The Wind in the Trees: Chapter 3
Posted: Monday, July 10, 2006
by steven raker
Orlando Web Design
Chapter 3
The shock waves of the Fentons' death rolled through the homes, schools and businesses of Stamford Hill, a shadow of fear entwining itself in the minds behind it. At Stamford Hill University black armbands were worn and a candlelight vigil was held in front of the administration building to remember the couple and the work they did for the school and community. A fund was started for the daughter and calls rang out from all quarters for a quick apprehension of the killer and an increase in Stamford Hill's crime fighting force.
Papers slapped onto the desk. Goddamn paper work, Big Jim said plopping into the chair.
Goes with the territory, Charley said with a laugh. They discussed the evidence and possible suspects for several minutes. They had already investigated the daughter and close relatives and checked for recent increases in insurance on the couple and found nothing to raise immediate suspicion.
"Let's start with work associates and friends and see what we can find," said Charley, taking a sip of coffee as McKenna sat down.
"I got in touch with his daughter and got the basic information from her, "Jim said, shaking his head, "She's in pretty bad shape. She's trying to go through the house and see what's missing before the construction crew gets it ready for sale."
"Let's give her a little time, if she knew something important she would have called us by now. Sometimes they remember something later that can be important but that's unusual. We have enough to do for now. We've got an appointment to see Dr. Henrich Alfred Jaegar, Head of the Psychology Department and in charge of Psychological Research at Stamford Hill University. This is the first opportunity the good doctor has been able to find to give us an audience." He gave Jim a look as if they should be thankful that they were granted an audience at all.
"This should be interesting," Jim said with a toothy grin. "I've never met a psychiatrist before. My wife sometimes says I need one."
"Mine too. She can't wait for me to get into administration and start working regular hours.
Youre a hunter, Charley, like me. Its either in you or it isnt. Jim got up to deliver his papers. Its in you and you know it. You wont like it off the streets. The hunting is in your blood.
Charley shook his head as he thought about his love of his work and the years of his addiction. The streets were definitely a drug. Once you hunted killers it was hard to stop. Megan had been after him for several years to get off the street with no effect until now. Things had changed but the hunter was still there. When he was finished with this case he would be ready to move on.
Charley picked up the Medical Examiner's report and looked over the pictures of the gray haired woman slumped against the tub and lying in the cold autopsy room, comparing them to the university newspaper photo of the sophisticated lady and gentleman stapled to the front jacket of the file. A picture of their daughter was stapled next to it. It was a habit he had developed to keep in his mind the people that had been brutally taken from their life and the people who survived and mourned them. It kept him focused. In the evening when he was tired and wanting to go home to Megan the pictures sometimes asked him if he had any leads on the killer, if the murderer was still walking free. The pictures of the victims together with their families were the worst. Both the living and the dead spoke to him then. It had never failed to motivate him.
He looked back over the Medical Examiner's report. There had been massive blunt force trauma to the head due to it being repeatedly smashed against the side of the bathtub. She had been sexually assaulted and there were samples of the sperm for DNA analysis. The rape kit with its nine envelopes of scrapings, swabings, blood and body samples were still being analyzed by forensics. There had been thirty-one deep stab wounds or slashes in the woman's body. It was not known if she was alive at the time of the sexual assault. Charley tossed the report back on the table with disgust.
There had been worse, Charley thought, remembering a young man tortured for two days of hell by drug dealers before he died, a young child beaten and starved to death over the period of several weeks by a psychotic mother. But there was no point in dragging them out of the dustbin of memory, there was only the agony at hand that needed attending. The old ones lay in the distance, along a path that sometimes led to conviction, sometimes to an endless rambling leading nowhere. The hope that someday the creatures would be brought to justice and there would be some closure for the victim's relatives and friends would slowly fade as new cases leading nowhere pushed them out of the way. But they were always there in his memory to be brought alive by a new piece of evidence.
He had learned early in his career not to think about what was in the jungle unless there was cause for a questioning, an investigation or an arrest. Do your job. Do the job your assigned to do. Do it by the rules. Do it by the laws that are passed by the politicians, he thought with a laugh, not wanting to even think about all the rules that walled him in. Do it only to watch the dogs of law set them free to roam the streets and wreak their havoc.
He sat back in the chair, going over the Fentons life and death for a moment. Married thirty-two years they had devoted their life to the education of the young without trying to climb the ladder of politics in the university. They had done their job and done it well. The woman's crumpled body in the bathroom floated in his mind's eye. The Medical Examiner had said she was alive for at least forty-five seconds during the knifing. He looked at the old clock on the wall and watched the second hand making its slow circle of terror around the face. A measured march of death. The prayer suddenly bubbled up from within a lake of anguish that he had not known was there. He found himself praying that the woman had been dead before the rape, that she had not died with that piece of filth pounding inside her, laying against her breasts, breathing into her face. That she and her husband had died quickly without too much terror and agony for their many years of devotion to the education of students. He prayed that he would catch the killer and bring him to justice quickly before more innocent people died. Charley wiped the moisture from the edge of his eye. He wasn't sure who he was praying to, it had been a long time since he had prayed.
The highway to the university was heavy with traffic as Charley and Jim drove toward the school. Jim kept him amused with a few coarse jokes and Charley was glad that the bodies and the killings were no longer with him. Above, thunderheads piled into one another, the first peals of thunder rumbling in the distance as the earth turned to half tones below the building storm. The traffic was heavy and Charley slipped down side streets to avoid the bottlenecks, cursing under his breath at the slowness of the drivers. Stamford Hill was bursting at the seams. Its farms, light manufacturing and computer related industries provided steady growth for the area.
Stamford Hill University, named for its founder, dominated the city. It occupied a low, flat hill with a rise at one end overlooking the downtown streets. Where the Chataloka River wound through the university a Riverwalk had been built that become an instant hit with the students and faculty. It was four hundred yards of lamp lit, red brick walkway slipping through stands of pine and oak with covered picnic tables scattered along the route in small clearings. The Riverwalk wound up to the top of the rise where a five story brick clock tower sat in a small clearing looking out over the city, its four sided circular clock now silent.
Jim gave a deep laugh as they came in sight of the clock tower, "I hear you were in on the great bust clock tower raid. Why'd you want to go and bust those poor kids for getting a little drunk and getting a little pussy?"
Charley smiled and chuckled as he remembered the night of the tower bust. The bust that shook the city. Three months of undercover investigation had culminated in the largest police operation in the citys history. Charley had been assigned to vice for the evening to help with the arrests and bookings.
"We had a reason or two, Charley said with a laugh. Possession, sale and distribution of drugs. Possession of drug paraphernalia, indecent exposure, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, public nudity, public drunkenness, resisting arrest with violence, resisting arrest without violence and running naked through the woods." A deep laugh erupted from Jim and he pressed Charley for details.
Charley explained how the clearing had been a gathering place for students after dark until things got a little too drunken, wild and sexy and the investigation was started. The police had come up the access road with their lights off, suddenly bursting into the clearing with lights blazing as patrolmen on foot swept through the woods. They had hunted drunken, naked and half-naked students among the pines and oaks with flashlights. They had had bagged several patrol car loads. Charley laughed as he told how several prominent families putting their children through college had received a revelation from on high that night. There had been plenty of empty beer cans, scantily clad students and drug paraphernalia for the press.
Charley parked in a university police slot across the street from the concrete and glass administration building that stood out against the dark red brick of the older buildings scattered across the tree covered campus. The air was fresh with the hint of the coming rain. They watched a middle-aged man with a long ponytail coming down the steps and Jim shook his head.
Charley smiled. "I hit one of those with a club over twenty-five years ago during the anti-war demonstrations. He's probably a lawyer by now."
"Defense attorney if you hit him hard enough," Jim said. They both erupted in laughter.
Inside the reception area the students parted as the two burley detectives made their way to the elevator. A coldly efficient secretary greeted them curtly from her glass desk, checking their claim of an appointment against her schedule with a certain suspicion as if they didn't really belong in the room. She invited them to sit, gesturing to the couch, then disappeared down the hall. They remained standing. "Bitch," Jim silently mouthed, Charley looked at the floor and stifled a smile. Returning, she stated that Dr. Jaegar would see them now but that he only had a few minutes, Dr. Jaegar was a very busy man. She led the two detectives down a wide hallway lined with pictures of famous psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, their names on brass plates beneath the frames. Charley felt the penetrating eyes of the men on them as they followed what he now labeled the ice princess.
Dr. Jaegars office was one of dark gray carpet and deep paneling with subdued lighting. Soft music played faintly in the background. Dr. Jaegar stood at the window with his back to them, hands clasped behind him, looking intently at the students below. A pair of binoculars was on the table beside him. "Humanity is fascinating to watch, don't you agree, detectives," he said, still looking out of the window, his deep voice filling the room. Charley gauged him at six foot and about one hundred and eighty pounds, physically fit and very stuck on himself. "I can tell so much from a facial expression, from interactions," Jaegar said as he turned, "particularly when they don't know I'm watching." "Not such an unusual hobby for a psychiatrist, I suppose." He introduced himself, shaking their hands with a strong grip. Charley looked into a pair of liquid brown eyes framed by a head of close-cropped black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. There was something in the eyes that Charley could almost read, a coldness that the analytical often have but there was something behind the coldness, something hidden. The penetrating eyes sized him up. A muscular build filled the silk shirt with its diamond stickpin securing the conservative tie. He gestured to the two plush chairs in front of his polished desk and slipped into his chair, typing briefly in his computer before turning off the screen.
"Detective Dimarco, all of us are shocked by the tragic end of Professor Fenton and his spouse. Since I heard of their deaths I have tried to think of any minute piece of information that might be of use to you but I am afraid that I have come up with nothing that could be of assistance. Of course, I put myself and my department at your disposal." Charley felt had a gut feeling he had heard the exact opposite from the man who dripped conceit. Charley and Jim questioned him about Fenton's work history. Jaegar's answers were given with a certain amount of nonchalance. He seemed to want to convey the impression that the matter was closed and of no further interest to him or of any further importance, something in the past to be discarded.
"Anybody have a grudge against him, any enemies?" Jim asked. Charley wished he had phrased the question with a little more depth. The first rain drops splattered against the glass.
"Obviously, in light of recent events," Jaegar said with a small laugh. "I apologize," he said with a wave of his hand. "Not that I know of. He was a bit of a rebel. There was a personality clash between us. Recently I had him transferred to a purely instructional position. A move which I believe greatly benefited the students and the research department. He was an adequate instructor but somewhat of a nonconformist in research management. We had professional differences in addition to our difference in . . . style, if you will."
Charley asked about Professor Fenton's work associates and students as Dr. Jaegar glanced at his Rolex then held up his finger to stop the conversation and called the secretary to draw up a list of the professor's co-workers and students. Thunder rumbled in the darkening sky and the rain began to wash across the campus, sending students scurrying for cover as lightening flashed between the clouds.
Dr. Jaegar leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment then leveled his eyes at Charley. "There is very little I can tell you about his relations with his students, co-workers or friends or if he had any enemies of any type. We didn't travel in the same circles either socially or intellectually. I do not listen to the normal chitchat that most people feel compelled to spread about themselves and each other. I detest gossips and rumor mongers and do not wish to be a part of anything they engage in. I have work to do, a great deal of it. I will soon be leaving the university and devoting my full attentions to my institute, the Stamford Hill Institute of Psychological Health, where I work to develop human potential, to unleash the productive powers of the human mind. I have some background in criminal psychopathology, perhaps I could provide you with some assistance with your investigation."
"We have our own people," said Jim, Charley hearing Jim's evaluation of the man in his tone. They discussed the Fenton's and their co-workers for several minutes, Dr. Jaegar adding nothing to what he had already said, seeming bored with the whole proceedings. Dr. Jaegar questioned them about the manner of the deaths and mentioned again that he would be available should they desire a second opinion on the case based on the way in which they died. Charley assured him they would call on him if they felt his assistance was needed.
Dr. Jaegar glanced at his watch again and apologized for his busy schedule, there was a very important meeting that he must attend. He rose from his chair and stepped around the desk, gesturing toward the door. Jaegar gave assurances that he would contact them immediately if he came across any information. The ice princess handed them a page of names on their way out.
Outside, the rain rolled across the campus in dancing sheets of silver that exploded on the streets and sidewalks. Thunder claps rumbled over one another in the murky sky, their rumbling felt in the belly. A few students braved the pelting rain with their books or jackets over their heads.
I think he should go on the A list, Big Jim said as they turned from a gust of wind driven rain.
His feet arent big enough to be the killers but its always possible he may have pulled the strings Charley said. Ill rummage around in his past and see what I can find.
A female student pulled a new car under the shelter and three young, well-endowed women ran to the car in the swirling mist.
"If cars could smile," Jim whispered, greeting the ladies with a smile.
. "Looks like it's time for us peasants to get wet," Charley said, looking across the lawn. I'll bet it doesn't rain on Herr Jaegar.
Looks like we run for it." Big Jim said.
Charley eyed the distance to the visitor parking lot, the power of the swirling rain and the time his weight would take him to cross it. The time distance ratios were not in his favor. He was not going to spend the rest of the afternoon in sopping wet clothes.
"The man with a belly suggests we wait," said Charley with a chuckle, patting his stomach.
"Hell, I'll bring the car around," Jim said. "I'd better hurry, we have to get you to the hospital," he said with a grin, "It looks like you're due any time now." With a guffaw Jim sprinted across the lawn and Charley watched as the burley detective splashed through the puddles and quickly negotiated the traffic at the intersection, the rain soaking his clothes. A gust of wind driven rain whipped under the roof as a student with his coat over his head splashed by. Charley took refuge toward the doors, reminding himself there had been a time when he could have beaten Jim to the car. And a time when he smiled at young women too.
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