The Dark Side Of Justice

Chapter 2-1

Where to begin next?

I decided to go find Dr. Karen Murphy. Murphy and Holdridge were in the same department, and it occurred to me that as vindictive and acerbic as the victim could be to his peers, the idea of a woman heading his department in what normally is a man"s field of intellectual endeavor, would be a prime source of irritation for both parties.

I found the good doctor deep in the basement of the building, in a laboratory, sitting on a high bar stool peering into a microscope. So, for the second time in this investigation I was surprised at what I found. What I expected was a woman in her sixties, wearing glasses and looking through lenses about the thickness of coke bottles, hair streaked with gray, uncombed and possessing the personality of a Komodo dragon.

What I found was someone quite different in complexion and construction.

Karen Murphy was, maybe, in her late thirties or early forties. She did have patches of gray around her temples, but the shoulder length hair was mostly raven black, combed back behind her head and neatly bundled up into one long ponytail. I watched her sitting on that tall wooden stool. Her white smock was open. I could see the red and green plaid skirt she was wearing. She was also wearing bobby socks, white bobby socks pulled up over her ankles and halfway up her calves, with comfortable looking shoes on petite feet. She wore glasses, but not the thick lens affairs. Her glasses were wire-rimmed, and for now, pushed up on her forehead as she sat curled over the microscope, peering intently at something. She had on a dark maroon pull-over sweater and a quick glance at her left hand told me there was no wedding band.

While I would not call Dr. Karen Murphy beautiful, nevertheless she did not look like a physicist, nor someone strong enough to stand up in front of a curmudgeon like the murder victim and come out an equal in the debate.

“If you"ve brought the slides I wanted, Thomas, just lay them down on the counter and I"ll get to them in a moment or two.”

“Sorry,” I said, closing the door to the lab behind me and grinning, “but I"m afraid I"m here on different business.”

She looked up from her microscope with a quick, violent jerk of her head, sending the black-haired ponytail flying across one shoulder in the process. Dark, violet-blue eyes blinked at me a couple of times after she reached up and dropped her wire-rimmed glasses down off her brow.

“And who are you?”

“Detective Sergeant Turner Hahn, Southside Division. It"s about Dr. Holdridge.”

“What about Walter?”

“You haven"t heard?”

“I"ve been down here in this lab since seven this morning, grading final exams. I haven"t even been out to eat lunch.”

“I"m sorry to be the one to tell you then, Dr. Murphy. But Dr. Holdridge was murdered on campus sometime this afternoon.”

Violet-blue eyes blinked at me several times from behind the wire-rimmed glasses. There was no change in her facial expression, and even though I am an experienced homicide detective and have over the years seen the full gamut of emotions painted on the faces of the grieved loved ones and the bad guys, no such flood of emotion swept over this woman"s face. She merely blinked a few times at me and then slowly twisted around in her chair and faced me directly.

“So, the pig-headed iconoclast finally got himself killed. Wonderful.”

“You don"t act surprised,” I said, walking closer to the woman and finding an empty stool to sit on. “Should I be surprised that you"re not surprised?”

“Do you know anything about Walter and his warm personality? I"m sorry. I said that sarcastically.”

“Only what little his student-assistant told me.”

“Alicia? Yes, she might know a little about Walter. But I can tell you, Sergeant.”

“Hahn, Turner Hahn.”

“Is Hahn the first name or the last?”

“The last. Just call me Sergeant if you want to be official. Or Turn if you want to be social.”

“What an interesting name. And say, you do look like Clark Gable. But I suppose you hear that three or four times a week, don"t you, Sergeant?”

“At least,” I nodded, smiling, as I leaned an elbow on the counter and looked into her face, “but you were telling me about Dr. Holdridge"s personality.”

“Right … right.” she said, nodding and smiling. “Oh, Jesus. I suppose I should experience some feeling of loss, or remorse, on hearing of Walter"s death. But to be quite honest, Sergeant, I"m not surprised in the least someone finally summoned up enough internal fortitude and killed him.”

“Why?”

“Well, to be honest,” she went on, picking up a pencil and using the eraser to scratch one temple as her violet eyes looked above my head in a thoughtful glance before she went on, “he was a user. He used people and then discarded them when he was finished, much like we use some inanimate object and then get rid of the empties. Sooner or later everyone he was around realized what he was doing to them. But he didn"t care what they thought of him. He was a despicable little man.”

“Yes, I get that impression,” I nodded, looking around the lab slowly and then back to the woman. “So, who, in your opinion, had the greatest reason for wanting Dr. Holdridge dead?”

Karen Murphy lifted her head and laughed softly, sadly, shaking her head in the effort. The dark, straight black hair of her ponytail fell luxuriantly from her shoulders. She looked like a teenager in her thirties. Or a woman in her thirties who was living in her past again. She was an attractive woman with a lot of brains and even more chutzpa.

“Everyone. I can"t think of anyone who knew him who wouldn"t want to kill him. I"m afraid, in your position, Sergeant, you have every faculty member and half of the students enrolled in physics as suspects.”

“When did you see Dr. Holdridge last, Professor?”

“Please, I don"t allow my students to call me that. Call me Karen. Now, when did I last see him alive? Oh, I guess that would have been last night. Yes, last night.”

“Could you tell me about it?”

She smiled, got up off the stool and walked around the counter to a small electric burner. Picking up a coffee pot, she found two coffee cups and poured coffee in both before looking at me again.

“Sugar? Cream?”

“Both.”

She nodded, smiling, fixed the coffee, returned to her stool, and handed me my cup. Lifting it I could feel the heat lifting off the black liquid and braced myself. It was hot, thick, and tasted like something one only dreamed about in nightmares. I tried not to make a face, but apparently failed, as an amused look spread across her face.

“I"m sorry about the coffee. I"m a damned good scientist but a sorry cook. I can"t boil water without screwing it up.”

I put the cup of liquid glue onto the counter and hoped we all would quietly forget about it and give it a silent burial. But I later smiled, shrugged, and gamely swallowed the scalding liquid as quickly as possible without rolling off the chair and gagging.

“Let me take you to a restaurant some time when you"re free and give you the opportunity to taste a good cup of coffee.”

She lowered her cup, holding it in both of her hands, tilted her head to one side, and smiled in a pleased fashion. There was a bright look of pleasure and amusement in her eyes as she looked at me, but she said nothing for a moment or two and continued to sip her coffee.

“About last night?” I said, bringing the discussion back to the murder.

“Oh. Yes, last night. Well, he came by my apartment last night and he was rather upset with me. I"m afraid he was actually very upset with me.”

“Why?”

“I was told he just had dinner with Marvin Sloan, he"s the president of the school, and Marvin told Walter he was rejecting Walter"s request for a faculty review of my tenure as department head. Walter"s been after my job for years, Sergeant. He had this idea he was going to get Marvin to convene a faculty review board and look into my supposed indiscretions.”

“What indiscretions?”

“Walter accused me of having s*x with several of my students. He said he even had proof and witnesses. He was quite confident he was going to get me ousted as department head and possibly fired altogether.”

“How viable were his accusations?”

Violet-blue eyes played across my face for a few moments as she held the cup of coffee in both of her hands in front of her lips. Again, no emotion played across her face as her eyes dug into my soul, but this time she did not have to physically reveal anything. We both knew the answer to my last question.

“It was possible. Walter was worm enough to have conjured up incriminating evidence.” she said, some seconds later, sounding reluctant to admitting the truth. “I"m not saying I am proud of myself. I am saying that, with one student, I … well … I guess I might as well admit it, I had an affair. A brief one. Very brief.”

It sounded like the truth. She was a mature woman with a firm, well-kept body that most men would find pleasing to fondle. Hell, even women with brains have lusts occasionally.

“Who was the student?”

At this she frowned as she put the coffee cup down and leaned towards me, placing her hands on her plaid skirt. I lifted my hand up in a warning gesture.

“I can"t promise anything.” I began, looking directly into her dark violet eyes. “All I can promise is that if he is not directly involved with the murder, we will try to keep his name out of the papers. But that"s not much of a promise. The press has their own way of digging out the dirt.”She looked at me intently for a few moments and then took a deep breath and sat up on the stool. One hand strayed to the pencil lying beside the microscope and she began playing with it as she kept her eyes on me. I could see it in her face. She wasn"t going to tell me the student"s name.

“I"m sorry, Sergeant, but this puts me in a position where I have to weigh several factors, one of them being the reputation of the student in question and what the revelation of my confession might do to this student"s college career.”

“And no doubt to your career as well?”

“Sorry, I"m not worried about that.” she said, shaking her head quickly, discarding the idea as if it had no merit to it. “My position on this campus is set. I am this university"s bank roll if you can imagine that. They can"t afford to lose me. Something which Walter refused to believe even when it stared him straight in the face.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know anything about university life, Sergeant? About what and how a university does to pay the bills?”