The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles) (18 page)

“The Marshalls are in with Jenn,” Patty said. “They’ve been in there awhile even though the doctors said they could have only a few minutes.”

“Maybe she got a boost of energy when she saw her parents,” Lauren said. “I hope so. I tweeted some other friends that she’s awake, and I’m getting lots of retweets and woots.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said.

“The doctors still won’t let anyone else see her, though,” Andrew added. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Willa and Lauren donned their many layers of outer clothing. “Yeah, they wouldn’t even let Professor Morrell in, so he left,” Lauren said.

I found it curious that Ted would come. I suppose he found out the same way the students did, through Patty, who had essentially lived with the Marshalls these last few days.

“You have to be a cop to get in there now,” Willa grumbled. “We’re leaving.”

“But we’ll be back if Jenn wants, you know, company later,” Lauren said, as Willa dragged her by the elbow.

“Has Detective Mitchell been here already?” I asked, addressing Andrew and Patty.

“Yeah, and they let him in right away, even before her parents got in,” Andrew said.

“I’m sure that’s procedure,” I said. Pretty sure. I’d been present on occasions when Virgil got a call from a hospital that a crime victim or witness or suspect was physically able to talk. Virgil would drop everything—including Judy this evening, apparently—to get there before the person was “tainted” by other visitors, in his words.

“He wouldn’t tell us what Jenn said,” Andrew noted. “But we asked someone coming out of the wing—I think, maybe, like a male nurse—if he’d heard anything. He said he could see through the window that the detective showed Jenn something.”

A bit removed from firsthand information, but we might as well go with it, I decided.

“He thought it might have been a photo,” Patty said.

“The guy also said Detective Mitchell looked disappointed, so I’ll bet Jenn didn’t recognize the picture,” Andrew added.

The mug shot of Ponytail was my guess. As far as I knew, we didn’t have a good likeness of the other worker, unless Virgil’s techs had been able to pull one off the web. The other worker, my Einstein, didn’t have a record, or Barker wouldn’t have hired him, and the videos didn’t even come close to being useful for an ID by anyone who wasn’t familiar with him to begin with.

“Did the Marshalls tell you anything about how Jenn is doing?” I asked Andrew. Patty had excused herself for a trip to the vending machine. After my triple chocolate dazzle, I could easily pass on candy, or anything else that came out of a machine.

“Yeah, Mr. Marshall came out and talked to us, which was very nice of him,” Andrew said.

“I’m sure they both appreciate your concern,” I said, thinking that Andrew was giving Los Angeles a very good name for compassionate youth.

“She’ll need a ton of therapy,” he said. “The best things I heard are that she has temporary dysfunction with no long-term complications. Not that I understand that completely, but I like the sound of it.”

“Me, too,” I said. I figured doctors were slow to use phrases like “full recovery” and this was as good as we were going to get.

“They’ve assigned a case manager in Fitchburg who’ll coordinate everything,” Andrew continued. “Physical, speech, neurology, and on and on. Even a vocational counselor to advise her about coming back to school and all.”

I wondered how soon Jenn would be fit to be moved to her hometown. I knew it wasn’t the most important thing, but I hoped she’d be able to help Virgil find her attacker first. Only Jenn might eventually be able to tell us if the second worker was the guilty party, and possibly give us a clue about why he might have chosen her to batter, her backpack to steal. Unless she’d blocked out the memory, which would be the second best thing to happen.

“I just hope they find the guy,” Andrew said, summing up my thoughts. He put his backpack down, letting it rest between his legs.

“I can’t believe she might not come back this spring.” Patty had returned with chips, candy bars, sodas. Apparently, the vending machine was out of hard-boiled eggs and bags of granola. She unloaded everything onto a small table. “Help yourself,” she told Andrew and me. “I guess I should just be more grateful, huh? I mean, I thought she was going to die”—Patty held back tears—“but I want her all the way back, you know what I mean?”

Andrew nodded and picked up a bag of chips with sea salt.

We sat for about ten minutes with our own thoughts, Patty and Andrew snacking while I felt a bit guilty, having enjoyed a full meal at the Inn.

I watched as doctors and nurses with unidentifiable titles passed by. How did you tell who was who these days—doctors, nurses, paradoctors, and paranurses. I saw only one woman and one man in white coats. Most of the employees wore cotton pants in a dull shade of blue and a tunic top in a matching shade or a print, with hearts, flowers, kittens, or butterflies. The most popular design I noticed was a yellow and green short-sleeved shirt with images of dogs on skateboards. We could have been in Hawaii.

Rring, rring. Rring, rring.

The phone startled me. I wasn’t as used to Bruce’s ringtone as I thought. I walked away from Patty and Andrew and clicked on.

“Hey, Sophie.” Judy Donohue’s voice. “I was so glad to hear about Jenn. Whew, huh? Have you seen her?”

“No, not yet. I’m getting bits and pieces that say she might be able to go home in a week or so.”

“
Home
home, or back to school?”

“To Fitchburg, most likely.”

“Any word about returning to school?”

“No. How’d you find me at this number, by the way?”

“Virgil gave me Bruce’s number. He said he had your phone and you had Bruce’s. I didn’t ask why.”

“Long story.”

“Listen, I have Virgil’s car.”

“You have Virgil’s car?” I parroted.

“Long story.”

We both laughed.

“I can pick you up at the hospital,” Judy said.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that. Patty, Jenn’s roommate, has a car. She’ll be able to take me home.”

“I was hoping to talk to you,” Judy said.

“Another long story?”

“All good,” Judy said.

“What’s convenient for you?” I asked.

“I can be there in ten or fifteen.”

“That will work. I doubt that I’ll get in to see Jenn tonight anyway. I’ll wait for you at the main entrance so you won’t have to park.”

I clicked off, with a smile. Jenn was awake and Judy had a good story to tell me.

I assured Andrew and Patty that I was all set for a ride home from the hospital with Judy and sent them on their way.

Andrew issued a parting reminder over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Dr. Knowles. Don’t forget, I’m going to work on your email problem after our seminar. Be thinking of an appropriate e-punishment for the hacker.”

“Done,” I said. My evil twin had already decided to find a way to spam the culprit with ads for the puzzle magazines that featured my submissions.

I gathered my cumbersome winter wear, ready to locate the correct color-coded line to the hospital’s exit. Halfway into my heavy jacket, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Marshall walking toward me, from the other side of the glass-topped double doors of the waiting room.

A cautiously optimistic smile adorned each of their faces, one that said there was hope for their family. Mrs. Marshall pushed through the door and approached me with her arms open and gave me a tearful hug, a surprise, since I hadn’t felt that we’d connected over the past few days.

Mr. Marshall waited his turn then said, “Dr. Knowles, we’re glad to see you. Andrew and the girls said you’d get here as soon as you could.”

“She wants to talk to you,” Mrs. Marshall said, stepping back and taking a deep, audible breath. She dabbed at her eyes and smoothed her skirt, the same one I’d seen the first day of Jenn’s hospital stay. “Do you mind going in? The doctor says she should be okay for another few minutes, then she has to take a pill and, I guess, that puts her to sleep.”

“But just sleep, that’s all,” Mr. Marshall said. I understood that he meant “not another coma.”

I did my best not to knock them over on my way to Jenn’s room.

• • •

It was all I could do to maintain a smile at the sight of my heavily bandaged and bruised student. Jenn was surrounded by lifelines of tubes and blipping green lines that made it difficult for me to believe she’d be leaving the hospital anytime soon. I tried to adjust my breathing to avoid large doses of whatever foul-smelling chemicals were nearby. I hoped they weren’t being pumped through Jenn, or any other patient. I had great admiration for Jenn’s parents, keeping up their spirits in the face of the sights, sounds, and smells in the tiny room, for their daughter’s sake.

A large female medical professional with a matching set of blue scrubs glanced at me where I was standing a foot or so inside the room. She turned away, continued fiddling with apparatus, and said, “You can have five minutes.”

“Thanks,” I said, stepping in.

“Don’t agitate her,” she added in a tone as serious as a military command.

Did I look like an agitator? I wore a simple mauve sweater with a matching scarf—calming, I thought. “I’ll be very careful,” I answered, glad, in a way, that Jenn was in the hands of someone as protective of her as her family and friends were.

I hoped my five minutes started only when the woman finally left the room, leaving in her wake a scowl, aimed at me.

I tiptoed to the head of the bed. Jenn was flat on her back, sleeping, I thought. Close up, the bruises looked even more lethal. Her white bandage was thicker than any I’d ever seen, with the possible exception of one on Bruce’s head after an ice-climbing incident (he never acknowledged “accidents”).

I’d read strange stories of people waking up from a coma. They came back to flood my brain. A young German man who woke up unable to speak anything but fluent French, which his parents claimed he’d had only a cursory knowledge of before his accident; a middle-aged woman, shy and reclusive all her life, who woke from a coma as chatty, outgoing, and the life of the party; a car mechanic who became so agitated and confused when he emerged from his coma that he had to be restrained. I shivered and pulled my sweater around me. I looked down at Jenn and hoped her recovery would be the most normal on record.

More than ever, I wanted to find the person who did this to my student. Whether his name was Einstein or Dillinger, I wanted him in custody.

I hesitated to wake her now. I’d forgotten to ask the Marshalls if Jenn had said anything other than she wanted to speak to me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d imagined she’d said anything at all, eager as they’d been to make contact with their daughter.

I bent over her, to be sure she was breathing. She snapped up, almost knocking our foreheads together. I let out a little (I hoped) yelp.

“Sorry,” Jenn said (possibly) in a muffled voice.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“Sorry,” she said again.

I took her hand, the one without the needle, and stumbled over a few words I intended to be soothing. “You’re doing so well.” “It’s wonderful to have you back.” “We’ve missed you.” I wished it hadn’t felt so much like a funeral.

As desperately as I wanted to ask Jenn cop-type questions, I couldn’t bring myself to agitate someone in such a fragile state, and wouldn’t have, even if I hadn’t been warned by the large nurse-like person. I decided instead to talk about positive things like school and her future.

“All your friends and teachers are waiting to welcome you back,” I began. “I’ve been thinking about how to make it easy for you to finish the Intersession and get your full credit, working from home. Once you’re up to it, you can do a book report for the math history seminar. I have a new book on mathematics as a language that I think you’d find interesting, and another one that’s a biography of Blaise Pascal’s sister, Gilberte. Remember, she’s the one who—”

“Sorry,” Jenn whispered for a third time.

I leaned in. “Am I talking too much?” I asked.

She shook her head, which for her was to turn her neck about fifteen degrees to each side. She raised her untethered arm to her bandages and multicolored face.

“Why are you sorry, Jenn? You don’t think this is your fault, do you?”

“Money,” she said.

Money? Again? Maybe the commuters were right about some things.

“Tell me about money,” I said.

“Took some.” Two consecutive words seemed to drain her energy. Tears formed in her eyes.

“I know. He took your money. But please, please, Jenn, don’t worry about that. We’ll make sure—”

“Wrong,” she said, her head now moving faster, back and forth, in a decisive “no.”

“Jenn, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Are you telling me I’m wrong? That the man who beat you didn’t take your money?” I was confused, and aware that Jenn was becoming excited. I saw full on tears now. I took a risk. “Do you know who attacked you? Or why? Does it have to do with your money?”

I’d kept my voice low and smooth, I thought, but still Jenn’s body tensed. Her fingers clenched, her feet wiggled under the thin white blanket, and her head rolled as much as forty-five degrees, back and forth.

“Jenn, please calm down,” I begged, looking for a button to call a nurse.

Before I could figure out how to get help, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall came through the doorway. I hadn’t realized they’d been standing in the hallway, close to the threshold probably the whole time of my visit.

“That’s enough, please, Dr. Knowles,” Mrs. Marshall said. The large lady in blue was on their heels, summoned by them (possibly); it was time for me to leave (certainly), and I did.

The lady ushered the Marshalls out a minute later. We reconvened in the waiting room.

“I was telling Jenn she doesn’t need to worry about school at all,” I told them.

“Why was she so upset then?” Mrs. Marshall asked.

“I don’t know.” Only a small lie, since I wasn’t absolutely sure. I wasn’t about to tell them their daughter seemed worried about money.

“That’s not good for her,” Mr. Marshall added.

“She’s not supposed to get excited,” Mrs. Marshall said, her voice as strained as when Jenn was first hospitalized.

“She shouldn’t be moving around like that,” Mr. Marshall said, shaking his head. He might as well have pointed a scolding finger at me.

“I know, and I don’t know what upset her. I was simply telling her that I would take care of the logistics for finishing her classes this term.”

“You can do that?” Mr. Marshall asked, his attention drawn away from his censuring.

I nodded. “And even if she’s still in Fitchburg at the beginning of the spring term, I can talk to the dean. I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange something. Maybe a special project that she can do on her own. We’ll get creative.”

I felt confident that the administration would be willing to cooperate with anything that put things right for a student who was attacked on our campus going about her business in the middle of the day. It was the least we could do. Besides reevaluating our network of security cameras.

The Marshalls thanked me as I donned my outerwear. The expressions on their faces were somewhere between pleasant and neutral, but I noticed they stood solidly, shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, between me and their daughter.

• • •

I walked the red line to the hospital exit as quickly as I could. I’d lost track of time and now realized Judy must have been circling the hospital entrance looking for me.

As I rushed along the hallway, I revisited the few words Jenn had spoken.

Sorry
(three times).
Money. Took some. Wrong.

Not quite haiku, but adding
snowy day
might make the difference. My first thought had been that Jenn was worried that the mugger took her money, which was a “wrong” thing to do. Now, due to her apparent turmoil and three apologies—from guilt?—I had to admit another possibility. The only other thing that made sense was that it was Jenn who
took
—I couldn’t bring myself to say “stole”—money. She knew she was wrong and now she was sorry. But what money? Whose money? Einstein’s? Was that why he attacked her, because she took his money?

No reasonable scenario came to mind. Except one that was so ridiculous it brought a smile to my face: Jenn, all in black, with a team of questionable characters, à la Patty Hearst and Kirsten Packard, robbing a bank, frightening a teller, forcing him to hand over a pile of money. My mind did strange things when I hadn’t had enough sleep. Possibly even when I had.

I wondered if Jenn’s parents knew more than they were saying. They might have been ready to cut my visit short even if Jenn hadn’t become restive.

Rring, rring. Rring, rring.

Judy calling. I hoped her dinner with Virgil, brief as it was, had put her in a forgiving mood.

“Sorry,” I said, echoing Jenn. I checked the signage on the walls, thought back to my trip into Jenn’s wing, and calculated that I had one long hallway and two short ones before I’d be at the exit, where all colors met. “I should be at the entrance in five minutes.”

“No problem. Are you sure you’re ready to leave?” Judy asked.

“More than ready.”

• • •

Eager as I was to talk about the few minutes I’d spent with Jenn and the Marshalls, I let Judy lead the conversation on the way to my house in Virgil’s Camry.

“I like him,” Judy said.

“He’s a likable guy,” I said. “Most of the time.”

Judy laughed. “Except when he’s not reading you into an investigation?”

“Hmmm. I hope you didn’t waste too much of your first date talking about me,” I said.

Judy laughed and gave away no secrets.

When we pulled up in front of my house behind an unmarked police car, I knew the answer to one of my questions: No, the police had not yet found Einstein. No, he wasn’t in custody, pouring out a confession to crimes old and new. Wouldn’t it have been great if he’d been picked up on a lesser charge, like shoplifting, or driving without a license—the way that Al Capone had been nabbed, only for cheating on his taxes—but then Einstein would blurt out all his other crimes, from robbery to murder.

I came out of my reverie. “Do you want to come in for coffee?” I asked Judy.

“No, thanks. I’m going to return Virgil’s car.”

I looked at my watch. Eight o’clock. “Do you think he’ll be home? He’s been known to work late.”

“I have a key,” she said.

“Good for you,” I said, smiling, thinking,
fast work
. It still boggled my mind that truffles-and-champagne Judy Donohue and pizza-and-beer Virgil Mitchell were dating. It also occurred to me that someone at this moment might be marveling at the partnership of stay-at-home-and-do-puzzles Sophie Knowles and Yosemite-is-an-easy-winter-climb Bruce Granville.