“A murder? Are you sure?” Sean asked when we had finally gotten to my dorm room, where we could speak in private. With us were my roommate Eric and Sean’s roommate Robert Hamilton.
Eric Strickland
was a short but fit kid, and donned a short goatee. With aspirations of one day being an Olympic
Tae-Kwon-Do champion, Eric was a very decorated black
belt, ranked near the top of the nation, and taught at the premier fighting
school in the
“Danny, you’re
nuts. Maybe finals are getting to you or
something, but it’s just not possible that an old guy like
I looked towards Robert. “Robert, you believe me, right?” Robert was one of those super-genius kids that everyone has met at one point in their life. He could compute long strings of mathematics in his head, and he had an acute eye for details. Having fallen into the CSI craze during his last two years of high school, he decided to major in Biomedical Sciences and Forensics, a relatively new major at schools across the country.
What was unique about Robert was his personality. Despite the fact that Eric, Sean and I knew that Robert was smarter than all of us, he never acted superior in any way. He was one of the nicest guys I’d ever met, and was actually engaged to my friend Jennifer Bodden. He had a permanently fixed smile and could certainly keep a secret.
“Well man, from what you’ve shown me, it definitely seems like something that could happen. But that doesn’t mean it would. I’m with Eric on this one.”
I sighed and ran
my hand through my hair. The problem
with people is that they don’t like to believe that something radically
different from their norm is actually true.
For example, if I were to tell you that your parents were really spies
from
“Alright guys, what can I do to get you to believe me?” I said after a long silence.
It was Robert who spoke up. “I may not believe you, but that’s not going to stop me from helping you. Final exams are over and we’ve got a few days until we go home, so I’ll do whatever I can to help you out.” He gestured to Sean and Eric. “I can’t speak for these two, but I’m sure they’ll do whatever they can too. I mean, heck, you’d do the same for any of us.”
Sean and Eric sighed, but reluctantly agreed. We decided to go immediately to the library.
We stayed in the
library for hours that first day, and honestly didn’t uncover anything
useful. We found out that Franks loved
baseball and got a law degree from the
We had broken for the night, and Eric was out teaching his class, so I was left alone in my dorm room, staring at newspaper articles, and looking for anything that shouted at me that he really was murdered, and that a massive conspiracy had occurred. All of a sudden, there was a knock at my door.
“Yeah? Come in.”
“Hey Danny, what’s up?” It was Robert. His face was tightened into a face of concentration and his tone indicated that he didn’t come here to ask me how I was doing. Without waiting for a reply, he continued speaking. “I’ve got an idea of something to do…a way to dig up some information about this guy. But I need to know for sure if you want me to do it.”
I frowned in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I? I’m pretty sure this man was brutally murdered on the night of the biggest day of his life, leaving his baby without a father and a state without one of its senators. I think something big happened here…something that I just can’t let go. If it’s just a lot of mistakes in the papers and inconsistencies that could be explained, I could let it go. But this doesn’t feel that way. It’s like trying to prove to yourself that two plus two doesn’t equal five, even though everyone says it does. So I’m prepared to go as far as I need to go until I’m absolutely certain that I’m wrong…or if I’m right.”
Robert slowly nodded, almost reluctantly. “Then I have an idea. I talked to Jennifer, and she says that she could get me into the records of Franks’ autopsy. She’s a Computer Science major, and she knows some tricks from some of her friends. I can look at the autopsy, and I could probably figure out for sure if foul play was involved.”
I smiled. “That’d be great, man. But how could you pick up something that the forensics teams didn’t pick up?”
Robert grimaced again and scratched the back of his head. “Well…if this really is a conspiracy, they wouldn’t report anything. I pray that it’s not the case…but I’ll tell Jennifer that you want to do it. We’ll do it tomorrow at three from my dorm room, alright?”
I nodded as Robert left the room. I had a bad feeling about this…like something would go horribly wrong.
The next afternoon at three, Sean, Eric, Robert and I all gathered around Robert’s computer as Jennifer settled down and flexed her knuckles.
“Alright boys…ready for some fireworks?” she asked rhetorically. I can’t even begin to tell you what was done, but all of a sudden the FBI crest flashed in front, and she grinned triumphantly. “Now what’s the guy’s name again?”
“Senator Michael Franks,” I replied. The bad feeling in my gut worsened and the hair on the back on my neck stood up. I mean, I knew what we were doing was illegal, but I felt like there was something else.
A few more screens and keyboard pounding and she clapped her hands. “Robert, it’s all yours.”
Robert settled in and began reading, typing, and frowning at an incredible rate. There was a small pad of paper next to his computer, and every so often, he’d jot something down.
Rather than interrupt his work, I just sat around and chatted a bit about the prior semester with my friends.
Robert stood up suddenly, nearly knocking over his chair, and clapped. “I got it!” he exclaimed.
We all looked at him expectantly, but he just smiled and ran into his bathroom. He came out with a bottle of pills, shook them to let us know it was full, and then slammed the container on the desk. “Danny, I want you to take about ten of these pills with a glass of water.”
“Won’t that kill me?” I asked worriedly. The pills were small and yellow, but too much of anything could mess you up. Even I knew that, and I wasn’t a medical major.
“Nah, these are just placebos. Sugar pills.”
“Uh, Rob? What are you doing with placebos?” Sean asked.
“I don’t think you want to know…now Danny, pop a few of these.”
I obeyed, and shoved a handful into my mouth. I reached for the water and swallowed the pills. It took a few seconds, but they finally went down. “So?” I asked, anxious to hear his explanation.
“Stick out your tongue and see what color it is.”
I obediently did so, and my friends gathered around. “It’s yellow…bright yellow,” remarked Eric.
Robert grinned and turned to his computer. “Now, what color is our friend’s tongue?”
We all gathered around the screen and Jennifer let out a gasp of surprise. “It’s pink…I mean, it’s normal.”
“Exactly. The pills were yellow pills as evidenced by this,” said Robert as he switched to a different image, “and his tongue never changed colors. Therefore, if he had pills in him, they were forced down his throat. Now, Eric, catch this bottle of soda and untwist it.” Robert tossed Eric an empty bottle of Coca-Cola. Eric unscrewed the cap.
“Your point?” asked Eric.
“If we were to check for fingerprints on that bottle cap, we’d find some. There were none on the bottle cap of the whiskey bottle.”
“What if he was wearing gloves?” replied Eric.
“He wasn’t, because they found fingerprints on the bottle and on his gun. Unless he wore gloves while unscrewing the bottle, and then disposed of the gloves carefully in a place where no one would ever find them, and then proceeded to drink the bottle, I think the bottle was planted.”
I nodded, impressed. “What else?”
“Take a look at the report on the gun. The crime lab checked out the cartridge, and found two bullets missing. We’ve accounted for one, with the hole in the guy’s head, but where’s the other?
“Also, look at this picture here.” Robert clicked a few keys, and a picture of a head wound showed up. “This guy was knocked over the head by something, and from the looks of it, I’d say it was the same whiskey bottle he’s holding in his hand. I can’t prove that without actually seeing the body, but it makes sense.”
“So here’s what I think happened,” continued Robert, “Michael Franks is having a nice quiet night waiting for his wife to come home from the grocery store, and is watching television, reading the paper, or whatever. Finally, he sees someone. This person makes a threat at Franks, warning him about voting for his bill the next day. Franks refuses to comply, and asks the intruder to leave. The intruder raises the bottle and takes a swing at our friend.
“Franks ducks out of the way, and runs to a bookcase or drawer somewhere where he keeps his gun. He points the gun and fires, hitting the assailant. The attacker takes another swing, and knocks Franks unconscious. He throws Franks in the chair, unscrews the bottle, and places it in Franks’ hand. He throws a couple of bottles of depressants around, takes Franks’ gun, and shoots him in the temple. He plants the gun, and runs out of there. Because a wound takes several seconds to bleed, and seeing as it happened in November, the combination of time and heavy clothing likely prevented blood from dripping on the scene. Wife comes home, sees alcohol, drugs, and a dead husband holding a gun with a hole in his head, calls the cops, and it’s ruled a suicide.”
Robert finished his explanation, stood up, and gathered his composure. “So it was a murder…”
“Yes, it was a murder,” shouted a new voice. We all turned to the doorway to see Dr. Dixon brandishing a Glock and pointing it directly at my chest. “And children, there’s about to be another.”