FM for Murder by Patricia Rockwell Page A

departmental computer lab, there was no speech—only weird sounds—scrapes, bumps, choking, clicks, and other strange noises--that ultimately turned out to be Charlotte’s efforts to keep from being strangled to death by the murderer—also a member of the department. Pamela’s analysis of the sounds on the recording had finally led her to one sound that the killer had made with a remote control device while strangling Charlotte and had ultimately resulted in his arrest. At the time last year, Pamela was actually annoyed that Charlotte had not said anything on the recording—not that a person can say much when they’re being strangled. But Pamela’s specialty was the acoustic analysis of voices—and she did this best when she had actual speech with which to work. She had none for Charlotte’s recording—and still had managed to identify the killer. Now, here she was with speech on the suspect recording, but unfortunately, it was speech of the victim—with the possible exception of that short gasp or grunt—just a vowel that might prove to be produced by the actual killer. It was more information than she had had with Charlotte. Would it be enough to identify the killer?
    The students were now mostly gone from the lecture hall. She heard the footsteps coming down the hall of someone she knew well. Rising and going to the door, she called:
    “Mitchell.”
    “Pamela,” said Mitchell Marks, Chair of the Psychology Department at Grace University and Pamela’s immediate superior. Mitchell had taken over teaching introductory psychology lectures last year in addition to his duties as chair. Evidently, Mitchell enjoyed working with the mostly freshman students, as he had again scheduled himself for the two back-to-back classes on Monday. “You’re here late,” he said to Pamela as he passed her office door.
    “Waiting for you,” she replied. “Can I walk with you to your office?”
    “Absolutely,” said Marks, a fairly tall man, with wavy blond hair and grey-blue eyes. Pamela ejected the CD from her computer, shut down her hard drive, grabbed her purse, keys, and jacket and, after locking her door, followed Marks down the hallway.
    “I’ve got to thank you, Pamela,” he said, as he held open the corner stairwell door for her. The twosome entered the stairwell. Their voices echoed against the concrete walls. “I never knew how much I would enjoy teaching that intro class. And that was your suggestion.”
    “You’re welcome,” she replied, “I can hear them from my office, you know. So I know how they’re responding to you.”
    “It’s really just the perfect respite after a long day of administrative duties,” he sighed. “There’s just never an end to all the squabbling between administration and the rest of us, is there?”
    “Luckily, Mitchell,” she said, smiling at him as his long strides swept them out onto the first floor and down the main hallway towards his office, “we have you to deal with administration for us.”
    “Smart,” he responded, nodding, holding open the door to the main office of the Psychology Department. Pamela entered and followed Marks into his office which was through a small alcove where the departmental secretary maintained her desk.
    “Jane Marie,” he announced to the pert brunette sitting at her computer, “I’m going to be talking to Pamela for a while. Please don’t let anyone disturb us.” He escorted Pamela in. Pamela turned back just in time to see Jane Marie give her a curious look and a shrug. Then Marks closed the door behind them and immediately strode to his large desk.
    Pamela selected one of the four chairs in front of Mitchell’s desk. Mitchell’s office always intimidated her. It was one of the largest offices in the building—probably on campus—not necessarily because Mitchell was any more important than any other department head, but Blake Hall, home of the Psychology Department was one of the oldest buildings on campus, and many of