Ada Madison - The Square Root of Murder

I shrugged. “You have civilian volunteers, don’t you?”

“Yeah, to make the fund-raising calls and fill in as crossing guards. Interested?”

I was beginning to like Archie. “I’ll pass.”

“I thought so.”

“So, what is next?”

Archie looked past me, over my shoulder. I turned to see what had attracted his attention. Virgil and Rachel had entered from the back and were headed for a desk and chair set across the room. That couldn’t be good.

Archie stood and I followed. He led me out of the room in the opposite direction while I strained my neck to get a glimpse of the expressions on Virgil’s and Rachel’s faces. Too far away. I consoled myself with the observation that Rachel was not in handcuffs or prison garb.

It amazed me how little it took to give me comfort these last few days.

“We’ll call you if we need anything else from you,” Archie said, all business now, nearly pushing me over the threshold, back into the waiting area.

I guessed he wanted to join the conversation-I hoped not another interrogation-with Rachel.

Walking past the bench I’d waited on and past the busy telephone desk, it dawned on me. Archie didn’t have a prescribed, alarm-triggered need for meds or coffee. He’d come out here to tell his cronies to pick up Rachel Wheeler. How dumb was I? I felt betrayed, for no good reason, since deep in my heart I knew Archie was just doing his job. Why else would he want everyone’s names? I was lucky he hadn’t charged me.

I couldn’t see why Archie couldn’t at least have been honest with me. So what if I hadn’t been completely forthcoming with him right away. Sworn officers of the law should be held to a higher standard. It was low and tacky to fake a timer alarm on your watch.

I made a note to see if I could pull that same trick with my watch, should an occasion warrant it.

On the whole, I was back to not liking Archie.

I drove toward home, defeated. I felt I should have been smarter, quicker, more persistent in my role in Henley’s first murder investigation in at least a decade, and three floors above my own campus office to boot. Ask me to construct a crossword puzzle or a brainteaser and I was on the job. I managed to meet a rigid schedule of producing original puzzles and mindbenders for several publications. But when it came to something really important, like helping a friend out of deep trouble, I was a failure, plain and simple.

I wondered where Rachel could have been that they found her so quickly. On the threshold of coming in to the station herself, I hoped. And the other girls? I’d thought all along they weren’t taking their actions seriously enough, but did I really want them grilled by Archie? I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d been well within my rights to have kept all the names to myself. Something to check, if I thought I’d ever again need to know.

The image of Rachel, slump-shouldered, walking in front of Virgil came back to me. The fact that I’d brought it on with my oh-so-spectacular timeline made everything worse. I called myself every name I could think of from ratfink to snitch to stoolie to the good old-fashioned tattletale, and variations thereof.

I wished I were one of those special television characters who could sneak into a building, plant a bug, and listen in on all conversations from an unmarked, well-equipped van. Or better still, that I’d been able to find a clue, a giant clue, that would have led us to the true killer.

Rachel’s freedom was out of my hands. I hoped her aunt’s lawyer would do better by her than I had.

Letting go of the idea that I could help left me free for what I should be doing. I had a mountain of work to do at home, what with reading student papers from last week, scheduling my summer students, and creating next month’s puzzles for my editor, but Bruce hadn’t called and I knew he would as soon as he woke up.

I selected number one in my CD player, Tim McGraw, and hummed along. Just be still…

I needed another comfort destination, other than my home. As luck would have it, Ariana’s shop was only a few blocks away. I made a quick right and headed for A Hill of Beads.

I found Ariana starting to close up. I thought she was quitting early until I realized it was after five o’clock. The day flew by when you screwed it up.

My friend took one look at me and said, “Sweetie, what happened?”

Either Ariana had the special powers I’d always suspected, or I looked much worse than I felt. Visiting the heavenly-smelling shop was the best choice I could have made. I entered the world of beads and charms and faceted stones, none of which had done me wrong, and vice versa. I helped Ariana put away stray beads that customers looked at but didn’t return to their proper trays. I breathed in the calming aroma of incense as I opened cartons of new products and ran off flyers for upcoming demonstrations and classes, including one on handwriting analysis. I wondered if she’d planned to teach it herself or bring in an expert. I supposed there were such people.

After I sprayed all the counters and wiped them down, I dragged the vacuum cleaner from behind the heavy beaded curtain that hid the kitchen and workshop area.

“You don’t have to do that,” Ariana said.

“Yes, I do.”

I pushed and pulled a very old Hoover, feeling the tension transfer from my arms and legs to the long handle of the vacuum cleaner. Now and then I heard a disturbing click that was a bead on its way into the dust bag, but I knew from other closing time visits that a certain loss of inventory by this route was normal. When I was finished, the mauve area rug in the middle of the store bore satisfying tracks from the Hoover’s wheels. I wound the cord around the back of the vacuum and tucked it in at the top.

I swapped the vacuum cleaner for a soft, damp mop and attacked the slick linoleum that covered the rest of the sales floor and extended to the back room.

All flooring in A Hill of Beads was now spic and span. A job well done. Almost as pleasing as ironing.

“What else needs cleaning?” I asked.

It was great to be in control of something, if only housework.

When I’d spent enough physical energy to feel relaxed, we retreated to the back of the store. A tea and conversation corner was a must with Ariana and I was very comfortable here in my favorite overstuffed chair.

Ariana assumed a yoga position, pulled a beading case onto her lap, and went to work. Not work for her, I knew, but a pacifying activity. She knew enough not to foist anything on me, however. Beading was still a distant second to puzzling as far as being a stress-free activity for me. Ariana claimed it was because I took too mathematical an approach to the craft. What was wrong with that?

“Lose the symmetry,” Ariana had told me by way of advice after an early class. She’d laid out one of my newly crafted bracelets. “Look at this,” she’d clucked. “One large blue, three small white, three tiny gold; one large blue, three small white, three tiny gold. All the way around. It’s like an equation.”

“Your point?” I’d asked.

I knew what Ariana meant, but I had no confidence in anything other than a strictly ordered pattern.

Add to that, I felt I’d never be really good at beading, no matter how much my friend encouraged and coached me. As small-boned as I was, my fingers seemed to be as big as those of a college wrestling champion when I tried to fold back the end of a fine-gauge wire and insert it into a tiny bead.

Eventually I’d master the art of tucking wires into small places and attaching fasteners in an unobtrusive way, but my talent for design was sadly lacking. My beaded necklaces looked like something from the nearest day care center, produced by a kid who knew his colors and was just learning to count.