Conundrum (23 page)

“Our class was an unusually poisonous group. Most of them were just snarky and backstabbing. But then there was Carey’s death and I was convinced that one
of them was actually a murderer—
but I didn’t know which one. It turned out that
two
of them were murderers.”

“I’ll never look at architects the same way. Is the DA going to be able to prove the case against Adam? It seems like a lot of circumstantial evidence.”

“He’ll definitely spend time behind bars for Carey’s murder and his attack on me. They even tracked the envelope bomb to him. Norman’s tape was iffy as evidence, but that became moot when Detective Malone played it in the interview room and Adam started babbling out a confession before his lawyer could muzzle him.”

“I like it when a sleaze bag like Adam hands the DA a confession. Just like on TV,” he looked amused, propped up on one elbow.

“Yeah, Adam isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Whether there’s a clear case to convict him of killing Norman is another matter. But, you know, I don’t care as much. Those two deserved each other. Now, Norman’s dead, Adam will be locked up for a long time, and poor Carey will get some justice.”

“Thanks to you, Sherlock.
You ended up putting the pieces together.”

“Detective Malone did admit that they couldn’t figure out a motive for these killings until I pointed out their connection to Carey’s murder and the cover-
up.You
know
what’s ironic about this whole thing?”

“No, what?”
He smoothed the hair back from her face.

“I never would have been suspicious in the first place if the autopsy hadn’t turned up drugs in Carey’s system. I knew that he’d never intentionally take them. But if I’d known that his drugging had been a spiteful joke, I would never have been convinced that he’d been murdered and that I had to try to find his killer. I doubt that I would have gone to the reunion.”

“Hmmm.
So Adam’s headed to jail for killing Carey because he didn’t tell you that he pulled a prank on your friend.”

“Yeah—
ironic.”
Minutes passed in silence. Iris gazed up again at the modern structure of wood and glass. “I’ve got all the shots I need.” she said, packing up her equipment into her camera bag. C.C.’s crew would be there the next week to collect
their own
images of it for the pages of
cuttingedgedecor
.
Luc replanted the realtor’s ‘For Sale’ sign back by the driveway. Damn, this was one of her favorite creations.

Chapter 45

F
our months later, Iris gazed out of the office she now shared with Ellie at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. The slate on the High Victorian spire of Memorial Hall was a riot of colors against the approaching gloom of an October afternoon. Stacks of hand-outs, an empty can of Diet Coke, and her
macbook
air lay scattered across her desk.

“I can’t believe we’re the ones giving the critiques now. It still feels bizarre.” Ellie said from her adjacent desk.

Iris swiveled toward her co-professor. “If we can’t strong-arm some Very Important Architects to be guest critics, we’ll never be able to parlay this into a full-time gig. I hear Alyssa’s getting Richard Meier to fly up.”

Ellie groaned and Sheba, lying at Iris’ feet, looked up with concern.

At that moment, Iris’ cell phone twanged the guitar intro to ‘
Stand by Your Man
’.

“Luc changed my ringtone,” Iris explained, then startled at the words ‘Meeker Enterprises’ on the caller
i.d.

Ellie whispered “Who?” and Iris wrote out Meeker
Ent
.
on
a scrap of paper and rotated it for her to see.

As she recognized Barb’s voice, Iris sank back into her chair and mouthed “Barb” at Ellie.

Ellie slid her chair closer to Iris’ desk to eavesdrop. They had both read in the previous week’s
Globe
about Barb taking over Norman’s company. A photo had shown her in a sleek suit, her hair newly styled, looking every inch the confident CEO.

“Yes, I read about it. Congratulations,” As Iris listened, a smile played across her face. “You say it’ll be in the paper soon?
Fantastic.
That means a lot. Thanks for telling me, Barb. Bye, now.”

“So? Tell me!”

“She’s changing the name of the
Meeker
geo-thermal energy system to the Sorensen Geo-thermal energy system to honor Carey, ‘its actual inventor.’”

Ellie nodded her head solemnly, fixing serious eyes on Iris’. Iris nodded back with eyebrows raised. This act didn’t change anything that had happened, but it shifted Iris’ world one significant notch on its axis, and everything else would need to adjust.

“Come on. Let’s go toast Carey,” Ellie said. They grabbed their coats and locked the office behind them.

Out in the hall floated the laughter and excited talk of students caught up for the first time in a world of intense competition and limitless dreams.

About the A
uthor

Like her sleuth,
Susan Cory
practices residential architecture from a turreted office.
Like Iris, she has a brown belt in Karate. She even went to her own twentieth Harvard Graduate School of Design reunion, but no one was murdered. She lives in Cambridge, Ma.
with
her architect husband, Dan, and her bossy mutt, not a basset hound.