by Frankie Bow
“Music scientifically designed to maximize the—Ew! The female’s accelerating heart rate? Who uses female as a noun? It’s like he’s talking about chimpanzees or prairie voles, not human beings. Ooh, look. Hey, you guys wanna hear Kent’s seductive original compositions?”
“No,” I said.
Iker continued leafing silently through his paperwork.
“Looks like he has everything on his computer.” Emma mashed the keys on the keyboard and then jiggled the mouse to bring the computer to life.
“What do you think his password is?” She squinted at the screen.
I walked around to join her behind Kent’s desk.
“May I sit in the chair?”
“Eh, try wait, ah? So impatient, you. How about the name of the energy drink he was always drinking?”
She tried typing it in, with no success.
“Did he have any pets?” I asked.
“How should I know?”
“Oh, wait, I know.” I whispered into her ear. Emma typed in “Marshall.” It worked.
Emma rooted around until she found the file and selected it. A digital audio workstation started up and filled the screen.
“Shoot,” Emma said. “Now what?”
“Let me try.” I found the transport controls and pressed “play.” Cheesy music blasted from the computer speakers, heavy on the synthesized saxophone.
“What is this?” Emma stared at the screen incredulously. “So junk, this music.”
“There’s only so much a computer can do,” I said. “All of the tracks are automatically set to the same beats per minute, but it can still sound wrong if the alignment is off. I think that’s what’s going on here. In fact, look. See this track? How the peaks aren’t lined up with the gridlines? It’s going to make it sound a little jarring. And the other reason this sounds so awful is even though everything’s in the same key and at the same tempo, he’s piled on way too many tracks.”
“I get the idea, Molly.”
“What are you saying? Have you heard enough?”
“Yes. Make it stop.”
I pressed the “pause” button and then closed out the program.
“Well that was horrible,” I said.
“Sounds of Seduction?” Emma smacked the side of the chair to shut off the massage action. “He shoulda sold it to the government and called it ‘Enhanced Interrogation.’ My poor brother.”
“May I try the chair now?” I asked.
“I’m not done here.” She leaned forward and started yanking open desk drawers.
“What’s in there?”
“More cables and computer stuff. Extra cans of energy drink. Oh, look, a book.”
Emma reached down and pulled up a thick paperback book with an orange cover.
“Looks like one of those self-help books. The Twenty Minute Workday.”
“Sounds about right. Because putting in an honest day’s work is for suckers.”
“But stealing from your job and schtupping your way to the teaching award?”
“Exactly,” I said, “in Kent’s moral universe, that’s awesome, apparently.”
I glanced over at Iker. He was still studying the printouts.
“Anything interesting in there, Iker?”
“I do not yet know,” Iker said. “This requires further study.”
Emma pulled open a drawer and pulled out a black object, covered with little knobs.
“What’s this thing?” she asked.
“No way,” I exclaimed. “Can I see it?”
Emma handed it to me. It was black, about the size of a cafeteria tray. I ran my fingers over the knobs. It had the heft of quality.
“Molly, quit making out with that thing. What is it anyways?”
“It’s a synthesizer,” I said. “This model probably cost Kent two months’ salary. I can’t believe he left it lying around his office.”
Emma grabbed it from me and turned it upside down.
“It doesn’t have any piano keys on it or nothing. How do you play it?”
“You connect it to the computer. See all these inputs back here? The computer sends it a signal that tells it which sound to make and what notes to play. Or it can generate or process sounds itself.”
“Great. I can’t even buy slide covers and that schmuck is up to his neck in expensive tchotchkes. Man, I’d sure like to have some glistening new equipment in my lab!”
I lifted the synthesizer out of Emma’s hands and gently set it back down on the desk.
“Gleaming,” I said. “Not glistening.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it is not the same thing. When you go to the hospital to have an operation? And you walk into the operating room, and see the surgeon’s tools lying there, ready for you? You want them to be gleaming. Not glistening.”
“Aw, that’s gross.”
“Exactly my point.”
“So Kent was ripping off the university and buying himself massage chairs and fancy toys. Case closed. QED, ipso facto, expialadocious. Right, Iker?”
“Many of these items match the purchase records, as they should,” Iker said. “And even if there is no record, then they may have been the private property of Kent Lovely. The purchases may show poor judgment, but we must be very circumspect with accusations of fraud.”
“Shoot,” Emma said. “That’s disappointing.”
“But there may still be fraud,” Iker continued. “We cannot rule out the possibility. Some of the purchases appear to have strange amounts and missing information. And there are also many purchases here of items I do not see in this office.”
“Could Kent have been selling equipment and keeping the money?” I asked Iker.
“But who was buying it?” Emma interrupted. “If we could find out, maybe we could figure out who the murderer is.”
“Emma,” Iker said gently, “to solve a murder is not our kuleana, as you say. We are here to examine the fraud only.”
Emma sighed and pushed herself up from the massage chair.
“So are we done here?” Emma asked. “I’m so ready to get out of this little spider hole.”
I was ready to follow Emma out, resigned to not getting my turn in the massage chair. Then I noticed something.
“Look behind you,” I said. “The wall calendar.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The calendar hung on the paneled wall behind Kent’s desk, above Emma’s head. It was about two by three feet, emblazoned with the logo of a furniture distributor.
“Something’s written in for the day of the retreat,” I said. “I can’t read it from here.”
Emma climbed up onto the seat of Kent’s massage chair and leaned in to examine the calendar. Iker stayed seated, holding the binder open on his lap. I saw columns of numbers that I couldn’t begin to decipher.
“Someone drew two little hearts here,” Emma said. “One has the number twelve written inside, and the other has the number thirteen.”
“Adorable. Does that mean anything to anyone?”
Emma shook her head no.
“Thirteen is said to be bad luck,” Iker said.
“Sure was for him.” Emma said.
Iker winced and eased the binder shut. “Perhaps it is time for us to leave this place.”
“I just want to check one more thing.” I picked up the receiver on Kent’s desk phone and pressed the speaker button. The sound of the dial tone filled the office. Then I pressed the redial button.
“Hi, this is Linda,” said Kent’s phone, in Linda Wilson’s voice. “Leave a message and I’ll get right back to you. Have a great day.”
“Redial.” Emma climbed down from the massage chair. “Good idea. See, clever you, Molly. I’m surprised it wasn’t Vice President da kine.”
Iker quietly tucked the binder into his satchel. If he knew what Emma was hinting at, he gave no sign of it.
“So Kent’s last call was to the Student Retention Office,” I said. “Do you think this was about the t
eaching award, which we now know was fixed in advance?”
“It wasn’t Linda’s office message.”
“Emma, how do you know?”
“I been in the doghouse with the Student Retention Office enough times. I know Linda’s office message. And that’s not it. Must be her personal phone.”
“Iker,” I asked, “did we ever get purchase records from the Student Retention Office? Kent Lovely’s last phone call was to Linda Wilson’s personal number. It’s worth looking into, don’t you think?”
“I do not have the records of the Student Retention Office,” Iker said. “Only Arts and Sciences was included in the investigation.”
“Kent must have had an accomplice. The scale of this—”
“Totally,” Emma interrupted. “No way was Kent smart enough to figure out how to cheat the system all by himself. Oh man, if the Student Retention Office is in on this, we can take ’em down.”
“It is not our place to take someone down.” Iker looked shocked.
“No, of course not.” I shot Emma a stern look. “But we should follow the evidence. Don’t you agree, Iker?”
“I do not wish to involve myself in that which is not my business,” Iker said.
“No, no, neither do I.” This provoked an extravagant eye roll from Emma. “But we can’t do a complete investigation without all of the information. I think if you asked Marshall Dixon for the Student Retention Office’s records, she might consider it.”
I knew it was hopeless for me to try asking Dixon directly. For some reason, Marshall Dixon seemed to think I was a loose cannon.
“I do not believe Marshall Dixon would welcome such a request.” Iker’s round face was gloomy. “As you heard, she prefers us to back away.”
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t approach her right away. She’s busy working on Skip Kojima for that big donation, and she probably doesn’t want to be bothered.”
“I’m telling you,” Emma said. “You guys should interrogate Rodge Cowper.”
“You think Rodge knows how to poison someone?” I asked.
“Pfft. Poisoning’s not too hard. Now we gotta wipe this place down or what?”
“Of course not. We’re not criminals.” As I replaced Kent’s red binder on the shelf, I discreetly rubbed it with my sleeve. Just in case anyone looked for fingerprints.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sprezzatura was Mahina’s finest dining establishment, the only restaurant in town with white tablecloths. This was where I had hoped Stephen would take me for my birthday. Scents of fresh basil and crushed garlic wafted from the kitchen. A decent Saturday-night crowd filled the tables and clustered in the small area by the hostess station.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t on any kind of romantic date, although to the untrained eye it might have looked like one. I was sitting across the table from Emma’s brother Jonah, and both of us were waiting for Emma to show up. Jonah was appropriately dressed, which I assumed was Emma’s doing. Instead of a laundry-beaten t-shirt, he wore a pressed aloha shirt in an inoffensive navy and white hibiscus print. His lank hair was combed back and tucked behind his ears, and he (or Emma) had shaved off his wispy goatee.
This dinner had been Emma’s idea. Jonah had been close-mouthed on the subject of Kent Lovely, insisting he wanted to forget about the whole thing. Emma thought Jonah might be forthcoming if we plied him with food and drink. At the time she’d suggested it, Emma’s plan seemed sound. I’d even suggested inviting Iker Legazpi along, but Emma vetoed the idea. She’d pointed out, correctly, that our gentle colleague would not wish to be present at anything that resembled an interrogation. Plus, Iker was being a bit of a stickler about how we technically weren’t supposed to be investigating any murders.
Now, sitting here with Jonah, I wondered how much we’d really be able to pry out of him. Jonah and I had sat down, exchanged a few words about guitar practice, and then run out of conversation.
I sipped my ice water and watched as Jonah wordlessly annihilated the contents of the breadbasket.
We really should have invited Pat Flanagan, I thought. He had been a crime reporter, and would know exactly what questions to ask. But Emma had countered with the fact we didn’t know Pat well. Furthermore, Pat had showed up at the retreat when he wasn’t even required to, so how did we know he wasn’t the murderer?
Jonah had nearly emptied the breadbasket, leaving a single end piece for me. I took it. It was spongy and bland with a cap of hard crust, which made it an ideal carrier for the olive tapenade. In the absence of conversation, I listened to the gentle clinking and murmuring of our fellow diners, and the loud chewing noise inside my head.
I felt a wave of relief when a dark-haired woman in a white blouse and black slacks approached our table. She introduced herself and asked for our drink order.
“Longboard lager for me,” Jonah said. “You want something?”
“I’ll stick with water until Emma gets here.” I wanted to keep a clear head, and I didn’t want to get too far ahead of Emma, who can hold her liquor a lot better than I can. Where was Emma, anyway?
My phone hummed in my bag.
“I’ll leave the wine list with you, ma’am,” the server said to me, with a practiced smile. “Be right back with your Longboard Lager, sir.”
“Sorry, Jonah.” I pulled out my phone and checked the caller ID. “I need to get this. It’s your sister.”
“No worries.” Jonah pulled out his own phone and started doing something on it, which was apparently much more absorbing than talking with me. I took another look at the wine list.
“Listen, Jonah, I’m going to take this call outside. When she comes back, can you order me a Cabernet? Wait, no.” I remembered that red wine stains my lips and teeth purple, imparting that unlovely look Emma calls “vampire mouth.”
“I changed my mind. Chardonnay. Can you order me a Chardonnay?”
“You just said that.” Jonah didn’t look up from his phone.
“No. Cabernet is red. Chardonnay is white. I’ll be right back. Chardonnay.”
I stepped out onto the sidewalk. With the rain drumming on Sprezzatura’s little red awning, and the cars splashing by, I had to mash my phone against my ear to hear anything.
“Emma,” I shouted into the phone, “where are you?”
“Where are you? Sounds like you’re inside a carwash.”
“Pretty much. I’m right outside Sprezzatura. It’s raining, and this is a pretty busy intersection. You know, this neighborhood’s kind of sketchy at night.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Emma said.
“I know. I’m sure New York City is much scarier at night than downtown Mahina. So what’s going on? When are you going to be here?”
“Sorry, Molly, something’s come up. I can’t make it.”
“What? What do you mean you can’t make it? Jonah already ate all the bread and ordered beer. You can’t just—”
“Nah, nah, it’s okay. You’re really good with people, Molly. You can get the information from Jonah yourself.”
“I am not good with people. Why would you even say that?”
“No worries. Jonah’s gonna pick up the tab.”
“Does he know that?”
“I gave him my credit card.”
“Emma, this is silly. If you can’t come, there’s no point. It’s not too late. We haven’t ordered dinner yet. I’ll just go inside and we’ll apologize and pay for Jonah’s beer and cancel—”
“No. Stay there and enjoy your dinner. Come on, you don’t have anything better to do tonight, right?”
How could I not have seen this?
“You were never planning to show up.”
“Whaaaat?”
“This was a setup, Emma. Wasn’t it? Does Jonah know about this little scheme of yours?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Welp, you better get back to your table. You don’t want to keep Jonah waiting by himself. It would be rude.”
“Emma, look. Jonah’s a
great guitar teacher, and you know I’m completely on his side in the sense of not thinking he murdered Kent Lovely, but that’s as far as it—”
There was no point in going on. Emma had already hung up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I came back into Sprezzatura’s dining room to find Jonah staring off into space. He was humming to himself and drumming his fingers on the tablecloth as if he were listening to a song playing inside his head. At least he’d put his phone away.
“The server hasn’t come back yet?” I seated myself and checked the bread supply. The napkin lining the empty basket was sprinkled with flecks of crust.
“Huh? Nah. Not yet.”
I looked around the dining room, but I didn’t see our server. That was too bad. I could really use that glass of chardonnay.
“Emma called to say something came up. So, she’s not going to be able to join us.”
Jonah nodded slightly and stared off into space.
“So if you’d rather do this some other time we can just ask for the…Jonah? Jonah.”
“Huh?”
“What did Emma tell you this meeting tonight, this dinner, was about?”
Jonah shrugged.
“She must have told you something,” I persisted.
Jonah looked uncomfortable.
“She just said we were gonna go to dinner. You and me.”
“Right. Here we are. What else did she tell you?”
“She said to let you talk as much as you want.”
“Emma said you were supposed to let me talk?”
Jonah nodded stiffly.
I looked around for the server. Forget the dinky little glass of house chardonnay. I was going to order a bottle of something fancy. And Emma could bloody well pay for it.
“Jonah, did Emma tell you what we saw in your office? All the fancy equipment and furniture?”
“Sorta. I mean, she talks real fast when she’s upset. I didn’t really understand what she was saying. Something about golf and putts.”
“What? We didn’t find any golf—Oh. She was probably calling Kent Lovely a gonif and a putz.”
