Stump Speech Murder

by Patricia Rockwell

  “None, I guess,” she responded with a deep sigh as she sank farther down into her sofa. The rays of the sun that had shone so brilliantly through her blinds just moments before, forming a striped pattern on her floor, now turned to a dismal gray—as gray as she felt. This was not what she wanted to do. Just because she had solved those other mysteries didn’t mean that she was chomping at the bit to solve every crime that occurred in her city. And Rocky! Oh, my, she didn’t even want to think how he’d react if—when–he heard that she’d gone to the city jail to interview a murder suspect!

  “All right. I’ll go visit with James Grant. When am I supposed to do this?” she asked her friend who now had a smug look on her face.

  “No time like the present!” said Joan brightly.

  Chapter Eleven

  She managed to postpone Joan’s insistent demand, and schedule her jailhouse meeting with James Grant for later in the afternoon. Ungraded quizzes and last-minute prepping for her morning lecture provided undeniable excuses. Now, hours later, she stood at her desk, packing her belongings into her purse, gathering her thermos and books on her desk. A glance at her watch told her it was nearing three o’clock and her interview with James Grant was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. She headed out, locking her door behind her. The hallway was quiet. Willard and Joan were probably in class.

  As she was leaving for the day, she dropped by the main office to check her mail box. She was standing by her cubby hole thumbing through the various pieces of mail, when the departmental chairman, Mitchell Marks, came through, ushering an elegantly-dressed, middle-aged woman wearing a silver, silk, designer suit.

  “Mitchell,” said the attractive woman, “I will expect that chili cook-off of yours to be a smash success! Just like last year’s!”

  “With your donation, Katherine,” replied their chair in his typical dour fashion, “it’s sure to be.”

  With a tinkling laugh, the woman gave Mitchell two quick social kisses on either side of his face. Then smiling, she turned and exited from the main office. Mitchell turned to return to his private domain, located beyond Jane Marie’s small alcove. He noticed Pamela, standing before the wall of faculty mailboxes.

  “Pamela,” he greeted her warmly. “Just departing?”

  “Looks like you found a donor for the chili cook-off?” she asked in regard to the recently departed woman.

  “Oh, yes!” he replied. “Katherine Brewster. She’s always been very generous to our department.”

  “Katherine Brewster?” asked Pamela, “The mayor’s wife?”

  “The very one,” responded Mitchell, heading back towards his office. Pamela followed him, eyeing Jane Marie as she passed her desk. The pert secretary gave her a wide-eyed shrug.

  “I had no idea that the mayor’s wife was interested in Grace,” said Pamela, pondering the recent interaction between the wife of the town’s top politico and her boss. Mitchell wandered into his office and behind his desk. He seemed totally nonplussed when Pamela followed him in, uninvited.

  “I don’t know how interested she is in any other department,” mused Mitchell, casually lifting his feet up onto the edge of his massive desk, “but she’s very interested in Psychology.”

  “Really?” asked Pamela, propping herself on the edge of one of Mitchell’s massive leather chairs that faced his desk.

  “Probably has something to do with the fact that she was a Psych major when she was a student,” noted Mitchell, reaching for a pipe from his desk pipe holder along with a long wooden match in a small bronze box beside it. University policy forbade smoking anywhere on campus, but typically it was not enforced in faculty offices.

  “She’s been funding the cook-off for some time?” asked Pamela.

  “Since we started it,” he replied. “In fact, if it weren’t for Katherine Brewster, we never would have had our first cook-off. She has probably single-handedly been responsible for the success of our department’s amazing, public, fundraising efforts, I’d say. More so than anyone else.”

  Pamela knew that all departments on campus relied on fund-raising efforts to survive. Yes, tuition paid for faculty salaries and basic upkeep, but departments had to raise massive amounts of extra money if they wanted to do any sort of building improvements or make any special purchases.

  “If truth be told,” he said bending to her, in a whisper, “after Charlotte Clark, Katherine raised more money for the computer lab than anyone else. Not to mention, all the recent improvements to the animal lab that Bob and Arliss are so proud of.” Charlotte had been the Psychology Department’s most prominent researcher and fundraiser before her murder in one of the booths of the aforementioned computer lab several years ago—a murder that had begun Pamela’s erstwhile, crime-fighting career.

  “When you say ‘Katherine,’ Mitchell,” ventured Pamela, carefully, “you mean that she acts on her own? Not as a representative of her husband?”

  “Don’t really know, Pamela,” said Mitchell with a shrug. Pamela gazed at her boss. Although she didn’t consider him a close friend and colleague as she did Joan, Arliss, and Willard, she did feel relatively comfortable discussing important issues with him or pleading for his assistance when she needed it. In fact, Mitchell Marks had proven invaluable to her in a number of her criminal investigations. Mitchell puffed on his pipe. Sitting in the late afternoon light in front of his window, he reminded her of a Southern gentleman from the Civil War—just lacking the Confederate uniform. His massive head of wavy blond hair—complete with receding hairline—made him look like a modern-day Ashley Wilkes. “For all I know, Hap Brewster might be behind the donations, but it’s Katherine who always arrives like clockwork to deliver the check. And a large check it is too.”

  “So you’ve known her for some time?” asked Pamela, trying not to wave away the potent odor of the pipe smoke.

  “As long as I’ve been here—or as long as we’ve been doing the cook-off,” he scowled. “Can’t quite remember. But, she’s a trooper. Quite a lady!” He smiled and seemed to drift off in reverie.

  “You’ve never met the husband?” queried Pamela.

  “Nope,” said Marks with a shrug. “But, over the years, I’ve gleaned a lot about him from Katherine. I guess being the wife of such a notorious person makes a woman feel a bit—overshadowed. That may be why she likes to keep her contributions separate from his. My understanding is that she’s independently wealthy—from a very socially prominent family. She’s always very proper. At times, I’ve gotten the feeling that she’s . . . embarrassed by her husband’s mafia-style tactics. But, she’s too much of a lady to discuss them—or him.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Pamela, nodding. “But, of course, Mitchell, you’re not too much of a gentleman.”

  “To discuss Hap Brewster?” he chuckled.

  “He has been in the news a lot lately,” she observed. “I mean, with this recent murder—and Brewster’s main opponent accused.”

  “I know a lot of people in this town—particularly at Grace,” said Mitchell Marks, holding his pipe as a pointer, “would like to see Brewster ousted, I guess, because he’s been mayor almost as long as some people have been alive. But, Pamela, small towns are not the same as the federal government. Reardon is not the only community with a life-long mayor—and having a long-serving mayor is not always a kiss of death. Some communities thrive under the tutelage of and the wisdom of an experienced leader.”

  “And you think that’s the case in Reardon?” she asked.

  “I think it could be a lot worse than many people think,” he suggested.

  “You don’t believe in all of the allegations of corruption?” she asked.

  “Pamela,” he said in his most professorial voice, “wherever there is bureaucracy there is corruption. You think there’s no corruption here at Grace?”

  “I hope there’s not as much as in our city government,” she replied.

  Mitchell harrumphed and used his metal pick to move the tobacco around in the bowl of
his pipe.

  “You really have been radicalized by this Grant faction, haven’t you?”

  “Radicalized?” she exclaimed. “Is anyone who supports someone other than the present mayor a radical?”

  “No,” he responded, “but if they encourage support of another candidate by suggesting that Hap Brewster’s administration is corrupt, then they’re going too far . . . .”

  “But, Mitchell,” she cried, somewhat amused, “isn’t that the whole idea of elections? I mean, why would anyone ever run against anyone unless they believed that their opponent was doing something wrong? Maybe not illegal, but certainly ineffective?”

  Marks held up his hands, waving the pipe. “Sorry, sorry!” he said calmly. “Not trying to start any sort of argument here, Pamela. Besides, it’s a moot point, what with Grant’s arrest, now, isn’t it?”

  “Although, given the rampant charges of corruption in the Brewster administration,” she argued, “it’s not much of a jump to suggest that Brewster—or his people—are involved in Stacy Grant’s murder.”

  “What?” cried Mitchell, slamming his feet on the ground. “Now I’ve heard everything! The man was arrested with the murder weapon in his hand, standing over the body!”

  “Mitchell,” said Pamela, bending in over his desk, and whispering, “you and I both know from experience that murder investigations often take very strange turns.”

  “And you expect this one to turn away from Grant and point towards Brewster?”

  “I don’t expect anything, Mitchell,” she replied. “But I do intend to keep an open mind and not assume that a man is guilty of murder based totally on circumstantial evidence.”

  “Like being caught in the act?”

  “After the act,” she corrected. “And how can you be impartial, Mitchell, when you have been regularly taking money from Hap Brewster’s wife?”

  “Pamela, Katherine has been donating money to the department—not to me personally—for many years. I hardly think that means she’s trying to buy my political support for her husband. And I can guarantee you that it does not bias me—for or against—the suspect in this recent crime.”

  Pamela rose and started to leave. Marks stood and followed her to the door.

  “Pamela, I’m sorry if I upset you,” he said sincerely, hand on her elbow.

  “Oh, you haven’t upset me, Mitchell. It’s fine that Mrs. Brewster is helping to fund the cook-off. I just have to get going. I have a 3:30 appointment to interview James Grant at the city jail.”

  With that, she smiled at her boss and practically floated out of the office.

  Chapter Twelve

  She sped out of campus and towards the downtown area several blocks away, attempting not to go too fast—after all, her ultimate destination was city hall, location of the Reardon Police Department. She monitored her speed. It had been several years since she’d received a speeding ticket and she was determined never to get another. Her wild driving habits had been a major bone of contention between her and her husband, so she drove with extreme caution, but as fast as the posted limit would allow. Knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel, she sat upright and watched for every chance to take a traffic shortcut.

  When she finally arrived at the large, two-story ochre-colored, stone building near the center of town, she had five minutes to spare. She zipped into the large parking lot and around to the rear of the building where she parked and sprinted up the five or six flights of high concrete steps leading to—among other things—the back entrance to the police department where Shoop’s office, the traffic fines window (a place she knew well), and the entrance to the city jail which were located. This last was a place she did not know (she thought gratefully) but would find out about in the next hour or so.

  A large sign announcing “Reardon City Jail” and an arrow pointing down (rather unnecessarily, she thought) was painted in glaring red over the stairwell. It was totally incongruous to the rest of the signage on the other walls which was all unwaveringly dull grey. Hiking her purse strap over her shoulder, she took a deep breath and headed down the short flight of stairs and through the swinging, metal, double doors directly beneath the red arrow. Inside, she found herself in a small lobby facing a clerk sitting behind a metal desk. The clerk glanced up at her, as if to say, “What do you want?”

  “I’m Pamela Barnes,” she said to the man, politely, stepping closer to the desk. “I’m supposed to have an appointment with James Grant.”

  “Barnes?” asked the clerk, as he looked down at a clipboard. She nodded. “Put your belongings in this,” he ordered in a bored voice, pointing to a rectangular metal basket on a small counter to the right of the desk. Pamela did as asked, depositing her purse somewhat unwillingly and her jacket into the basket. Then, the clerk rose and opened a door behind him and disappeared. Pamela remained standing—as there were no chairs in sight—wondering if or when the man would return. A sense of being spied upon gripped her although no cameras were visible. Suddenly, the clerk returned through the door behind the desk.

  “Follow the guard,” he said to Pamela, and motioned toward the same door where a large, uniformed female stood. She turned and started to walk back the way she came, totally oblivious as to whether Pamela was following her or not. Pamela glanced around to make certain the clerk was speaking to her, but obviously he was as she was the only person in sight. She walked through the door and chased after the guard who was directly ahead of her, walking quickly down a long windowless hallway. The guard didn’t even bother to turn around to see if Pamela was behind her. Pamela walked more quickly, running a few steps to keep up. The clerk led her down the long hallway, turning several times left and then right before stopping before a windowed door at the end of a hallway. She turned and waited for Pamela to catch up.

  “I need to check you,” she said blandly as she opened the door and motioned for Pamela to enter. Pamela stopped abruptly, suddenly petrified. The guard looked bored as she quickly ran her hands down Pamela’s body from shoulder to ankle in about three seconds. “If you need help, press the buzzer on the counter,” she added as she exited.

  “What?” Pamela started to say to the guard, turning around, but the woman had already disappeared from view. Pamela moved further into the small room, about the size of a large closet. Inside, she saw on the far side, a built-in counter in front of a Plexiglas window. A wooden, straight back chair was in front of the counter. She moved over and sat. On the counter was a built-in microphone—positioned directly across from its twin on the other side of the glass barrier. She saw the “buzzer” the guard had mentioned. A small, typed sign noted, ”In case of emergency, press buzzer.” Oh, my god, she thought. What have I gotten myself into? What emergency could arise here? Are they suggesting that visitors here are in some sort of danger? She looked at the Plexiglas pane separating her side of the room from the other side where obviously the prisoner would sit. Was it possible for a prisoner to break this glass? Surely not. But why would a visitor need an emergency buzzer? Oh, well, she said to herself. Calm down. It’s unlikely that James Grant is going to attempt to break through this panel and attack you, Pamela.

  A clanging noise banged in the distance, and suddenly a door in the room on the other side of the Plexiglas opened and another uniformed guard emerged, followed by James Grant wearing orange prison garb. The guard motioned to the chair in front of the counter with his stick, and James Grant moved into the seat without a word. The guard then turned and exited through the door he had entered, followed by the distinct sound of a massive metal door locking.

  A strange stillness filled the tiny room. James Grant sat motionless on the opposite side of the pane, head bent, seemingly oblivious to Pamela’s presence.

  “Mr. Grant,” she spoke into the microphone, uncertain that the device was even turned on. She couldn’t hear any noise of Grant’s movements through the Plexiglas window. She tried again. “Mr. Grant. James. I’m Pamela Barnes. We met at your rally the other day
in the park. Your partner Martin Dobbs asked me to come speak with you.”

  “Dr. Barnes,” said the prisoner finally in a voice totally different from the enthusiastic one she remembered from their first meeting. “I’m sorry Martin dragged you into this.”

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he continued to sit motionless, head down, eyes devoid of expression.

  “Mr. Grant,” she began. “James, if I may.” She figured that one of them was going to have to speak and it apparently wasn’t going to be James Grant. “James, Martin asked me to come talk with you because he wants me to see if I can find anything unusual about the—uh—recent events from a different perspective.”

  “I know, Dr. Barnes,” said Grant, finally looking up at her with what she thought was probably the most forlorn expression she’d ever seen on a person’s face. “I know that you have participated in several investigations. I’m sure you are quite good at what you do. Please don’t be offended, but I think Martin is just grasping at straws.”

  “Did you kill your wife, James?” she asked abruptly.

  “No,” he replied immediately, but sadly. “But what difference does it make? She’s gone.”

  “It makes a huge difference,” she replied. “I’m speaking as a wife. I’m thinking how I would feel if I were killed and my husband were unfairly accused of my murder. I would never want that because I love my husband and it would be horrible to imagine him accused—or worse—convicted of my death.”

  “If your husband loves you—and I’m sure he does,” said Grant with a sad wry smile, “he probably wouldn’t care what happened to him if he lost you.”

  “Maybe not at first,” she noted, trying to indicate that she too understood what he was probably experiencing, “but eventually I believe he would begin to wonder what really did happen and who really did the murder. He wouldn’t want my killer to go free.”

  Grant did not reply. Pamela hoped that she was making some headway, although she was certain that Martin Dobbs had already appealed to James Grant’s sense of justice—and what surely must be a strong desire to see his wife’s true killer apprehended.