The Square Root of Murder (19 page)

Pam rolled her eyes, involuntarily I was certain, and nodded. “Mmm hmm.”

“We never did finish that conversation.”

“We were at the party for Dr. Bartholomew, like everybody else, then we went to the dorm.”

“I’m asking where you were, not your friends.”

“Okay.
I
was at the party for Dr. Bartholomew, like everybody else, then
I
went to the dorm.”

Cute. “I thought there was some hesitation yesterday, or some details you’d left out. Inadvertently.”

“No, that’s about it. Remember the three of us helped you clean up after the party? Then we all left together around two?”

“The four of us didn’t exactly walk out arm in arm,” I said, with a chuckle.

“We may have gone to the restroom,” Pam said. “Me, that is.” Her tone said she intended to stick to her story and she was pretty much done with answering any more questions about it. While she didn’t ask for a lawyer, I sensed the idea had crossed her mind.

I foresaw the whole morning going this way, with Pam, Liz, and Casey alibiing each other.

On the tip of my tongue were a couple of niggling phrases that didn’t fit what Pam claimed. Without forceps to drag the words out in the open, I was at a stalemate.

I had no option but to send Pam off with a request to ask Liz to come into my den.

 

 

“We were at the party for Dr. Bartholomew, like everybody else, then we went to the dorm,” Liz said. Was that an echo? I deemed it useless to ask her to repeat the line using only herself as subject.

We’d already covered her topic for a significant paper to wrap up the applied statistics class. Liz had turned in her seat and was now in the “ready, set” stance, waiting for “go.”

“Liz, I’m sure you know that sometimes even a very small omission can mean a great deal in a murder investigation.”

“Are you investigating Dr. Appleton’s murder?”

I didn’t expect that blow. Pam must have stayed up all night prepping her girls.

“No, of course not,” I said, “but like every other teacher and student at Henley I’m concerned that his killer be found quickly, so we can all feel safe.”

Liz flinched. It was a cheesy shot to throw in the safety angle, but I was losing.

“Aren’t the police supposed to take care of that?” she asked, with a shaky voice.

I felt only a little guilty scaring her, but I knew I should quit.

I was officially exhausted from the deviousness of my pursuit and more glad than ever that I hadn’t gone into any aspect of law enforcement. I was ready to admit defeat. “You’re right, Liz. And you have no obligation to tell me anything.”

“So we’re through?”

Liz had regained her composure and came off as unflappable.

“We’re through. Why don’t you just get started on that paper? And please tell Casey I’ll need a few minutes before I go over her work with her.”

Liz shot out of our little corner.

How did detectives like Virgil and Archie do it? I couldn’t even break down cute little soon-to-be coeds. How difficult must it be to work with hardened criminals?

I stood up to stretch and guzzle a few ounces from my water bottle. I decided to treat myself and pay a visit to Bruce whom I’d left at the front of the library. I figured he’d been alone long enough and might need a little human interaction and a peck on the cheek.

Not necessary.

I approached the area and saw my boyfriend engaged in animated conversation with two women. Coeds? No, older than that.

The group of three, with their backs to me, made for an unusual tableau on a Sunday morning in the college library: Bruce Granville, medevac pilot; Gil Bartholomew, flight nurse; and Phyllis Underwood, academic dean.

Bruce and Gil had met the dean at holiday gatherings and celebrations, but hadn’t exchanged more than a few polite words with her.

Now the two emergency workers appeared to have found a willing audience for their exciting tales. I held back and tuned into the conversation.

From Gil: “Then there was the time we simulated a bus crash with thirty people on their way to a casino.”

From Dean Underwood: “Does someone think that could really happen?”

From Bruce: “Anything can happen.”

Oops, the dean never wanted to hear something like that. But I hadn’t been asked to edit.

From: Gil: “The idea is to practice our drills, get to know each other and how we operate, you know, just in case.”

From Bruce, who had read the dean correctly: “On the outside chance.”

From Gil: “We brought in twelve fire departments, three law enforcement agencies, an emergency communications agency”—she ticked off the list I’d heard more than once from Bruce—“the state office of emergency services, and the coroner’s office.”

From Bruce: “Plus hospitals and an air ambulance.”

From Dean Underwood: “My.”

Gil was the first to spot me. She waved me to a seat next to her. “Hey, Sophie, look who’s all here.”

I’d noticed. “Hey, Gil. Bruce.” I cleared my throat and all but bowed. “Dean Underwood.”

Bruce stood and took my arm, leading me to a seat. I was sure the dean would be impressed by his old-fashioned chivalry, and the way I seemed to accept it. I also knew that’s what Bruce had in mind.

“Hal has something to pick up or leave off or whatever in Franklin Hall, and Timmy’s with his grandmother,” Gil said, “so I thought I’d ride over and then get a lunch date out of it.”

“You’re off today?”

“Not supposed to be, but the schedule got crazy this week, with all hands on deck for the big drill and people switching here and there. Happens a lot.”

“The nurses have it a lot easier,” Bruce said.

Gil gave him a mock frown and pulled something from her purse. She handed me a sheet of paper. My word puzzle, completed. The one everyone else at the party had complained about and declared impossible.

“Terrific. You did it.” All it took was one positive response to cheer me, and Gil was often the one who gave it to me.

“It took me a little longer than usual, but I like that kind of challenge.”

Suddenly the dean stood, and everyone stood with her.

“Well, I must get to the reason I came by in the first place,” she said. She held up a stack of books and pointed to the returns desk.

I wouldn’t have thought the dean would be subject to the same circulation policy as the rest of us, but, hey, what did I know?

“Dean Underwood,” Bruce said, nodding. I was proud of my guy’s good manners.

I was ready to return to my interview corner, but the dean beckoned me to her side with one of her crooked fingers. “Sophie,” she said.

I gulped. Hearing the dean address me by my first name was, ironically, like hearing my mother use my full name, as in “Sophie Saint Germain Knowles,” followed by, “Stop that this instant.”

Bruce and Gil seemed be involved in a conversation of their own now. I heard phrases like rotor downwash, high payload, and something about a new litter, which I took to be not about puppies or kittens.

“Yes?” I croaked at the dean.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Pam, Liz, and Casey approaching. All I needed was for one of them to ask if I was through with my questioning them as part of a murder investigation.

“I’ll see you in my office immediately,” the dean said.

On a Sunday? Wait a minute. The dean might be able to make or break me careerwise, but she wasn’t in charge of my weekends.

I swung my arm in the direction of the students who now stood a discreet distance away, thankfully, as if they were in line for an ATM. “I’m holding my student conferences this morning, to plan out the end of my summer classes. As President Aldridge requested.”

I’d learned a long time ago how rank-conscious the dean was. Name-dropping was always a good bet for gaining the upper hand.

She pushed back the sleeve of her pale linen jacket, her idea of casual Sunday attire, and looked at her watch. Could it be that she had a life? I doubted it. I’d often thought that the reason she and Keith got along so well was that he didn’t have one either. They were each other’s nonlife.

“Very well, then. I’ll see you in my office right after President Aldridge’s all-faculty meeting in the morning.”

“President Aldridge also called for each department to hold a meeting after the all-hands assembly.” I was almost huffy this time.

The dean let out a long, annoyed breath. “Of course you’ll follow that directive. But, for now”—in a most unusual gesture, she took hold of my elbow and ushered me to a spot in the stacks, farther from the students—“you are to return to me the boxes of material you took from Dr. Appleton’s office immediately.”

“What are you—”

The dean’s “don’t you dare deny it” look cut me off. She stomped off in her sensible pumps.

“See you then,” I said to her back, then flapped away in my sandals.

I’d had no time to dwell on the boxes except to think about hiring a PI to locate them for me. My phone rang as I was on my way to my temporary conference table at the back of the library. I clicked my phone on and used hand signals to tell Casey to meet me there in five minutes.

When did my life become so complicated? On Friday, when Keith Appleton was murdered, I remembered.

Bruce was calling me from the other end of the library. I’d seen Gil leave the building and Bruce wander off to the periodical rack, maybe to slip in copies of
Rotor
magazine as a recruiting device.

“I heard the dean call you ‘Sophie.’ That couldn’t have been good,” my perceptive boyfriend said.

I growled. “She wants the boxes back.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Bruce!” The volume was low but the tone was a shout.

“Kidding. Want me to help? I can call Virge.”

“You can’t call Virge.”

“Because you’re a thief? You know I love a good heist movie.
The Score,
The Thomas Crown Affair—
”

“Bruce!”

“Go take care of your students. Let me see what I can do, okay? Do you need your car for an hour or so?”

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“You can take my car, but you can’t call Virge,” I repeated. “And I didn’t do a heist.”

 

 

I had one more chance with the Triad. Casey was the Queen of Bling, with a different set of shiny, tinkling baubles every day. While I couldn’t even stand to wear a watch on hot days, Casey decorated her wrists, ears, neck, toes, fingers and patches of bare skin with jewels and decals no matter what the weather.

It was tough to search out her small face with today’s distraction, a matching beaded set of earrings, necklace, and bracelet, in shades of red and purple. I was tempted to ask if she’d made them herself, and if so, had she bought the beads at Ariana’s shop, but that would have compounded the distraction.

I decided to try a new tactic with the third interview of the day, not counting the dean’s with me, and start with the elephant in the room.

“Casey, I felt you had more to say yesterday, when we were chatting outside Franklin Hall. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“We were at the party for Dr. Bartholomew, like everybody else, then we went to the dorm,” she said.

Not again. I sent a soft, compassionate breath her way. “Casey, I know Pam can be a little intimidating—”

“I don’t have anything more to say, Dr. Knowles. Can we just get to my grade for the class? Please?”

Casey’s “please” was a drawn out plea. That and her eyes, on the verge of tears, got to me. Time to move on. I knew these girls were hiding something, but when push came to shove, I couldn’t beat up on this child.

Casey was not doing well in applied statistics. To keep her scholarship she needed at least a B in each class. In my class she was hovering around C, plus one day, minus the next. I told her the kind of research paper she’d have to do to bring her grade up, and that she’d need to take an exam.

In my experience, there were two kinds of test takers, those who preferred oral exams and those who dreaded them. I gave Casey her choice.

“Oh, my God, I love orals,” Casey said. “I get all clutched up when I have to write and I can’t explain myself because the questions are too . . . too . . .”

“Too specific?”

She nodded. “Like Dr. Appleton’s. Like, with true/false it’s do or die”—she clamped her hand over her mouth—“I didn’t mean it that way.”

I patted her other hand, the one with six inches of thin multicolor spangles. “I know you didn’t mean it. You had that extended organic chem class with Dr. Appleton this summer, right?”

“I like that. ‘Extended.’ Actually it was makeup, since we did so badly this spring.”

“Do you know yet how that will be wrapped up?”