The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles) (3 page)

I shut my eyes against the nasty image, but curiosity propelled me forward.

I pulled together a scenario from several reports: Two freshman roommates had been running on campus. As they approached Admin from the east, they claimed, they heard a single, brief chime from the carillon. This was verified by others in their dorm rooms. At the same time, the runners “thought they saw something drop from the tower,” then noticed “a pile of clothes or something” on the top step of the building, spilling over to the second step. They ran up the stairs to check and saw the deceased, sprawled out. Since the front door of Admin was not open, they’d immediately run back to their dorm and called nine-one-one.

The next day, I read, Kirsten’s father, a state’s attorney, made a brief statement, expressing gratitude for the outpouring of sympathy to him and his family, and requesting that their privacy be respected. The funeral services were for family and close friends only. No special memorial was held in the campus chapel, a departure from the usual practice in a faculty or student death.

I found no mention of a boyfriend, good or bad, and suspected his existence was born of word of mouth and in less formal areas of the media, like profiles or column pieces. Or the tabloids, I thought, and looked around the densely populated restaurant to see if anyone had read my trashy mind.

Only one photograph of Kirsten kept showing up: what appeared to be her high school yearbook picture. I was surprised at the poor reproduction. I’d gotten used to the crisp images of current online newspapers. But Kirsten’s image had the look of a fourth-generation photocopy, devoid of detail, a grainy version of a long-haired young woman wearing an obligatory drape across her shoulders, like every other girl in her class. The photo gave me no clue as to what Kirsten might have been like. I wondered what she would have looked like now, what career she might have had as a language major. A linguist for the United Nations? A teacher? A literary translator? What had the world missed?

I made a note to check later, to search the
Boston Globe
and other media for wider, national coverage. I could also pull up Henley College alumnae newsletters, though I doubted any mention would have been made of the tragedy. It wasn’t exactly material for recruiting brochures.

I complained a lot about nomophobes who couldn’t disconnect themselves from the net, their phones, texting, IMing, Facebooking, but now I had to admit a video gone viral at the time of Kirsten’s fall would have served my purposes well.

Not that I was clear on what my purposes were.

“One thirty, Miss Sophie. A little something while you wait for Mr. Bruce,” Toi said, leaving a plate of familiar samples.

“Mmm, shrimp. Thank you,” I murmured, but she was gone as quickly as she’d come.

A small glitch in my screen caused my eyes to blink, and when they refocused on the article I’d been reading, it was on the word
investigation
. A
duh
moment. Bruce’s best friend since college, and therefore a constant presence in my life, was a detective with the Henley Police Department. Before calling Africa, I could call downtown Henley, USA.

Detective Virgil Mitchell had left the Boston PD and come to Henley only a few years ago, but I was sure he’d have heard about Kirsten Packard. I paused, envisioning an orientation meeting where detectives new to town were briefed on every crime and tragedy in the history of the department. Unlikely. But wouldn’t an event like a campus suicide forty miles away reach Boston? If not, surely he could find out about Kirsten Packard and answer some questions for me. And if he knew already, Virge should have told me, I thought, with a mental pout. It had happened on my campus, after all.

Which brought me back to why. Why did I care so much? Was it simply that I didn’t like being out of the loop on such a dramatic occurrence at Henley College? Was it the natural curiosity of a mathematician and puzzle-maker?

All of the above, I guessed, but there was another factor, the “unfinished” factor. I was convinced that if Ted and Judy had simply related a story with a definitive ending, no loose ends, I would have filed it away. Sad, but nothing to capture my attention. The Kirsten Packard story, however, was anything but finished in my mind. I couldn’t understand why a family wouldn’t want a full investigation into the death of a young woman. I certainly did.

The fact that Jenn Marshall and Andrew Davies, both sophomore math majors, were part of the new carillon program also nagged at me. I couldn’t shake an unfounded but growing feeling that I should be worried about both of them. I’d meant to ask Ted if the late Kirsten Packard had been a carillonist. I couldn’t imagine why else she would have been in the tower the night she died.

If Kirsten hadn’t committed suicide, maybe something about being a carillonist caused her death. Not that I had any idea
what
. I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to solve the mystery. If in fact it was a mystery. I had only Judy’s store of gossip to rely on. And everyone knew the flights of fancy Judy Donohue was prone to.

Another looming question, based on reality: Didn’t I have enough to occupy my time without chasing a past event that had nothing to do with me? With Fran off teaching in Africa, and an adjunct faculty member on medical leave, I was back as chair of the department this year. The chairmanship meant an exponential increase in meetings and endless hours spent accounting for each ream of graph paper and every half hour of student aide work. Plus, the compressed January sessions gave me two extra classes; a third puzzle magazine had asked for submissions from me; and my latest research paper sat in a file waiting for me to prepare the final version for publication. Weren’t millions upon millions of people waiting to read my paper on an approximation method for solving differential equations? In between all these projects, I had a life. Didn’t I?

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

Speaking of my life. Bruce had programmed my phone to sound like helicopter blades. He claimed he’d recorded the sound of the newest Eurocopter at MAstar, and I hadn’t had time to prove that he’d simply chosen “whirring blades” from the ringtone menu of his phone.

“I’m on my way,” he said. “You okay?”

“Ten-four,” I said, feeling jargony. “Did your number come up this morning?”

“Yeah, but it was one of those Mickey Mouse trips where a VIP needs an emergency taping up for a handball match. The rest of the crew was on a real mission, so I took the old copter and drove the guy.”

I loved that Bruce “drove” at two thousand feet in the air. If he had his way, we’d have picnics in a hovering helicopter instead of formal lunches with tablecloths and napkins.

“Want me to order for you?” I asked.

“I’ve been dreaming of the rice-wrapped squid and an exotic dipping sauce. Ask them to surprise me with the sauce and a side.”

Scary.
“Done,” I said.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uh, I thought, you know, with the . . .” He paused and clicked his tongue. “. . . event. On campus.”

How did Bruce know what had come up in the Franklin Hall lounge this morning? It wasn’t out of the question that Ted had called Bruce—they were gym buddies—and told him I seemed upset. But that would be out of character for Ted. And I didn’t think I’d exhibited that much upset behavior once I got over the initial shock of Judy’s revelation.

“How did you know—?”

Silence. The line, or the tower, or whatever was between cell phones, was dead on his end or mine. Unless Bruce had cut me off.

No problem. I’d see him soon for a face-to-face explanation. But I couldn’t rid myself of an uneasy feeling that I shouldn’t be okay, in Bruce’s mind. Was something wrong with Bruce himself? I thought I’d heard “campus event,” but between the high-volume chimes-and-string music in the restaurant on my end, and the lunchtime traffic on his, I could have misheard. Maybe he wasn’t referring to Kirsten Packard. But I’d just left campus an hour ago. What could have gone wrong?

I tried to remember Bruce’s schedule for today. Did he have a doctor’s appointment this morning? Did he come away with bad news? Of course not. He’d texted me all through the morning, his usual practice when he didn’t want to interrupt my class with the
whirr, whirr, whirr
of a regular call. He’d gone to the gym, taken his car to the shop, flown a customer to a med center, come back, and headed for Pan’s. Hardly time for an X-ray or a scan or a long medical consultation.

I punched his number a few more times before settling back and waiting patiently. Or not so patiently.

• • •

I was too jittery, wondering what was up with Bruce, to continue my research into an event that must have rocked the campus twenty-five years ago. Too mentally fractured to read and comprehend information. I pulled up the contacts list on my phone and touched the international number under Fran’s name. I heard the click over to voice mail and hung up without leaving a message. I had too complicated a question for the limits of a phone service, smart or not.

I leaned against the gold wall and resorted to plan B, my relax-while-playing-a-game mode. I treated myself to a selection from a bookmarked site that promised an improvement in my core cognitive functions. Who couldn’t use a little of that? I clicked around the colorful display, dragging and dropping, rearranging parts of a picture. Completing the scene in less than three minutes was a win. Plan B was better than plan A, I told myself. Not only was I having fun, I was improving my brain’s health, and also working—gathering game recommendations for my students who were preparing to teach math in grade school.

Twenty minutes and seven wins, two losses later, both Bruce and Toi arrived at my table, the latter with our steaming, fragrant meals. I wondered if Toi had been watching the door, waiting for Bruce. Her smile said she was pleased at how the timing had worked out.

Why wasn’t I smiling, too? Maybe because Bruce’s greeting was neither as cheery nor as casual as befitted a midweek lunch. He gave me a longer hug, with a value-added back rub. No jokes. No, “Hey, what are you doing the rest of your life?” once he was seated.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

His eyes widened, as they did when light dawned. His forehead became deeply furrowed, all the way up to his dark widow’s peak.

“You haven’t heard,” he said.

I had the sinking feeling that this wasn’t about twenty-five-year-old news. But Bruce was sitting across from me, healthy and fit, ready to dig into his squid. How bad could it be? “Please tell me, Bruce. What haven’t I heard?”

He took a long, slow breath. “One of your students, Jennifer Marshall, was found on campus about an hour ago, badly beaten. She’s in a coma at Henley General.”

My heart jumped; my hand jerked. My fork flew across my plate of crab Rangoon and smashed into my teacup. My heart raced to catch up.

When my heart slowed to normal again, Toi and Bruce were mopping up lemon tea and fried batter from the table in front of me. They brushed away my attempt to help.

I began to dress for the outdoors, focused on leaving Pan’s, getting to the hospital to see Jenn. I buttoned my sweater, added my coat, tucked my scarf into my lapels, all in somewhat of a fog.

When I was fully outfitted, hat and gloves in place, I dug my keys from my purse and started toward the exit.

“Hold on, Sophie,” Bruce said, putting the last soggy napkin on the tray Toi held out. “I’m driving you home.”

I shook my head. “I’m going to the hospital.”

While we argued, Toi had been working; she reappeared with our meals wrapped in plastic, ready to go.

After a few rounds of what might be termed a debate, during which I insisted on driving myself to Henley General in my Honda, and Bruce insisted on taking me to my home in his Mustang, we compromised.

“Tell me again how this is a win-win?” Bruce asked from behind the wheel of his Mustang. We were headed in the direction of Henley General. He’d cranked up the heat as far as it would go. I knew the gesture was solely for me. This was a guy who played with ice, deliberately heading for the most frigid parts of the world with a Windbreaker and maybe an extra pair of socks.

“I gave in on the part about driving myself,” I explained.

Bruce grinned. “Right. I still don’t see why we’re going to the hospital. Everyone who needs to be there already is.”

“Except me.”

His grin broadened into a resigned smile.

“And you’ve told me all you know?” I asked. “You don’t know exactly where on campus she was found, or who found her, or who attacked her, or any other details?”

Bruce shook his head at all my questions. “Sorry. I know whoever attacked her took her backpack, which is not surprising. But Virge is there. And we’re only ten minutes out. ETA two forty-nine.”

Usually I loved Bruce’s emergency language; today it was too real. “Virgil. Of course. That’s how you knew about this”—I waved my arm, unable to bring myself to finish the phrase—“this, in the first place.”

He nodded. “My man on the force. Intel faster and better than the police scanner.”

Virgil always gave MAstar a heads-up if there might be a chance they’d be needed at a trauma site. Not necessarily a homicide, I reminded myself. And when Henley College was involved, Virgil was likely to also call Bruce directly. I wished I could get my own name on the short list.

“Jenn made the presentation at our seminar this morning,” I told Bruce. “She did a really great job.” I had no trouble raising my evaluation of her Gertrude Cox performance from “adequate,” which was what I’d thought of it at the time, to “stellar.” It seemed important to lift Jenn up and keep her at the front of my thoughts. As if she could hear me. As if that would matter in her survival.

“She’s a math major, right?” Bruce asked.

“Yes, and she’s very talented in music, also. In fact, the Music Department chair worked it out so she doesn’t have to pay the usual fee to practice at other venues with operating carillons.”

“She practices at other schools?” Bruce was kindly feeding my need to talk about Jenn.

“Schools and churches. She and Andrew Davies often travel together to Boston.”

“He’s her boyfriend?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Just a friend. Another sophomore math major, from the West Coast.”

“Where’s Jenn’s family?”

“They live in Fitchburg.”

“A local girl. If fifty miles is local.”

“Her poor parents,” I said, suddenly broadening my scope of concern. “They struggle as it is. Her dad’s a house painter. He depends on new construction for steady work and there’s not much of that these days. They don’t need this. Their daughter—”

“We’re almost there,” Bruce said, pointing to the blue hospital sign at the side of the road. He looked over at me. “You doing okay?”

I nodded. “I’ll be better when I know Jenn will be okay.”

I thought of how I’d given the seminar students a special bon voyage pat after class.
Oh no, Jenn had rushed out early
.
She hadn’t gotten the pat. No wonder
. . .

It wasn’t often that superstition took over my brain, but when it did, it was uncontrollable, a serious detour in my wiring. I ended up making connections no logical person, let alone a professional mathematician, should make. Freely associating current carillon students with one who fell from the tower twenty-five years ago, relying on good omens and reassuring phrases to ward off bad luck. What was next? Rabbits’ feet and horseshoes?

I sat back as we passed the Henley Public Library, surrounded by a patchy green and brown lawn and bare trees. Mounds of dirty ice from the December snowfall lined the pathways that wound through the lawn and dotted the curbs of the sidewalk. I had the urge to have Bruce pull over so I could take down the remaining Christmas decorations around the front entrance. The wreath on the door looked as haggard as I felt and was less appropriate than ever with Jenn in the hospital.

I needed a timeline for the day, a dose of reality. I shook my head, determined to return to the rule of reason, though it bothered me to realize I might have been enjoying special service at Pan’s restaurant while my student was being attacked on our own campus.

Jenn had left Franklin Hall just before noon, right after her seminar presentation, probably to avoid any attention or an overdose of congratulations. She might have walked over to the Mortarboard Café, the campus coffee shop, for lunch. Or to the library. Or to any place, as a matter of fact. I started to choke up again as I remembered her silly knit ski hat, with pom-poms on the ends of the ties. It fit the image I had of her as an innocent grade school child. Never mind that she’d written a stellar paper on tensor analysis last term.

I returned to my timeline, recalling that I’d headed for Pan’s soon after the party ended and reached the restaurant by one. Bruce had called me about one forty, while I was eating my appetizer. I’d foolishly thought he was referring to Kirsten Packard as the campus “event,” but he’d already heard about Jenn by then. That left only about an hour window during which Jenn could have been attacked. In broad daylight. It made no sense at all.

Bruce’s muscle car seemed to shrink, until even my five-foot-three frame felt cramped in the seat, the dashboard and windshield moving in on me. While I’d been sipping hot tea and searching the web for information on a long-ago death, Jenn was under attack.

“I hope she makes it,” I said, half to myself.

Bruce put his hand on my knee as if to steady me, or brace me for a collision.

• • •

Henley General Hospital was undergoing renovation, making it harder than ever to navigate the various wards, wings, and their offshoots. Whoever thought of putting colored stripes on the floor for navigation was onto something, except they’d forgotten to provide a key to the code. Would following the yellow line take you to the cardiac unit? Or to the ICU? Did the red line lead to obstetrics? To the laboratory? There was no clue. The result was a grid without documentation. It looked like a maze in a puzzle book. During my time of frequent visits in the last months of my mother’s life, I’d often thought of copying and submitting the floor pattern to fulfill my puzzle-of-the-month contract.

The hospital receptionist had sent us up two flights, on the blue path, which came to a dead end at Gastroenterology. Fortunately, Detective Virgil Mitchell was on a path to coffee at that point and we met in front of a vending machine.

He gave me a hug, which always left me feeling like I’d plopped onto a comfy couch. Virgil used his great height and considerable bulk to advantage in many ways. Better not to be on the receiving end of it in physical combat, but for sheer comfort, he was the best.

“How is she?” I asked, as soon as I was standing on my own again. With Bruce’s arm around me, that is.

Virgil cleared his throat. I recognized the strategy he used when he realized he’d better shed his clinical vocabulary, born of years in law enforcement and many unpleasant visits to this facility and others like it. If challenged, I’d have bet that Virgil knew where all the colored lines on the hospital floor ended up.

“We don’t know yet. They’ve induced a coma. And we’re just waiting.”

“Where was she when—”

“Along the side of the dorm,” Virgil said. “The one at the northeast corner of the campus.”

“Clara Barton Hall? That’s not Jenn’s residence hall. She lives in Paul Revere, at the front of the campus, on Henley Boulevard.”

“A busy street,” Virgil said, as if Jenn should have been walking there instead of on a non-busy campus pathway.

“Did someone actually beat her? I mean, badly?” I had no idea where those questions came from. Apparently in the recesses of my mind, something like a seizure or heart attack for a nineteen-year-old student sounded better to me than an attack by another human being.

Another serious throat-clearing on Virgil’s part. A young man in green hospital garb pushed a large cart of food covered with stainless steel lids in front of Virgil, giving him a minute to form his answer. “’Scuse me, please,” we heard from the worker, in the wake of a most unappetizing odor. I wondered what meal, or excuse for a meal, was served in the middle of the afternoon.

Virgil took a breath and answered. “Yes, there was an attack.”

Cops were like PR people, I realized—those who declared “Mistakes were made.” Passive voice was their friend. Virgil wouldn’t say, “Someone beat your student,” but rather, “There was an attack.” As if a change in grammatical structure could soften the brutality of what had happened. I fought back tears as I tried to face the facts.

“Do you know who did it?” I asked.

I knew I shouldn’t put Virgil on the spot so soon. Bruce had been thoughtful enough to buy a coffee for Virgil and now handed it to him. But I seemed to have lost control of my breathing and of my thoughts.

“Three kids were leaving the dorm after some meeting and they saw the end of it. The attack. They ran over and the guy took off. Two of them chased him, but didn’t catch him. The other stayed with Jenn and called nine-one-one. She was lucky.” Virgil looked at me and changed his judgment. “Well, not lucky.”

“The kids saw who did it?”

“Not exactly.”

“How about we go to the cafeteria,” Bruce said, taking my arm. “You can’t see her now anyway, Sophie, and the staff will know where to find us as soon as she’s able to talk.”

“The coffee’s better there, too,” Virgil said, after taking a sip of Bruce’s offering.

Better coffee for Virgil. It was the least I could do. Not that I was finished interrogating him.

• • •

With a table full of Jenn’s student friends along the back wall, the hospital cafeteria looked like an ordinary day at Henley’s campus coffee shop. I recognized Jenn’s roommate, Patty Reynolds, and other residents of Paul Revere Hall, including fellow math major and carillonist Andrew Davies. Clear plastic drink cups dominated the long orange table. The mood was decidedly solemn.

Not surprising, there wasn’t much levity at any of the tables in the room. Except for the maternity ward, I guessed, there was little joy in any hospital. I noted a family that included a small child with a solemn face, picking at a couple of burgers; a set of older adults talking softly; and two men, who seemed to be at odds about something, sitting at a table in a dark corner. They looked like hard workers, with worn jeans and muddy boots, not unlike the construction workers on the Henley campus.

I sent a small wave to the students’ table as Bruce, Virgil, and I approached a neighboring table where Jenn’s parents were in deep conversation with Randall Stephens, chair of Henley’s Music Department and our most accomplished carillonist.

“You’ve never heard her play the carillon?” I heard Randy ask Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. His loud, deep voice echoed off the ugly walls. “You must. Jenn has a great gift. She’s one of my best students. You know those bells in the tower weigh tons. Literally. Our largest bell weighs nearly five tons. Nine thousand, seven hundred and forty pounds.”