The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

dip or the store-bought pie.
    “Was there something in the food at the party?” I asked Rachel, while my kitchen spun around. A serious solid of revolution.
    “He was . . . they’re saying Dr. Appleton was murdered, Dr. Knowles.”
    A whole new set of shivers and waves of unrest came over me and seemed to push me back into the kitchen and onto the ladder-back chair in the corner. Suddenly the room was too bright; the many tones of blue in the braided rug under my feet were too gaudy. I shaded my eyes and tried to process what I was hearing.
    I’d wished Keith Appleton would leave Franklin Hall, not the land of the living. Hadn’t I? Really, I just wanted him to be civil, I explained to the universe around me. My mind raced to undo Keith’s demise. If I make my intentions clearer , I thought, Keith will spring back to life.
    “Who told you all this, Rachel?”
    A long, nerve-racking pause. “The police. They came to my house and brought me down here and they questioned me, for, like, hours.”
    Down here? I remembered the lack of caller ID readout. “Are you at the police station?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Did they”—I could hardly get the word out—“arrest you?” I almost said, “like, arrest you.” I was that rattled.
    “No, no. But they just let me go a minute ago; I wanted to call you right away. Believe it or not, there’s a pay phone here.”
    “Did they confiscate your cell?”
    I didn’t know where I got that idea, except perhaps from seeing hardened criminals give up their possessions on television crime dramas. I also didn’t know why it mattered. I was simply thrashing around trying to make sense of the last few minutes. I knew if Bruce were here, he’d recite the titles of a dozen movies where the star winds back time and redoes the past.
    “No, they didn’t take it,” Rachel said, but I’d lost track of the question.
    “I’m sorry, what?”
    “I still have my cell. But I didn’t want to use it. What if they’re bugging it or something? And I know once I get home, I won’t be able to call you. It will be awful. My mom is a wreck and all her sisters will be showing up.”
    “So you’re free and they haven’t charged you or anything?”
    “Yeah, I’m free, but they told me not to leave Henley.”
    I breathed more easily. “They must be questioning everyone, Rachel.”
    “They said they were but I don’t see anyone else from school around here. I’m sure they think I did it, Dr. Knowles. They think I poisoned Dr. Appleton.” Rachel’s voice faded away and then came back. “Dr. Knowles?”
    “Why in the world would they think you killed him?”
    “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Will you meet me somewhere tomorrow?”
    “Of course.”
    “The police interview room was stifling and I feel like I haven’t had a shower in a week.”
    I did a quick calculation of the timeline. It was now eight o’clock. If Woody called the police after four, by the time they arrived, questioned Woody, put things together, and decided to question Rachel, it would have been at least six. That meant the longest Rachel could have been at the station was a couple of hours. I had no trouble believing that two or three hours in adversarial interrogation by the police could seem like a week.
    “Just one thing, Rachel. Was Dr. Appleton okay when you went upstairs to give him the cake and drink from the party?”
    A long pause while I sat down and drummed my fingers on my knee.
    “I didn’t see him. I knocked, you know, lightly. He doesn’t like to be disturbed if his door is closed. That’s the code for all his students. If he doesn’t answer a light tap, tap, tap , we just go away.”
    I couldn’t recall Rachel’s coming back down to the lounge with the food and drink, but neither had I been tracking her movements. I wondered if she was a suspect simply because she tried to deliver a treat. Had Woody seen her, perhaps, and assumed she’d gone in and . . . I couldn’t imagine.
    “You should be home with your family,” I said. A pittance of advice but I wanted her out of what must have been a depressing environment, though I had no experience to confirm it. I imagined the police had one set of rooms for casual visitors and another, more dismal setup for suspects.
    “I guess I should get home. Can I call you tomorrow to set up a time to meet?”
    “Absolutely.”
    Once we hung up, I sat with the phone on my lap. I had so many questions. Did Rachel have a lawyer? Were