Voice Mail Murder - By Patricia Rockwell Page 0,3

in a massive group of students congregated around the lone desk in the small outer office. The students were jockeying for position as they waved schedule cards in the air at the young woman seated at the desk.

“Dr. Barnes,” called out the seated secretary, brunette curls gently bobbing, her hand in the air, gesturing towards Pamela among the throng of students.

“Good morning, Jane Marie,” responded Pamela, “Glad it’s you dealing with the onslaught and not me!” She laughed heartily and Jane Marie chuckled, grabbing a schedule card from the student standing nearest to her. She quickly scanned the request form, deemed it acceptable, and picked up a signature stamp which she then slapped perfunctorily on the bottom of the waiting student’s card.

“There you go,” she announced to the young man, “You’re registered!”

“Thanks,” he replied. “That was easy.” He wound his way through the crowd of waiting students and was out the office door before the next student could slam her registration card in front of Jane Marie’s nose.

“No,” said the secretary to the young woman. “You don’t have your advisor’s signature!” She handed the card back to the girl who was scowling dejectedly. Pamela turned to the row of faculty mailboxes on the far wall of the small office and reached into her cubby hole. Flicking through her mail, she tossed what appeared to be ads from several textbook companies into a nearby waste basket and tucked a letter from a journal editor onto the large clipboard that she carried. Hmm, she thought, it’s fairly thick—a good sign. A rejected manuscript would be whisper thin. Waving good-bye to Jane Marie, always amazingly in charge no matter how frantic the circumstances, Pamela headed out of the office and down the hallway, taking time to wave at some of her colleagues, busy at work in their offices.

Laura Delmondo was talking intently to a student seated beside her desk. The young professor was glowing as she spoke with animation to the young advisee. Pamela knew that Laura’s beaming expression was only partially due to the first day of school excitement. She and her husband Vito had recently had their first child—a long-awaited baby that had been very difficult to conceive. Pamela had suffered with the popular young teacher as she experienced various set-backs in her pregnancies, and she was now happy to see Laura so joyous and fulfilled. Giving Laura a discrete wave, she headed on her way.

Towards the end of the hallway, she saw several of her graduate students milling around outside of their office, which was located down the left side hallway, right off the computer laboratory. Her new assistant Claire waved, but continued chatting with one of the other TA’s. Pamela could see at the end of the side hallway, the entrance to the computer lab, where several years ago, she had discovered the body of Charlotte Clark, one of her colleagues, strangled to death. That had been a terrifying experience, and one that had led to Pamela’s involvement with the local police department. She had assisted them in tracking down Charlotte’s killer using her knowledge of acoustics. It seemed so recent. Every time she saw the computer lab, she remembered it. Maybe that was why she seldom ventured into the lab.

She headed into the side stairwell and up the stairs, their echo rich with the sounds of people bustling through the old building. Each rung of the stairs creaked with each step—like an ancient lighthouse. The only thing that reminded people inside this stairwell that they were still in a college were the flyers that plastered the walls announcing meetings of various clubs, touting the merits of different students running for campus offices, and here and there, ads for local businesses. She could get half off a large pepperoni at Red’s Pizza Parlor all this week.

On the second floor, it was a bit quieter than the main floor, but only a bit. As she rounded the corner into the left upper hallway, she passed the offices of her closest campus neighbors. Willard Swinton was seated at his desk in the office next to hers, engrossed in his computer screen, headphones on. She smiled and withheld a greeting. She and Willard shared similar research interests and she was hoping he was investigating something related to one of their joint research projects. They both focused on linguistics, but Willard was an authority on the cultural aspects of language and her concentration was more on psychological aspects. Even so, they often worked