Murder at Cold Creek College Read online

  Murder at Cold Creek College

  Christa Nardi

  Copyright 2013

  ISBN-10: 0-9910547-0-9

  ISBN- 13: 978-0-9910547-1-8

  The reverse engineering, uploading and/or distributing of this ebook via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law

  Cover design by Victorine Lieske

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Hopefully you can relate to the characters; however, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  TABLE of CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Author Note

  Excerpt of Murder in the Arboretum (ISBN: 978-0-9910547-3-2):

  Chapter 1

  Traffic was slow and crazy, and the semester hadn’t started yet. I’d need to remember to leave earlier. With the fall semester starting next week, the population increased at a rapid rate as students returned to campus. I liked to see the hustle and bustle, the excitement of the new academic year. Cold Creek wasn’t a big city with major traffic problems, even with students. Cold Creek is a small town, nestled between other small towns. It has a single main street with access to various cross streets. Although not bad by city standards, the traffic noticeably increased when students came back.

  My impatience wasn’t due to my job. I didn’t punch a clock or anything. Faculty members at Cold Creek College came and went at different times. Work hour flexibility topped the list of best things about being faculty. Faculty pretty much dictated the hours they worked by when they scheduled their classes, held office hours, or had meetings. The impatience was about me. I got more done and felt better if I got ahead of the game. I hated being behind and rushed.

  As I approached the campus and parked, I noted lots of activity over on west campus. The excitement seemed to be near the rec center. Cold Creek College isn’t better known for its athletic program than any other small private college. In recent years, the alumni and the trustees donated funds to expand the center to foster a healthy life style. The increase in the student fees helped to keep it up-to-date. My best guess was that the hoopla was a publicity scene with one of the bigger donors. As a private college, famous and successful alumni often visited the campus. Not giving it another thought, I parked, grabbed my files, and went up to my office.

  The central quadrangle of the campus was pedestrian traffic only. With about a five-minute walk from the parking lot, I arrived at the Humanities building. My office is one of several in the psychology department, located on the third floor. Sociology occupied the other end of the floor.

  I took the stairs in an effort to get some exercise. With the position of an Assistant Professor, I spent most of my time sitting in an office in front of a computer. I tried to find opportunities for exercise as part of my daily activities. As the years crept up on me, so had the weight along with the seemingly endless battle to keep fit. I considered getting one of those r bracelets to alert when I sat still for too long.

  I walked toward my office and saw the door ajar. I noticed that Terra and Ali were in my office, looking out the window. As I walked in, I asked, “Hi, what’s up?”

  “Oh, hi! Sorry to be in here, but you’ve got the best view of the rec center, and we’re trying to figure out what’s going on over there. Any ideas?” Terra asked.

  As staff for the department, she and Ali pretty much kept track of everything in and out of the department. Although not always the bearers of good news, they managed the budget, payroll, and purchases. Ali smiled and then went back to watching. Surprisingly, although Terra was the younger of the two, she had seniority and, as the administrative assistant to the Department Head, she had more responsibility than Ali.

  “I saw a lot of activity over there. I figured it was some kind of publicity shot or something,” I answered as I put my stuff down. As I glanced out the window, I realized that I truly did have a great view of the rec center with the fountains in the quad turned off. I found myself standing and looking out, struggling to figure out what was happening along with the two of them. “Is that the fire department over there? And the paramedics?” I asked, pointing in the general direction of two vehicles, lights flashing, as they moved from the back of the rec center to our vantage point.

  “I wonder if there was a shooting?” Ali asked. Ali wasn’t prone to extreme responses, but the news of late had been detailing school and college shootings. As a small college, the administrators had resisted any kind of alert system. The trustees disagreed and an alert system was installed, but had yet to be used.

  “No, that would be on the news already. Dr. Hendley, did you hear anything on the radio as you drove in?” asked Terra. As I shook my head to the negative, she continued, “Probably somebody got hurt in the rec center, you know fell or something. We can pull up the news in our office.”

  “I guess, but I gotta get to work here. Classes start next week and I still need to finish my syllabus. Then I’ll check with the bookstore to make sure the order didn’t get messed up. And I still have to get the on-line components set up,” I lamented, partly because it was true, and partly as a hint.

  “Okay, we get the message!” Ali said with a laugh. “We’ll keep you posted if we get the scoop on what’s happening.”

  “We’re working on registration and payroll. I guess everyone wants to get paid. We all know the ones who will be the first to complain if something goes wrong!” Terra added the last comment with a shake of her head as they both left my office and went back to the department office.

  And, yes, it was always the same faculty to complain about everything and anything. No matter where you were, there seemed to be a complainer and a whiner. Cold Creek College was no different. Thankfully, there were also some good people. I imagined the same personalities existed in large universities and business, but in small colleges like Cold Creek the squeaky wheels stood out.

  I spent the next hour or so plugging away on my computer and uploading all the support materials for my two classes. I teach introductory psychology and research design, two sections of each. I also had an honors seminar this semester. In the end, it would be mostly freshman in the intro courses, juniors and seniors in the research courses, and a mixed group for the seminar.

  I made good progress and kept plugging along. When I’m in the groove, I don’t notice most other activity in the hallways, and this day, I was definitely on a roll. In fact, I was so engrossed I almost jumped when Kim flew into my office.

  “Sheridan! Did you hear? Something happened at the Rec Center – an accident most likely. I was working out in the cardio suite, and the police wouldn’t let me leave. And I’m not talking about Security either, Sher. Cold Creek Police are over there. They asked for my ID. They wanted to know when I arrived at the center. Had I seen anything unusual? Who had I talked to? They wanted to know how often students or faculty worked out alone, how often I used the center, who I usually worked out with there. Lots of questions for an accident, don’t you think?” Kim rattled in her usual excited manner until she seemed to run out of steam.

  Kim Pennzel was my colleague and a good friend. She often lived up to the stereotype of red heads being energized and emotionally reactive. We
were both in our forties, both entered the academic world after working in the field as psychologists for several years, getting divorced, and needing a change of scene. We had become fast friends over the past four years.

  While I tended to be more of an introvert, Kim was definitely the social butterfly and extrovert. She tended toward the vibrant colors. I stuck to more subdued shades of blues and grays. I like that the blues accented my blue eyes. She engineered anything spontaneous we did, while I tended to be the one who took care of the details. We complemented each other and that worked well.

  Laughing, I responded, “Chill, Kim, they need to check it all out to establish liability if someone was hurt.” Changing the topic, I asked, “You all ready for the semester? You know if we don’t have our paperwork in on each of the classes, Jim will be on the warpath.”

  Jim Grant was the department head. He had been the department head since I started here four years ago. He was average height, and like many of us, a little above desired weight. His hair was cut short, and white as snow. In his 60s, it was rumored that he would be retiring soon, maybe as soon as they offered a retirement bonus. In the meantime, he was an okay head.

  He did what he could and worked to make sure the status quo was maintained. And part of that meant he policed and evaluated whether the faculty did their jobs. The down side, of course, was that he didn’t make waves or consider changing the way things were done. He definitely didn’t deal with any conflict. He liked the status quo. Despite his foibles, it could be much worse.

  “Yeah, I’m working on it. You know me, I’ll get it in under the wire,” Kim said as she shrugged and smiled. “You’ll share anything you find out, right?” I nodded my head in response.

  “Guess I will go to my office and get to work,” she added as she turned to leave. She no sooner got out the door, and I heard her say, “Hey Terra, Ali, how are you? What’s got you in such a tither?”

  “Oh, have you heard what happened at the rec center? I don’t think we ever had a murder on campus before!” Terra exclaimed. With that announcement, I abandoned my computer and joined them in the hall. I am nothing if not curious.

  “Murder? I thought there was an accident?” I asked. I wondered if Terra exaggerated the situation a bit.

  “Nope! Joe called me from the paper. He’s on his way over to get some background information for the paper,” Terra stated. Her husband Joe worked for the Cold Creek Gazette. I often wondered if it was a natural consequence of his job that Terra seemed to have a pulse on everything about everybody. It wasn’t like she was a gossip, but she seemed to have the scoop on what was happening. On the other hand, she was very sociable, like Kim. So it might not have anything to do with Joe.

  “Murdered? Who? How?” I asked, still not completely convinced. I thought of the childhood game of telephone when the same sentence was repeated to a series of people. One after the other, the story repeated. The meaning was very different by the time it reached the last person.

  “Oh, my god, I was there. I could have been murdered too!” Kim exclaimed, hands to her mouth. She didn’t have any trouble believing what Terra said. Not knowing the details, I guessed it was a logical leap that she was in the same place and could have been a victim as well.

  “Joe didn’t say who, only that the scene was being treated as a murder scene. He’s been assigned to get backfill for the story. He said he’d be over to talk to faculty and staff in a bit. We turned the news on in the office, but so far haven’t heard anything. They may not be saying yet. You know, maybe they haven’t notified next of kin or something,” Terra continued with a shrug. Her nonchalance was a stark contrast to Kim’s response. Ali hadn’t said anything, but shook her head. Like her name, Terra tended toward being down to earth and that gave some credibility to the idea of a murder.

  “Kim, was there anything this morning that looked suspicious?” I asked, thinking back to her comments about the questions she’d been asked. The questions and police presence were making sense if this was a murder.

  “Sher, you know me on the treadmill. Headphones on and zoning out for five miles. I couldn’t even tell you who came and went while I jogged. When the police interrupted us to ask questions, I think there were a few students and a man. I think I’ve seen him over in the administration building a few times and at college functions. I don’t remember his name though,” she related, shaking her head slightly. “Maybe if I paid more attention I could have stopped it…,” she added as she clapped her hands to her face again.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Unless it happened in the cardio suite, there’s no way you could have done anything,” I assured her. “I’m sure you would have done something if you could have.”

  “She’s right, Dr. Pennzel. I bet it’s some random thing. You should be glad it wasn’t you – we certainly are,” Ali chimed in. “Come on Terra, we better get back to the budget and payroll before this place becomes more of a zoo than it usually is. I bet Joe won’t be the only one asking questions. And I bet the phones will be ringing like crazy once this hits the news. You know we’ll need to field the calls.” Normally, there would be student workers to answer the phones, direct calls, or take messages; but the semester hadn’t started so no students were on the job yet.

  Terra nodded somewhat reluctantly, and she and Ali left. Kim and I stood staring after them until I finally echoed Ali’s comments. Kim retreated to her office and I returned to my computer. My prior high level of concentration had disappeared. Though I tried to focus on the e-lesson set up, I was not making the same level of progress as I had before. Frustrated, and a bit curious, I searched for the local television station, KCCX. I scanned for a heading of “breaking news”. I checked my phone to see if a campus alert had been sent, but nothing yet.

  I decided to leave the KCCX site up on one monitor, while I worked on the other. I can’t imagine what it was like to not have two computer monitors to work from simultaneously. It sure made multi-tasking a lot easier. I enabled KCCX’s alerts feature so I would get their breaking news alerts on my computer.

  Usually, the frequent beeps would be distracting. Today I wanted to be informed about the situation. Maybe it was my idle curiosity and love of mysteries, or the psychologist in me, but I sensed the potential need for crisis intervention. One of the keys to crisis intervention and dealing with trauma is to have information. It helps if that information dispels the fear of continued trauma. Like that they caught the person who did it.

  Alert on, I went back to preparing materials and e-lessons. I no sooner got going and “beep.” I shifted my attention to the KCCX screen, fully expecting it to be something minor. Instead I saw the headlines, “Foul play and not fitness at Cold Creek College Rec Center.” I stuck my head out of my door and yelled to Kim, “KCCX has the story!” I continued reading. I had gotten through the where, when and what by the time Kim joined me and was reading over my shoulder. Almost immediately, Terra and Ali joined us.

  ‘At 7:47 this morning, the Cold Creek police were notified by College security that someone had been hurt and was not responsive at the College rec center. Police and EMS responded to the scene and the man was pronounced dead at the site. The identity of the man is being withheld pending notification. Cause of death is indicated as “suspicious.” Sources close to the investigation suggested that this was not accidental, nor did it appear to be random. KCCX will continue updating this story throughout the day.’

  I leaned back and Terra let out a sigh. Ali mumbled something that resembled “wow.” Kim was silent. In fact, for a few minutes, we all were silent, almost as if mourning this unknown man. Once again, there wasn’t much to say. While we digested the announcement, the alert arrived on my phone, and the phones of the others. Better late than never, I guessed. Terra and Ali went back to their office, and Kim went back to hers. I re-read the release, shook my head, and went back to work. It was already mid-morning and I hadn’t accomplished all that I had hoped yet.

  Try as I might to con
centrate, I kept wondering who had died. Cold Creek College is small with about 1600 full-time students and 120 faculty members, including the part-timers. If it was a faculty member or student, it was probably someone I knew or at least had interacted with at some point. The downside and upside of a small college, like a small town, is that you know just about everybody.

  The Humanities building had originally been a dormitory. In some ways, our offices still resembled dorm rooms, thankfully fairly good sized rooms. The bottom floor that had once been parlor, dining, and such, were redesigned as classrooms, each able to accommodate 10 to 25 students. There was a small café where the kitchen had been. It was an old building, renovated for its current purpose. What served as the departmental office had previously been one of two lounges on the floor. The departmental office for Sociology was at the opposite end of the floor where the second lounge had once been. It had a homey feel to it and murder didn’t quite fit.

  I took a walk around our floor and more or less did a head count. I could at least eliminate some of my colleagues as the victim. Psychology had eight full-time faculty, including Kim and me, plus Jim as Department Head – a big department for a small private college. As I walked toward the department central area with reception and Ali and Terra’s work area, I noted that Jim’s door was ajar. I cocked my head at Terra, and she said, “Yeah, he’s in. He’s on the phone with the Dean who’s been on the phone with the Provost and so on. Everyone is trying to do some damage control without any information. Everything is very hush hush.” She shook her head and shrugged.

  I nodded and continued my walk. I stopped at the next open door and said hello to Doug Sanders. Doug had his radio on and commented, “Crazy,” and shook his head. Doug was about my age and specialized in experimental psychology. He was particularly interested in neuroscience and the effects of environment on people’s behavior. He was one of two experimental psychologists in the department.