The Dark Side Of Justice

Chapter 4-2

“But surely you don"t think Karen … uh … Dr. Murphy had anything to do with this murder!”

Sloan looked pale, almost sick, over the thought that his lunch ticket for this school was a suspect. We both noted how he quickly refrained from using her first name. I logged that little glitch in the back of my head and shrugged.

“Everyone who had difficult times with Dr. Holdridge is, by definition, a probable suspect. How about you, Doctor? Can you describe your relationship with the deceased as being amicable?”

“Well, no. I would have to say they were strained as well, Sergeant. But that was the kind of man he was!” Sloan answered, becoming rattled again and reaching for a Kleenex from a hidden place on his desk and wiping his forehead with it. “Walter was, well, gifted with a pugnacious attitude toward his peers. It was sometimes a strain to be around him.”

“And what kind of specific strains tested your relationship with Dr. Sloan?” I asked, feeling it was time to explore this area in more detail.

“Well,” the school"s president mumbled, looking above my head, and taking time to compose his thoughts as he fidgeted with the Kleenex in his hand. “He and I had different opinions on a number of issues. Walter was a man with strong opinions and with an ability to express them forcefully.”

“I see,” I nodded, glancing at Frank and then back at Sloan. “Would one of these differences be over Dr. Murphy"s ability to run her department?”

“Yes, that was one. Among many.”

“And what exactly was Dr. Holdridge"s opinion of Dr. Murphy?” I asked, keeping my eyes on his face and watching every muscle twitch and flutter.

“Well … uh …” he began, twisting around in his chair and flushing a dark shade of pink around his neck and ears as he looked away and refused to look me straight in the eyes. “He thought Dr. Murphy was a fool. He often told me he was positive she was going to blow the grant proposal, as well as ruin the reputation of this school, with her amorous adventures.”

“Amorous adventures?” Frank repeated, breaking out into a slow spreading devilish grin. “You mean Dr. Murphy likes to play around?”

“Certainly not!” Sloan thundered, becoming obviously flustered from the insinuation and glaring at Frank. “Dr. Murphy has been open and candid and an exemplary faculty member! As far as I am concerned her private life is her own business!”

“And how about if her private life involved a student, Professor?” I asked, looking casually at my fingernails and then back up to his face. “What would happen if, say, she broke up a romantic involvement with a student and that student became belligerent? Would that not be a source of embarrassment to the school? To you?”

“That accusation from Walter was never proven! Absolutely no such involvement happened!” Sloan countered, looking at me just as angrily. “Furthermore, I find that an insult to Karen"s good name!”

“Okay, skip that one for a while,” Frank growled, grinning, and plunging on. “What other beefs did you have with the deceased?”

“Beefs?”

“Complaints. Issues of hostility,” Frank corrected.

“Several,” Sloan replied, taking a deep breath, and relaxing again. “Walter had a list, for instance, of a number of his peers whom he thought should be removed from their teaching positions. We constantly went around and around on the issue of his budget. He insisted on doubling his budget for his classes. Some of his demands were quite outlandish.”

“Who were the faculty members he wanted fired?” I asked, curious.

“Oh, Dr. Peltier. He"s the head of Chemistry. And Dr. Hodgeskins, our resident archeologist. Both men had a way of making Walter particularly combative.”

“And were you going to follow the deceased"s suggestions? Were you going to fire these people?”

“Certainly not. Both men are fine instructors and would be damned near impossible to replace! I have to say that, for now, our salary structure for many of our department heads is not the highest in the world. To find qualified PhD candidates to replace these men would be almost impossible.”

“When did you last see Dr. Holdridge alive?” Frank asked, writing something hurriedly in his notebook.

“Let me see. It must have been Sunday. Yes, it was Sunday. He and I had lunch at the club.”

“And how was he feeling? Acting?” I asked.

“Like his usual self. He wanted to talk to me about Karen … uh … Dr. Murphy again. And again, he wanted to convince me that he would be a better department head than she was.”

“You said you saw him Sunday last?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes, I think that is correct.”

“Okay, what about this?” Frank began, looking up from his notes and boring into Walter"s face with hard, unblinking eyes. “In your opinion who would you say might have had the best reasons to kill Dr. Sloan?”

“If I were you, I would talk to a student by the name of Gino Alberti. He was one of Walter"s doctoral students.”

“And what makes him a suspect?” Frank asked, frowning as he kept his gaze on Sloan.

“Last Friday, Gino came to my office extremely upset over something he claims Walter inflicted upon him. Gino is a brilliant, but excitable, young man. Friday he was extremely agitated. Extremely.”

“What was it that got his rocks off?” Frank asked.

“I"m sorry?” Sloan stammered, looking askew at Frank again. “I don"t know what you mean.”

“What was it that agitated Alberti?” I clarified.

“It had something to do with Gino"s research. The lad was quite flustered. He kept insisting that Walter stole an idea of his and was going to submit it under his own name at some research symposium next month. Gino was quite livid. He made several loud threats.”

“Did he say he was going to kill Dr. Holdridge?”

“Yes, Sergeant. I"m afraid he did.”

“And you feel that he might have been capable of harming Dr. Holdridge?” I asked.

“Very much so.” Sloan nodded, looking serious. “The student and Walter were not getting along well. Walter was constantly complaining that Gino"s work was slipshod and pedestrian in nature. I"m afraid Gino, while in my office last Friday, repeatedly threatened to get even with Walter if Walter stole his ideas and went to that symposium.”

“What was the idea supposedly stolen from this kid"s work?” Frank asked.

“Oh, I"m sure I don"t know, Detective. It had something to do with physics and deep space exploration. He never did elaborate. But he was sure Walter wrote a paper using his basic research and was going to present it to a prestigious group of fellow scientists next month.”

I nodded, thinking that stealing ideas from a student who was probably working his tail off to get his doctoral would be a good enough reason to kill someone. Especially if that idea was so new, and so fundamentally different, it might have made that student"s professional career a shoe-in.

I couldn"t think of any more questions, and neither could Frank. We came to our feet, shook hands with the clearly shaken school president, and made our way out of his office and past his secretary before either of us said a thing.

On the landing of the first flight of stairs, Frank grunted and made one casual commentary of the interview.

“Funny he didn"t answer my first question.”

“About why no one ever considered firing Holdridge?”

“Yeah, right. Funny, huh?”

“Interesting at least.” I agreed, nodding, as we went down another flight of marble steps. “Did you get the feeling his emotions for Dr. Murphy were more than he wanted to let on?”

“Like maybe he had the hots for her?” Frank mumbled, smiling wickedly and nodding. “Yeah, I think that"s possible.”

We turned our coat collars up as we stepped out into the cold wind and made our way down the steep stairs towards our car. Climbing in, Frank was driving today, he got the engine running and the heater blasting on high before either of us said anything else.

“We go find this Alberti kid now?” Frank asked, looking at me quizzically.

“Yes, we"d better. And after we have a talk with him maybe we"d better get across town and talk to someone who knew Bruce Abbott"s place of work.”

Frank nodded, pulled the car into gear and we rolled out of the campus’ main administration lot and headed for the nearest student dormitory.

We were working four murder cases at once. Right now, we were in the middle of working the college professor"s death, but something was chewing on me in the back of my mind about the supposed murderer of Rebecca Pickford. Plus, we had to do some more work in the other two cases before the day was out and before we got back to screening more suspects on the professor"s murder.