Following the sound of a scream, history professor Andrew Stanard comes running. In the nearby departmental bathroom at Chesapeake Bay University, a woman has been murdered. She is quickly identified as Jenny Biggio, a graduate student, and she has quite obviously been strangled. The police are quick to suspect someone in the history department-most notably Professor Stanard's protégé Brendan Healy. Everyone knows Brendan was Jenny's boyfriend, but it isn't common knowledge that Jenny checked out three pregnancy books from the university library the day she was murdered. A very public confrontation between Brendan and Jenny early in the day, however, points at the boyfriend's guilt, and Brendan does little to defend himself, admitting he once served time in a juvenile correctional facility. Even so, Stanard knows there's more to this case than meets the eye. He understands the cops want to solve the murder quickly to get it off the front page; in order to save Brendan, Stanard does his own digging. He comes upon several overlooked suspects, including a squirrelly pizza deliveryman, a homeless wino with a felony-prone past, and a philandering professor. The deeper he digs, the more dangerous things get; soon Professor Stanard may be the killer's next target.
Fatal Knowledge
A Collegiate Murder MysteryBy Daniel P. HennellyiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Daniel P. Hennelly
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4759-6052-5Chapter One
I never aspired to be Chair of the History Department. Academicsonly become administrators if they have no other choice; we earned ourPh.D.s to spend our lives pursuing esoteric scholarship not pushingpapers. Rick Hanson, my predecessor, enjoyed being departmentchair and probably would've served indefinitely. His love of baconcheeseburgers and French fries altered my career path. If Rick hadn'tdropped dead during a pickup basketball game at the campus rec center,I would've happily continued as a tenured professor in the departmenttill retirement.
Those outside academia believe being department chair is thepinnacle of a professor's career. They envision a chair mentoringjunior colleagues, nurturing students and moderating scholarlydiscussions. Instead, a chair referees petty squabbles between facultyin the department, resolves problems for clueless students who've neverbothered to read the university catalog and allocates scarce resources tono one's satisfaction.
Emily Worthington, the only other full professor in the department,had already served a stint as chair. During her tenure, she clashedconstantly with Tollie Monroe, the Dean of the College of Arts, SocialSciences and Humanities (abbreviated as CASSH in the university'slexicon). Tollie unceremoniously sacked her like Harry Truman firingDouglas MacArthur, complete with Emily's farewell address at her lastdepartment meeting as chair. As a tenured professor, Emily returned toher former office and conducted guerilla warfare against the university'sadministration. Rick's untimely death coupled with Tollie's visceralhatred of Emily meant I was the logical; make it only, choice to assumethe burden of leadership.
I'd spent Monday at the National Archives in Washingtonresearching my new book on slavery in Southern industry. It hadbeen a productive day; I'd found documents relating to the TannehillIronworks in Alabama. A workforce of almost 600 slaves labored inhellish conditions in the iron works at the height of production duringthe Civil War.
Arriving home late in the evening, I found an e-mail from thedepartment secretary Janet Hodges, indicating her daughter had goneinto labor on Sunday evening and she was in North Carolina awaitingthe birth of her first grandchild. She'd not been in the office on Mondayto photocopy the mid-term exams I'd left her on Friday afternoon.
I went in early on Tuesday morning to get the exams photocopiedbefore my section of American History met at 8:00 AM. Counting thecars in the faculty parking lot, I was the third faculty member to arrive.A trash truck emptying the dumpster blocked my reserved parking spacebehind Russell B. Jordan Hall and I had to wait until it was finished. Dr.Jordan was the first president of Chesapeake Bay College and at the endof his twenty-five year tenure, the board of trustees named the Staliniststyle edifice in his honor. Undoubtedly one of the ugliest buildings inVirginia and a testament to the doctrine of the lowest bid, Jordan Hallwas a ten story office tower flanked by classroom wings of three stories.After starting the college in a shuttered boys' orphanage at the end ofWorld War II, Dr. Jordan perceived the building to be the crowningachievement of his presidential career. During most of the 1950's thecollege had functioned in the aging buildings of the orphanage withsurplus military barracks added to handle surging enrollments. Thecompletion of Russell B. Jordan Hall marked the metamorphosis ofChesapeake Bay College into Chesapeake Bay University.
"You're in early Dr. Stanard," greeted Vivian Underwood, one ofthe housekeeping workers as I exited the elevator on to the 6th floor.Pine cleaner fumes lingered in the corridor from the recent moppingof the floor.
"Good morning Vivian. How are you doing?"
"I don't know how they expect me to get everything cleaned by 8:00AM. Some people take their sweet time doing their business," mutteredVivian as she emptied the trash can next to the copier.
"What's wrong?" I asked thinking I'd offended her.
"Someone is in the women's restroom; I can't clean until shefinishes."
I wondered who else had come in early; Janet was usually the onlyone on the floor this early. Of the female faculty in the department, onlyEmily Worthington had an 8 o'clock class on Tuesday. The last thing Iwanted was a run in with Emily before I'd digested my breakfast.
Vivian moved her cart to the men's restroom and began cleaningit instead. Unlocking the department office, I found the envelopecontaining the exam still sitting on Janet's desk where I'd left it onFriday. I unlocked my office and put my brief case down on the floornext to my desk. Sitting on the corner of my desk were the blue booksfrom the midterm exam for my American history survey class taken onMonday. Leafing through a few of the exams, I cringed at the answersfrom the class composed mostly of freshman. Hopefully today's examwould go better; usually only history majors signed up for America from1880 to 1919. I searched my desk drawer and found my copy card. Afterputting on a pot of coffee in the file room, I went across the hall andturned on the copier to warm it up.
The copier came to life and drowned out Vivian cleaning until thepaper jammed. I spent several frustrating minutes trying to clear thejam in the aging machine, a problem encountered daily by everyone inthe department. Much of the last department meeting involved Emilyhectoring me about when the department would be getting a newmachine, especially since the English Department received a top of theline model the month before. Emily believed Tollie favored the EnglishDepartment when allocating resources because he'd been an Englishprofessor before becoming a dean.
"She's still in there," complained Vivian as she waited impatientlyoutside the women's restroom. "She doesn't care that someone has toclean."
I found the scrap of paper jamming the machine and removed it;the machine gave me the green light to resume copying. As I shuffled thepapers to resume copying, the silence of the deserted floor was piercedby Vivian's scream from the women's restroom. Rushing down the hall,I pushed open the door to the women's restroom to find Vivian frozenin the center of the room.
"What happened?"
"She's dead!" Vivian panted as if trying to scream again.
"Who's dead?"
"She's on the toilet, in the third stall against the wall."
I looked at the stalls and saw a pair of legs behind the third door;the odor of stale urine hung heavily over the room. Slowly I pushed inthe door to the stall with my elbow and found a young woman, fullyclothed, propped up on the toilet. Her bruised neck, bulging eyes andcontorted face indicated she'd died violently. Suppressing the urge tovomit, I helped Vivian, still in shock, out of the restroom. Once inmy office, I seated her in my chair and dialed campus police. "This isProfessor Stanard of the History Department. Send a police unit to thesixth floor of Russell Jordan Hall. One of the housekeeping workersfound a dead woman in the restroom. I think she was strangled. Sheneeds an ambulance."
"If she's dead, why would she need an ambulance?" asked thedispatcher.
"Vivian needs the ambulance."
"Is Vivian the victim?"
"No, she's the housekeeping worker who found the body. She's inshock."
"I've dispatched a unit; they'll be there in a minute. I'll call for anambulance too."
I went over to the coffee maker and poured a cup for Vivian. Sheprobably needed a shot of bourbon but coffee was all I had to offer."Here drink this."
In between sips of her coffee, Vivian kept muttering, "I can't believeshe's dead."
A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened and I went down thehall to meet the police. Harley Simpson, the Chief of the Campus PoliceDepartment stepped off the elevator with two of his officers. I knewHarley from the campus recreation center; like me, he usually workedout at noon. A retired Army officer, he came to CBU after a career inthe military police. "What are you doing here?"
"I was down the street when the call went out."
"The body is in the women's restroom."
"Did you find the body?" asked Harley.
"No, Vivian did."
"Where is she?"
"I took her to my office. She's badly shaken up."
"Stay with her till the ambulance arrives," Harley directed thefemale officer.
"Do you want me to question her?" asked the officer.
"She's probably too traumatized; give her a few minutes."
"Where's the body?"
I pointed to the women's restroom. Harley went down the hall andcame out a few minutes later. "Secure the building; don't let anyone inor out. It's only 7:30; there shouldn't be too many people in the building.Get every officer over here and call the nightshift back in. Call the citypolice; we need a crime scene team to survey the bathroom."
"Most departments have scheduled mid-terms today," Iinterrupted.
"We have a murder to investigate; the building is locked down tillfurther notice!"
"Can I call my faculty and let them know classes are cancelled?"
"No. We're keeping the lid on until we know what happened. Don'ttalk to anyone about what you saw."
At the next department meeting, I imagined being raked over thecoals by my colleagues for not notifying them the building was shutdown and they drove to campus for nothing.
"Do you want a cup of coffee?" I asked.
"It's going to be a long day, might as well."
We went into my office and I poured two Styrofoam cups. "Do youhave any creamer?" asked Harley.
"I thought police drank it black."
Harley gave me an irritated look. "Do you feel up to talking?" heasked Vivian.
She nodded reluctantly.
"What happened?"
"God it was horrible!" Vivian started sobbing and the police womanput her arm around her.
Harley waited for her to regain her composure. "What time did youarrive this morning?"
"Our shift starts at 5:00 AM; we clean the classroom wings firstsince we have to get them finished before classes start. It's impossibleto keep this building clean with classes going till ten at night. After wefinished the classrooms, we started on the office floors. Since most of theprofessors don't get in till eleven or so, we have more time."
"Many professors have night classes," I interrupted.
"I started on the fifth floor; Stella took ten through eight. When Igot here, I saw the ladies room was occupied. So I swept and moppedthe hallways first. When I got back, she was still in there."
"That didn't seem unusual?"
"Dean Monroe takes his sweet time in the bathroom reading hisdamn books. I thought she may have been reading poetry too."
Harley looked over at me, and I confirmed Vivian's statement bynodding in agreement. An unrepentant English professor, Tollie foundhis morning stint on the toilet an ideal time to read poetry.
"I waited almost fifteen minutes for her to finish her business. WhenI called in to her and got no answer, I thought she might be sick."
"Was it unusual that someone was in the building that early?"
"Some professors come in at seven; they have keys to the building,"replied Vivian.
Harley turned to me, "Was anyone else on the floor?"
"I didn't see anyone," I replied.
"Do either of you recognize the victim?"
"I've seen her around the building but I don't know her name,"replied Vivian.
"She's a doctoral student in Economics; she's dating Brendan, oneof my students. Her first name is Jenny; she has an Italian last name.Badoglio? No, he was the Italian general who took over after Mussoliniwas deposed. I'm too rattled to remember her last name."
"You've met her before?"
"The first week of school, we held a tailgate party at our house onFriday afternoon for the department."
"The football game wasn't until Saturday."
"That was the theme my wife chose for the party." CBU was oneof the largest universities in the South without a football team until thealumni pushed the President and the trustees to get one off the groundthis year. "Brendan brought Jenny; as I recall she talked with Laura.After that, I've seen her around Jordan Hall with Brendan."
Despite being only five foot six inches tall, it was hard not to spotJenny around the building; her long blond hair and blue eyes stood out inthe sea of female students. I assumed her family's roots were in NorthernItaly rather than Sicily.
As part of her unassigned duties as department secretary, Janetenjoyed keeping track of the romances of our graduate studentssometimes to the detriment of her assigned duties. When I was lookingfor Brendan one day last spring, she directed me to the 9th floor sincehe'd become involved with Jenny. I saw no need to share with HarleyJanet's wealth of information on Brendan's activities under the sheets.
The elevator opened in the hall and two paramedics arrived witha stretcher. The female officer directed them to Vivian and they beganchecking her blood pressure.
"Is there someplace else we can talk?" asked Harley.
I directed him down the hall to the conference room. "What's yourgraduate student's name?"
"Brendan Healy."
"Do you know his complete name?"
"His middle name is Ryan."
"His date of birth of birth and social security number would behelpful too."
"It's in the student information system."
"Do you have an address for him?"
"He shares a house with two or three other graduate students overon 80th Street in Jefferson Terrace."
"Get his address and date of birth for me."
"Do you have a picture of him?"
"There's one on the bulletin board in the hallway; my secretary putup photos of all the teaching assistants."
"Grab it!" Harley ordered one of his officers.
Janet wouldn't be happy that her bulletin board had been tamperedwith.
"Who would know more about Jenny?"
"Dr. Ruiz is the department chair in Economics."
"Did either of you see a purse or wallet? She has no identificationon her."
"I don't recall seeing it in the restroom," I replied.
"I didn't find anything while I was cleaning," answered Vivian.
"Do you think it's a robbery? Remember the student mugged in thestairwell last week; the mugger took her purse. It wasn't the first muggingwe've had on campus this year."
"Crack addicts don't murder someone to steal a purse nor do theygo to the trouble to dump the body in the restroom."
"Maybe he mugged her in there."
"You saw the body Andy; it doesn't look like a mugging."
One of the officers came in the room, "Chief, Channel 8 has theirsatellite truck out in front of the building. They want to know why we'veshut down the building."
"Damn it! How did they find out so quickly?"
I kept my mouth shut; Harley had obviously missed the article inthe campus newspaper about the Communication Department studentsworking as interns at Channel 8. One of their duties was to monitor thepolice bands for potential news stories.
Continues...
Excerpted from Fatal Knowledgeby Daniel P. Hennelly Copyright © 2012 by Daniel P. Hennelly. Excerpted by permission.
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