Forrest Lawson was sipping coffee, holding the cup with both hands while his elbows rested on his desk. His eyes were closed and his eyebrows slightly furrowed as he concentrated. He was right at six foot tall with thin brown hair, well peppered with gray. His eyes were brown, and his face showed every wrinkle and sag that a 47-year-old would be expected to have. His gaze was locked into the nothingness of deep thought. So, it was little surprise that the loud knock on his office door startled him, and made him spill coffee on the papers he was grading. He frowned in annoyance and snatched a couple of tissues from the box on the side of his desk to dab at the spill.
“Enter,” he said, possibly with a bit too much anger in his voice.
A first-year law student meekly poked his head in. “Uh, I have that paper you said I could bring by.”
It was a student from his Civil Procedure class earlier this morning. Just as class had begun, several students had tried to talk him into canceling. Their motives were obvious generated more out of desire for free time than respect for anyone else. Quite a few other students quickly pointed out that an announcement had already been made that classes would be held out of respect for Professor Engstrom’s well-known attitude toward utilizing all opportunities to learn. The false mourners resigned themselves to enduring the lecture.
Canceling the class would more than likely have been a better use of the time, Lawson thought. Few of the students were able to focus on the lecture. Most had brought recorders of some type or other as was their custom so they wouldn’t miss the lecture, but Lawson had noticed that the usual note takers took few notes, and the remainder seemed preoccupied. He confirmed this with some questions at the end of the lecture, which none of the students could answer.
A paper had been due, and the stack on his lectern showed that at least they had accomplished that, but after class, a few students asked permission to bring their papers by his office later in the day. Feeling unusually magnanimous, he gave them permission.
The student tiptoed to the desk, noticing that the Professor was dabbing coffee off of the papers, and assumed he’d been the cause. He was searching for the spot to put the papers when with an annoyed and patronizing look Lawson motioned to a spot. The student placed it there, then his eyes looked up and noticed Lawson’s window.
Forgetting formality the student blurted out, “Cool, I bet you can see the cops from here.” He stepped sideways in an attempt to see better.
“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Adams,” Lawson said with an edge to his voice, “I don’t make it a habit of using my window to spy on people.”
“Yeah, but,” the student saw the growing annoyance on his Professor’s face, “sorry. I guess I’d better go then.” He backed toward the door and left quickly.
Lawson frowned and shook his head slowly. He stood up, walked to the door, and shut it. He turned to head back to his desk, and then looked at his window. He casually reached over and locked his office door. He slowly tilted and lifted his head to see out his window. Not satisfied, he gently approached his window. His office lights were off since the window provided so much illumination, so he didn’t think people would be able to see him as long as he didn’t stand right in front of the window. Nevertheless, he stood at his filing cabinet, pulled out the top drawer reached his fingers in, then turned to look out the window.
Through the milling crowd of students, he could see bits of the police tape, what wasn’t blocked by the edge of a Bartlett pear. The wall and a portion of the ground inside the tape were visible, the Bartlett pear and a large sycamore blocked the rest. The other side he couldn’t see at all. By stepping back a foot or so he could see the other side of the wooded area. Portions of it had been blocked off by police tape. Inside the tape were a man and a woman. The man was facing away from the window and wore what looked like a dark gray single-breasted suit. It fit like he moved around in it a lot. It shouted “police detective”. The woman wore some kind of long jacket over dark pants and was a few feet away from the man facing the woods.
Worried that someone might notice him looking; Lawson shut the file cabinet and went to unlock his door. He returned to his desk, sat down, and picked up the coffee-stained paper.