Ada Madison - The Square Root of Murder

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?”

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.