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the Smythe Lounge to the seminar room. Then, he was sitting in the seminar room. This was not rocket science. Walter wondered what the average IQ of a policeman was. Certainly not high enough to form a MENSA membership voting bloc. An average IQ of 85 maybe? Perhaps 85 was the national average, skewed upwards by some bright stars. The ones that all those T.V. shows seemed to be based on. The average of the Elm Grove police force seemed closer to 70.
    “What happened at the seminar?”
    Walter shook his head in disbelief. Really, did he have to write the questions for these imbeciles? They weren’t going to get any information at this rate. Nothing happened at the seminar as the seminar did not take place owing to the fact the presenter was murdered.
    “I think what you meant to ask was what happened in the seminar room leading up to the discovery of Edmund’s body,” Walter corrected pedantically.
    And nothing unusual happened, except that Edmund had expected all the faculty to be assembled for his seminar and only five people showed. Walter himself wasn’t surprised by the turnout. It was the first day of semester, which did not equate to the first day of work for a lot of professors. One of the benefits of a Ph.D. is you get a lot of flex time.
    But it would have been a blow to Edmund. Typically , faculty only attend seminars in their field areas. But Edmund was a very distinguished faculty member. He demanded a certain level of…attention… as he was highly favored to get the Nobel Prize this year. Sadly, for Eaton University and its publicity machine, that could no longer happen. As Walter was sure the police knew, you must be living to receive the Nobel.
    Walter paused in his musings. There was one faculty member who had been at work, who wasn’t at the seminar. Charles Covington III was not in attendance. But that was not a surprise either. Charl es was almost ninety years old and was a little...old. Walter was not willing to say out loud, even to a pair of imbecilic Elm Grove policemen, that the renowned economics department of Eaton University had a senile member of staff.
    “Anyway, in the seminar room at two o’clock,” Walter emphasized with an overbearing condescension, “there were four professors waiting for Edmund. Myself, Jefferson Daniels, Peter Johansson and C.J. Whitmore. After about five minutes, the troops got restless, and Jefferson volunteered to look for him. No surprise there. Edmund and Jefferson work together. The paper being presented was half Jefferson’s work. At least half, I would say. Anyway, while Jefferson was away, Stephen Choi tried to sneak into the room like a naughty child. Please. As if we care. We’ve already denied his tenure. And then Jefferson came back at about ten after the hour and told us Edmund was dead.”
    “Had you scheduled any maintenance work for the building that day?”
    Walter shook his head and cursed inwardly. That damn ladder. What was the deal with that damn ladder?
    “No,” Walter replied dryly. “There should not have been a ladder outside Edmund’s window.”
    “ Isn’t that a rather strange place for a ladder?”
    Walter looked blankly at the policemen in front of him. “You mean, up against a building, serving its intended purpose of allowing people to easily ascend walls?” Walter said icily. “No, I cannot agree. I don’t think it is all that strange for a ladder to be leaning against a wall. Perhaps, instead, you want to find who was using it for its intended purpose. A gang member? A burglar? This is Elm Grove after all. Rated the fourteenth most dangerous city in America. Not a statistic that Eaton University puts in its glossy brochures.”
    The police seemed nonplussed by his suggestion. Apparently Elm Grove’s street element strongly favored guns. There wasn’t a single gang known to crime enforcement at the moment that used strangling via academic gown as their method of killing. And as for burglars, characteristically they