~ ~ ~
XXII
The Fourth Friday
[T]he modern 'soul'…[is] the present correlative of a certain technology of power over the body.
Michel Foucault
Charlie got up a little earlier than usual and was at his office by eight-fifteen. He dropped off his laptop and went for coffee and a danish. Promptly at nine he called DeVries, but being careful he used his cell-phone rather than the department phone. Luckily, she was in.
"Good morning. This is Charlie. I got a threatening call last night warning me not to look into the murders for the sake of my health. The call lasted about ten seconds, no doubt so there wouldn't be any hope of tracing it. I dialed star-six-nine and got the number."
Charlie recited the phone number to DeVries.
"Okay; I'll look into it. What, precisely, did the caller say?"
"The voice said: 'Dr. Douglas. It would be good for your health to stop digging into your colleague's death. Stick to your own business.' No, wait; it was 'It would be beneficial to your health…'."
"Any chance you recognized the voice?"
"That's where it gets interesting. The voice was hollow-sounding, rather unnatural. I'm willing to bet that voice-changing hardware or software was used. That means it was someone who didn't want their voice recognized, whether or not I'd heard it before, but what I thought most important was that even though it was deep like a man's it could have been a woman's voice disguised. I then thought that it could have been a woman who called Smythe. I think the call to me might have been the killer's first big mistake."
"I think you're right on all counts. Voice-disguising software or hardware can just as easily mask gender as original tone. They even alter cadence to some degree, usually in that they slow things down a bit. Regardless, though, the question is what we can do to protect you. How do you think this person knew of your involvement in the case?"
"I think what prompted the call was my asking about John Sawyer. That gave the game away with respect to what I've learned. Of the people I asked about Sawyer, my money is on Janet Milford. What I was going to do was call Milford and ask if she'd mentioned our conversation to anyone, especially Hamilton."
"No; you leave that to me. I don't want you speaking to anyone about the case. In fact, it'd be good if you could discretely mention to a few people that you're not pursuing it. Could it have been anyone else other than Ms. Milford?"
"I don't think so. I asked the department secretaries and colleagues at the club table if the name John Sawyer rang any bells. I don't see how either the secretaries or someone at the table would pass on my interest to the killer. I'm betting it was Milford who did, though probably unintentionally."
"Okay; we'll start there. I'll call you as soon as I know anything. In the meantime, do stick to your own business, not just for your sake but for your wife's."
After hanging up Charlie felt frustrated but saw the sense of DeVries' instructions. He wondered idly if it could have been someone in her office that gave the game away but decided that verged on paranoia. Deliberately putting the matter aside, he got to work reviewing his notes for Monday's class and starting on a book-review he'd been letting slide. The latter caught his attention and before he knew it time for lunch had come around. DeVries hadn't called, but he didn't expect to hear from her for a while.
Charlie was soon seated at the club table and taking part in a rather desultory discussion of the latest moves by the Board of Trustees. Then the jokes started and things picked up. By one-thirty Charlie was ready to get back to his book-review and he walked back to his office. As luck would have it, he ran into Jennifer Pullen who was also walking toward the department.
"Dr. Douglas; anything new on Wilson's death?"
"I don't know, Jennifer. I realized it's not my concern and I'm leaving it to the police to sort out. Are you on your way to a tutorial?"
"No; I've got to do some stuff for my thesis."
The rest of the way they talked about student attitudes. Despite her youth, Pullen felt too many students saw lectures as the provision of data and didn't work to integrate material. Charlie told her he'd read an interesting article about how people were, in effect, being trained not to remember things by the ease with which the internet provided information.
"All you have to do now is remember where to find stuff; you don't need to remember any of it. That's a major change in how we handle information. Unfortunately, a side-effect is that stuff we should integrate into our thinking gets reclassified as that much more data to be accessed only when needed."
"I think that's true, Dr. Douglas. The students I tutor seem to think all that's necessary is for me to provide sources. That way they never really do philosophy; they just repeat stuff they've read or heard."
At the department Pullen headed for the TA office and Charlie took the elevator to his floor, thinking it'd been good to mention to someone that he wasn't doing anything about the case. He hoped it would get around.
In his office Charlie checked his email and voice-mail. Nothing from DeVries, but then given the new circumstances, she might not have risked leaving a message. He was just getting back into the book-review when DeVries called.
"You were right, Charlie. Apparently Ms. Milford ran into Ms. Hamilton in the Kingsford Shopping Center. They talked a bit and Ms. Milford did mention that you'd spoken to her a couple of times about the killings and that you'd somehow discovered there was someone named Sawyer involved. She did so while telling Ms. Hamilton how much of her work on her house had to be redone because of the search. As for the phone-number, it belongs to a throw-away cell, one of those prepaid ones you buy without opening an account. It's probably in the lake."
"I anticipated that, but speaking of the search, there's something that occurred to me about Hamilton. She's a realtor; she knows something about construction. She'd recognize walls in a house that might have space behind them. It's the sort of thing that likely wouldn't occur to most people. It wasn't until I saw Milford's house that I realized that one of our downstairs walls not only has a closet in it, but also next to the closet there's a space housing the heating duct that services the upstairs. When I first opened the closet door I noticed that the section of wall is somewhat wider than the closet interior."
"That's a good point; I didn't think of it. Charlie, you're getting better and better at this, but for now you stay well away from it all. What I need to do next is have a closer look at Ms. Hamilton, but neither Dan nor I will approach her directly quite yet. I've also arranged for the patrol car in your area to check on your house periodically. I'll be in touch."
The remarks about the search got Charlie thinking. Nothing came clearly to mind but something was brewing at the back of his head about what he'd do to hide something. After a few minutes he walked to the main office.
"Jodie, what was done with Barrett's books and the other stuff in his office?"
"Everything was boxed up. Dr. Rankin had it stored in case someone claims it."
"You mean down in the basement?"
"No; it all went to the university storage warehouse at the edge of campus."
"Right; that makes more sense. Anyway, I just wondered because I need the key to our storage space downstairs."
Jodie handed over the key and Charlie went to the elevator. When he got to the basement he walked past the area where there were TA and student offices and unlocked a heavy door at the end of the corridor. Inside were a number of sturdy shelves marked as belonging to the various departments in the building. The philosophy section held several dusty boxes. A quick look told Charlie the boxes had not been recently moved or opened; the undisturbed dust on them and the shelf made that clear. But Charlie wasn't really interested in what was on the philosophy shelf. He was trying to put himself in Barrett's mind. After a moment he went to the history section, which was nearly at the other end of the long room. On that shelf boxes had been moved recently. Charlie looked for a box with Arnold's name on it and foun
d it at the back of the shelf. He pulled it off the shelf and put it on the floor. The box was closed with a strip of masking tape but Charlie didn't hesitate to open it. Just inside was a piece of paper with Barrett's name and department printed on it in large letters. Charlie carefully lifted the paper. Below it was a well-worn duffle-bag with part folded over on itself to fit inside the box. Charlie didn't touch the bag and took out his cell but saw there was no signal. He was too far down. Leaving the box where it was and locking the door, he went to the nearest TA office, asked to borrow the phone, and called DeVries.
DeVries, of course wasn't in. He asked for Bolster, but apparently they were both out. He really would have preferred to hand his discovery over to her personally, but didn't want to take any chances. He explained to the woman on the phone that he'd found a box that was very important to DeVries and Bolster's current murder case and that he was nervous about it being taken if he left it and it wasn't picked up as soon as possible. She said she understood, asked where he was, and said she'd send a squad-car immediately. Charlie ignored the wide-eyed stares of the TAs in the room and went back to the storage room. He stood by the locked door and waited, keeping an eye on the corridor.
It was only fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours before a cop stepped out of the elevator and looked around.
"Over here; to your right."
"Doctor Douglas?"
"Yes. The box is in here."
"Doctor Douglas, before you open the door; there's a hitch. I can't just go in and get whatever you found. I'm going to have to wait here. My partner's outside waiting for a detective who is getting a warrant. It shouldn't be too long but you'll have to wait with me because someone could ask me to leave and I'd have to go."
"Sure, I can do that. The important thing is that you're here."
A half-hour crawled by before the elevator door opened again, but it wasn't a cop; it was Jodie.
"Doctor Douglas, I thought maybe something had happened, you've been gone so long."
Jodie spoke to Charlie but she was staring at the officer.
"Jodie, there's a problem. I came down here, uh, to make sure I hadn't left any books stashed away, and found something that the police need to see. I would have come and told you, but I didn't want to leave it unguarded. Now we have to wait for another officer to bring a warrant."
"My, maybe I'd better tell Doctor Rankin about this."
"Of course, of course, but before you do that and things get complicated, could I talk you into bringing me and this officer some coffee? I've been down here over an hour and it's damp."
Jodie looked a little dubious but went off for the coffee.
"That was a good move, sir. Maybe by the time she gets back my partner and the detective will get here."
"I hope so; that was the idea. If Rankin gets here first, things will get complicated."
Jodie eventually returned with two cups of coffee and informed Charlie that Amanda wasn't in but was coming down as soon as she could. Jodie clearly had either called her or had Phoebe call her while she got the coffee. Fortunately, when the elevator opened to take Jodie back upstairs two women got out. One was in uniform and no doubt the first cop's partner. The other woman was wearing jeans and a mannish tweed jacket and was most likely the detective. She carried a large envelope. Charlie called to them and the detective walked up to him and introduced herself.
"Dr. Douglas? I'm Detective Ortega. Dan Bolster and Pam DeVries are on their way; I was closer to a judge. I have the warrant; it covers the box you recognized as relevant to the case. You can give the warrant to the department head or whoever is appropriate. What've we got?"
Charlie took the warrant but didn't even glance at it. He unlocked the door, led Ortega into the storage room, and showed her the box. He explained that Barrett knew Arnold in history and that it had occurred to Charlie that he might have stashed something in the history department section rather than the philosophy section to better hide it for the short term.
"Yes; this looks like what the killer's been searching for, but I think we'll just let it sit till Pam and Dan get here. It won't be long."
Just then Rankin and Jodie came out of the elevator and walked quickly to the storage room.
"Charlie; what's going on?"
"I think I stumbled on something that has to do with Barrett's murder. We're waiting for the detectives in charge of the case. Here's the warrant Detective Ortega brought with her."
Rankin looked very irritated but opened and read the warrant. She then pushed past Charlie to get closer to the box but Ortega blocked her way. As Charlie expected, Rankin seemed to deflate, turned, and walked away without a word, taking the warrant with her. Jodie stood undecided, then followed. Both got into the elevator.
"Is this going to be trouble for you, Dr. Douglas?"
"No; it doesn't matter. The only thing is that I'd appreciate if we can be a little vague about where the box was. I did do some snooping."
"Not to worry. As soon as Dan and Pam get here we'll take the box and that'll be that."
Charlie smiled his thanks and was about to offer to go for more coffee when Bolster and DeVries got out of the elevator.
"Charlie; you really are trying to get on our payroll, aren't you."
Bolster and DeVries pulled on latex gloves, took the duffle-bag out of the cardboard box, and opened it. Charlie was close enough to see that the duffle-bag held ancient-looking books individually wrapped in clear plastic.
"Definitely the books. Great. Now we're getting somewhere."
Bolster immediately went back to the elevator and quickly returned with several evidence bags from their car. He and DeVries carefully removed the books from the duffle-bag and put them individually in evidence bags, labeling and numbering each bag and then both initially each label. Finally the duffle-bag itself was put in an evidence bag. Bolster, DeVries, and Ortega then each picked up some of the books while one of the uniforms took the duffle-bag and the other the box everything had been in. They then trooped out and Charlie closed and locked the storage-room door. The three detectives took the elevator first and Charlie rode up with the two uniforms. The books and duffle-bag were put in the trunk of Bolster and DeVries' car and the box went in the trunk of Ortega's. The uniforms left immediately, followed by Ortega. DeVries thanked Charlie and then she and Bolster drove off. Charlie went up to the department.
Coming out of the elevator he found Rankin waiting for him.
"Charlie, you should have called me first."
"Amanda, I was in a hurry; I didn't want to risk anything. On top of everything, I received a threatening phone call. I was not about to take chances while you got here and then debated what to do."
"A threatening call? Why didn't you tell me that?"
"You weren't here, and Detective DeVries told me not to talk about it to anyone."
Once again Rankin seemed to deflate, muttered that she understood, and went to her office. Charlie called Kate. He was getting ready to go when DeVries called.
"Quite a haul, Charlie. They were all there: the eight books on the list. There were also other copies of two of them for a total of ten books. We're going to ask Smythe to have a look at them. Eventually he may even be able to buy them, depending on what the court decides. More likely they'll be returned to their owner, if we can determine who that is. The trouble is, Charlie, that given the involvement of your department head and secretary, word is bound to get out about your role in this. I'm going to increase the number of checks on your house by the patrol car, but that's all I can do. You have to be very careful. We're still a long way from identifying the killer, much less arresting him or her. And whoever it is will be furious at having killed two people for nothing. The next time we talk you have to fill me in on how you guessed where the books were."
Charlie went home and he and Kate decided it'd be wiser to eat in. Over dinner Charlie recounted the finding of the box and Kate told him she was impressed he'd figured out what Barrett had done. B
oth then wondered what the killer would do now that the books had been found and were in the hands of the police.
Later, Charlie checked the doors and windows were locked and put his cell on his night-table. As he was going to sleep, Charlie realized that the killer's threat against him had been prompted by concern he might learn something important; now that threat would be prompted by a desire for revenge. Or would the killer leave well enough alone?