Sounds of Murder

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Dr.Barnes! Dr. Barnes!" the student repeated. Pamela snapped out of her reverie and was drawn back into her classroom. She was leaning against her desk at the front of the small classroom on the second floor. It was Thursday morning, not long after the sunrise faculty meeting, and she was trying to lecture to her undergraduate research class, but not having much success.

"Now," she said, "where was I?" She grabbed her coffee cup and took a quick sip. This was a teacher's trick she used to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts--thoughts that were roaming far from the class discussion today.

"Dr. Barnes," said the girl, with increased emphasis, "you were talking about human subjects." The young woman smiled self-righteously as she looked around the room.

"Yes," said Pamela, "now, being as how we psychologists conduct our research primarily on human beings.... I know, I know, Dr. Goodman would include all those animals too. But, for the most part, psychologists deal with humans and when we gather data we collect it from humans. That presents us with certain problems that other scientists don't have to deal with, right?" She looked around the room expectantly. Several hands rose.

"You have to be really careful with people," said one young man.

"That's true, Michael," responded Pamela, "how so?"

"You can't do anything to humans without their consent," added a girl, seated close to Michael.

"You mean," posed Pamela, "that if I got someone's consent I could do anything I wanted?"

"No," continued Michael, the ball now in his corner, "psychologists can't just go out and start conducting experiments on people because they want to."

"They can't?" exclaimed Pamela.

"No," added the girl, "psychologists have to get permission before they do an experiment." She nodded, satisfied with her answer.

"Permission from whom?" questioned Pamela, smiling, "The government? The head of their department? Their parents?"

The class giggled and looked around. No hands were raised. Most students now focused on their desktops. Pamela recognized the "I don't have a clue what the answer is" stare.

"Where do you think they should get permission," she suggested.

"The police," said one of her smart-alecks by the window. The entire class laughed. Pamela, however, was immediately drawn back to her personal thoughts. The last thing she'd told her husband before they went to bed last night was that she'd take the CD of Charlotte's murder to the police first thing this morning before the 7 a.m. meeting, but she hadn't done so. It was still in her purse in her office. True, she'd planned to do it-she'd even driven towards Police Headquarters on her way to work, but then, she'd suddenly changed her mind--she didn't know why--and backtracked to campus.

Now, here she was in her Thursday morning class feeling guilty that she hadn't kept her word to Rocky and wondering what she should do about it. She knew she must take the disk to the police, but she was procrastinating and she didn't know why.

"Dr. Barnes," whined the same girl who'd interrupted Pamela's daydreaming earlier. "Dr. Barnes, what should we do?"

"What?" asked Pamela, suddenly confused. It was almost as if the student was privy to her thoughts and was asking her what she was going to do about the CD.

"Dr. Barnes," said the girl, "you don't seem like yourself today."

"No, Dr. Barnes," agreed another student near the front. "Maybe you're having a delayed reaction to Dr. Clark's death."