape.”

“Three?” he queried. “That’s a bummer.”

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.