The Probability of Murder (32 page)

“Got my first break from falling out of my tree house at nine,” he told me as I stuffed pillows behind his back. “After that, it was from football, snowboarding, and skiing.”

“And now this,” I said. “Your mother must be very proud.”

Uh-oh. Cranky Sophie. But Kevin didn’t seem to notice.

“She’s so glad you can keep me here tonight. Thanks a lot,” he said.

I gave him a smile to make up for my mood, and moved essential items—water, cell phone, tissues, and a pocket-size crossword puzzle book for good measure—close to the edge of the coffee table for easy access.

Bruce was my next patient. Though not on my five-year watch, Bruce had had his share of breaks also and managed the transition from chair to bed with apparent ease.

“Put me near the window, give me a pair of binoculars, and I can be Jimmy Stewart, huh?” Bruce noted.
Rear Window
, his first movie reference since the accident. A hopeful sign that his mental powers were not diminished.

I wanted desperately to have a long conversation with my boyfriend. Instead of wanting to listen to his adventures along with a host of other people, I felt a strong, selfish need to tell him what I’d been going through and to ask what his plans were for the future. That is, was he willing to commit to a moratorium on recreational activities that invited tragedy?

A helicopter trip and a party, plus another hit of meds, had taken their toll, however, and I could tell the laid-up Bruce was ready to call it a day.

Almost in dreamland, he grasped my hand. “I’m so sorry to do this to you, Sophie.” For a minute, I thought this was an intro to a break-up movie, but his follow-up “I love you” put that thought to rest.

“I’m glad you’re home,” I said, which was infinitely true.

“I want to hear about the case. I know it’s been hard for you. Tell me all the details. Is everything wrapped up?”

The next minute, he was sound asleep.

I had to struggle not to shake him awake and have it out with him. “You could have died,” I’d have said. “Your friend Eduardo, the father of a small child, will probably never be the same. Why do you do this? It’s not a hobby, it’s a death wish. When you’re healed, are you going to climb back up there?” I knew the answer to that one: “No, I need a bigger challenge,” but I wanted to hear it, so I could properly scream my response.

I’d been through no physical trauma, but my own tension and foul mood made it impossible to do anything useful. I cursed my inability to focus on the outstanding, lucky outcome that Bruce was alive and with no permanent disability. Wasn’t that all that I’d wanted from the moment I’d learned about the storm?

Was I never satisfied?

I worked out some tension by polishing off an anacrostic that was someone’s idea of “difficult,” then getting to work on cleaning up the kitchen.

My mother had been in a wheelchair at the end, and I fell back on what had worked for her. I rearranged furniture to make wider pathways. In the linen closet I found the full body pillow she’d used, and in the garage I located the special table that slid over her bed.

I reordered the refrigerator with drinks and food on waist-high shelves and dug out the picnic cooler to use for my patients’ lunches. I made a list of snacks and supplies I’d pick up on the way home from campus tomorrow.

Finally I was tired enough and headed for my own bed, hoping I’d wake up in better spirits.

If anyone had asked Kevin, he’d have said the mood at breakfast was just fine. Excellent coffee, which Bruce managed to make in spite of his handicap, while, thanks to Ariana’s foresight and generosity, I prepared fresh orange juice, bacon, and pancakes. A side of two scrambled eggs for Kevin and a bowl of fruit for Bruce. What was not to like?

But, polite and sweet as we were with each other this morning, the air between Bruce and me was heavy with an agenda that needed to be addressed sooner or later.

Now, however, I had to get to campus. I’d printed out cards with doctors’ numbers and the contacts for physical therapy, which both men would need. They promised to make calls and set up a schedule.

I made one last check that food, water, and videos were in easy reach and gave one last sermon about taking it easy. I reminded the men, who seemed clueless about their vulnerabilities, of the doctors’ advice.

“Even if you feel fine and think you can move without
assistance, do not abandon your chairs and crutches,” I lectured.

Both men saluted.

What was a caregiver to do?

I was out the door for a normal, anticlimactic Tuesday, with classes and meetings.

I could hardly wait.

I started the school day in the mailroom in the basement of Admin. With a few chairs, a bulletin board, and a minimalist décor, the mailroom was the campus version of a corporate office water cooler. Besides a large wooden matrix of mail slots, the room housed two copy machines that supplemented equipment found in each department office.

Faculty and staff gathered to gossip, relive a ball game, trash a movie or a school policy, critique an outfit or a book. Rarely was there news like the last couple of days, however. First, the murder of one of our own in the Emily Dickinson Library, and now—in case you missed it—Martin Melrose had been seen walking out of Admin in the company of two police detectives yesterday.

I suspected that Marty’s secretary, Mysti, had spread the word. Archie and his companion really weren’t obviously cops, and I doubted they’d led Marty out in handcuffs.

I stayed only long enough to gather my mail and check the bulletin board to see if there was anything I needed to know immediately. There wasn’t.

In the few minutes I spent there, I couldn’t avoid the scuttlebutt.

“I’m surprised there’s no notice of a memorial service for Charlotte Crocker,” an art instructor observed.

“I’m not,” said Henley’s Shakespeare scholar. “How can you eulogize a fugitive from justice? It’s repulsive.”

“People shouldn’t play the lottery anyway. It’s a waste of money,” from an unknown adjunct.

“Not necessarily,” from, I assumed, a lottery player.

I wanted to defend Charlotte, to clear up the technicality that she had served her time and had not been, strictly speaking, a fugitive.

Instead, I picked up my mail, left the building, and walked back to Benjamin Franklin Hall.

It was an unseasonably warm day, and I took my time, sifting through the mail as I strolled. With twenty minutes to go before my Tuesday-Thursday differential equations class, I brushed leaves from a bench by the center fountain and took a seat. I mentally wrote
save
on a new catalog from a textbook publisher and
toss
on an ad with a form to order Thanksgiving flower arrangements for my friends and family.

With Bruce likely still to be disabled on Thanksgiving weekend, I doubted we’d be making the trip to his cousins’ home in Connecticut. Maybe I should think about sending an arrangement. I moved the flower ad to the mental
save
pile.

Among the notices to remit my annual dues to a professional mathematics society and to a teachers’ organization was a personal letter from Reverend and Mrs. Calvin Derbin of East Fullertown, Nebraska.

I should have expected the periodic missive from Chelsea’s parents. Certainly Chelsea had told them about Charlotte’s murder, and I guessed this was a plea to help keep their daughter safe.

I opened the classic cream-colored envelope and read the careful handwriting, dated last Friday. After expressing words of gratitude for all I’d done for their “cherished only daughter, Chelsea Ann,” they wanted to assure me of their prayers for her mentor and my friend, Ms. Charlotte Crocker. Details followed of how they’d reacted when Chelsea had broken the news: “…this morning, she told us of the horrible death of Ms. Charlotte Crocker.” I figured Chelsea wanted to put her own spin on the campus crime, in case the news got to East Fullertown over the tabloid wires.

The Derbins closed with their usual good wishes for health for me and my loved ones.

Not this week, I thought, as I folded the note and stuffed it in the stack.

Chelsea was present and accounted for in the front row of my differential equations classroom, having made peace, I hoped, with the fact that she might never see Daryl again. In spite of the pleasant, sunny day, she was wrapped in a thick, oversize sweater that left very little skin showing. She looked pale, as she had all month.

At nine o’clock in the morning, she would already have had her morning phone conversation with her parents. Watching her pull her DE textbook out of her backpack, I flashed back to the letter her parents had sent me. Something didn’t add up. Mrs. Derbin had mentioned Chelsea’s telling her of Charlotte’s murder last Friday morning. But Charlotte’s body had remained undiscovered until Hannah found her on Friday afternoon at four.

How did Chelsea know Charlotte had been murdered a full eight hours before anyone else did? Unless she was Charlotte’s killer.

Impossible.

Mrs. Derbin must have been careless with the time. But I knew better. The daily phone conversation was an eight o’clock EST, seven o’clock CST ritual, and Mrs. Derbin was anything but a sloppy timekeeper.

It occurred to me that I’d read the letter hastily while acknowledging greetings from students passing by and thinking of the problem sets due today in DE. I’d go back and read it again and put this ridiculous notion to rest.

I glanced again at Chelsea, whose head was on the arm of the student chair. She wasn’t the only one resting, a common practice before our nine o’clock class.

Even before I called the class to order, I’d mostly talked myself out of the conclusion that had crept up on me. People made mistakes all the time writing notes, rounding off numbers and time lengths.

And what possible motive would Chelsea have? Surely Charlotte’s unwillingness to give Chelsea career advice wouldn’t spur her on to murder.

Was Chelsea Derbin even strong enough to overcome an adult as tall and fit as Charlotte Crocker? Lately the frail-looking sophomore had been ill so often, she could hardly keep herself upright.

Soon enough I’d get another shot at studying the letter.

For now, I needed to conduct a class without looking at the students in the front row.

I opened my notes and began. “Let’s suppose Newton, Leibniz, and the Bernoulli brothers were arguing about who had invented differential equations.”

Who said mathematicians had no sense of fancy?

As soon as I was back in my office, I pulled the Derbins’ letter out of the stack on my desk and reread the offending sentence.

There was no question; the news had traveled during the Derbins’ regular morning call on Friday, the day Charlotte’s body was found. The time difference between Henley and East Fullertown was one hour. Even if Chelsea had made a special call to her parents as soon as we all knew Charlotte had been killed, that still put the time at about four in the afternoon in Nebraska. Not the morning.

I’d have to give this idea time to settle, think about what else might support it or not, maybe run it by Bruce and Ariana, then talk to Virgil. I didn’t want to stir things up needlessly, but it was possible the nationwide police search for Daryl Farmer should be called off.

I packed up and made my way down the Franklin hallway, empty now as the ten o’clock classes were in session. I didn’t have office hours until one thirty, and I’d planned to do some shopping in between. I called home as I walked.

“Hey, are you awake?”

“Uh-huh. Are you?” Bruce asked.

“I just taught a class.”

“Is that a yes?”

I was glad the meds hadn’t dulled his wit.

“I’m going to do some errands and make a grocery run. Is there anything special you want?”

“Kevin’s mom called and took our order. She’ll be here later with a load of stuff. I think we’re set.”

“Okay, I—”

Thump.

I was knocked into the wall, my briefcase falling to the floor, along with my purse. I managed to stay nearly upright, surprised more than injured.

“Sorry, Dr. Knowles. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Chelsea, all one hundred pounds of her, had rammed into me.

We bent down together to retrieve my bags. Once I had everything repositioned and closed off with Bruce, I saw how stressed Chelsea was, and not simply from having bumped into me. Her eyes had a frightened look, and her voice was close to a screech.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked her.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said.

My imagination was working overtime as I became convinced that Chelsea was aware that she’d blown it in her phone call to East Fullertown on Friday morning. As I played it back in my head, her “sorry” sounded more like a threat than an apology.

Her distracted, almost drugged state frightened me, and I was glad when biology professor Judith Donohue and three of her students entered the building at our end and engaged us in conversation about the new display case items.