The Musubi Murder

by Frankie Bow

  “I can’t believe I missed office hours. Were you guys here? No students came by to see me, did they?”

  “Someone knocked,” Emma said. “Your door was closed, so we just waited for them to go away.”

  “Don’t worry,” Pat added. “We won’t rat you out to your dean.”

  “Thank you.” I got up and propped the door open. “Geez. What’s wrong with me? I can’t believe I lost track of the time. Maybe whoever it was will come back.”

  “So looks like things are moving pretty fast with you and Donnie,” Emma said. “Bradda ono for you, girl.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, even I can see it,” Pat said. “He’s probably an Italophile.”

  “Oh yeah, Molly! He thinks you’re a . . . wait, not a hot tamale.”

  “A spicy calzone,” Pat said.

  “Really?” Emma asked.

  “Emma, don’t listen to him. No one calls anyone a ‘spicy calzone.’ Anyway, I’m not—”

  “I know, I know,” Emma said. “You don’t have to keep reminding everyone. You’re Armenian.”

  “Albanian.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  A knock on the door frame interrupted our conversation. Davison Gonsalves loomed in my doorway, wearing a deep v-necked shirt covered with a garish snake design. I didn’t feel up to dealing with him right now. Dude, I had lunch at your house today! I was like this close to your bedroom! Gah, no.

  “Oh, Davison, listen.” I braced my hands on my desk and tried not to wobble on my yoga ball. “I’m in a meeting right now, but—”

  “It’s okay,” Emma interrupted, “we were just leaving.” And just like that, Pat and Emma pushed through the door and then they were gone, with me staring helplessly after them.

  “Come in,” I sighed.

  Davison had come to ask me for an extension on an assignment he’d missed. His timing couldn’t have been worse. Or better, if you looked at it from his point of view.

  “Davison,” I said, “I can’t grant an extension unless there’s a real—”

  A disembodied voice interrupted me.

  “I exude confidence, sex, power and self-esteem,” said the voice.

  Rodge had to do that now?

  Davison glanced around and then looked at his lap. Even he seemed embarrassed, something I hadn’t thought possible.

  “Dr. Cowper is, uh, anyway,” I stammered. “What was I saying now? Right, I don’t accept late work unless there’s a genuine emergency.”

  “Attractive women are drawn to me,” declared the voice.

  “Okay if I close the door?” Davison asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We have a department rule about keeping the door open when we’re in conference with a student.”

  Davison folded his hands on my desk and leaned toward me.

  “Okay, Professor,” he said. “Gonna be honest.”

  “Okay,” I replied, wondering if he was going to confess the real reason he was wearing all that stinky cologne.

  “Here it is. Had one fight with Isaiah, now he won’t talk to me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, “but I’m not sure that this rises to the level of—”

  “He was mad at me ’cause I got ’im into trouble,” Davison said.

  “I have my pick of hot babes,” said the recorded voice, and at that moment I realized to my horror that we were hearing Rodge’s actual voice. These were not prepackaged motivation tapes. Rodge had recorded himself speaking.

  “I take full responsibility for my situation,” Davison said. When a student says this to me, it usually means “I take no responsibility for my situation and I now expect you to fix it.”

  “Taking responsibility is good,” I said. What was I supposed to do about Rodge’s obnoxious recordings? Get up, go next door, and tell Rodge to turn it down? Emma could do something like that. But Emma’s much braver than me, plus I think she’d actually enjoy humiliating Rodge.

  “Isaiah’s not talking to me no more,” Davison said.

  “What? Oh. Isaiah. I’m very sorry to hear that. Interpersonal conflict can be very stressful.”

  “It’s hard for me, Professor, ’cause I cannot talk to Dad about it. And I tried come for your office hours, knocked on the door and everything, but no answer.”

  He had me there.

  “I think your friends was here, but—” I met his gaze, keeping my face as still and expressionless as I could. I suppressed my urge to bounce on my yoga ball, something I do when I’m nervous. Pat claims it makes him seasick when I start oscillating.

  “My previous appointment ran late,” I said.

  “Usually I can talk to Dad about everything, no problem. My dad and me, we always been real close, ’cause it’s just us two, yeah? But lately he’s kinda, I dunno. Kinda too busy for me. Got other things on his mind.”

  I nodded to show polite interest.

  “I think he get one new girlfriend is why.”

  Davison lifted his baseball cap and ran his hand through his buzz-cut hair. “ ’Cause a that, no time for me an my problems. My dad an Isaiah, the two a them is all I got, pretty much.”

  “I see.”

  “I am a self-assured, confident, sexual and dominant male,” added Rodge’s voice.

  Davison’s expression was flat. Neither of us broke eye contact.

  “So what, exactly, are you requesting?” I asked.

  “I am able to pick up and attract any woman I desire.”

  Oh, for crying out loud. That, I knew, was demonstrably false. Just ask Emma.

  “I’m requesting an additional two weeks to make up my assignment, Professor.”

  “Two weeks? That’s a long—”

  “I tried calling Dad at his lunch break time today, after I saw you wasn’t in your office, yah? But his phone went to voice mail. He always picks up when I call.”

  “I see.” My face felt hot. I hoped that I wasn’t visibly blushing. Davison pressed his advantage.

  “So could not get a-hold of you, ’cause you wasn’t in office hours. And could not get a-hold of Dad neither.”

  “Yes. You explained that already, but thank you for clarifying.”

  “I’m glad you’re so understanding, Professor. About my personal hardship. It means a lot to me.”

  Davison and I sat and looked at each other. After what seemed like a lengthy poker-face staring contest, but was probably only a few seconds, I let out a breath.

  “Personal hardship,” I said. “Fine. I guess that’s a good enough reason to let you make up the work.”

  It wasn’t, of course, but I didn’t have any choice. Davison didn’t even need to resort to blackmail to get his extended deadline. All he had to do was complain to Bill Vogel, who would just get on my case again about “customer satisfaction” and “meeting the students where they are,” and I’d have to give Davison whatever he wanted anyway.

  “Professor?”

  “What? Oh. Right. Here, let’s work out a schedule for your makeup assignment.”

  He snatched up the paper as soon as I had finished writing out the revised deadlines. Maybe he was afraid I’d change my mind.

  “Eh, nice talking to you, Professor. Thanks for being so understanding. I gotta go see Dr. Rodge now.”

  “You might want to tell him to turn down the volume,” I called after him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A moment later, Margaret Adams knocked on the door frame.

  “Hi, Dr. Barda,” she said. “I’m so sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother at all,” I said. “I always have time for my students.”

  Students like Margaret—by which I mean the good, conscientious ones—need to be reassured that they’re not imposing. The not-so-good students—well, you’ve seen what they’re like.

  “So what are you going to do with Mr. Tanaka’s suitcase?” she asked.

  “I’m still trying to get the police to come pick it up. Oh! I mean—”

&nb
sp; “It’s okay, Professor. I already heard the bad news. Mercedes told us. They had a special meeting for the College of Commerce Community Council.”

  Mercedes has many sterling qualities, but stoic tight-lippedness isn’t one of them.

  “That must be so freaky having that in your office, after what happened,” she said. “Have you opened it?”

  “Me? Open it?”

  I thought of Emma shoving me aside and unzipping the suitcase while I clapped my hands over my face and tried not to faint.

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t open the suitcase. I think it’s better to leave that kind of thing to the police, don’t you? Anyway, you wanted to see me about something?” I gestured toward the good chair, inviting her to sit.

  Margaret lowered herself carefully onto the chair. “I-I’m so sorry to bring this up. But I thought you should know.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “Whatever it is.”

  She took a deep breath and pursed her lips. Thankfully, Rodge had paused his self-affirmations when Davison had knocked on his door. The bass murmurs of their conversation came through my wall, but I couldn’t hear the individual words.

  “There are rumors going around,” Margaret said. “I want you to know that I don’t believe them.”

  “Rumors?” I asked. “What rumors?”

  Margaret tucked her mousy hair behind her ear. Her hair must be naturally straight, I thought. There’s no flatiron on earth that stands a chance against this humidity. I should know. When I first moved here I tried them all, and the result was always the same: within minutes, my hair would curl up and frizz out. It looked like I hadn’t done anything to it at all. I finally gave up, weary of feeling like the Sisyphus of hairdos.

  “. . . so that’s why some people say that you’re playing favorites,” Margaret concluded.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “Could you just summarize that for me? I’m not sure I understand.”

  She sighed, as though the discussion were causing her pain.

  “People are saying that certain students are getting preferential treatment. Not to name any names, but he just left your office and went over to Dr. Rodge’s.”

  Margaret glared at the wall that separated Rodge Cowper’s office from mine.

  “Preferential treatment? Why would anyone say that?”

  “Well, the rumor is that you let some people get away with cheating because you’re, you know, friends with certain families.”

  Oh, great.

  “What have you heard, specifically? Can you give me some more detail?”

  No, she couldn’t. But she did express concern for my reputation, and skepticism about the rumors. At the same time, I could tell she thought there might be something behind the whispers, and wanted to find out more.

  This was infuriating. If it had been up to me, Davison Gonsalves would have been unceremoniously booted out of the College of Commerce, along with his sad little friend Isaiah. It was only because of Bill Vogel’s interference that this was even an issue.

  “Margaret, we don’t tolerate cheating in the College of Commerce.” As I spoke the words I realized sadly that this was as much of a fiction as “people are our most important asset” or “we respect your privacy.”

  “In fact,” I continued, “according to the Student Honor Code, if you are aware of academic dishonesty, it’s your duty to report it. You know what you should do? You should bring these concerns straight to our dean, Bill Vogel.”

  “Really? The dean? Gosh, I don’t know . . .”

  “No, this is important,” I said. “No one should be playing favorites. It would be a huge breach of trust and, without trust, we’re nothing. I’m sure Bill Vogel doesn’t want to be Dean of Nothing.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense, when you put it that way. Of course the dean would want to do the right thing, wouldn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes,” I agreed. “Of course he would.”

  In some parallel universe that I would very much like to visit someday.

  “Are you going down to class?” she asked.

  “I have to finish making some copies. I’ll be right down. I’ll see you there.”

  I plodded though gray drizzle, feeling like I’d swallowed an anvil, and barely registering the fact that my stack of handouts was getting wet. A pinkish gecko skittered across the walkway in front of me, startling me. I blinked and looked around. I had been so deep in thought I had walked right past my classroom.

  Intro to Business Management is a broad survey class that touches on every discipline in business. We cover a different topic every week, bouncing from financial ratios to theories of employee motivation to the basic accounting equation. The class reminds me of those five cities in one week package tours. If it’s Tuesday, it must be market segmentation.

  I rechecked my syllabus and confirmed that I had the correct lesson plan with me. I’d have to catch Honey Akiona after class and talk to her about her revised paper. At least that would be the pretext. I hoped I wasn’t forgetting anything. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly after my conversation with Margaret Adams.

  Did everyone know about Donnie and me? And what was there to know, anyway? A couple of lunch dates. But Donnie just happened to be the father of my most obnoxious and unrepentant cheater. And now the coconut wireless was humming with nasty rumors, and even one of my best students doubted me. I hoped Donnie was worth all this trouble. I realized I rather thought he was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “How many of you drive?” I asked the class. Most hands went up.

  “How many of you like paying for gas?”

  A lone student in the back, who hadn’t been paying attention, kept his hand raised, looked around, and quickly pulled it back down.

  “Say I’m a car dealer,” I said. “Gas costs a fortune. I’m stuck with all of these big trucks and SUVs in my inventory, and I want to move them out. What can I do?”

  A young woman with dangling dream-catcher earrings raised her hand. “Explain the features of the product,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s something you could do. Margaret?”

  Margaret Adams put her hand down. “Audit your dealer network to optimize your distribution,” she said.

  “Yes, okay,” I agreed. “You’ve been reading ahead. Great. What about this week’s chapter? Marketing?”

  Silence.

  “Remember? How our buying behavior is driven by a need to preserve our sense of ourselves as competent, honorable, and so forth?”

  Margaret Adams nodded confidently in the front row. I scanned the blank faces behind her.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s look at it another way—”

  Dream-Catcher Earrings raised her hand again. “Is this about our self of steam?”

  “About your . . . sorry, what?”

  “About having positive self of steam,” she said.

  “Ah. Well, let’s see. As a marketer, one way to create a perceived need for your product is to make the customer think something is wrong and needs to be fixed, and that your product will fix it. You can do this by threatening the customer’s self-image. Self-image, according to the reading, is what? What was the word they used?”

  Margaret Adams looked around. No one else had a hand up, so she raised hers.

  “Self-image is sacrosanct,” she said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Thank you, Margaret. Now let’s talk about how you use this idea to sell cars.”

  I handed the stack of papers to Margaret, and she started to pass them out.

  “For this study,” I said, “the researchers had men and women take a personality test, and then randomly informed them that the test had revealed that they had a masculine or feminine personality. Now, the test didn’t actually reveal anything. The researchers were just giving random feedback.”

  A young man in the back raised his hand and flipped a curtain of brown hair out of his eyes. “Isn’t that lying?” he asked.

  “Social science re
search usually requires some deception,” I agreed. “If you tell people what you’re looking for, they’ll tell you the answers they think you want to hear. Anyway, the men who had had their masculinity threatened—the ones who were told that their tests had come back ‘feminine’—what do you think happened?”

  Margaret read from the handout without bothering to raise her hand this time: “According to the article, they expressed a greater desire to buy a sport utility vehicle, compared to the men whose masculinity was affirmed.”

  “What about the women?” Honey Akiona asked.

  “Women weren’t affected either way,” I said. “Not in this study. So this isn’t going to help me sell cars to women. But the men whose masculinity was threatened were willing to pay, on average, over seven thousand dollars more for the SUV.”

  Floppy Hair raised his hand again.

  “So okay, sorry I keep bringing it up, but isn’t it morally wrong to mess with people’s self-image like that, just to sell cars?”

  “Well, that is something you’ll need to think about when you’re out there in the workplace,” I said. “Doing what’s right versus keeping your job. Your boss might order you to do something that you think is morally wrong.” I glanced at Davison Gonsalves. He was slouched in his chair, fists tucked behind his biceps.

  “It’s a hard thing to have to make that choice,” I said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Anyway. What was my point? I’m not telling you to use these techniques. I’m telling you how they work, so that you can recognize and understand them. So back to the question. I’m an auto dealer. How can I use this result to move my inventory?”

  Honey Akiona raised her hand this time before she spoke. “You get one ad say, ‘Eh, you! Girly man! You need one big shiny kine truck, and we get ’em! Come on down! Zero percent financing!’ ”

  When the laughter died down I said, “That’s actually right. This isn’t the kind of purchase that’s decided with logic. It goes beyond features and benefits. I’m sure everyone in that study knew that the wise and responsible thing would be to buy a vehicle that gets good gas mileage. But emotionally—”

  Dream-Catcher Earrings raised her hand again.