Sounds of Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

coffee
products made from beets, sweet potatoes, and other local produce
now brought tourists from around the globe to the charming
factory/restaurant. However, at this time of night, the Reardon
Coffee Factory would have few patrons.
    Other than a few cars on Jackson, she saw no
signs of life. Life, she thought--the life that had been snuffed
out tonight. The life of someone she knew. And she’d seen the
results personally. She couldn't help but replay the events of the
preceding hours in her mind as she drove. Her foot pressed harder
on the gas pedal and she drove instinctively.
    She couldn't stop the picture from forming in
her mind. The picture of Charlotte--her body slumped over in the
computer carrel, head lying askance, arms hanging loosely, and that
power cord from the headphones wrapped sinuously like a giant snake
around her neck. It was so gruesome. Charlotte’s eyes open, her
skin just starting to turn a color Pamela couldn't and wouldn't
want to describe.
    Suddenly she arrived at—almost ran through
one of the dozen or so stoplights on her route. Hitting her brakes
hard, her car reverberated from the effort. Sitting all alone at
the light made her more frightened, even though her car doors were
locked. She had a nagging sense that someone--maybe the
murderer—no, that was ridiculous--but someone might leap out and
force her to open the car door. The light changed to green and she
breathed audibly. She thought suddenly, "If I hadn’t sent Kent back
to check on the lab being locked for the night, he wouldn't have
found Charlotte and I wouldn't have discovered her and called the
police. I'd be home now, in bed asleep. Someone else would have
discovered her body--probably tomorrow."
    She drove past her dog’s veterinarian, a
friendly man who always made her smile and whom her poodle Candide
genuinely seemed to enjoy visiting. Not so, "visiting" with
Detective Shoop. Now there was someone who was all business. He
seemed to have little concern for the trauma that she and Kent were
experiencing and was only interested in wrenching as much
information as he could from her before he felt compelled to excuse
her. She knew he’d be back tomorrow and more interrogation would
occur. If only she hadn't found the body. That meant more
questioning.
    Now she was past the inhabited part of
Reardon and headed out into the "boonies" where her house was
located. The speed limit here was 50 and Pamela increased hers
several miles an hour over that. She thought back to when she had
arrived at the building tonight. Why couldn’t she remember? Were
any of her colleagues there? She’d told Shoop that she didn’t see
any faculty members in their offices—other than talking to Phineas
and hearing Mitchell and Charlotte argue in Mitchell’s office. Was
she right about that? Obviously, Phineas was there because she’d
spoken to him. Oh, my God, could Phineas have finished his class
early and gone down to the lab and found Charlotte there and killed
her? He seemed all concerned about the Tenure Committee when she’d
spoken to him earlier and Charlotte was the Chair of that
committee. Maybe Charlotte threatened to prevent him from getting
tenure. Surely, that wasn’t possible.
    Or could Mitchell have chased Charlotte down
the hall after their fight, followed her into the lab and killed
her? Charlotte had certainly reamed him out during that argument.
What could they have been fighting about? It might have been
something that Mitchell simply couldn’t stand and he felt obligated
to do something about it—something like kill Charlotte. Oh, that
was ridiculous.
    Of course, the person who killed Charlotte
could have been someone from outside--someone they didn't know,
maybe someone who wanted to steal some of the equipment in the lab.
After all, that's why Mitchell was so paranoid about lab security.
He obviously felt that the equipment in it was threatened. Well,
Pamela thought, maybe Mitchell was right. Maybe, someone waited