The Probability of Murder (16 page)

Zeke was happy to explain things. “You use an untraceable cell phone, with a preprogrammed number. You call the number and that switches the device they planted on, remotely.”

“And some people laugh at remote sensing,” said Ariana, who, on alternate days, was a devotee of all things paranormal.

“Yeah, you got it. Remote sensing is the thing these days,” Zeke said.

Virgil and I looked at each other, not sure if either New Age Ariana or futuristic Zeke realized they were operating on two different planes with two different meanings of the word
remote
.

Zeke picked up a handheld device about the size of a Swiss Army knife, with a ring of red lights at one end. “This little goodie? It’s a scanner that can find hidden cameras.”

“Did you use that here?” I asked. I’d never thought there might be a hidden camera in my house. We’d gone from bad to worse. I pushed each hand into the opposite sleeve. Hiding. Protecting myself.

“Yeah, I used it just now. I like to cover all bases,” Zeke said. “You never know who you’re dealing with. Amateurs? Pros? You have to be ready for anything.” He cradled the camera with a look that was close to affection. “The nice thing about this baby? You can find a camera whether it’s on or off, since it’s an optical device. It’s looking for a reflection from a lens. It used to be for government use only, but for the last couple of years it’s been available to the general public.”

What was happening when the general public would have a need for such a device? I didn’t voice my pessimism about the state of the world out loud.

“I guess we’re done here,” Virgil said, carrying his mug to the sink.

“We are done,” Zeke said. “If you have any questions, ladies, give me a buzz. Virge has my numbers.”

“Thanks” didn’t seem to cover it, for both Virgil and Zeke. I hope they caught how grateful I was.

“No problem,” Zeke said. “Have a good weekend.”

We all smiled.

Unlike me, Ariana fell asleep easily, even after our overly eventful evening. We made up the guest room with linens fresh out of the dryer. When I stopped in a few minutes later to ask what time she needed to be up, she’d already left for her own private dreamland.

I envied her. I was a bad sleeper, unable to let go until there was absolutely nothing left for me to think about. Unfortunately, tonight there was a long, distracting list of things on my mind, and nothing as entertaining as the last clue in a puzzle that was due to one of my magazine editors.

I looked out the window near the front door several times at the unmarked beige sedan that was my supplemental security for the night.

Once Ariana and I ran out, taking the bug to the officers, their cover was blown, they informed us. As if the
most boring car on the street, with a man and a woman in the front seat with a box of donuts, hardly talking, didn’t give it away in the first place. I added to the obviousness of the setup by taking them coffee and snacks a couple of times. If a burglar was lurking about my house, it was just as well he knew he wouldn’t have an easy job of it.

I changed into my oldest sweats and a robe and settled in my den to read a few chapters of the new biography of abstract algebra pioneer Emmy Noether. The equations were too interesting to work as a sleep-inducer. I had the same results with twisting the pieces of metal that made up a puzzle my eager friend Paula Rogers had given me for “no special occasion.” Working the puzzle reminded me that sooner or later I’d have to either bite the bullet and give her a chance as a friend, or gently tell her I was booked for the rest of my life.

I went to my computer and found myself sitting in an office that was cleaner than it had been since I moved in to take care of my ailing mother six years ago. My home page came up with links to the
New York Times
, local and national weather, my calendar, a list of movies opening this week, and a riddle of the day.

The riddle, one in a series that grew in difficulty through the week, was easy since it was now Sunday:

A cowboy rides into town on Friday and leaves three days later on Friday. How is this possible?

“His horse’s name is Friday,” I said to the empty room, wishing Bruce were here to appreciate it.

One thing on my newest to-do list was to fill out that stolen property report. I entered the URL from the form Virgil gave me and filled in the basics: name, address, approximate time of break-in. When it came to writing down what had been taken, I nearly backed out of the task again. Did I really want to reveal what kind of feminine products I used? Or make a claim for an old pair of white crew socks? My travel toothbrush and my pocket sewing kit? The clock on my computer jogged my memory about an item that was less frivolous—I’d left my travel alarm
clock in the duffel, a too-pricey accessory that Bruce had given me with an inscription about traveling together. It was high-end for its kind, but not as valuable as, say, a diamond ring, which I could never see myself wearing.

I moved on to my email, a low-key activity that might bore me to sleep.

I ran through notes from students asking for extensions on next week’s statistics problem sets or wondering how many pages their research papers had to be. “Long enough to cover the topic” never worked as a response. I’d finally learned to give them a word count for the paper. With the advent of computers, if I asked for ten pages, I was likely to get a manuscript with three-inch margins and a fourteen-point font from some, and single-spaced in a tiny font from others, depending on how much content they had to begin with.

Hannah Stephens, Charlotte’s assistant and the student who’d discovered her body, wrote again to ask to talk to me. I decided there was no reason to punish Hannah for the sins of her boss and agreed to meet her sometime on Sunday. I figured she wasn’t sitting at her computer at one o’clock on Sunday morning and expected the date wouldn’t be confirmed until a more reasonable hour in the day.

I had emails from fellow teachers with agenda items for the next faculty meeting. Who was going to take charge of the evaluation of our first year as a coed institution? Fran Emerson wanted to know how much money I thought our department could afford to contribute to the recruiting effort for the incoming class. It was a trick question. As past Mathematics Department chairwoman, she had a good idea of our budget and a strong opinion on how much we should offer.

“Nothing, unless they agree to put in photographs of our students, and not just the arts majors,” she’d advised.

The English Department chairman, now president of the Faculty Senate, was looking for volunteers to replace him. Two members of the History Department faculty wanted to revisit the question of required humanities
courses. My two cents on that topic: We should consider requiring everyone to take at least introductory calculus. I wrote a response about how little science and math our arts students graduated with, as opposed to how many arts courses my majors needed. I ended up deleting without sending. A good move.

Too many of the emails were variations of
What are we doing for a memorial for our dear Charlotte Crocker?

I remembered that I was supposed to be working on Charlotte’s service, but I had no heart for it. At this point, I was the last one who should give a eulogy. I had no idea if other faculty knew of Charlotte’s past, but I had a strong feeling that Martin Melrose was aware of it. Maybe I was the last to know.

What else could I do to lull myself to sleep? Shopping might work. Both paper and online catalogs had been pouring in since Labor Day with reminders of how few shopping days were left till Christmas. I’d already ordered a beautiful framed print of Stonehenge for Ariana, which I knew she’d love, but I hadn’t done much else. I browsed through sites with food and candy and chose a couple of baskets for college friends with whom I still kept in touch. It was nice to do something practical.

The satisfied feeling didn’t last long.

Geerogherr. Geerogherr. Geerogherr.

A noise invaded my space.

A car noise that I’d learned to recognize as brakes grinding to a halt, right outside my house. Followed by car doors closing. One car? Two?

I checked the time on my computer screen. One twenty
AM
. This wasn’t the first time I’d been working here at this hour, nor the first time I’d heard late-night car noises on my street, especially on the weekend. But now my insides pinged and my ears perked up. Despite Virgil’s assurances to the contrary, my first thought was that the intruders had come back for me.

I went to the front window and cracked the blinds slightly.

The two uniformed officers were standing on the sidewalk addressing two people. From their stances, I could tell no guns were drawn. Okay, so far. I hoped that in their zeal to protect me, the cops weren’t harassing my neighbors.

I opened the blinds farther and recognized the visitors. Daryl Farmer, with his hand on his hip, his blond hair catching the rays from the officers’ flashlights, and Chelsea Derbin, wrapped to her chin in fleece, as usual these days. What were they doing here? A strange way to end a date.

I shrugged off my robe, grabbed a corduroy jacket from the coat closet, and threw it over my sweatshirt. Without a further thought, I went out to join the group.

As soon as my motion sensor light switched on, three feet from my front door, one of the officers, a young woman, hustled up the driveway to meet me.

“It’s okay. They’re my students,” I said.

“We haven’t determined their business,” she said, putting her thick body between me and the new arrivals. “Please go back inside, Dr. Knowles.”

“But—”

The next “Please, Dr. Knowles” was accompanied by a gentle but unmistakable shove toward my front door.

I recognized she had a job to do. I complied by returning to my hallway window. I raised the blinds all the way. Surely that was allowed.

The two officers and my two students engaged in conversation for another ten minutes, during which one of the officers took notes.

As soon as Daryl and Chelsea were allowed to leave, I called the number I had for the unmarked police car.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“No worries, Dr. Knowles,” said a female voice. “Apparently a couple of your students heard about the break-in yesterday and wanted to be sure you were okay. Typical, huh? Don’t they ever sleep, these college students?”

“Did you by any chance ask them if they were here earlier, right after the break-in?”

“Uh, no, we didn’t.”

I guessed I’d have made a better detective than either of my uniformed, armed protectors.

Back in my office, I tried to work on a new puzzle to send to one of my monthly magazines. Maybe I could get ahead of a deadline for once.

That was one failed plan.

Next I logged on to a library site to research a section of a paper I was preparing for submission to a statistics journal. That didn’t work, either.

I found myself distracted by the appearance of Daryl and Chelsea at my home, twice, on both the day and the night of the break-in. Of the two, Chelsea was the weaker link. She’d grown up in Nebraska, the daughter of the pastor in a town with a population accommodated by four digits.

I’d met Chelsea’s parents during her freshman orientation.

“Don’t be surprised if they start writing you notes, asking you to look after me,” Chelsea had said, and she’d been right.

It always took clever strategizing to get the parents of the incoming class to leave their darlings to the care of the college, but Reverend and Mrs. Derbin had gone beyond clinging. They’d talked their way into events specifically marked “for students only” on the program. They’d insisted on sitting with their only daughter instead of on the designated parents’ side of the gym for President Aldridge’s official welcome. From comments they made about Chelsea’s roommate that year, I was sure they’d had her fully vetted.

Chelsea had seemed embarrassed then, but docile. Someone who was easy to take advantage of.

Which I was about to do.

I dialed Chelsea’s number from my call log. I hardly gave a thought to what I might be interrupting.

“Hey, Dr. Knowles.”

“Am I catching you at a bad time, Chelsea?”

“No, I just got in.”

“Daryl dropped you off?”

“Uh, yes.”

“I’m curious about what you and Daryl were doing at my home, let’s see, what was it? About a half hour ago?”

“Oh, well, uh, we heard about the break-in and we wanted to see if everything was okay.”

“You were planning to knock on my door and ask me?”

“Yes. No.” A breath. “I don’t know. I’m sorry if we bothered you.”

I could hear the growing tightness in Chelsea’s voice and felt slightly guilty at how pleased I was that my strong-arm technique was working.

“No bother, Chelsea. I was just curious.”

“Oh, okay.”

Feel her relax, then move in again.

“What were you doing in the crowd earlier in the evening, when the break-in happened?”

A small gasp, followed by a throat clearing. I waited.

“Earlier?” she finally asked.

“Yes, when the emergency vehicles were still here?”

“Oh, you mean earlier?”

“Yes, Chelsea, I mean earlier. Immediately after the break-in.”

I heard a heavy sigh. “Dr. Knowles, I should probably talk to you, like, in person.”

A breakthrough at last.

After making a date to meet Chelsea at the Mortarboard Café, the campus coffee shop, at noon, I returned to my computer, reenergized. Not necessarily a good thing when what I needed was a few hours sleep.

A new thought occurred to me. It was clear from the bag of cash and the “fraud” reported on Charlotte’s rap sheet that she’d been an expert in scamming people. I sensed that Virgil wasn’t about to clue me in on the particulars of Charlotte’s crimes, but I could certainly find out in general on my own what such scams might involve.

In other words, just how hard was it to be as sleazy as my friend?

Once again I thanked that defense agency crew who had invented the Internet. I hoped the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security weren’t watching and collecting data on my browser history, because I was about to learn all I could about scams.