Killing Kirshner (A Psychological Suspense Thriller) (7 page)

They all turned around and saw an irate Kirshner barreling down the road. They were all shocked at how fast the old man could run. The light from Kirshner’s flashlight hit Amanda’s face as she quickly turned her head.

“I think he might have seen my face,” she yelled.

“No way, he’s too far behind us,” Abrams shouted back.

They finally got to the gate and each helped the other over with Will going last. They sprinted to the Escalade, and Jack cranked the engine and the SUV screeched out of the empty field.

Kirshner climbed over the fence with the speed of a man half his age. He just got up to the road when he saw the SUV racing away. He was not able to see the license plate, but he was positive about one thing – it was a tan Cadillac Escalade.

The Escalade was filled with laugher. Will did his impression of Kirshner running behind them and Sean laughed and continued to try and catch his breath. Sean joked about possibly having a heart attack, and Abrams had tears rolling down his face as he laughed. Amanda sat quietly in the far back; she was not laughing. She was scared out of her mind – she was positive Kirshner had seen her face.

C
hapter 28

Amanda stood outside Kirshner’s classroom waiting for her friends; she was too scared to go into the room by herself. She had not slept thinking that Kirshner had seen her face. Will and Sean came walking up to her, and they walked into the classroom together. Amanda held tightly onto Will’s arm as they walked down the steps to their seats. Amanda was wearing a baseball cap that she had borrowed from Jack; she had never worn a baseball cap in her life, but she did not want Kirshner to get a good look at her face. Of course, this was nearly impossible since she sat in the front row right in front of Kirshner’s podium. Amanda pulled the cap down in an attempt to cover most of her face.

“Stop worrying about this. There is no way he could tell it was us; he must have been a 100 or so feet behind us. You are making yourself sick over nothing,” Will said.

“I know, I just can’t shake the feeling that he saw my face when we were running,” Amanda whispered.

The rest of the students filtered into the classroom, as Amanda kept looking toward the back of the classroom for Kirshner to enter. She quickly read over her briefs and made sure she knew the issues. Suddenly, the door slammed and Kirshner appeared at the back of the classroom; everyone turned around to see who had slammed the door. Amanda quickly turned back around, hiding her face under the brim of her baseball cap.

Kirshner sat down in the last row, and the students looked around at each other thinking the old man finally had lost it. “Ms. Martin, please walk up to the podium and brief the first case of the day,” Kirshner yelled.

Amanda immediately began to panic – she could feel the sweat beginning to form down her back. She slowly walked up to the podium and laid her notebook on it. Her hands trembled as she tilted the notebook up so she could see her brief better. She only got through the facts of the case when Kirshner interrupted. “Ms. Martin,” he said, and then there was a long pause.

“Before you continue, could you please remove that awful hat? Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to wear a hat indoors?”

Amanda quickly removed the cap and laid it on the podium.

“That hideous accent of yours – where is it from? South Carolina?” Kirshner asked.

“I’m from Charleston, sir,” she said in a shaking voice.

“Charleston! I had the unfortunate experience of living in that God-awful city for four years. Charleston is a city full of morons with too much money, and that accent used to drive me insane. I should have recognized that awful verbiage of yours as being from Charleston. That southern drawl – sounds so sweet and innocent. I don’t buy it for a minute.”

“I can’t help it. It’s just the way I talk,” Amanda trembled.

“Just continue with your brief, and make it quick so I don’t have to listen to you too much longer,” Kirshner yelled.

Amanda took a deep breath and finished briefing the case. Kirshner did not interrupt her again. He sat quietly with his arms folded – he was almost positive that Amanda was the girl running from his house the other night.

C
hapter 29

The group shuffled into the library once Kirshner’s class was over. They all gathered into a study room, and Amanda fell into Will’s chest and sobbed. Will patted her on the back, doing his best to console her.

“So, do y’all still think he did not see my face?” Amanda cried.

“You might be right. He came at you pretty hard today,” Jack mumbled.

“Maybe it was just the hat. He was just pissed that you wore a hat in his classroom,” Sean suggested. Even though Sean did not believe that, he wanted Amanda to feel better.

“Maybe you guys shouldn’t be seen with me. He might figure it was y’all that were with me that night,” Amanda said.

“Don’t worry about it. We didn’t even do anything,” Jack said.

“We wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for your stupid idea,” Abrams yelled.

“Screw you! No one forced you to come,” Jack screamed back.

“Shut the hell up,” Will shouted. “We didn’t do anything and if Kirshner was going to call the cops, he would have done so by now. So, everyone just lay off each other.”

Will and Amanda stayed in the study room and the rest of the group left. Abrams looked back as the door closed and saw Amanda and Will embrace. He clenched his fists and punched the wall.

C
hapter 30

Three weeks later, the group sat in Amanda’s room preparing themselves for exam week. They had only two examinations – Professor Dunlap-Elliott’s Legal Writing quiz and Professor Kirshner’s mid-term killer exam. Kirshner’s examination was legendary for separating the boys from the men. It would not be unusual for a quarter of the class to drop out of law school after taking his examination.

Luckily, they only had the two tests to study for. The rest of their classes had only one examination at the end of the semester. Professor Dunlap-Elliott’s exam was basically a “Blue Book” exam; the Blue Book was a guide for legal citations. Will nicknamed the Blue Book “Satan’s Bible.” He hated trying to figure out where the case name went or whether there was supposed to be a comma after the case citation. He was worried about this exam, but his concern in no way measured up to the fear he had of Kirshner’s Criminal Law exam.

They each had made outlines for Criminal Law, and they also had Todd’s outline. They each made a copy for everyone and traded them. They planned to meet every night, except for the last two nights immediately before the exam; that was alone time to ponder everything they had covered.

Every night, they would take turns teaching different topics. Amanda laid out a schedule for everyone so they all knew what topic they had to cover. They were feeling fairly competent and knowledgeable about Criminal Law. The hardest part of it was the amount of material they had to cover. Unlike in college, law professors always finished the entire textbook. Their Criminal Law book was 577 pages long, which meant they had 288 pages to cover. Within those 288 pages, there were nearly 80 cases to memorize and understand. It was no easy task, but the study group felt they were up to Kirshner’s challenge.

The group decided that Kirshner must not have recognized Amanda because he had never picked on her again. In fact, he left the entire group alone for the last few weeks and started targeting victims on the other side of the classroom. The group could finally relax and try to learn Criminal Law, instead of worrying they would be called on in class.

Will stood in front of the couches where Amanda, Sean, Abrams, and Jack sat. They moved the coffee table to the side to allow Will the space to pace back and forth as he taught the subject of the night – Strict Liability.

“Not all crimes require bad intent. The threshold of culpability required may be reduced. It might be sufficient to show that a defendant acted negligently, rather than intentionally or recklessly. Most strict liability offenses are created by statute, and often they are the result of ambiguous drafting,” Will proclaimed with confidence.

Will gave a brief overview of Strict Liability, and then started quizzing the group on what he just covered. The answers came easy and the group seemed to have a great understanding of the topic.

“Now, let’s discuss the case law involved.” Will ran through the ten most relevant cases.

He again quizzed the group, and they again did well. They were ready for anything Kirshner would throw at them.

Chapter 31

Glass beer mugs slammed together as the group cheered at Lucky’s Bar; their two mid-terms were over. While Kirshner’s exam proved to be difficult, they all knew they did well – Amanda and Jack were especially confident in their scores.

The group went over all the issues they each had spotted in Kirshner’s ridiculously long hypothetical question. They laughed and did Jell-O shots for hours. For the first time since they had started law school, they felt like they could actually be lawyers someday.

As the bar began to fill up with its nightly customers getting off from work, the group realized it was time to stop celebrating and get back home. They had spent the last few weeks focusing exclusively on their Legal Writing and Criminal Law exams – they had a lot of making up to do in Property and Torts.

They quickly paid their tab and got into Jack’s Escalade. Even though Jack drank just as much as everyone else, he had a very high tolerance for alcohol. He felt he was okay to drive the short distance back to the dorms.

Abrams fell asleep on Sean’s couch for an hour only to be woken by his wife’s phone call wondering where he was. Abrams stumbled out to his car and drove away, smacking himself in the face a few times to try and sober himself up. He chewed on pieces of gum to help take the alcohol off his breath. He skidded off the round as his head bobbed around, doing his best to focus his eyes onto the road, but he could not keep them open. His car went completely onto the shoulder and into the grass along the road. He felt rocks and dirt under his tires and quickly awoke to see a utility pole right in front of him. He turned the wheel with all his might, just missing a tree. Abrams laughed; he loved the thrill of nearly running into a tree.

C
hapter 32

Two days later, Will rushed to get to Kirshner’s class on time after he had left his textbook in his dorm room and knew that he needed it for class. Even though they just had a test, Will knew that Kirshner would not give them any breaks if not prepared for class.

Will slipped in right before Kirshner walked into the classroom – he was safe. Kirshner had an annoying smug look on his face as he stood in front of the class just to the right of the podium. “I have begun grading your examinations,” he shouted.

“I am not impressed so far. Even worse, we have some cheaters among us.”

The students remained silent. A few looked around the room wondering who had the guts to cheat on a law school exam – especially a Kirshner exam. Before they began class, each law student had to attend an orientation that spent a lot of time discussing the honor code. The Law School Honor Code was similar to the state Code of Ethics that each attorney had to abide by. A violation in the honor code would most certainly result in the end of a law career – especially a violation as serious as cheating on an exam.

Their class flew by at rapid speed, and none of the group were picked on, ridiculed, or made fun of – it was a good day. Immediately after class, they all walked to the student lounge to check their mailboxes. Each law student had a mailbox where the teachers, clubs and other school organizations could communicate with the students.

They crashed onto the couches and watched the news in amazement. They caught the tail end of a Fox News update on the search for the Miami Mangler, the serial killer who continued to evade the police. But what really caught everyone’s attention in the room was the story about a possible cure for cancer. Apparently, a natural cure for cancer was found using part of a flower that could only be found in the Amazon jungle, called the Dalius flower.

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Abrams mumbled.

“Does sound a little crazy to me, too,” Will chimed in.

Amanda walked away from the television to check her mailbox. There was a small, white envelope in her box with no writing on it. She opened the envelope up and fell onto the chair next to the mailboxes.

“Amanda, are you okay?” Will asked, walking toward her.

“Check your box,” she anxiously mumbled.

Will checked his box and he had the same small, plain white envelope in it. “Guys, get over here and check your mailboxes,” Will yelled.

Abrams, Jack and Sean all had the same small, white envelope in their mailboxes. Sean quickly looked through the other students’ mailboxes, but they were the only ones that had the envelopes.

“Holy shit!” Sean uttered.

C
hapter 33

“
My office at 11:30 to discuss your exam. Prof. Isaiah Kirshner,
” Amanda’s note read.

Each of them had the same note with different times, fifteen minutes apart. It appeared that Kirshner was going to question them one at a time, like a police detective. Unfortunately for Amanda, she was first and had only two minutes to get to his office for Kirshner interrogations.

“Does he really think we cheated?” Sean asked.

“What do you think? We are the only ones with these stupid appointment notes,” Abrams quickly responded.

“I have to go right now. What are we going to do?” Amanda said.

“There is nothing to worry about. Let’s see what he has to say, and we will all deal with it together,” Will said, holding her hand.

Amanda ran down the hallway to Kirshner’s office. The door was wide open, but Kirshner was not in the office. Amanda did not know if she should wait outside, or have a seat in his office. She decided to sit in his office.

She looked around; it was surprisingly nicely decorated with books on Criminal Law and police investigation. The door slammed shut behind her as Kirshner flew into the room, walking past her without saying a word. He dropped into the chair and looked at Amanda.