Tall Man Down - 18. Chapter 18

After Don left, and my students and I had worked through the afternoon, mainly rehanging lights on the stage, I sat at my desk for maybe fifteen minutes. All afternoon, I’d been trying to figure out an engineering problem that was just on the edge of eluding me. So I thought if I sat down and let my brain focus on that one thing, the answer might come. And that’s what I was doing – staring both into space and at the dumb and dusty, underused phone on my desk – when the message light came on.

The phone didn’t ring. The light just came on, and if I hadn’t been absently looking at it, I might not have noticed. Now in order for a message to appear without the phone ringing, someone has to have left a message without calling. And while that was possible, it wasn’t normal, and it got me curious.

It was the alien voice again. You’ve got to tell your friend in the police department to take me seriously. Just because the dean and the vice-president want to cover this up, doesn’t mean it will go away. And you never know what’ll happen if they ignore me.

I played the message twice, the second time over the speaker, to listen for background sounds. I couldn’t hear any. What was accessible though was the source – an extension number, and I called it, hoping for more information. The number just rang. No name. No voice mail. Nothing. And the college didn’t have a general reverse phone directory – there was no need – so I couldn’t even look up where the phone was.

I wondered who else had gotten the message, since it seemed just for me. Because I didn’t know how many people on campus knew Don was my friend and that I occasionally helped him out.

To check, I called Greg, but the Business office closed at five. So did the Dean’s office, so no one answered there. Now Greg or Rebecca – or Donna or Patricia – sometimes worked past five. But they didn’t answer their phones or unlock their doors unless a call or a person was expected. Still, I walked across to Waldron Hall, hoping if I knocked politely and identified myself, I might get someone’s attention.

No luck in either place, so I started back downstairs. But before reaching the lobby, I thought of something else and detoured to the phone office, crammed in a sloping storeroom under the central marble stairs. There was almost always someone there, usually a student. There was a back-up message for when the operator was on another call or momentarily out of the storeroom. Catlin embraced technology but felt there should always be a human being answering the main number for the college because it made parents comfortable. And since students worked cheaply enough, it was a small indulgence.

I stood at the open Dutch door while the kid at the console finished a call. Then I asked what I thought was a simple question. “Do you have a reverse directory?”

His answer was “Huh?” So I expanded my range.

“I just got a message from a campus phone. But the caller left no name. And when I called back, the phone just rang. So I’m trying to find out whose phone it is. And maybe where it’s located.”

“Huh?” again, though not actually vocalized. Just a puzzled look. I tried again.

“Do you have an instruction manual?”

Once he figured out what that was, he looked towards a shelf close by him but near to the floor. There was a series of thick, battered, looseleaf binders.

“We got one,” he said, “but I don’t know how to use it. I was only taught to answer the phones.”

“Fair enough. But what if someone wants to send a system message? In an emergency?” That’s the way I thought the campus-wide message had been left from Azieva/Janssen.

“They ask someone else?” he offered. Then he paused just long enough to let something register. “What’s a system message?”

The kid should be doing comedy. He had great timing.

“You know, like The campus is on lockdown. Stay where you are and secure all doors.”

“Never got one like that.”

“And I hope you never do. It was just an example.”

He nodded but added nothing further. So I pointed to the looseleafs. “May I see one of those?”

He arbitrarily pulled one and plopped it on the ledge of the Dutch door. As he did, a couple of pages fell out. When I opened the book, I tried to put them back in place, but their holes were torn through. But I at least put them where they belonged.

The book seemed part of a very long version of the thin Users Manual available for all campus phones, though I’d found my instructions online. This particular volume was full of complicated programming for the console. But there was no reverse directory.

“Can I see another?”

He gave me the book next to the one he’d hefted and popped it on top of my open book. This volume explained the electronics of the campus phone system in far more detail than I’d ever need.

“Another?” Please, sir, some more. I felt like Oliver. But I slowly worked through all eight of the ragged volumes, skimming the – to me – useless information. Still, I was reminded that system messages can be sent from any phone, as long as the sender has the patience to find and follow the necessary prompts. And that any extension can leave a message for any other extension without a call first being placed. All the sender has to do is open a voice mail account in the system and follow another series of possibly hard to find prompts.

Instead of testing that, I simply took a picture of the handy service number inside the every looseleaf’s cover and went back to my office. After being on hold for couple of minutes, then reciting a series of numbers that fortunately were in my picture, the technician nicely told me there was no way to get the kind of information I wanted from her office. A reverse directory – or phone tree, as she called it – if it existed at all, might be in some campus office. That was kind of useless, because it was too late in the work day to make calls. But she did tell me that in order to send any kind of single or multiple messages, the caller not only needed have access to a campus line’s voice mail, but also to its password.

I’d forgotten there was a password. On my office phone, I just pressed a button that got my messages. And since I never knew I had a password, I’d never tried to pick up my mainly useless office messages from home. But it appeared I could do that and send a message from anywhere.

That made me ask another question. “What if a phone doesn’t have voice mail?”

“Every phone has voice mail. That’s they way they’re designed.”

“Well, what if a phone keeps ringing and never picks up?”

“That means the voice mail’s been turned off.”

“But it still has a password?”

“Oh, yes. The one for set-up, if nothing else.”

“And where would I find that?”

“In the Users Guide.”

I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t actually have the book in front of me. But I knew I could find that information online. And I did. The password was password.

I called the extension that had sent the alien-voice message and entered the numbers and followed the prompts that I was reading off my laptop screen until I finally came to the place where password was required, and I entered that. Mainly, I wanted to see what was there.

Not a lot, and certainly nothing that would identify the caller or any saved messages. And where Greg said Azieva/Janssen had read out on his Caller ID, this one only gave its extension number. I did stumble on a prompt for Incoming and Outgoing calls and followed that to Outgoing. Two of the numbers I recognized as the Business and Dean’s offices, and the time and date stamps matched to when the first alien voice messages were left. So I figured this was probably the phone in the library basement. Rather than calling the main desk to find out, I simply walked over to look.

Because I didn’t know specifically where it was, I described the office as a part-time storeroom with a strong smell of library paste, and the second person I asked led me right to it. Sure enough, the extension numbers matched up, and I could see well enough by the light coming through the frosted glass. I couldn’t actually read the pad numbers, but everyone kind of knows where they are.

I reported this all to Don, by phone, as I drove home. He mainly laughed and said, “You trying to get your badge back?” Of course, when I repeated the whole story to Pete, he didn’t think that what Don said was funny. Later though, falling asleep in bed, I realized that this message was the first in the series with even a hint of a threat and not simply a question. You never know what’ll happen. What could that mean?

We didn’t find out in the next message, and the threat wasn’t really repeated. This one went back to coming by e-mail, but this time, I was included: Gilberto Andrus, Lawrence Marsden, Gregory Stratton, and Rebecca Torchon-Varner – alphabetically, as if pulled off a list. I couldn’t remember seeing a CC on the other messages, so maybe each had been sent separately. But this was clearly a group send.

This morning’s taunt: Who says we live in a Police State? Our cops can’t seem to do the simplest investigation. It was sent shortly before twelve the night before, by Mpoughos. I was still home but was able to checked my online student directory, and – predictably – I found and then woke Melissa Poughos. She swore she didn’t know anything about sending the e-mail, and when I asked if she’d ever changed her student password, she had to admit, slightly embarrassed, “No.” But she was only a sophomore. Still, she promised she’d immediately get a new password.

“This is getting old,” Greg said when he called me. I’d left a message for him, but not for Rebecca or Larry. Still, he was laughing.

“Is there something you want Don to do?”

“Yeah – ride it out. The Board’s tickled and totally unconcerned. We’ve never gotten so much free publicity. Even Steve’d know to enjoy it.”

“You’re sure the Board feels the same?”

“Well, they’d rather we had a winning football team. That always bring in the bucks. But they’re realists. They’ll take what they can get.”

Larry phoned next, without me calling.

“No one’s taking this seriously,” he began. “Least of all, me. And – as far as I know – where I was isn’t even a real question. Because – if I remember correctly – the police can’t even tell when Steve died. It could be anywhere from midnight till Abby found him, and I think that was sometime after nine.”

“Something like that,” I admitted. I had to be careful because I wasn’t sure Larry knew about Elise Pelletiers. So he didn’t know Catlin was alive till around one.

“Did you see the autopsy?” he asked next.

“Actually, yes.”

“I figured you might have. What did it say?”

“Just what you know. That because Catlin was in a tub of hot water, the time of his death can’t be easily determined.”

“I’m not sure it matters, anyway.”

“No.” I didn’t tell Larry about the bruise, either, because I was still sure that happened in the tub.

“In any case, I was either home or in my office – or on my way from one to the other. So I’m clear.”

“I really don’t think anyone’s going to ask.”

“Maybe. But I wanted you to know anyway.”

“Thanks.”

As he hung up, I had to laugh. Police attention makes people skittish.

Later, as I was teaching my morning class, my cell phone rang, causing the kids to make fun of me. “Hey, cell phones off,” they repeated and repeated, as if it were newly funny. All I could say was, “You don’t have a baby in your house.”

I didn’t answer the call but propped my phone on the podium to see who it was from. The Dean’s office. And when I checked after class, Patricia had left a message, asking me to call Rebecca.

“Isn’t there anything that can be done to block new accounts on the computers?” she asked. “Just for a few days? Wouldn’t that stop this?”

“Not entirely. This new message came from a sophomore’s account. She’d never changed her set-up password. And I’m sure there are plenty like that.”

“Probably,” Rebecca had to concede, knowing our students.

“Besides, when Greg called, he said the Board was pretty happy with the publicity.”

“Oh... the Board,” Rebecca almost sighed. “Then I guess we’d better let them have their way.”

Though I did call Greg back with Rebecca’s suggestion – even acknowledging it came from her. After talking with some Board members, Greg surprisingly agreed.

“It won’t stop the phone calls,” he allowed. “But it’s something.”

He must have called the IT people to arrange the partial block because they soon sent an campus-wide e-mail insisting This is a temporary policy that will soon end.

“Fine with me,” Don admitted when I called to report. “Makes the day easier.”

As Larry said, “Maybe.” Because it didn’t really affect me. My students and I had scenery to build.