Laura turned to the bench. She looked it over, then reaching out to hold on to the back while she started to crouch, she froze.
“This has been fingerprinted, right?” She turned her head to look at Kevin questioningly.
“Oh, yeah, they took care of all that early this morning. Go ahead.”
Laura placed her hand on the bench and again sitting on her heels she used it to lower her head enough to see beneath it. She leaned back up and still resting on her heels she looked around once more. Pushing against her knees with her left hand and the bench with her right, she lifted herself back up.
“I caught a whiff of aftershave or cologne on that when I got here,” Kevin told her.
“It was that strong?” Laura asked.
“Well, no, it wasn’t very strong,” Kevin replied hesitantly.
“I would imagine it would have to be fairly strong to smell it outside and from this distance,” Laura indicated the distance between her head and the back of the bench.
“No, I...uh...bent over and could smell it with my nose right next to the wood,” Kevin explained, getting embarrassed.
“You’re very thorough, that’s good,” Laura replied, “Do you think you’d be able to recognize the odor again?”
“Oh, sure, definitely,” Kevin answered. “I’m sure that if...”
His cell phone was buzzing in his coat pocket.
“Just a minute, I’m getting a call.” He took out his phone and answered it, “Yeah, Gould.”
Laura waited while Kevin listened.
“Well, actually, Dr. Payton, I’m on campus, down here at the crime scene.”
Laura could just barely hear the muffled buzzing of the voice on the other end.
“Yeah, sure if you want to. I’ll see you in a bit, then.” Kevin hung up and dropped the phone back in his coat pocket.
“Dr. Payton wants to find out how we’re doing and is on his way down. I need to give him a list of people we’d like to talk to. Since they’re all on campus, he’s agreed to schedule times for us to interview them this afternoon.” Kevin said.
“Did you have a list in mind?” Laura asked.
“Well, possibly the student that was with him and the two she met, the two that found the body and maybe some professors, but I really haven’t had time to find out which professors would be the best to talk to. That may have to wait.”
“Not necessarily,” Laura said, “I received information on the entire faculty as well as Professor Engstrom’s notes. From that, I should be able to compile a list of the ones that would best be able to provide the information we need.”
“You made me think of something,” Kevin said with a puzzled look, “Was it Mr. Engstrom or Dr. Engstrom? Most professors here with doctorates get riled if you forget to call them, ‘Doctor Jones’ or ‘Doctor Smith’”
“Memorites receive the educational equivalent of several doctorates,” Laura told him, “but only through the Memorite Academy. Any ‘legitimate’ doctorate would have to be through an accredited school, and accreditation requires submitting to standards and rules that the Memorite Society didn’t feel were really necessary. Normally, we go by whatever anyone else is called, but in an educational setting like this ‘Mister’ is...well, almost an insult in that it denotes an inferior amount of education. Therefore Memorites encourage the use of the title ‘Professor’.”
“Hm,” Kevin said nodding his head, “Makes sense.” Remembering what they had been talking about before he asked, “Oh, but...um...you had a list of professors?”
“Yes, my suggestions would be Dr. Forrest Lawson, a law professor. He, more than any other professor, used Professor Engstrom the most in relation to his courses. Dr. Dale Prescott, engineering, who also used Professor Engstrom quite a bit. Dr. Brenda Simmons, professor of English Literature. She had the office next to Professor Engstrom’s. And Raymond Ng, assistant professor of History. He had the office next to Chris Walser’s.”
“Sounds like a good start to me,” Kevin said, thinking that it sounded more like a half a day’s worth of digging around he wouldn’t need to do.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin saw someone approaching. Dr. Payton had crossed the police line and was walking toward them.
“Morning, Dr. Payton.” Kevin turned as the school president approached.
“Good morning detective Gould, ma’am.”
“Dr. Payton, this is Laura Wynn. She’s the investigator the Memorites sent to help us out on this case.”
Payton beamed a warm smile and extended his hand. “Always glad to meet a representative of the Memorite Society. We certainly appreciate the benefit this institution has received from having had Professor Engstrom with us.” His smile melted to a dignified somber expression, “And I hope that when this is over the Memorite Society will honor us by continuing that opportunity.”
Laura gently extracted her hand from Payton’s grip, smiled, and replied, “I’m sure the Memorite Society will do whatever is in the best interest of the university.”
“Good, good,” Payton beamed again, “Now how can I help you two?” Payton had intended to complain about the continued presence of the crime scene tape, but now that Laura was present he didn’t want to do anything that might in any way jeopardize the college’s chance of keeping a Memorite on staff.
“Well,” Kevin said, “we have a list of faculty we’d like to interview this afternoon if you can arrange it for us.”
“Certainly, just email or fax the list to my assistant, and we’ll make sure they’re available for you.”
“I’ll include suggested times that will accommodate their schedules,” Laura added, “Hopefully we can offer as little inconvenience as possible.”
“I’ll have my assistant send you their schedules, then,” offered Payton.
“There’s no need, Dr. Payton,” Laura said, “I already have them.”
“Oh,” he said looking somewhat taken aback, “very well, then let me give you my assistant’s email address...you have that as well.”
“Yes,” Laura answered, smiling, and she pulled the sleeve aside on her left arm. She began tapping quickly at the molded plastic-like material of her TacCom.
“So, Dr. Payton,” asked Kevin, “Did you work with Professor Engstrom much?”
“No, not personally,” Payton turned to look at Kevin, “Professor Engstrom was very firm about spending his time where it could be the most benefit, and it would seem the college administration wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. Not that I’m complaining. His dedication was an inspiration, especially since the students seemed to be at the very top of his priorities.”
“Dr. Payton,” Laura interrupted, “your assistant asked me to remind you that your next appointment is at your office waiting.”
“My assistant?” Payton turned to look at her. She stood with her hands behind her back. He looked around, then back at Laura with a confused look on his face.
“I emailed the list and mentioned you were here,” Laura explained, “she emailed back to let you know of the appointment.”
“Emailed,” the professor now looked even more confused.
“She...communicates with that...thing on her arm,” Kevin explained.
Laura lifted her left arm and pulled the sleeve back, “It’s called a TacCom, short for Tactile Communicator.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with it; it just didn’t occur to me that it could be used for emails. Makes sense, though,” Payton said, looking at the TacCom.
“It’s a very useful tool,” Laura said lowering her arm and pulling her sleeve back over the TacCom.
Laura looked up at something and Kevin and Payton both turned to see what she was looking at. Across the tape, three students were approaching them. Payton waited for Kevin to order them back, but Kevin recognized them.
“I forgot to mention,” Laura explained, “some of the students we needed to speak with were in your office. Your assistant asked them to come on down so we could talk to them right away.”
“A Memorite, forgot?” Kevin chuckled, “isn’t that kind of an oxymoron?”
“More of a colloquialism in this case,” Laura replied, “Feigned imperfection has its purpose.” She gave Kevin a quick smile and then watched the students approach.
“That would be Janie Daniels, Christy Reynolds, and Gary McKee,” Kevin told Laura. Photos of the students involved hadn’t been available to the Memorites, so Laura had wondered who they were.
“Thank you,” Laura said, “I now have faces to go with names.”
“Miss Sizemore said we needed to come down here,” Kristy said. Janie was still quite visibly shaken from the death of her professor, and the other two also seemed subdued.
“Yes, this is Detective Gould,” Payton began, raising his arm behind the three to usher them toward Kevin and Laura.
“We met last night,” Gary said.
“Oh, well, good. This is Laura Wynn. The Memorites have sent her to help us find out who did this,” Payton said motioning to Laura with his opened left hand.
Laura looked at Janie and asked, softly, “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay...,” she paused, “it’s just so hard to imagine that he could be gone, or that someone would want to do that to him. He was such a really nice man.” Kristy and Gary added their agreements to Janie’s words.
“He was the best professor on campus,” Kristy said.
“Yeah, just about all the students thought so. He treated us like we were really something, even though he was obviously so much smarter than any of the other professors.”
“We have some excellent faculty here,” Payton interjected, feeling the need to defend them, “but Professor Engstrom did set himself far ahead of the pack, so to speak.”
“Did you work with Professor Engstrom?” Janie asked Laura.
“I knew him back when I was still in the Academy. He was one of my teachers, there,” Laura answered, “I never had the opportunity to work with him after that. Of course, Memorites tend to be scattered pretty thin, and it’s rare that two will be assigned to the same place unless it’s at the Academy itself.”
“I tell you what,” Kevin said, “Dr. Payton’s got an appointment, and we’ve got some more things to do this morning, and I bet you guys have classes you need to get to, so if we could just take about ten to fifteen minutes to ask a few more questions that would help us a lot.”
“Will you need me for anything else?” asked Payton.
Kevin looked at Laura. She was looking back at him. To answer Payton too quickly would have been disrespectful. Kevin was giving a courteous pause and apparently so was Laura. Kevin looked at the ground in an expression of deep thought, then said, “I don’t think we do...,” He glanced at Laura again. She gave a half frown and said, “I can’t think of anything else right now.”
“Well, then I’ll be going,” Payton said, smiling, “Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” He walked away looking at his watch.
“Janie, why don’t you and Ms. Wynn use the bench, and Kristy and Gary and I can step over here.” Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin noticed Laura looking at him in an odd way, but when he turned to look at her, she’d already begun to escort Janie to the bench.
“So, Kristy, Gary,” Kevin began, walking a little bit away from the bench as the two students followed, “you were walking along there, when Janie thought she heard someone sneeze, right?” He motioned toward the walkway off to the side while fishing for his notebook and pencil.