The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

by Madison, Ada

  “I just found it strange that so many rumors persisted, even after the suicide ruling,” Judy said.

  “You think the boyfriend was a cover story?” I asked. “There was another reason she jumped from the tower?”

  Judy shrugged. “Anything is possible. There could have been more to it. Something embarrassing to the family. I’m pretty sure the girl’s father was running for office. Sometimes that alone is enough to doubt what you see in the press. The girl—”

  “Kirsten Packard,” Ted interrupted. “The girl was Kirsten Packard, and her father was in the state’s attorney general’s office, running for election as US attorney, which he won. He served his country in that capacity, and died a few years ago.”

  There was a finality to Ted’s tone. He might as well have said, “Zip it,” or, more suited to him, “Now can we please drop this topic?” But Judy, who never met a rumor she didn’t like, wasn’t finished.

  “I even heard that someone might have been up there with Kirsten,” Judy said. “In the tower. And that’s why the Packard family wasn’t eager to have an investigation.”

  As much as I sympathized with Ted, I couldn’t resist. Trying to establish a reputation to match Judy’s? I hoped not. “So she might have been pushed by this other person?” I asked.

  Judy raised her eyebrows and gave me a slight smile, as if to commend me for guessing what she had in mind.

  We both turned to look more closely at Ted, Woody having slipped out by now.

  “You were on the faculty back then, Ted. What do you think?” Judy asked.

  “No comment,” he said, and continued to work at his keyboard. He acted as uncomfortable as if he himself had been in the tower with Kirsten that day. But the look was more that of a sad father than of a witness to murder.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would a parent not want an investigation if they suspected their daughter was murdered?”

  “Politicians, you know,” Judy suggested, shrugging. “It’s all about image. A murder investigation digs up all kinds of things besides a murderer. Family secrets and skeletons. Maybe the girl . . . Kirsten . . . was into something that got her killed. Suicide is neater. Well, not neat, but you know what I mean.”

  “Right,” I said, as if either of us were an expert in the matter. “One more question, Ted. Did you know Kirsten personally?” I asked.

  He took a deep breath and gave a slight, slow nod. “I didn’t have her as a student. She majored in romance languages, I think. But her roommate was a physics major so I’d met Kirsten once or twice.”

  Ted stood and walked to where the coffee urn and the hot plate kettles were both going strong. He refilled his mug with our less-than-gourmet coffee, carried it back to his seat, and bent over his keyboard again.

  I was curious to know why Ted didn’t leave the lounge and the conversation that seemed so distasteful to him. Maybe he wanted to keep tabs on the wild imaginings of his colleagues. Was he protecting the victim for some reason? Though he claimed not to know her, he certainly would care about the image of the college where he’d spent the better part of his adult life. Or maybe he simply couldn’t face the even colder office wing of the building.

  “Let’s lighten this up a bit, shall we?” Judy said, surprising me. “Give us a puzzle or a math riddle, Sophie.”

  I snapped to it. “Of course,” I said, and scanned my mental list for a puzzle I hadn’t already told them. The first riddle that came to me was a cute entry that I’d seen in the kids’ section of one of the magazines I submitted puzzles and brainteasers to.

  “How many eggs can you put in an empty basket with a six-inch square bottom, three inches high?” I asked.

  Judy made a pshaw sound. “You’re off your game, Sophie. The answer is, only one. After that the basket’s not empty. And those dimensions are to throw me off. Like a red herring in a mystery.”

  Judy was right all around. Not just about the number of eggs and the clever distraction, but about the fact that I was off my game. My heart wasn’t in it. It was heavy with the thought of a student in distress.

  Unless the corollary legend was true and someone had pushed Kirsten out the tower window. Another horrible scenario.

  Ted clicked away, neglecting to offer his usual challenge to me with his own joke. An electron walks into a bar. . . . Judy’s laptop bonged awake. The coffee klatch had come to an end.

  • • •

  In my office, I sent a quick text to Bruce, confirming our lunch date, and gathered my class materials. At the last minute, I picked up my down jacket, in case Woody hadn’t yet set up a heater in the classroom.

  I heard a noise behind me and turned to find Judy in my doorway.

  I invited her in, but she declined. “I know you’re on your way to class, but I had a thought.”

  I cupped my ear. “I’m listening.”

  “Fran would have been here at that time. Twenty-five years ago.”

  Not a thought. More of a fact. Fran Emerson, my colleague in the Mathematics Department, had been at Henley at least as long as Ted. She was off this semester, teaching in Rwanda on a Fulbright.

  It took a minute, but I got it. “You want me to call Fran in Africa and ask about a twenty-five-year-old event?”

  “Would you?”

  “That’s a crazy idea.”

  “Just a thought,” Judy said, as she turned and walked away.

  “Crazy,” I called after her.

  “Curious,” she said, her voice echoing after her. “Scientists are curious.”

  “Yes, but biologists are crazy.”

  • • •

  I walked down the hall to my classroom, Kirsten Packard’s death still weighing on me, almost as if she’d been my own student.

  Most faculty members who’d been around awhile and were even the least bit approachable had at one time or another counseled a student who was on the edge. I certainly had. It was a sobering, frightening experience. Though Kirsten’s death had occurred a long time ago, it pained me to acknowledge that one of us had failed to save a young life.

  I hoped my current students were all in a happy state, glad to be alive.

  And that no one was out to get them.

  I stood in the doorway before entering the room and pulled out my smartphone. I clicked on the world clock.

  Almost eleven o’clock in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Nearing five o’clock in the evening in Rwanda. Not that I needed to know.

  Curious, crazy mathematicians.

  My second class of the day was a history of mathematics seminar, one that I’d led for the last few regular semesters. The sessions provided an opportunity for me to call attention to often little-known pioneers in obscure fields. And to throw frequent parties.

  If I had any notoriety on the Henley College campus, it was as the driving force behind the combined lecture-cum-birthday parties for the Franklin Hall departments. Every week, we honored a worthy contributor in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry—which, by the way, was the order of the floors in the building, bottom to top.

  Though they hated to acknowledge it, the Chemistry Department was closest to the roof for safety considerations, as the department most likely to explode. That was also the reason we monitored the kinds of demonstrations chemists were allowed to bring to the parties. No nitroglycerin for the presentation on October twenty-first, Alfred Nobel’s birthday, for example.

  In my mind, the ideal party, like today’s, honored a female mathematician and featured an undergraduate presenting a paper on her work. The ideal party also came with cake.

  Jenn Marshall, a sophomore math major, was the seminar leader for today. She was already in the classroom, setting up her props. I stepped over to help her with an easel and a large poster. As the two of us petite women juggled with the ancient, low-tech instructional aids, I compiled a mental wish list for that big donation that might come someday from a satisfied, highly successful Math Department alum.

  “Sorry we had t
o abandon the seminar room,” I said. “It’s always nicer when we can sit around the table, but I thought a smaller room with direct sunlight might be warmer.” I saw that Woody had been here with his magic appliances, and added, “And the space heater will do more good.”

  Jenn nodded and mumbled something like, “It’s okay.”

  Moving a couple of chairs around, I spied her backpack in the corner of the room.

  “It looks like you finally replaced that threadbare old backpack I’ve been teasing you about. I didn’t really mean it when I asked if you’d had it since first grade.”

  I laughed at my own humor, but Jenn said simply, “I know.”

  “You must be excited about your first talk,” I said, trying another tack. “Good work on your bullets. The poster looks great.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Jenn said, again without the enthusiasm I’d hoped for.

  “Poor departments have to make do,” I said. “One of these days we’ll have the equipment to do this electronically. But at least we got rid of our abacus.”

  Jenn barely acknowledged my final attempt at humor. I’d worried about her lately. Usually an animated young woman, ready for the challenge of a good math problem or a fun puzzle, Jenn had been dragging her thin body around the building the last couple of weeks. I chalked it up to the extra work of the Intersession.

  Jenn was a scholarship student, and like most who were on financial aid, she worked several hours a week on campus. She also loved music and had taken up the carillon as soon as she’d heard about the restoration of Henley’s program. She spent many evenings in a practice room in the tower, but she often had to travel to a church in Boston when construction precluded her entrance to our tower.

  Now Jenn looked less than thrilled about the task before her, and I wondered if she had too many commitments this year, and too little sleep. Maybe I’d take her aside later and see if I could help in any way. I could certainly extend the deadlines on her assignments and maybe talk to the other Franklin Hall faculty about easing up on her student aid duties.

  Eleven AM and the bell signaling the start of class rang down the corridors of Franklin Hall. The antique mechanical clock in its wooden frame had been in the vestibule of the first floor, the math floor, since the building was opened in the nineteen forties. Some of us thought it should be featured in the college orientation brochure along with the vintage furniture in the parlors of our Administration Building.

  My seminar students, whose number seemed to go from one to twelve in seconds, filed in and settled down for the last hour before lunch.

  After my preliminaries, including my apologies that we had to wear scarves and hats in the classroom, I took a seat. Jenn Marshall stepped up to enlighten us about Gertrude Mary Cox, born in 1900, a pioneer in the development of applied statistics.

  “Her birthday isn’t today exactly, but I thought it would be okay to have cake anyway,” Jenn began, even before mentioning Cox’s work.

  She seemed surprised that a round of Woot, woot erupted for her, accompanied by clapping, muffled as it was by the presence of gloves on most of the hands.

  Jenn plunged in and talked about Cox’s pivotal book, published in 1950, which brought order and insight to the design of statistical experiments. Especially for a sophomore, she did a respectable job clarifying the then-new methods of increasing the accuracy of experiments and analyzing the results. My heart went out to her when she paused in her presentation to pull a pink and white ski cap over her long, straight brown hair. I wished I’d thought to bring a cap of my own. Jenn did well tackling various aspects of induction (“going from a small sample of something, like people, to the whole population,” she explained) and randomization (“like, close your eyes and don’t look when you choose, like a piece of candy or something,” she offered).

  During the discussion, Andrew Davies, another sophomore math major, raised his hand. “I read that the title of Gertrude Cox’s master’s dissertation was ‘A Statistical Investigation of a Teacher’s Ability as Indicated by the Success of His Students in Subsequent Courses.’”

  Another round of woots and applause, this one aimed at me, as a dozen heads turned to their professor in the back row.

  “Sorry, Dr. Knowles, I had to mention it,” Andrew said. “Of course, we all know you’re the best, and soon the whole world will know because we’re all going on to do great things.”

  Someone, namely a short, dark-haired male sophomore, was looking for brownie points.

  “Yada, yada,” I responded, then cleared my throat and gave the dude a look that I hoped said, “Thanks. Now let’s move on.”

  On the other hand, I was grateful for this cheery little respite in a competent but otherwise lackluster seminar by Jenn. Rescuing her from a tough semester moved to the top of my to-do list.

  At one point Jenn held up a photograph of Cox. She reminded me of my mother, Margaret, who wore her hair the same way back in the day, in neat, tight rows of waves across her head, starting at the edge of her forehead. After Margaret died, I found boxes of the thin metal clips that formed those waves, more serious looking and functional than the decorative plastic versions I saw today.

  I paid as much attention as I could to the rest of Jenn’s presentation, but with thoughts of my late mother alternating with made-up images of the deceased Kirsten Packard, it was difficult. I kept trying to picture Kirsten, who would be about forty-four by now, had she lived. Gulp. My age. With relief, I tuned in again to Jenn’s unemotional recitation of Cox’s awards and a string of “first female to . . .” accolades.

  I checked the clock at the back of the seminar room. Only fifteen minutes until cake, then lunch with Bruce. Statistician Gertrude Cox would not have been proud of me today, distracted and inattentive. Neither would my mother have approved. I heard both women shout, “You’re the teacher. Focus!”

  Jenn left the room as soon as the seminar was over, passing up the cake. Thanks to me and the rest of the students, by twelve thirty, the cake was gone. The party was over, and the students drifted out. I gave as many as I could a smiling “take care” and a “good job” pat on the shoulder and headed out the door myself. If they were wondering about my extra dose of nurturing today, they didn’t say.

  • • •

  The small city of Henley—population less than fifty thousand—was situated almost halfway between Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island; about an hour to beaches on Cape Cod (my choice of vacation spot), and a straight two-hour shot to the beginning of frigid ice-climbing terrain in New Hampshire (Bruce’s idea of fun).

  Bruce and I had been together more than five years. Our relationship survived probably because first, Bruce loved the Cape as much as I did; second, I never felt compelled to join him in any activity that required more gear than a SWAT team showed up with; and third, we both enjoyed regular trips to Boston.

  Today, however, thanks to my commitment to the January Intersession, the farthest we’d go would be to a Thai restaurant on the edge of town.

  Bruce had the day off but had agreed to on-call status since we were grounded anyway. If the Bat Phone put out an all-hands emergency call, he’d be a no-show for lunch and I’d be on my own. I’d been present in the double-wide trailer of Massachusetts Shock, Trauma, and Air Rescue, widely known as MAstar, a couple of times when the compelling, ear-piercing sound rang through the so-called building. I’d watched in amazement as Bruce and his buddies stopped mid-sentence, geared up, and headed for the chopper in well-choreographed movements. It couldn’t be easy trying to sleep—or eat or talk or relax—knowing that at any moment the souped-up phone would blare out a summons to the team. Maybe to a crash scene, maybe to a simple transfer job, transporting a patient from one facility to another.

  Though I had no problem dealing with the vagaries of Bruce’s schedule, I was glad I always knew my own schedule at least a semester in advance. That was one reason I’d left a lucrative job at a frantically run software company to take up reside
nce in the ivory tower.

  I carried my laptop into Pan’s, our Thai restaurant of choice, and took a seat against an interior brick wall that had been painted a shimmering gold. I divested myself of gloves, hat, coat, scarf, and extra sweater and fluffed my short hair. Without the benefit of a mirror, I smoothed my one highlight, a jagged stripe of gray hair about an inch wide that ran off center at the top of my head. The artifact had been placed there by Mother Nature herself, though many thought it was by my own hand.

  I drew a welcome warm breath. The smell of curry and a mash-up of special Asian spices told me we’d chosen the right spot for a cold day.

  “Hot lemon tea for Miss Sophie,” my favorite waitress, Toi, said. She smiled, placed the cup in front of me, and padded away in tiny red slippers.

  She was out of sight before I finished my “Thank you.”

  Toi knew to let me work while I waited for Bruce. She also knew that Bruce would order a dish he’d never tried before and I, after much ruminating, would stick with the crab Rangoon. If I had to wait too long, the lovely, dark-haired Toi would treat me to a small sampler plate of appetizers—crispy tofu, spicy shrimp, and a pot sticker.

  No one could call me adventuresome. That’s what Bruce was for. I’d attached myself to a guy who, after a tour in Saudi Arabia with the US Air Force, took a job that involved dodging telephone poles, satellite dishes, power lines, and trees as he soared to heights of several thousand feet piloting a rescue helicopter.

  I opened my laptop and booted it up. What to do first? Class assignments could wait. Brainteasers for a new magazine contract could wait. Even email from my best friend, Ariana Volens, who was wisely spending the two coldest weeks of the season with an aunt in Florida, could wait. The big question was, could I wait before calling Fran in Rwanda to ask her about Kirsten Packard’s fall from the tower?

  I decided to collect as much information as I could before resurrecting Fran’s memory of a terrible time. I searched on Google for the long-ago student’s name and year of death. Immediately, all irrational hope vanished that my friends Ted, Judy, and Woody were somehow mistaken, or that I was, having missed the fact that they were talking about a new movie or a thriller they’d all just read.