A little East of Paris: Debriefing Gwain

Hank parked his Yukon in the street in front of the vacant lot next to the bungalow where Gwain and Jana were staying. He had called to make an appointment and learned that Gwain had completed teaching his classes for the week and the only way to talk to him, face-to-face, would be off-site.

Fortunately, the house was barely 20 minutes away, a hop-skip-and-jump by Texas standards.

Walking up to the house, Hank saw two women sitting on the porch to the left of the front door and Gwain sitting on a wicker chair to the right. Gwain gestured to a folding metal chair for Hank to sit on “I apologize for the inconvenience. We haven’t had much time to set up house-keeping.”

Hank shook Gwain’s hand. “My name is Hank Lewis and I have been retained by Olivia Benavidez as her personal representative.” 

Hank got the impression that Gwain's handshake that he was frail. Even though Gwain had long fingers, they seem insubstantial and is hand felt almost bird-like.

Gwain gave a noncommittal “Hmmm”.

“Do you mind if I ask a few questions?” Hank started out.

“Are you asking to be neighborly or in your professional capacity?” the old white woman asked. She was wearing a silk scarf wound around her head and clearly had almost no hair. Chemo?

“I am here in a professional capacity” Hank admitted.

“In that case, you won’t mind showing us proof that you really ARE Miss Benavidez’s representative and not a reporter” Gwain said.

Hank, in spite of himself, was impressed. There was no rancor, just a fellow professional who insisted on dotting-every-i-and-crossing-every-t.

Sitting down in the folding chair, Hank opened up his briefcase and found the appropriate folder and extracted the “Retainer of Services” form that Olivia Benavidez had signed.

“ID?” Gwain asked.

Wordlessly, Hank pulled out his wallet and extracted his Driver’s License. “I will need both of those back” Hank said.

“Of course” Gwain said, absentmindedly as he studied them. Then he handed both documents to Jana for her to look at. Jana inspected them and handed them back to Gwain who passed them back to Hank who carefully refiled them in their respective places.

“How can I help you?” Gwain asked.

“Were you a witness to any events involving Miss Olivia Benavidez yesterday? If you were, can you tell me what you observed?” Hank asked.

“Yes” Gwain answered. 

Gwain had just started on his narrative when Hank abruptly interrupted him. “Wait. I heard you say that you didn't just witness this but that you were also trapped in the office?”

“Yes” Gwain answered.

“So you were with her the whole time?” Hank asked.

“I was with Miss Benavidez from 2:15 PM until 6:45 PM when I left her at the Student Health Services medical facility where she was being held for observation” Gwain replied.

“Who do you think did this to you?” Hank asked.

“Cole Neidermeyer and one of his buddies” Gwain responded without hesitation.

“How certain are you that this Cole Neidermeyer did this?” Hank pressed.

“I am 100% certain. I know his voice and he had motive...I had just given him an F on a paper and I told him that if he cheated on his next paper I would have him expelled from the University” Gwain said.

Then Scarlett piped up on Hank’s ear-bud “Cole Neidermeyer graduated with a 3.1/4.0 GPH from RW Private Academy and scored 17 on both attempts at the ACT and 990 Composite SAT which puts him at 45 percentile. That might explain why he isn't going to school in Austin" Scarlett added, archly.

"His parents live in the Rollingwood Neighborhood of Austin and the median property value is $2.8 million” she concluded.

“Who do you think the other person was?” Hank asked.

“Almost certainly it was one of the other Frat members” Gwain said.

This was looking better by the minute. Predatory “Frat boys” don’t play well in front of Texas juries, not when they are harassing young, Hispanic women. Nor do millionaires.

Jana asked “Which fraternity?”

“Gamma-Gamma-Psi” Gwain said.

“Oh my God!” Jana said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t tell me that they are in Texas, too.”

Catching Hank’s quizzical expression, Gwain said “Some fraternities have a reputation.”

Diane was absorbing all of this new information, not saying a word.

“Anyway” Hank said, “tell me what happened as best you remember it from the beginning…”

It took Gwain almost twenty minutes to recount the ordeal. When Hank started to scribble down the name of the maintenance man, Gwain said “You don’t need to do that. Miss Benavidez already wrote down that information. She wrote down the times, too.”

Brows furrowed in consternation “And when would she have had time to do that?” Hank asked.

“I told her to write everything down as it happened” Gwain said, apologetically. “It seemed like the only way to keep her from panicking.”

Hank folded his hands and put them in his lap. “She wrote down everything as it happened?”

“Yes” Gwain said.

Handel’s Messiah’s refrain was singing in Hank Lewis’s head as he asked “And this is something that you have a copy of?”

“I have the original locked in my file cabinet, but I can give you a scanned copy from the University’s shared-drive. I took the liberty of accepting what she wrote as a class assignment” Gwain said.

Hank licked his lips. “How long would it take for you to email me that copy?”

“I don’t know. Maybe five minutes. My laptop is old and is a little slow to boot-up. That, and I have to find it” Gwain said.

“Its underneath your new book on the Civil War” Jana informed him.

Three minutes later, Hank’s laptop pinged, informing him that he had a new email.

Opening the attachment and starting to read, the first thing Hank asked “How accurate are these times?”

“I really don’t know” Gwain admitted. “Miss Benavidez could see the screen of my desktop computer, so I imagine they are not more than a minute off.”

“Do you want me to mail you the original?” Gwain asked.

“Nope. You hang onto it until the police ask for it. Keep it locked in your files. It is a chain-of-custody nightmare if I touch the original” Hank told Gwain.

Hank thanked Gwain profusely for his help and he advised Gwain (and Jana and Diane) to not talk about his visit.

Jana assured Hank that College Professors are often privy to privileged information and knew that bringing the perpetrators to justice would be easier if they were not alerted.

Diane vigorously shook her head in the negative. “I didn’t hear nothin’. I wasn’t even here.”

The last thing Hank asked for was Violet's number. If he was lucky he could catch her before she went home. 

Gwain informed Hank that the door to his office had already been replaced. Hank wanted to pass word to the University maintenance department to not throw away the door. It was looking more and more like it was evidence to a crime. 

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