The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

up for and looking forward to.
    It occurred to me that I didn’t know exactly what I wanted from Virgil. Why hadn’t I made notes? I’d had all evening and how had I used the time? Doing puzzles, making and taking calls, emailing. I’d actually thought of beading instead of drawing up a plan for this meeting. I was usually so prepared for an interview, a class, a seminar, even for the toast I’d made a month ago at a college friend’s wedding.
    Now, tasked with assuming a role in a murder investigation, I had nothing. Did I think I’d just say “Please consider Rachel Wheeler not guilty?” Or raise my hand and recite, “I vouch for your number one suspect, Rachel Wheeler,” and that would be that?
    Virgil sat back, crossed one leg over the other as far as it would go with the heft around his middle. Letting me take my time. I looked at the sole of his shoe and imagined I saw blood and brains. Never mind that Keith had been poisoned, not blown apart. Amazing what happened when a violent act entered the psyche.
    My biggest conundrum, and one I should have thought through during the last four hours, was whether to mention Rachel at all. For all I knew the police had another suspect in tow, the real killer, and Virgil came to deliver the news in person.
    I saw LOL in big text-messaging letters in the air in front of me.
    “Virgil,” I began, the single word sending my lips into a desert of dryness.
    Virgil uncrossed his legs and leaned his bulk forward. “You probably want to know what’s what with your assistant.”
    I could have kissed him for rescuing me. “She’s my friend,” I said, as if that should make a difference.
    Virgil shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands, palms out. “Your friend.”
    “I didn’t mean to—”
    “It’s okay. It’s a tense situation. Let me set the scene for you,” he said, taking a small notebook from his shirt pocket.
    I took a deep breath and sat back. “Okay.”
    “A call comes in at sixteen hundred and ten hours from a male with a report of a nonresponsive victim in Benjamin Franklin Hall, northwest corner of Henley College campus. Uniforms are dispatched. They get to the building where a janitor, later self-identified as the nine-one-one caller, greets them at the door and leads them to an office on the fourth floor.”
    I nodded. “The chemistry floor,” I said, wanting to keep everything neat and correct.
    “Chemistry. Thanks. Professor Keith Appleton, determined to be deceased, is ID’d by the janitor.”
    “He’s not . . .” I stopped in time, holding myself back from another irrelevant correction—technically speaking, Keith was not a full professor yet, though most people used the term to mean simply college teacher. “Never mind.”
    Virgil picked up his thread again. “The first officers on the scene report that the victim is on the floor behind his desk in a position that appears he fell or was pushed from his chair. His shirt collar appears to have been torn open, by himself or another. The victim’s face and neck exhibit a pink discoloration.” Virgil ran his finger down the page and turned the leaf before he continued. Trying to spare me unpleasant details? Or keeping some matters confidential? Both, probably. “Some things are knocked over. A clock—”
    “That’s his distinguished alumnus clock from Harvard,” I said, swallowing a gulp. “He was extremely proud of that.”
    Virgil nodded and appeared to appreciate the information. “A photograph—”
    “Keith with Senator Kennedy, right? He loved that picture. The only one in his office. It was taken at a special fund-raiser only weeks before the senator died.”
    “Thanks again,” Virgil said.
    I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
    Why were my nerves so rattled? I felt like clamping my hand across my mouth. I looked around the den to find something calming. I settled on a poster, rolled up in the corner, waiting for me to take it to a shop for mounting. I imagined it unfurled, revealing the sweet, smiling countenance of Emmy Noether, said to be the most important woman in the history of mathematics. Even a huge Sophie Germain fan like me would have to agree.
    Virgil cleared his throat. “There was some other stuff. On the desk is a clear bottle of white powder, a crystally substance, the officer called it, labeled potassium chloride. The uniforms ask the janitor to come in and ID the bottle. Did he ever see it before, to his knowledge did it belong in this office, et cetera,