The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles) (10 page)

“Evening, ma’am,” he said.

“Hey,” I said, to be cool.

But no matter how I greeted him, we both knew I was old enough to be his mother. It was the same with most of my students, but they were, after all, students, not working adults. Different. Or so I told myself.

It felt strange knowing the construction workers were unaware that they’d been stared at, ogled, and suspected of a crime by a room full of faculty and students. Did that make us voyeurs? Did it make it better or worse that there had also been a cop in the room?

It took three more such greetings from young men to get me to my car, where a man, one of the workers, I assumed, but not so young, was standing by an old sedan. The car was parked three slots over from mine, with no vehicles in between. His hat was pulled low over his face, his arms were folded across his chest. I felt a wave of panic, though I couldn’t pinpoint what was threatening about him. I looked around and was relieved to see a group of students, backpacks and duffel bags bouncing, coming toward us from the gym.

I hit the alarm button on my remote. A combination of loud sounds—a high-pitched
chirp, chirp, chirp
overlaid with a low pitched
blare, blare, blare—
filled the cold air around me. I looked up, feigning surprise and embarrassment, and waved as if to say “No problem, my mistake.”

I ducked into my car.

I had no reason to fear the worker, except that it was dark, he was large, and I was alone. Was I a snob, thinking that blue-collar workers weren’t to be trusted after dark? Would I have reacted the same way if the man had been in a suit and tie, or the male faculty “uniform” of decent pants and a sweater or sports coat?

I’d deal with my prejudices later. For now, I locked the doors manually.

The worker turned away and entered his own vehicle, but I caught a glimpse of his face through my side window, lit from a security lamp at the corner of the tennis court. I tried not to stare. I couldn’t be positive, but he might have been one of the workers I’d seen on the video. One of the fighting duo. Not the jacket-changing man, however. The other man, older than the cute, young greeters I’d just crossed paths with. This man wore a cap, his hair in a gray or blond ponytail. Given the poor resolution on the video, it was hard to tell whether this was the same man. Video man might simply have had a thick, fuzzy collar, not a ponytail.

I drove off toward home, checking my rearview mirror often. Three times, I was sure the man was following me. Each time, I pulled off and let the suspicious car pass. Twice, I was clearly wrong, as the vehicles continued on their way with women or families on board; the third time I was sure I caught him. I turned quickly into a wide driveway in front of a convenience store and saw the car behind me slow down, then drive off, a man in a cap at the wheel. Big deal. How common was that profile at rush hour?

I tuned my car radio to news and weather to distract myself. The pending snowstorm took up more time than it should have. It was mid-January in Massachusetts. Snow wasn’t news.

Nice, turning sour on an unsuspecting weather woman. I was rattled, embarrassed at my fear of a man who had done nothing to disturb me. He may have looked a little creepy, but he could simply have been tired. He’d put in a long day of hard work. Unlike me, going from desk to classroom to another desk to another classroom. Maybe he’d simply been waiting on campus for a coworker who didn’t show up. My shame turned to anger at whoever it was who had turned our beautiful campus into a scary place.

But it wasn’t all the fault of the thug who’d cast a shadow over the week by attacking my student. I was also the victim of my own imagination that wouldn’t quit, and a mind that desperately wanted answers.

I remembered a quote my father had stuck in one of his math textbooks, something about having “a reverence for mathematics as an exalted and mysterious science.”

Mathematics seemed the least mysterious of all at this moment.

• • •

Somewhat settled after the parking lot scenario and the drive home, I sat at my kitchen counter sifting through the best parts of day-old Thai food to share during Bruce’s dinner break. I’d planned on preparing a New England pot roast dinner for the Marshalls. Instead, they’d opted for a hospital meal. They’d heard from the doctors that Jenn was stabilizing, meaning not getting any worse, and they wanted to be close by in case she woke up. I understood why they would grasp at any straw.

Whirr, whirr, whirr. Whirr, whirr, whirr.

I jumped. Not as settled in as I thought. I picked up my cell and greeted Bruce, calling from work.

“Turns out I can’t take that dinner break,” Bruce said when we talked around seven o’clock. “We’re down two guys.”

“No problem,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed. “I have a ton of work.”

I had a sudden urge to pack a bag and head for the airport. Except it would be too hard to choose: Florida or Rwanda? I dumped the food from Pan’s in the sink, ran the disposal, and threw the plastic containers into the recycling bin. Then I grabbed a banana that was about an hour away from banana bread and went to my office.

• • •

A couple of hours later, I’d accomplished at least half of the ton of work I’d mentioned to Bruce, most having to do with canceling automatic charges to my credit card. My list for the next day, Saturday, had to include at least a call to the police station to report the fraud incident and a trip to the bank to sign whatever form Eric had talked about.

And, possibly, a journey to Boston.

About Boston—I thought of tossing a coin, or doing something equally silly, like when I was a kid. “If I can solve this puzzle in ten minutes,” I’d say to my mother, “it means I should go to Dawn’s birthday party. If it takes me longer, I’m supposed to go to the library with Cameron.”

Margaret would shake her head. “You’re just like your father,” she’d say.

Which was what I wanted to hear.

While I was nibbling on a peanut-butter-filled pretzel and reviewing notes for Monday morning’s class, Bruce called again.

“Meant to tell you, there’s a big storm coming,” he said. “Not great for skiing.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that Bruce was still considering a ski trip to New Hampshire.

“Too bad,” I said.

“So, I might as well get some OT in while I can, if you don’t mind. Unless you had your heart set on Boston? We could still catch an exhibit and stay over tomorrow night?”

“Not necessary. Take the overtime.” I knew that once the snow started, if it did, MAstar’s helicopters would be grounded and people would have to resort to slow-moving
ground transportation
, the term Bruce and his buddies used for ambulances. It made sense that Bruce should take the hours while he could.

“So you don’t need to go and, you know, look for anyone?” Bruce asked.

I understood Bruce’s reluctance to mention Kirsten or her roommate. Better not to remind me if I’d forgotten about the foolish errand.

“Nuh-uh.” A white lie. I wasn’t going to look for anyone. I knew where she was.

It wasn’t entirely clear to me why I wasn’t up front about my Boston plan to Bruce, except that I didn’t want to be talked out of it. And maybe also I figured Bruce would tell Virgil and there’d be so much explaining and defending and hand-waving thrown in. Better not to bother the guys with my little excursion, which probably wouldn’t amount to anything anyway.

“So, what’ll you do tomorrow?” Bruce asked.

“Oh, just stuff.”

“Class stuff?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll get off whenever the storm hits and catch up with you. That sound okay?”

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

I did a quick calculation. I could call the police station first and make an appointment for next week to report the credit card fraud, and be at the bank when it opened at nine, then zip onto I-95, over to I-93 and into Boston. With light Saturday traffic, I could easily be at the BPL by the time Wendy Carlson was ready for her coffee break. I doubted Wendy would give me more than an hour of her time, if that. If at all. Even if I did some shopping or made a quick visit to the Museum of Science, I could be home long before the storm hit and Bruce left his fair weather job.

I almost thanked Bruce for helping me make the Boston decision, but it would have been too hard to explain how he’d helped me choose between Boston and not Boston.

• • •

Later in the evening, I felt I’d spent enough time on cleanup work to restore my standing in the credit card world. I longed for the good old days when people simply saved up cash for a new couch or a ski outfit. I felt safe taking this position because I had no firsthand knowledge of those card-free years and there was no one within earshot who could contradict me.

I wished I’d spent time preparing myself for meeting, or thrusting myself upon, Wendy Carlson. There was so much I wanted to ask her, so many rumors to check out. I’d been eager to follow up on Fran’s reference to a story about Kirsten Packard’s alleged involvement in a bank robbery, à la Patty Hearst, but non-copyeditor Kenny and Philippines-liaison Eric had done me in for today.

I hoped I’d seen the end of nuisance distractions. What had Ted said about them?
Distractions can be the good guys.
Easy for him to say. I had too many other things to do.

Saturday morning brought a new annoyance. When I opened my email client on my laptop, I had more than two thousand messages. How could that be? On average, I received about a hundred a day, including all my online groups, classwork, other business and personal contacts.

On closer inspection, I saw that I’d been spammed by ads, with multiple copies of each message that was trying to sell me a product. Dozens and dozens of identical ads from a car rental agency (hadn’t used one in ages). Dozens more for golf clubs (what?). I scrolled past ads for eyeglass repair (no need for glasses yet), updated chess software (not my game), and gifts for the pets in my life (never owned one).

Not a single ad was from a site I’d patronized in the past. As if even those would have been welcome—but at least it would have made a little sense.

I’d come into my home office with a mug of coffee, half dressed for my errands and my trip to Boston. I’d expected to take a quick look at my email and texts and be on my way by about eight
AM
. But I couldn’t stand the thought of coming home to this mess in my inbox. I decided to clean it up and leave a little later.

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

A call from Ariana on my landline. I was surprised she was up so early, unless she had an early morning swim date.

“Hey, Sophie,” she said, the two words as full of concern as a whole sentence would be from someone else. “What’s going on up there?”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I’m having a morning swim with Chuck”—I smiled at my stellar powers of prediction, in spite of the gravity in her tone—“the guy I told you about, and his brother just got down here from North Easton. He said there was a mugging on the Henley campus a couple of days ago. And the victim was in the Math Department. And I said, no, I’d have known about it because my best friend—”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to spoil your vacation.”

“You know I’d drop everything, even Chuck, if I could help.”

I assured Ariana that everything was under control and promised to text her immediately if I thought there was anything she could do. But before I clicked off, I shot a question to her.

“Do you remember twenty-five years ago, a suicide on the Henley campus? A student—”

“Sure,” she said. “I was in college but it was all over the news.”

“Maybe in Massachusetts,” I said. “How come you never mentioned it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll bet I did. We weren’t emailing and texting coast-to-coast every hour back then, remember. I might have put it in an actual letter with a lot of other stuff. Why is this coming up?”

“No particular reason.”

“I doubt that, but I can’t tickle it out of you over the phone, so this will be continued next week in person.”

“Deal,” I said.

“Are you sure you don’t need me?” she asked.

“Positive,” I said, clicking off.

I put in a call to my email provider, and while on hold, I sifted through the ads, trying to group like messages, using the Search function as much as possible. I isolated twenty different ads with close to one hundred replications each. I checked one more time to be sure I hadn’t selected a real message, and hit delete.

One welcome notification was from my email provider, that “delivery has been aborted” and they would no longer attempt to send my reply to Kenny the elusive copyeditor. A relief, but I’d have preferred some closure, like learning what company Kenny worked for, if not the one I submitted to, and which puzzler he was trying to reach, so I could send that person my condolences.

Everything looked much better on my screen, so I hung up, still without a clue where this computer attack came from. I handled the real messages, and spent some time troubleshooting. I tried a help site, and even a chat room to try to determine how the spam storm arrived at my computer. About an hour and a half later, I still had no idea how to prevent further intrusions, other than take the precautions already built into my system. Next week I’d buy Ted, our Franklin Hall tech expert, a cruller, and see if he had any suggestions.

I clicked over to the weather report. Cute white smiley-faced snowflakes, each one different, of course, fell from a puffy blue cartoon cloud all over New England. They were due to land in Boston even later tonight than originally predicted. Great; I’d be in and out of the city, home midafternoon, well ahead of the storm’s path, as long as I got moving soon.

Wanting to cross one more item off my nuisance list before I left, I called the Henley PD and poured out my fraud story to a man who identified himself as Bunyan. For the rest of the conversation I pictured a tall, strapping guy in a flannel shirt, with a forest of a beard, who could pick me up with one hand. Bunyan told me that an officer would be assigned to my case and would contact me soon. Check.

I finished dressing—a professional look with a long wool skirt, boots, and a jacket. I could hear Ariana as if she were standing in my bedroom and not thirteen hundred miles south: “Sure, that’s a professional look. From the eighties,” she’d have said, clicking her tongue. Ariana often commented on “the preppy look that should never have come back, twice.” But it was exactly the way I pictured a BPL researcher. I’d soon see.

• • •

As I’d hoped, Eric wasn’t working today. I didn’t think I could handle a face-to-face with him. I was lucky to be called to the window of a woman who looked old enough to have been to the rodeo and back a few times.

Without a single “I’m afraid not,” the woman whisked through some paperwork, asked for my signature, and told me to expect a new credit card in the mail in a few days. Meanwhile I could use the temporary number assigned to me. Even though I played around with the little inkless fingerprint pad on the counter—in the area of toys, online banking couldn’t compete with brick-and-mortar facilities—I was out in ten minutes. My kind of errand.

I was ready to start the fun part of the day.

Weekend traffic was light along I-95, but heavier than I expected as I got to I-93, approaching Boston, and then close to impossible when I reached Copley Square. The big gray McKim building of the BPL finally came into view at just after noon, not the best time to find someone at work. I decided that a better idea might be for me to have lunch first, especially since I’d had a meager breakfast of coffee and half a muffin. I congratulated myself on coming up with a completely acceptable stalling tactic.

The surrounding area with the centuries-old Trinity Church and charming old hotels was familiar to me from frequent visits. In recent years, I visited here for special exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts or the Museum of Science. And for shopping, when I was in the mood. Or, more correctly, when Ariana was in the mood.

I parked in a large structure on Huntington Avenue, under a shiny, less charming new hotel connected to Copley Place on one side and the Prudential Center on the other. I did most of my shopping online these days, for everything from toothpaste to kitchen spatulas to shoes, but when I did want to step into the world of brick-and-mortar stores, this was my favorite center. You could find what you wanted here, whether your taste ran to a trinket at Tiffany’s and elegant dining at the Top of the Hub, or an inexpensive scarf from a kiosk and a quick dessert at Ben & Jerry’s.

I entered the center’s food court and chose a small, counter version of the North End’s Regina Pizzeria, another “best of Boston” in my book. Sitting with a large cheese and mushroom slice, I felt a little guilty. There I was eating great pizza while Bruce and Virgil, my usual partners in the activity, were both at work.

Thoughts of Jenn and the state she was in also intruded on my enjoyment. I hoped Virgil and the HPD had made some progress in the investigation. And that Jenn might be waking up to sounds of relief from her worried parents.

I finished the last bite of crusty dough and the last sip of lemon-flavored sparkling water and headed for the library. Like a long thread of mozzarella that won’t leave its moorings on a slice of pizza, the thought that the fates of Kirsten Packard and Jenn Marshall were connected wouldn’t leave my mind.

• • •

I walked as far as I could indoors before stepping outside at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Dartmouth Street, not happy with the blast of bitter cold. I sketched out a memo in my head to the city’s engineers—please work on a weatherproof underground tunnel or skywalk to get us citizens from the shopping center to the BPL. I was pretty sure no one else would want to spoil the look of the striking Romanesque architecture of the oldest public library in the country, but the mental exercise gave me something to do other than hop from one foot to the other while I waited at the crosswalk. I had just enough time to read the inspirational quote carved into the stately building: “The Commonwealth Requires the Education of the People as the Safeguard of Order and Liberty.” An awesome example of the glory days of public buildings, when they were meant to inspire.

Across Dartmouth Street, a more modern building, a bank, favored passersby with a neon red crawl that told us the outside temperature was two degrees Fahrenheit. I shivered at the thought, and at the extra chill that passed through me once I knew the numbers. I took a freezing breath and started up the steps of the library, asking myself why I’d left my comfy cottage for this so-called interview with a woman I’d never met and who, most likely, didn’t want to meet me.

By the time I reached the top step, snow had started to fall. Had the weather prediction I’d seen earlier been incorrect? Off by nearly half a day? I was shocked. What next? I mused, sorry no one was around to appreciate my sarcasm.

Inside the building, more architectural marvels awaited, with the grand ivory gray staircase, rich yellow sienna walls, and two giant marble lions. I felt I’d entered a temple, and in a way it was, a shrine to books and learning.

I spotted a small desk set apart in an alcove and headed that way to ask for Wendy Carlson. But as soon as I caught a glimpse of the woman on duty, I recognized her.

She’d stood to access a file cabinet behind her, a tall woman, with ramrod-straight posture. Her short hair, a shade between mine (medium-rare brown) and Bruce’s (very well-done brown) was cropped, forming a neat helmet around her thin face. And—I whispered to the imaginary Ariana at my side—she was wearing a long black skirt, boots, a mock turtleneck, and a blazer. Very eighties.

A good sign, if I believed in signs.

I stalled, stopping at a bench, pretending to search for something in my briefcase while I watched two backpack-laden patrons interact with the woman. Even from a distance of thirty feet, I could tell there wasn’t the same sparkle I’d seen in the eyes of the Henley sophomore making up her dorm room bed twenty-five years ago.

I wished I had a script, something that spelled out exactly what I wanted from Wendy. I told myself if I could simply hear Wendy’s version of what had happened to precipitate her roommate’s death, my curiosity would be satisfied. A few moments of commiseration, and I could be on my way, finished with the Kirsten Packard case. I might even be able to stop calling it a case. Bruce and especially Virgil would be so pleased. And Ted, I mused.

While Wendy served people in a short line at the desk, I sat on a marble bench and worked a quick game, similar to the hangman of my childhood, except with numbers. When she was free, I made my move and crossed the marble floor between us.

“Good afternoon,” I said, winded. Probably not from the walk, but from reading the nameplate on the desk, which confirmed my guess. I’d found Wendy Carlson. “I’m Sophie Knowles. I’m a professor at Henley College.”
Your alma mater
hung in the air.

I was ready for anything, from a cold brush-off to a how-dare-you slap in the face. But I wasn’t ready for what she said.

“Ted said you might be coming.”

So much for surprising Wendy.