The Dark Side Of Justice

Chapter 2-2

“Very little,” I said, leaning on the counter again, even reaching for the coffee. “But you are going to inform me, I hope.”

“Yes, it would be beneficial,” she said, nodding and watching me lift the coffee mug to my lips again. “There are two kinds of colleges. One believes in teaching students: undergraduate students; graduate students; foreign exchange, whatever. It"s a teaching institution. They couldn’t care less about the billions of dollars the Federal government hands out yearly to research institutions.

But on the other side of the coin is the research institution. They are big time campuses who want to make a reputation by their quality of graduate students and by the type of research they do. These types of institutions go for the big budget grants from the government. The more grants they get, the bigger and more prestigious they become.”

“Anderson is a small university, Dr. Murphy. There are no basic research facilities on campus to do the work you are suggesting.”

“That"s correct … for now.” she nodded, smiling sadly, and taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “That"s why Marvin Sloan came to Anderson. The alumni and board of regents want to change. That"s why Marvin hired me away from Stanford. I"m a nuclear physicist, Sergeant. I need a nuclear reactor to do my research. In fact, the campus has one small reactor just barely large enough to be adequate for my purposes. Marvin had visions of turning Anderson into a huge center of learning. He believed he could acquire huge funds being funneled into my work in basic nuclear research. In fact, we are very close to having a one hundred-million dollar grant being awarded to this school. An award only possible because of my research.”

I nodded. One hundred million dollars funded into this campus would drastically alter the campus of Anderson University altogether. Research facilities would have to be built. More doctoral positions would have to be funded and staffed. More prestige would automatically come, and with more prestige, more money.

It was apparent that Dr. Walter Holdridge had no chance in getting Karen Murphy fired, and for Holdridge, that would be an infuriating slap in the face. For Holdridge it would be a severe insult to realize that a woman was more important in the scheme and texture of his college life than he was. But Walter Holdridge did not kill himself. Someone else had that distinct pleasure. Was it the mysterious Dr. Karen Murphy? Or the young student who had been her lover, even if for only a brief moment. I knew she was not going to tell me the lad"s name, and I wasn"t going to press the issue right now. In all probability I would find the student"s name out when I finally got around to talking to the school"s president. I had little doubt Holdridge revealed the name to Dr. Marvin Sloan. A little pressure on the university president and I was sure the name would be mentioned.

Reaching inside my sport coat I pulled out a pack of cigarettes and then looked at the professor inquiringly. She smiled but shook her head no. Apparently it had something to do with introducing fire into a lab full of combustible chemicals. Or some other silly concept like it. I smiled in return and slipped the smokes back into my coat pocket. It was okay. I’d been trying to quit this nasty habit for the last four months. It was a grueling ordeal to quit. But I was making progress.

Sighing, I sat up on the chair and asked her about Dr. Armand Peltier.

“Arnie?” she repeated, smiling, and using one hand to throw back the long batch of her coal-black ponytail. It was an easy flowing movement of the hand from a woman who was in control of herself and knew it. I realized I liked the way she used her hands.

“Arnie and Walter have been debating partners for years. They argued on just about everything. But especially over extraterrestrial life and the possibilities of ETs visiting Earth at some time in our history.I smiled, lifting an eyebrow in surprise. I anticipated her answer going in several different directions. But this was one area I was not expecting. The idea that the dead man would be arguing about UFOs was amusing.

“Flying saucers?” I asked, looking at her and smiling, “I didn"t think people with doctoral degrees lowered their intellect and discussed ideas coming out of the popular press.”

It was her turn to laugh, and she did with a soft, melodious ease I found stimulating. She shook her head, still giggling, and put her coffee cup down as she looked at me.

“We"re not stuffy old bags of hot air, Sergeant Hahn. Well, most of us aren"t, at least,” she began, chuckling again as I watched her through the somewhat stale and hazy air of a small chemistry lab. “Officially, the idea of UFOs and flying saucers have been a bane to college professors. Our colleagues frown on stoking those fires generated by the popular press. But among ourselves we can get into some truly magnificent debates. Debates which pull in almost every scientific discipline on a college campus.”

“And Holdridge was a believer?”

“A skeptic. A belligerent, raucous skeptic who loved to skewer any and all with his disbelief. He could get the entire faculty united in their hatred for him with an ease that was truly astonishing, Sergeant. I"ve never met a man who could be disliked so easily as Walter Holdridge.”

“But in these debates what was your position?”

“An interested spectator.” she said, a coy smile on her thin red lips. “I do not discount the possibility of extraterrestrial life. But I have my doubts any life forms have evolved into such a complex technology as to be able to traverse interstellar distances.”

I nodded, pulling an earlobe a couple of times in thought, and came off the stool. Pushing my hands into my trouser pockets, I looked at the woman for a moment or two and wondered if I should ask any more questions. Actually, I wanted to ask more questions because I did not want to leave her. I found her attractive, mysterious, and in control. However, I couldn"t think of anything else to ask.

“One more question, doctor” I said, pulling out the slip of paper I had found folded up in Holdridge’s pocket. “I found this on the deceased. Whoever wrote it seemed to be very excited about it by the number of exclamation points he attached to it. Does it mean anything to you?”

The violet-eyed woman took the paper from my hand, glanced at it, and frowned.

“Interesting,” she said, frowning. “Gamma-ray outbursts. Hmmm. This isn’t Dr. Holdridge’s handwriting. You said you got that out of the dead man’s pocket? I don’t know what its about. But if you’d like, I could drop over to his office someday and do some snooping around.”

“Maybe me you could,” I nodded, looking into her eyes. “But not for a while. We’re still looking at his office as a potential crime scene.”

She nodded and smiled. I nodded and thought about asking another question and decided not to. Suddenly, the air in the room became a bit awkward. Suggesting to me it was a good time to leave.

“Well, that"s it for now, Dr. Murphy. But I"m sure I will have more questions for you.”

“Please, whatever they are, come and ask. I found this to be an interesting experience.”

She was smiling and looking at me with those dark blue eyes. Her hair, black as coal, even with the gray around the temples, fell past her shoulders in that long ponytail and the thought crossed my mind I wouldn"t have minded in the least to run my hands through it. However, I kept my mouth shut as I pulled out a business card and laid it on the lab counter beside the microscope.

“If anything of interest comes up, here"s a number where you can reach me.”

She nodded and smiled. I nodded, smiled, turned on my heel and walked out of the lab wondering if my heightened sense of awareness around me was due to my desire to sneak out and have a smoke. Or whether a woman’s presence so close to me had inadvertently flipped on some internal switches I wasn’t aware of.