The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

by Madison, Ada

  “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.”

  Mrs. Marshall’s eyes widened, and she gave Randy an interested look. Good for him, I thought, keeping Jenn’s parents busy and also singing their daughter’s praises. Mr. Marshall leaned in closer, cupping his ear. The Marshalls—both on the short side, like Jenn—were wearing what I was sure were their best coats, the ones they’d worn to the last Parents’ Day event. Their narrow shoulders seemed even less able to support the heavy garments today. My guess was that they’d just arrived after a long drive from Fitchburg, made even worse during rush hour.

  Randy appeared pleased to have captured their attention, and though the grieving parents said nothing, he continued in his sure basso tones.

  “You see, the keyboard and bells are in different parts of the tower. The keys—they’re called ‘batons’ and they’re much bigger than piano keys—they’re linked to the bells’ clappers by an elaborate network of wires and ropes. Yes, that’s right. And your petite daughter makes the keyboard sing.” He made firm balls with his hands. “Carillonists have to use closed fists as well as their feet.” Randy made pounding motions with his arms and fists, which, to me, looked too much like he was beating someone. He might have realized it himself, since he stopped abruptly and said, “I’ll arrange for you to hear Jenn’s practice concert as soon as we’re all back to normal.”

  He sat back and took a deep breath, as if exhausted by a performance, and the Marshalls followed suit.

  I admired Randy’s attempts to keep the Marshalls distracted, and, even more, his confidence in Jenn’s future. I wanted eventually to talk to her parents, but I didn’t want to break Randy’s rhythm. If he had them thinking of something other than their daughter’s comatose state, even for a few moments, I could wait my turn. I had a feeling there would be plenty of time later.

  I nodded to Randy and gave him a sort of thumbs-up as Bruce, Virgil, and I took seats at the far end of the table, where the pale yellow wall faded into a light blue. The effect was not aesthetically pleasing, but rather looked like the painters had run out of yellow. The cafeteria color scheme was probably thought up by the same guy who painted the stripes on the hallway tiles.

  Andrew Davies left his table and squatted beside me. His eyes were ringed in red, his jet black hair disheveled in a way that suggested he’d been running his hands through
it.

  “What can we do, Dr. Knowles?” he asked.

  As strange as it sounded in the circumstances, the question fit Andrew’s personality. A problem solver. I’d always known that he’d make a good engineer, his professional goal.

  After a minute, I thought of something we could do. We could gather information and pool our intel to help the police find Jenn’s attacker.

  “Andrew, do you know the guys who interrupted the attack and called nine-one-one?”

  “Yeah, I know who they are. Three guys from the Commuter Council. They’d had a meeting in Clara Barton this morning and were on their way to lunch at the Coffee Filter.”

  It made sense. The Coffee Filter was a shop across Main Street from the Clara Barton dorm. Had Jenn been on her way there? Unlikely. First, that would not have been the shortest route for her from Franklin Hall. Second, for Henley College resident students like Jenn, the Coffee Filter was much more expensive than the Mortarboard, the café on campus, which gave residents a package deal with a discount. I couldn’t imagine Jenn spending half her hourly wage on coffee and a scone at the upscale Coffee Filter.

  I looked around the cafeteria. “Are they here? The commuters?”

  Andrew shook his head. “The cops talked to all the guys right there on the spot. Now they’re down at the police station.”

  “Probably to sign statements.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Hey, Dr. Knowles, do you think you could come over and talk to us?” Andrew gestured toward a table two down from where Randy was still talking to the Marshalls. At my table, Bruce and Virgil were head-to-head about something I couldn’t hear. “We’re all a little freaked out,” Andrew continued. “It would be nice to, you know, just talk or something.”

  I could hardly wait. Without attracting anyone’s attention, I stood and followed Andrew to the students’ table. I was eager to learn what they had heard. Perhaps one or two of them had been close to the scene, albeit too late to protect Jenn. I envisioned myself in a conference with Virgil later, where we’d each have something to contribute to the investigation into who attacked my major and why.

  Maybe I could help give Jenn’s story a happier ending than Kirsten Packard’s, which still weighed on me, and about which I could do nothing.

  As I took a seat between Andrew Davies and Patty Reynolds I felt my cell phone vibrate. I realized I hadn’t checked it for a couple of hours and saw that I had ten voice mail messages. I didn’t bother to click over to my email. I’d get to them all later.

  For now, I checked the current caller ID. And LOL’d.

  Of all the news I could have received, the offer of food was among the best.

  Bruce had dialed me, cell to cell, from two tables over. I looked up and smiled at him.

  “How about a turkey sandwich? Chips? Chocolate chip cookie?” he asked, cell phone to cell phone.

  “It’s not necessary to—”

  “Or, I can go to my car and get your crab Rangoon.”

  “Funny. I’ll take the sandwich, thanks.”

  My thoughtful boyfriend had figured out that all I’d eaten today was a piece of supermarket cake and two Thai shrimp. I nurtured a slim hope that the turkey sandwich wouldn’t come from the same kitchen as the food on the cart that had passed us in the hallway.

  Nothing made me feel at home like sitting with a group of students, no matter what their majors. Even in a hospital cafeteria. Even with a less-than-gourmet sandwich and a stale cookie. It might as well be written on a poster that travels with every teacher: “When young people look to you for guidance, for comfort, for hope, you have no choice but to forget your own problems and tend to theirs.”

  Bruce had delivered enough food for the whole table, six servings of everything. Then he’d whispered in my ear, “Do your thing, teach,” and returned to Virgil.

  “They won’t tell us what’s going on,” Patty said.

  I almost said, “Welcome to the club.” Instead, I tried to be a good facilitator. “Everyone has a job to do, and their first priority is getting Jenn back to health,” I said.

  “I heard someone say they induced a coma. What does that even mean?” a striking young blond woman asked. She’d been introduced by Andrew as Willa Lansdale, a music major whose family had contributed to the new carillon program.

  Willa’s question I could handle, thanks to pseudo medical training from Bruce’s pals. I’d often been entertained and educated by his flight nurses while visiting him at MAstar.

  “They’ve given her an anesthetic to protect her brain. She must have had a lot of swelling and they need to reduce it by controlling the blood flow.” I stopped, realizing I’d come to the end of my knowledge, all anecdotal, of how the brain worked.

  I saw a familiar look on the students’ faces. The look that said they could tell this wasn’t my area of expertise. Maybe I could work the conversation around to numerical simulation of a partial differential equation.

  My turn to ask a question. I scanned their faces. “Did any of you have a chance to talk to the guys who came to Jenn’s rescue? Do you know if she said anything to them?”

  “Like who her attacker was? You wish,” said freshman Brent Riggs, who’d been at Jenn’s seminar this morning.

  “There’s all kinds of rumors going around campus,” Willa said.

  “Yeah, like, I heard someone say the guy was wearing one of those bright yellow Henley College sweatshirts,” said a student I didn’t know, possibly attracted to the table by the wealth of food.

  “No way,” said Brent, the loyal freshman. “Couldn’t have been one of ours. I’m tweeting about it. So everyone knows it was an unauthorized person.”

  “You can’t be sure,” another said.

  “My roommate heard that after the thug got away, one of the Henley commuter students was leaning over Jenn and he heard her say ‘money.’ Just the word ‘money,’” Willa offered. She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands, to the tips of her fingers, as if she were trying to protect herself from a fate similar to Jenn’s.

  “Money? That would be the last thing anyone would mug Jenn for,” Patty said.

  “He took her backpack,” Willa said.

  “That doesn’t mean there was money in it,” Patty responded. “She just bought a brand new laptop, but she kept it in our room.”

  “Whatever,” Willa said. Student speak for “I don’t really care enough to continue this conversation.”

  I tended to agree with Jenn’s roommate. Jenn was one of the least likely students to be walking around with a wad of cash, but I tucked the information away to relate to Virgil. Maybe it would connect with something he knew.

  Another student, with tight brown waves in her chestnut hair, spoke up. “I’m Lauren Hughes, Dr. Knowles. I’m not in your classes, but I know how great you are with my friends who are your majors”—she leaned into Andrew—“and I just want to say you’re cool, you know. I wish I had a head for math. I’d so major in it.”

  Nothing wrong with accepting a compliment, I decided, and resisted the urge to tell her everyone’s head was pretty much the same and with effort and the right support, anyone could major in math, or physics, or music.

  Except for me. I could never get music. Unlike many math and science people who seemed to drift toward music. Albert Einstein, for one, who was proficient with the violin, and Peter Knowles, my father, for another, an accomplished mathematician and pianist. He’d died when I was a toddler, and all through my childhood, I’d made several attempts to learn the piano, in an effort to get close to my absent father, but it never panned out. Maybe there was something to this wiring theory after all and I’d never be a musician. On the other hand, I’d never tried the carillon. I made a fist with my hand and studied it. A possibility.

  “Do you think we’re all in danger?” Lauren asked. “I’ve always felt safe on campus, but maybe that’s not realistic. I mean, maybe we should all be worried now?”

  “Or, maybe Jenn knew the guys from hom
e or something,” Willa suggested.

  Patty frowned. “You’re saying because Jenn doesn’t live in Henley she brought this on herself? Like she invited some lowlifes from her hometown to campus?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Willa said.

  “Well, whatever you’re thinking, this is not Jenn’s fault,” Patty said.

  “She didn’t say it was,” Lauren said, her voice soft, her words tentative.

  “Not directly, she didn’t,” Patty countered.

  “Not indirectly either,” Willa said, defending herself in a forceful tone.

  Uh-oh. Not that it was a surprise that today’s dramatic event would bring out underlying tensions and prejudices. No matter how much we tried to get past class distinctions at Henley, an undercurrent of strained relationships was always there. Scholarship students versus those fortunate enough to afford full tuition, commuters versus residents, town versus gown. And a mugging on campus was the perfect trigger to bring the hairline fractures to a breaking point.

  In front of me was a cross section of Henley’s resident student population. Andrew often joked about his “extensive portfolio of loans” that his grandchildren would be paying off. Willa’s family was in a position to give generously to the school, including a donation to the carillon program, though Willa herself wasn’t interested in studying the instrument. Andrew had introduced her as strictly “a violin person.” From my tenure on the admissions committee I knew that Patty and Lauren were somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, with limited financial aid, like Brent.

  I allowed one more round of “Yes, you did” and “No, I didn’t” before I stepped in.

  “Let’s think about how to give Jenn the support she needs when she wakes up, and how we can help the police find out who did this to her,” I offered. “And Lauren’s question about safety is a good one. We should all be a little more cautious until this guy is caught. I’m sure there’ll be extra security on campus.” Not quite true; more like a hope than a certainty. So far there’d been no official memo on the incident. Unless it was buried in my untouched email collection.