Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

me—but no grade less than A. Not one B. Not one C. How often does that happen in an undergraduate course?
    I checked the students’ individual exam scores and found, not to my surprise, that both Brad and Scooter—the business major-party animals—had the highest marks in French History next to Marie’s. From one exam to the next, a few points separated the two. But their scores, otherwise, followed a nearly identical pattern. Then I remembered two things: Van telling me he used the same exams in Paris as he had in Hawai‘i; and Scooter telling me a friend had taken Van’s course in a previous term.
Bingo
: Scooter got the exams from his friend and brought them to Paris.
    Then I noticed something else curious. Heather’s and Kim’s scores began in the 70s, but about mid-way through the term, when Ryan had died, their scores rose nearly twenty points into the 90s. Did they suddenly start studying? When I checked their grades for the later part of the term against Brad and Scooter’s, I found the same pattern. Mulling it over, Heather’s and Kim’s dramatic improvement made sense. If Heather and Brad were lovers, he would naturally share the exams with her. And Heather would share them with her friend Kim.
    But what I wasn’t prepared for were Meighan’s scores. Hers started higher than those of the other girls—fitting for a scholarship student—then shot up even further about mid- term, following the same pattern.
Were they
all
cheating?
    Not the best and brightest of the bunch. Not Ryan’s unrequited love, Marie. Her A-plus clearly distinguished her from the others. But, just to be thorough, I checked her record. Marie’s scores began exceptionally high. On the first exam she hit 98 percent. On the second, a perfect 100. She stood head and shoulders above the pack. When I scanned her scores to mid-term, my jaw dropped. They continued high—but took on the same pattern as Brad’s, Scooter’s, and the others. Had she quit studying and started coasting? Why would a brilliant student, who could earn an A-plus on her own, cheat?
    Ryan knew the answer. But he was no longer alive to tell.

fourteen

    Later that afternoon I paddled back out to Pops—Ryan’s favorite break. The waves were rolling in three to four feet. Traffic was light. It was a weekday and the regulars hadn’t gotten off work yet. I got a couple of rides. Then I waited between sets—and tried to put together the pieces I’d gathered on the case.
    Kim had told the truth about the cheating. But she had failed to mention that not just one person was cheating—the entire class was cheating. Herself included. If Professor Van couldn’t see it, he was blind. Or had he turned a blind eye?
    All seven students had lied. Their professor had, at minimum, withheld information and abdicated his responsibilities to them and to the college. Were they covering for each other—all of them involved in Ryan’s death?

fifteen

    Back in my Waikīkī apartment that night I checked the mail program on Ryan’s laptop. Oddly, I found no personal messages from early February before he had died, only generic and junk emails. What puzzled me more was that I found not even the emails between Ryan and his mother that she had mentioned. These personal messages might have revealed Ryan’s state of mind—and also contributing factors to his death. In other words, they were essential.
    Then I realized that since Ryan had been a long way from home—in Paris, not in Honolulu—he would have used webmail rather than his laptop’s mail program, connected no doubt to a Honolulu server. With a little searching I found his webmail link. The inbox looked identical to the other. No personal emails. All had apparently been deleted. Then I remembered that deleting messages from webmail doesn’t necessarily remove them. Deleted emails go to a trash folder where they remain—unless or until they are expunged.

    I opened the trash folder.
Bingo!
The missing emails had been deleted but, fortunately, not expunged.
    The first was an email sent by Ryan to his mother after Marie had moved from Rue des Écoles—the email Mrs. Song had told me about.

    I’m OK, Mom. Paris is cool. I’m seeing the sights with a girl named Meighan . . .

    I had to agree with Mrs. Song that he didn’t sound too shook up about Marie. I scanned further until I found one sent to Scooter dated February 24th—five days before Ryan died.

    Scooter, I know you and Brad have the answers to