Ada Madison - The Square Root of Murder

Keith was the only faculty member in Franklin Hall to add an area rug to his office. A queasy feeling came over me when I saw a close-up of the blue oriental design carpet strewn with office supplies and crumpled yellow sheets of paper. The paper clips, pens, and pencils scattered over the floor might as well have been bloody daggers.

I must have shivered, because Virgil had a worried look on his face. “Are you okay with this, Sophie?”

I asked for it, didn’t I? “I’m good,” I said.

Bruce stuck his head in. “I’ll be in your office, Sophie, hacking into your email, if you need me.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Virgil gave us a look. “I forgot how you guys go at it.”

The close-ups of the papers were incredibly clear. However else the Henley PD might be strapped for money in the forensics department, they had an excellent camera and photography crew.

Virgil spread out more than a dozen views of Keith’s office floor, encompassing the yellow sheets, each in a different wrinkled stage. On some sheets, only partial phrases showed.

“We’ve smoothed out the pages, of course,” Virgil said, laying out another set, where the writing was more visible, but still not completely. “I think you can fill in the blanks.”

I picked up each photograph in turn and took my time reading the red handwriting. I saw “(illegible due to creasing) is rubbish” on one, and “Your Awful Data… (illegible due to tear)” on another. Visible in full were “Use your brains” in the margin of one sheet and “Flaky reference” at the bottom of another.

“These comments don’t even sound like Keith,” I said. “He never says ‘rubbish’, or ‘flaky,’ and what scientist says ‘awful data,’ and capitalizes the words at that? I’ve heard him use ‘worthless,’ for example, but never ‘awful’. He’d refer to data as inadequate or spurious or skewed.”

“Of course he would.”

“And look how close together the letters are in each word. That indicates a person who lacks self-confidence, has low self-esteem, and is uncomfortable with himself. That was not Keith.” I cleared my throat. I seemed to have been channeling Ariana.

“Sounds like you’ve been taking a class on handwriting analysis.”

“Maybe.”

“When did you fit that in?”

“I’m a quick study.”

“That you are.”

“What if you could get, say, a dozen members of the faculty and administration to vouch for the fact that that is not Keith’s handwriting? Would that convince you that the markings on these pages are fake?”

Virgil shook his head. “Too subjective.”

“What is your plan for checking the handwriting?” I asked, as sweetly as I could.

“I need to run it by a few people, but most likely we’ll be going back in and asking for handwriting samples from students and faculty.”

“But the killer would obviously know why you were on this track and alter his handwriting in some way.”

“Experts say you can’t do that. There’s always a tell, something that gives you away, unless you’re a professional forger, I guess. Didn’t your teacher tell you that?”

“I left early.”

I knew that would get Virgil laughing and buy me some time. Enough for me to come up with an idea.

“Let me get you the samples.”

“And how would you do that?”

“I have years worth of notes or cards from just about everyone in Franklin Hall, and that’s your main suspect pool, isn’t it?”

Virgil didn’t say “yay” or “nay” to my supposition.

Instead he asked, “Doesn’t everyone email or text these days?”

“On the whole yes, for immediate communication. But a student will often slap a handwritten note on a stickie when she submits a paper or a problem set.”

“Something like, ‘Here’s my paper’?” Virgil asked.

“More like an apology for being late or telling me there’s a reference missing that she’ll bring me tomorrow.”

“The modern version of ‘My dog ate my homework,’” Virgil said, pleased with himself.

“Exactly.”

“Speaking of emails,” Virgil said. “The techs have been at work on Appleton’s computer.”

Uh-oh. I’d been waiting for this. Rachel’s nasty email, sent to Keith the day before he was murdered, had been on my mind. “Is that why Rachel was first in line again in Interview Two this afternoon?”

“Interview Two?”

“I think of it as the torture chamber.”

Virgil smiled. “Archie’s a good guy.”

No comment.

“I know Rachel sent one that was a little out of line, but-”

“But it turns out, so did quite a few others. Not a popular guy if you’ll forgive my saying so.”

I felt a wave of relief, followed quickly by one of guilt over my delight that Rachel wasn’t the only one bombarding Keith with harsh words.

“He wasn’t as bad as it looks,” I said. “The janitor loved him and it turns out he was some kind of benevolent uncle to his family in Chicago. We just never got to see that side of him.” Here I was again, defending Keith in death as I’d never defended him in life.

“Most people aren’t as bad as they seem,” Virgil said, and I knew at that moment we were both thinking of Archie.

Back to work. “On the handwriting samples? I have loads of holiday and birthday cards and thank you notes. I could pull together quite a set that we… you could compare with the comments on Rachel’s thesis pages. That way whoever did this has no warning that we’re on to him.”

Virgil sat back and took one of the whistling breaths that he and Bruce seemed to have a patent on. I waited not so patiently, my mind racing ahead with how to gather the promised postcards, greeting cards, and notes from various corners of my house.

“Okay,” Virgil said. I nearly hugged him. “Tomorrow morning. Give me your best shot.”

Then I did hug him. “Thanks, Virgil. Next time, dinner will be New York strip steaks and potatoes.”

“And beer,” he said.

“And lots of beer.”

Virgil left around ten o’clock. Bruce had picked up enough of our meeting to get the gist of what was ahead of me. He and Virgil spent a few minutes in my driveway before Virgil took off in his old Malibu. He had flung his jacket over his shoulder, his wide profile dwarfing Bruce, who was in his longish khaki shorts. I could only imagine that conversation.

“Where did you find her ?” Virgil might have asked.

“Up in the air,” Bruce might have answered.

“I suppose there’s no chance you’re going to sleep tonight,” Bruce said, when he reentered the house.

I’d already pulled a box of greeting cards onto my lap in the den. I saved cards until I had a large enough stack and then gave them to Ariana who used them in the grade school where she volunteered as an arts specialist. She and the kids made small gift boxes out of the cards. She’d show them how to fold the card so the design on the front became the top of the box. Ariana was expert at using scorers to get the edges clean and crisp. Lucky for me, I’d been negligent in handing over the cards and now had a wealth of potentially useful handwriting samples for Virgil.

“I’m not tired,” I said. “And I’m sure you’re not, since you had that nice, long nap.”

He took a seat on the couch, one pillow over. “Okay. Hand over a bunch. What are we looking for?”

I shifted the box from my lap to his. “While you look through these, I’ll search some other places for cards. We need anything with handwriting from Keith, Hal, Pam Noonan, Liz… oh, make it any student or teacher whose name you recognize from Franklin Hall. Plus Dean Underwood.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows at the dean’s name. “Plain Phyllis?”