Sounds of Murder

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

The next afternoon, as Pamela was checking out for the day, she found herself standing in the main office by the mail boxes, where several faculty members were gathered chatting.

"Would you mind coming to my office for a minute?" she asked one of them. "I have a research problem I'd like to ask you about."

"Sure," was the response, "Just let me drop this stuff off at my office and I'll be right there."

"Great," she answered and quickly headed for her office up the central staircase.

Now, just minutes later, as she stood behind her desk waiting, her heart beating loudly, she thought over and over how frightened she was at this important moment--possibly, the most important moment in her life.

"Dr. Barnes?" Willard Swinton entered her office a few steps. "I thought you'd left for the day."

"Uh, Willard, yes. I...had to return...because I forgot something I needed at home."

"I hate it when that happens," he confided. "With my cane, it takes me forever to get from one location to the other. If I have to backtrack, it's really demoralizing."

"Yes, well, I've got what I needed," she said, standing motionless behind her desk.

"Good," he smiled. "Well, have a lovely evening, Pamela."

"You too." He turned and headed back to his office. Pamela stood at her desk, riveted. She looked down and took a deep breath. Too close. Simply too close.

Rex Tyson appeared at her door, leaning jauntily on the doorframe.

"So?" he spoke in a friendly manner, "What's up?"

She jerked her head up and gripped her desk tightly with both hands.

"About the overhead remote...."

"The remote again," he smiled. "That's your research problem?"

"Could I see how it works?" she asked sweetly. He pulled the device out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. She examined the device and pressed it. Two clicks. Yes, the sound was identical.

"Actually," she said, "this is my research problem. Listen, will you?"

As she knew exactly where the cursor button was, she clicked it with her mouse without even looking down at her computer and the sound she now knew so well emerged at full volume from her speakers. Charlotte's choking voice unmistakable, her bumps, scrapes, scratches--and then, the double clicking noise that had revealed to her Rex's obvious involvement. Click-click. Pause. Then click-click again. She watched his reaction as she listened.

Rex's face turned white--as if the blood in his entire body had suddenly drained into a vessel beneath him-the instant he heard Charlotte's voice. It was obvious to Pamela that he'd heard this horrifying sound before-because, of course, he had. He said nothing, just stared at her, not moving even the slightest. When the recording stopped, Pamela spoke.

"I didn't know how to connect any of the sounds I was hearing to the killer. For all I knew, Charlotte made all those sounds herself in trying to get away. Then, I realized that the clicking noise was probably not a sound that came from Charlotte--in her effort to save herself from the killer. The clicking noise was probably made by the killer-probably inadvertently. So I started to look for that sound. I remembered seeing you use that remote for the projector and I thought it might be the noise on this tape. When Jane Marie informed me that you were the only faculty member who regularly uses the remote and that you carry it with you in your shirt pocket, I knew I'd found Charlotte's killer."