Stump Speech Murder

by Patricia Rockwell

  Several students raised their hands and Pamela stationed four at the monitors and seated the remainder at the other large table full of DVRs.

  “Okay,” she said to the group. “When you’re looking at video on the monitor, you’re looking specifically for the murdered assistant district attorney Stacy Grant. We need audio from her–but we need very specific words. It doesn’t really matter if the words are together. If you find just one of the words, call me over to your station right away. I’ll want to hear it and I’ll want to make an audio recording of it myself. The words we need to hear Stacy saying are, ‘My husband . . . outside . . . trying to . . . break in. Please help!’ Do you have that?”

  The group of students nodded, some jotted down the phrases, and then quietly went to work. Joan assumed the role of managing the group working at the table going through the DVRs–along with Conrad Gates. Willard and Martin stood behind the students listening to and watching the videos on the editing bay monitors. Pamela moved around the room, waiting to be called over when one of the viewing students located one of the phrases in Stacy’s 911 call.

  It didn’t take long. Within fifteen minutes, one of the students waved his hand in excitement. Martin and Willard rushed to his side and the student raised the volume so the three adults could hear, and ran the recording back to a segment where Stacy Grant was speaking to a jury. Pamela moved behind the group and they all listened as the woman on the screen said, “I don’t know what the defendant was trying to do, but I do know what he did.” Pamela motioned for the student to run the short segment back and play it again. She listened again as Stacy Grant said the words “trying to” in her jury speech. Reaching into her purse that she had set on a nearby console, she brought out a small tape recorder, and when the student played the segment a third time, she recorded the two important words.

  Gratified that they had found one of the four phrases they were seeking so quickly, she hoped they would be able to find the remaining three phrases as quickly. Unfortunately, it took longer than she expected. After an hour, one of the girls located “break in” from a section of one of Stacy’s press conferences. On this recording, Stacy was responding to a question about how long she thought it would take for her to become accustomed to working for the DA, and she said it might take time to “break her in.” Pamela took the phrase although she realized she’d have to dub out the “her.” She wondered if the killer had done that or if the killer had found another section where Stacy had said “break in” as a complete phrase.

  They continued in this same manner and eventually they found the word ‘outside.’

  They had gone through all the DVRs related to Stacy’s cases at the DA’s office. They were now into other recordings for the DA’s office–much more general stuff. Every once in a while, Stacy would appear in a segment, but the monitor people had to fast forward through a lot of material until they finally came to something featuring the murder victim actually speaking. After several hours and much frustration, one of the students at one of the monitors called out to them.

  “I think I’ve got her saying ‘husband’,” he cried with excitement. Martin and Willard and Pamela zipped behind him as he played the video at a higher volume for all to hear. Stacy Grant appeared on the screen. The DA stood to her side.

  “What a great day for the DA’s office,” said the man on the screen that Pamela knew as Charles Findlay, “and especially for our young ADA Stacy Grant. Two convictions in one week, Stacy! That’s some kind of record.”

  “I’m certainly thrilled,” replied Stacy as the camera panned over the faces of her office mates out in the audience. “But it’s not a personal victory–it’s a victory for our entire office,” Stacy exclaimed.

  There was applause from everyone present. Someone in the group pushed a man forward towards Stacy. It was James. He laughed and came forward and joined the DA and Stacy.

  “And who is this young man, Stacy?” asked the DA, laughing.

  “This is my husband, sir!” she responded. “He’s gone without supper for weeks so I could get those convictions for you!” The audience laughed again.

  At that point, Pamela motioned for the student worker to stop the recording.

  “Replay, just before she says ‘husband’ so I can record it,” she asked him. The routine was repeated and eventually Pamela had all the phrases that comprised Stacy Grant’s 911 call saved on her small audio recorder–all except the phrase “please help.” She knew she could probably make her case to the police without this last phrase, but she believed this particular phrase would cement her argument because it was the most emotional. She pleaded with the group to continue to search for the final phrase. It was now after eight. Conrad and Martin had gone out several hours ago and had brought in take-out for the group. They were all tired but still motivated. Around midnight, a small female student with her eyes glued to her monitor, raised her hand.

  Dr. Barnes,” she whispered, “I think I found ‘please help.’”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Mrs. Brewster,” said Pamela, greeting the mayor’s wife warmly at the top of the steps of Hap Brewster’s impressive campaign headquarters. Far grander than the James Grant campaign headquarters, this edifice was a two-story brick structure near the center of town and it looked like the site of major patriotic activity, complete with red, white, and blue bunting encasing the top of the white portico that covered the stairs spanning the entire front of the building. Large windows towered up from the first floor offices as high as the second story, each window sporting massive full-color posters of the incumbent himself complete with exhortations to “vote” for the man.

  “Dr. Barnes,” responded Katherine Brewster to Pamela as she guided the professor into the inner sanctum of her husband’s re-election headquarters. Pamela had called earlier and requested an opportunity to visit the Brewster campaign site and Katherine Brewster–possibly still feeling guilty for harassing the Psychology professor–had volunteered to show her around personally. The political wife escorted Pamela inside and into a huge two-story lobby, complete with glittering chandelier. At the back of the lobby, a grand staircase circled up to the second floor. Several hallways led off of the lobby directly. A lone sentry stood guard at a beautiful mahogany desk directly beside the staircase.

  “George,” said Katherine to the old man behind the desk, “I’m going to be showing Dr. Barnes around the facility. Where is everyone today?”

  “Don’t rightly know, Mrs. Brewster,” replied the wizened gentleman. Probably all up in the main office.”

  “No doubt having a meeting,” said Katherine to Pamela, smiling. “Why don’t we start down here.” She led Pamela down a side hallway and into a large room where numerous campaign volunteers were seated at tables. Most were manning phones. Some were working at tables in the center of the room, stuffing envelopes or folding flyers.

  “This is where our volunteers work,” said Katherine. “We have hundreds, many of them students, as you can see.”

  “Yes,” said Pamela, “it’s wonderful when students become involved in the political process.”

  “I agree, Dr. Barnes,” replied Katherine Brewster, beaming. “You and I are certainly not as different as I first thought.”

  “No,” agreed Pamela. “There are many things that we have in common. I’m curious, Mrs. Brewster. . . .”

  “Katherine.”

  “Katherine, I’m curious about those very clever ads your campaign has been running lately.”

  “Oh, you mean the ones with the little cartoon characters?” she squealed, delighted.

  “Yes, they portray Mayor Brewster as a sort of super hero.”

  “I know. They created that ad right here in-house,” she said, the definite increase in her pitch level indicating her enthusiasm.

  “Really? It was very sophisticated,” Pamela gushed appropriately.

  “Let’s go over to our communications suite,” suggested Katherine. “I’ll show you the ama
zing equipment they use to make those ads.”

  “Wonderful!” cried Pamela. “It’s hard to believe that anyone could create something so clever right here in Reardon.”

  “Oh, yes,” noted Katherine Brewster. “We have a group of very talented artists and communication specialists.”

  “I can see that you do,” said Pamela smiling, as she followed Katherine back to the lobby and down another side hallway on the opposite side. The two women followed the narrow pathway around until they finally reached a sealed and padded door at the end of the hall. A glass window in the door revealed a massive electronic control center–far more communication and video/audio editing equipment than Pamela had seen at WPUR. Katherine peeked into the window. As no one apparently was inside, she carefully opened the door and gestured for Pamela to enter.

  Pamela wandered wide-eyed into the room, its walls totally encrusted with equipment from floor to ceiling. On the far wall, a built-in counter jutted out. On it, a master control console oversaw a group of eight television screens on the wall above. Katherine Brewster gestured for Pamela to feel free to look around. Pamela moved over to the counter and sat at one of the sliding/rolling chairs. She examined the equipment on the counter, noting particularly the audio capabilities of the unit as indicated by the various markings on the dials and levers in front of her.

  “You must have a lot of people working on your commercials,” Pamela said to Katherine Brewster.

  “Oh, I don’t really know,” laughed Katherine. “Harold doesn’t really discuss the technicalities of it all with me, but I do know that it’s very elaborate.”

  “I can see that it is,” agreed Pamela.

  Three men entered the room. The first was Hap Brewster. He was followed by his two cronies whom Pamela remembered from the rally in the park–Victor Baines and Kevin Sturges. One she had seen close up at her car window just recently and the other she had seen being interviewed on television.

  “Darling,” called out Brewster to his wife. “What brings you down here to the basement?”

  “Harold calls anything technical ‘the basement,’ Dr. Barnes,” whispered Katherine. “Harold, this is Dr. Pamela Barnes from Grace’s Psychology Department. Mitchell Marks asked me to show her around.”

  Pamela realized that Katherine was lying because she herself had asked for the tour. Even so, Katherine lied effortlessly and her fib only managed to provide an excuse for their presence in a place where they probably shouldn’t be.

  “Dr. Barnes,” said Hap Brewster to Pamela, with a short, polite bow. The two men behind Brewster remained quiet. Victor Baines gave Pamela a slightly threatening stare. “We’re happy to have you visiting our headquarters.”

  “Thank you, Mayor,” responded Pamela. “Actually, I’m delighted to find you here–particularly with Mr. Baines–who I met the other day. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Really?” asked the mayor, looking quizzically from his wife to his two aides.

  “Yes,” Pamela continued, “Ever since I saw that commercial for your campaign–you know the one with you as a super hero and all the cartoon character villains–I was curious just how such an amazing piece of art could be constructed. I wondered if–perchance–you hired a specialist from outside–maybe New York or Los Angeles–to create it. It was so clever, it was just hard to believe that someone right here in Reardon actually made it.”

  “I’m happy to tell you, Dr. Barnes,” said Brewster, puffing up, hands on his lapels, “that that ad was totally home grown. We had a number of our people working on it, didn’t we, Kevin?” he asked the younger man behind him.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Kevin Sturges, hands in pockets. “Several of us worked late hours on that one, Boss!”

  “You see, Dr. Barnes,” said Brewster, “we don’t need to ship out anything to some high falutin’ New York or Los Angeles firm. We can do all that fancy pro-duction stuff right here at home!” He rocked back and forth on his heels, arms folded.

  “I see, Mayor, that you truly do have the technical facilities to accomplish practically anything your campaign needs done,” she said pointedly looking from Brewster to Baines to Sturges.

  “Just as I said,” agreed the mayor, smiling.

  “Of course,” continued Pamela cautiously, “you surely wouldn’t sanction your amazing technical suite here being used to manufacture false evidence?”

  Brewster laughed and looked around at his wife and his men.

  “What are you gettin’ at, lady?” he asked, annoyed.

  “I’m suggesting,” she said, “that you–or one of your assistants–created the 911 tape that Stacy Grant supposedly sent to authorities out of segments of previous speeches she had given. You used the equipment here to splice those segments together so they sounded like a desperate woman who felt her husband was trying to kill her and was calling for help.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brewster shouted in annoyance.

  “Just this,” she said, pulling her small tape recorder from her purse. She pressed the ‘play’ button and the 911 call from Stacy Grant filled the tech room. “My husband . . . outside . . . trying to . . . break in. Please help!”

  “Look, Dr. . . uh. . . Barnes,” continued Brewster, “I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at. That sure sounds like that call from Grant’s wife to 911. What makes you think it was made here?”

  “I don’t know for sure that it . . .”

  “Oh, you’re just guessing,” interrupted Brewster.

  “Harold,” cautioned Katherine, “your blood pressure!” She grabbed his arm in an attempt to calm him.

  “What I do know, Mayor Brewster,” continued Pamela, “is that I–we–have proof that the 911 call from Stacy Grant was doctored.”

  “Doctored? How?” asked Victor Baines. He looked sick and redder than he had when he banged on her car door. Kevin Sturges grabbed Baines’s arm and attempted to hold him up.

  “That 911 tape was composed of phrases from speeches Stacy Grant had given in her capacity as an assistant DA. She was either speaking to a jury or the press or in several other situations. We tracked down these audio recordings at WPUR and compared them acoustically. They match perfectly. And I don’t just mean that the 911 tape is just Stacy’s voice. I mean the phrases on the 911 tape are identical to those phrases. That is, someone spliced the phrases from these previous audio recordings of Stacy Grant and edited them together to make a fake 911 call that they then sent, which caused the police to come to the Grant home where they found Stacy dead.”

  “I don’t get it,” muttered Brewster. “Why would anyone do that? Besides, as long as the police got there when they did and arrested the killer, isn’t that what counts?”

  “If they actually arrested the real killer,” said Pamela pointedly. “But, think about it, Mayor. Why would anyone go to all the trouble of faking a 911 call? Especially when the person who supposedly makes that call ends up dead? The obvious reason is to divert attention from the real killer to someone else through use of the fake 911 call. And who does this particular fake 911 call implicate? James Grant. Here’s what I think happened. The real killer kills Stacy Grant, sends the fake 911 call and then leaves, just before James arrives, and just before the police arrive.”

  “But, Dr. Barnes,” interjected Katherine, “that doesn’t make any sense. How would this killer–even if this killer made this elaborate fake 911 call–how would this killer know that James Grant would show up and be kneeling over his wife’s body right before the police arrived? It all seems ridiculous.”

  “I agree,” said Pamela, “if it were just luck that James arrived when he did. But what if our clever killer not only made a fake 911 call, but also made a fake call from Stacy to her husband asking him to come home right away because she was scared. According to James and the phone company’s records of a call made from the Grant home to James’s cell, that is exactly what happened. James claims that Stacy called him at the rally and urged him to
rush home–which he did. James says that he had just found his wife’s body and was trying to resuscitate her when the police arrived. James tells us that the call he got from Stacy was very short and disjointed–just like the fake 911 call.”

  “It sounds fascinating, Dr. Barnes,” said Brewster, “but really a bit far-fetched. Don’t you think, guys?”

  “Definitely, Hap,” agreed Baines.

  “Totally,” said Sturges with a nod.

  The door to the technical suite opened and Detective Shoop entered followed by two uniformed officers.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Detective Shoop, Reardon City Police,” said Shoop, opening his shield and flashing it at Brewster. “I see that Dr. Barnes has explained her theory to you.”

  “A very interesting theory, Detective,” said Brewster, “but I don’t see how she can prove it.”

  “Actually,” continued Shoop moving further into the room, the officers standing guard at the door, “her theory has been confirmed. The phrases on Stacy Grant’s 911 tape have been verified as coming from various audio recordings of speeches that Mrs. Grant had made in the past. Dr. Willard Swinton, one of Dr. Barnes’s colleagues has extracted the actual splice marks on the 911 recording indicating exactly where the killer edited the recording together. Dr. Swinton tells us that the quality of the splicing is so good that the recording could only have been made on the most sophisticated of equipment. Possibly something like what you have here, Mayor.”

  “My people have not been involved in murder, Detective,” huffed Brewster.

  “That remains to be seen,” observed Shoop, looking around the small room from one person to the next, his eagle eyes alert to any sign of guilt. “Certainly, everyone here had a motive. James Grant was pulling ahead in the polls, Mayor. Possibly you or one of your aides feared he’d run away with the election and your desire to win and remain in power was so great that you concocted this elaborate scheme to incriminate your opponent . . . .”