Ada Madison - The Square Root of Murder

Instead of tackling the piles, I downloaded a simple timeline program that allowed the user to enter hours of the day and events into a table. The software then spit out a linear version of the input.

Maybe if I organized the information I had about the crime scene, something would pop up that had arrows pointing to Keith’s killer.

I entered everything I knew about who was in Franklin Hall in the afternoon, including students other than the four who were most involved with the party. As much as possible I wrote down names and when I thought they’d arrived and left. I included faculty members who were at the party-the department chairs, Fran, Judith, and Robert; the new girl, Lucy; Hal, and even Gil. I widened my scope a little more by including a couple of faculty senate members with whom Keith had had serious conflicts. I omitted only myself and Woody.

I couldn’t help think of the woman Keith was seeing, according to his cousin. I wished I could find her. But with only a first name, two possible first names at that, it didn’t make sense to pursue that line.

With some hesitation I added Dean Underwood’s name to the list. She and Keith were simpatico most of the time, but admitting male students to Henley was no small issue and Keith had been instrumental in gathering enough support to override the dean’s vote.

I had no doubt why Keith had been such an advocate of coeducation, but he’d confirmed my guess one day when he said at a faculty meeting, “Let’s face it. A women’s college will never have the same status as a men’s college or a coed institution.”

Having been around academia-make that, having been around, period-I couldn’t argue with him.

I recalled a group of us females standing in front of a notice on an easel outside a meeting room at a math conference in Hartford.

“Panel Today on the Role of Women in Mathematics.”

“Where’s the one on the role of men?” a female colleague had asked, through gritted teeth.

“Maybe we can take on the role of the multiplication sign,” another woman had said. She’d won begrudging laughs from the men in the vicinity.

I’d done my best as a teacher to change attitudes and create opportunities for my female students. But that wasn’t the most pressing issue on my agenda this Sunday afternoon.

I had a puzzle to solve.

I printed out my timeline on legal size paper and tacked it up on my bulletin board. I recognized the inadequacy of focusing only on the people who were in Franklin Hall or on campus that day. Someone from the town of Henley or anywhere else could have made it onto the property and into the building.

Security on the college property was very casual. You pulled up to the checkpoint at the southwest entrance, off Henley Boulevard. If Maureen or Bill or any of the other guards didn’t recognize you as a staff member or a student with a special permit, you had to give a reason for wanting to enter. You could say, “I’m here for the history seminar,” or “I’m with the band,” and the bar would be raised for you.

As for walking onto the campus, no one monitored the walkways or pedestrian entrances. And the buildings had no extra security except at night when the doors were locked. I’d often thought the security posts were there simply to be sure the parking lots wouldn’t be overrun.

Once in a while when a crime occurred on campus the school newspaper would run a story about poor security for the dorms, but all it took was the onset of exam week and everyone would forget the disturbance.

The murder of a faculty member was more than a disturbance, however, and I hoped Keith’s death would inspire a good look at campus safety overall.

I needed to do my part.

I studied my timeline and made some embellishments. I used a red marker to indicate the probable time of Keith’s death, bracketing the hours from noon to one forty-five. Only Rachel and I knew that the deed had been done by one forty-five when Rachel showed up with the cake. If, as Woody thought, Keith didn’t arrive much before noon, then he’d been correct in assuming that Keith hadn’t had a lot of time to admire his new Fellow award.

I hadn’t even given Bruce the details of Rachel’s confession of sorts when I reported on my meeting with her at MAstar. And though I wished it with all my heart, I doubted that Rachel had offered up her story to the police.

Virgil said the medical examiner had placed the time of death between noon, based on Woody’s having seen Keith’s car at that time, and four, when Woody found him.

I was getting increasingly uncomfortable knowing more than the police did, thanks to Rachel’s reluctance to tell them the whole truth. The Big Three’s two thirty visit to Keith’s office didn’t shed any new light on the time of death, but it did give us information on the cake and the yellow sheets that were allegedly Rachel’s thesis.

If I really wanted a good night’s sleep, I should go to the police.

Now , a conscientious voice inside my head said.

You don’t have a car , said my bad girl voice, looking for any excuse.

Give yourself one more chance to put it all together , said my puzzle voice.

Two to one. I’d give myself that chance, at least until the dean cornered me tomorrow.

I sat at the counter in my kitchen with a reheated omelet. Not recommended.

I had to come up with a strategy. I could query the Ben Franklin faculty. And ask them what? If they’d followed the cake trail by any chance? If they’d followed the journey of the boxes by any chance?

For once I was looking forward to a faculty meeting. I’d had an email from Fran that all the departments of Franklin Hall would meet separately after the president’s address, as she’d requested.

When I was stuck like this, puzzling always helped me. I finished the crossword puzzle I’d been working on that was formerly in the shape of a beaker. I’d turned the grid into the shape of a teapot and now I sent it electronically via my laptop to my editor in Kansas City. It felt good to complete a task, if a relatively unimportant one. I liked it when my life was easy to figure out.

The sound of a motor caught my attention. Either Bruce or the box thief had opened my garage door. I almost wished it were the box thief, come to apologize and explain himself.

It could happen.

Not this time, but Bruce’s “Hey” was very welcome. I had to admit it felt a little creepy in my house today, knowing someone had intruded at least as far as my garage when I was out. The sooner I got to the bottom of the ill wind that had swept through Henley, the sooner I’d feel safe and grounded again.

“Have you slept at all today?” I asked my boyfriend.

Bruce shook his head. “I’ll get some tonight. There won’t be anything big at work, not two nights in a row. I’ll bet the most we’ll have to do is an IFT. A half hour and we’re back.”

I knew about interfacility transfers. When a patient needed equipment or care not available in the hospital he was in, MAstar could be called in to transport him to another. The Bat Phone summoned them for that mission also, I’d learned.

“You’re saying you can’t have two busy nights in a row at work. Is that a rule?”

“It’s statistics. Know anything about them?”

Cute. “I think you should at least try to nap.”

“Before or after I tell you what I learned from Virge?”

I jumped off the stool and grabbed Bruce’s arms. “Come here, you.”

Surprise, surprise, the Henley PD had been working on the same case I was, and they had their own ways of getting information. Without stealing material from crime scenes or browbeating young coeds. It might turn out that while I was busy doing the above, eliminating a lot of pesky paperwork, the Henley PD had actually culled facts to work with. Another approach to a murder investigation.