Law School Murders: Tie-dye

In a move that screamed Kim Jergensen neé Copley, she studied nights and Saturdays to earn her master’s degree in law. Every ounce of knowledge that she had racked up, all the experience in the field prepared her for this glorious moment as the professor at Delaware Institute of Technology (DIT).

When she first started, she felt pangs of wanting to be in the streets and feel the hum of the traffic. She yearned for the glow of a street light passing under her car. In a sense, she was still reliving a lot of that action with the stories and examples she had to outline as part of her curriculum.

The power of her intellect and the notion that she had brought about an inkling of what it meant to be a cop and also as close as you can get to becoming a federal agent without being an actual agent. Kim walked around her lecture hall a half hour before she would open up for class. She wanted to see the students who would arrive fifteen minutes prior.

That refrain was embedded in her psyche all the way from Boot Camp. She knew that if she was going to be somewhere, she couldn’t just be on time. The fifteen minutes prior rule came into effect with her ability to decipher what was important and what wasn’t.

This was important. It was the most money she had seen in her career. She had no student loans so she could enjoy the cost of living in a tidy walk up in Newark. She enjoyed the relaxed living conditions and never troubled herself with the idea she wasn’t living in the city.

Her thoughts went to three places: Captain Framingham, him, and Yawquisha. They swirled in her consciousness like paints on a spinning board. The tie-dye effect came out with the most color representing Yawquisha.

The young woman had reminded Kim that she still qualified for the FBI because she had not been convicted. Still, Kim felt in her spirit that she should be teaching law, not enforcing it. Yawquisha respected that.

The railings, brown and broken in some places still felt smooth to the touch. She smelled the wooden chairs and remembered how uncomfortable they were. They’re probably designed like that to keep the pupils awake. About twenty-two minutes remained. There was a broken desk attached to the chair. Kim inspected it and grabbed her tool kit under her desk. Why did she have a tool kit? She felt she had to be prepared at all times. She had kept it in her humvee, patrol car, and squad car.

She sprayed some oil and then tightened a screw. The whole time she was thinking not that she came out of two homicide trials as free as air, but that she knew that she could fix anything. In her mind, she saw herself not as lucky but fortunate she never told lies. Even in the most precarious situations, she didn’t fib or tell whoppers. Never in her life actually. She would put the George Washington cherry tree myth to shame. Just by pointing out it was a symbol not fact would be where she would have started.

Seventeen minutes remained until the busy bees swarmed her domain. After all the welcomes and salutations and the Q&A from yesterday, she was ready to discuss the homicide rates of Delaware, namely Wilmington. A sense of power surged through her frame. This sensation empowered her and lent a positive, powerful notion to her day. She felt poised to make not just the most of it but to make it right. She wanted to make it possible for her to study to show herself approved. She wanted to be that heat seeking missile who could penetrate and explode a mind. As the clock neared fifteen minutes, she walked past the desk and moved it. No sound, not a squeak. Then, it fell to the floor. She thought she’d tightened it but it just gave way.

she shrugged and went to her tool kit and used the screwdriver once more, this time tightening it. About a minute remained. The digital bell pealed. Class started.