A Function of Murder

by Ada Madison

  I felt like I’d run up and down the hallway getting to this dead end. Plus, my spirit was exhausted.

  My walk back to Bruce’s car was happily uneventful, except for the constant stirring of my mind, first in the direction of Mayor Graves’s visit to my office, then to his murder, and then to the potential drama of a grievance petition on the part of Elysse Hutchins.

  At home, I resorted to eating as a solution to my anxiety and built the tallest sandwich I could put together, with tomato, cucumber, avocado, lettuce, and three kinds of cheese. With Ariana away, I was out of her homemade cookies, but I had an emergency supply of store-bought chocolate cookies and opened a new package. It was a good thing I had the metabolism of my skinny father and the Knowles side of the family; the Stones had to count calories, which I’d always thought must be a great hardship, not to say boring. I had to be very careful when visiting a Stone relative not to inadvertently pick up a fat-free something from the fridge.

  I carried my sandwich, garnished with the chocolate snaps, and a bottle of water past my den and into my office, ready to face Elysse head-on, cyber-wise.

  Rring, rring. Rring, rring.

  I fished my cell out of my purse and clicked on to take Fran’s call.

  “Log on to Facebook,” she said, with no preamble.

  “I was just about to.”

  “You’ve heard, though?”

  “I’ve heard. I’ll call you after I’ve read it all.” I longed to talk to Fran about the mayor’s visit to my office, but I decided to check out the Facebook posts and call her later, when I needed advice on two issues, not one.

  “Let me know if you want me to flunk Elysse,” Fran said. “Because I could, you know. She’s kind of on the edge in linear algebra.”

  “Very sweet, if unethical.” I laughed, hoping no one was listening in on this conversation. It was a prosecuting attorney’s dream. “I’m logging on now,” I said, clicking off.

  I took an unladylike bite of my sandwich and a long swig of water, followed soon by a deep breath.

  I went to Elysse’s profile page and saw her photo. Somehow the candid of a tall, smiling blond in cutoffs, lounging at the beach, did not win me over. I might have been more inclined to sympathize with her current plight if she’d uploaded a photograph of herself reading a math book as her profile picture.

  I read her original post:

  Hey, guys, here’s an alert to Henley College students! If you took a class from prof. Knowles this term, check your math grade and be ready to fight. I didn’t follow one little instruction and got 0 points. NADA! Zip!!! Can you say fascist???

  Wrong! I wanted to shout. She did not get zero points as her term math grade; she simply got zero points for the one question that she blew on the final exam. Why didn’t Facebook have a Don’t Like button? Or a Don’t Believe This button?

  I tried to relax my jaw before taking on the Comments. I didn’t even want to see the Likes. I recognized the names of one or two commenters, but for the most part they were all foreign to me. From the spelling and grammar, it seemed they might indeed have been from foreign lands. Every one of the comments had at least one typo. Not that I was looking to discredit the messages.

  I pity all you math majrs. If this is how your get graded.

  That’s awfull Elysse! You should send a note with your transrip telling them of this awfull injustice.

  Look in teh student handdbook, page 23 for how to protest this.

  Your kidding. 0 points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No way.

  Way, my Friend. (This from Elysse.)

  Help Elysse, pleasse everyone.

  As if she were the victim of a violent incident or a natural disaster. Or an unnatural one, like a math professor.

  There was one comment that made me LOL:

  What do you exspect from an aged meth prof?

  I decided to forgo reading the rest of the comments for now. I had the gist of the sentiment and I wasn’t happy. It didn’t help my mood that my gaze kept landing on the silver letter opener on my desk, one with the Henley College seal, exactly like the one that was used to kill Mayor Graves. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used mine. I remembered thinking that we should have switched to flash drives as a parting gift for graduates. Now I thought that maybe if we had, the mayor would be alive.

  I swept that ridiculous notion away, and finally also swept the letter opener into the back of my bottom drawer. I doubted I’d ever use it again. I wished both the opener and my sweater could walk on their own to the Henley dump.

  I focused on the photograph of my mother and me at the Cape before she took ill. I ran my finger along the top of the frame—my favorite way to dust—and moved the photograph forward, where the letter opener had been, for better viewing.

  I wasn’t finished with the distasteful grading issue, however. I switched to my email and called up the correspondence Elysse and I had right after I’d made the graded final exams available.

  Elysse: I don’t see why I got no points for that distribution problem!! Didn’t I get the correct answers???

  It seemed that Elysse and her Facebook friends spoke only in multiple punctuation marks. I’d considered responding in all caps, but had thought better of it.

  Me: The instructions were to work the problem by showing a graphical solution, and to show your work. I assume from your bare answers, with no context, that you used a calculator instead.

  Elysse: We used a calculator in class.

  (No multiple periods; I was impressed.)

  Me: The instructions on the exam itself and on the separate form were to generate a graphical solution, without a calculator.

  Elysse: The proctor didn’t tell me I couldn’t use a calculator.

  Me: He signed the form saying he’d announced the instructions.

  Elysse: I didn’t hear him.

  Me: He gave you a copy of the form.

  Elysse: He never gave it to me.

  Me: You signed the form.

  Elysse: I don’t think so!!!!!!!

  I’d found the form signed by both Elysse and the proctor, scanned it, and attached it to what I hoped was our last email communication.

  Me: Here it is, signed by both of you. Notice the instruction NO CALCULATORS is in all caps.

  A few hours later, Elysse had come back with:

  OK, I see my signature. So you taught me a lesson, not to sign anything I don’t read carefully, now please give me my points for the right answers!!!!

  Way to win friends, Elysse, and influence your teachers.

  I’d made a few more attempts to explain that the whole point of the exam question, which everyone else in the class had understood, was not to show that you could use a calculator, but to show that you’d grasped the concepts and could demonstrate them graphically.

  I pointed out that even with this less-than-stellar final exam performance, she had a solid B for the term, which was a good grade. She pointed out that a B was not solid and would be one of the lowest grades on her transcript. She might want to go to grad school someday, and would need the highest GPA she could get. “And what I deserve!!” she’d added.

  With all that had gone on since those emails, I’d forgotten that I never did receive closure from Elysse, not a word that indicated she’d accepted my decision.

  Apparently because she hadn’t. One of her Facebook posts read:

  I’m taking this all the way to the greivance process. Thanks everyone FB friends for your support!!!!!

  It had been years since I’d had to resort to reading the college handbook for steps in carrying out a school policy. I was aware of the good news part—that students could formally appeal only final grades, not individual exam scores. Since grades weren’t due from the faculty for another two weeks, I had some time to gather my documentation, and my wits. I didn’t look forward to the headache that was sure to accompany the project.

  As I recalled from an early reading of the handbook, the formal process for appealing a grade was long, invo
lving department heads and deans in a chain of decisions. The handbook needed updating, I realized, with social media now preempting much of the secrecy and substituting for notifications that used to be sent by ground mail on college letterhead.

  I wasn’t even sure where my copy of the handbook was these days. Probably in my office on campus.

  Time to call Fran.

  “Flunk her,” I said. Fran laughed, fortunately hearing the laughter in my own voice. “Do you have your handbook at home?”

  “I just happen to have it right here, open to page twenty-three,” she said.

  Sometimes just one good real-life friend is better than three thousand cyberfriends.

  “Lay it on me,” I said, one of Bruce’s favorite expressions.

  “Most of the ‘Grievance Policy’ section is for things like harassment and discriminatory practices, in case the school is not attending to the needs of students with disabilities, or students who feel their civil rights are being violated.”

  “Do students have a right to an A?” I interrupted. Then, “Sorry, I’m letting Elysse get to me.”

  “This is not like you,” Fran said.

  I left the rest of my sandwich on my office desk, grabbed my water bottle, and took it and the phone to my den. Maybe I could be more like me in a different environment. Ariana, jack-of-all-crafts, had framed and hung a new print I’d bought at a show. I looked now at the soothing watercolor, a collage of images of Boston, with a focus on the Freedom Trail that included Faneuil Hall, King’s Chapel, the Old State House, and the Granary Burying Ground, where Mary “Mother” Goose was buried. Just about every schoolchild in Massachusetts had taken a field trip to the sites pictured.

  In the lower corner of the print was an image of the first public school in the country, established by the Puritans and attended by Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, in addition to lesser lights. You couldn’t get much closer to the beginnings of education in America.

  I realized that what bothered me most about the situation with Elysse was my own reaction to her grievance. I prided myself on not having an us-versus-them attitude with respect to my students. I usually blamed myself instead of my students when a lesson didn’t quite work. Some of my colleagues had faulted me for the mind-set, claiming that I was too friendly, with my majors especially, and that I took the students’ side on most issues that came up. With needy students like Kira, I took on the role of therapist, parent, confessor.

  Fortunately, most of my students were somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, between an overconfident Elysse Hutchins and a self-effacing Kira Gilmore.

  I had to ask myself now—if Elysse hadn’t gone all multiple exclamation points on me, and created a protest against me on Facebook, would I be more willing to give her the points and chalk it up to poor instructions on my part? It was hard to tell.

  “Better you vent to me than in public, really or virtually,” Fran said, still waiting for my response.

  I heard pages flipping and children’s voices in the background. Fran’s grandchildren. “I’m keeping you from your family day,” I said.

  “Yes, thanks. I’m losing badly at electronic hangman.” More flipping pages, then, “There’s a big section on plagiarism and cheating. Is that what we have here?”

  “Neither, as far as I know.” I explained the details of the problem, what I’d asked for, what Elysse had submitted.

  “Got it. Did anyone else misinterpret your instructions?”

  “No, the other twenty-two students got it right, or at least approached it correctly.”

  “A big class.”

  “Lots of nonmajors.”

  “What’s Elysse doing next year, anyway?” Fran asked. “I’ve lost track.”

  “She’s putting off grad school. She has a biotech job in Boston.”

  “Not too shabby. Okay, here it is. ‘Procedure for Grade Disputes and the Grade Appeal Process.’”

  “That sounds ominous. What’s the first thing I’ll have to do if she goes through with this?”

  “You know you have two weeks before she can do anything.”

  “It will fly by.”

  Fran hummed while she read partly to herself, partly out loud. Between indecipherable clucks and hums, I heard mumbled phrases involving faculty responsibility to make expectations clear, students’ responsibility to know what’s expected, plus a few yada yadas, until she was ready to read pertinent instructions.

  “The student should consult the faculty member first.”

  “She did,” I said. I summarized the email correspondence between Elysse and me.

  “Maybe you should try talking in person,” Fran suggested. “You know, face-to-face, instead of face-to-book.” Fran chuckled at her Facebook send-up.

  “Of course. I should have done that right away.” I drew a deep breath. I really had lost perspective. “I’ll try to set up a meeting with her. But I’d better hear the rest of the procedure anyway.”

  Fran read, “If the dispute cannot be resolved, the student must submit a written request for review to the chair of the department within which the course was offered, or to the academic dean, if the instructor against whom the grievance is being filed—”

  “Is also the chair,” I filled in. Lucky me.

  “Right. The rest of this is what you expect. The request is formalized into a Case, capital C, the dean notifies the instructor, the instructor responds in writing, both instructor and student need to submit documentation, there’s a review committee, a mediation committee, yada yada. There are huge paragraphs under all these headings.”

  “What’s the bottom line?” I asked.

  “I’m scanning.” I heard more humming, more children’s voices. I took the opportunity to imbibe a long gulp of water. “Looks like the dean then makes a recommendation, but it’s the instructor’s decision in the end. Hmmm. I’m surprised.”

  “Me, too. Remember Susan Murray’s trial a few years ago?” I asked, referring to a colleague at a nearby college.

  “Trial is a good word for it. After all the machinations, her dean had the last word and ordered Susan to make a grade change.”

  I blew out a breath. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far anyway.”

  “Amen,” Fran said, and I let her return to playing hangman with her own middle school set.

  Back in my office, I gave some thought to emailing Elysse and asking for a face-to-face as Fran had suggested. I opened a Compose screen and tried several versions of We have to talk. I deleted all of them.

  What stopped me was a new phenomenon—fear of being sued. What if my asking for a meeting was tantamount to admitting I’d been wrong in taking off points? It wasn’t so much admitting defeat that bothered me, it was all the ramifications. Would Elysse be able to sue the school, or me? Could she claim emotional distress and get a big settlement that would cost Henley a large amount of money and cost me my job? Had things really gotten that bad between me and one of my students? The idea made me sad.

  I couldn’t take a chance. I probably should already have consulted with the college legal department. I hated the thought, but I decided that silence was my best tactic at the moment, until I could talk to the dean. Or a lawyer.

  I picked up my sandwich, intending to eat it at my kitchen table, like a normal person on a normal Sunday. However, at the sight of my robes, draped over a chair, the notes of the trumpet voluntary came flooding in and I lost my appetite.

  I supposed I should have thanked Elysse for providing at least one hour when I hadn’t been thinking of our murdered mayor and trying to figure out why he’d pulled me into the last hours of his life.

  My little cottage housed a lot of options for further distraction. Puzzles waited on every table, large and small. Some I’d made up myself; some were from other creators. My beading hobby, which Ariana oversaw, was also evident in the form of an unfinished bracelet for Bruce’s niece, Melanie, and several fringed bookmarks. I knew I’d have to have something to s
how Ariana when I picked her up at the airport. She herself would never go a week without beading and wouldn’t be able to understand if I had.

  But I wasn’t in a beads-and-wire mood.

  I settled down instead at a website that had a long list of math games for kids. I could use some new ideas for my visit to Zeeman Academy tomorrow.

  I could also use a few answers from Zeeman Academy.

  I didn’t remember having as many fun ways of doing math when I was a kid. I didn’t recall if we even used colored chalk. We certainly didn’t have a program for doing fractions with interactive pie charts. It was a wonder I went into math, with all the boring drills I’d had to recite.

  I’d recently found and bookmarked a web-based game for learning to multiply. The game involved a Jeopardy-like board, where the student chose an amount to “bet” and then had to perform an arithmetic or algebraic operation, like finding greatest common factors or least common denominators. The idea was to beat a countdown clock, in which case a happy tune played and computer voices sang out congratulations. Talk about instant gratification and positive reinforcement. All that was missing was a bowl of ice cream at the end.

  I got hooked on a game that required dragging and dropping a ball into several slots, each of which applied a coating or decoration to the ball, until the ball had the requisite number of extras to ring a bell. I couldn’t figure what math skill was used or being taught, but it was fun to hear the different bell tones.

  A more instructive app reeled me in quickly—a mystery being investigated by a pair of ten-year-old twin detectives, Kate and Kyle, who had to determine which of three bags had fake coins. I got so involved that I nearly missed the soft ring of my phone.