Ada Madison - The Square Root of Murder

Witnessing the dean’s dejected state clouded my delight in maybe figuring out the dean’s secret and her need to get her hands on the material in Keith’s office.

The dean held out the sheet of paper. “This is what you were looking for.”

“I don’t really need to see it.”

“I need to tell you.”

It appeared Virgil was right. Once people got on a path to confession, it was impossible to stop them. “I was a college student, and I tried to do the right thing. I think about my decision every day of my life.”

That was quite a bit of regret for a little hash.

I took the paper and saw immediately what it was. A birth certificate.

“This is-”

“Yes, that’s the birth certificate. I assume you found out about it another way. Maybe Dr. Appleton told you? It’s not unlikely that he’d bring a partner into his schemes.”

I started. “What? No, he didn’t. Make me a partner,” I said. I was still trying to process the new information. The dean had a child. The simple sentence sounded like the start of a riddle.

“I’m sorry I suggested your complicity, Sophie. I should have known you wouldn’t resort to something like this. You never have. You’ve always been open and honest with me.”

After all these years, was this a compliment from the dean? “I… uh… I’ve tried.”

“You’ve given me every reason to trust you.” She smiled. “Except for the story about the boxes.”

I returned her smile and hung my head. “Sorry.”

“That’s the copy from Keith’s files on me. It was in an envelope, along with family birth certificates and licenses and such, marked ‘Appleton Family History,’ as a security measure against an unlawful rifling of his desk by an intruder.”

Or by the police in the event that he was murdered.

“So you were fairly confident the police wouldn’t single it out as relevant to this case.”

“I hoped not.”

I had to be clear. I held up the paper. “This is your baby.” I tried to make it sound like a statement, consistent with the bluff that I’d known all along.

The dean took a long sip of tea and came back slowly. “I had a son out of wedlock. I was a few months from graduation and had my life all planned out, plans that didn’t include motherhood.” She sucked in her breath. “I gave him up for adoption.”

“And Keith found out.”

She nodded. “I think he was always looking for ways to discredit me, not for the sake of it, or to be mean, but to gain some leverage for the changes he saw as good for Henley College. And as we know, in today’s new computer world”-here the dean’s expression said she’d liked the old world better-“it’s easy to find just about anything if you’re determined.”

I went back to “out of wedlock.” Who even used that phrase anymore? I thought it had gone the way of “love child.”

“But surely if this came out, it wouldn’t threaten your career,” I said. “Would the board of trustees really care about something so far back in your past? It’s hard to see how Keith could have used the information as a bargaining chip. You did nothing criminal.” Like smoking pot, for example.

“Keith knew the technicalities didn’t matter to me. It was the attention and the embarrassment it would cause me after my firm stand on-”

“Everything,” I said, without thinking.

Was that an audible laugh coming from Dean Phyllis Underwood’s mouth?

“I know I’ve been hard on you, Sophie, and there’s no reason you should give me any consideration. You can keep that copy and do what you want with it.”

I tore up the certificate and handed her the pieces.

To make this a truly memorable Tuesday, Dean Underwood and I shared a silent embrace.

I rolled down my windows and sat in my car in the parking lot for a few minutes, letting the new information gel. I’d learned a lot, and not just that Dean Underwood had a son out there somewhere. I couldn’t imagine her having to make a decision like that, and living with it for the rest of her life. It might account for a measurable percent of her overall disgruntled outlook on life.

I drew a huge red X around the picture I’d created of Phyllis Underwood lying around with her scraggly-haired friends in an orange-fringed caftan snacking on brownies laced with marijuana.

If I were writing an essay about what I did this summer, I’d title it “Research Gone Wrong.”

There were so many more lessons to be learned about the complexity of people I thought I knew. The picture of Keith Appleton unfolded with more twists and turns than the most difficult metal twisty puzzle. I envisioned his calendar: Ten A.M., offer Woody the janitor a generous condolence gift. Noon, wander the second floor physics labs in Ben Franklin Hall and find a way to insult Hal Bartholomew. One P.M., send Delia the niece an unsolicited financial aid package for a private high school. Spend the rest of the afternoon digging into the dean’s past for leverage and thinking of ways to thwart Sophie Knowles’s policies and procedures recommendations.

Then there was Hal himself and the side I never could have predicted. And three cute young things, college chemistry majors, who were unethical and bold enough to sit at a computer and change their grades in the very room where their teacher lay dead. Granted, according to Rachel, only his feet were clearly visible, but they knew about the rest of him.

I thought of another favorite von Neumann quote, “If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.”

Enough said.

My next creative venture was to think of something to tell Ariana about the dean’s dark past. I figured the best bet was to let her assume that we’d been right. The notion that an authority figure had been a pothead in the sixties would make her happy and keep her quiet.

For Courtney-why had I built up my urgent meeting in her mind?-I’d cover that tomorrow. I’d wait until tomorrow also to talk to Rachel and the rest of my colleagues. I might even be ready to address the Big Three junior chem majors and find out how they fared at the police station.

For tonight, I wanted to focus on a quiet, crime-free dinner.

I called Bruce. As I expected, he respected my wish not to talk about Hal’s confession and arrest. Instead, I explained the logistics that would eventually end in my serving him dinner.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Goofing off in your house.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m having fun with a little mental arithmetic.”

Funny guy. “No, really. Did you finish your gardening?”

“I did indeed. You’ll see the results this evening. And now I’m watching an old Hitchcock.”

“That I believe.”

“Sounds like there’s something you want me to be doing,” Bruce said. “Can I pick up something?”

I reminded him of his niece’s tenth birthday. “You could start rooting around in my box that has new greeting cards and pick one for Melanie. We should get it mailed soon.”

“You want me to write it out?”

“You’re her uncle; I’m sure she’d prefer to have it be in your handwriting.”

“I don’t think she’s ever seen my handwriting. You’re the one who always takes care of that.”

That was Bruce. Ask him to take out the trash twice a day and he wouldn’t balk, but writing out cards, whether Christmas, sympathy, birthday, thank you, even to his own family-that was my job.

Wait. That was my job. And probably the woman’s job in nine out of ten relationships or marriages.

Blat blat.

I heard a loud noise in my head, like the sound my computer threw out when I made a wrong move during a math game.