The Square Root of Murder (18 page)

“—and you didn’t think to call the cops?”

“Nothing was taken except those boxes and some usable discards. What was I going to tell the police?”

“I see your point. You had stolen goods in your possession.”

“I wouldn’t say stolen exactly.”

I hated being grilled by Bruce. His crisp white T-shirt seemed to blind me as he threw questions and accusations at me. The fact that he had my own well-being in mind should have mattered more than it did.

Bruce had left his seat by now. I looked at his omelet and imagined I could see its molecules turn to a cold gel on his plate as he paced around the table. My own omelet was untouched.

“Sophie, I want you to promise me you’ll cool it on this . . . this investigating.”

“What investigating? I’ve barely talked to anyone but Rachel and the police.”

“Who saw you take Appleton’s things?”

“Just Woody knows about it, I think. A few of the girls saw the boxes but they had no way of knowing what was in them. And I suppose anyone could have been looking out a window and seen me, but I could have been cleaning out my own office for all anyone would guess. It was broad daylight, but it’s not as if the boxes had Keith’s name written on them.”

Bruce sat back down and pushed food around his plate. His thick, dark eyebrows were pinched in concentration. He took a long pull of his juice. From his look and his body language, if I didn’t know it was OJ, I’d have sworn he was swigging down a stiff drink.

“That’s it,” he said, setting the glass on the table with a purposeful thud. “I’m moving in until this is over.”

“How romantic.”

Bruce smiled. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, thanks.”

“Do you want me to cut out of my shift tonight?”

Bruce had one more shift, from nine tonight to nine tomorrow morning, and then he’d be off for seven days. I could certainly keep myself safe for twenty-four hours.

“No, I’ll be fine. Just call me often.”

“Deal.”

I looked at my breakfast. Even the apple slices had gone brown.

We clicked mugs and picked from the plate of scones, the only still appetizing part of the menu.

It came to me that I’d imposed a deadline on myself when I called for meetings with Pam, Liz, and Casey. Though my real reason for wanting to talk to them had to do with what Bruce might erroneously have called “investigating,” I needed to have a proposal for an acceptable ending to the summer statistics class by eleven o’clock this morning.

Bruce moved into the living room and picked up the Sunday newspaper, a break from our routine. He usually left for his home across town right after breakfast, did errands or puttered in his workshop for a while, and then took a short or long nap, depending on how busy he’d been all night. Since last night had been extra stressful, I’d expected him to be on his way to a Big Sleep. Like the movie, he’d have said.

I kissed his scruffy cheek as I walked by his chair.

“Gotta go prep for my student conference,” I said. I was glad he couldn’t see my face, which would have outed the half-truth.

I sat in the comfy leather chair in my office. The only window looked out on a large maple that was as old as the Henley hills. I swiveled toward my west-facing side yard, shadowy now before noon. There was no reason that a tree should remind me of Keith, but everything seemed to have that effect on me this weekend. I thought of the kind words both Woody and Elteen had for him, neither one of them obliged, as the dean was, for example, to sing his praises. There was no question, he’d been a large and powerful presence on campus and the hole he left would be obvious only when the fall semester began without him.

I turned from the window. Work beckoned.

I picked up my copy of the text, an intro to the practical uses of statistics. I wanted to have a list of potential topics to suggest to an uncreative student. I made a quick list: health and nutrition data, such as cholesterol levels; designing samples for studies of all kinds; testing the significance of survey results.

All fascinating to me.

I opened the “Applied Statistics” folder on my hard drive, and clicked on the file, “Roster.” The names of twelve students, all of whom were science majors entering junior year in the fall, popped up on a spreadsheet. The three who yesterday had achieved special status as persons of interest in a murder investigation were chemistry majors taking an extra math class as an elective.

I added a comments column where I could write notes on each student according to her current grade and how I saw her finishing the class.

I made some quick decisions. For the students getting an A so far, I’d ask for a short paper, due in two weeks, on a topic of their choice. Three students, including Pam, fell into this category. I jotted down some useful references and more detailed topic ideas to get them started. I hoped one of them would work on kinetic theory, since there were such beautiful equations involved. For the six B students—Liz was in this group—I’d ask for a longer paper. For Casey and two other students with C or lower, I’d require a paper plus an oral exam with me some time in the next two weeks.

I’d present this plan to the students by individual emails, except for the Big Three who would hear it in person soon. All was negotiable, to a point.

As I rushed off to my bedroom to get dressed for my consultations, I noticed Bruce, legs over the arms of the easy chair, working the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Another great deviation from the norm.

I walked over to him. “What’s this?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s sort of relaxing.”

No “I told you so” left my lips.

No question, the world had shifted since the death of Keith Appleton.

 

 

Briefcase in hand, I went to tell Bruce I was leaving. The living room chair was empty except for a neatly put back together newspaper. Curious. No see-you-later kiss or “Hi, honey, I’m leaving.”

It all became clear when I entered the garage, with its door already rolled up. Bruce was belted into my smokestone Fusion.

I dumped my briefcase in the back and climbed into the driver’s seat, turning to face my passenger. “I didn’t realize you were actually moving in
now
. Into my car, too?”

“I’ve always wanted to see that new library on campus. It’s a good day for a tour.”

“You should be home sleeping. Weren’t you up all night? And besides, I don’t need a babysitter.” And three more reasons I couldn’t quite think of why Bruce should not be accompanying me to the library.

“I can nap in the library.”

“I thought you wanted a tour of it.”

“That, too.”

“I have to go over class work with three different students, separately.” Never mind the “what’s your alibi for Friday afternoon” part. “It could take a couple of hours and there’s nothing for you to do there. The library isn’t exactly conducive to napping.”

“I can read.”

“They don’t subscribe to
Air & Space
magazine.”

“Why not?”

Sensing a losing battle and running out of time to argue, I grunted at my droopy-eyed boyfriend and started the car.

 

 

I parked in the vicinity of my usual spot near the tennis courts, avoiding the exact slot that was the site of yesterday’s box-loading episode. Bruce had his briefcase with him also. As a cover? Or was he sneaking in more word puzzles? Maybe I could enlist him to help me with my crossword deadline.

We entered the main reading room of the library, nicely appointed with a decent shade of beige carpeting and floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the imposing academic buildings and brilliant green lawns. Most of the chairs were big enough for a family of four—or for one student, a backpack, and a laptop.

Bruce took a seat in the corner with the best view of the campus. I wondered if he was using his USAF surveillance training, or just liked looking at the landscape. I noticed he’d brought his own copies of
Air & Space
and a couple of other flying periodicals. His puzzle phase might be over already.

My three students were waiting at the other end of the room, where there were groupings of chairs and small tables, suitable for study dates. I tried to think of this morning’s meetings as a series of three study dates.

After brief greetings, Pam got us started. “We were thinking we could all go in together,” she said. “It would save you time.”

I laughed. “What are you? Trial lawyers in disguise?”

“It’s just that we’re nervous,” Liz said.

“She means about our grades,” Pam said, with her now famous reproachful glance at her friends.

“Me, too,” Casey said, by way of nothing.

I was not in the mood for more arguing. My breakfast of coffee and a few crumbs of scone, meager as it was, did not sit well.

I looked each one in the eyes. “Here’s the plan. I’m going to take you one by one in that corner”—I pointed to the farthest set of table and chairs—“and the other two will wait here. Is that clear?”

“Okay, then.” Pam said. “Go ahead, Casey. You’ll be fine.”

What? She never quit. Didn’t they all know I had a cushy side job that honed my skills as a strategist every day? Last year I had a perfect score on the Mensa quiz-a-day site. I could certainly outmaneuver three nineteen- or twenty-year-olds.

Pam was the leader here, and she recognized that Casey was the weak link. She wanted to play cleanup. I knew what I had to do—start with Pam and let the weak link stew for a little longer. I mentally rubbed my hands together: Then she’d be mine.

I looked at the three girls, lined up abreast, waiting for my next words. Had they deliberately all worn something pink today, to look soft and innocent? Pam had pink sandals with enough plastic daisies to look like she was standing in her own private flower patch; Liz and Casey, both blondes, wore pink tank tops in different shades and different placements of lacy trim. With my pale green sundress and dark hair, I felt I was in a stand-up life-size chess game where pink had three times more pieces than green.

I’d had these students in class every semester since they began at Henley. I’d taught them two semesters of calculus and special topics that fit them as chemistry majors. They were the types to hang around teachers, often volunteering as party cleanup crew, so I knew them better than I did most of my students. Was I seriously thinking that one or all of them was involved in a monstrous deed?

Don’t be fooled by the pastels
, I told myself.

 

 

“First, Dr. Knowles, I want you to know that Liz and Casey and me, we’re one hundred percent eager to cooperate,” Pam started out. She sat up straight, primly, hands folded on the table, in the chair opposite mine. It might have been a job interview, with Pam as the one doing the hiring.

I pulled out my roster and slid the sheet onto the table between us. “Let’s start with your status in the applied statistics class,” I said, smiling. A pleasant countenance, but not an overly happy face, was my goal. Me teacher, you student.

Pam’s shoulders slumped, her long light brown hair falling across her cheeks. It didn’t take much for poor posture to take over with the backpacker crowd. “I think . . . I hope I’m doing good.”

“You’re doing very well,” I said. “You have an A so far. As you know, the administration has asked us all to make arrangements for ending the summer courses without holding any more formal classes.”

Pam nodded, definitely more deferential, following my lead. “Uh-huh.”

I explained my plan to Pam—that if she would submit a five-page paper, instead of the two-page reference report listed on the original syllabus, on a mutually acceptable topic, the exam would be waived. She did, after all, now have a week free of classes. Was that agreeable to her?

“Totally,” she said, waving her hands to dismiss all doubt. “I’m thinking of switching my major to biostatistics and I already have a start on a paper.”

This was news. My gut feeling said that students would be going in the other direction after Friday. I figured that those who were on the fence and afraid of the Entirely Too Demanding, Legendary Dr. Appleton would now be flocking to chemistry, not away from it.

“You’re switching to the new interdisciplinary major?”

Here was another area where Keith and Dean Underwood were in agreement.

“I don’t like hyphenated names for classes, let alone major fields of study,” she’d said.

“Interdisciplinary is another word for watered down,” he’d said.

Keith and the dean had been outvoted by the new, hyphenated, watered down generation.

Pam nodded vigorously. “I’m going to talk to my adviser this week. I have enough bio credits to make the switch, and I love that there’s more math in the new program.”

The way to my heart.

“Have you already come up with a topic that fits your new direction?”

“I started my report on it and I can easily expand the table of contents and flesh it out. Eventually I want to work on a human genome project, so I’d like to do a paper on statistical genetics.”

Impressive. I looked ahead a few years and saw Pam one day running a research institute or managing data analysis at a pharmaceutical company.

“Okay, then. Have it to me two weeks from tomorrow.”

“Done,” she said, and placed her hands to lift herself from her seat and be off.

“No obligation, of course, but if you have another minute, I’d like to go over a different matter with you.”

Pam let out a heavy sigh. “Sure.”

Where was the one hundred percent eager to cooperate attitude?

I lowered my voice though the reading room was nearly empty. “Remember yesterday when I asked your whereabouts on Friday afternoon, say, between noon and four o’clock?”