Ada Madison - The Square Root of Murder

I shrugged. “Why not?”

“You’re the boss.”

Bruce ran his hand across his brow, as if I’d asked him to dig a ditch. “You’ll owe me.”

“Sure, sure.”

I got up and began my sweep of all the odds and ends spots in my house, all the places I put things on their way to where they belonged.

On a rack with computer peripherals I found a small pile of birthday cards from April that hadn’t made it to the stack I was gathering for Ariana. I usually sifted through them first, including only designs I thought were workable, and also to be sure some seven-year-old didn’t end up with too personal a message among her art supplies.

In the knife drawer in my kitchen were postcards from Hal and Gil, who’d been to Bermuda at the end of June to celebrate his degree, and one from Fran and her husband, Gene, who’d taken their yearly cruise to Mexico. I hoped the scrawled “see you soon” and “the buffets are great” were enough to make some decent comparisons.

The odds and ends drawer in my bedroom dresser was a gold mine of more postcards and thank you notes stretching back to Christmas. Embarrassing, but serendipitous.

In an end table drawer in my den were recent invitations, including one from Hal to attend his graduation. It was a professionally printed card, issued by the school, but he’d handwritten a note about how Bruce was welcome, too.

Dean Underwood, true to form, always handwrote her holiday greetings to her faculty. I never dreamed I’d be putting the note to this unpleasant use.

I had more samples of Rachel’s handwriting than of anyone else. I included several pieces so the set would be complete, though I didn’t agree with Virgil that Rachel was devious enough to have framed herself in order to look innocent.

I returned to the den with a grocery bag half full of relevant correspondence. Bruce had arranged his possibles in stacks, one for each student or teacher.

He pointed to the array. “I should have read these a long time ago. It tells me a lot about how you interact with your students.” He picked a note card off one of the piles and read. “Dear Dr. Knowles, Bijillion thanks for listening the other night. I was ready to give up totally and now I know I can do it. Yay. You rock! Love, Tanya.” He put it down and pulled another. “Dr. Knowles, you’re the best. I never thought I’d pass that test, and could never ever”-those words are underlined, Bruce noted-“have done it without your extra tutoring and encouragement. Franklin Hall needs a statue of you!”

He reached for a third, but I put my hand on his. “I get the idea.”

“I didn’t realize how involved you are outside the classroom.”

“What did you think I do all day?”

He shrugged. “You know, just teach for an hour and fifteen minutes then take off for the pool, and go back the next day for another hour and fifteen minutes.”

I held my hand to my head, palm out. “Where shall I begin,” I emoted.

Bruce drew me into a hug. “You rock,” he said.

Bruce turned in around midnight. By the morning, he’d be back on a regular sleep schedule for the next seven days. A good thing, too, since he had to be up early for his yearly physical, verifying among other things that he wasn’t diabetic, depressed, or prone to seizures. A drug test was also required. All to keep his license. Good to know the skies were safe with MAstar’s PICs.

I was satisfied that I’d gathered enough handwriting samples for Virgil. I wished he’d left the photos so I could get started now vetting the phrases on Rachel’s thesis pages. It was impossible for me to get anywhere from memory. I needed the pages with their gruesome bloodred marks in front of me. But Virgil had been firm about taking everything away with him, even though he’d be missing a chance to profit from the expertise of Ariana Volens, a professional.

“I’ve met Ariana,” Virgil had said, as if that explained why he wouldn’t let me give her copies.

The most I could coax out of my new (again) favorite detective was that I could stop by the office with my samples at ten in the morning.

“That late?” I’d remarked.

He gave me that look, before he realized I was kidding.

Nothing better to do than go to bed. I knew I’d sleep better with Bruce in the house, but I didn’t like that loss of my own confidence. I’d lived alone for many years and not been afraid. The only reason I had an alarm system in the first place was because of my mother. When she became disabled I wanted her to have a way to call for help, so I’d had a security system installed, with a panic button on every pad.

Another reason I’d felt safe had to do with the Henley crime statistic-no murders in recent history, let alone in Franklin Hall where I spent many hours a week.

All bets were off now, and I wondered if I’d ever feel completely safe again.

For tonight, I could relax. I fell asleep counting I-dots and loops and the relative weight of T-bars in fine penmanship.

When Lucy quickly agreed to meet for coffee at Back to the Grind on Tuesday morning, I was mildly shocked. From the way she’d stormed out of the faculty meeting in Franklin Hall yesterday, I’d expected her to hole up somewhere until after Labor Day. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she withdrew and ended her career at Henley before it began.

I felt bad that I’d never invited her for lunch or even a girl-to-girl chat until now, when I needed her. How did I let myself get so busy that I couldn’t reach out to a new teacher in my building? Granted she was in the chemistry department, not math, but a distance of three floors was no excuse.

I let myself off the hook a tad, recalling that I’d never sensed that Lucy needed anything. Students talked favorably about her. I’d heard that she’d landed a small research grant that would employ a half dozen chemistry majors during their free hours, doing calculations related to some kind of reactions. She seemed to be doing well.

I hadn’t realized how well. Dating Keith Appleton! I was now convinced she was the woman Keith had spoken of to his cousin Elteen. In her short tenure, Lucy had achieved something no longtime faculty member could claim.

Lucy had arrived first at the small café where I’d met with Pam, Liz, and Casey a couple of days ago. If the baristas were listening in on my recent appearances here, I hoped they wouldn’t think I was setting up shop. I ordered an iced cappuccino and a raspberry scone and left a big tip.

Lucy seemed forlorn, and not that much older than the freshmen she’d be teaching in a few weeks. She wore a knit sweater and hugged a mug of what looked like hot chocolate with a pile of whipped cream. To look at her you’d think we were in the kind of cold wave we’d had after Christmas, that had set teeth chattering and lasted for weeks. In truth, it was sweltering and all we had now was the weak fan of the coffee shop, barely adequate even at eight in the morning.

She half rose when she saw me. I felt old, and to confirm it, my knees creaked as I sat down.

I looked around the shop, relatively empty this Tuesday morning. I recognized some Henley dorm students whom I didn’t have in class, group studying, it seemed. I certainly understood why they might seek a change of scenery from the desolate campus.

It was clear that if Lucy and I were going to have a conversation, I was the one who’d have to go first.

“Thanks so much for coming, Lucy. I noticed how upset you were at the faculty meeting and I figured all those negative comments about Keith got to you.”

Lucy bit her lip and nodded. “I knew he wasn’t popular on campus. But he really was the coolest guy, you know.”

“You two had something special, didn’t you?”