Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar by Gray Cavender (red scrolls of magic TXT) 📗

Ersula brought her draft of the Tempe PD component. Jillian apologized for being behind on her portion. Not only had Ersula finished her draft, Chief McCaslin had already marked it up. Ersula laughed and reminded Jillian that she’d been “a little busy on something else.”

Still, Jillian had actually spoken with Al about his ideas on the earlier policy proposals that had been circulating. She’d made notes from these conversations so at least she wasn’t starting from scratch. She worked on her draft while Ersula worked on a revision that incorporated Chief McCaslin’s comments. By late morning, they had drafted consistent statements for their departments. These would still need another round of comments from their respective chiefs, and then approvals from ‘higher-up.’

They broke for lunch at 12. Jillian suggested that they eat on campus and even gave Ersula a ride in ‘the Batmobile.’ She loved it. Afterward, Jillian ferried her across campus over to University, then returned to ASU PD.

Jillian had enjoyed the morning, working on the Task Force report and hanging with Ersula. Of course, the case drifted into her mind every so often, but each time that it did, she tamped it down, and moved on to something else. She did have other things to do, but she also was trying free-up her mind so that when she did return to the case, she’d be eager to work through the file…as opposed to yesterday when she was numbed by it all.

Around 3pm, Wes texted. They were on a 20-minute recess, but he was still on ‘the stand,’ and it was going slowly. He said that under intense cross-examination, he’d broken and admitted that he’d been the second shooter at Dealey Plaza. He ended with a laughing emoji.

She had put it off as long as she could stand it, so just before 4pm, Jillian logged-out of what she’d been doing and returned to the case. She told herself that she was going “all out Jane Tennison on this.”

As the files were pulling-up, she thought about how to proceed. She decided not look for inconsistencies—sorry Wes—and definitely not read as if she was Professor Naremore’s advocate. Instead, she wanted to come at this as if it was a blank slate. She would review her file, as much as possible, from Georgia Ronson’s perspective. They had sent Georgia all their info so she’d be reading everything—the interviews and all the rest—for the first time. Jillian wanted to adopt that ‘fresh eyes’ perspective of an imaginary Georgia.

She nodded, and began.

She didn’t speed-read, but she did work through the interviews—all of them—fairly quickly. But, when she read the first interview with Professor Naremore, the one she’d done alone, she couldn’t help but cringe when she came to his comment about it being a good thing that Professor Siemens was dead. Jillian looked away from the screen and thought about this. Mainly, she was glad that she’d told Wes about that comment.

Back to the screen, she hurried-up again, and didn’t stop to think any more about the specifics of Professor Naremore’s statements. She wanted to roll though her entire file, uninterrupted, even by her own thoughts.

She moved quickly through all of them: Gilroy, Roberts, Davidos, Moser, Seay, Disis, and LeJohns, and even the students, Nagel and Paxton, and her own interviews with Carolyn and ZZ. She read the notes from Wes’ interviews the same way.

When she’d finished reading the interviews—for now, anyway—she opened the photos. She started with the ones from Angel’s forensics team. She went through them…all of them…both of the professor’s offices and then the condo. She scrolled through them carefully, but kept moving.

Next, Jillian switched to the photos that she had taken: the condo first, then the Professor’s office in English, then the one in Business. She went through them at the same speed as ones from forensics.

When she’d finished scrolling through her photos, she put them in a ‘slide show’ and watched again as they materialized on her screen in five second intervals. When the ‘slide show’ ended, Jillian stopped, tapped her lips with her pen, and then backtracked to four photos. These, she reviewed slowly: the professor’s book shelves in her condo, the bookshelves in both offices, and her file cabinets in Business.

Jillian turned away from the screen, and, as she thought about the photos, recalled a comment from an interview with Professor Roberts—the first one, she thought. She returned to and scanned the interview, and found the comment that she had remembered. Her eyes narrowed as she read the comment, and highlighted it.

Then, she looked at the four photos again. Then again.

And she smiled. Her smile widened. She mouthed a silent, “Yes!” This was a small thing, or maybe not so small...

The smile disappeared. Jillian rested her chin on her knuckles, staring at the screen without seeing it. There was more…had to be.

She called Wes’ cell, got his voicemail, figured he was back in court, and left a message. “Wes, I’ve been reviewing the files, and I saw something in the photos. Call when you can.”

Not knowing what else to do for the moment, Jillian left the ASU PD building, walked across College and waited for a Jupiter. There were a few others waiting, too, although she didn’t really notice them or anything else, for that matter. She was lost in thought.

The Jupiter turned onto College and stopped. She boarded, essentially on automatic pilot, found a seat by a window, and the bus moved on. Unlike earlier in the day when she avoided thinking about the case, Jillian was thinking and processing and was, for the most part, oblivious to her surroundings.

When the bus stopped at College and Alameda, it brought her back to the present. She had to pay attention to the streets so she could pull the ‘request stop’ cord before Geneva, well before the traffic light at Southern. Jupiter drivers couldn’t stop too close to major intersections. It was the early stages of rush hour so