The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

equation and fill in some numbers for the ambient conditions in my home.
    Meanwhile, Ariana recited peace-giving words to the north, south, east, and west.
    Might as well cover all bases, I always told myself when Ariana performed this ritual. It can’t hurt.
     
     
    I avoided my stove and oven in the summer months, eating directly from the refrigerator most nights. Ariana had no such fear of additional heat and set to work making dinner while I followed her instructions and took a bath with the rosewater salts she’d made in her own kitchen.
    How bad a day is it that starts and ends with meals made and served by someone I loved in the comfort of my home? I smelled the stir-fry as soon as I entered the hallway. Peppers, broccoli, and soy brought my nose to life. Ariana’s homemade bread baking in the oven added to the promise of a delicious meal.
    “Tofu and rolls in ten,” Ariana called out.
    I used the time to listen to my voicemail on my landline, which I hadn’t checked since I left home this morning. Twelve messages, mostly related to the incident that changed Henley’s summer school schedule and scarred the campus forever.
    Pam, Liz, and Casey assured me they’d be at the library tomorrow morning and wondered again if we could all meet together to save time. I thought not. Three other students in the statistics seminar wanted to know how I was planning to finish off the term. In spite of my bravado with the trio at Franklin Hall this afternoon, I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. I’d return their calls when I had.
    Sometimes I longed for the days when teachers had office hours that were defined by limits, and were not expected to be available twenty-four seven, at school and at home, in person and online, as if we were emergency workers. Now, all our phone numbers and email addresses were listed on the syllabi on the Henley College website, along with our social networking pages.
    The next three calls had been hang-ups. I checked the caller log and saw that all were from the area code for Mansfield, Massachusetts, where the MAstar’s flagship base was located. Bruce usually used his own cell phone to call or text me, but when he did use the facility phone, it was a Mansfield area code that came up, never with the same seven-digit number, from some central switchboard, I assumed.
    It wasn’t like Bruce to not leave even a simple “Hey, it’s me,” and certainly not three times. He’d try my cell before he’d try my landline three times. I replayed the messages and noted the time stamps. The first was at two thirty, when I was on my way to the police station after dropping the boxes off; the second was at three twenty, while I was waiting for my interview with Archie; the third came in at three forty, still waiting for Archie.
    I texted Bruce: “U call?” and made a note to ask him about it after dinner if I didn’t hear from him sooner.
    Two calls were from Seth Phillips, our local reporter for the Henley Forum . I figured he’d been denied comments by the important people on campus and was down to mere associate professors.
    Another student’s message had come in, with an idea about how to finish the semester. She’d suggested, “Just have a big party and call the class over,” followed by an “Oh, my God, that sounds totally awful after what happened. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
    “And where were you on Friday afternoon between noon and four o’clock?” I asked my machine as each student reported in.
    Ariana heard me speaking to the machine in a scolding tone. She smiled.
    “Since when did you give up puzzles to take on a murder investigation?”
    I picked up the nearest puzzle, a dodecahedral twisty puzzle made of plastic, one that Ariana herself had given me. I gave it two twists, resulting in further scrambling of the colors, just to make a point.
    “Do I have time for one phone call before dinner? I want to get in touch with Keith’s cousin in Chicago.”
    “Go for it,” Ariana said.
    I went into my office and checked my address book for Elteen Kirsch and found her number.
    Elteen had the voice of a rather old woman, a little shaky and high-pitched. Was it physics that accounted for that? I’d have to ask Hal why voices went up an octave or two as we got older. Or maybe it was a nurse question for Gil, his loving but apparently jealous wife.
    “I know who you are, Dr. Knowles,” Elteen said. “It’s so nice of you to call. Keith talked about you and considered you