Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar: Mystery Read online

  DEATH OF THE AYN RAND SCHOLAR

  Gray Cavender

  Copyright © 2021 by Gray A. Cavender, III.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, distributed, or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic or other means, including photocopying and recording, or in any information-storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

  For Jenny

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Nancy Jurik and Francine Banner for their comments and support in the development and writing of this book.

  DEATH OF THE AYN RAND SCHOLAR

  CHAPTER 1

  Even though she was heading to what probably was a murder scene, Jillian smiled. First, because she was heading to a murder investigation…her first major crime in the new job and a most unlikely assignment for a campus cop, even one who’s a newly minted Detective Sergeant. And second, she smiled because she was driving a golf cart across campus, a scene she’d seen maybe a zillion times when she was an ASU student, but then she’d always seen someone else riding in those carts—students with broken legs fumbling with their crutches or deans or other university muckety-mucks, always with a student driver—and this time she was the one driving. “Funny,” she thought, “driving a golf cart as career validation.”

  It was the second week of September so it was still hot on the Tempe campus—105 and muggy—and early enough in the fall semester that most of the students were still going to their classes. So, it was crowded as she drove on the wide sidewalk between the yellowish-orange brick Business Administration Building on her right and the grayish Discovery Hall, the one with the names of the dead scientists etched above the windows, on the left. When she was a student, Discovery Hall had been the Ag Building and was an interesting terracotta color. She’d once had a class in Ag: Justice Theory. The new color looked a little institutional, she thought, but at least ASU left the names of the dead scientists.

  She had to drive the cart carefully, weaving through throngs of students, most walking, some on bikes or skateboards, others on motorized scooters, all of them texting, a FedEx van, and other carts. Also, there were cones and barriers along the right of the walkway, marking campus-wide construction that had been underway for weeks. She wished she had a magnetized blue light she could slap on the top of her cart.

  But, once she reached the center of things at the Memorial Union, she hit the “Walk-only” zone and at least the bikes and skate boards and scooters were gone. She hung a right just past the MU—the area was crowded with students heading in for lunch or leaving with Red Bulls or cups of ‘to-go’ coffee—but soon the mall area opened up onto an actual road without much traffic so she made better time. Just before the Law School, Jillian took a right and snaked along a sidewalk. Actually, she meant the former law school. ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law had moved to the downtown Phoenix campus and their old building was being renovated. That work really jammed-up the area with more construction barricades. The sidewalk was crowded with students who were heading toward her, walking or on bikes. ASU had erected opaque cloth fencing along the length of the building to protect passers-by or maybe keep people out of the construction site, but the fencing just made the sidewalk seem more crowded.

  Behind the old law school building was the former Law Library, which now housed the English Department…her destination. Despite the student traffic, the construction, and all of that, she still made it door to door—ASU Police Headquarters to Ross-Blakey Hall—in under seven minutes. She was fast enough that she arrived seconds before an unmarked Tempe PD car. It rolled to a stop, siren wailing, blue light flashing in its grill.

  The 911 calls had come in at almost the same time: 11:05 to Tempe PD (from the Assistant Director of the English Department), and to ASU PD at 11:08 (from an English professor). She dismounted the golf cart and waited a couple of seconds as Wes, her former partner, and his driver, a uniformed officer who Jillian didn’t recognize, left the police car. They entered the building together.

  “Morning Jilly.” “Morning Wes.” This was a serious business so there was no time for hugs, but they smiled at each other. Then, “Jilly, this is Officer Peter Voss; Peter, Detective Sergeant, Jillian Warne.” As they exchanged their greetings, Jillian noted the English Department Office straight ahead at the end of the atrium, but glanced at her print-out, looked up and saw the staircase through a double glass door to the right, pointed and said, “It’s the second floor. Stairs OK?”

  They took the stairs two at the time. As they emerged from the stairwell, Jillian looked at the print-out again, glanced at the office directory on the wall, and said, “It’s this way,” pointing straight ahead.

  Even as she pointed, it was obvious where they were headed. At the far end of the long, wide corridor, a group of people milled about: some obvious professors, some people she assumed were staff, a couple of students…all clearly in shock, and all nervously watching the approach of the three—Jillian, Wes, and Officer Voss—people who hopefully could make some sense of the inexplicable.

  Jillian and Wes were in plain clothes and Officer Voss was in his uniform, but all three displayed their IDs. Even as they did so, the crowd parted, naturally, deferring to the three cops. Because this was her turf—or at least it used to be and now was so again—Jillian, still in the lead, turned left at the end of the corridor and walked to an office at the right rear of the hallway. “It’s this one,” she said and pointed. The nameplate in the slot to the side of the door said Dr. Nelda Siemens. The front wall of the office as you faced it from the corridor was of a translucent glass.

  If ASU was Jillian’s turf, a murder investigation (if that’s what this was) was Wes’ turf for several reasons, some jurisdictional, some experiential, so she stood aside and he entered first after they’d donned booties and surgical gloves. The office door had been closed, but was unlocked. Jillian was on Wes’ heels a few paces back. Officer Voss immediately began the business of crowd control…moving away from the door the people who had been sucked along down the corridor in the wake of the three cops, gathering names and phone numbers.

  As Jillian followed Wes into the office, the first thing she noticed was disarray: the desk chair was overturned and a potted plant—she had no idea what kind—had been knocked-over, spilling some of the plant and a lot of the dirt. Toward the right wall, a wooden coat rack also had been knocked over. A woman’s jacket, still attached to one of the hooks, was spayed open now atop the rack. A wooden hanger was on the floor nearby, probably dislodged when the rack toppled. Although she couldn’t completely see from her position, what was noticeable was a woman’s legs, up to the lower torso, protruding from behind the desk, on what was Jillian’s right.

  Wes stepped to the right of the desk, then behind it, and bent over to check for a pulse. He shook his head “no” to Jillian, removed his cell phone, and tapped one button. A few seconds elapsed as he waited, and then said, “It’s Webb, and it looks to be a murder; send the team.” He rang off and stood aside to give Jillian a chance to look.

  Trying to carefully avoid stepping on anything except open floor, she moved to the side of the desk to have a better view of the body. A woman, white, late 30s, maybe early 40s. Wearing a skirt that had ridden several inches up her legs. Her blouse had what looked to be blood stains on it. The skirt (a light tan color that matched the jacket on the rack) and the blouse (cream-color and either silk or something like it) said “expensive.” Medium heels—one on and one off—of a dark cream color that went well with skirt and blouse.

  She c
rouched a little, but did not touch the body. She canted her head a little right, then left, and focused. An obvious trauma to the left temple. The woman’s head was turned just enough to the right that Jillian could see what appeared to be more damage toward the left rear of the head.

  A smallish round object was lying between the body and the coat rack. Jillian stared at it for a time, then decided it was a paperweight although she wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen one. She couldn’t guess its weight, but it was almost a handful, and it looked to be fairly substantial. She thought maybe it was bronze…at least in color. There was some sort of a smear on it. Maybe blood. The woman looked to have been dead for several hours.

  Jillian stood, moved a few feet to the coat rack, and knelt. Up close, the jacket looked to be linen although she still didn’t touch it. She glanced back toward the body, and the skirt seemed to be the same material. By canting her head, Jillian had a partial view of the jacket’s label: Eileen Fisher. So, yes, her clothes were expensive.

  You have to be careful not to assume too much too quickly, but Jillian’s working hypothesis was that the woman had been beaten to death—multiple head wounds—maybe with the paperweight thingy. She couldn’t know if it was heavy enough, but it did seem to have blood stains on it. She stood and backed away from the desk.

  For a few seconds, almost as if by silent agreement, both detectives looked away from the body, away from each other, and scanned the entire office…carefully, thoroughly, in sectors, in a way that later they’d remember it. Photography and video would follow, but for now this was their way of categorizing, organizing the room. Their searching gazes paralleled each other’s. As they should. Wes had taught Jillian how to look.

  Both took notes, Wes in a small spiral notebook and Jillian in her IPAD. When Wes saw that Jillian had completed her notes, he said, “Trauma to left temple, so…”,

  “Probably right-handed.”

  Wes again, “And I don’t know how well you could see, but there’s at least one more blow toward the back of the head. Maybe more. I couldn’t tell without moving her head, but just eyeballing, the back-of-the-head injuries appear to be at a different angle than the one to the temple.”

  “So maybe she was down, or at least not fully standing when those blows came.”

  Wes nodded yes.

  Jillian was up next, “Also what looks to be blood on that…that’s a paperweight, right…” she said, pointing to the object.

  Wes nodded “yes.”

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen a paperweight. Are they really for holding down papers?”

  He laughed, “Yes, once upon a time. Now, I think they’re mainly a chotski.”

  She nodded, then added, “Also, what looks to be some blood on her blouse. Expensive clothes by the way…from the jacket label. She’s maybe late 30s or 40s.”

  “What’s her name?” Wes asked.

  Jillian scanned the print-out again to double check it with the nameplate on the door. “Nelda Siemens.”

  “Know her,” Wes asked, “maybe from back in the day?”

  “No…” which she left open ended…and then more firmly, “No. But for some reason I feel like I’ve heard her name…somewhere. What I can tell you is that she must be pretty high up in the English Department because of her office.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, on the few occasions that I visited any English professors, they were in very small offices. Sometimes, a couple of professors even shared an office, and they didn’t have windows. She has a row of them,” Jillian said, and pointed to the bank of windows that looked out over toward an intramural athletic field. “Plus, compared to other ASU offices I’ve been in, this one seems to be something of an upgrade. The furniture, the carpet…so…” Jillian glanced at the print-out again, “…for Professor Nelda Siemens to have an office this nice…she must be somebody.”

  “Guess the business of perks and the pecking order’s the same all over,” Wes mused.

  “Tempe PD, ASU PD AND the English Department,” Jillian added.

  “So, you weren’t in this building much when you were at ASU?”

  “Not much, no…maybe a time or two. When I was a student, this was the Law Library. And that building to the right of where you parked, that was the ASU Law School. They’ve both moved to the downtown Phoenix campus. When I was here, English was in the Language and Literature Building,” she thought and pointed, “over that way. Near University Drive. So, what I said about comparing this office with others, who knows? This is a whole different building, so maybe my comparison is old news.”

  Wes nodded, then asked, “Which building were you in?”

  She thought again and pointed another direction. “My professors were in Wilson Hall. That’s over near Hayden Library.”

  “I guess after being a student here, it must seem weird being back on campus, but as a detective.”

  “It is definitely weird.”

  “Hmm. Alright, the team should be here any minute, so let’s go interview some of the people out in the hall.”

  “Sure, but Wes, is this OK, I mean, if it’s going to be a murder investigation…?”

  “It’s OK, Jilly. You’ve worked major crimes before…including, if memory serves, murder cases.”

  “You know what I mean…I’m not Tempe PD anymore, I’m an ASU campus cop.”

  “No worries, I’ll square it with Al and Chief McCaslin. Lt. Timms will help with her if need be. She’s always in your corner. The thing is, Jilly, since the vic is a professor, and from what you’re saying, an important professor, I’m going to need some liaison with the campus community. And, that, Detective Sergeant Jilly Sun Devil, is you. It’ll be OK. So, if you’re OK with this, let’s go interview some academic types.”

  They’d just turned toward the door when two EMS guys walked quickly into the office. They were in full gear and carrying a collapsible stretcher. The older of the two—he looked to be in his 30s—smiled and said, “Detective Sergeant Webb…”in a kind of a greeting. Then, back to business, he pointed toward the desk where the Professor’s legs were partially visible, as if asking a question.

  “Morning, James,” Wes said. He walked over and spoke quietly so that the people in the corridor couldn’t hear. Even Jillian couldn’t hear what Wes said.

  The guy, James, just nodded. He walked over to the desk and was kneeling by the body as Wes and Jillian left the office.

  Out in the corridor, Officer Voss had done his work. The crowd had thinned, and only three people remained. He’d moved them away from the victim’s door so that they were standing at the intersection of the corridor for Professor Siemens’ office and the main corridor. As Wes and Jillian approached, Officer Voss made introductions in a way that set the stage for a round of interviews that would follow. Detective Sergeant Wes Webb, Tempe PD, Detective Sergeant Jillian Warne, ASU PD, this is Professor Jonathan Keefer, Chair of the English Department, Ms. Grace Wilson, Assistant Chair of the English Department—Ms. Wilson called-in the incident to Tempe PD—and Professor Billy Gilroy—also English Department. He called ASU PD. Grace Wilson was the lone African-American person in the group of six in the corridor.

  Wes took charge. “So, Ms. Wilson, what happened, how did you come to call us?”

  Grace Wilson, an attractive woman who looked to be closer to 50 than to 40, was wearing a royal blue dress. She answered, quickly. ”An undergraduate student named Carla Nagel had an appointment with Professor Siemens at 10:30 this morning, Detective Sergeant. Ms. Nagel was here on time, but Professor Siemens’ door was closed and she didn’t respond to a knock. Ms. Nagel waited for about 10 minutes, then came to the department offices and inquired with the work study student who’s our receptionist, Caitlan Rosenblum. Ms. Nagel said that Professor Siemens had set the meeting time herself. She’s directing Ms. Nagel’s honors thesis. Professor Siemens has a re
putation for being a bit of a stickler about students being on time, so…anyway, Caitlan came to my office to ask what to do. I checked to see if Professor Siemens had telephoned—that she was ill or maybe was running late—but there had been no such call. Had she called, a message would have been left a note on her door. That’s our policy.”

  Wes asked, “So, what then?”

  “Well, knowing Professor Siemens’ reputation, and because Ms. Nagel was so adamant about having an appointment AND about the specific meeting time, I grabbed our master keys and we went to her office…Professor Siemens’ office.”

  Jillian thought that at first, Ms. Wilson was definitive in her answers, very matter-of-fact. But as she talked, she became more upset, distraught.

  “I knocked several times and also called her name. When there was no answer, I used the key. Mainly, I just wanted to be sure that everything was OK, that she wasn’t ill…” she threw her hands in the air in a helpless gesture. “Anyway, I opened the door, still calling her name…and that’s when I saw…I mean, at first I didn’t know for sure that it was Professor Siemens because…I only could see…her legs. I rushed over to her…I must have been calling her name, but I’m not really certain of that…I saw her there, looking…” Ms. Wilson was quiet for a few seconds, then seemed to gather her strength and said, “I thought she was gone, but checked her pulse, and…I had my cell phone with me and immediately called 911, got the Tempe PD dispatcher and told her…I told them what I’ve just told you.”

  Ms. Wilson took a breath and then continued. “Ms. Nagel had not entered the room—she was standing in the doorway—and I asked her not to enter, to just stay there in the corridor and not let anyone in. I pulled the door to behind me and then hurried downstairs to Jonathan’s…Professor Keefer’s office and told him…what I’d found. He came with me straightaway.”

  Wes looked at Professor Keefer, who said, “I haven’t anything to add. I did not enter Nelda’s office. I waited with Grace and the student…ah…Ms. Nagel…we were waiting for you all to arrive.”